Home & done with National Blog Posting Month.

Well I made it to the end! Believe it or not, I posted every single day in November. Topics ranged from the election to links I liked to events around the city to, of course, recipe links & photos of my knitting progress. A few of the posts were only long enough for me to say that I didn't really have time to post, but, hey, they still count.

All things considered, just yesterday I was saying that I wouldn't do NaBloPoMo again. It was kind of fun but also another thing to worry about each day, and who needs one of those? More than that I disliked the feeling of posting just to post, rather than posting because I had something to share.

Today I found myself reconsidering that, though, when I read that December's theme is Thanks. (November didn't have a theme.) I still won't be participating, but that's one I like and could see myself having some fun with. I think that's what I need, actually, a theme of some kind to keep me going. So perhaps I'll do something like that in the future, but for now expect to hear from me a little less often. Thanks for taking this little month-long journey with me and I'll see you when/if I manage to crawl out from under the mountain of homework I should be doing right now. ♥

Hola! No time for a real post, of course. I leave here at 1:00 tomorrow morning so I need to fit lots of fun (and packing) into these next few hours. I'll have lots to post tomorrow though!

We went to Lettuce Knit today! It was so so cute and I loved the whole Kensington neighborhood. There were so many cool-looking shops and restaurants and I'd like to spend a lot more time down there someday.

Making a purchasing decision at Lettuce Knit was damn near impossible but eventually I settled on some big dark red wool, which will likely become the Thorpe hat (I have some brown yarn at home for the trim). I still don't have my camera cord but I just did realize that Linn's computer has Photobooth, which is quite novel to me, so I can show you the yarn after all:



Linn just called to say she's on her way back here, so maybe it's time to stop using her computer for silly yarn photos. Hope you all have an excellent weekend!

Gratitude + food = a pretty good holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

My Thanksgiving dinner was just me & Linn at the very swanky 7 West Cafe, where I had pasta primavera, garlic bread, and some crazy blue raspberry martini and we split an amazing dark chocolate cake for dessert (I also had some of Linn's raspberry amaretto tea, which was delicious). I may be in the minority here, but to me that is at least 80,000 times better than traditional Thanksgiving fare (except maybe pumpkin pie). Linn's company also could not be beat, though of course having a holiday without family is a bit strange. Christmas is definitely soon enough, though!

Tomorrow we're going to Lettuce Knit and I can hardly wait! (Were I at home I'd be participating in Buy Nothing Day, but this is the best time for us to go and Black Friday isn't even that big here, so...it kind of doesn't count, right? Right. Oh, actually the website lists "international" BND as Saturday, so I guess it really doesn't count. Sweet.)

Hey I am in Toronto! I am also typing this on a Norwegian keyboard, which is...different.

Posting from here is not going to be easy -- I meant to bring my camera cable so I could just do simple photo posts each day, but of course I forgot it, so there goes that idea. I am going to try to put something up each day, though, if only so I can say I successfully completed NaBloPoMo.

Star-Crossed Slouchy Beret.

(stretched over a plate to block)
The good news: it's GORGEOUS!

The bad news: it's entirely too small for my head.

Some might say that the smallness is kind of a predictable result of using smaller needles than recommended, to which I suppose I can only say "...touche." I'm sure you'll all understand where I was coming from, though: I didn't have the recommended needles but I really really REALLY wanted to start the project right that minute and going out to buy needles is horribly frustrating and makes me grouchy and anyway lots of people on Ravelry said the hat came out big so maybe it would all work out? That thinking + a heavy dose of ongoing denial while knitting means I now sort of look like I'm trying to wear a yarmulke.

What can you do, though? I think I'll probably just donate this to some charity and try again soon with the proper needles. (I may get selfish & frog it for all that beautiful Malabrigo, but of course such soft yarn doesn't really hold up to frogging well, so I'm not sure that's a good idea.) Live & learn. The pattern is beautiful, easy, and quick -- not one I'll mind repeating.

