When life gives you dandelions….

…make fritters!

Suddenly the grass is very long and lovely yellow dandelions are dotting the yard.  I know it’s crazy to be so excited about dandelions, but as a renter for so many years, I haven’t had access to dandelions since I lived at home with my parents.  There are many great uses for dandelions, but I would never pick from a random yard that might use sprays or chemicals.  So, yes, I’m a little excited about the dandelions in the yard.  This is my first time making fritters, but I’ve made roasted dandelion root coffee and have had salads with dandelion greens and dandelion petals.  While there are lots of health benefits to eating dandelions, I just love the idea of taking an invasive nuisance and turning it into free food.

And finally….

… the last of the bulbs to bloom.

Today my first tulip opened up along with the grape hyacinths.  I had forgotten about the little grape hyacinths, keeping my focus instead on the tulips. What a pleasant surprise.   I’ll enjoy these, along with the hyacinths and daffodils that continue to bloom, for a little longer.   I should start thinking about annuals and perennials.  Maybe this year I’ll get some herbs and veggies in the ground. 

Xavia’s Blanket

I haven’t blogged about knitting for a while.  Probably because I’ve been knitting away on this baby blanket.  This is one of the most ambitious projects I’ve ever taken on.  My friend wanted a baby blanket for her daughter and was looking for something “funky beyond belief”.   It was hard to think “baby blanket” while veering away from traditional, pastel colored yarns.  I knew Marisa liked rich colors, especially reds and purples, so I had some colors in mind as I headed to the yarn store.  I spent a good amount of time fondling some superwash wools.  I had been doing a lot of knitting with sock weight yarn and was really torn between this lovely Ty-Dy Sock yarn from Knit One Crochet Too and a worsted weight Cascade 220.  I’m using the Ty-Dy yarn for my entrelac socks and found it to be the softest wool I have ever worked with.  So I settled on that because a baby needs soft and I was really drawn to these colors for the pattern I had in mind.  There are nice, long runs of pink, orange, and tan which worked nicely with the Lizard Ridge pattern.  The problem with choosing this yarn is that it requires tiny size 1 or 2 needles.  So I picked up my size twos and started making squares.  It was nice to have these little, portable squares to knit vs. working on one big project that would seem endless.  As I finished and blocked squares I would lay them out to see how the blanket was progressing.  After using up three balls of yarn, I settled on the 24-square, 24″x36″ blanket.  I picked the same eggplant colored Araucania Ranco Solid yarn that I used for Evie’s Sweetheart Cardigan to edge the blanket.  I did an increase in each stitch to create a ruffled edge and finished off with a couple rows of garter stitch.

I am really, really happy with this beautiful blanket.  The colors and pattern work really well together.  The yarn is amazingly soft.  There is a bit of weight to this light blanket and it’ll keep baby warm.  The only thing I don’t like is that it’s so small.  I would have liked a larger blanket.  I am a volume knitter and the time that I put into this blanket should have yielded something twice as large, in my mind.  I’ll have to hope that Xavia becomes a blankie-holding, thumb-sucker.

Daffodils

Today my little daffodils bloomed.  I have been noticing the daffodils lately.  Every time I see a yard full I am reminded of Daffodil Hill in the little town of Volcano, California.  Of course, nothing here compares to their hundreds of thousands of blooms.   But my one blooming bulb is very special to me.

I took a little walk around the neighborhood after the rain to check out the other spring blossoms.  The robins were seemingly everywhere, singing and watching me.  And the smells were wonderful… hyacinths in bloom, wet green grass, a little laundry and some early dinners.  I love spring.

April Showers

April snow showers, that is.  I awoke this morning to about an inch of snow on the ground and thick flakes falling from above.  This officially makes Pittsburgh winters 6 months long.  That’s not a fair distribution of seasons, in my opinion.

Remember that hyacinth that was about to bloom….

So, my question is, “If April showers, bring May flowers, what does April snow bring?”

David Sedaris

What better way to spend April Fool’s day than to see a live performance by humorist David Sedaris.  The show was at the Benedum in downtown’s “Cultural District”.  The  Benedum seats 2800 people and from our seats in the first tier Sedaris was just a small, brightly lit figure in the blackened theater.  Hard to make out much more than hand gestures.  This was a much larger venue than when I first saw Sedaris at the Osher Marin JCC Center back in 2001.  That crowd was a few hundred small and the show was much more up close and personal.

It was a great night to be in downtown.  The evening was nice and warm and the district was abuzz with theater goers.  The David Sedaris crowd was probably the hippest, edgiest crowd to fill the Benedum.  The show, of course, was hilarious. To the point of tears at times.  Unfortunately, it fizzled out at the end when he opened up for questions from the audience, leaving us feeling a bit indifferent as we walked out of the theater.  It would have been nice to have ended with one more story in that unmistakable voice.  I’ll have to dig out my books and my Live at Carnegie Hall CD for some more of his storytelling.