Pinterest Pins Review Day: Orange Vinegar

I love Pinterest. No, I don't think you understand: I LOVE  Pinterest.  I have dozens of boards, hundreds of pins.  Sometimes, I actually get around to trying some of them.  So far, there have been more than a few failed Pins.  So I thought it would be great to review the ones that I've tried.

Orange Vinegar has been sitting on my DIY Household board for awhile.  It had such a pretty picture of orange peels and vinegar in canning jars.  In truth, pretty much any glass jar woos me.  Canning, mason, those gorgeous ones with the attached lids....I'm pretty sure if you stick something in a jar it instantly becomes more attractive.  That caused me to be a bit skeptical of the premise.  Orange peels and vinegar, let it sit 2 weeks and then you have orange scented vinegar.  Really?

Yes!

It's clementine season in Israel, or wherever those clementines are coming from across the ocean.  Clementines are the perfect snack size for toddlers, so we always have a steady supply of citrus peels.  I popped some in a jar, added some vinegar and gave it a few weeks.  The peels were not gorgeous (even in a glass jar!) at the end of a few weeks, but the resulting vinegar had a decently strong scent of clementine.


We use a lot of vinegar in our house, as I have mostly given up commercial cleaners, so I am pretty psyched to have such an easy and economical way to make it smell prettier!

Note: you can see little bits of peels in the finished product.  I strained my vinegar through a fine mesh strainer.  If you want all of the peel out, you could probably strain through cheesecloth or a coffee filter.

Knitting Blog No Longer

It has been a few years.

I've had another child.

I've moved into a perfect for our family house.

I've done some traveling and had some amazing experiences that I did not share here.

I even did some *gasp* knitting.  Not that I've done any in the nine months since kiddo #2 came...

But I have missed blogging; taking pictures of my small accomplishments and writing miniature stories to share with my two faithful followers.  (Hi, Mom and Dad!)

I would like to continue blogging, but this will no longer be a knitting blog.  to be a knitting blog, you must knit, no?  Instead Knitting in Red Shoes will live on as more of a general "my life is crazy" life blog.  I am a knitter, a runner, a foodie, a stay at home Mom, Master Gardener, farmer wannabe, do it yourself- er, whole-foods-eater, environmentally concerned citizen, outdoor enthusiast, and a budding viticulturist (there's no shame in having to look that one up!).  I am easily a paragraph, if not a novel, and I look forward to detailing my exploits once more in the big wide world of the Internet once again.

Hmmm

So...I haven't been knitting.
At all.
It's amazing how many hours are sucked away by baby worship. Everyday Rowan seems to do something new. Recently, his obsession has been kitties :)
To combat my inability to knit at home, I've been thinking about going to a local knitting group so that I'm actually forced to at least pick up the needles. I did whip up a dishcloth for my mother back in May for Mother's Day. It was gratifying to finish a project, no matter how small.

So instead of progress on those pants....which at this point will be for child number two, here's a pretty picture of a gorgeous Vermont garden.

The Baby Daze is Clearing

Rowan is finally sleeping through the night and I am finally starting to consistently be able to cross things off the to do list. We even managed to visit some friends and see the beach. Vacationing with an infant is like nothing I could have pictured. Babies are so small, yet require so much STUFF whenever you take them places. I am planning on running the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco this October, and the idea of what we will need to get on the plane is kind of intimidating. I won't even attempt to cloth diaper for any part of that trip :)

The weather is finally starting to turn around. We had a...I'm not sure if I would call it a freak or a typical spring snow storm a few days ago that covered our tulips and daffodils with inches of a wet slushy mess. I saw some really beautiful pictures on Facebook of flowers in the snow, but it dampened my spirits so much that I hadn't the heart to take out the camera.

I am more happy about the green that is everywhere now that those few inches have melted. This might have been why I chose to delve into the stash for this gorgeous handpainted yarn.
I'm slowly working my way through baby bell bottoms from The Blue Blog. I think they'll be a nice fit for my chubby baby...if I finish them before he grows too big, of course. I love the color variations in the yarn.

This winter I was working on a nice quick scarf in Moss stitch, but I made it too wide and started to hate it and the very very slow progress I was making on it...and who knows where it is now :)

Rowan already loves vegetables, of the cotton sort anyways.
And speaking of vegetables, I got a raised bed to garden in this year, with the idea that I will take it from the condo when we buy a house in a few years. I've started the seeds...even the ones you're not supposed too. Poor zucchini. I love raising veggies from seed. It doesn't always work out, but it seems like when it does, I feel like I've accomplished so much more than when I buy the small plants from the farmers markets. Maybe because my kitchen window is no greenhouse. Only the strong survive :)

A Late FO

I was hoping to finish this in time for my sister's baby shower in May....
And then I was hoping to have it done for when she gave birth in June....
And when that didn't happen, I thought, "Heck, why not give myself a few months and aim for the Baptism in August?"....
And when that didn't happen...I thought, "I should really stop avoiding sewing this elephant up and just get it done for Christmas. Ava (her daughter) is now old enough to appreciate stuffed toys...if I put it off too much longer she will be able to verbally thank me for her gift!"

Guess what I was doing while my sister and her daughter were over for Christmas?But I finally got it done.

I made it a rattle on a whim with a small plastic container I had lying around from a shower favor and some mung beans. That was a good decision, because Ava loves different noises and textures, and she LOVED her little elephant. (So much so that it was hard to get a decent picture. :)
Besides the rattle, the only changes I made to the pattern were to add a tail, a suggestion I got from Ravelry.

An early FO

Guess who came 3 1/2 weeks early?

Introducing Rowan, my best finished object yet.

So yeah, no knitting lately :)

Finally, a FO

I killed the computer a week or two ago...and we finally got a new power supply in last weekend. Between killing my home computer, killing a work computer twice this year, and being unable to efficiently navigate ITunes, I feel technologically stupid. I sometimes wonder if I was not born in the wrong time period.
I mean farming, canning, knitting, no problem! (As long as time is not a factor :))
But figuring out how to load specific episodes from one of my podcasts onto my Ipod? Not so much...
I finished the sweater for my co-worker a whole solid three days before the shower. I'm pretty pleased with the way it came out, and even though I didn't knit a swatch for gauge, I was pretty close. The sweater should fit somewhere between 2-6 months. And after washing and folding clothes for my little one, I think my sweater is closer in size than the variances between different brands of onsies.

So...now no more excuses to keep plugging away at the Tilted Duster...
The Christmas Cactus I have at work never bloomed last year, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it budding. Aren't the striped petals gorgeous?

One of the buds fell off, so I threw it in a beaker, and it flowered. It is the prettiest thing to ever be in that beaker, I'm sure.