I could eat this with a spoon!

Oh those lovely gals over at Knit-Purl! I just got this in the mail yesterday and it even came with a HANDWRITTEN card! I got out of bed to get the mail and brought this back to bed with me so I could look at it a little before I fell back asleep! I can't wait to get started on these, but they'll have to wait a little while yet. The pattern for my baby niece sweater also came and I will start work on that later today. This yarn is for Mrs. Beeton Wristwarmers and I know exactly which beads I am going to use with it! I also have my eye on another red colorway, but I will wait to buy that yarn. This is also my first ever Rowan purchase! I am just moving UP in the world!

Tony the Tiger

My grandpa died at the beginning of the month and my mother had been up to his house to do some sorting and cleaning. She brought this little guy home for me! She told me how when she was a little girl, she would sell stationary and Christmas cards to earn Christmas money and how her mother (my grandma who has been gone 26 years now) used to drive her to all the neighbors' houses so she could sell to them. This was her prize one year for selling her cards and she gave it to her mother for Christmas. His crown is a pincushion and he has a hole in his nose where you would put embroidery scissors and they look like glasses. His tail pulls out to reveal a tape measure! He is just the cutest thing I've ever seen and he has been broken and glued together several times. Mother found it this week and gave it to me and I am just tickled with him!

Can Spring Be Far Behind?

We were under a snow advisory last night and got quite a few inches, and I have not been anywhere without a sweater for at least two weeks now but hey--we finally had winter. It was quite unnatural to be in January with green grass sprouting on the lawn. With all this cold weather bearing down on us, I found myself ironically playing with spring colorways this morning. Melissa was here for Knit Night yesterday so we first went out to eat and then, as a lark, decided to go and "check out" Joann Fabrics. To make a long story short--I spent a lot of money in there! We headed back to the reduced fabric part of the store and found all kinds of stash for $3/yard. It wasn't until we got up to the cutting table that the clerk told us they had been further reduced by 50%--$1.50/yard! And they were lovely 100% cotton prints! Melissa had picked out fabric for scrubs but was wringing her hands trying to decide which one to get, but once she heard that, she bought them both! They also had novelty yarn on sale for $1.50/skein so Melissa was guilty of some stash building last night too! (It is a DISEASE!) I had a point to all this...oh yeah, plot exposition. Pictured are 4 skeins of wound 100% wool that I bought at Joann's as a felted purse kit. I think I will alter the pattern a bit and use wooden handles instead of knitting I-cord handles. I wanted to fool around with this a bit this morning but didn't have time. The other three skeins are my fabulous Koigu that will be made into a Kottou cardigan for my new niece (note the pictured ribbon I've chosen for the closure). I ordered the pattern and my first ever Rowan yarn (!!!--but more on that project later!) from Knit-Purl yesterday and they were just sweethearts on the phone! It will be a pleasure to work on these two projects, even though I couldn't take a focused picture of the yarn to save my life! Oh well, enjoy the colors! They are sitting on just one of the many fabulous cuts of fabric I bought yesterday!

Felted Bag--AFTER!

I took it home and washed it in my mother's machine for one cycle and couldn't believe the difference! It is now a nice handbag size. I knit up a flower from a pattern in Handknit Holidays and sewed it onto the purse with beads. That blue yarn is some homespun Wensleydale wool--I wanted to have a little homespun on the bag so I could take it for show and tell at the next spinner's meeting (!!!). Melissa came over last night for Knit Night and she has started one! She got all the way through the handles and into the medium gray row and is doing very well! We'll finish it up probably sometime next week. And after 2 bags, I do indeed think I'll have enough yarn for a THIRD bag so I am happy with my purchase of 6 skeins of Cascade 220!

Soap Day

This is a very bad picture of the last cube of my hoarded and glorious Savon de Marseilles! It is the lovliest soap ever! I saw it all over Europe when traveling but resisted buying it because I can order it here in the States. I was tempted in Dublin to buy a 500g block because it is just THAT lovely, but I couldn't justify adding a 1/2 kg of unnceccesary weight to my suitcase when braving Ryan Air's baggage regulations for the flight back to London.