In other news, I leave for Toronto early tomorrow morning!!!

Uh oh!

It's really late and I never did think of anything to post today, plus I'm in a serious hat-finishing frenzy. So I promise a real post (with hat pictures!) tomorrow. For now, look at this cute baby fox!

Everything about the pumpkin I cooked & pureed today was beautiful, even the stem:


This was probably the most productive Sunday I've ever had. I was actually out of bed & working on papers by 8 this morning. I kept that up for a bit, spent a happy hour knitting on my hat & listening to the radio, went to the grocery store, and then was switching between kitchen and computer for the rest of the day. My upcoming trip to Toronto means I wanted to prepare some good bus snacks and also that I really needed to use up leftovers.

For the bus I toasted pumpkin seeds and made these wholesome banana chocolate breakfast bars. They came out beautifully! If you have a sweet tooth like I do you might want to add just a bit of honey, especially if your bananas aren't yet in that super-sweet super-ripe state. I also think walnuts would've been wonderful, and I'm toying with lots of other ways to modify that recipe in the future. If any of them are great of course I'll let you know.

In the leftover using-up department, I reheated some of last night's crunchy cornmeal and topped it with garlicky sauteed spinach, which was absolutely the perfect thing. Now I'm getting hungry again so it might be time to pick at some other leftovers...

Splendid Saturday.

Today was pretty much fantastic. Here's some of what happened:

• I tried to go to yoga at the Lab but horrible construction doubled my driving time and I didn't make it in time. That was a pretty big disappointment but I couldn't stay upset for too long. For one thing, I got to hear the last half of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! and the first part of This American Life in the car, both of which had me laughing so hard I probably looked a little nuts to other drivers. (I can't wait to go stream the whole episode of TAM as soon as I'm done writing this.)


• At Eastern Market I drank hot spiced cider, ate roasted chestnuts, and got lots of tasty things. Since I'm leaving for Toronto on Wednesday (!!) I really didn't need too much, but it's always fun to look around.


• My friend Nick called while I was at Eastern Market and wound up coming downtown to meet me. We had no concrete plans, but a glance in the general direction of Campus Martius convinced me that ice skating was absolutely necessary. Eventually I talked him into it and we had SO MUCH FUN!! Well, ok, actually we were extremely awkward and sort of clung to the rail while small children zoomed past us at alarming speeds, but after a while we started to get the hang of it. Neither of us fell, anyway!


• We wrapped up our downtown adventures with hot cocoa at the Cass Cafe and a visit to the Science Center, which was pretty cool.


• Back at home I made a half batch of cornmeal crunch, using some local organic cornmeal from Eastern Market -- the farmer selling it assured me it'd been ground just this morning! I replaced the onions with leeks (mmmm, leeks) and I really like the way it turned out.

So maybe I didn't get through all the homework I meant to, but that's what tomorrow's for, right? For now I think it's time to go work on a hat & listen to some excellent radio. I hope you all had wonderful Saturdays, too!

Links.

I am feeling pretty sleepy & lazy right now, but of course I'm still doing NaBloPoMo, so how about some links? Various cool things I've bookmarked recently:

• Life magazine's entire photo archive is on Google images! Lots of previously unpublished images are included, too. It's pretty amazing to look through.


• Printable Joan Holloway paper dolls!


• You know how you're always thinking of just the right thing to say long after the opportunity to say it has passed? I don't know about you, but that sums up my life, which means I can't believe I didn't know there was a term for it: l'espirit de l'escalier.


• Think Outside the Bottle: Challenging the Bottled Water Industry.


• This is kind of old, but Otto the octopus lives in a German aquarium and is pretty much brilliant if you ask me.


• How Much is Inside? I spent a seriously ridiculous amount of time reading these and laughing hysterically. There are still a few I have yet to get through, but favorites so far included Pumpkin and Sharpie.

...in fact I just got sucked into reading a bunch more of those, so now it's definitely time to wrap this up. Have a great weekend!

