Wool & Chocolate

Long-promised yarn photos & some recipe links.

2009-09-16T18:42:00.005-04:00

Hello everyone! Remember when I went on a fun yarn adventure with my family? Well I did, and here's what I brought home:

Pretty purple handspun wool from the Yarn Basket in Tecumseh, MI.

Soft grey alpaca from the Clinton Woolen Mill -- $3.50 a skein!

Lovely undyed handspun thick-and-thin wool & mohair, also from the Clinton Woolen Mill.

The Clinton Woolen Mill was undoubtedly my favorite shop we visited and if you're at all local you really must check it out. The selection was beautiful, the prices were unbelievable, and the atmosphere was very comfortable. I'm not a spinner (yet?) but there was a wide array of beautifully dyed fleece and roving soft and dreamy enough to make me wish I were. For now, though, there are more than enough lovely local handspun yarns to keep me busy. I'll be back soon! (There is an apartment for rent just above it and I definitely contemplated asking about it -- too bad moving out to Clinton would be far from practical!)

So, last time I posted I'd begun working on a pair of fingerless mitts for E. Unfortunately, we're no longer "an item," as they say. It was very amicable and there are no hard feelings, but needless to say his mitts got moved waaaayyyy down on my priority list! Instead I wanted to do some simple, therapeutic knitting for myself, so I picked up that grey handspun pictured above and got to work on a rendition of the Aspen Neck Cowl. It's knitting up quickly and I think I may even finish it in time for Harvest Gathering this weekend!

In other news, I've been sticking with my plan to try a new raw recipe each week. Last week I tried out these kitchen sink cookies. I absolutely love no-bake cookies to begin with but the recipes I know call for lots of butter & sugar, so I was intrigued to see how this one would come out. I only made a very small batch, two each for me & the friend I had over for dinner. They were good but not great; using that much nut butter for the base makes them very, very rich and heavy. I'll experiment a bit more, though, because there is something just so delightful about making cookies in the fridge!

Tonight I'm going to try a raw corn chowder, so I'll let you know how that goes. Another (not raw) recipe I absolutely have to recommend is this sweet potato & black bean breakfast scramble. I actually made it for dinner, served with some brown rice and grated cheddar. I know I made some other alterations, including adding collard greens, and it was a huge hit with everyone who tried it, plus the leftovers were perfect for taking to school for the rest of that week. I'm certain I'll be making it again and, really, can't recommend it highly enough.

First food post in who knows how long...

2009-09-05T20:58:00.005-04:00

Nearly everyone agrees that raw fruits & veggies are an important part of a healthy diet. Luckily for me I prefer most veggies raw anyhow, but munching on carrot sticks can get old fast. I've been fortunate enough to try lots of delicious raw meals at various restaurants and talented friends' houses, but I rarely prepare anything raw at home besides the occasional salad or smoothie. Starting this week I'm challenging myself to try out a new raw dish every week.

This morning I woke up with carrot soup on my mind and Googled for a raw recipe. This one looked appealing so when I got off work today I spent a whopping 71 cents on a couple organic carrots. I tried about a half-batch just now. I used green pepper instead of red because that's what I have in my garden and threw in some cayenne & cumin, too. Word to the wise: if you are halving all the ingredients, it's a good idea to make sure you halve the ginger too! I don't know why I didn't, except that I was excited about ginger and not thinking, so this has got QUITE a kick. I had to water it down pretty significantly but I have to say the flavor is excellent. The texture would be better if I strained out the pulpy bits but that feels too wasteful so I didn't (I do get to borrow a juicer soon, though, at which point I will definitely use this recipe with it!). I tossed in some small pieces of bell pepper and enjoyed this cold with some toast on the side. I plan to have the rest slightly warmed for breakfast tomorrow. Mmm, carrots & ginger!

Also, behold:

I realize it doesn't look like much, but that is my first foray into cheese-making! Some friends of mine get a 3-gallon weekly delivery of fresh, raw milk and lately they haven't been able to keep up with drinking it all. I gladly volunteered to take a half-gallon off their hands the other day and used it to make farmer's cheese, which really couldn't be easier. I served slices with garlic toast and crumbled the rest into a salad. Yum. Next time I think I will try mixing in some basil &/or other tasty herbs (suggestions?). Eventually I would like to delve much, much deeper into aged cheeses and all that good stuff, too.

I'm afraid I lied last time about the yarn pictures coming this time, only because I feel too lazy to bother with them right now. Next time for real!

First FO in who knows how long...

2009-09-03T22:37:00.004-04:00

Wow, I think I almost forgot what it feels like to actually finish a project. Here are my lovely blue Fargyle socks:

I completed them about a week ago and they were lots of fun. The pattern is so so clever! I think some time I might like to re-chart it so it could be done in fingering weight with more, smaller argyle-esque diamonds...but I'm getting ahead of myself. For now I'll just enjoy this pair, which is very comfy and incredibly warm.

Shortly after finishing those I began knitting some fingerless mitts for E. The pattern is improvised and going fairly well. I'm planning to have them completed in time for Harvest Gathering, though I must admit to being a little nervous about that since I just took a whole month to knit DK-weight socks. So far so good, though, and I have the added incentive of knowing there is incredibly gorgeous handspun yarn waiting for me to play with it just as soon as I finish the mitts. Photos of said yarn next time!

2009-08-24T23:06:00.001-04:00

Many of you have likely seen this already, but it's worth posting for the rest of you because it's so cool: Giant knitted poem takes shape. Can't wait to see what it is! Any guesses?

Cupcakes + Lace!

2009-08-18T09:57:00.004-04:00

(Hey, this is my 101st post! Cool.)

First of all, if you have extra zucchini lying around (and who doesn't?), you should definitely use it to make these chocolate-zucchini cupcakes. I did so last night and I can promise you with complete confidence that you won't regret it! (Do watch out for overcooking them, though -- the baking time recommended in the recipe was much too long for my oven, at least.)

Also, look at what I got in the mail a couple weeks back from my lovely friend Yoli, who was working on destashing:

That, my friends, is a skein of Skacel Collection Merino Lace in a gorgeous teal! This yarn is stupidly beautiful and frighteningly fine. I haven't knit with lace-weight yet so I am definitely intimidated but also excited. I think the most beautiful lace pattern I've seen is the Seascape Shawl, so I might attempt to tackle that right off the bat, but I wondered if any of you had other suggestions for first lace projects, maybe something smaller and quicker to help me get comfortable with it? Let me know please!

I have made almost no progress on the socks recently -- like I said, having a curious kitten around really cuts into one's knitting time, not to mention the fact that 90°+ weather makes it difficult to feel terribly excited about wool socks, even if they are really fantastic wool socks.

Kittenapalooza Part 2 (+ socks)!

2009-08-05T13:39:00.005-04:00

So it turns out having a new kitten around the house is not exactly conducive to knitting. Luckily, it is conducive to massive amounts of cuteness:

The gigantic ears continue to amaze.

Lucy is an absolute dream of a kitten: friendly, adorable, feisty, and so much fun to have around!

I have gotten a tiny bit of knitting done, mostly while Lucy is napping, and I've reached the heel flap of the second Fargyle sock. Here's a preview:

They're coming along pretty nicely. I also looked through my entire stash the other day and found a couple yarns I'd nearly forgotten about, which was exciting and very inspiring.

Kittenapalooza!

2009-07-23T13:57:00.005-04:00

There's a new lady in my life:

Lucille Clementine, better known as Lucy
(Check out those EARS!)

She came home with me last night and has been hanging out in my room ever since. Currently she's enjoying a lengthy nap on my bed. She's here more or less because I decided I don't like driving on the freeway anymore. Unlike most drivers I know I've never really been scared of the freeway, not even when I was new to it, but a few weeks ago it occurred to me that I have a lot more fun when I take surface roads. The route from E's house to mine is particularly enjoyable, as little country roads take me past cows, horses, plenty of chickens, neighbors selling summer squash & sweet corn, and one particular house with a very tempting sign out front: "ADORABLE KITTENS FREE."

Mom & I had been talking about a kitten for a while. Our cat April is very very lonesome. We lost her brother Bam a year ago to a car and Bob, my sweet silly companion for 8 years or so, passed away back in May due to kidney failure. We all miss them both every day and April is no exception. This is the only time in her life she's been the the only cat and she doesn't seem to like it a bit (I don't blame her). Of course, she and Lucy are not exactly best friends yet. They've had two brief meetings, both of which featured a lot of hissing from April. They'll get to know each other better once Lucy's been to the vet, of course, and I have no doubt that April will come around, even if it takes some time.

For now Lucy & I are hanging out in my room. She's been remarkably well-behaved, using her little temporary litter box like a pro, chasing her tail a whole bunch, wrestling with her favorite "toy" (an old rag I had lying around), and licking my hands at every opportunity. Aww! I'll try to get some better pictures soon. Black cats aren't easy to photograph and the crappy camera I've been using since my good one broke only makes matters worse, but I think my friend M, a talented photographer, will be by tomorrow, so I'll see what I can get him to do. And naturally there will be video of the tail-chasing as soon as I can manage it!

Garden Photos.

2009-07-21T12:12:00.006-04:00

My garden is doing beautifully so far this year! I actually have two gardens now, much to my delight: the same little patch of the backyard we've been using for three years now plus a new bed along the side of the house. (Once I have access to my own land you can bet none of it will be wasted on grass, but I'm very grateful to have any space at all to grow while living at home, not to mention my step-dad's expertise and help!) I've never quite gotten the hang of taking good garden photos but there's only one way to get any better at that, so here are some from this morning:

As you can see, the bell peppers are really coming in! We've never successfully grown them before and the plants barely seemed to grow early on, so I was nervous. Clearly I had nothing to worry about. We have three plants, each stunningly productive. I think a large part of it has to do with my three fantastic, heavenly-smelling lavender plants, which the bees have been loving as much as I do. The cucumbers by the lavender are flourishing, too, in contrast to last year's cucumbers which never seemed to get pollinated. Thanks bees!

We've got some sweet banana peppers, too!

It will be some time before the cabbage is ready, but isn't it pretty? I love the color it adds.

Sadly, strawberry season is well past. This photo is from June, during which we harvested tons of strawberries as beautiful, juicy, and delicious as these two. The strawberry plants are making a valiant effort to take over the entire garden as we speak. It's tempting to just let them but I am holding them back as best I can.

That's just a fraction of what we've got, so I'll aim for more/better photos soon!

2009-07-20T22:50:00.005-04:00

Hi blog! I know it's been approximately 8,000 years since I last posted (or 7 months, whatev). School definitely took over my life during my last semester, leaving very little time for baking or knitting, let alone blogging about either. On the plus side I took four of the best and most challenging courses of my life, so I'm definitely not complaining, but I am thoroughly enjoying my summer break. A year from now I will have a degree in Anthropology and Women's & Gender Studies and probably be freaking out about what the hell to do next. I have a few ideas (my current favorite involving going on for a Master's in Library & Information Science) but we'll see what happens.

Currently I am working on my first pair of cuff-down socks and I absolutely love them! I'm nearing the toe on the first one and it's been a fun process. As much as I enjoyed toe-up socks and appreciate their yarn-saving potential, I have to say that turning the heel from the cuff down somehow seems to make more sense and I really like the look of this heel.

Pictures of those socks will come soon. For now I can show you one kinda crappy picture of one of the only projects I finished all semester, a neck-warmer for my gentleman-friend E:

Unfortunately taken right after I brilliantly dropped my camera on the pavement in Seattle and broke it.
The pattern for that was a free one, the Darkside Cowl, and I absolutely loved knitting it. The stitch not only looks cool but produces a very springy, thick fabric. It definitely keeps the neck warm and has gotten plenty of compliments -- next time you want to make an quick & easy gift, keep it in mind!

So, is anyone still reading this? Please feel free to say hi in the comments if you are! I wouldn't be surprised if lots of folks stopped checking this since I've been so negligent. I've also noticed that I'm not the only one to have gone on an unplanned hiatus; many of my favorite blogs seem to have been languishing for a while now. Still, I will do my best to update more often, at least for the rest of the summer and hopefully into the school year, too. Hope you're all well. ♥

2008-12-14T20:05:00.007-05:00

Hey blog! I have a hat to show you:

That is Thorpe, made with the pretty dark red yarn I bought in Toronto & some leftovers from the vest I made ages ago. The knitting was very quick and only took a day or so once I got past the initial increases (the hat is knit top-down, something I hadn't done before). I didn't know how to do the crocheted edging, though, so today I went over to my beloved Aunt Andrea's house thinking she'd show me how. Instead she just did it for me while I ate all her crackers, cheese, and nuts, and drank hot buttered rum. What a relaxing way to finish a project! :) I may or may not add some braided straps to the earflaps, but for now I kind of like it the way it is (and, since I left that yarn at Aunt Andrea's, I don't have much of a choice for the moment). I am planning to block it a bit so the flaps no longer curl out, though. The pattern was a bit difficult at first because it starts with so few stitches, but in the end I found myself absolutely loving it. It has lots of potential, too -- there are some very creative interpretations on Ravelry, of course! I have no doubt I'll be making more of these.

Have you seen the new Knitty yet? It's so inspiring! I'm making these socks as soon as I can. I also, of course, loved the knitted wire earrings. I tried knitting with wire probably a year and a half ago or so and absolutely hated it but these are so lovely that I tried to push that memory from my mind & ran out today to buy wire and earring hooks. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), knitting with wire has not gotten any more comfortable or fun since the last time I tried it. My first attempt at an earring was very ugly and I still feel like I'm about to go crosseyed and my fingertips hurt. Plus the wire is a mess of tangles & kinks. Bleh. I might get the hang of it yet but I kind of doubt it. Tips would be appreciated!

Finally, remember the cookie contest I was going to enter? I spent all of last week experimenting in the kitchen until I came up with a decent recipe for pumpkin snickerdoodles. It still had a few kinks I could've worked out to make it absolutely perfect, but the cookies were definitely tasty & creative and I thought I'd have no problem winning. So I went to sign up last Thursday, only to be told I'd missed the sign-up deadline. I must've looked distraught, because the men who told me that started making phone calls & trying to find a way around the deadline for me. While they were doing that, though, it occurred to me that I might want to make sure the prize really was a decent sum of money, like I thought. It definitely was not -- it was a $15 gift card to some crappy chocolate store! I like gift cards and I like chocolate, but the chance to win that honestly didn't seem worth the extra drive up to campus, so I didn't enter after all. Oh, well -- at least I came up with a cool recipe. I will definitely post it here once I've perfected it a bit more.

Can I bake my way to a scholarship?

2008-12-03T17:01:00.003-05:00

Probably not.

Can I try?

Yes!

My school is having a cookie-baking contest next Friday. The prize is some amount of scholarship money, I think. (Really there is like no infomration about this anywhere save a few fairly non-detailed fliers on campus.) I need to select & perfect a recipe in between writing papers and studying for finals!

(This is clearly why I should've stuck with my ill-fated 50-cookies-in-'08 plan, because then it would be like I'd been training for this moment all year. But, um, I didn't, so there goes that.)

What would you submit? I want to do something unique, something that will stand out. Right now I'm thinking chai snickerdoodles would be a hit if I could kick up the chai flavor enough, but something with pumpkin also seems like a good idea.

Home & done with National Blog Posting Month.

2008-11-30T22:38:00.004-05:00

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. ♥

2008-11-29T19:18:00.001-05:00

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!

2008-11-28T19:56:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-11-27T23:22:00.003-05:00

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.)

2008-11-26T21:14:00.002-05:00

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.

2008-11-25T23:19:00.006-05:00

(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!

2008-11-24T23:59:00.000-05:00

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!

2008-11-23T19:05:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-11-22T22:46:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-11-21T21:57:00.004-05:00

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.

2008-11-20T23:52:00.005-05:00

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:

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

Strays.

2008-11-19T23:19:00.004-05:00

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...

2008-11-18T23:44:00.004-05:00

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.

2008-11-17T22:26:00.007-05:00

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.

2008-11-16T18:28:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-11-15T23:59:00.003-05:00

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!

2008-11-14T14:06:00.005-05:00

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!

2008-11-13T22:17:00.004-05:00

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.

