Where's the Sun/Summer?

It's the middle of June already and it still doesn't feel like summer. Of course we're not wearing our winter clothes but it isn't all that warm.

Carla has sent her cookbook Quick and Easy Vegan Bake Sale (Amazon link to pre-order) off to the publisher and that's the end of the testing for that book. The last recipe I tested was this Spicy Corn Biscotti which was really good. Despite having to have the time to bake biscotti twice and have it cool in between, I like that it can be munched on whenever.


Carla has started coming up with recipes for a new cook book. I've only made one recipe so far. This Lentil "Spag Bol" Sauce was really good. I'm trying to use things up from the freezer to make room for strawberries when they come. I'd also like to make up a batch of this sauce and freeze it in individual portions now that I'm an empty-nester and find making food just for myself a bit of a nuisance!


I started the second ball of wool for my Vortex shawl. Not wanting to bother with putting the live stitches on a piece of string, I just measured half of it. It's now about 48 cm across. I don't have this size circular needles (and I don't know if they sell them long enough) so I'm going to try to use dpns. At the moment I'm using 7 needles. Hopefully I can find 1-3 more around the apartment. I don't know if they were 4 or 5 needle packs or if I've picked up some somewhere. I'm at 336 stitches.


Only working on one project was getting a bit boring so I restarted a wool hat for my son. I wanted to do a top-down hat so I wouldn't have to keep undoing it like the last one when it would be too long, too short, too long again! The first one I tried seemed to leave gaps between the stitches and that wouldn't be warm enough here. So I'm trying a different pattern. It looks good but making increases every row is taking forever. It would be so much faster to do decreases! II need to take my glasses off to do such close work with this colour. Good thing I like listening to podcasts because I wouldn't be able to watch anything without my glasses.

I just went to look for the name of the pattern and I can't find the pattern! and I didn't bookmark it in anyway! or write down the name of the pattern! or write down the pattern past row 9, where I am up to! Guess what I'm going to be doing now. Hope I've just missed it (twice) and it hasn't been taken down. Sigh.