Getting creative with junk.

I thought my habit of using old envelopes for all my little notes & lists was quite brilliant, especially since last time I cleaned I clipped all my envelopes together with a binder clip to make a cool little "notepad." Someone is ten steps ahead of me, though: Tutorial: Recycled Envelope Pocket Books. How cool are those? I love the idea -- so many possibilities! Right now I think they'd make cool little advent calendar-type gifts. (I am a little obsessed with advent calendars, even though I usually forget to get one before the season starts and I am never prepared enough to make one.)

I've been seeing lots of incredible ideas for recycling old things lately. Here are some others:

• CD Case Photo Cube
• Drink Can Tinwork
• Junk Mail Art
• Gift Card Jewelry

What are some of your favorite ways to reuse old things?

Strays.

These are the kitties we have hanging around outside:


Aren't they precious? That picture's a few weeks old. The little one has gotten a little bigger & fluffier and the mama...well, she's either getting chubby or going to have another litter. We're trying to get them to trust us but it's not easy. As of now they eat the food we put out for them & they usually come into the garage when we open it for them at night, they sleep there, and then we let them out in the morning. It's certainly better than nothing but I hope we can get them to trust us more soon.

Puppies or research? Hmm, let me think...

Yikes, I almost forgot to post yet again! Let's just talk about how cool it is that I've made it through 18 consecutive days of posting. I only have 12 more to go! I'm pretty happy just to have stuck with it thus far. Long-term goals/projects aren't exactly my specialty.

Speaking of which, this is an interesting week for me. I have nothing major due in terms of school work, which is incredible. (I was supposed to have a presentation but it was pushed back, thank goodness.) The downside is that I have like a million things I should be working on now so I don't die later this month. I am dreading the first week of December -- I have 4 major projects/papers/presentations due within 3 days. So really I should be using this week to get some of that work out of the way, but am I? No, I am watching puppy cam and reading unassigned books. It's the end of the semester, what did you expect?

The hat I'm working on is coming along really nicely. If I can get a decent picture I'll show you tomorrow!

Lentils & Rice.

I very nearly forgot about posting today, oops! I did want to tell you about two great recipes I tried this afternoon, though. I finally tried this honey baked lentils recipe and the results were so, so much better than I could've expected! I used green lentils soaked overnight in water with minced garlic, some ground ginger (we were unfortunately out of ginger root), a generous pinch of allspice, a little honey & a little maple syrup. I love honey in everything & I'd just picked up some wonderful Michigan maple syrup at Eastern Market, so I couldn't decide between the two sweeteners and had to just use a bit of both! I also omitted the onions -- I'm usually the world's biggest onion fan but sometimes I overdo it and want to take a break from them; I happen to be in one of those phases now.

Anyway, I've tried preparing lentils various ways in the past & always had minimal success -- this way is SO much better (and easier, too)! The resulting dish is incredibly flavorful and I'm going to love finishing up the leftovers all week.

I also made baked rice along with the lentils, since it seemed too easy not to try. It came out perfectly! That'll definitely be my go-to rice recipe from here on out, and I look forward to experimenting with it a bit more in the future (and possibly using the leftovers to make butternut squash cakes soon...).

The only sad note is that the pita I was making to go with this deliciousness was a complete failure. I've had great success with the recipe before and I can't figure out what I did wrong this time around. It's driving me a little nuts, actually, but I guess you can't win them all, right?

Detroit Urban Craft Fair 2008.

The craft fair was a great success! I could not believe how many people were there, both shoppers & vendors -- it was tough to even see everything because there was so much there & such a crowd. That's definitely good news for all the people who put their time & energy into the event! I know some of you are pretty bummed you missed out, but luckily most of the vendors have websites (though so far most of the sites have a much smaller selection than I saw at the fair). A full list of the vendors is here and below are some of my particular favorites. Definitely consider doing some of your holiday shopping with these folks; not only do they deserve it, but the recipients will be overjoyed with their unique gifts:

• Boh Bon Soap Company: I bought one of their gift packs for someone on my list and a little bar of peppermint soap for myself. I tried the peppermint out today and I LOVE it! Next I want to get my hands on the tea tree mint shampoo bar.