2008-11-12T20:21:00.003-05:00

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!

2008-11-11T22:38:00.002-05:00

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.

2008-11-10T23:23:00.002-05:00

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...

2008-11-09T21:33:00.003-05:00

...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.

2008-11-08T20:28:00.005-05:00

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?

2008-11-07T19:40:00.005-05:00

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.

2008-11-06T23:24:00.005-05:00

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!!

2008-11-05T14:30:00.002-05:00

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!

2008-11-04T08:45:00.003-05:00

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!

2008-11-03T18:29:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-11-02T17:18:00.004-05:00

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.

2008-11-01T21:40:00.005-04:00

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.

Tasty Pumpkin Muffins!

2008-10-26T18:52:00.003-04:00

I made the best muffins tonight! I might try to perfect the recipe later but here it is for now (it's basically a variation on the aforementioned pear bread recipe):

Pumpkin Muffins!
3 cups flour (I used half whole wheat & half all-purpose)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
generous pinch of allspice
1 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups pumpkin puree
splash vanilla extract

Mix together the flour, baking soda & power, salt, and spices in a large bowl. In another bowl combine the butter, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, and vanilla. Stir until well combined, then add to the flour mixture, stirring just until batter is evenly moist. Fold in the nuts.

Pour batter into prepared muffin tins and bake at 350º for about 25-35 minutes, until muffins are brown & crisp on the top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

(For the sugar this time I used a combination of Sucanat, brown, and white sugar because we were running out of white sugar. Then, of course, I discovered a whole new bag of it in the back of the pantry. Still, I'd like to try these with only Sucanat someday, I think it might work well (and be better for you). Also my pumpkin puree didn't come to quite two cups, but it was close. I'd also like to try substituting grated apples &/or pears for part of the pumpkin sometime.)

Go make these now & serve them with some good apple cider. They're the most perfect autumn muffins I've had so far.

Hi internet!

2008-10-15T10:40:00.006-04:00

Well, I still have no exciting knitting to show you -- I'm slowly plodding along on the same few projects I feel like I've been working on for years. I did just order a sweater's worth of yarn from KnitPicks, though! I'm hoping that'll help inspire me pick up the pace. I'm going to use this pattern but attempt to do it as a top-down raglan to avoid the hell of seaming. We'll see how that goes.

I have been cooking & baking a bit lately, though! I'm trying really hard to make a big dish or two at the beginning of each week so I can take leftovers to school or my internship as needed. It's a better plan than spending tons on eating out every day, anyway. Here are some of the best things I've made recently:

Broccoli Crunch Salad: I made this this week & it might be my favorite thing. The dressing is unbelievably delicious! There's really not much else to say about this except that it's awesome & you should make it right now. It's even good for you!

Orzo salad: I kind of made this up after having something similar at a grad party. I feel like it could be even better (and healthier) with some more veggies or something, but so far it goes like this: make some orzo and when it's finished stir in some butter, olive oil, feta cheese, fresh basil, and toasted sliced almonds. The version I had at the party had cherry tomatoes, which seem like a good idea for those of you who are into that kind of thing (I am not, unfortunately). I think I also added some chopped spinach once & that was pretty good. What I really love about this is that it keeps well and tastes fantastic at any temperature.

Pear bread: I used walnuts instead of pecans, halved the recipe, and made just under a dozen perfect pear muffins. They were moist and flavorful and very, very autumnal. I wish they hadn't all disappeared so quickly!

I do still have a huge backlog of pictures to show you, so here are some of the cute alpacas I met in Illinois when I was there in August:

This one never fails to crack me up.

Look at those eyelashes!

And this is an alpaca named Acorn eating out of my hand -- can you imagine anything more adorable?!
The alpacas at Kickapoo Creek Alpacas were all extremely friendly and not too shy, which I hear is uncommon. I feel very lucky to have spent some time with them & I am still dreaming of maybe having my own someday. I did buy some alpaca yarn, of course, which I'll show off soon!

Eek!

2008-09-28T22:23:00.000-04:00

Hey blog! How've you been in the past, um, month? I've been busy! First I went to Illinois, then my new semester started up, then I got really sick, then my computer died, then I got an internship & a job, then the upcoming election ate the remains of my free time, energy, and attention span (sometimes it tries to get my will to live and faith in humanity as well, but I'm doing my best to cling to those!).

All of that hasn't left much time for knitting, much to my dismay -- I haven't finished a single project since the Ravelympics. :( I'm hoping to turn that around soon. Today I traveled to Lansing to spend a very fun day at Threadbear, where I fondled lots of GORGEOUS yarn, took a bit of it home with me, and generally had an amazing time celebrating Shorty's birthday. It was a very inspiring day and I think it's safe to say I'm back on the knitting bandwagon. I promise to post again soon, and I have all kinds of pictures I need to share with you, too! I hope you're all well.

Final Ravelympics Update!

2008-08-24T12:36:00.004-04:00

After doing the first Chevalier mitten, the second one just sorta flew by! I didn't finish the thumb on it until this morning, though, so really I finished up just in time:

I LOVE these mittens! That photo doesn't entirely do them justice, so I will certainly try to take some better ones soon. They are just perfect, though! The cable pattern is beautiful and they fit me just right. I do think some light steam blocking might be a good idea, so I'm going to give that a shot soon, but basically I'm thrilled with them as they are.

You might remember that I did have another Ravelympics project, the Juniper Mitts. Well, I made one. It knit up quickly and the yarn I had looked phenomenal with the stitch pattern...but I really disliked the construction of the mitts themselves. They were basically just knitted tubes with a little hole for your thumb to pop out, which made them fit awkwardly & not look terribly attractive. I'm waffling on whether to make a second one, but at this point I'm strongly leaning toward just frogging the one I did make and using the yarn for something I like better. Oh well.

I'm still so happy I participated in the Ravelympics! It was really fun and motivated me to actually start & finish two great projects that otherwise could've languished in my interminable queue for years.

Now that I'm slightly mittened out my thoughts are turning to socks & sweaters. I still really want to make myself a nice fall sweater and I've been spending truly ridiculous amounts of time on Ravelry looking through basically every sweater pattern in the world, trying to finally make up my mind as to which of them is worthy of my time & effort. My standards are entirely too high but I am starting to narrow it down and with any luck I'll be ordering some yarn & getting started before much longer!

First I need to find something small to cast on for today, though. I have a long bus ride down to Illinois coming up tomorrow and I definitely want to spend it working on some socks (or maybe a hat, or maybe another cowl...). I'll be in Illinois all week, so you may not hear from me for a while, but when I get back I should have plenty of fun things to show you. If all goes well I should be visiting an ALPACA FARM (!!!!!!!) during my stay, which means you can look forward to all kinds of adorable alpaca photos and, if I'm really lucky, some pretty new yarn!

Ravelympics: one project down!

2008-08-20T15:50:00.002-04:00

So I've officially finished one of my three mitten projects! Evangeline:

Overall I'm pretty happy with them. There is a subtle error in the cabling on the left glove, though, which drove me nuts when I figured it out last night. Of course I was far past it when I noticed it, and frogging back would've involved unpicking the bind-off for the thumb stitches. After some contemplation I decided it wasn't really worth the trouble. Not that I don't want them to be perfect, of course, but the mistake is barely even noticeable. A few times I've looked down & been unable to find it for a minute or two, and I know exactly where & what it is! So at this point I'll be interested to see if Linn notices it without me saying something...

The yarn, Berocco Comfort, was easily the nicest synthetic yarn I've ever used. It's soft with great stitch definition & nice colors. If you're going to use it, though, be forewarned that it must the splittiest yarn in the entire world, which isn't disastrous but can make it a bit of a pain to use. Still, I think it was a good choice for this project!

Ravelympics: halfway there!

2008-08-16T14:19:00.003-04:00

So we're about halfway through the Ravelympics and I'm a little less than halfway through my projects. I did just finish the first Evangeline mitt, though!

I think I like it! It's in between the wrist & elbow length variations and I completely changed the thumb. I wish I'd made the thumb part a bit longer, actually, but considering that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I decided to add a gusset, I think it looks pretty decent! Hopefully Linn (the recipient) will agree. Now that I've figured out how to do the thumb and the length I want, I'm hoping the second mitt will go by quickly.

I've only barely started on the Juniper Mitts. My brilliant plan was to save most of the work on them for my long bus ride to Illinois on the 25th. They're certainly easy enough for that and I'll want something to occupy the time anyway. It only occurred to me today that perhaps I should look into when the Ravelympics end. As I'm sure most of you smarter people were already aware, they're definitely over on the 24th. Damn! So much for my bus knitting -- time to get to work!

Quick Ravelympics Update.

2008-08-13T13:57:00.003-04:00

I've almost finished my first Chevalier mitten! Only the thumb is left to be done. Here it is a few days ago:

It's much more impressive-looking now, so new photos will follow before too long. I'm pretty ridiculously proud of it so far -- it's definitely one of the more complicated patterns I've attempted! Not that it's really hard to do, exactly, but you definitely have to pay attention.

Though the actual thumb isn't done yet, the little thumb hole looks good. I was nervous about this because the thumbs on Dashing and Fetching came out looking a little weird. On Chevalier you need to cast on stitches in the middle of a row to bridge the gap above the thumb-hole. I'd only previously attempted casting on in the middle of the row under the sleeves on my Cloud Bolero and, to put it as kindly as I can...it looked like crap. After some Googling, though, I found this marvelous tutorial on how to cast-on in the middle of a project. I followed it and everything looks lovely!

I've also made some progress on Evangeline. Here's the first mitt a few days ago:

It's gotten just a bit longer since then.

No pictures for Juniper yet. I did cast on for it on the 8th, because I liked the idea of starting all of my projects on the first day, but it needs to be restarted. I was doing the medium/44 stitch version because I'm probably going to give the mitts to Brian, but it was coming out looking much too huge. It did look pretty cool, though, so I'm looking forward to restarting! After all of this cabling it'll be nice to do something a little mindless. (Honestly, even the phrase "miles of stockinette" is sounding slightly appealing at the moment...)

Anticipation + a new cowl.

2008-08-04T12:30:00.004-04:00

Just a few more days until the Ravelympics!! I'm so so eager to start my projects. I bought the last of the necessary yarn & needles yesterday (or, more accurately, my supremely generous/enabling Aunt Andrea bought them for me during our day of adventures). Here's what I'm making (Ravelry links):

Chevalier Mittens for me, in a gorgeous dusty blue Cascade 220 Heather.
Evangeline, elbow length, for my wonderful friend Linn. (Usually I don't blog about in-progress gifts for friends unless I'm fairly certain said friends don't read this. Linn does read this, actually, but I'm making an exception for the Ravelympics & I'm sure she'll understand.) She's allergic to all animal fibers and I'm not too experienced with plant fiber so I picked up some beautiful turquoise-y Berroco Comfort. It's an acrylic/nylon blend and probably the softest synthetic yarn I've ever felt.
Juniper Mitts using the rest of my Mountain Goat yarn in the Juniper colorway (that's the stuff I used on my cowl). I haven't decided yet about keeping these or giving them away.

So do you think I can manage all of that in 17 days?! It'll be fun to try, anyway!

Last night I started a new cowl, since I loved the last one so much and I'd been dying to cast on for something with the Malabrigo Silky Merino I bought recently. This yarn, you guys! It is beyond perfect. I've gotten carried away and proposed marriage to it a few times. It's soft, it's squishy, it's a dream to work with, and the color is just beautiful:

(That's my lavender plant creeping in at the top of the photo.)
The cowl is just star stitch, inspired by the Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks scarf. I had to practice the stitch a lot before I started this -- it's a little tricky! It's not exactly easy on the hands, either, what with all the p3tog. But isn't it lovely?

A few notes & questions.

2008-07-29T22:29:00.003-04:00

I've gone ahead & signed up for the Ravelympics. What are the Ravelympics? I'm not entirely sure. I think the basic idea is that you pick a project (or a couple) to complete during the Olympics, something that'll be a challenge for you to finish in that amount of time. I'm being super-ambitious with this and have three mitten patterns I'm going to attempt! Really if I finish one pair I'll be impressed with myself, but I figured I may as well aim high. So my event is the Mitten Medley, but I don't have a team yet. Are any of you on teams you'd like me to join?

I reached the heel on my new sock today! Yay! Details & pictures as soon as there's actually something interesting to show you.

For the rest of the summer I'm sticking to small, accessory-type items, but I've got my heart pretty set on making a sweater in the fall. At first I was really fixated on the idea of a hoodie, but now I'm thinking the hood isn't so essential (I never use the hoods on hoodies I own, anyway). I do want it to be versatile, though, something easy to wear that I can get a ton of use out of over the winter. I'm browsing patterns now but I'd love suggestions! I'm open to cardigans or pullovers. Here are just a few of the possibilities I've gathered so far (Ravelry links):

Tuesday Panera crew, I miss you all! This summer hasn't been that busy for me or anything, but somehow Tuesday evenings are the one time I always seem to have something going on. I'm sorry that it works out that way, but I just wanted to note that I haven't forgotten you (quite the contrary!) & that look forward to being able to make it down there sometime soon. ♥!

Meh.

2008-07-25T19:27:00.001-04:00

If two items can constitute a "spree," I think we can say I'm on a finishing spree! Or in a finishing frenzy, or something. Either way, this morning I dug out the hat that had been abandoned since May and took the 5 minutes to finally finish it off. It's Mary Jane's Pithy Hat. I was pretty in love with the pattern when I first saw it, but now I'm less sure:

Maybe I should've made it slouchier? Maybe all hats just look kinda weird on me? I don't know. I'm thinking I'll keep it until it gets cold out and see if I come to like wearing it. If not I'll just give it away.

The pattern was really easy but I didn't enjoy working on it much. Almost all the stitches are either k2tog through the back loop or p2tog. Both of those will kinda hurt your hands after a while! It's also riddled with errors, as I'm pretty sure you can see, because I did most of the knitting in public/I'm lazy about fixing things.

Oh well. Tomorrow = yarn-shopping and today I started a new pair of socks! More on that soon.

I actually finished something!

2008-07-24T11:19:00.003-04:00

For the first time in months, I have an FO to share! It's that cowl I mentioned last time, and I think it might be the first of many cowls for me. To be honest I've always had somewhat mixed feelings about them. I never see anyone wearing one in real life, and many of the pictures I've seen on Ravelry make them look kind of awkward to wear. A couple months ago I was pretty sure I would never make or wear one, but then one of my favorite knit-bloggers, Lolly, went on something of a crazy cowl-making spree and I found myself more & more intrigued. Finally she shared her Sherbrooke cowl pattern/recipe and as soon as I got that gorgeous Mountain Colors yarn I knew they were a match made in heaven!

The yarn is Mountain Colors Mountain Goat in Juniper. As always, full project details are on Ravelry!

The pattern was easy as pie, the kind of thing you could knock off in a day or two if you wanted to. I, of course, only knit on it once or twice a week, never for more than a couple minutes at a time, so it took me a little longer. The pattern recommends making the cowl 16" long so it can be stretched up over the head like a hood. My first thought was, "God, that would look really dorky" but my second thought was, "I live in Michigan, anything that might keep my ears warm is a good idea." So I was going to go for the full length, but last night I tried it on at about 10" or so and realized I wanted it much shorter. I frogged back to about 6.5" and that seems to be a perfect length for me. I can fold it over itself once and it looks really smooth and nice, or I can unfold it and have it look sorta wrinkly and floppy and cozy. Either way it's wonderfully warm and I know I'm going to wear it to death once it gets cold out!

I do have to say that the yarn is a little itchy, which I didn't even notice until now. I think I was too smitten with the color to even think about how it felt.

Aunt Andrea and I are going yarn-shopping this weekend, so hopefully I'll have another new project to share soon! Or, you know, I could finish the hat that's been sitting untouched for two months, but...yeah, I'll probably just start another cowl or some socks!

No, really! I mean it this time!

2008-07-17T11:44:00.005-04:00

From now on I am updating this thing at least once per week, whether I have anything to say or not! Sound good?

I still don't have much to tell you about knitting. I'm working on a Sherbrooke Cowl, using Mountain Colors Mountain Goat yarn in the most beautiful colorway, Juniper. It's an easy, fun project but it's going slowly for me, since I only work on it about once a week, while I'm tutoring my brother Danny (who turned ten the other day, can you believe that?!).

