Marking My Territory

Let me state categorically right at the outset of this post that I’m not really a gardener. It’s not that I don’t like or enjoy being out in the yard but I’m certainly not passionate about it.

For the last number of years (since John and I have been together), we’ve been apartment dwellers. The last two summers, we’ve had opportunity to do some gardening and, yes, I’ve enjoyed it, but it was always someone else’s garden.

This year, I’ve decided it’s time to put my own, personal stamp on this property. I’ve claimed the front garden.

I’m turning it into a butterfly and hummingbird friendly space. I’ve researched online. I’ve pictured it. And it’s all coming together in my mind.

I’ve even started.

To the right is a stand of lavender. To the right of that, outside the picture, is a stand of Echinacea (coneflower). The darker green clump to the top right is a poppy that’s been transplanted from the back of the house. The stands of bulbs are lovely purple irises. Also out of the picture, to the bottom left is a lovely clump of daisies. There are also grape hyacinths (which John would like to get rid of), a stand of ornamental grass (which is coming out and being moved elsewhere), a clump of hens and chicks (which I’ll be moving and transplanting into “interesting” containers), a small rose bush and our blueberry bush. There’s also a day lily somewhere in there, as well as a new planting of tulips, which may do nothing this year; they were given to me by S, the new tenant upstairs. She’d received them as a housewarming gift, already blooming. The blooms are spent and I’ve cut them down to plant them. I rather doubt they’ll do anything this year, but that’s ok.

In the house, I have started some butterfly weed that I’ll be planting in and around whatever’s already out there. We also have a lot of marigold seeds that will be strewn about. I have every intention of making this a bright, colourful, fun little garden, a true bright spot in this yard.

From what I’ve read, there are three things needed to attract butterflies. Flowers are obvious. Secondly, they like a place to land and sun themselves. Hence the rocks. Thirdly, they like to have a water source nearby. Again, hence the rocks. The larger of the rocks, the one with the dark spot (which is water), has a dip, almost the right size and shape to make a fairly comfortable seat. It holds about a cup of water. During the hot summer days, I’ll have to keep filling it but I think it will work quite nicely. If not, that same dip will hold a shallow bowl. It would be nice to have a birdbath out there, but right now I don’t have one. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for ideas.

What do you think? Does it need anything else? I should add that I will be picking up some bedding plants as well (I’ve been researching zone 5 plants that attract butterflies and hummingbirds). As I said, I want this to be full and colourful.

I’m looking forward to summer!

Ten Little Stitches and How They Grew

Today is a gorgeous, sunny day and both of us have spent an hour or more just sitting outside in the sunshine, John reading and me knitting. It’s glorious!! This is the first day this year that I’ve wanted to spend any kind of time outside. The projected high is 10ºC (50ºF) and sunny. Love it!

As I said, I was doing some knitting out in the sunshine this morning, working on a fun little (or maybe not so little) diversion. It’s the Ten Stitch Blanket by Frankie Brown. At no time are there any more than ten stitches on your needles and it’s growing quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

The yarn is a remnant of some Marks & Katten Fame Trend sock yarn and I’m using 3.0 mm needles. The first turn section was a little confusing but now it’s almost mindless knitting until you get to the corners. I love how it looks and I’ve picked up another ball of the Fame Trend, in a slightly different colourway. There was no more of this colourway in the store unfortunately; the new ball has more green in it, as well as brown and grey. Hopefully, it will look alright. I’m coming up to some green in the small ball and I’m hoping that one of the shades of green in the new ball will match that green. If I can’t get close, I’ll start where the green and grey meet.

In other knitting, I’ve also been working on the monster pants, albeit not as much as my daughter would like, I’m sure.

I have four of the seven decreases completed; once those are done, it’s straight down, changing the yarn every 10 rows.

And then there’s gardening. Our “nursery” is coming alive. Most of the tomatoes are up, as are quite a few of the Walla Walla onions. The basil is poking up out of the ground as well.

This week, I also planted some Butterfly Weed, lovage (John accidentally killed the one plant we had in the front garden), mini tomatoes and started my sweet peas. I’m hoping I’ll have more than just one sweet pea come up this year; last year’s sweet pea fail was disappointing.

I have one last thing to show you, something I’m really happy about. Last year, I bought a bay laurel, hoping for my own bay leaves. It did well outside and we brought it in for the winter. Once it came inside, I pinched the top leaves off, in the hopes it would fill out a bit. Was I successful? You tell me…

Ok, I have to get back outside. It’s just too nice a day to waste by sitting indoors.

Repair by Committee

This week has been, shall we say, an “interesting” week. On Tuesday, the hot water tank blew up. Thankfully, John was home when it went and was able to turn off the water before any damage was sustained. BUT… we had no hot water until Friday. It’s a good thing I’d had a nice, long soak in the tub before the tank decided to give up.

