Cattywampus

Aftermath

Well, Christmas is over.  All the preparing, the knitting, the choosing of gifts, the cooking, the decorating, the wrapping, the mailing, the month and then some of preparation and POOF.  24 hours later, it's gone.

But wasn't it wonderful?  I was for me, I hope it was for you as well!  And of course if you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you enjoyed a relaxing day doing something you like!

We started out with a Christmas eve dinner of Sausage and White bean gratin, of course I didn't remember to take pictures of any of the food to share.  DH and I exchanged a portion of presents xmas eve because we had to be out of the  house bright and early in the a.m. (bright and early for Christmas day, not for a regular day)

He gave me an ipod nano, in red, which I wanted but is one of those (product red) things so it was a little more expensive and I never would have forked over the extra cash for it myself.  He even had it engraved on the back "As You Wish."  Seriously.  I cried.  (from the Princess Bride, in case you are unfamiliar)

 

So cute!  And now I won't have fight with my phone anymore.  I have been using it for podcasts on the way to work, but it loses my place, randomly restarts episodes, and in general makes me want to scream at it's ineffectiveness - none of which is good for anyone when this happens before I've had coffee.

Christmas morning we exchanged the rest of our gifts - dh completely shocked me with two of the Yarn Harlot's Christmas recommendations - the knit klips to clip things together while you are seaming, and a sweater bag for the laundry.  I had been forwarding those to him for fun, but I didn't really expect to get any of those.  I do love him.

Another huge surprise was the complete series of both Angel AND Buffy.  Holy crap!  He knew I was going through them one disc at a time on Netflix, of course, and that I would check my amazon gold box to see if someone the price had miraculously dropped to $25 a set or something, but I never expected this!

 

I am EXCITED!!  I can watch them whenever I want, as much as I want, without having to wait 4 days for the next disc.  Hooray!  Again I say - sweetest man ever.

Last but not least, the glaring red background of the nano shot.

 

A kindle!!!  Hooray!  I went back and forth and forth and back between the kindle and the nook and I finally settled on the kindle - for two reasons - 1. if I wanted it for xmas that was my only option and 2. it's not a new product, amazon has been doing this for a while and I trust them.  Not to say that barnes and noble  can't do it or that the nook won't be awesome, just that right now it's all promises and sweet talk and I wasn't willing to jump on the wagon yet.  

It's super fun, I have downloaded a book, loaded up some pdfs and I am good to go!

 

Knitting pdfs on my kindle!  When I travel I will have a back up of my pattern!  That makes me happy.  As does the ability to read while I knit.

So basically, I got a nano to listen to while I knit, dvds to watch while I knit, and a kindle to read while I knit.  Either that or I'm a little delusional thinking it's all about the knitting.

Anyway.  We were off to my grandmother's bright and early to arrive there in time to visit for a while before dinner.  It was wonderful to see her and we had a wonderful time chatting with her and the other family we sat with.  We don't get down to see her enough, it's hard sometimes to fit those visits in, but we need to do it more.

After lunch there we were flying back home to prep the house for my mother's visit, she arrived mid-afternoon.  More gifting commenced!

 

A DellaQ DPN case, I have been in desperate need of DPN storage and this is perfect!  Also, the Knit Kit which will be perfect for travel (I think maybe I don't travel as much as I think I do, but it's good to be prepared at any rate). Also there was some china to go with my set, but that's not very exciting for the blog, so I didn't take pictures.

And on the other side I believe all of my gifts were well received and will be enjoyed, which makes me even happier than getting such awesome stuff!

After that, dinner commenced, involving some appetizers (shrimp cocktail, antipasti), homemade bread with proscuitto, parmesan and rosemary, (here is where the salad would be if we hadn't decided we didn't have room for salad), some pork braciole browned and then baked in marinara sauce served with pasta.  All of which would have been delicious if the braciole hadn't been stuffed with 50% salt.  I couldn't even eat them, the sauce they had been cooked in was almost too salty to eat.  Oh well, I guess I've learned my lesson there, I will have to learn to stuff my own braciole if I want to know for sure that they will be good.  

But who cares?  A wonderful 24 hours with family and (mostly) good food, I couldn't be happier!

In knitting news, I am making progress on the back of Sprossling, the test knit for Anne, I am not as far along as I would like to be, but it's coming.

 

I also picked up the pi shawl that I started months ago and that I intend to have done for our trip to belgium in May.  I really better get moving on it if I intend to be able to bring it with me!  I don't even remember what I got sidetracked on the last time, but I will try not to let that happen again.

And now, back to our regular programming.  (Except that I'm not going back to work until NEXT monday and OH BOY am I thrilled about that!)

Almost

I have two more FOs this week!  Woot!