Here it is a few weeks ago -- it's grown several inches since then. I took that picture to illustrate my resourcefulness regarding stitch markers. See, I bought the needles for this project right before attending a belly dance performance at Crazy Wisdom (which was amazing, by the way). I had the yarn in my bag, of course, and I just could not resist casting on while waiting for the dancers to begin! I hadn't brought any stitch markers, though, so I made use of one of my rings. It was a little bulky to knit around but it got the job done.

Too hot to knit!

2008-06-24T14:36:00.003-04:00

Oh, yikes, has it really been over a month yet again? It has, and I don't even have that much to show for it. What can I say, summer weather doesn't really inspire me to knit much. I know some of you make some really cute tanks and whatnot, but I just haven't found any of those that really grab me, at least not yet. Instead I've decided to use my summer knitting time on small winter accessories, some for me & some to give away when it gets a little colder out. At the moment I have a hat & a scarf on the needles, both of which haven't been touched for weeks & weeks. The hat's for me and the scarf is for a friend.

I've been enjoying my summer despite the lack of knitting, though! I've been reading constantly, of course, and doing yoga, cooking, baking, & working in my garden.

Oh, wait, I do have something I can show you! Here's my friend Steve modeling the hat I made him ages ago:

I took way too long to send it to him, but since he lives in Alberta he said it's still useful, even this time of year. I'm glad!

Also, I had the good fortune to win a copy of Sew U Home Stretch from Dramatis Personae a while back! Thanks to that & some of the other beautiful hand-sewn items I've seen around, I'm itching to actually learn how to use my machine. With any luck, you'll see some sewing posts here soon!

Cloud Bolero: SO much better!

2008-05-17T11:00:00.006-04:00

I ripped out that silly picot edging and did garter stitch instead:

I think garter was what I was originally planning when I started this 8 million years ago, but some Ravelers had such cute picot-edged versions that I guess I forgot. Anyway, yesterday a very helpful commenter suggested that garter would help tone down the flaring at the bottom without me needing to do any shaping (thanks!). It definitely did help. The loose fit still bothers me a little, but only a little. Overall I really like this!

I'll probably make another someday, with sleeves, but this one is really great for throwing over tank tops or sundresses. I'd love to find a nice brooch to fasten it at the top, but for now wearing it open is fine too.

The pattern is pretty great but I hated the way it was written & had some real trouble following it -- of course, a lot of that was probably just the fact that it was my first lace project. The thing that bothered me the most was that she has you cast on extra stitches to fill the gap created by binding off the sleeve stitches. Maybe it's just the way I did it, but it makes the underarm area of my sweater look horrible and just sort of adds unnecessary bulk to an already loose-fitting garment. So, next time around I'll be skipping that part. Still, I think the designer is a genius and I want to make more of her stuff soon! She has some great hats and I'm developing a slight hat obsession right now. :)

Cloud Bolero: Kinda Finished.

2008-05-16T12:43:00.002-04:00

So I'm done with the Cloud Bolero & my feelings are very mixed:

(Try to ignore all those ends I haven't yet woven in!)
Don't get me wrong, I think it might be the prettiest thing I've ever knit! But I am much less than thrilled with the picot edging (translation: all those silly little triangles at the bottom) and also with the way it fits. It's perfect around my neck & shoulders, but it really flares out at the bottom. Soooooooo I think I have to rip out the picot edging (which I suspect will be a hellish endeavor) & maaaybe even go back farther to add shaping (which I am probably too lazy to do). I am totally not excited to do those things, which of course is why I am taking & posting pictures rather than doing them. :)

NOT DEAD! (+ my first pair of socks!)

2008-05-15T14:28:00.005-04:00

Hi, blog, remember me? No? That's ok, it's been a million years and I don't really have a very good excuse. I know there were final exams in there somewhere, & then my wonderful friend Linn visited for a week, but really I could've taken the time to put up a post or two even in the middle of those things.

Sorry. I'll be better from here on out, I promise!*

The upside of me having abandoned you for nearly a whole month is that now I have lots of cool things to show you. I won't cram them all into one post, but for now I will show you my completed pair of socks:

Aren't they lovely? I finished the second one while my friend Linn was visiting from Toronto. We took a trip down to Illinois to visit my beloved Aunt Deb while she was here, & on the way we knit & knit & knit. Here's the trippiest sock-in-progress photo you ever will see, taken in Chicago's famous "bean" sculpture:

And here we are knitting in Millennium Park:

A busload of senior citizens happened to arrive while we were doing that, and of course many of the women told us how happy they were to see us knitting, and one old man asked to take that picture. Cute! (Yes, Linn is borrowing a Calorimetry I made.)

When I finally did finish that sock, it might've attacked Linn:

Ahahahaha! Best sock photo EVER!

You can see the rest of the pictures from Linn's visit here.

So, I think S. succeeded in her mission & got me a little bit addicted to sock-knitting. There will definitely be more in my future! For these I used the provisional cast-on, short row toe, & short row heel. I hated the provisional cast-on the first time around, but the second time I used a smoother cotton yarn for the crocheted part & found I didn't mind it at all. Also, the short row heel on my first sock is a little holey but on the second one I just picked up some stitches where the holes were threatening to form & it looks perfect. I definitely liked the toe-up method overall, but I am interested to learn some more toe & heel methods in the future!

Since then I've been working on a pair of legwarmers adapted from a sock pattern -- more on those soon. Cherie Amour is on hiatus still, but yesterday I finally picked the Cloud Bolero back up. It had been lying neglected & untouched for longer than this blog had, if you can believe that. Now I'm in the middle of binding off the body (woohoo!) & I need to hurry up & decide what I want to do about sleeves. The original pattern doesn't really have any & I keep waffling on whether I want to stick with that or not, and then of course if I am going to do sleeves I need to figure out how I want to approach them. Hmmm...

Anyway, I promise it won't be a month until next time!

* Maybe.

In all its glory.

2008-04-17T17:26:00.001-04:00

My first sock!
I'm almost done with the toe on the second one.

First sock finished!! (+ stalling on my other projects...)

2008-04-16T23:37:00.002-04:00

Guys!!! I finished my first sock!! No pictures until tomorrow, I'm afraid (I tried taking some just now but the light is, of course, much too low), but trust me that it's spectacular and that I love it very, very much. The feeling of finishing your first of a certain thing is always so great. I still remember dancing around like a complete nerd after finishing my first hat, and the feeling of finishing the first sock is similarly wonderful. Hopefully that'll motivate me to get started & make some progress on the second one soon!

My other projects, unfortunately, are still kind of on hold. With the Cloud Bolero, I still just need to sit down with the pattern, but I haven't really had the time or patience for it yet. I've honestly been much too busy, and the next week is only going to be worse. In the next 7 days I have more papers and exams than I even want to list, so I don't think I can do anything with the bolero until those are finished...

Then there's Cherie Amour. I'm halfway through the waist shaping but the sloppiness of my ssk's on the bottom is really bothering me. They're really lumpy, but I rather stupidly assumed that perhaps that was just the nature of ssk's and that I shouldn't really try to fix it. Yesterday I read this thread on Ravelry, though, & now I'm thinking there might be some ways to fix up my technique. So the question, of course, is: do I start the whole sweater over, or just do the "better" ssk's from here on out? I can't quite decide.

Anyway, I mainly just wanted to share my delight over finishing that sock. :) I'll be back soon with photos + a new cookie recipe to blog about, FINALLY.

Springy knitting.

2008-04-10T12:03:00.005-04:00

Hi, everyone! I'm sorry it's been so long. I still haven't been baking, unfortunately (except for bread), but I'm knitting a lot and kinda jumping from project to project. The Cloud Bolero has hardly been touched since my last post. My stitch count is way off so I need to sit down with the pattern & figure out where I went wrong and how to fix (or, more likely, fudge) it. Since I'm too lazy to do that, I started Cherie Amour & got up to the waist shaping. I don't have any very good pictures of it just yet, but my cat Bob seems to like it, at least:

By the time I finish that and the bolero it will (hopefully) be too warm to wear either of them. I am 100% ok with that, believe me!

Most excitingly, though, I've been working on my first sock! I know, I know, it seems like just yesterday I was saying I would never do socks, but it turns out they're actually really fun and quick. Here's mine over the weekend:

It's grown quite a bit since then, actually. I'm already up past the heel. I love how quickly it moves and it's great to have in my purse to work on whenever I get bored. And isn't the yarn gorgeous? These socks are my contribution to Lynn of ColorJoy's "Knitting Spring into Existence" project. I think it's working, too!

A pretty WIP & some pretty yarn!

2008-03-28T17:00:00.005-04:00

My knitting just made my day!! I picked the cloud bolero back up a few days ago and finally got to the part where I separated the sleeves from the body. This is my first remotely lacy project and it's been sort of tough to tell what's going on while it's on the needles, so I really wasn't sure how it was looking. Once I finally had the sleeves separated, I could try it on & find out, and it turns out that I LOVE IT!

I can't believe it was actually making sense that whole time! The pattern as written would have that be all for the sleeves -- I was actually supposed to do a picot bind-off on the last row. But I think that looks kind of stupid, so I'm going to go for probably 3/4-length sleeves. I'll figure it out when I've got the body done.

Also, my yarn from HandPaintedYarn.com came yesterday!!

It has more hot pink than I expected, and pink's not usually a color I go for, but isn't it beautiful? It's going to be Cherie Amour!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Sad news + cookie #8.

2008-03-24T21:16:00.005-04:00

Sorry for my absence of late. I haven't been doing nearly enough knitting or baking, but I have an excuse: after over 2 and a half years together, Brian & I broke up last week. Yeah. That's about enough to kill anyone's inspiration for a little while, don't you think? Well, perhaps you would actually think that knitting & baking would bring me lots of comfort during such a time but instead I've been going for the most mindless activities possible: reading guilty pleasure blogs, playing solitaire on my computer, whining endlessly to my friends on the phone, and taking as many hot baths as I can. I'm starting to feel a little better, but obviously it'll take me some time to get over this. Never doubt anyone who tells you long-distance relationships are insanely difficult! It was mainly the distance, I think, that did us in, and I'm hoping we might be able to give it another try in the future, some time when we're actually living in the same state, but...hey, this is already more than I wanted to say about it on a public blog, so I'll leave it at that.

If you do go through a break-up, I probably won't be the only one to recommend chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate as a coping strategy. In fact, if I really like you, I'll probably make you a bunch of these phenomenal cookies:

Recipe: Chewy Brownie Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
Modifications: I think I halved it, but other than that I didn't change much.
Review: PERFECTION. Chocolatey, peanut buttery perfection. If the whole point of this project weren't to try lots of different recipes, and if I didn't have a desire to be at least slightly healthy, I would just make these every few weeks for the rest of my life.

Hopefully next time I'll have some knitting content. I am deeply ashamed that I've been staring at that gorgeous yarn for almost two weeks without knitting it, but as soon as I can get some teeny tiny sock needles I'll be all over it, I promise! I also ordered some stuff from HandPaintedYarn.com, so you know I'll be showing that off when it arrives. And I'm still working on the little iPod cozy, but it's my knitting-in-public project and I haven't done that for a while. The Cloud Bolero is still happening, too, it's just at a standstill for the moment.

At least Spring is almost here, right? I'm excited to see the snow melting, FINALLY. A belated Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it!

Gorgeous Yarn!

2008-03-12T22:10:00.003-04:00

So I finished my Montana Scarf over the weekend but I don't have any good pictures of it yet -- I never seem to think of it until it's dark, and the few I've tried in the sunlight are just unacceptably crappy. I also can't show you pictures of the hat I knit for a friend over the weekend (not until I send it to him, anyway), and the Felted iPod Cozy I started yesterday is too boring to warrant photographing at this point (picture a green stockinette tube & you've got it). But I can make up for this lack of FO/WIP photos with some seriously beautiful yarn:

Are you drooling yet? That's 2 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Watercolor.

And this is 2 skeins of Claudia Hand-Painted Fingering Merino Wool in Caribbean Blue.
So, reason #230483240238 why you should join a knitting group in your area? Because if you say on your blog that you want to get started on socks, incredibly beautiful sock yarn might just come your way! Seriously, how lucky am I? The wonderful S. of Short N Crafty Sista read about my interest in socks & gathered up a whole bag of sock yarn that had green in it, since she needed to destash & doesn't care for green. I got to pick the two delicious yarns pictured above (an excruciatingly tough choice, by the way, since there were several other beautiful options), and everyone else got to take the rest. There aren't even any words for how grateful I am for this, but it definitely made my week!

I was up wayyyy too late last night trying to find suitable patterns for these. My first socks should probably be pretty simple, I figure, but I also want patterns worthy of these incredible yarns. I've pretty much ignored sock patterns up until now, so "overwhelmed" doesn't begin to cover how I feel looking through them now! There are so many! I'm starting to narrow it down, though, and hopefully I can start soon. I still need to get some of those tiny little sock needles, though -- I was going to run out & buy some today, but I think I might try to be patient and order some KnitPicks needles soon instead, since there are a few sizes I need for upcoming projects.

I did go yarn shopping over the weekend, too! I picked up some Berocco Peruvia in Maroon. (I almost went for green but I'm trying to branch out colorwise.) I'm using it on my aran weight version of Ysolda Teague's Cloud Bolero (Ravelry link). I am insanely nervous about this pattern, since I've never really done lace before, and I fully expect to make 10,000 stupid mistakes and have to restart it more than once. So far, though, it's going decently (knock on wood). I started it last night and have only moved through 10 or so rows, but it looks impressively lacy & lovely and I'm very excited about it!

Culinary Adventures.

2008-03-07T12:09:00.005-05:00

Knitting has been going very sloooooowly lately, intentionally. I just don't want to finish my scarf so I'm dragging it out. You all did give me some good ideas on what to do next, though, so thank you! I'm starting to think that maybe I'm being a little silly to insist on something springy next, considering that there are still several inches of snow on the ground & we're supposed to get more today. So I might cast on for some mittens soon, because it looks like I'd certainly have time to use them.

While I haven't been knitting, I've been baking & cooking! That's something I really missed doing in Montana, so you bet I've been taking advantage of kitchen access since getting home. I've made two batches of cookies so far.

Cookie #6: Oatmeal Gingersnaps
Recipe: I found this on a friend's blog that isn't publicly accessible and then I modified it a bit, so here's my version:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger
Pinch allspice
Additional sugar

Cream butter sugar together in large mixing bowl. Beat in egg and molasses. Combine the dry ingredients and gradually add them to the creamed mixture. Roll into 1-inch balls, then roll balls in additional sugar. Place about 2" apart on greased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until set.

* The original recipe called for ground cloves, which I didn't have, but I do think they'd be a nice addition.

Review: You need to make these NOW! Everyone who tasted one loved them. My mom even sent me a text message that said "Cookies stupendous! Magnificent! Freaking good!" They were soft and chewy and gingery and molasses-y and just perfect. They reminded me of the fantastic molasses cookies my friend's extremely talented grandpa makes, and that's saying a lot. The ginger flavor is very strong, by the way, so if you don't consider that a good thing you might want to reduce the amount of ground ginger. Also these keep really well and stay perfectly soft in an airtight container. So, yes, stop reading this and go make some! You won't regret it.

Cookie #7: Black Forest Cookies
Recipe: Black Forest Cookies

Modifications: None made intentionally, but I have a bad habit of skimping on add-ins, and also of not measuring them, so I think I didn't add quite enough walnuts or cranberries to these.

Review: This is a soft, fluffy chocolate cookie filled with walnuts, sweetened dried cranberries, and chocolate chips. The flavors work together beautifully, but the base chocolate cookie is just kinda "meh." Using dark instead of milk chocolate might've improved that, and perhaps I'll try that next time. Also, make sure to use lots of dried fruit & nuts in these, because the cookies that are heavy on those are the really tasty ones.