The landlord decided, rightfully so, to replace both hot water tanks, ours and the tank for the upstairs suite rather than wait for the second tank to give up the ghost, too. Wise move. We only had the inconvenience once rather than having to go through it all again. I must admit, it’s lovely having plenty of hot water to get into!

In knitting, progress is being made on the monster pants. As of yesterday, one leg is complete and the second leg is on the needles.

They will be kind of cute when they’re done, don’t you think? The knitting, at this point, is fairly mindless. I just have to remember the decreases every 6th row and I have to remember to switch colours every 10 rounds. Other than that, it’s simple and straightforward.

Yesterday was Sit & Stitch and afterwards, I wandered through our downtown area. I did have a goal in mind; I needed to pick up some postcards (more on that in a bit) and I didn’t want to take the car from a free spot and have to pay somewhere else, so I walked to the postal outlet. On the way, I passed a home decor shop and did a bit of a double take. Were those cones of yarn I saw in the window???

Well, they were and they weren’t.

It looks like yarn, but it isn’t yarn. These are ceramic! As a knitter, how cool would it be to have these sitting on a shelf? I love it!!

Now… the postcards. Yesterday, I joined something called Postcrossing. Very simply, it’s a worldwide postcard exchange. You sign up and you can register to get up to five names of people from anywhere in the world. You’re also given a code to put on each card. When the recipient receives their card, they input the code on the website and you are then put on the list to receive a card. Once a card is registered, you can request another name. My first five names are from the Netherlands, Finland, Russia, Malaysia and the US.

It just sounded like so much fun! I can hardly wait to see where my first postcard will be coming from. To help me track my adventures in “postcarding”, I’ve set up a blog, It Only Takes a Stamp, especially for Postcrossing. I’ve added it to my sidebar (there’s also a link to the Postcrossing page, near the bottom of the sidebar). Check out the blog, but also check out Postcrossing. It’s free to join and it encourages worldwide friendliness. And that is a good thing!

Stuff and Such

Well, much writing has already been accomplished this morning. Not all of it is visible to you, you readers of this blog, but the majority of it is.

I started my garden journal this morning (using this great little program, “Efficient Diary Pro”), for the simple reason that we started our gardening adventures for the year this morning. Earlier this week, one of my co-workers and I walked over to Art Knapp’s (a block from where we work) and picked up some seeds. As of this morning, I’ve planted Walla Walla onions (54 mini planters), jalapeno and sweet peppers (6 of each), two kinds of tomatoes (Brandywine and Marglobe… 18 of each), basil, and Italian parsley (6 of each). I’ve also started a small herb planter that has chives, basil, Italian parsley and a jalapeno pepper; there’s a special purpose for that planter, to be divulged later.

Outside, spring is definitely springing around here. The first of the crocuses has been blooming for the past week, bringing with it a beautiful little splash of colour in an otherwise dreary garden.

And… oh, I love it!! This makes me so happy…

Garlic!! Last autumn, I took one head of garlic and planted all the cloves in the hope that they would actually come up. They did! I’m looking forward to our first harvest of our very own garlic. Amazing what I find exciting, isn’t it?

A few posts back, Sharon in Surrey wanted to know more about my adventures in artisan bread. Well, I’ve posted a nice long post about the bread over on my cooking blog. Be warned, it’s a photo-heavy post, showing the process from start to finish. You can find it here, Sharon (and anyone else interested).

As far as knitting this past week, well… it’s been almost non-existent. I did finish one wrist warmer for myself and a second is half finished, but other than that, no progress has been made on the Monster pants. Hopefully, I’ll feel motivated later today or tomorrow to continue working on the pants. They’re going quickly; really, it’s an almost mindless knit. I just need to sit down and work on them.

Today, though, I’ll be doing some tidying around here, washing the dishes, and going out for my first walk of the season. Spring is finally here… I hope.

Edited to add: Just a quick note to let you know that there's a new blog that I'm contributing to. If you're interested at all (and I won't be hurt if you're not), you can find our work blog over at the Rapid Printing website. It is, of course, completely related to the print industry with the hope of (perhaps) simplifying some of the confusing things for our customers. If you check it out, let me know what you think.

A Monster Ate My Time

With the fiasco that was yesterday (the closet has been repaired and the clothes have all been put away), all my plans for the weekend went out the window. I even forgot about Saturday Chatters (a Ravelry group based on a web chat I was involved with a few years ago… if you’re on Ravelry, feel free to check it out; just search for the group “Saturday Chatters”).

I had intended to bake some more of the 5 minute Artisan bread with the intention of blogging about it, but got caught up with knitting instead. A couple of weeks ago, my daughter saw a pair of knitted monster pants on Pinterest  (you can see them on this board) and asked me if I could knit a pair for Ethan, her 3-year old son. I’m sure you’ve seen them; they’re knitted pants (kind of like sweatpants) with a monster face on the bum.

Really?? Seriously?? She insisted he would LOVE them!