Felted Bag--BEFORE

I finished the knitting of this bag this morning and threw it into our washer to be felted. For things to felt properly, they need the shock of different temperatures. I put the machine on the "whites" setting for a hot wash and cold rinse. I was a bit concerned as to how the handles would hold up, but they did straighten out a little. Our machine does not get very hot though and we haven't had much shrinkage yet. I threw it in for a second cycle and we'll see how it turns out. As I recall, when I made Fuzzy Feet for Christmas last year, I did all the knitting here and took them home to machine felt them at my parents' house and their washer was 10 times better. I will be going home this weekend, but in the meantime I will have to start work on some Loom Blooms to decorate the bag with!

Spinning Group

I attended my first ever local spinning group meeting yesterday! I honestly didn't know we had a local group until I demonstrated spinning at the Pioneer Museum this summer and was invited by the other spinner who was demonstrating that day. The meetings are always held on the second Thursday of the month but between working nights and sleeping during the day, I had never been free to go to one. I was so pleasantly surprised yesterday when I walked into the studio at the MacNider museum! There were 7 ladies in attendance that day and most of them were mainly weavers who also spun and there was some knitting talk. I had been told that part of every meeting was a monthly show and tell so I brought along my skein of soysilk yarn I had spun on my drop spindle. One of the ladies had brought several placemat-sized pieces of overshot weaving that she had been tweaking patterns with. She gave them away to the group because she was "clearing out her clutter" and she gave me two beautiful pieces! The top piece in the photo is an overshot pattern and the piece on the bottom (my Pirate hat is sitting on it in another picture) is a jacquard (I think!). I am very enthusiastic about this group and will have to arrange my work schedule around the meetings! I have two sets of wooden card weaving cards that I have never yet used and there was talk of a card weaving demonstration for one of the meetings. I have ALWAYS wanted to learn to weave on a multi draft loom (one lady brought in different cotton towels she had woven on her table loom and they were bee-YEWtiful!), and they were even discussing a Kumihimo Japanese braid demonstration for one of the meetings! I had to run errands after the meeting but I left the museum absolutely foaming at the mouth and all I wanted to do was to just "get to some yarn"! Sitting in that meeting was kind of like going to the grocery store hungry because I just wanted to start a hundred new projects!

Ball Windin'

I have been eager to knit the felted bag that appears on the Winter 2005 cover of Spin-Off. They finally posted a pattern on their Interweave website due to the number of requests they received asking for bag instructions (the bag appeared in the photo but the actual featured article was about small loom woven flowers that embellished the bag). On our last trip to Rochester, I bought 6 skeins of Cascade 220 worsted weight yarn for this project. I wound all the skeins into balls this morning and began work on the bag. You knit with two balls of yarn stranded together on size 15 needles which knits up quite quickly. I'm halfway done with it already and all this before I've even had my NAP! I don't see why I wouldn't have enough yarn for a second and possible THIRD bag! I can't wait to pull it out of the washer when it's finished! More on that later!

Pirate Hat

I knit a We Call Them Pirates hat for my niece while riding a bus around eastern Europe this summer and gave it to her as a Christmas gift (I must admit, I was making the hat for myself but it was far too small). My high school-aged nephew liked it and asked if I would make him one also, and I think my brother wants one now too. This is also my first finished object of 2007 and I hope to crank out all kinds of stuff this year. A note about this pattern: it calls for sport weight yarn (I used Brown Sheep sport weight for my niece's hat which was too small for an adult) and size 3 needles--however, for the adult sized hat, I used Lion Brand Wool (worsted weight) and size 5 needles and was quite pleased with the results. The pattern also calls for you to monkey around with knitting a lining, but that was far too much work. I started by knitting 10 or so rows of stockinette, then one purl row, and THEN began the charted work. This gave me a good inch to fold and tack up inside the hat for a cleaner edge.

It. Is. Done.

