Pickles and Hats

I always forget how busy life gets in August. I have been busy making jam, picking and freezing quart after quart of raspberries, making pickles (over 50 quarts so far!)... Last week, Kevin's parents bought me a pressure cooker, which has me over the moon! Jerry, my father in law, picked me an entire grocery sack of green beans from his garden, and I canned 14 pints, including a bunch of hot dilly beans.

My friend Charity and I each bought half a bushel of pickling cucumbers from a local farm and spent a day making 44 quarts of dills. I have also been picking tons of cucumbers from my dad's gardens, and have so far made 9 quarts of hamburger dills and dill spears. I have a bag of 8 cukes sitting on my counter right now, meaning tomorrow I will make another batch.

Today I threw a baby shower for Liz, my sister in law, along with my sister Alyx and Liz's sister Cassie.

It's a girl!

Baby is due at the end of September, so I made her two hats:

The first one is the Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap. It's a nod to my dad and his Norwegian heritage. Plus it's so cute!

Here it is on Dana's baby, Dizzy. It will actually fit like a little pilot cap, framing New Baby's face, but Dizzy is the best model I could come up with. Since we know Baby is a girl, I did a yarn over rather than a make one because I thought the eyelets would look sweet, which they do. I also made the stripes 4 rounds tall rather than 2 rounds tall. I like the wider stripes.

Since our winters get pretty ugly, I also made a Meathead to keep her warm. It's 2 strands of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Bulky held together, so it will be really super cozy. The flower accent is just polar fleece from my stash. I sort of freehanded with my scissors, then found a suitable button in my button box.