The more I thought about it, though, the more fun they seemed. I finally gave in and ordered the yarn (the yarn shop didn’t have the colours I wanted); it came this past week. I cast on almost as soon as I got home.

This was yesterday. I was almost finished with the crotch shaping at this point. The knitting went really fast! It’s mostly mindless stocking stitch worked in the round so it’s no surprise that it went so quickly. The mouth is made up of short rows, which also gives the bum shaping.

As of last night, I’ve separated for the legs and have started working down the first leg. What I really like about this pattern is that it’s top down and seamless.

The legs will be worked in stripes of the main green and a darker green. Once the pants are finished, I’ll be using duplicate stitch for the eyes and teeth of the monster.

All in all, it’s a pretty good pattern but there are a couple of problems. At either end of the mouth, there is a hole because there are two rows of red worked across the back without joining to the green (does that make sense??). A little suture will fix it but I found that a bit odd.

Also, the numbers in the pattern do not add up. When you cast on 160 stitches and work 4 increases per row for the crotch shaping (one stitch on either side of the center two stitches front and back) 9 times, you add 36 stitches to your total, making it 196; the pattern says there should be a total of 184 stitches. Then, for the legs, because that total stitch count is wrong, the leg stitch count is wrong. The pattern says 92 stitches per leg; there are actually 98. I’m going to continue the shaping as per the pattern but will be ignoring the stitch count.

It surprises me that no one who’s knitted these (as per the Ravelry project page) has mentioned this. I’ve gone over the pattern numerous times and I’m pretty sure I’m not reading it wrong. Oh well, they’ll still work out just fine, I’m sure.

Back to the monster pants… I really want to see how they turn out!

Ever Have One of Those Days?

It’s only just past 7 a.m. and today already has the makings of “one of those days”.

At about 5:00 this morning, we heard a rather loud crashing-ish sound… in our bedroom. Needless to say, it woke us both up. I knew immediately what had happened.

Yup, the entire shelf and rod came right out of the wall. Evidently, the landlord hadn’t installed it properly.

We did have plans for today. Now, our day will have to include repairing the shelf and re-hanging all those clothes. Not quite what we wanted to be doing today.

Edited to add: In case you aren't aware of it, I also have a cooking blog, In Ev's Kitchen. I've just posted there with a recipe for Crepes with Ham, Gruyere and Chard. Why not check it out?

They Say Time Flies

It certainly does seem so. Apparently I’ve been having fun. Well, I have actually.

The past couple of weekends have seen a lot of cooking and baking and a little knitting. This weekend has seen the beginning of getting my spare room in order. So, what would you like to hear about first?

Oh, let’s start with cooking. I’ve been on a pasta and bread making binge for some reason, not that I need to add more starch to my diet. I’ve been having a lot of fun with the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day recipe. Have you heard of it? Basically, you make a dough, a very wet, sticky dough, that can keep in your fridge for up to two weeks. When you want fresh bread, you simply chop off a chunk, shape it quickly, allow it to rise, then bake it. We love it! I think I posted about it earlier but maybe not (just had a quick peek and I don’t think I did post about it). Here’s the link to the recipe I used. (Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day)

In addition to making that bread, I’ve also had the bread machine going this week. Last week, and again this past week, I’ve been frequenting a used book store in the same strip mall where I work. I came across two bread machine cookbooks and bought them both. Hey, for $5.00 each, I think I’m allowed to splurge. I’ve made a couple of recipes so far and I think I could get used to having a bread machine. This week, I made a dark rye bread and raisin bread. The raisin bread isn’t quite up to my expectation but that’s my fault not the bread machine’s fault. I decided to make the dough and bake it in the oven; I should have put it all in one pan but I chose to put it in two and the loaves are on the small side. It does taste pretty good, though. Oh, and the rye bread is pretty good, too, especially for savoury sandwiches.

And then, there’s the pasta. Oh my, the pasta. I’ve been wanting to make ravioli for some time now, but couldn’t really find a recipe that screamed “MAKE ME”. Until a couple of weeks ago.

There’s a back story to all of this. A couple of months ago, a friend took me out for lunch and gave me a belated birthday gift. Part of that gift was an acorn squash. I’ve never had acorn squash before and really didn’t know what to do with it. We put it in a cool spot and forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago, I decided we’d better do something with it before it went bad. That’s when I went searching. And came across this website.

Oh my! Talk about inspiration! If you scroll through the recipes there, you’ll find one for a butternut squash filling. That’s the one I followed. There’s also a recipe for the pasta dough, using a food processor to make the dough. I’ll repeat… Oh my!

There’s also a recipe there for a mushroom filling. Well, it just so happened that we had mushrooms in the fridge and I had some dried chanterelles and morels. That recipe, and the recipe for the Creamy Vino sauce and, well… let me tell you, we ate like kings!