* * *
Of course I've been making some things aside from cookies, too! Last weekend I made scones for the first time. Dried Cherry Chocolate Chip Scones, to be specific. I skipped the orange peel & almond extract and just used milk with a dash of vinegar for the buttermilk. Having never made scones before, I was nervous about how they'd come out, but they were absolutely delicious! I gave most of them to my mom to take to a potluck at her work, but I saved a bit of dough in the fridge and the next morning had fresh, hot scones for breakfast. Mmm!

I promise I haven't been entirely focused on unhealthy baked goods, though! I made homemade Lara-type bars just the other day and loved them. Have any of you had Lara bars? They're great! Despite my best attempts to eat homemade everything, I tend to make food that isn't really portable, and so before long days at school I usually find myself checking out nutrition bars and the like at the grocery store. Most of them are full of the kind of unpronounceable ingredients that scare me right off, but Lara bars are refreshing in that they only have a handful of ingredients, and all of them are things you've heard of and feel comfortable eating. For the most part, they're just pureed dates with some nuts, spices, or dried fruit mixed in. And did I mention that, on top of all of this, they actually taste really really good? So of course I had to try making a couple on my own! Mine were sloppier than the packaged ones, but otherwise good, and I'll definitely be trying to improvise some cool flavor combinations in the future.

Also, yesterday I made my first tofu scramble. Heidi Swanson at 101cookbooks.com had intrigued me with the idea a couple weeks ago, and once I tried a bite of Brian's curry tofu scramble at the delicious Missoula breakfast joint Food For Thought, I was sold on the concept. Admittedly, I've never really eaten scrambled eggs (yes, seriously), so I don't know how/if a tofu scramble compares to that, I just know that I liked it! I kinda sorta followed the Heidi Swanson recipe but I wanted a spicier version, so I used lots of cayenne pepper, cumin, & turmeric. Then, because we had some, I topped it with crumbled vegetarian "bacon." It was really quick, tasty, satisfying meal, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with the recipe some more. Unfortunately I can't give you anyone else's review of it, because as I was packaging up the leftovers for Mom to take to work, I spilled them all over the floor! Talk about disappointing.

Anyway, I'm sure you were all pretty thoroughly bored with this, so I promise the next post will have some more knitting content and, if we're lucky, maybe some pretty yarn pictures, since Knit A Round is having their winter sale this weekend!

Give me ideas!

2008-03-04T21:44:00.002-05:00

I have lots of baking goodness to share, but first let me just beg you guys to help me get inspired. I'm dangerously close to finishing my scarf and I have no idea what to knit next. What should I make for spring? I have some ideas so far but nothing that's really standing out and it's sort of depressing. Luckily I'll be yarn shopping this weekend, so I think that'll help.

Also, I've decided that I'm ready to come over to the Dark Side. That's right, guys -- I want to start knitting socks. I know that some of you bad influences have been waiting for this moment, so please recommend me some good beginner patterns and fill me in on where to find affordable sock yarn. (I just realized that this is a seasonally inappropriate urge on my part, since I never even wear socks when it's warm out, but...I guess I'll just be really prepared for next fall & winter!)

Vacation photos & FO's!

2008-03-01T12:11:00.006-05:00

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long absence. I only just got back the other day from my lovely week in Montana and I have lots to share! It was an absolutely beautiful trip and you can see all my best pictures from it here. Here are previews of some of my very favorite ones:

In every picture of me in that album, I am wearing something I knit! That's partly because I stayed up very late the night before my flight seaming the right sleeve on my green cropped cardigan so I'd be able to wear it during my trip. Here I am wearing it (and my Calorimetry!) on the first evening:

And here are some closer views:

I didn't have time to make a button loop or sew a button on before my flight, but now I've gotten so used to wearing it open like a shrug that I'm not sure I'll bother. I did buy a beautiful bone button for it at a bead shop in Missoula, though:

The cardigan got a lot of wear & many compliments during my stay, but I definitely needed something to keep the chill off my neck, so I cast on for a little neck-warmer during my layover in Denver. A few days later I had this:

Here's a closer shot, enthusiastically modeled by my poor cat Bob:

And one last close-up with the button:

I love the way the stitch pattern works with the subtle variations in the yarn! The pattern is here but I skipped the buttonholes because I couldn't settle on where to place them. Instead, I've just been shoving the one button through one of the naturally occurring holes in the stitch pattern. It works well enough like that. The only thing I dislike at all about this is how horribly it rolls. I knew it would but I was definitely in denial -- if I make this again, you bet there'll be a garter stitch border. As for this one, I'm hoping blocking or maybe crocheting the edges will help.

Of course I also bought yarn & started a souvenir scarf in Missoula, but I'll tell you all about that once I've finished it &/or taken some good pictures. For now I'm trying to catch up on all the blog posts I missed and I'll definitely be making some cookies later in the day. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Twin Calorimetries & Cookie #5.

2008-02-15T18:14:00.006-05:00

Hi everyone! Sorry for being so quiet lately. It's been an insanely busy week. I was battling a sinus infection, helping out at my aunt's flower shop, and doing lots of school work. Now I'm feeling better, done with the flower shop until Mother's Day, and wishing I could spend the weekend kicking back & relaxing with some good knitting. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. I have midterms next week & therefore tons of reading/studying/writing/etc. to do, plus I'm leaving for Montana Thursday (yay!) so there are things I want to get out of the way before then. Blah.

I've barely knit at all since completing that hat, though I did take a trip to an LYS just the other day, in search of yarn for a nice neck-warmer. I left with a nice big skein of Araucania Nature Wool. It's very pretty but it's also much thinner than I'd realized at the time, almost more of a heavy DK than a light worsted, and I'd wanted a heavy worsted. Oops. So I don't know what I'm going to do about that. I did find a pattern I liked written for 2 strands of DK held together, so I might use that. I might also just go buy different yarn over the weekend, we'll see.

The cardigan is moving slowly. Well, really it's not moving at all, because I STILL haven't started the second sleeve. I don't know why, but I always convince myself that picking up stitches is some horrible ordeal that I just don't want to deal with yet. In reality it's an easy & quick thing to do, but I put it off anyway. I promise I'm starting that sleeve tonight, though!

I can finally show you the two Calorimetries I made last week, though, since my friend Kenna received hers the other day & seems to like it! :) Here's a picture of her wearing it:

I was so happy when she sent me that! It just feels really good to see something you made being used by the recipient. I'm sure you all know what I mean. Here are some other shots I took of it before sending it off:

The orange was my favorite color in there and I'm thrilled that I had a button that worked with it so well. Also this yarn makes me want to take back every mean thing I've ever said about multi-colored yarns because it's so damn beautiful, especially with this pattern!

As you know, as soon as I finished that one for Kenna I cast on this one for myself:

The lighting is all weird/cool because I took these as the evening sunlight was streaming in through my favorite window. I've been wearing it nearly every day & loving how warm it keeps my ears.

For both of these I cast on 96 stitches & only did 5 repeats of row 5. To get 2 out of just one skein, I had to cheat a little on mine & knit to 8 stitches past the marker on a couple of the last rows. I was nervous about that but it worked out fine.
***
I really need to finally blog Cookie #5, since it's been at least a week since I made it!

Recipe: Chai Snickerdoodles

Modifications: I don't think I made any other than halving the recipe because having that many cookies around didn't seem particularly wise.

Review: I was so excited when I saw this recipe! I love snickerdoodles & I love chai, so combining the two seemed brilliant. Basically it's a traditional snickerdoodle recipe, but instead of rolling the dough in a simple cinnamon-sugar mixture, you add cardamom, ginger, & allspice, too! I love those spices & had fun mixing them up & making the cookies, but the end result tasted almost exactly like a basic snickerdoodle to me. I'm not complaining, since there is nothing bad at all about a basic snickerdoodle, but I was mildly disappointed that the chai flavor wasn't very pronounced. There's a good chance I'll try these again & just use much more cardamom, ginger, & allspice -- if I do, I'll let you know how it goes!

Right now I've got a loaf of this in the oven and if it tastes half as good as it looks & smells right now I'll be in heaven. I keep making breads & not blogging them! Basically that oatmeal bread I gushed about a couple weeks ago is on its way to becoming a weekly staple. Everyone likes it and the few scraps that are left over at the end of the week become the most delicious croutons the world has ever known. I also tried making English muffins for the first time a while back, following this recipe. I was amazed by how good they were for a first attempt, but they still weren't perfect. They were bland and I also didn't roll the dough out thin enough at all. My family still liked them but I hope to do better next time. If nothing else it was satisfying to know that I made them out of a few simple ingredients while the ones from the store have an ingredient list that's about two inches long and filled with unpronounceable words.

Ok, that's all for now, have a great weekend everyone!

FO: Cabled Earflap Hat.

2008-02-10T11:02:00.000-05:00

Hi all! I've gotten a lot of knitting done in the past week and I FINALLY finished this hat I'd been working on for ages:

(let's not talk about how badly I need to get my hair trimmed, k?)
I had actually finished the hat portion a little over a week ago but I didn't like the way it fit, so I ripped back & redid it. That also enabled me to be a perfectionist about the cables, since I'd accidentally done some of them pretty unevenly the first time.

All things considered, I'm not sure how much I like it. It was fun to knit and it's warm as can be, but it looks silly on me. I don't know why I jumped immediately from my recent & dubious conclusion that I can theoretically look halfway decent in some hats sometimes to the idea that I should wear a cabled hat with ear flaps. I think I skipped some steps in there. Also, much as I love Malabrigo, I wish I'd used a more solid yarn. When I used this for Brian's hat it was absolutely perfect, but somehow here it's too stripy and I think it distracts from the cables. But, hey, I'm off to Montana in 11 days, and I bet I'll be grateful for it there -- or here, for that matter, considering that our high temperature today is 15°F and with the wind chill I don't think it's getting above zero at all.

Also, the way the pattern is finished at the top is the usual (and, I think, fun!) step of cutting the yarn & pulling it through the live stitches, but in this case I think there were too many live stitches & the hole left by them is unacceptably big, in my opinion. So if I do it again I'll somehow work another decrease round in there before finishing.

Anyway, the pattern is here and the yarn is the incomparably soft & wonderful Malabrigo Chunky. Project details at Ravelry, of course.

I also made another Calorimetry for myself, out of the same beautiful yarn I used for my friend's. Still no pictures until she gets hers, since they look basically the same, but trust me, it's perfect!

Now I'm just dying to get to a yarn store. I do still need to do the second sleeve on my cropped cardi, make my friend Steve a hat, and maybe churn out a few more of those cute little hearts & things for Valentine's gifts. But what I really want to make is a neck-warmer for myself. I only became aware of the existence of the neck-warmer a few months ago, via this pattern, and my main thought was that it was super-cool but I couldn't picture anyone wearing it in real life ever. Now, though, I've seen the light, thanks to contemplating traveling to Montana in this weather. I only own 3 scarves (probably pretty strange for a knitter). One is the first thing I ever knit, of course, and it's lovely but acrylic and so not very warm at all. The other two were made by friends and are phenomenally warm, but one is so huge it's almost more like a shawl and the other is extremely delicate & full of sentimental value, so neither are really things I want to travel with. But a neck-warmer! It would be quick and cute and get the job of the scarf done without the bulk! I'm so sold on this idea. I have cute buttons ready & everything! I just need to get back to Knit A Round so I can use more of that wonderful gift card from Aunt Amy...

I have been baking quite a bit lately and Cookie #5 was delicious -- I'll post about that soon! I hope you're all having a great weekend.

A disappointing day with some good knitting.

2008-02-05T23:32:00.000-05:00

I was so excited to go meet up with my fellow knitters at Caribou tonight but it did not work out. I had a paper I needed to finish first and I definitely thought it would be done by the early afternoon but every time I read back over it I noticed contradictions and flaws, and basically it's 11:30ish now and the thing is STILL not done. Ugh. I've never struggled so much with a paper. Pretty soon I'm going to just save what I have and resolve to turn it in whether I think it's perfect or not, but I thought I'd take a break & post before going over it for the gazillionth (and hopefully LAST) time.

I've been taking lots of breaks, really, to try to clear my head & be able to return to the paper with a fresh perspective. Usually that helps. Today it didn't but I still did some cool stuff with my breaks. For one thing, I finished a second Calorimetry as a gift for my wonderful friend Kenna. I can't show you a picture of it before I give it to her, but I can show you the yarn:

Filatura di Crosa 127 print in colorway 50, "Forest"

Isn't it gorgeous? It's the first variegated yarn I've really liked and I truly love the way it knit up! I'll show you guys when I can.

I also finished seaming the first sleeve on my cropped cardigan, so you finally get a picture:

Isn't it cute? Eventually it'll close with a cool button, and don't mind all that white yarn -- it's just a lifeline. I took much longer to knit the sleeve than to knit the body, and longer still to seam the damn sleeve. I think this just goes to show how much I hate doing boring things. :)

Ok, ok, back to work!

Cookie #4 + a great package.

2008-02-03T21:56:00.000-05:00

First of all, I made cookie #4 for the year a couple nights ago. I'm a big fan of anything that involves a combination of spiciness & chocolate, so as soon as I came across a recipe for Mexican Hot Chocolate Butter Cookies, there was no turning back!

Recipe: Mexican Hot Chocolate Butter Cookies (last one on the page)

Modifications: Though there is no yield amount given in the recipe (one of the many flaws in its writing), it looked like it would be a lot so I cut just about everything in half. I skipped the espresso beans because (a) we didn't have any and (b) I'm not that big on coffee flavoring, though it can be nice. Instead of rolling the log of dough in crushed nuts, I sprinkled some on top just before baking. That was my step-dad's idea and I think they were more aesthetically appealing that way.

Finally, I used regular old sugar instead of Sucanat. I'm sure Sucanat is a little better for you, but it also comes from sugarcane. I'm 99% sure there are no sugarcane plantations in Michigan (or in the Midwest at all, for that matter), so that means sugarcane products aren't getting to me without lots & lots of fossil fuels. Add to that the fact that regular white sugar is one of the only local products I can buy in a huge supermarket and, well, I'm opting for the white sugar, at least for right now.

Review: The recipe itself is kinda terribly written, to the point where it doesn't even tell you how long you need to bake the cookies! Luckily that did not stop them from being delicious. My step-dad, who ordinarily does not eat much and definitely does not gush about what he does eat, wolfed down several of these and was singing their praises for the rest of the night! The cookies were crispier than I usually like, but the texture suited them well. Also, cinnamon and chocolate is the world's greatest combination and I hope there's a damn good reason it doesn't show up in baked goods more often. From here on out, I'll be mixing the two whenever I can. I have to admit, though, that the spiciness I was seeking wasn't really there at all -- next time, more cayenne!

***
The best part about yesterday was finding a huge envelope addressed to me. It was my first ever package from Finland! You may remember that I had the awesome luck of winning a Hasbu's birthday blog contest. Here are my great prizes:

There's yarn, of course! Two skeins of Sandnes Garn Fritidsgarn, dark green 100% wool. I'd never heard of it before getting this package but people on Ravelry have done beautiful work with it. I think I want to try a felted pattern, since it seems so well-suited to that. Right now I'm leaning toward mittens, since I've been wanting to make myself a pair...

In the package I also found some crushed caramel-coated almonds to bake with and 2 bars of unbelievably good Finnish chocolate. I'm so touched that Hasbu thought of my baking and I'm looking forward to using those almonds in something! And the chocolate, oh god! I'm usually a dark chocolate kind of girl, but apparently the Finns know what they're doing with milk chocolate, because it is flavorful & creamy & perfect. Kiittää te Hasbu!! (An internet translator told me that that's "thank you" in Finnish -- I hope it's right!)

Bloggers' Silent Poetry Reading.

2008-02-02T23:59:00.000-05:00

So apparently today is the Bloggers' (Silent) Poetry Reading, though I didn't figure that out until after midnight...luckily I can just change the post options & you won't know that I'm actually posting this at 1 AM on the 3rd (except because I just told you). Also, oh god why am I still awake?