Now when my friends scream like Cartman, "Go and knit me a sweater!", I can actually do it! Here is my niece modeling her new sweater (from Debbie Bliss' Great Knits For Kids) over a coordinating monkey suit! We went up to visit my sister and her husband and then my brother and his family this last weekend and I was fiendishly knitting in the backseat for the entire ride and for much of the weekend! I bought the buttons at one of the 3 (count them THREE) yarn shops we hit (!!!) and finished it up on our last day there. In a way I wish I had brought it home so I could show my girlfriends, but I wanted my niece to have every opportunity to use and wear it! I am SO proud of this sweater! The yarn is probably a DK weight and was knit on size US 4 needles. I suppose I took 2 1/2 months to make it and that is just knitting here and there on it. If I had really buckled down, I bet I could have done it in 2 weeks, but with the holidays and my horrendous schedule lately, I made a sporadic job of it. Now all I can think about is how quickly an adult Aran sweater would knit up if made in worsted weight on a size US 8 or so. Hmmmmmmm. I also bought some fabulous Koigu yarn for a pair of socks and a sweater for my baby niece and I have it sitting out where I can regularly fondle it! I will post pics of all my plunder tomorrow, but right now my bed is calling my name! Happy Late New Year Everyone! :)

Merry Christmas everyone! I thought I'd post some pictures of my Chrismas tree ornaments. I could have posted pics of the entire tree, but that would involve picking up the general area surrounding the tree, and after last night's shift at the hospital, that just wasn't going to happen. A lot of my ornaments were purchased on my trips overseas so it is always fun to get them out of storage and decorate. I'll also have you know that I waited until AFTER Thanksgiving before I put it up! I'm usually excited for Christmas as early as June, and I've been known to put the tree up on or before Halloween! And of course Christmas came far too early this year, as it does every year for me. I will have Christmas day off and I look forward to spending a quiet day at home with a big plate of breakfast, some Christmas specials, a pair of knitting needles and some yarn, and then a long and glorious slumber! Travel safely everyone as you make your way to family and friends to celebrate.

Merry Christmas To You and Yours!

High Quality Item

My family finds great humor in tackiness. Here is one small example of such joy! Years ago I actually PAID MONEY for this ornament at a Big Lots store because I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen, and wouldn't it be a great gift item for my then new-to-the-family sister in law? I wrapped it up and it ended up on her pile of gifts as they were dispersed from under the tree. I will never forget the look on her face when she opened it! You could tell she was trying to be polite but she just couldn't quite hide the confusion in her facial expression! When I told her it was meant to be a joke, she laughed with relief and since then it has become the traveling lucky present! My brother in law got it the following year and it was prominently displayed in my sister's glittering china cabinet. My brother was the recipient the year after that...and he lost it or forgot about it, but my sister in law unearthed it this fall and has since returned it to circulation. My sister received it this year and no doubt it will resume its place of high esteem.

PastryPro!

My sister in law drew my name for the gift exchange this year and she got me EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED! I leaf through and drool all over the King Arthur Flour baking catalog every month, and this particular item had caught my fancy. It is a PastryPro pastry blender and was supposed to be super tough! I have gone through quite a few pastry blenders in my time because I bend the tines all out of shape and using a wire one is right out. You can imagine how thrilled I was to open my gift and find this inside, and when they say it is tough, they weren't kidding! I bet I could do a handstand off this thing and it wouldn't harm it at all! Thank you Amy!

Additional: Please note the tacky Christmas Tree Diorama Display in my bed room! ;) I'll post pics of my proper tree on Christmas!

Get OFF my needles!

Happy Birthday Melissa! And since I probably won't see her til next week, I think it is safe to post a pic of her present here! This is knit from some stash yarn that my mother gave to me YEARS ago. It's a mohair/wool/acrylic blend that I've never known what to do with, that is until Melissa pointed out that she used to have a beige scarf like the one patterned in Handknit Holidays. Scarves are usually knit with short rows back and forth until they are the desired length. THIS scarf was knit lengthwise increasing in each stitch every fourth row to create the ruffles until it eventully became wide enough. You start out with 100 stitches and end up with over 3,000! And I don't know why, but it just seemed like it took so much longer to knit than a conventional scarf. Maybe it was just because the rows were SO long...what we would call a knitting black hole! I used my NeedleMaster needles and at the end had about 4 feet of nylon cord rigged up between my two needles!

Were you ever in any doubt?