The recipe for the mushroom filling calls for ricotta cheese. In my online travels, serendipitously, I had come across a recipe for making your own ricotta cheese. Are you aware of how simple it is? I wasn’t.

Check it out here. Incredibly simple. Four ingredients: whole milk, cream, sugar and white wine vinegar. That’s it.

Ok, I’m making myself hungry all over again.

I have done a bit of knitting as well. Just for fun, I made a Celestine Sox cushy toy, or as we call it around here, a booby ball. It was a fun little project, but we did learn that even a stuffed, soft toy can break Tim Horton’s mugs. (It was my favourite coffee mug, too… darn it!)

I also made a pair of wrist warmers yesterday. We’re attending a birthday party tomorrow evening and I know that the birthday girl will appreciate them; she asked me to knit her a pair when we had them over for dinner a couple of weeks ago so I’m sure she’ll be happy with them.

They were a quick knit, using some yarn from my stash (which I started organizing yesterday). There was no ball band, but I do know that it’s a superwash 100% merino wool, dk weight. The pattern is based on one of my own designs, the Baby Cable Wrist Warmers; the original pattern is for a mitten-style wrist warmer, but seeing as the recipient doesn’t have the use of her left hand, she’ll find it easier to get these on and off, rather than warmers with a hole for the thumb.

Ok, this has turned into a long post. I’ll end it here. Besides, I still have a lot to do today! I’m making a Light Swiss Chard Frittata for lunch today. More on that next time!

Butterfly, Flutter By

Wow! It feels like a long time since I’ve written here. Last weekend was a rather busy one. We had company for dinner on Saturday and most of the day was spent cleaning and cooking. We had a wonderful evening with great company! It’s not something we do often, but I’m so glad we did. At the end of the evening, I even asked John who our next victims should be!

Sunday was, of course, Super Bowl Sunday. We watched the game at a friend’s house. Again, it was a fun time with good company. All in all, though, there wasn’t a lot of time for blogging or knitting.

This week, however, has been a little different. I haven’t done a lot of knitting, but I did work on the Flutter scarf. I’ve finished the first half of the scarf and have successfully picked up the stitches for the second half.

If you remember, the scarf is started with a provisional cast on and worked from the center to the ends. Using a smaller needle than the size required for the knitting (3.0 mm) made it easier to pick up the stitches from the cast on. Even so, there were a couple of stubborn stitches and a couple of dropped stitches, but very little swearing. In the end, though, I’m proud to say you really can’t tell where the provisional cast on was.

Now, it’s back to the four-row repeat that I can almost do in my sleep. For the first half, I was keeping track of repeats on my iPod, using the excellent app, “1,2,3, Knit!”. For the second half, at least for now, I’m having to keep track the old way… pen and paper.

My iPod has been sick. I don’t think I blogged about that, did I? Well, all of a sudden, the letter “r” on the little keyboard wouldn’t work. In the game, Bookworm, one complete column of letters (corresponding with the location of the “r”) was being stubborn. I took my iPod in to our local Apple seller (not an official Apple Store) and, after examining it, was told by the young man working there (and confirmed by the other two employees) that I should contact Apple directly.

I did. I was sent a box, complete with instructions on how to package my iPod for shipping and, last Monday, dropped it off at my local UPS store. All week, I’ve been tracking my iPod. The upshot? On Monday, I should be receiving a replacement iPod. I’m really happy with Apple’s customer service but I can hardly wait to get my iPod back!

I’ll have to reinstall all my apps, music and photos, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. It also gives me the opportunity to delete some of the apps I really didn’t like or use. I have to tell you, though, I’m surprised at just how much I’ve missed my little iPod. I now realize just how much I use it and depend on it. From getting up in the morning, using my iPod as my alarm clock, to counting the repeats in my knitting, to timing my eggs, to using the calculator and more, I use my iPod a lot!

Technology… love it or hate it, we certainly have come to depend on it, haven’t we?

Productive!

It’s about time I felt like I’ve been productive. I know, I do get things done, but sometimes it just feels like nothing’s getting done or there’s little to show for my time. At least, that’s how it feels to me.

Today, though, is different. Or, I should say yesterday. Looking over the things I did yesterday makes me feel that I’ve been productive. What have I been doing you ask? Well, let me show you.

Bandana cowls from the Purl Soho web site. I liked the one I made for my daughter so much that I wanted one for myself. Then, I found more Noro Silk Garden in my stash, so I made a second one. It’s a really quick knit; these two were made within a 24-hour period. Worsted weight yarn, 5.0 mm needles… yup, they knit up quickly!

