Shopping and gifts.

This weekend we went to a farmer's market. I've always wanted to join CSA but it's too expensive - and we're not great veggie eaters. So we hit the market. For $11 I walked away with: five organic apples (four of them didn't even make it home - we ate them in the car), a white onion, six or seven roma tomatoes, a yummy ear of corn, a bunch of basil, some peppers (hot, but I don't know what kind - I'm going to use them to pickle garlic), and a box of blueberries. Whee!

The opressive heat has calmed a bit. It's still humid as all get out, though. There's a delightful breeze today. At least, it looks delightful. I haven't actually been outside yet.

I tried to make a play mat based on this tutorial on Morning Sun Rae for the Elf's birthday present. Only, I thought I'd be clever and use white for the core and colored stuff on top. And wouldn't it be easier to felt the core and then add the color? Excellent! Only, once you felt part of it, the rest won't felt to it. Gah!

So I dyed up some more wool and set about doing it properly. It worked! It was awesome! But it was a little thin. So I searched my memory banks and decided that washing it in hot water with the diapers would be a good idea to help thicken it up. Well, it did get thicker. And shrunk to a third of the original size. Gah again!

Last night I dyed some more wool. The last of it is soaking right now. Tonight will be my third attempt. And I better get it right this time. The poor kid's birthday is on Wednesday!

I'll take photos of all the attempts and post them once I've finished. It'll give you a good laugh.

Also. I seem to have won two more giveaways! One was a book from MamaRoots. It arrived today and my oldest and I have already read it. It's such a sweet, sweet book. The other is an assortment of LuSa products from Progressive Pioneer. There's a bug spray included and I can't wait to try it out. The mosquitoes around here are the size of large cats.

Anyway. I feel the need to host another giveaway. Karma sort of demands it. So I'm working on some ideas of things I can make that won't take too much time (and that other people would actually want to own). Keep an eye out for that in the coming days!