Introducing StarFish Baby Hats

My daughter Madeleine modeling her StarFish baby hat.

Thanks to Ann Keppler my professional knitting career has started. While attending Ann's "Next Months" Group at Birth and Beyond I was approached to knit baby hats for Birth and Beyond. I was actually knitting a slightly different style and stumbled upon this one as a mistake. I liked it and have kept knitting what I call StarFish baby hats. To date three of my little hats have been sold through the Birth and Beyond Store. I'm saddened that the owners have decided to end their retail operation and just facilitate educational classes for Seattle parents and children.

Inspired by the sale of my first three hats I needed a new place to sell my baby hats. On my birthday, Paul and I were in search of shoe store in the area of Pike Place Market we wandered into the Boston Street Baby Store on post alley by the Pike Place Market. Because who can resist looking at cute baby clothes?!! They loved Madeleine's hat and offered to sell them in their store. I haven't checked to see if any have sold yet, but I will keep you updated.

Time to plant potatoes

The Monday after Easter, we had absolutely beautiful weather in Seattle. It inspired Paul to clean house outside on our patio. He presured washed the everything pulled all the dead plants out of my raised garden beds and potato cans. Out patio looked beautiful ready for me to start our spring planting. Last year I didn't plant much of garden. A few flowers but no vegetables since I was expecting our first child I didn't think I would be up to doing a lot of gardening and I just wanted something pretty to look at outside.

Fast forward a few weeks. I was walking back to the car from having lunch with some of the mom's from the Next Months group that I attend with Madeleine every week at Birth and Beyond. We needed a rain break since it had started sprinkling outside and neither of us had rain coats. So we ducked into the city gardens store in Madison park. They were just starting to put out their vegetable starts and then I stumbled upon the potato starts. A couple of years ago I grew a batch of potatoes in garbage can and two years I bought two more garbage cans for that purpose, but this year I actually managed to plant the potatos. At the end of summer I'm sure we will have an abundance of red, white and blue potatoes. I'm looking forward to some very patriotic potato salad this fall.

Part of the potato planting challenge this year was that I had empty three full size garbage cans full of dirt so I could plant my potatoes in the bottom. The idea is that you put a little bit of dirt in the bottom and then place your potato starts. After the potatoes start of growing then you cover the plants with dirt until the garbage can is full of dirt and growing potatoes.