I stayed up all last night to finish these in time for Christmas lunch today! I had the RECIPIENT of one of the bags pick me up two zippers at 2300 or so, and then I went back to the store myself to obtain the final needed one! They are filled with little goodies like popcorn, a candle, a smelly soap, chapstick, cocoa mix, etc. I really hope the girls like them! I really didn't spend much on the goodies, and all the fabric and trims I already had so I was good about "use what you have" for this undertaking! You'd think it was April. It's sad to think that I STILL have 3 more to make, but that Christmas lunch insn't until next week!

Deadlines!

Earlier in the week I spent some time dinking around when instead I should've been cleaning, but I found something to occupy my hands while I was busy wasting time and delaying the inevitable. I wrapped all of my co-worker bath bomb gifts with glittered tissue paper, bagged them individually in plastic, and tied them with jute twine, you know, for that rustic look. ;)

We had knitting night here on Sunday with Brenda the Hooker and Melissa, and even DeeDee managed to make an appearance. Melissa tried her hand at needle felting and we later had our first crafts related injury! And of course we took a picture of it--she bled and EVERYTHING!

And tonight I spent some time fooling around making a beaded tassel out of perle cotton with an elephant charm. It will go in one of the gifts that I hope to start AND finish today (including the remaining FOUR of the same I have to get done TODAY). I will post pics of those when (and IF!!!) I get them done before Urban Family Christmas Lunch tomorrow. This added gift is for the as yet unnamed friend ;) who collects elephants and I remembered I had this tiny charm. He must be carved out of stone of some sort, and was brought to me by my college roommate after a trip to India. He has been sitting inside the brass box she also brought me and I've never really known what to do with him. I think he will like his new home though :)

Baptism

We baptized my new niece Annika this last weekend. My Grandpa Maynerd came and we had a very nice lunch together as a family. My brother and his family had been home with my parents for much of the week and had Thanksgiving together and I got to have a bit of Thanksgiving that weekend since I worked over the holiday. My mother embroidered and sewed a hardanger baptismal dress for Annika and the hardanger baptismal towel (she makes all the baptismal towels for our church). You can always tell if it is a big deal at our house if Mom has the farmers rose norwegian dishes set out! She also put out all of her norwegian Hennig figurines as a centerpiece! The fiddler is hers, but the rommegrot girl is mine and will be given to me if I ever move into a home that would house a china cabinet! Annika was such a good girl during church and didn't cry during the service.


And since I wasn't home on the actual day, I made the traditional holiday frosted sugar cookies when I got home. These are known around our house as "Rest Home Sugar Cookies" because years ago my mother (a degree holding Home Economist) gave a demonstration/activity at the local nursing home on how to bake these cookies. This is the only recipe I've ever known for frosted sugar cookies, but apparently all other recipes call for chilling the dough and it's a big production. These are mixed up and baked (you still have to cut in the butter but oh well) and then frosted. They are funny though because the cookies are always quite crisp when baked and I like a soft cookie. I use the Wilton frosting recipe and once frosted, the cookies have to sit out for a few hours so the frosting will "dry" on the surface and soften the cookie (these can only be made in the fall/winter/spring. They will not dry as they need to during the summer). Then they are packed between waxed paper. I didn't have much brown food coloring paste as you can see, so I decided to go for a fun "Technicolor" look! Just think of all the carcinogens in those artificial colors! I would also have you note the SHAPE of these cookies! I am very fussy about how they look when frosted and will not accept offers of help to frost. Those Tom Turkeys are an awkward shape and are very time consuming to frost, but then Thanksgiving only comes once a year. I really love Valentines day (hearts) and Easter (eggs are way easy, but the bunnies are a bit of a problem), Halloween is ok (pumpkins-yes, ghosts and black cats-no), etc. Either way it is an all day activity, but I always make at LEAST a double batch so we have some in the freezer and some to send home with people, etc. Cookie anyone?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am shamefully overdue in posting, so I am going to do one big mish mash post of everything. My grandmother from Fargo came and stayed with us towards the first of the month. She toured between my parents' and siblings' houses and saw all of us and the new baby. I brought home a jar of double cream for her and my mother to enjoy. I have tried a number of times to recreate this culinary delight in my kitchen and I have come up with an adequate substitute, but nothing beats the imported $7/jar real deal! Here it is pictured with Christmas Scones that Grandma, Mother, and I enjoyed in the afternoon with coffee (of course!).