I finished Scott's Mitts, he was unimpressed by the idea of an action shot in the snow (OMG the snow!) we got over the weekend.  So here they are!

 

Pattern cobbled together from many different places, did you know not one single flip top mitten pattern has a men's XL?  Men's medium - lots, men's large - some, XL - not at all.  Do the authors think that we just won't knit for them b/c it's too time consuming?  Heavens, if we knit them socks we will certainly knit them mitts!

I did, in case you were wondering, write it down IN DETAIL so I can duplicate them the next time he needs a pair without all that work.  Hooray for not thinking I'll just remember it next time!

I also finished my goddaughter's baby brother's sweater.

 

I am happy with this except for that yellow button.  I don't want to talk about it.  I had 5 green buttons.  I made 5 button holes.  I had a disagreement with the couch that let to confiscation of a button.  I know it looks OKAY, it's a kid's sweater, who cares?  BUT I HAD 5 BUTTONS.  I did!  Really!!  GRRRRR.

Pattern: Childhood, in Berocco Vintage (which I liked and would totally recommend).  I have yarn enough to make one for his big sister, but that was not meant to be by Christmas.

Now I know you are just dying to see pictures of our snow (23"), so here are a few amusing puppy pics.

 

 

The snow was definitely taller than the dogs.  Still is, in fact.  Pixie loved it, bounced around like a little bunny, but for Duke it was his personal version of hell.  It's cold and wet and attacks you from all sides and gets between your toes and your sister jumps on you and knocks you over and it's HORRIBLE.  Torture.   
 
 Since we were snowed in on Saturday and all plans were canceled I had a snow day to knit, I finished off the two projects above and made some progress on the sweater I'm test knitting, pics later on that, but I'm really happy with the way it's turning out.

On Sunday I decided to make baklava - which I was going to make for our get together saturday night and I was antsy to try out the recipe I had.  

 

So I made it.  OMG.  It's like crack.  I don't even know how to explain to you how good it is.  If you haven't made it - try it!  It was much easier than I thought and OMG it's so much better than any store bought stuff you've had.

Sunday night I made Shepherd's Pie, the only version I've ever made successfully.  (The first time I tried to  make it I set the oven on fire - for real - but we won't talk about that either.)  

 

I'm not sure if I'll get back here before Christmas, so Happy whatever-holiday-you-celebrate, happy solstice, and have a great week!
 

Food. Fall is about food.

Is it that this is the time of year when our ancestors used to harvest and store food, is it the natural turn of the seasons that signal our bodies to want hearty, warm meals?  I don't know what it is, but in the fall I want to cook and I want to eat hearty, filling, and probably fattening foods.

Friday I was off and I spent a good bit of time cooking.  For lunch I made curried roasted butternut squash and put it on a salad with crunch sprouts (these are new for me, I love them!), goat cheese, & french lentils.

This week I went to a class on indian cooking and learned to make a few things (theoretically).

 

Hmf.  That came out smaller than I anticipated...

Anyway.  So yesterday I roasted my own spices.

 

So that's a no-go with the plastic spoon, it started to melt.  That's a first.

Then I ground them in a coffee grinder and made chicken curry that ACTUALLY tasted like real chicken curry, not just an acceptable at home substitute, but real chicken curry.  YUM.  Of course I forgot to take a pic of that, the eating took precedence there.

I also made what the instructor called mint chutney, this is what I know as the green stuff that comes with the papadum at restaurants.

 

And I made the papadum to go with it.  First of all, this is enough green stuff to serve at a dinner party and second of all, it was so hot that you couldn't eat more than two bites without crying.  We both like spicy food, so this was no meager level of spiciness.  I think this may be my fault, the recipe said green chiles, the only green chiles I found at the market were serrano chiles, and they're green, so I put in two of those (recipe said four, but they smelled really hot, so I held back).  Maybe serranos are hotter than those little green chiles?  Either that or I got super, super hot chiles.  Whatever happened, I have no idea what we're going to do with this much of it!

Verdict:  Delicious and worth all the effort with the spice roasting & all that.

Tonight - chicken parm

 

with fresh pasta from DiBruno Bros.  Again I say YUM.

Tomorrow - leftovers baby!

Fall is here

Today was a gorgeous fall day and after perusing the October Bon Appetit, the mood to make fall foods struck me.

I started with a lentil and roasted squash salad for lunch, I forgot the goat cheese, it was good without it, but it would have been even yummier with that addition.  

Then I made an apple spice cake, mine's not that pretty, but it sure is good!

 

I am also making white beans with garlic & sage along with beef roast with root vegetables for dinner.  I guess I was feeling adventurous today.  The root vegetables I chose include carrots, turnips, parsnips, sweet potatoes, and celery root.  Should be interesting, I have no idea what turnips or celery root taste like!  The white beans will get good use later this week in soup and in a red sauce with some sweet sausage.  Yum!  