While on Pinterest early yesterday, I came across a recipe for No Knead Dutch Oven Bread. Of course, I checked it out. It sounded really simple to make, so I did. To make the bread, you first mix up the yeast (only 1/4 tsp!), water, flour and salt; this sits and rises for at least 8 hours (no labour involved… doesn’t get much better, does it?). After that, the dough is turned out onto a floured board, folded on to itself a couple of times and then allowed to rest for about 15 minutes before shaping it into a loaf. The loaf is put on a clean tea towel, liberally sprinkled with flour or cornmeal (I used a combination). After rising for 1-2 hours, it’s baked in a preheated Dutch oven. When it comes out, it looks like this…

The only thing I can find wrong with this bread is that it got a little burned on the bottom. I can live with that; I just trim off the burned bits. The crust, when it came out of the oven is crisp; the bread itself is tender and chewy, like an artisan bread should be. Even this morning, it’s lovely and chewy and absolutely perfect with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I will definitely be making this again.

It would be perfect to start it before going to work in the morning, coming home and finishing it up. I can just imagine a couple slices of this bread with a bowl of homemade soup. Yum!!

One more thing inspired that feeling of production this weekend. Remember all the grapes we picked this past summer? We had turned all those grapes into juice and frozen it; some of it I had turned into a batch of grape jelly. John liked it, but decided that it really didn’t have quite the “grape-y” flavour he was looking for. According to him it was good, but tasted more like sugar than grapes (and we even used the reduced sugar Certo). He decided to remedy that and thawed all the juice, put it into a stock pot and reduced it to about half of what it had been. Yesterday, I turned four of the five liters of concentrated grape juice into this…

That’s a total of 15 jars of various sizes and, let me tell you, it’s very grape-flavoured! And it is very definitely John-approved! There is still one liter of juice that had to be re-frozen as it wasn’t enough for another batch. It will be the starter for next year’s batch.

Now, we’re eyeing the raspberries. After all, John ate all the jam and jelly I had made last time (I rarely have jam on toast; I prefer savoury to sweet). I don’t think I’ll be doing that today, though. Seeing as the berries are frozen, they’ll keep for a bit.

I think I’ll make some pasta next. I took some pesto sauce out of the freezer this week and some homemade pasta with homemade pesto sauce, along with some homemade bread would go down really well right about now. What else are you going to do when it’s snowing out?

I Love Eggs!

Years ago, when I left my first marriage, my daughter told me I’d have a very simple grocery list: bread, butter and eggs. She wasn’t too far wrong. I like eggs just about any way you can make them… except pickled. I don’t like pickled eggs.

Boiled, poached, scrambled, coddled, fried, in a soufflé… I like it all. One of my favourite weekend meals is a soft-boiled egg chopped up on a piece of toast that’s been liberally slathered with butter. (See? Bread, butter, eggs.) However, getting that boiled egg to just the right level of soft can be a bit of a gamble. Until now, that is.

Imagine my pleasure when I found a link to a free egg timer app. The best part is, it’s put out by the Egg Farmers of Canada! And it’s free!

There are options for boiled, scrambled, fried, and poached eggs, with directions on how to prepare each. I tried it this morning.

I like my eggs soft so I simply slid the little egg over to soft, then hit the timer button. That takes you to the following screen.

As you can see, it tells you exactly what to do and when to start the timer. The timer itself is a sand timer. If you want to, you can even “play” with the sand. Turning your iPod makes the sand move and it doesn’t affect the timer.

And when your eggs are done to perfection, a clucking chicken lets you know (if you don’t want to hear a clucking chicken, you can also set it to a bell but the chicken’s pretty darned cute!).

My eggs this morning were perfect! The whites were completely cooked and the yolks were nice and soft on the inside, perfect for chopping onto hot, buttery toast.

If this app was just an egg timer, I’d be happy. However, to make it even better, there are hundreds of recipes!

All in all, I heartily recommend this app. The fact that it’s free is just icing on the cake; they could easily charge for the app and it would still be a good deal, as far as I’m concerned.

You can download it here. In a five star rating system, I give it five stars.

Not One Stitch

That’s how much knitting I did this week… not a single stitch. I have no idea why I haven’t been inspired to knit, but there it is. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing things though.

Some of my knitting time has been taken up by Pinterest, that’s for sure. And, some of that time wasted spent did result in some inspiration to do something different.

I showed you the wrapped bracelets; well, so far I’ve made four of them. One of them, meant to be a bracelet for one of my granddaughters, has a magnetic clasp that just doesn’t feel strong enough for a bracelet so I’ve made one to replace it. All in all, I’ve made one for my daughter (part of Pay It Forward 2012), one for each of my two granddaughters and the one I’ve put around Little Monkey’s neck. (Remember Little Monkey? You can see it/him/her in this post.)

Then, yesterday, I sat down with string, beads and buttons and made these…

The necklace isn’t quite finished yet; I haven’t figured out just how to finish up the closure… perhaps one of the magnetic clasps that doesn’t work for bracelets, perhaps a loop and bead… I just don’t know yet. I’ll have to think on it for a while.

I’m having fun and feeling very “hippy”. (Macramé, of course, was a very hippy kind of thing way back when I was in high school… these kids think they’ve come up with all this newfangled stuff… HA!)