Anyway, this is apparently some kind of blogging tradition and involves bloggers sharing favorite poems. I'm notoriously awful at choosing favorites (or choosing much of anything, really) so I'm not going to try to define my all-time favorite poem here, but I will give you one of the many I love. For this year, we'll go with "From Blossoms," the poem behind my Ravelry user name:

From Blossoms
by Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

I first read that out loud to my best friend & my boyfriend in the back of an ancient van, on a day as completely perfect as the summer's juiciest peach. It was in an anthology of love poems we'd just bought at a tiny feminist bookstore in Marquette, Michigan. Here's one of the many pictures from that day that I absolutely treasure:

Me & my best friend Sara on the shore of Lake Superior, October 2005.
Such good memories! I'm getting ridiculously nostalgic here, but I promise I'm going to bed now so I can get up nice & early tomorrow to continue ignoring my homework, knit, and finally start posting about all that good stuff that I need to post about!

A very quick FO.

2008-02-02T17:35:00.000-05:00

I have SO MUCH to blog about, guys! Cookie #4, an AWESOME package from Hasbu, yarn shopping, and more! I'm going to make this just a quick post, though, to show off my latest tiny little FO, and I promise to start blogging all that other stuff tomorrow.

I absolutely hate Valentine's Day, ok? Or...I pretend to. It's definitely a lame Hallmark holiday that encourages people to associate romantic love with the conspicuous consumption of the products of some really brutal industries, blah blah blah. Stupid [hetero]sexist marketing, making single people feel crappy, etc. etc. etc. You know what else, though? Hearts are freaking adorable and I am a big sucker for heart-shaped anything, which means that I secretly love checking out Valentine's merchandise, even if I think the holiday itself is dumb. (Also Valentine's Day = people buying flowers, which means I get to help out at my aunt's flower shop & make some money!) Anyway, you can only imagine my delight, then, at creating this inside of an hour:

It's a TINY WOOLLY HEART!! I challenge you to imagine anything more ~~useless~~ awesome.

I used this pattern but skipped the filling & eyes. I wanted something flat to mail inside a letter or card. I did felt it, though, just to see what that was like -- I did it by hand in the sink, just to the point where it started to get a little fuzzier & smaller. That looked good to me so I stopped. Like I said, I will probably make zillions more of these -- such a combination of instant gratification and cuteness pretty much demands that I do. And imagine all the dumb stuff you could do with them! Valentine's cards! Patches! Um...cards for other occasions! Magnets! Ornaments! ...Things that you can just kinda have and look at!! See, they are totally useful items.

K, like I said, more tomorrow!

A flower & an FO.

2008-01-31T12:54:00.000-05:00

After all those boring pictureless posts, I bring you something pretty:

That's the amaryllis plant my family got for Christmas from my wonderful Aunt Andrea. At the time it didn't even look like a plant, just like something weird & ugly & spherical, but since then it's grown at crazy speed and that's one of its blossoms just the other day! I need to take some more pictures soon, since almost all the flowers are in bloom now and it's absolutely stunning.

I don't have any pictures of that cardigan but I've been working away at it. I finished the body in just a day but the sleeves are taking longer, primarily because they're boring. Also I really hate size 15 needles!

I finally made myself a Calorimetry! I cast on the other night so I would have something to work on at school, should the need arise, since the cardigan was getting too big to carry around & I have to do some math before I continue with the hat. Then I woke up yesterday morning and our power was out thanks to the wind. It was something like 15 degrees outside, with a wind chill closer to ten below zero, and I instantly started cursing myself for (a) having abandoned the hat I'm working on for so long and (b) giving away so many of the warm, woolen, wintry things I've made. And so I spent the morning standing in front of our gas stove, all 4 burners on, with a ball of yarn under my arm that quickly turned into this:

Ok, I really didn't finish it until after school yesterday evening, but it was still the quickest project I've ever done. I really like it, too! The yarn is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes and I'd ordered a skein just to test it out & see if it really was as good a deal as it seemed. My verdict is that it is! It's not the softest thing but it's not very itchy, either. I had no problems working with it and isn't that color (Sapphire Heather) gorgeous? The photo doesn't quite do it justice but it's the prettiest blue I've seen. And, well, at $2 for 110 yards, I can definitely see this yarn becoming a mainstay in my stash.

I'll be doing that pattern a few more times, too. I want to make some for gifts and probably more for me, too. If/when I do find a self-striping yarn I actually like, it'll be great. Actually, I think I did find one I like: Berocco Jasper. Look at those colors! People on Ravelry have made some truly gorgeous things with it, so here's hoping I see it in an LYS sometime soon!

I do have an LYS trip planned for Saturday. I'll be going back to Knit A Round with my beloved Aunt Andrea to return that last skein of Ironstone Harmony & spend the gift card my equally beloved Aunt Amy got me for Christmas. I actually want to talk yarn some more here but this has gotten long already, so I'll make that another post in the near future.

Before I go, though, I do want to make a note of just how hip my family is: my Aunt Amy now has a blog, too! It's The Alphabetical Vegetarian and there's not much there yet but I'm looking forward to reading more. Both of my aunts are witty & brilliant so of course I'm glad to see them sharing some of their genius with the world. If only we could get my mom blogging...we'd have to teach her how to use the internet first, though!

Baking! Breads & Cookie #3.

2008-01-28T21:01:00.001-05:00

I made my 3rd batch of cookies for the year just the other night. There are unfortunately no pictures because they've somehow all disappeared since then. You'll just have to trust me that they were pretty in addition to being tasty. I was craving my old favorite, the ever unpopular oatmeal raisin. Yes, that's really one of my favorite cookies ever. What can I say? Oats and raisins are two of the greatest things on earth as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, I almost went with the recipe I usually use, but something compelled me to flip through the meager Dessert section in my New Laurel's Kitchen cookbook. Lo & behold, a slightly more nutritious version of oatmeal raisin cookies! If you're going to make 50 cookies in a year you should probably try to make some of them that aren't 100% terrible for you, right? Right.

Recipe: Oatmeal School Cookies from The New Laurel's Kitchen.

Modifications: Tragically, I only had like 2 walnuts left in my cupboard (probably because I can't stop snacking on them), so I obviously didn't get to use the full amount. Also I left out wheat germ because I didn't have any because I can never find the damn stuff at the store. (I've honestly seen it once in my life, at Target, of all places.)

Review: HEAVENLY!! One bite & I knew this recipe had replaced my old stand-by. Despite being somewhat healthier, these are definitely not any less delicious than your usual oatmeal raisin cookies. Fresh out of the oven they're especially amazing, but I have to admit they didn't keep well. That's ok, though, because they will be eaten before anyone will ever have to worry about keeping them.
***
So, remember earlier when I said that I am a tremendous failure as a bread baker? No? That's ok, just trust that I said it, because up until last weekend it was true. It might still be true, actually, but there have been TWO recent instances of me making delicious bread! The first was last weekend, when I finally tried out the No-Knead Bread recipe I'd been eying for ages. The New York Times article about the recipe features a claim that it can be mastered by a four-year-old, though Mark Bittman himself revises that to an ambitious 8-year-old. I am older than both of those ages combined and at least a little ambitious with the baking, so I felt up to the task.

I mixed the dough up on a Saturday afternoon and then let it rest for a whole night, trying to contain my urge to constantly peel back the foggy plastic wrap & see what it was doing. After 18 hours of that I got to shape it & let it rise for forever before finally baking it. The patience was definitely the most difficult part of the whole equation but it was worth it because the product was my first decent loaf of non-bread-machine yeasted bread EVER! Admittedly, the crust was too tough & thick in many places, but it was still delicious, especially toasted. I'll probably play around with the recipe some more and hopefully master it someday. It's really amazing what you can do with just a few ingredients & a lot of time. For the record, I used a mixture of whole wheat and bread flours on that attempt.

Yesterday I made really good bread AGAIN! The bread machine was involved but I did some parts by hand & baked it in the oven, so it's still sort of an accomplishment. (For the record, I have nothing against the bread machine & it's actually one of the coolest things I own. But when you let it do all the work for you it's somehow less satisfying, plus the bread is never as crusty as I would like it to be.) The recipe was for oatmeal bread and it came off my bread flour bag. I used half whole wheat flour again, substituted water for the milk & olive oil for the butter, and left out the raisins because I wanted a simple toasting/sandwich bread. What I got was actually the best bread EVER! It toasts beautifully and would be perfect for grilled cheese but is also nice with just some jam or cheese or even on its own. The crust is the perfect thickness, just a little crunchy. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that this bread has been a component of all 3 meals I have eaten today, it is really that good. My family even likes it, too, so I just might have to get into the habit of making it regularly.

Frog City.

2008-01-27T21:13:00.000-05:00

Major sweater setback: I reached the last skein of yarn on my Hot Lava cardigan last night and did the math and...that one last skein just wasn't going to be enough to finish it. Woe! I seriously did the calculations over & over & over but there was no way they were going to work out. I was pretty disappointed about this earlier but I quickly moved on to finding other cute patterns for the yarn and I've now started on this one. I think I just might like it better than Hot Lava, actually, and it's the fastest knit EVER! I started it this morning and literally only have a few more rows to go on the body. If things continue at this rate I'll be wearing it before the week's halfway over, which would be awesome!

Amusingly, my spit splices were undetectable while I was frogging, so I now have this gigantic ball of wool that represents roughly 2.5 skeins. Way to go saliva!

There's a lot of frogging going on around here lately. The other night I also knit about half a Calorimetry before I had to come out of denial and admit to myself that I hated the yarn I was using. It's Crystal Palace Yarns Fjord Print (colorway Black Pearls) and I got it in the spirit of branching out and trying some variegated colorways instead of solids like I usually use. I've realized that there's a reason I use solids all the time, though, and it's that I don't like the way print yarns look...or at least I don't like this one. The color changes are too rapid and the colors are too different for my taste. On the off chance that any of you click on the link & like the way that it looks, I'd be all too happy to part with my one skein (though a small portion of it is, of course, lightly used thanks to my half Calorimetry) -- email me or message me on Ravelry if you have any interest.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed the Calorimetry pattern (yeah, I realize I'm late to this bandwagon!), so I'll be making more of those in prettier yarns very soon.

I've been far more successful with cooking and baking lately than with knitting. I made my 3rd batch of cookies for the year the other night and, surprisingly, I've been making really good bread, too. Also I've just been eating well generally, cooking most of my meals at home and actually paying some attention to proper nutrition, which is something of an accomplishment for me (as well as a 2008 resolution). Anyway, details, pictures, & recipes to follow. I hope you all had a great weekend!

LOTS of knitting going on!

2008-01-25T17:19:00.001-05:00

I'm definitely in a phase where I do not want to do anything but knit. It's not a bad thing, really, though I'm making myself stop for a few hours now because my hands are starting to hurt and I know I should at least look at my homework tonight if I don't want to spend the whole weekend on it (whether that knowledge will translate into action remains to be seen). I've gotten so much done this week, though!

Mainly I've been going crazy on my cardigan. That first sleeve took me 2 weeks to knit, mostly because I wasn't spending time on it each day. That is definitely no longer the case, as evidenced by the fact that the 2nd sleeve took me about 2 days and was completed just minutes ago. So now I have the "basic shrug" part done & need to create the bolero. Here's the shrug just a few minutes ago:

Isn't it lovely? This yarn is so pretty, though I have a sinking feeling that it's going to pill like crazy. Whatever. Those few rows of seed stitch are the spine of the sweater and the cuffs are also 2x2 seed. I reluctantly made them shorter than the pattern recommended, due to my fear of running out of yarn, but now I'm starting to think they're cute that way! And even with the short cuffs, the sleeves are plenty long.

I'm very nervous about making the bolero part. Ravelers seem pretty divided; some love it & some hate it. There are a lot of complaints about too much fabric in the back, where it does nothing but bunch up & look horrible. I wish I knew more about garment construction so I could modify it to avoid that, but...I don't. So for now I'm planning to follow the pattern and if I hate it I can always rip back.

Also, I started on that hat. After all my whining about needles it turned out I had a pair of circs that are perfect for just plain knitting in the round, if not for Magic Loop. Here it is so far:

Mmmmm, Malabrigo!!! There are no words that could truly express my love for this yarn! I was meaning to follow my friend Yoli's modifications to make the hat a bit smaller, but honestly (and I think largely because I've done most of the work in public) I keep forgetting where I'm at in the pattern and cabling at odd and uneven intervals. Oops? I guess I'm just going to keep doing that, more or less making up my own cable pattern, and if I like it that'll be awesome. If I don't, I'll get to rip back & knit with the beautiful Malabrigo all over again. Either way I win!

The time that I haven't spent on knitting I've spent on (what else?) Ravelry. That site should probably come with a warning label. Until recently I had just about no interst in groups but now I can't seem to stop joining them & reading posts. It's probably all down hill from here, folks...

Also I've been cooking & baking a bit, but I'll save that for another post. Have a fantastic weekend, everyone!

2008-01-22T22:37:00.000-05:00

This is just a quick note to say that spit-splicing is officially the grossest and GREATEST thing I have ever done while knitting! I hadn't heard of it before tonight, when it came up in conversation with my awesome knitting group. I ended up trying it just now, to join the 2nd & 3rd skeins of my cardigan, and it was SO COOL! No wasting precious yarn, no weaving in ends!!!! Definitely worth a few moments of feeling really weird about the fact that you are playing with spit and wool.

Ok, back to knitting, I just had to share my excitement!

Bad knitting day.

2008-01-21T23:12:00.000-05:00

For the most part, today was beautiful. It's Martin Luther King Day so I had the day off school, though my university tries to make it a "day of service," since volunteering in the community is a pretty appropriate way of honoring Dr. King's memory. I participated for the first time this year and it was really nice. I brought my younger sister along because she's been talking about wanting to do volunteer work and we spent the day helping out at Arts & Scraps in Detroit. At the end of the day she even won a raffle! The prize was a copy of some essays & speeches by MLK, which I will definitely be reading as soon as I can.

So, yeah, that part of the day was great, and afterwards we decided to check out a new-to-me LYS, The Yarn Tree in Flat Rock. Marj had mentioned that they were having a sale and that was all the motivation I needed to finally go check the place out. It was pretty cool! It's basically an old house packed from floor to ceiling with yarn. I liked it a lot and will be going back, but it was there that I began to suspect that the Knitting Gods (or whatever you want to call them) were not really on my side today. First I forgot my list of yarns I need for my upcoming projects, then they didn't have the needles I needed, then I just couldn't find the perfect yarn (and felt rushed because they were closing in like 5 minutes). In the end I left with only a skein of Crystal Palace Fjord Print, which I will probably use for a Calorimetry. I'm not complaining, but it wasn't quite the super-successful trip I had in mind, though that's primarily my fault.

It got so much worse when I got home, though. See, being the world's best big sister, I'd bought my sister a skein of Berocco Softwist in a beautiful, sparkly off-white. Intending to wind it into a ball, I untwisted the skein into a hank and, knowing that hanks are famously easy to tangle, was treating it with great caution until I set it down for a second...and my poor sister didn't know how likely it was to tangle...and she tried to pick it up, and next thing we knew we had a huge mess on our hands. And so I spent roughly an hour of my life meticulously untangling 100 yards of yarn. I'm proud to say that I got it all out and there are no knots in sight, but it was pretty torturous. Let's just say my sister kinda owes me...and also that I am very, very glad that I am now of legal drinking age because a glass of wine did make it mildly more bearable.

So, whatever I did to offend the Knitting Gods, you'd think so much time spent so carefully untangling and balling up yarn (for someone else's use, even!) would be enough to atone and have them back on my good side, right? Wrong. I think I'm just not meant to knit today! After that fiasco I tried to cast on for this hat I've been dying to make and just kept screwing up. First I knit with the tail instead of the working yarn, then I twisted the stitches when I was joining in the round (a first for me), and eventually I finally got it going...and had to conclude that my circular needle is way too short to Magic Loop it. :( At this point I think I'll just knit it flat and seam it. Yes, of course I HATE seaming, but I've gotten better at it and I do like it better than spending money on needles. My new goals is to save up for a good set of interchangeable circulars, which I'm sure would save me money in the long run anyway. Too bad I didn't think of this plan until after Christmas and my birthday, since it would've been a great big gift to ask for from my family. Oh well. Note to any relatives reading this: If you feel like spearheading the drive to commercialize Easter, or if perhaps you want to start a new Valentine's tradition of buying your beloved niece expensive knitting supplies, I'd just like to note that I'd support that wholeheartedly! Of course I'm just kidding! (...sort of)

Everyone has their off days, though, right? I did get a decent number of rows done on my cardigan today, so it wasn't all a waste. Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive, though. If nothing else, I'm going to Knit Night for the first time in approximately a zillion years!!! I can't wait to see everyone! I think I'm bringing my sister, too, which should be lots of fun, and I'll also bring along the rest of those Reese's cookies. Hope to see you there!

