Not So Canny

The weekend past was intended for experiments in putting up food, but I scrapped canning after getting advice from canny knitters blogless Kelli and Kim at MY SnB. There's nothing like consulting group wisdom. Apparently only a well-regulated pressure canner will kill botulism bacteria and I don't have access to one. So I oven-dried and froze stuff instead, which is easy and safe, but not as photogenic as pints full of garden goodness.



See what I mean? These cherry tomatoes might as well be raisins. I made the mistake of drying some of them until they were crisp as potato chips. Blech. About the moistness of a prune seems to taste best. Even only partially dried, it's amazing how the former superabundance now fits neatly into a small corner of the freezer.

While the tomatoes dried, I finished Sockapalooza angel socks for D; they jumped in the mail today. They're BRIGHT, to amuse her patients. I hope they fit and D wears them in good health!



These Cedar architecture socks may be the handsomest socks I've ever made. I can't get over how the sear-your-eyeballs Fire on the Mountain colorway knit up so nicely in plain old stockinette stitch. The STR also washed beautifully – the wash water was perfectly clear (excellent dye job!). I used Soak in the limited edition A Scent for Celebration fragrance, which is pleasantly cinnamon-y.

While the socks dried, DH and I saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The movie owes more to fiction than history, but was cheesy fun, with able actors, sumptuous costumes, and great locations (including The Escorial and the white cliffs of Dover). The spectacle is definitely worth seeing in a theater. On the downside, the story is hackneyed, the pace is ponderous, some camera movements are annoyingly intrusive, and I spent 'way too much time over-thinking the title... which wasn't canny.