beauty beuty

beauty beuty
Originally uploaded by O'Chica

I think I'm having a sort of whiplash (in Yarn Harlot's way of description).
I can't gather up enough mental energy (which is not so much) to knit a sock.

Instead, I'm eating tomatoes. Off the vines on my balcony, and even though I counted 119 so far from my crop, I'm buying bigger (means regular) ones at stores every week.

Since I learned that the cold of the fridge kills the sweetness of tomatoes (from Alton Brown, my master), I have been eating only the room temperature tomatoes happily. This summer, I eat my cherry tomatoes and "fresh from the farm" ones (which is not so hard to find in Kyoto) this way. But not always.
Did you know you can turn mediocre tomatoes to "fruits" kind? Try this;
1. Peel off the skin. Use hot water method or freezer method, whichever you like. I like hot water.
2. Cut them in quarters or leave them whole, and put in a container/bowl.
3. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of honey per one tomato.
4. Put on the lid/plastic wrap and store it in the fridge, like, 3 hours or longer.
5. Voila! COLD and SWEET tomato.

And I found out tomatoes let me get enough energy to knit garter stitch baby projects.

Pattern; Bootees by Elizabeth Zimmermann, in The Opinionated Knitter
Yarn; Ski Yarn Cocoty, colorway 3 for the body and 5 for the ties
Needles; KnitPicks Harmony 24 inch circulars, US 3

Pattern; BSJ by Elizabeth Zimmerman, in The Opinionated Knitter
Yarn; Ski Yarn Cocoty, colorway 1, 3, 5
Needles; KnitPicks Harmony 24 inch circulars

The catch is, they have different recipients. I was not fast enough to make a set for each, so I kinda divided a set. Maybe I did it right, not to make them feel overwhelmed to receive a complete set of handknit garment from "just a mom of their child's classmate" - they both know how to knit, but not knitters, you know... They are not going to fully understand that they gave me a huge favor to let me knit something for their babies.

The cotton yarn I used is organic, and it was a joy to touch its mercerized (hey, I spelled this word correctly for the first time without dictionary!) smoothness. I love it. They come in small balls, which is very suitable for a baby project. I hope they keep this line in next summer, too.

I'll drop out of this month's SKA challenge. Although I don't feel too good to break this year's resolution, it's just getting too much right now. I'm just overwhelmed over 1000 unread posts. We are having a month's break in August anyway. I'll be back in September.