• City Bird: Lots of beautiful city-themed gifts, from housewares to greeting cards. I picked up some awesome Detroit buttons for friends (like everyone else I met, I had a number of "Michiganders in exile" on my shopping list).


• Dang Argyle: Cute wallets, pouches, jewelry, and cards. I absolutely adore the Michigan mittens notecards.


• Wei's Open Secret: I loved their jewelry and I'm kicking myself for not picking up a set of the super-cute gratuity comment cards.


• Always the Forest: Great clothes, accessories, & other gifts. I got a really cool Michigan flora & fauna t-shirt & am hoping I might get another chance to buy one for a friend or two for Christmas (they're limited edition & not on the website, so my chances aren't so great, but I guess that's just what I get for being selfish when I should've been thinking of others).


• Glass Action: Makers of the famous stained glass Barack Obama & rockstar night lights! Too cool, though I really loved their Michigan charms.


• Amepix: I spent entirely too much time poking through all the stuff available at this table and eventually came away with some cute little gifts I know my friends are going to love (ok, ok, and a little something for me too). I love the focus on food!


• Bettula: Gorgeous accessories made from birch bark!! I have a weird thing for birch bark and am now coveting their cuffs and earrings.

I'm sure there are some more worth mentioning -- like I said, it was hard to even see everything with such a great selection! That's certainly a long enough list for now, though. Also, those of you who are sad you missed out shouldn't fret too much -- there are two similar events coming up in December: the Shadow Art Fair in Ypsi and the Holiday Baar Bazaar in Detroit!

G-l-o-r-i-a.

Yikes you guys, I am super late on today's entry! (In real life it's after midnight, oops.) My excuse is that I was at the DIA seeing Patti Smith: Dream of Life, which I absolutely loved. For tonight I'll leave you with the trailer:


Tomorrow you get to hear about the amazing Detroit Urban Craft Fair!

Detroit Urban Craft Fair Tomorrow + Other Great Upcoming Events!

Sorry non-locals, most of this post doesn't quite apply to you. I just wanted to make sure that both of my readers were aware that the The Detroit Urban Craft Fair is coming up TOMORROW!

I am hugely excited for this -- it should be a great way to get some holiday shopping done while supporting your local economy and lots of very deserving creative folks. You can see previews of some of the goods available (including handspun yarn!) here, here & here. I'm confident that there will really be something for everyone!

As if that weren't enough, my friends Gregg & Angela from the Detroit Evolution Laboratory are providing an amazing selection of their award-winning vegan food. You can view their mouth-watering menu here -- I'm going to have a hard time deciding what to get!

I hope you can all make it to that -- I'll be volunteering there for most of the day, so look out for me. Either way, here are some other great events coming up soon:

• Patti Smith: Dream of Life is showing at the DIA's Detroit Film Theatre all weekend. It looks like an incredible film and I'm really looking forward to seeing it.


• On a similar note, the 2008 Arab Film Festival is happening all weekend in Dearborn! I'm hoping to catch tonight's films.


• Finally, this coming Wednesday the 19th is the date of November's edition of Detroit Abides, a free monthly sustainability event put on by the Evolution Lab. This time around they're showing the excellent film The Future of Food. It's free, guys!

Finally, one that does apply to non-locals: If you believe in love & equality, you just might want to attend one of the many protests against California's Proposal 8 happening all over the country tomorrow. Find your location here!

Things I Love Thursday!