Ok, I Can Show You

In regards to yesterday’s post… you know I said I wasn’t going to show you pictures of what I’ve been working on? Well, today is a whole ‘nother day and I have things ready for the mail. I can show you pictures; I just can’t say what goes to whom (or is that who?).

So, without further ado… and with thanks to Pinterest for the inspiration…

The Bandana Cowl, a free pattern from the Purl Soho website. I found a couple of balls of Noro Silk Garden in my stash and decided it would be perfect for this pattern; I was right! I love this cowl; I’ll be sending it off this week, but I really don’t want to. The colours, as always, are absolutely gorgeous and the yarn is so soft and cushy. Silk Garden, after all, is 40% silk, 40% kid mohair and 10% lamb’s wool, a very nice combination. It took a little over one ball of the yarn and I worked it on a 5.0 mm circular needle. Maybe there’s still some Noro hiding in my stash.

The second inspiration also came from Pinterest. For someone who always has cold hands, I found, and repinned, these little cuties.

These are polar fleece, rice-filled hearts. All you do is heat them in the microwave for about 30 seconds; then you tuck them into your mittens or gloves. They should keep your hands warm for about an hour. I love instant gratification; I made three sets in less than an hour. Two sets are earmarked for gift giving; the third set is mine!

Then, the last thing I made yesterday, another almost instant gratification project, is this little beauty…

Again, this was inspired by Pinterest. There are numerous links to tutorials for this wrap bracelet. I made this one with waxed cotton, dental floss and pearl beads reclaimed from a too-small necklace I’d been given many years ago. The button closure is one I found in my button bag. I will certainly be making more of these, both as gifts and for myself.

Kristie commented that she’d joined Pinterest but really didn’t understand how it works. Well, firstly, you can just look at what others have pinned, checking out the various categories. If there’s something you really like and want to remember, you can repin it to a board that you can set up for yourself. You can call your boards anything you want. For instance, check out my boards. When you click on a pin, it will take you to a page with that pin; from there, you may find a link to the original webpage. In the case of the projects I’ve made, each page linked to a tutorial or pattern.

And yes, it certainly can be a time suck. In all honesty, though, for all the time I’ve spent there, I’ve found numerous recipes I’ve already tried; I’ve found new hobbies to try; I’ve found inspirations for hobbies I’ve put on hold for years. I’ve always maintained that in order to be inspired, you need to expose yourself to things that inspire you – Pinterest does that.

Little Things Mean a Lot

This has been a week of little things. Not a lot of little things, but little things, quick and easy things. Fun stuff!

I’m not sure I should show pictures yet. I’ll think on it while I’m writing.

On Facebook, there has been something called “Pay it forward 2012”. Basically, you make something for the first five people who comment on your post; they, in turn, must repost and do the same for the first five people who comment on their post… and so forth. You have all of 2012 to make something for each person; it can be as simple as a cup of coffee, as long as it’s something handmade. As soon as I saw my sister post it, I was all in! It gives me a reason to think about those who commented and to make something with each person in mind.

At this point, there are three people on my pay it forward list. It’s been a lot of fun to think about each person and try to figure out what each might appreciate. Thus far, I already have two gifts completed. Neither was a major undertaking; that’s not the purpose.

One of the more difficult parts of this endeavour has been finding inspiration. That’s where Pinterest has been of enormous help! If you’ve never checked it out, do! There’s a section there called DIY & Crafts that has some wonderful ideas; I found one idea there for one of the people on my list.

No, I think I’d best keep the pictures until each person has received their gift.

First FO of 2012

A week into the new year and I have my first started and finished object. Or should I say objects. Gloves come in pairs.

The pattern is Treads, a free pattern I found on Ravelry. The pattern is written as tipless fingers, but I decided to turn them into full-on gloves. Hey, if you have to knit part fingers, you may as well go all the way, right?

The yarn, which is in reality far more purple than the picture shows, is Patons Classic Merino, worsted weight, 100% wool. The gloves were knit using 3.50 mm needles. All in all, they were a quick knit (four days total and I didn’t work on them every day) and they’ll be nice and toasty warm if winter ever decides to put in an appearance.

We did get a little bit of snow yesterday, but it’s already melting today. There is a 40% chance of flurries this afternoon, but I doubt they’ll happen. The sky just isn’t gray enough.

Because I’ve finished one project, I’m allowed to cast on for another one. And I did. (What? You seriously think I should be finishing some of my ufos???)

In 2008, a dear internet friend sent me two skeins of KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud that she had dyed. For some reason, she decided the colour (and the yarn) was for me. I love it! For one thing, the alpaca is SO soft. And for another thing, I happen to love the colour; Robbyn called it Pigeon’s Blood. It’s taken me this long, though, to decide just what to do with it. This weekend, things came together and I just cast on this morning, after weaving in all the tails in the gloves (there were a lot of them!)