Now it's a bit late in the day, but I am finally sitting down to knit, I have decided to pick up a shawl I had started and then put down months ago.  (spring things)  Here is where I last left it.

 

The first section is straight forward enough, so I'm going to make it my tv knitting for a while.  Something has happened to my knitting focus lately.  My sweaters have completely stalled - I have NO desire to finish up the sweaters I have in progress.  I just want to knit lace.  So lace it is!  There's no point in fighting that, I knit for fun, so I'll knit whatever strikes my fancy, and right now it's lace.

Moving back in time one day...

Yesterday I took two classes with Jared Flood.  I don't have much to show for it though.  The first class was colorwork & steeking.

 

Here he is looking at Craig's work.  (Craig owns Loop, our fab LYS)

 

That's what I accomplished.  The class was really helpful, I definitely understand a lot of things better and I hope I've learned those little tricks that make colorwork look right.  Handily, this is also my swatch for the knitpicks vest I am planning making.  He did also take the swatch he was working and *eeek!* steeked it, watching him do it really helped me have confidence that it really does work.

The second class was about EPS (EZ's percentage system), which I've used a number of times, but there were a few things that I just wasn't really understanding, like the short row shaping to raise the back neck.

Jared was a great instructor and watching him talk about the different aspects of EPS while showing us those bits on his sweaters really helped.  

Last night we tried to go to a street fair but quickly realized that we are definitely too old to have fun at those things.  Too many people, too much noise, too many lines, too much everything - so we wandered and read menus until we got to a restaurant we had been meaning to try for a while and to my utter delight - they had veal.  I know I shouldn't eat veal, I shouldn't WANT to eat veal, I should be against the whole idea of it - but darn it it's SO DARN GOOD.  I only have it 2 or 3 times a year and we hadn't found a place in Philly that had veal that was worth it.  I cut it with my fork.  Heaven.

All in all, this was a fabulous weekend, as dh said, the only way it could have been better is if we'd won the powerball!  I hope you all had an equally fabulous weekend!

Skirt Conclusion & finally some knitting

So, I washed it and it still looked all stiff and no matter how cute the blue was it just wasn't working.  I dreaded ripping out that seam and pulling off the bias tape, sooooo I didn't, I just cut it off and took an inch off the skirt, no harm, no foul.

Action shots with a matching shirt to get a better idea...of course the part in the back where it puckers is completely covered up by this year's long shirt styling.

It's still a bit bell-y though, just not as stiffly bell-like as before.  I think that the next one I make I will make the angle a little less steep, less A-line, if you will.  I think I can handle that.

It's frustrating, this trial and error thing, not something my temperament is suited for, but if I can persevere it will be well worth it.  I have some fabric for another - and even for a dress if I'm feeling REALLY ambitious - so the next weekend we are home I will give it a whirl and see if I can make a less A-line a-line skirt.

In the meantime I have a skirt that fits well, is a really fun summer pattern, and that I am not at all embarrassed to wear out in public.  In fact I'm sure I will wear it to work one day this week.

Not tomorrow though because tomorrow is Jury Duty.  I am taking my ipod and lots of knitting, I am hoping for a calm day of knitting and no actual jury to serve on so I can happily go back to work on Tuesday.  

I'm not excited about the prospect of going there tomorrow instead of work, but the idea of being stuck in a room waiting with nothing to do but knit is certainly not giving me the heebee jeebies, y'know?  

I am working on the pompon top, which is a pretty fun knit now that I've gotten past the size 0 ribbing.

I'm not sure if they are supposed to, but the pattern looks like little flowers to me, leaves on the bottom and the blossom where the purl stitches are.

It's a fun little pattern, I am doing the body in the round and I am NOT excited about getting to the front/back separation so I am purling rows, but it is inevitable.  Actually, I guess it isn't, but if I want to wear the silly thing it's inevitable.  This is a pretty good shot of the color of the yarn too.

Oh and one last thing, I did make one thing that worked the first time around today!  I made these jam oatmeal bars.

I had a yellow cake mix that was for a birthday that I didn't end up making a cake for and I thought - why not?  I had to add some water to get the batter to 'clumpy', but other than that the recipe worked perfectly.  They are really yummy and taste more like dessert than a snack, but that's okay with me!

Too many veggies

We eat out and/or are out of town a lot.  Apparently enough so that even a half share of veggies is too much for us to consume in a week.  It doesn't help that things like kale or squash require special prep in order for dh to eat them, and I don't have time to do that kind of prep after work.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy veggies - especially fresh ones, but there are just too many to eat in a week!  So I am becoming creative with our veggies, which I think is good b/c I am discovering all sorts of things we didn't know we liked, and that's bonus.