For those of you who don't know, Things I Love Thursday is an excellent little weekly ritual Gala Darling started. It's always a good idea to list the things you're grateful for, so I try to participate most weeks, but this semester I just haven't been up to it. As I mentioned last week, my Thursdays are long and after 12 hours on campus I usually can't think of much besides sleep. Today was actually great, though, and I am thrilled to say that I have tomorrow off from my internship, so I'm feeling lots of love! Here's some of what's making my week:

• Jack Lessenberry: He's a columnist and radio personality whose work I've enjoyed for years, and today he gave a great talk on my campus. The topic was the election: what happened, why, and what comes next. It was a wide-ranging and excellent discussion, mainly focused on the auto industry and the economy...so not really a happy discussion, but an interesting one nonetheless! Best of all, on the way out he passed me in the hall and said "What do you call those kind of boots?" I looked down kinda dumbly at my boots and replied, "I don't know...just boots?" and he said "Well I like them." Thanks, Jack! Also there was free food and you can't beat that.


• Linda: She's a very sweet school friend of mine who surprised me with a whole box of tea today! She works at Starbucks and gets one free every week, so she gave me some Tazo Refresh, which is made of peppermint, spearmint, and tarragon. It's absolutely perfect!


• Wait Wait Don't Tell Me: If you don't already listen to this, you should! It never fails to crack me up. My cousin told me he downloads the podcast at the beginning of every week and then saves it so it can cheer him up on a bad day. I think that's a great idea but I don't have that kind of self-control, so I rarely make it past Tuesday without listening.


• Honorable mentions: unexpected deadline extensions; bubble baths; the moon tonight; apple cider; chatting on Gmail with my aunt in California almost every day; Sandra Cisneros; puppy cam (!!!!); free food; those cookies I made the other day (they're even better if you add chocolate chips); exciting weekend plans; hot cocoa!

That was quite a bit shorter than I thought it would be, I guess because I am getting to the point where all I want want is to hop into bed.

What do you love this week?

Whoa.

This blog is a year old today! The date completely snuck up on me* so unfortunately I don't have any kind of exciting post planned (do I ever?), but...um...yay?

In completely unrelated news, I can tell you that I am officially visiting my friend Linn in Toronto over Thanksgiving!! I bought my bus tickets today so it's definitely time to start planning & getting excited! Mainly I'm looking forward to spending time with Linn and her friends, but if you have any ideas of fun things to do in Toronto I'd love to hear them.

*I realize snuck is not a word but "sneaked" sounds weird. :(

Mmm!

Today I made honey-peanut butter cookies:

The flavor is very different from regular peanut butter cookies, but still good. I think my own reaction was mirrored by my friend Linda, who looked kind of puzzled at the first bite, took another, said "it's pretty good," and then, as she finished the cookie, exclaimed "I LOVE IT!" It takes a moment to get over the fact that they don't taste the way you expect them to, but once you adjust to that you can just appreciate them for their own unique deliciousness. I'll be appreciating them for a long time to come, actually, because those four in the picture are the only ones I made today. The rest of the dough is still in the fridge.

Oddly enough, you can see a scan of the recipe from the cookbook itself here -- hopefully that link will work for everyone. I'm dying to try the almond butter version but it'll probably have to wait a bit. Honey is expensive!

Yes, I did almost forget to post today.

The hat is coming along beautifully so far, thank you for asking! I'm using this pattern (Ravelry link, sorry) and this delicious yarn. There will be photos as soon as it gets a little more interesting to look at.

For today, here are two cool links:

• Free calenders for you to download & print -- I tend to be a bit stingy with my ink & paper but these are so gorgeous that I might just have to do something with them. All of this woman's art is fantastic.


• Multicolr Search Lab -- This allows you to pick up to ten colors and then it searches Flickr for public domain photos featuring those colors. It's about a billion times more fun & interesting than it sounds, I promise -- go play with it!

Anything interesting you've come across lately?

I'm glad I took a photo with breakfast this morning...

...because I am way too tired to think of any actual content!



Doing this every day is proving more of a challenge than I thought it would. I started a new hat today, though, so theoretically that gives me something to post about soon. If any of you have any other tips/thoughts/ideas I'd be happy to hear them!