The pattern is the Flutter Scarf, a pattern by Miriam Felton. It isn’t a free pattern; I liked it so much I decided I had to buy it. It’s been in my Ravelry library for a while now, but I’ve held off starting it. I’ve been patiently waiting for the yarn to tell me what it wanted to be and for the pattern to tell me which yarn it wanted to be made with.

Yes, my yarn and patterns talk to me. Don’t yours?

Pictures of the scarf will be posted when there’s a little more to show you. Right now, it’s all of 12 rows long, not long enough to show you much of anything but the colour.

Nothing Rhymes With Orange

Everyone knows that Christmas time is mandarin time. I love mandarins! Well, one day before Christmas, I walked over to our local green grocer (Quality Greens, if you’re interested) and discovered mini Honey Mandarins.

Mini. Tiny. Want to see some pictures? I didn’t take any but another blogger did. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

See? They’re tiny! Four or five of them will fit comfortably in your hand. And they’re just as tasty as the regular mandarins or satsumas.

So, where am I going with this, you ask? Christmas is over, mandarin season will be over before long. Well… these little oranges aren’t seedless. I decided to take a couple of the seeds and see if I couldn’t sprout them.

I carefully brought two seeds home (yes, we finished the entire box at work… so what?), wrapped in a paper towel. Once home, I moistened a paper towel (no, I drenched it!), folded it and placed it into a small Ziploc container, covered it and left it on my sideboard for a couple of weeks.

After about two weeks, I checked the seeds. One had turned an ugly gray colour, but the second seed still had it’s whitish colour and had a little white “bump” at one end. I disposed of the gray seed and left the other… until this past weekend.

Much to my surprise, this is what I saw…

To say I’m pleased would be an understatement! Now, I need to get it into a small pot and soil soon, I’m thinking. John will be heading to the college later today and I’ve asked him to bring me back some good potting soil, just enough to fill a small pot. Once the soil is room temperature, I’ll make sure it’s nice and moist and I’ll plant the seed, with some very wet paper towelling, and hope for the best.

If you’ve ever started an orange from seed and have some advice, I’d certainly appreciate it. For me, this is an adventure in gardening!

Third Time’s the Charm

After yesterday’s blog post was published, I decided there was nothing to lose by throwing the monster socks back into the washer for another round of felting. If they came out too small, they’d fit someone else. If they didn’t shrink any further, I’d lost nothing and I would have used them to make insoles (or outer soles) for my felted clogs, the ones with hole-y soles.

Well, they came out smaller than when they’d gone in to the washer and the fit is MUCH better.

If I were to make these again, I think I would: a) Use a different yarn, like Lopi or two strands of Patons Classic Wool and/or: b) Cast on fewer stitches. I would have liked them a little narrower all the way around but now, at least, they are wearable and my ankles are comfy. They’re definitely warm!

Now, on to food! Glorious food! I’ve been finding some amazing recipes these past few weeks. Let me share a few images with you…

Holiday Eats VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

From the left… Roasted Brussel Sprouts with grapes and pecans, finished with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Let me tell you, it was like a painting on a plate, colourful, and very tasty. The roasted grapes and the balsamic gave a pop of sweetness and the brussel sprouts, which can be bitter, were done to perfection!

Then, there’s the Pull-Apart bread, stuffed with a mixture of mushrooms, shallots, garlic and cheddar cheese. I ran out of the mushroom mix so some of the pieces were filled with salsa and cheddar. The bread dough is cut and rolled into circles and each circle is stuffed with whatever you want to stuff it with. It all makes for a unique-looking loaf that’s fun and tasty. We had company when it came out of the oven and everyone was impressed.

Then there’s the Savoury Brie en Croute (or Brie baked in puff pastry). In this case, I used a small wheel of St. Andre cheese, a triple cream Brie-like cheese, very rich. It is stuffed with a mushroom and onion filling before being wrapped in the puff pastry. It, too, was really yummy. We had it with crackers and, later in the evening, some sparkling wine. Talk about decadent!

If you’re interested in checking out the recipes, here are the links:

Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Grapes and Pecans

Pull Apart Cheesy Herb Bread

Mushroom Stuffed Brie en Croute

Just a note on the Brussels Sprouts link – this isn’t the recipe I followed, but it is very similar. The one I used had no garlic and added 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar at the very end. The link to the recipe I used doesn’t seem to be working, so perhaps I’ll post the recipe to my food blog (link in the sidebar).

A New Year, A New Start?

I refuse to get all pensive about the year that has passed and the year just begun. Suffice it to say, in truth it’s just another day… albeit a day that gets me an extra day off (I go back to work on Tuesday).

