Cottage Garden, Featherweight Spinning, and Green BEAN Delivery

This past weekend gave me TONS of time to knit because we didn’t have a whole lot to do most of the weekend and it was Labor Day on Monday, so on top of not having a lot scheduled, I had an extra day off work. I’m always a fan of extra free time off work to knit! 😉

Cottage Garden is coming along nicely. I’m about a half inch from being done with the body. Thinking I’ll be able to finish it up tonight. I know a stockinette sweater isn’t that interesting to photograph, but here’s what it looks like right now.

Cottage Garden – Body

A while back, I mentioned the SAL/KAL going on over in the Zarzuela’s Fibers Junikes group on Ravelry. I’ve been working on the Targhee in Emeralds (which spins up so lovely!) and have the first 4 ounces plied up.

Targhee in Emeralds – Plied

I should check what my wraps per inch (WPI) is, but my guess is that it’s fingering weight. I’ve already started on the second 4 ounces and I’m about 2/3 of the way through the first bobbin. I’ve enjoyed working with Targhee and I’m glad I have more once this is finished! 🙂 Once I’m all done with this, I’m hoping I’ll have enough for Featherweight.

I’m not so great at estimating (or calculating) the yardage on my handspun. I’ve been working on getting a yardage counter put together, but I need a piece of wood to mount it on. I found instructions on the Hello Yarn blog: Make Your Own Yardage Counter. I have everything except something to mount it on. I didn’t want to buy a big 2 x 4 just for a small piece of it, but I may need to break down and do that. Anyone know if Lowe’s or Home Depot will cut it down for you?

I didn’t have a picture of the progress on my second Maelstrom sock last post, but I did get one this weekend. It hasn’t seen any progress since I started Cottage Garden. I figure I’ll pick it back up once I get done with the sweater. Rhinebeck sweater takes priority!

Maelstrom Sock #2

In new and exciting news, this week we got our first delivery from Green BEAN Delivery (formerly Farm Fresh Delivery). I had been wanting to try them out for a while because I’ve grown increasingly tired of going grocery shopping and ending up having to go back multiple times per week for something that I forgot or suddenly need. This usually ended up being because of poor planning on my part, but regardless, I have grown to despise grocery shopping. Since moving to Cincinnati, I’ve been hoping for something like Amazon Fresh or Peapod. I first heard about Farm Fresh Delivery from an advertisement on the radio months ago. I was intrigued by the concept and was hoping to find someone I knew who had used the service before taking the plunge. Many people I knew had heard about it, but no one had used their service before. Finally, last week I caved and signed up. Just this week they changed their name from Farm Fresh Delivery to Green BEAN Delivery (this happened the day our first order arrived) and got a new website. I placed our first order under the old website, but I found the process to be really easy. I got to choose everything that ended up in our produce bin (there are defaults each week, but you can substitute any of the items), added a few other things we wanted, and it arrived in a green bin on our doorstep Tuesday evening.

First Green BEAN Delivery

Aside from a few pieces of lettuce from the salad mix that were wilted (which I wasn’t surprised or worried about since that happens when I buy lettuce from the grocery store, too), everything was in great shape when I went through and inspected the box. This order we got 6 ears of sweet corn, 2 red grapefruits, a pound roma tomatoes, a pound fingerling potatoes, a yellow onion, a bunch of cilantro, a quart of strawberries, two pounds of green grapes, 5 black plums, 2 zucchinis, a head of lettuce, a pound of salad mix, red bell peppers, and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing from Farm to Kitchen. I just got an email notice that I can adjust my order for this week and I’m already looking forward to what will arrive in the next bin! Having to plan out what I want delivered last week made me think about what we’ll be eating for the coming week and planning meals accordingly. There are still things we buy that we can’t get from Green BEAN Delivery, so I will still need to go grocery shopping once a week for bread, lunch meat, and whatever other things we may need to supplement the delivery. We’ll also still go to Costco to buy the things in bulk we use a lot of. I’m interested to see if it’s any cheaper over time then what I’ve been spending at the grocery store each week. Of course there’s more then just cost to think about to decide if it’s worth it! After a few weeks of delivery, I’ll try and remember to update what I think about it and how it’s going.

Time to go make some salsa from the produce that was delivered Tuesday! 🙂