Feeding ducks cowl.

So this thing is finally done! And it's pretty, but yet again I forgot about that whole "sunset at 5" thing and neglected to photograph it during daylight hours. Here is a kind of lame artificially lit picture instead:



There's a really cute scarf pattern called Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks. I fell in love with it and knew it would look great with this gorgeous blue Malabrigo silky merino, but I wanted a cowl more than a scarf. I couldn't quite figure out how to do star stitch in the round at first, but luckily the matching hat pattern was there to help me make sense of it. So basically I just cast on somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 or so stitches and did star stitch in the round until I could no longer stand it! I'm fairly pleased with the resulting cowl & I do think it'll get some wear in the near future. Next I'd like to hunt down a pretty pin of some nature so I can sort of fold the cowl over & pin it more snugly around my neck, because I think it could look really great that way.


PS: I'm sorry to report that yesterday's apple cupcakes turned out quite bland. They're still ok but I don't think I'll bother using that recipe again. Oh well.

What did I ever do to you, kitchen?

I have finished my first project since AUGUST! Ugh, I never want to go that long again! It is the star stitch cowl, last seen here a zillion years ago, and you will see pictures of it tomorrow. (With this Daylight Savings Time thing the sun is going down far too early for me to get good pictures of anything.)

I can show you a new picture of my Chevalier mittens, though! I never photographed them too well when I first finished them, so I tried to remedy that the other day:


There will probably be even more photos of them in the future, since I am a little obsessed with like them quite a bit.

Right now I have Apple Cake in the oven, in cupcake form. It smells great & I'll let you know how it tastes tomorrow. I have to say that the baking experience wasn't particularly fun. Today just was Not My Day in the kitchen, I guess. Highlights included large quantities of baking soda on the floor, accidentally cutting my thumbnail (thank goodness it was only the nail!), large quantities of flour on the floor, and, best of all, large quantities of flour in my eye. Uncomfortable! I hope these cupcakes are worth it -- from the current smell of things they just might be.

Phoning it in.

When I decided to do this NaBloPoMo thing, I knew Thursdays were going to be really difficult for me. I'm on campus for 12 hours every Thursday, and by the time I come home the last thing I want to do is come up with some kind of blog content. I think, then, that Thursdays will pretty much mean quick photo posts.

I hate to be seasonally inappropriate but here's a pretty picture I took in September and forgot about until I was searching for something to post just now:

Monarchs at Dearborn's Greenfield Village.
Tomorrow there will be knitting &/or food content! Have a great Friday, everyone.

Yess!!

I have a paper I REALLY need to get working on so that I'll be free to enjoy dinner at a friend's house this evening, so I'll keep this brief. Yesterday was undoubtedly one of the happiest days of my whole life. You can bet I was excited & proud to vote in my first presidential election!


(People kept thinking my sticker was a band-aid, haha.)
I celebrated at my aunt's house, which was PACKED with local Obama organizers & volunteers. We were a rowdy bunch, cheering like crazy for each state he picked up and we definitely lost our minds when he hit 270 electoral votes! I found myself shaking, crying, and grinning all at once as I fell into long hugs with both total strangers and people I've known since I was born.

Today I am beyond proud & happy. My face hurts from smiling so much. In class my professor asked for our reactions and all we could do was cheer & clap like crazy.

I really do have to go write that paper now! What was last night like for you? How do you feel today?

PS: Go check out Gala Darling's post Last Night in New York City -- sooo amazing!

Let's do this thing!

I can't believe today is finally here! I'm going to vote in just over an hour and I cannot wait.

Jay Smooth knows what's up:



Please please please go out & vote today!

Tomorrow!

Believe me, I would love to post about knitting or food or yarn or my cats or something right now, but I just can't. There is only one thing I can think about for more than 30 seconds at a time, and you can probably guess what it is. It's happening tomorrow & I feel like I've been counting down to it for years. It is going to end in tears for me either way, but I'm hoping and praying they will be happy tears.