Cookie #2 & lots else.

2008-01-20T12:08:00.000-05:00

Last night I finally got around to making cookie #2 of my 50 for the year. The delicious cookies my step-mom had brought over for my birthday were officially a week old, so it was time to throw out the remaining couple of them (couple of pieces of them, I should say -- believe me, they were too good for anything but a few odd chunks & crumbs to be left uneaten) and make a new batch. Coincidentally, I also happened upon a recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Cookies! You can guess what happened next.

Recipe: Peanut Butter Cup Cookies from Six One Seven.

Modifications: None were made intentionally, though I did have slightly less than 20 mini Reese's cups because there were only 20 in my package and...well, could you look at 20 mini Reese's cups without eating at least one of them? Yeah, that's what I thought. Also, I had to sprinkle a lot of water into the dough as I was trying to form it because it was much too dry and crumbly.

Review: It's hard to go wrong with Reese's cups! Still, I think I'd change a few things about this. Like I said, the dough was very crumbly & really difficult to form without adding lots of water. In my opinion, the resulting cookie is a little too crunchy. It's nice dipped in milk but I'd prefer something chewier and softer and will probably aim for that next time. Finally, if you're going to make these be sure to take them out of the oven when they're barely beginning to look done! I took mine out when I thought they still looked somewhat underdone and the bottoms taste a little burnt even though they're a very light brown. Strange but true. Despite my minor complaints, though, these make for a very satisfying cookie! I'll probably make them again, though like I said I might try changing up the recipe to make them a bit softer.

***
You might remember Marj kindly listing me at her blog just the other day, on her list of "10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland." Now it's time for my list, though making it only 10 is a HUGE challenge! I'll try to stick only to crafty blogs to make it a bit easier on myself (though not too easy, because I have a whopping 46 blog subscriptions in my "crafty" folder on Google Reader). Here we go!

Yarn Harlot: Ok, this was an obvious one, but how could I not include her? If you've ever read her blog or one of her books, you'll know what I mean. She's roughly the funniest woman on the planet and I love seeing her creations.

Diane's Yarn Addiction: Diane may be slightly less well-known but I get excited whenever her blog's updated, too. :) She knits with me on our Tuesday Knit Nights (the ones I haven't been to in much too long!) and I'm amazed at all the great stuff she's constantly turning out.

Colorjoy!: I only found Lynn's blog a month or two ago but it's a particularly good one. Her knitting is very impressive but I mainly enjoy the thoughtfulness of her entries. The experience of reading her blog is really enhanced by the fact that she responds to blog comments with personal emails, giving you a chance to continue the conversation & interact in a way I really appreciate and haven't seen other bloggers do.

Peachcake Knits & Eats Gluten Free: I found Alex's blog a few months back because of her adorable patterns for cute little knitted fruits and quickly got hooked on following her posts. She's a very creative person and her baking, knitting, sewing, and other endeavors never fail to impress & inspire me. (The quilt she's working on right now is particularly awesome.)

My Knitting Island: Svetlana is amazing! I don't even understand how she does the things she does, churning out complicated sweaters & even dresses by the minute, often without a pattern. Go look, you won't regret it!

Hasbu's Hideaway: I only found Hasbu a few days ago, through Marj, but I loved looking through her blog & at her projects on Ravelry. I'm particularly enamored of her tweed skirt, which might be one of the most perfect knit skirts I've ever seen.

How About Orange?: This blogger doesn't knit, as far as I know, but she's a great designer who posts all kinds of cool & useful things, from printable greeting card templates to amazing cupcake recipes. I've found lots of good stuff through her posts.

Short & Crafty Sista: I love Sonya!! She's from Knit Night, too, and she's wonderful. You might want to check out her pink ribbon illusion scarf pattern, it's really cool.

Gluten-Free Girl: Ok, this one isn't crafty at all, but it won't get out of my head until I include it here. Shauna is probably the best blogger I've ever read, period. My interest in gluten-free eating/living is basically non-existent but I devour her posts nonetheless. Her enthusiasm about food and life is absolutely contagious, and if you can read through any of her very sweet entries about falling and staying in love with The Chef without crying...well, then you are not me. I'm getting her book as soon as I can, but for now she's honestly the best writer I've ever read online.

Knizzle fo Shizzle: Last but not least, Marj is amazing! I promise I'm not only listing her because she listed me, but because this list would be incomplete without her blog on it. Not only does the title crack me up every time, but her posts are often downright hilarious and her knitting extraordinary. Beyond all that, she's a really fun person to knit with, has helped me out kindly on some of my projects, and will probably be one of the main reasons for my eventual conversion to "the dark side," a.k.a. sock knitting.

Wow, that took ages! Sorry this is getting so long, but I had to say something about each of your wonderful blogs. Also don't feel left out if your name isn't on here -- it was tough to narrow down, but if I've ever so much as left you a comment you can safely assume I think your blog's the bee's knees. (And ~~Aunt Andrea~~ SOMEONE would surely be on this list if she would only ever update...)

***
In other news, I'm making lots of progress on my cardigan! That first sleeve took me something like 2 weeks, but they were distracted weeks where I wasn't even knitting on it regularly. I finished that sleeve Friday night & promised myself I'd pick up the pace. So far I'm sticking to that, and as of last night I'm halfway through the back. I'm hoping to make some more progress on it today and I'll definitely be sharing pictures soon. One thing that's helping a lot is the fact that I'm taking my first-ever online course this semester. It wasn't really my first choice, but a bunch of classes that I really wanted were canceled or full, I was somewhat curious about how online classes even work, and it would save me quite a bit of gas money & commuting time, so I went ahead & did it. So far it's not bad and the truly great thing is that I can knit while I listen to lectures!! I have to pause occasionally to take notes, of course, but it's the perfect thing for a miles-of-stockinette project like this cardigan. The lecture keeps me from getting too bored with the knitting, the knitting keeps me from getting too bored with the lecture, and by the time the hour's up I've learned something interesting and made knitting progress. Not bad!

This post has already reached novel length and there's more I could say, but I'll leave you with one last happy bit of news: I won a blog contest!! It was the first time ever and I absolutely cannot wait to find out what the prize will be! The contest was over at Hasbu's and you should stop by today and wish her a happy birthday.

Finally FO: Dashing!

2008-01-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

Today was a sad day. My boyfriend Brian is heading back to Montana for the semester, so I hurried up and finished his very belated Christmas gift. It's something he'll use a lot there, hopefully to keep his hands warm while talking to me on the phone!

The thumbs are still mildly disastrous, but in a way I can live with. I think if/when I make these again I'll do a more traditional thumb gusset instead of this afterthought thing -- not only would I probably find that easier, but I saw pictures somewhere of Dashing done that way and I liked the look much better, too. The surprising part is how ridiculously WARM these keep you! I wore them around while waiting for Brian to show up this morning and they kept me much warmer than Fetching usually does. I think it's all that extra length. I might need to make myself a pair at some point, but for now I'm happy that Brian likes his so much. Here's a blurry shot of him modeling them somewhat reluctantly:

"Please don't put this on Facebook."
"Oh, this isn't for Facebook, it's for my knitting blog!"
*sigh*
With any luck I'll be visiting him out there next month. Accordingly, I am planning on knitting myself lots of warm woolly stuff! All I'm working on now is the cardigan, which feels strange. I thought my Ravelry was lying to me, but it's true: I only have one wip. This will not last, trust me.

In other news, I MISS KNIT NIGHT SO MUCH!! I haven't been in thousands of years, mainly due to car issues. I'm hoping I can make it out next Tuesday because I miss everyone like crazy. The good news, though, is that I don't have class on Tuesdays this semester, so I can come directly from home and maybe even bring my wonderful little sister along! I'm looking forward to that.

Speaking of my knit night pals, Marj left me a very kind present at her blog the other day. :) I'll be doing a similar list in my next post!

Finally, I have a somewhat stupid question about knitting books. Are they like other books, in that I can expect a paperback to come out someday if one is only out in hardcover now? Or do I have to suck it up and accept the expensive hardcover edition (and by "accept," I probably mean "check out from the library")? I'm just wondering because I came across some great ones last night but they were all hardcover & therefore like $30. :-\

I did get myself one crafty book, though: the Stitch & Bitch crochet book! Hopefully my beloved Aunt Andrea (a.k.a. the Crochet Crusader) will be proud of me. I'm still more or less counting on her to teach me, but maybe I can learn a few of the basics from the book. There are also a lot of really excellent patterns in there, so I'm glad I picked it up!

Oh, blog, how I neglect you!

2008-01-15T11:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, so far my resolution to post more in 2008 might not be going so hot. Luckily there's plenty of time to rectify that!

First of all, thanks to all my Ravelry friends for the birthday messages! My 21st was lots of fun. I celebrated with my family, my boyfriend, & 2 of my closest friends at Xochimilco, a favorite Detroit Mexican restaurant. That picture on the left is of me there, about to take my first legal sips of delicious sangria!

This picture was also taken at Xochimilco:

Back in the day they used to have bulletin boards to display photos of customers' babies. They're still there, and that unbelievably cute one in the center of this, wearing the bonnet? That's yours truly, nearly 21 years ago! My family has been going to that restaurant since long before I was even dreamed of and I don't think we'll stop any time soon.

I have been getting some knitting done, but not much. I worked on Dashing (no, it's still not done, though we're in the home stretch!) in the Secretary of State office last week, waiting to renew my driver's license. I should knit in public more often! Sometimes I feel awkward about it but it's funny how happy it makes the people around you and how much they want to talk to you about it. It made the wait tolerable, anyway, which is saying a lot, as you know if you've ever had to sit on the floor of an unbelievably crowded office for a truly ridiculous amount of time.

The cardigan is slowly coming along, too. With any luck, I'll finish the first sleeve before much longer. Here it is this morning:

I made the seed stitch cuff a little shorter than recommended. I'm in love with the idea of an extra-long sleeve for extra warmth, but also very afraid I'll run out of yarn, so I'm cutting corners where I can. I love this yarn (Ironstone Harmony) and the broken needle has been scotch-taped and is holding together decently. It's not a bad project to work on, but it's a lot of stockinette and therefore a bit boring. I've been trying to work on it while watching TV, but thanks to the writers' strike (or, really, thanks to the networks' greed!) all the TV I've been watching lately is Planet Earth on DVD. If you've ever seen that show, you know that it's not one you can really knit during. It's so spectacular visually that I wind up throwing my needles aside & getting totally absorbed within the first few minutes. I'd highly recommend it, but not if you've got knitting you need to do!

There are a few other reasons for my slow knitting progress of late, and the main one is that I can't seem to stop reading. I've always been a big reader but I go through phases with it, as I do with most things. The last few months saw a brief lull, but in the last few weeks I've just been devouring books. Currently I'm in love with Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, which is about her family's year of eating locally & raising the majority of their own food. I may review it here when I'm done, since this blog is at least sort of about food as well as knitting. If nothing else, I'll be trying some of the recipes! This book has convinced me that I need to try all kinds of crazy things, including cheese-making. :)

On the baking front, no new cookies to report just yet. My step-mom gave me a huge platter of cookies & brownies on my birthday, so I'm waiting for those to disappear before I make any more. I did make banana bread the other night, though, and that was delicious. I'm a big banana bread fan and let me tell you, this recipe cannot be beat! It's really good with both chocolate chips and walnuts, though I haven't made it that way in a while. Next time!

I did get some cool food-related birthday presents, too. A friend's mom put together an awesome gift basket of obscure ingredients + a book called 100 Great Breads, so I have some interesting experiments ahead of me!

That's all for now and hopefully it won't take me another week to post again.

50 Cookies in 2008: #1, Chocolate Chip!

2008-01-08T20:32:00.000-05:00

Some of you might remember that my plan for 2008 involved trying every cookie recipe on the 50 Best Cookie Recipes on the Internet list. I've decided to modify that slightly: this year I'm going to make at least 50 different kinds of cookies to blog about here, but the recipes can come from wherever. A lot of them will still be from that list, but thinking over it today I realized that there are definitely a handful of recipes on there that don't appeal to me, and, more importantly, lots elsewhere that really do.

I think this idea will be an interesting challenge for me not because of the number of cookies (I'd be very surprised if I baked cookies fewer than 50 times in '07), but because of the variety. As anyone who knows me can probably attest, I like to stick to things I know I like. Nearly every time I bake I'm just repeating a recipe I've done before. There's nothing wrong with that, but with all the other ones out there I don't want to miss out! Also, it will be interesting to see how this works out with one of my many other goals for the year, which is, of course, to eat healthier. :)

I decided to kick off the baking year with a classic: chocolate chip cookies. What could be more simple or more perfect?

Recipe: Absolutely the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies (from the 50 Best Cookie Recipes list)

Modifications: The recipe calls for butter-flavored shortening but I definitely did not listen to them on that one and went for good old-fashioned butter-flavored butter. I have this aversion to shortening that I can't quite explain -- something about it just grosses me out severely. I thought it maybe resulted from not exactly knowing what it is, so I looked it up but the Wikipedia entry definitely didn't make it sound any more appealing...plus I didn't have any, so butter it was.

Review: The only thing I didn't like about this was the way the cookies spread out during baking, but that very well may not have happened had I used shortening as was recommended, so maybe the recipe isn't even to blame. Other than that, I really can't complain: they were quick and easy to make and the flavor & texture are perfect. My little brother said they were "great," which is pretty high praise coming from a 13-year-old boy. Also, the recipe says it yields 24 but I made many more than that even though about half of them were on the large side. I can see myself using this one again, though next time I'll be sure to stir in some chopped walnuts & other delicious add-ins.

So, not a bad start to the project! Any cookie recipes you think I should try while I'm at it? Please share your favorites -- I'm especially interested in making a good chunk of these vegan and I would definitely consider gluten-free recipes, too, since I know so many people who are allergic.

Also, my 21st birthday is coming up! I'm having a party Saturday and am tempted to bake something really extravagant for it, plus I could use any & all good party food recipes (salads, appetizers, etc.), so please suggest away! Also if you live nearby & want to come to the party, just email me for details. :)

My brief venture into the world of designer knitting supplies.

2008-01-05T18:12:00.000-05:00

Today was really spectacular in lots of ways, but ridiculously frustrating in some others. The day started with a yarn-shopping extravaganza with my beloved Aunt Andrea -- can't complain about that! Except I can, just a little bit: for one thing, I forgot the gift card I was intending to use. That was annoying, but I decided to just make the yarn a birthday gift to myself. Not that big of a deal.

So we wandered around the store and, after lots and lots of deliberation, I settled on the most gorgeous dark green Ironstone Harmony wool for the Hot Lava Cardigan. I'm excited to start that and the yarn is really soft and a great color, one I think I'll wear a lot. Feeling good about that, I headed on over to the needle section and located the circular I'd need for the project. There was exactly one left in the specified size and length and...you might want to make sure you're sitting down before I tell you the price (though why would you be standing and reading a blog?). It was $24! I went into a mild state of shock and even put back the yarn for a bit, dismayed but certain that I would have to be crazy to pay $24 for one freaking circular needle. Aunt Andrea offered to get it as an early birthday gift and I still said no, because I felt like I might explode with rage just from owning something so overpriced, even if I hadn't personally bought it. Eventually, though, she talked me into it.

Now, I might be something of a cheapskate some of the time, but I also understand that you get what you pay for and sometimes it's necessary to pay more than you would like for quality (that's definitely my philosophy when it comes to yarn, anyway). On the ride home after our delicious lunch, I started feeling ok about the needle. Maybe it really would help me knit faster and better! Maybe it would do all the work for me, then clean my room & cook me dinner, and therefore be worth the price! I cast on for the first sleeve as soon as I got home, and what did the $24 needle do?

Did it somehow make the knitting amazingly easy or more enjoyable? Was it a beautiful sensory experience? Did it magically make the project go faster? Did it, in fact, clean my room and cook my dinner?