Melissa is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the domestic department! I went to her house two weeks ago for knitting party and to fool around with lemon meringue pie. Now I can make rhubarb pie and pastry crust like nobody's business, but I can honestly say I'd never made NOR eaten lemon meringue pie before. Her dad and brother just love this kind of pie and she wanted to make a 'from scratch' version for Thanksgiving (and did I mention that she has 25 people staying the night in her apartment?!) We found a decent sounding recipe on epicurious, Melissa went grocery shopping, and we managed to produce a tasty and delicious dessert! The lemon filling is really nothing more than a cooked cornstarch/eggyolk/lemon juice pudding. The pie itself is a baked shell filled with the cooled lemon mixture, topped with the meringue, and baked until set although we torched it a bit afterwards with my kitchen torch. I have made dry meringue cookies before, but this meringue was very moist so I can see why you would not want to serve it to young kids or elderly guests (unless of course you use pasteurised eggs). I was very impressed with the way it turned out, and this was only a practice run! I think Melissa is baking the real ones AS I TYPE THIS! Cheer her on! Those little quiches were the practice runs of handling and crimping pastry dough, and they were a mighty tasty teaching tool!

Here is the latest in my seasonal line of scrubs! Actually it is just my new Thanksgiving Tom Turkey scrub that I finished the day before yesterday! Hot off the sewing machine and worn to work in the same day! I bought this fabric back in July on one of my final trips to Waterloo before Melissa's wedding. I made her a scrub out of the same fabric and she wore hers last night. I liked this scrub so well that it is in the washer as we speak and I will wear it again tonight for my shift! Maybe it will brighten things up for the people unlucky enough to be in the hospital over the holidays!
And I did some baking last night...oh wait, wrong picture! Actually I made two more batches of bath bombs last night. I had purchased all of the citric acid IN TOWN to make those! Pictured on the right are scented glycerin soaps that I molded for my girlfriend gifts this year. And once again the month is winding to a close and I have too many things to do and not enough time to complete them. It really is a pity that I have to sleep! Speaking of which, I had better get my nap in before I start getting ready for work tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving To You and Yours!

Party at Melissa's!

We had TWO (count them TWO!!) knitting parties this week. The first involved dinner at Cancun and knitting at my place and the second of which was held the next day at Melissa's house AND she cooked for us! I just love going to her house because it is always clean and smells much nicer than my place! I MUST invest in more candles! I also love her cat Timmy! He will come and sit ON your knitting bag and bat at your yarn! I finished the back panel of the sweater I'm knitting for my niece. That is the yarn that the woman at the Charles City yarnshop basically GAVE to me that day (don't worry, I sent her a check the next day) and it isn't what is called for in the pattern but I figured it was close. I used a size smaller needles than were called for after trying out "the dreaded gauge swatch" and by gosh, when I blocked it and measured it, the measurements were spot on! Way to go Katie! Now I just have to summon up my courage to begin the front panels and pray they match up! We also included Brenda who we always thought was a non yarn person, but she quickly asked at the first party if I had any "spare yarn" and a crochet hook since she used to be a bit of a hooker when she was younger (hooker as in crocheter--get your minds out of the gutter!). I laughed at the "spare yarn" quip and promptly set her up with some yarn and a hook and it all came flooding back. I spoke with her last night and she had almost 2 scarves done and a number of dishcloths! Yay! We need more yarn people around!

RIP Dr. Jekyll

A moment of silence please for Dr. Jekyll, Summer's pet rat, who died earlier in the week. He really was a nice little rat although it did take a little time getting over his little ratty tail. I never would have thought it possible for a rat to show affection, but he really did. Summer was fond of wearing hooded sweatshirts and she'd either put him in the front pocket or inside the hood! He liked to crawl around on the back of the couch and get into your hair too! Summer seemed to think he was about 2ish years old when he died. As a healing gesture (ok, maybe it was just in poor taste, let's be honest) I bought her some Gummi Ratz candy at the dollar store just because they looked cool. We opened them up and looked at them but I just couldn't bring myself to eat them. Summer is doing well with her grief and has since gone out and bought two new rats of the Siamese breed and I'm told they have markings akin to the cat breed of the same name. I have yet to meet them.