In 2000, at the age of 13, I watched in dismay as the Supreme Court handed the presidency to a man who would use lies to lead us into a disastrous war, who would use a national tragedy as an excuse to limit the liberties we Americans so value, who would ignore and dismiss the supremely important fact of climate change. (Believe me, I could go on.) In 2004 I fought hard against that man's reelection, though I was three months short of being able to cast my own ballot. I knocked on doors, registered voters, and asked them to please be my voice, to support a less-than-ideal candidate because he was so much better than the alternative.*

Now I'm finally old enough to have a say and how lucky am I to be able to work and vote for a candidate who really excites and energizes me? Who could actually bring some real change? Don't get me wrong -- Obama isn't perfect and I know that. We have many values in common, though, and I respect him for the incredibly intelligent, principled man I think he is and the well-organized and respectful campaign I have seen him run. I have been proud to campaign on his behalf, I will be absolutely thrilled to vote for him, and in the likely event of his victory I will be ecstatic. I'll spend a day or two celebrating, then the real work will begin: holding him to his promises and organizing in my community to fight for the issues that matter to me.

No matter who you are or which candidate you support, please go out and vote tomorrow! I know you've heard it a thousand times before but it is important, it does matter, and it's going to affect your life. This ad is from North Carolina but it gets the message across pretty well, I think (and it gets funny after the first few seconds):



Ok, I promise to return to non-political content in the very near future!

* This phase of my political life is probably best summed up by the fact that my favorite election-related website was the now defunct JohnKerryIsADouchebagButImVotingForHimAnyway.com.

Fall yarn.

Do you feel like I end every other post here with "and then I bought some pretty yarn, which I promise I will show you soon" but then never actually show you any yarn? That's probably because that's pretty much what I do. In an effort to correct this (and because I couldn't think of anything else I really wanted to talk about for today's NaBloPoMo post), I photographed my two most recent yarn purchases. We all know I'm predictable as can be when it comes to most of my color choices (green, green, brown, green, blue, green, green again...), but something about the stunning leaves this autumn made me really want to branch out (no pun intended). I searched in vain for yarn that came even remotely close to capturing the gorgeous oranges, golds, and reds I saw around me. Nothing was really doing it for me until I finally found these at Knit A Round:


That's Claudia's Hand Painted fingering weight yarn in the colorway Copper Pennies. I think it has a bit more orange in it than came through in this photo.
I still can't get over how insanely beautiful this yarn is, and I'm undecided on what to do with it. Claudia's is great for socks, of course, and this would make the most beautiful pair of socks in the whole world, but I might want to use it for something a little more visible. Any ideas?

During that same trip I picked up some lovely worsted weight Malabrigo, which will be a hat of some nature:


It's more reddish in real life but just as deliciously soft as it looks.
Hopefully my neighbors weren't looking out their windows just now, but if they were oh well -- I mean, who doesn't balance yarn on a corn stalk & photograph if from time to time?

National Blog Posting Month.

After waffling about this for weeks, I've decided to bite the bullet & announce that I'm going to spend November doing National Blog Posting Month, better known as NaBloPoMo. It's a pretty simple idea: post one entry every day for the whole month. This may seem laughable coming from someone who has only posted 42 entries in the last 10 months, but it's worth a shot! I figure some days will see long entries and others will just get a photo or a link. Most of the content will be knitting or food related, but I will certainly be branching out more than usual with photo posts, reviews, perhaps a bit of personal stuff, and likely some political posts.

For today I just want to show off my Halloween costume! Most of you are probably sick to death of seeing it, but I love it too much to stop spreading these pictures around. Before this I hadn't dressed up in several years and the costume was completely last-minute, which is why I'm beyond thrilled that it came together so well.

Yep, I was Frida Kahlo!


Here I am on the porch -- doesn't my mom do the best autumn decorations?
More tomorrow!

PS: Today is my Ravelry account's first birthday! What a fantastic site.