We did stay up to ring in 2012, staying awake by watching movies on the internet (Knowing, with Nicholas Cage, and Citizen Kane). We knew when the clock struck midnight by the sudden boom of fireworks in the neighbourhood. It went on for a while, we toasted the new year with a glass of prosecco, listened to the noise outside for a while, then went back to the movie. I went to bed at about 1:30 a.m., very unusual for me; I have no idea what time John joined me; I was up just after 7:30… not bad.

Over the past few days, very little knitting has been done. For one thing, I’ve been engrossed in a book (Daughters of Fire by Barbara Erskine); I want it finished now. Don’t get me wrong; it’s an exciting book but I always feel like I should be doing something else when I’m reading. You know… multi-tasking. Like knitting and reading. That’s hard to do with a 560 page paperback book. (That’s why I like audiobooks – I can knit and listen at the same time – much more productive!)

The knitting I’ve been doing over the last couple of weeks has me frustrated. Maybe that’s why I’ve been reading. In addition to the slippers intended for me being too big, the felted socks I knitted are also big.

The length is fine but they’re so wide that I almost walk right out of them.

They felted fine, the height is fine, they’re toasty but very roomy. I just don’t feel comfortable wearing something that roomy. Knowing me, I’d probably trip right out of them. I’ll wear them for now, but it’s back to the drawing board. I may just go back to the Bev Galeskas pattern for the felted clogs or her felted boot pattern. I like the extra height because it keeps my ankles warmer. My right ankle especially gets very cold at times (I’ve sprained it badly… torn the ligaments… at least three times in the past) so I want to do whatever I can to keep my feet nice and warm. Don’t tell anyone but I’m even considering leg warmers!

Another small project I have been working on, and that has me frustrated as well, is a pair of stranded socks. I found a nice pattern on the Drops website, a pair of dk weight socks. I bought some yarn for the socks, cast on and was happily knitting away. They look great. Really!

I’m past the heel turning now and, honestly, it’s looking good. There’s just one little thing that is really bugging me. When I knit socks for myself, using fingering weight yarn on 2.25 mm needles, I cast on 64 stitches. This pattern calls for dk weight yarn, 3.5 mm needles and starts with 60 stitches. Fine. The leg is a little on the loose side but, seeing as they’re meant to be slipper/house socks, I can live with that. However, after the gusset decreases, the foot is worked on 68 stitches. Are you seeing where I’m going? 64 stitches on 2.25mm fits my foot perfectly. 68 stitches on 3.5 mm needles? Well, they’ll probably fit John better than they fit me and they’re not meant for John.

I could continue the decreases down to 64 stitches, but I’m afraid they’ll still be too roomy for me. I haven’t done it yet, but I’m seriously considering frogging that sock and designing my own. Frustrating. All I want is warm feet!

Oh well. Life could be a lot worse. Minor frustrations, easily overcome.

Now, to all of you who read this blog, I wish you a very happy 2012. Thank you for sticking with me for so long (it will be seven years in March). I’ve met some wonderful people through this blog; it’s too bad we can’t all sit around a table, face to face, sharing good conversation and perhaps a glass of wine; that would be fun!

A Fail for Me is a Bonus for John

Christmas is over for another year. The fridge is full of leftovers; the dishes are done and put away and our tummies are still feeling the effects of an overabundance of good food.

Now, it’s time to get back to normal. I go back to work tomorrow. *sigh*

Oh well, the last few days have seen more than just food. As you may recall, I posted earlier this year about the state of our felted slippers. Both John’s and mine have holes at the heels and the balls of the feet. I decided it was time to make myself a new pair; I’m more bothered by cold feet on these floors that John is, it seems.

I found a promising pattern on the Drops website… this one. I had no intention of making them in red with fuzzy trim, though. I went stash diving and found the remains of the brown wool I had used for the Brown Blob (um.. Quonset Cardigan). The pattern is a simple one, really, knitted flat, seamed and then felted. There was one small glitch. One sentence was somewhat confusing, lost in translation.

As a result, I added a few rows before realizing that I was supposed to continue in garter stitch, not knit in garter stitch to the finished measurement. I figured that the extra rows wouldn’t really affect the overall product as they’d be felted anyway, right?

Wrong. After putting the slippers through two complete cycles, they’re too long. They fit John perfectly. They’re just waiting for him to wear them. I have a feeling he’ll wait until his current slippers pretty much fall off his feet.

So, I’m back to the drawing board. I could just go with the same pattern I’ve been using all along, the Fiber Trends felted clog pattern. I’ve knitted that one a few times already; I’m bored with it. I went hunting and then remembered that Cat Bordhi has a felted boot pattern in one of her Treasuries of Magical Knitting (the moebius books). I didn’t want the moebius “handle”, so it’s been left off and I am, basically, knitting a huge pair of socks that will be felted down and, hopefully, fit.

The wool I’m using is akin to the old White Buffalo. I’m using two strands held together. The pattern calls for two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, so I’m hoping this will work. If they still end up too big, John will have two pairs of slippers and I’ll be investing in some worsted weight yarn and making the felted clogs again.