NO! IT BROKE. IT @#)$ING BROKE! The first time it was kinda cute. I was on only the 2nd or 3rd round when the needle part came detached from the cord part. I stared at it in disbelief for a minute, said "Surely you're kidding me," and snapped it back together. It seemed to hold, and I got another several rounds completed before it happened again. This time, though, it seems serious about it, and doesn't hold very well when I snap it back together. al;dfj;alskfj;askdfl; there are no words for how frustrating I find this!

So, let this be a lesson. If you ever find yourself burdened with way too much money and think, "I know, I'll treat myself to a really fancy "Destiny Lantern Moon" circular needle," DON'T! Not only is the name stupid, but apparently the price does not, in fact, indicate quality. You would probably be better off just giving all that extra money to me, really.

As for me, I'm not sure what I'll do. The sleeve does look beautiful so far and maybe if I'm just really careful the needle will be nice to me... I would just go return it at the store, but it's kind of a lengthy drive for me, especially considering the fact that my car is barely even running at the moment. I think I'll try superglue first, or any suggestions you want to leave in the comments.

The glorious queue.

2007-12-30T21:06:00.000-05:00

I'm not gonna lie: my knitting life is a little boring right now. The only project I have going is the second glove for Dashing, which I may or may not have only cast on a few hours ago. Yes, it was supposedly a Christmas gift, but the thing is that my boyfriend got dragged on a family vacation (because going to school in Montana for most of the year apparently doesn't constitute being away from here often enough?) and won't be back until January 1st. I knew I wasn't going to finish his gift before he left, so I suggested we just exchange 1 gift before he left and leave any others until after he got home. Gives me more time, plus maybe he'll get me something pretty on his trip! (If you're curious, the gifts we did exchange were a 2008 Slingshot organizer and a massive street atlas of Metro Detroit. Ah, romance!)

So, let's talk about my queue and all the awesome selfish knitting I'm going to be doing now that the holidays are over! Ok, I do have some gifts left -- gotta finish up Dashing, there are a few tiny secret knitted gifts I'd like to send out soonish, and I never made those cool mittens for my buddy Jacob. I'll get to those when I get to them, though. (I think he knew better than to expect them from me remotely on time. I still owe him a cheesecake from his birthday last July...)

Anyway, how much do you love having a queue on Ravelry? It's wonderful! I have friends on there who queue literally hundreds of items, meaning that when I check my friend activity page I get introduced to all kinds of new patterns daily. Me, though, I keep my queue reasonable; right now I've got 7 items in it. They're all things I fully intend to knit within the next few months, rather than things I'd like to knit at some point in my life (those millions of patterns go into a huge file on my computer). And I am obsessively thinking about the first item on there all the time lately:

The 18 Seconds to Sunrise Hat (Ravelry link/Pattern) A weird name for a cute hat! I need a hat, guys. I have a couple: one I stole from my boyfriend and one my friend Sara passed on to me. Oh, and I found a bizarre old Russian-looking fur one when cleaning my room yesterday (no idea where that came from... fur is gross, so I promise you I didn't buy it - probably someone left it at my house a million years ago). They're ok but they're not so me and they're really not even that warm.

The reason I have so few hats is that I did not understand that I was capable of looking ok in hats until I visited Brian in Montana last October and it was like 20 degrees out all the time and I was kind of secretly staying in his dorm room on the all-boys floor (scandalous, I know! But hotels there only rent to you if you're over 21 and we aren't, which is totally not my fault). So on the first day or so he plopped one of his hats on my head and I started to protest about how stupid it looked, but then I thought, "Hey, this is warm! And easier than sneaking to a girls' floor to wash my hair!" And later I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and that was that: hats are my new best friends.

Ok, so I've understood that I can wear hats for a couple months now, but surely you can understand why I haven't bought any. Cute hats in stores provoke the universal knitters' response from me: "Oh, I'll just make it!" Nevermind that it may involve plenty of techniques I don't know and that I don't have the yarn or the needles for it and that my ears are cold right now! I could make make myself a hat, and so I must. I've bookmarked roughly a kajillion hat patterns, but this one calls out to me the most. I don't really know why, but it's just wildly appealing to me. I spend an appalling amount of time fantasizing about it: the potential yarns and colors, the amazing way it will look when it's done. Oh man, I can't wait!

The Hot Lava Shrug (Ravelry link/Pattern) This might be one of the first things I ever queued on Ravelry (I reorder the thing so much that I can't tell anymore). As soon as I saw it, I knew it had to be one of my first post-holiday projects. Again, the potential! The colors I could use! The buttons or brooches or various other items I could use to fasten it! Endless daydreaming fodder, I'm telling you.

The Stewie Griffin Doll (Ravelry link/Pattern) Believe it or not, this will actually be a gift for my mother. She is beyond obsessed with Family Guy and I think she will like this more than anything else I could possibly knit for her. This was going to be her Xmas gift but I quickly realized I wouldn't have the time, so now I'm doing it for her birthday in March. I think she'll be completely surprised by it and I seriously can't wait to see her reaction!

The Unbelievably Adorable Hearts (Ravelry link/Pattern) There are no words for how freaking cute these are! Lynn at ColorJoy linked to them recently and I was overcome by an urge to make thousands of them. I mean, can you imagine a cuter or quicker Valentine's Day project? That "holiday" tends to make me want to throw up a little, but I don't care because these are just too good! I wanted to link the pattern in case any other knitters would have the same reaction. If you're one of the non-knitters to whom I would give something like this...just pretend like you never saw it.

So, anyway, there are some of the queued patterns fueling my knitting daydreams at the moment. Sorry if that was long & nonsensical -- I woke up with an unbelievable amount of pressure in my sinuses and am on so much cold medicine that earlier I was having brilliant thoughts like, "Nine times three can't be 27! It just doesn't make sense!" Math has never been my strong suit, but...what I'm saying is that I miiiight be a little out of it today.

Any patterns you're presently obsessed with or itching to try out?

Christmas Wrap-Up.

2007-12-28T12:23:00.000-05:00

Christmas was wonderful! Not only did I get to see my family & get some awesome presents myself (more on that in a minute), but my own handmade gifts went over extremely well. I've only given a few of them so far, actually. On Christmas morning I finished a necklace for my step-mom:

I was really nervous & unsure that she would like it, but she definitely loved it! She wore it for the rest of the day & showed it off to all our relatives. :)

My brother liked his hat, too, though it is a little shorter than I'd like. I didn't get a great picture of him in it, but here's a slightly blurry one of us together:

He wants one with ear flaps next.

Yesterday morning I gave my friend Nick his completed toy penguin. I meant to get a picture of him with it but I'll have to do that another time. I did have quite an extensive photo shoot with the presently unnamed penguin on my friend's bookshelf, though:

I'm so pleased with how it came out, guys!! It might be my favorite thing I've ever made, though that's partly due to Nick's reaction. I don't think he could've possibly loved it more or been more enthusiastic about it! All my friends really liked it, actually, and even my pal Jacob who usually teases me about knitting said, "That is awesome! I'm seriously proud that you made that -- I'm not even being sarcastic!" Haha.

Last of all, I gave my friend Sara the headband I made for her and she said it was just what she'd been needing. Perfect!

I still have some gifts left to give (...and finish), but I'm so happy that all of these went over so well! As for what I got...well, I was spoiled! My family is beyond good to me on Christmas, really. There were a few you might be interested in, too. My beloved Aunt Amy sent me a gift card to Knit A Round, my favorite LYS! It hasn't arrived yet, but when it does my Aunt Andrea & I will have to have a shopping spree, since she got one too. I also got Romantic Hand Knits by Annie Modesitt, which has some ridiculously beautiful patterns, and AlterNation. I only got one cookbook, but it's a huge and somewhat intimidating one: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. Reviews of all of those will follow when I've actually read more & made some things from them, but I'm terribly excited about all three!

I hope you all had a spectacular Christmas, and I should be back to post some more very soon.

Disaster!

2007-12-24T17:39:00.000-05:00

So apparently in the hat pattern I'm using, "M" stands not for "medium," but for "really really small." Yeah, not a lot of logic to it, but that's the only conclusion I can really draw, because I just knit this hat again for my brother, going up a size, and, uh, it still seems way too small. It looked fine until I sewed up the seam just now and it became rapidly and horribly apparent that it was just going to be WAY too little. (Oh, look, yet another argument for knitting everything in the round!) AHHHH!!! It's definitely Christmas Eve, what on earth should I do?! I'm so undecided. I know I could make another in a night if I had to, but I kinda have lots else to do, too...

Wait, I just showed it to my mom and then my step-dad tried it on and it more or less fit him (though it looked terrible), so if it can stretch over his head maybe it will fit my brother too? I hope? Oh god. This is why I should be MUCH less of a horrible procrastinator. My sister did say that my brother has an abnormally small head, but I think she's just trying to make me feel better.

Alright, I'm just gonna give it to him & hope for the best. If he dislikes anything about it I'll just knit up a new one, no big deal. I'm going to make him a CD, too, I think, so that his only gift isn't a lame potentially-too-small hat...

See, this is why I have this blog, so I have somewhere to turn in times of crisis!

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone!!

Almost Christmas!

2007-12-23T11:39:00.000-05:00

Oh look, again it's been a while! I can't say I've been knitting much, even with Christmas so close. The penguin is almost done, and my brother's hat was done but it seemed too small so I ripped back to before the decreases and haven't really don't anything on it since...

I'm not feeling too stressed, though. I realized that I won't be exchanging gifts with a number of my friends until a few days after the actual holiday, anyway. I'm not going to give my boyfriend his fingerless gloves until after the new year, since he's going away the day after Christmas and not getting back until then, so that gives me plenty of time to finish them. (This is really good because I haven't even started on the second one! Mainly it's because he's been around me lots of the time, and also because I was using those same needles on some secret presents for a few days there.)

So not a lot of knitting in this post, but I definitely have a recipe recommendation: Cream Cheese Chocolate Cupcakes! I made these last week and they were almost seemed too easy in light of how delicious they were. I gave most of them to my friend Jacob & his family and they were a big hit.

I don't know if I'll post again before (or on) the actual day, but in case I don't here's a big MERRY CHRISTMAS to those of you who celebrate it!!

Gifts & Food.

2007-12-17T22:12:00.001-05:00

Yikes, again it's been a while since I posted! I have to admit I didn't knit a whole ton this week - first I had finals, then some of my friends came home from school for break, plus there was a snowstorm. So I had hanging out & sledding that needed to get done! But Brian's gift is halfway finished, at least:

The thumb is a little funky (I haaaate doing thumbs!) but I'm overall pretty pleased. I am slightly nervous that they'll be too small for him, but we'll see...

Today I started & finished one ridiculously cute little gift, but it has to stay a secret until after the holidays!

A few days ago I finished my brother's hat, but it seemed too small so I ended up ripping back to before the decreases & picking up again there. I haven't worked on it in a while because ribbing = tedious.

I have been baking a little and cooking a lot, though. Last week my grandma gave me a copy of The New Laurel's Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition. I am obsessed with this cookbook, guys. I don't even really know why -- so far the recipes aren't really that great, but something about the awesome hippie vibe of the book just puts me in a good mood every time I look at it. And the use of the word "Cookery" in the title! Seriously, what a great word. From it I've made Cranberry Squash (not bad) and "Everybody's Muffins," the very name of which makes me laugh. Those had a good flavor (in a super-healthy whole wheat kind of way) but definitely didn't rise enough & were therefore much too dense. I am a failure as a bread baker, dudes. Nothing that needs to rise ever rises under my watch, no matter what I do or how high my hopes of delicious, rewarding homemade bread are (very high, for the record). I also suck at kneading. One day I will accept these facts and just move next door to a lovely bakery or something, but for now I will probably keep trying...

I also ate brussels sprouts for the first time in my whole life last week! Yeah, my parents had such bad childhood memories of being forced to eat them that they never even tried making me do it. In fact, they're the only food all the tough "I'll eat anything" manly men in my family say they can't stand. But this recipe looked really appealing, so I bought some & gave it a shot. I was nervous about it but they were actually delicious! For the record, I used a bit of pecorino romano (purchased on accident when I'd been looking for parmesan, ugh!) & a lot of mozzarella. Parmesan would've been better but they were still tasty & I'll definitely be using that recipe again soon.

On the less healthy side, I made oatmeal chocolate chip peanut butter cookies last week. They were excellent, if I do say so myself! Or half of them were, anyway. The other half went in the cookie jar right after I tossed some stale mint Milanos. They became infused with the flavor of mint in a way that can only be described as revolting, and so half the cookies were wasted. Lesson learned!

And now I'm thinking that, even though it's late, I probably need to whip up a batch of these because don't they look heavenly? Yes, yes they do!

One gift (mostly) down, approximately 8 zillion to go!

2007-12-09T22:55:00.000-05:00

Wow, have I really not posted since Tuesday?! Quite a bit has happened since then!

On Thursday, I finally checked out Neighborhood Knits. It's only a few minutes away from my school and I think it's good for both my bank account and my GPA that I didn't discover it until now. (This semester I had a nearly two-hour break on Thursdays, during which I usually caught up on reading & homework, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you that my desire to buy yarn could trump my desire to do either of those things any day.) Anyway, it was a lovely little shop with a good selection and everyone was very friendly, so I think I'll be going back quite a bit in the future. For now I have a gorgeous skein of Cascade 220 Heathers, with which I've started on my boyfriend's Xmas gift, Dashing. I meant to get a brown or green yarn but in the end I couldn't resist this kind of reddish orange-ish brownish gorgeousness. Ok, it's mostly reddish, but it reminds of foxes and autumn and other good things, and I'm pretty sure Brian will dig it, too, which is probably what matters most. As always, the photo doesn't quite do the color justice:

That's the first glove and it's grown significantly since that picture was taken yesterday afternoon. I am in love with this cable pattern, guys! For some reason I'm having real trouble doing it (yesterday was the first time I ever threw my knitting at the wall!) but it's coming out so beautifully that I don't care.

I knit a lot this weekend, and I'm making progress on all my gifts. Happily, I've just about finished the headband:

The ends still need to be sewn together (they're just safety-pinned there) but I might block it first. It looks fine on the head, but when it's off it rolls up like crazy. I wouldn't mind if it was just for me, but since it's for someone else I think I might put in the effort of blocking...maybe. Initially it actually was going to be for me, but over the course of knitting it I decided it needed to go to my friend Sara. For one thing, she looks far better in shades of red than I do, and for another she lives up in Marquette, where people really need warm winter stuff! (Not that we don't need it down here in the Lower Peninsula, too...) Also I think she'll appreciate a handmade gift and, well, she's one of my best friends in the world, so she deserves one too. :)

I'm a little embarrassed that it took me so long to finish such a simple project, but what can I say? I got bored with it & kept putting it aside. It happens.

Also, I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that I can't knit for everyone on my list in the amount of time left until Christmas, so I've come up with a nice alternative partly handmade gift that can fill that gap: embroidered stuff! I love embroidery & haven't done a new project in months, so I'm excited. Today I went out & got a few cheap, plain shirts. When my t-shirt stabilizer comes from Sublime Stitching I'll be able to go to town on them and hopefully make some really special and well-loved gifts.

I know lots of knitters complain about friends who don't appreciate all the effort that goes into handmade gifts, but I'm starting to fear I have the opposite problem. My friends are all the type who really love handmade stuff and I don't want any of them to be disappointed if I give them something that doesn't have a personal touch. Here's hoping I can get all those "personal touches" done in time!

Various & Sundry

2007-12-04T23:22:00.001-05:00

Just a few little notes before I go to bed:

I bought some yarn today! The Michaels near me was having a 2-for-$7 sale on Patons Shetland Chunky & Classic Merino. As much as I prefer supporting local business...I'm on a budget & trying to make Xmas gifts for lots of people, so I really cannot argue with that kind of a deal! With the Shetland Chunky Tweed I started on a hat for my brother:

It's much more blue & less purple in real life!
When I first asked 3 of my younger brothers whether they'd wear hats I made them, the response was lots of laughter & exclamations of "no way!" Then the oldest of them, Mac, saw the hat I made my boyfriend, and every time I've spoken (or exchanged emails or Facebook messages or whatever) with him since then it's been "how's my hat coming?!" He's really excited about it, but it took me until now to find a good yarn. He wanted blue, and all the blues I found were just too damn girly or otherwise unsuitable. I'm still not sure about this yarn...it looked good on the skein but I keep panicking and thinking he won't like it. Everyone I've showed it to has assured me otherwise, and I figure if he really hates it I can just keep it for myself (because I like it lots!) and take him yarn shopping so I can make another.

