get a leg up

baby legwarmers

baby legwarmersI fell in love with Babylegs long before I had a baby girl of my own. When I was doing 365 Days on Flickr, they’d occasionally show up in people’s photos. There are so many cute patterns and I think they’re all-around great. Except for the price. So I decided to look online (of course) for a tutorial to make homemade babylegs. Most of the instructions basically called for cutting off the foot of a sock and either leaving the edges raw or just sewing under the raw edge. That’s OK, but I really wanted a cuff at both ends. A couple days ago I found this baby legwarmer tutorial on Nannygoat and decided I just had to make some.

That also meant that I had to set up my sewing area, a task I’d been wanting to cross off my to-do list, but really hadn’t had the time. Well, I made the time. Over the weekend I’d purchased a few pairs of women’s socks. Not knee socks, not anklets… those in-between sock. Crew socks, maybe? Anyway, they were cute and it’s never to early to introduce babies to fun socks! Not wanting to ruin the new socks, however, I first tried out the tutorial on a stray to make sure I understood the steps. (I’d suggest you do this too, though the instructions are quite simple). In less than 15 minutes, with barely over one-dollar’s worth of materials, I’d made this pair of baby legwarmers! I’m going to sew up a bunch for the fall and winter. Lulu seems indifferent to them in this photo, but I think she likes them 🙂

CSA 2009: Eighth Share

CSA 2009 Eighth Share

This is one of those weeks where I am really glad (again) that we chose the bi-weekly option. Wow, look at all of that! (And by the way, I never did post the photo of our 7th share — we were busy getting our stuff together for NC. It was similar to the 6th.)

Anyway, I was very excited about all of it: two heads of lettuce (I was bad and picked the two biggest ones I could find because we’ve been eating lots of salads); three leeks;  red potatoes (I picked the smallest ones for salads); gorgeous tomatoes; green beans; four cucumbers; an eggplant (roasted and ready to be made into bharta for part of tomorrow’s dinner); one summer squash, one zucchini; two peppers; onions; scallions; basil, cilantro, and parsley; a watermelon; one head of garlic; and PYO flowers. Delicious. We all know that veggies are nature’s best fat burners.

This share is bittersweet. I love it because it’s just so full, but at the same time that means that everything is being harvested and summer’s ending. In this week’s newsletter they wrote about planting fall crops (same as the spring) and things coming full circle. Another season ends and one begins.

Lately we’ve been rethinking our participation in the CSA. We love it, we really do. But it’s an expense that we are considering cutting. When I think of the tat soi, bok choi, and other vegetables that (try as we may) we just don’t like, well… It seems like a waste just to feed the compost and our woodland friends. We’re thinking of taking a year off and I’ll keep track of how much I spend on produce to see if it’s worth it. This year I didn’t have the time to enjoy the challenge of trying many new recipes and some weeks were frustrating. I also felt incredibly bound by what we have. For example, even if we really wanted spinach salad we didn’t have it if there was no spinach in the farm share. So we’ll see. I’m going to try to purchase from local farmer’s markets in order to get the same high-quality of produce. The one in Rhinebeck is pretty spendy, but I’ve heard positive things about the one in Hyde Park. I’ll check that out soon.

At any rate, yeah. September. Just… wow.