Happy first day of Summer! One of my favorite things to do on summer mornings is to sit outside and read. Every year I come up with a book list, which as always is overly ambitious and usually takes me into the fall to finish.

This year I have seven books picked out. All of which have been on my to read list (or reread) for quite awhile.

I have two classic books picked out. 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald which was by far my favorite book I read for high school english. 

1984 by George Orwell which is a book I have always wanted to read. 

I have two mystery books, both of which my mom has read and liked which is how I found out about them. 

The Woman in the Photo by Mary Hogan

The Forgotten Room by Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willing

And of course my favorite type of book to read in the summer is girly books. I really enjoy books like this to break up more serious reading, which I frequently do. Girly books were pretty much the only type of book I read in college to break up the text book and journal paper reading. My choices for this summer are: 

Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella - I absolutely love the Shopaholic Series so I am very excited for this book. 

The Unfortunates by Sophie McManus

Very Classy by Derek Blasberg

What are your reading plans for the summer?

~ Katy

Flipping through Cozy Knits by Tanis Gray I fell in love with the Raindrops and Rivulets pattern. I found the texture of the body of the hat absolutely gorgeous, and knew almost instantly that I had to make it. The next trick was to find the perfect yarn. 

The top of the hat ends up looking like a bobbled rain drop. While it does make the hat look a little boxy, I think it is a different way for finishing the top of a hat but is rather cute. 

Overall I really enjoyed making this hat and think I would make this pattern again. 

~ Katy

This past weekend I went with my family to pick out flowers for our patio. During the summer my mom and I like to drink mojitos and it can sometimes be hard to find mint at our local grocery store so for the last two summers I have gotten mint plants. While looking for a mint plant I decided I wanted some other edible plants as well.



So today I dragged my brother back to Home Depot for edible plants, pots, and some potting soil. Thanks Ed for lifting and moving potting soil for me.

I got home and put some rocks in the bottom of the pots for drainage. Put in some potting soil, that was quite a challenge until I was about two thirds of the way through the bag. I then planted the plants based on the directions that came with them. 

If my plants work out well I am hoping to make salsa!

~ Katy

For those of you who may not know, or may have ended up here by accident, a UFO in knitting is an Un-Finished Object. To this day I have never had this many at one time as I try to keep all my projects in the Work In Progress (WIP) phase. Well anyway I currently have four UFO as well as two work in progresses. I know to many people this may seem small but to me it is a lot and one of them is a rather large project. 

I have two pairs of mittens about half finished both of which are part of 12 Months of Mittens. 12 Months of Mittens has started out rough but will hopefully get better as the year progresses. 

January's Mittens 

I have yet to start the second snowflake mitten, and this mitten does not have a thumb.

February's Mittens

I have the cuff of the second mitten started neither have thumbs. I am planning on adding these back into my rotation soon. 

I also have the Raindrops & Rivulets hat started which hasn't been picked up or thought about in probably a month. It is a pretty pattern and the yarn is gorgeous but I got side tracked by other projects. 

For the March for Science I also did several of the cable version of the GENEie Hat pattern from ChemKnits. I was able to finish three of them but still have a few left. The one I have started is out of gorgeous teal 100% alpaca yarn.


Another hat which I believe I started last spring or summer that has never been completed is a Flower-Motif Benie. Thankfully I haven't needed the needles for another project because it has seriously been sitting for months.

I am also still working on the Babies and Bears sweater, I have both sides done. Now I need to Kitchener stitch the two halves together and add on a boader and coller. I has been very easy for me to get side tracked from this project because it is rather hard to see progression in the pattern.

My current plan is to limit the number of proejcts I start until I get some of these done. This has included some yarn buying freezes until I get certain projects done. So far it is working and I plan on updating on the projects I have finished soon.

~ Katy