I'm planning on these mittens for my friend for Xmas. I'll probably start them within the next couple of days & I'm pretty excited! I may make myself a pair, too, once I'm done with all this holiday stuff, because I really love the way they look.

I'm eager to start on Dashing for my boyfriend's Xmas gift, but I kind of hate the yarn I bought for them (Reynolds Lite Lopi). I was completely seduced by the gorgeous, incredibly rich brown color + the nice price tag, but it's the itchiest stuff I've ever encountered and he hates itchy wool. I'm really not sure what to do, but I think I'm going to just buy something else. There's an LYS near school that I want to check out, anyway (Neighborhood Knits, to be exact), and this gives me the perfect excuse (not that I ever really need an excuse to drool over yarn, but it doesn't hurt)...

I wore the vest to school today and do you know how hard it was not to brag to complete strangers that I made it all by myself? Really, really hard! In my head every conversation was going like this:
Unsuspecting Friend: Hey, how are you?
Me: Pretty good, what about you?
UF: Oh, pr--
Me: DO YOU LIKE MY VEST?! I MADE IT MYSELF! WITH YARN AND POINTY STICKS! Isn't that just the most exciting and impressive thing you've ever heard?!
UF: *backs slowly away*
Me: Isn't it?!?
UF: *runs for shelter*
I'm very proud to say I restrained myself.

Knit Night was kind of a bummer tonight -- a very small group! I was by myself most of the time. Turns out there's a huge difference between knitting in a cafe all by your lonesome & knitting in a cafe with a group of fun & interesting people. One is lots of fun & one just kinda sucks. Some excellent people did show up eventually, but unfortunately for me I had to leave shortly after they all arrived! Oh well. It was my own fault for not being sure to bring enough money to pay for parking for longer than an hour (in fact, I only made it out of the structure because Kim was kind enough to loan me a quarter -- had she not, I guess I would've gotten a $30 ticket!). I suppose this is what I get for never using cash.

Does it bother anyone else that there isn't an apostrophe in "Michaels"? Probably not, but it drives me nuts.

Oh, look, I'm up too late yet again... Have a great week, everyone!

Another FO: Fetching!

2007-12-02T13:35:00.000-05:00

I finally finished my fingerless gloves today! The second one took me a while because it was sort of boring to do the same thing twice in a row. They look good, though, I think:

Again, I'm not crazy about the picot bind-off, and I think if I make them again I'll make them longer in both the wrist & finger areas. Still, they were a nice little project and I'm very pleasantly surprised to say they only used up a skein of my lovely Irish yarn!

The project details can be found at my Ravelry, of course, but here's what I learned from making these:

Magic Loop knitting, aka my new favorite thing in the whole world! I may still want to learn to use DPN's someday, but for now I'm just thrilled as can be with this method. It also seems much more portable than DPN's could possibly be, which is a definite plus in my book.
The cable cast-on, which I like quite a bit.
The magic of strategic end-weaving. What holes?

I think that's everything. :)

Now I need to really focus on the holiday knitting. (How many times am I going to say that before I actually do it?) First I need to go supply-shopping, though, since nothing I really want to make ever seems to use the millions of needle sizes I already have. Such is life, I suppose.

The vest, at long last, is done!!

2007-11-30T17:42:00.000-05:00

So my boyfriend did actually send the yarn and it arrived just yesterday morning. I had to fight the urge to skip class & finish the vest, but of course I ended up being good & going to school. Today, though, I had no classes (college students don't believe in Friday classes, didn't you know?), so I set to work on knitting the last couple rows, learning & working the 3-needle bind-off (a little fiddly at first but SO MUCH better than sewing seams!), weaving in the 6 thousand or so ends, and then sewing up those two little side seams.

Looking at those seams now, they do seem little -- but they took me hours! It didn't help that the yarn (which until then had been perfectly lovely) kept breaking while I was doing it. There was a lot of swearing and by the end I'd concluded that (a) there are not words strong enough in this language to truly express my hatred of sewing seams and (b) any & all garments I make in the future will be knit in the round! My grandma told me over the summer that she actually stopped knitting because she hated sewing seams so much. At the time it seemed like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me, but now I'm thinking she might've had a point...

Anyway, the seams unfortunately look a bit like they were sewn by a mentally challenged chimpanzee with a drug habit, but I pretty much love it regardless:

Better pictures will come very soon (sorry for the dirty mirror!), but I was excited just to document it. At some point I will probably still crochet the recommended edging around the neck & armholes, but most likely not until after holiday knitting is out of the way. Also I should block it but I can't stand the thought of making my room smell like a wet sheep when it's much too cold to open a window...

I'm very relieved to have this done, because for the next twenty-odd days I need to throw myself in to holiday knitting! I'm pretty sure of everything I need to make, but last night I was talking to one of the few friends for whom I wasn't planning to knit and when I asked him what he wanted his only response was, "Make me something out of yarn!" Sigh. What he really wants is a pair of mittens, so I'm on the hunt for a good (and preferably free) dude's mitten pattern. Recommendations would be appreciated!

I mean, who doesn't love penguins?

2007-11-26T21:56:00.000-05:00

Making the second fingerless glove right after the first one seemed a little too boring (such is the danger of doing things in pairs, I suppose), so even though I've cast on & knit a good deal of it, I also decided to cast on for something else yesterday. Not only did it relieve my boredom, but I'm getting started on my absurdly ambitious Holiday Knitting!

I had some doubts as to whether I should post about this here, and I do think I'll keep pictures of most of my holiday gifts under wraps until after they're given, just in case the recipients should stumble across my blog (or Flickr or Ravelry). In this case, though, I think that's exceedingly unlikely, so let me show you what I'm making one of my best friends:

A penguin! From this pattern. Easy & quick & awesome so far (though I'm not looking forward to all the finishing), plus I learned how to do short rows! They're kind of magical, even though I suck at picking up the wraps later, so mine look a little funky. Whatever, I still found it stupidly exciting to create something so 3-dimensional on straight needles. Most importantly, the dude I'm giving this to will love it...or I'm like 99% sure he will, anyway.

Also, I love how my penguin folder is in the background of that first picture. I love that folder. I don't think I'd had a folder with anything on it since like 2nd grade, but somehow now that I'm a junior in college I've started to see the appeal. It makes me smile every day and that is definitely a good thing.

Other than that, I picked up the yarn for my boyfriend's Christmas gift (Dashing) over the weekend and he claims he finally sent me the rest of the yarn for my vest today. I will believe it when I see it, but I'm thinking that my threat worked. :)

Fetching: One Down!

2007-11-24T12:56:00.000-05:00

I cast on for Fetching Thanksgiving evening and finished up my first one just this morning (would've been last night, but the thumbs were driving me NUTS and, after several attempts, I decided to just leave them for the morning). I'm pretty sure I love it:

Magic Looping it was really the way to go! I did appreciate the offers to help me out with DPN's, and I still might take you guys up on that, but for now I'm in love with this Magic Loop thing!

The only thing I really had trouble with was the thumb, like I said. There seemed to be no way to do it that didn't lead to horrible, gaping holes on either side. I kept ripping back & trying again, then eventually decided I would just have to live with the stupid ugly holes. I was assuming sewing them up wouldn't help or look good, but when I wove in my ends I kinda tried to close them up anyway, and what do you know! It worked perfectly and now you can't tell there were ever any holes there at all!

I'm also not sure I'm crazy about the picot bind-off -- might skip that when I make another pair. I've decided I'm making at least one (probably two) more pairs for Christmas gifts.

I do have some sad news, though: my stupid boyfriend came home for Thanksgiving and forgot to bring me the yarn I need to finish my vest! I had a good enough time just seeing him that I almost didn't mind -- but almost is the key word there. He's sending it first thing when he gets back to Montana, he promises. If he doesn't, I won't send him any more baked goods for the rest of the year. Hopefully that's a harsh enough threat...

My little sister is now pretty addicted to knitting. I taught her just a couple weeks ago and she is flying. She seems to pick up new things much more quickly than I did. Just last night I taught her how to purl & how to add new yarn, and in less than 24 hours she's turned out a couple of these. They look really good, too! After mocking me endlessly for going to Knit Nights, now she suddenly wants to come along too. I'm going to bring her once my Winter Break starts. I'm anticipating that when she discovers this blog (which she inevitably will, when she gets her Ravelry invite), she will mock me ferociously about it for a couple days, then ask me to help her set one up. This has been her pattern with all things knitting-related so far.

Also, on Thanksgiving I helped my beloved aunt set up her crochet blog. She hasn't posted yet, but I love the name: Crochet Crusader.

Woohoo!

2007-11-22T16:54:00.000-05:00

So it's Thanksgiving and guests are due to arrive in 5 minutes or so, meaning I do not even have time to be on the internet--but that's never stopped me before! I just have to make a quick & triumphant post to tell you that, since I'm still having no luck on the DPN front, I decided to give Magic Loop knitting a try instead (some people on Ravelry have made Fetching using that method, so I figure I can too). I only had to watch the KnittingHelp.com video once to completely get it! I practiced with some random stash yarn and did several rounds quickly and now have something that could almost be a finger to a glove, if it wanted to be.

Don't you love the feeling of learning a new technique? It makes me feel ridiculously brilliant, even if it's something really simple. :)

The only problem I'm having with this is that you have to pull the first & last stitches on each needle super-tight to avoid gaps, but I'm pulling them so tight I'm having trouble sliding them up the needles! I need to work on finding a balance for that, but I think I'm halfway there. I'll just practice a bit more tonight and then cast on for Fetching in the very near future! WOOHOO!

Okay, there's more to say, but I should probably go pay attention to my family or something. I'm really excited for my aunt to get here because I'm going to help her put some pictures on Ravelry + set up her own crocheting blog! Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

Frustration!

2007-11-19T20:28:00.001-05:00

I'm eager to get started on Fetching, so I tried learning how to use double-pointed needles last night (primarily from a video at KnittingHelp.com). I watched the video a few times before actually attempting to follow along, and I was completely convinced it would be a piece of cake. I was horribly, horribly wrong! The end result was a lot of swearing and being poked by the stupid pointy needles and having to rip out the stitches & try again like 60 times (...or like 5 times, but it felt like 60). It seemed like every time I finished a round (and I never finished more than one whole one without some kind of disaster occurring), I was knitting the tube inside-out, somehow, even though I really couldn't tell where I was going wrong. How do people do this?!? As far as I can tell you need at least 4 hands and a lot more patience than I've got.

I really need to learn, though, because there are so many great patterns out there that demand DPN's. How did you guys learn, then? Are there any really wonderful tutorials out there? (I've looked around a bit, but most of them just seem to contradict each other & only confuse me further.) Or should I just wait & ask my aunt to show me next time I see her, despite how impatient I am to start?

Also, I'm SO relieved this week is just about over!

2007-11-15T23:33:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! This'll just be a quick post, since I'm itching to go actually knit, but here are a few knitting-related things:

I started working on this pattern yesterday. I'm using this soft, beautiful mystery yarn from my stash -- I had it wound into a ball at the LYS, & when they do that they put the tag inside the ball. So when I run out I'll know what the hell the stuff is, but for now it could be anything. I do remember that my Aunt Andrea bought it for me, though, so it's gotta be something pretty nice. :)

You can see the headband as of yesterday here. It's gotten much longer since then, and so far everyone who has commented on the photo thinks it looks like I'm knitting a thong...

It's worth noting that I'm using this version of the pattern, which is super-easy to follow. I didn't even try to follow the original, since I've heard lots of terrible things about DROPS patterns.
My first ever online order of yarn came today from KnitPicks! It's beautiful stuff.
I have the best friends/enablers EVER. My friend Taryn asked me the other night which knitting magazines I like. She was trying to be all stealthy but it came out that she's getting me a gift subscription for Christmas, which is just too sweet of her! And as if that weren't enough, I also got a package from my friend Kenna, who is studying in Dublin for the semester. This was inside:

It's wonderful! After much internal debate, I think it's destined to become a pair of these. Your thoughts?
Not that long ago, I said I didn't believe in colorwork more complicated than stripes. But then I saw this bag pattern, and now I can't get it out of my head. I'm becoming obsessed with it to the point where I think it's safe to say I'll be attempting Fair Isle pretty soon...

Wow, that got longer than I thought it would! I suspect I could go on about knitting for way too long. On the baking front, I haven't done anything too interesting lately but I did make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies a couple days ago & the classmates I shared them with really loved them, so that was cool.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Jonesin' for a yarn fix.

2007-11-13T11:23:00.000-05:00

My history class was canceled today! This is the best news I've heard in a while, since there was no way I was going to get everything done in time for it. So am I using the extra time to catch up? Of course not! I used it to sleep in and now I'm using it to post here and with any luck I might get some real work done before I leave for my other class, but let's not count on it.

So, I'm in a really sad knitting slump at the moment. My main project is this glorious sweater vest from Knitty. I've been working on it for over a month! This is not because I'm a particularly slow knitter, but because I'm bad at math and planning. Meaning I didn't buy quite enough yarn. And I bought the yarn while I was on vacation. Yeah, kind of a disastrous situation--except that my boyfriend happens to live near the LYS where I purchased this (Joseph's Coat in Missoula, Montana), and he kindly went back up there just a couple days after I left and bought me a new skein from the same dye lot and everything. This would be perfect if only he'd just send me the damn thing already. I've been waiting patiently (or not) for weeks now, and at this rate I think he'll just bring it home with him for Thanksgiving (and then, I bet, he'll have the nerve to be upset when I want to knit with it instead of paying attention to him!).

It's not like I can really complain too much, since I'm the worst person in the world at sending packages ever. If you're one of the 9 zillion people I've been promising mail for months on end, you know I'm not kidding. But I've been so good to him! Just last week he got fresh muffins & cookies & roasted pumpkin seeds & pressed leaves & copies of local articles I thought he'd like & a bunch of other crap. And yet I languish without my yarn... :(

Um, anyway, my original 3 skeins took me up to where I needed to break off for the neckline, which is knit from two different balls. I sadly decided to work on holiday scarves for a week or so, but the vest wouldn't stop calling my name and last weekend I split what was left of the 3rd skein into 2 balls & happily knit some of the neckline. This was just a few rows ago:

(The flash really washed out the colors, but you can see the stitches better this way.)

And now, my friends, I am within 2 inches of finishing the front side and I am out of yarn. Woe is me! I seriously miss it (and I bet I'll miss it even more when I'm all the way done). I could probably keep going about how in love I am with this vest (did I mention it's my first garment and my first try at cables and that I love it?), but this is long enough already & I did want to at least glance in the general direction of my homework...

First Post!

2007-11-12T15:07:00.001-05:00

Oh, wow, this is exciting. See, I should be working on the two big papers I have due in the next couple days, + getting my massive amounts of history reading out of the way, but instead I (obviously) decided to do this. There are a few reasons I've been considering this blog thing for a while:

Knitting, or more specifically Ravelry! Sweet, sweet, addictive Ravelry. I'm on there as fromblossoms (you should friend me!) and I keep wanting to link journal entries to my projects (rather than filling up the "pattern notes" section with every thought I ever had while working on something).
My 2008 baking project. It's a much more reasonable resolution than the crazy ones I've made (and failed at) in previous years: I'm going to bake all 50 cookies on this list during the year. It'll be fun just to do for myself, but I think I'll enjoy it even more if I have somewhere public to post about it.

Up until now, my only blog-ish experience has been a LiveJournal I've faithfully kept for nearly six years. I love it so and am not planning on abandoning it, but (a) it's completely friends-locked, since I talk about my personal life more than anything else, and (b) my friends over there are getting really sick of hearing about knitting. I'll probably still torture them with discussion of it from time to time, but from now on this is my place for that.

So, welcome!