Like that garlic scape pesto for example, that was super yummy.  And thanks to my friend Heather's resourcefulness and generally much larger knowledge of what on earth to do with veggies I am going to try this summer squash bread recipe and this pickle recipe to deal with the squash and cukes we got.

The beets I roasted and will take to work to put on a salad with some feta, yum!  I am finding other veggies hard to make 'lunch friendly'.  I blanched and froze the green beans, the swiss chard, and the kale.  

In fact, I spent so much time prepping our veggies so we could eat healthy yesterday that we had to order chinese for dinner...I feel like maybe something went awry there.

Thank you so much for all your helpful comments about the skirt.  I have a plan of attack and as soon as I'm home more than 2 hours in one shot I will give it a go.   Hopefully the skirt will be wearable by the end of the weekend.  Really hopefully, in fact, since I ordered more fabrics to make a few more...  

In knitting news, I cast on for this pom-pon top from Feminine Knits. I am doing the ribbing on size 0 needles. Now that is just crazy! But I love the top, so I'm running with it.   (It's not very exciting yet, I know)

I am also doing a decent job at getting through my WIPs, I finished one second sock (pictures after I block) and am working on two others, so theoretically I will have three new pairs of socks soon! And as soon as I get caught up so my UFOs are more like normal I can start working on some lace again. 

I was feeling sort of overwhelmed by them.  I think I got off track when I dropped everything to knit the highlander for Anne, which is fab and I glad I did, but I lost track of what I had on the needles. And you know how it is...once you put it down it's hard to pick it back up again, so I definitely feel good about moving forward with all of these.

Also, what the heck is up with typepad?  Anyone?  It's putting hard breaks in the middle of my lines for no apparent reason and on other lines it's allowing them to go on forever and forcing me to put in a hard return.  Which is why this post may look odd, in case it does, and if it doesn't it's because I've fixed them all.   

 

Only two quilts to go

I did start on the skirt, but was thwarted by the darts.  I couldn't find any help anywhere online on how to adjust darts if they weren't working, any advice?

The material was puckering underneath the darts when I put the skirt on, I tried making them longer, no help, shorter, no help, I stopped for sanity's sake.  I will take it to work with me tomorrow and ask the woman in our office who recently graduated with a fashion degree, she should be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong.  

The instructions on how to make a pattern were quite clear, and I had this wrapping paper with 1" grid marks on the back, that was tremendously helpful.  I will refrain my judgement of the overall quality of instruction until I get the dart thing worked out though.  It wouldn't be fair at this point.

So I went back to sewing things that don't have to fit...I finished, finally completely finished, my godson's quilt and it is ready to go in the mail for his birthday in August.  I also finished (to the point that all that has to happen is the handsewn binding) 3 -THREE- quilts, two baby quilts and one that has just been in the queue a long time.

I quilted the boat quilt with a darker blue thread in a diagonal pattern.  I was going to make diamonds on it, but 1. I ran out of the thread and 2. I'm afraid it would obscure the pattern.  I think the thread was a little darker than I should have gone, tho it's hard to tell in this pic.  This stuff is a lot of trial and error at first like everything else, I guess.

And I worked a bit on the next quilt.  I think I mentioned I'm doing a lazy 9-patch block?  Lazy in that the blocks will be 12" blocks and there will be solid blocks in between the 9-patch blocks.  Right now I'm just trying to get this stuff churned out and this one is for a 5 yo boy who loves plaid flannels, so I thought this would suit him and something fancier and more complicated would possibly make it less well liked.

The blocks are all ready to be sewn up the next time I have some time, which probably won't be for a few weeks.

After that, one ONE baby quilt to do and I am DONE.  Until there are more babies of course, but as I will have caught up with all the pregnancies at least I will have some warning and time to make those!

I found a pesto recipe to use with my garlic scapes this weekend.  It was pretty powerful, we had it for lunch and we both felt like we shouldn't get too close to anybody.  But on the bright side, we didn't see any vampires all weekend, so it must have kept them away.

 

YUM!  I think they are probably almost out of season though, I doubt we'll get any more until next year.  

I was off today, leading to a much more productive weekend than I would have otherwise had, I spent most of today sewing and I'm sad to go back to work tomorrow b/c I feel like I"m on a roll.  Oh well.  It must be done.  How else could I afford to buy more fabric?  ;-)

...and I'm back

Well then, work sort of sucked me in over the last few weeks and I'm finally coming up for air.

I have a few things to share - 1. if for some reason you end up with an abundance of garlic scapes, you can make a fab white bean dip.  The CSA is certainly pushing my creativity for yet more things to do with greens, but so far, so good, and I figure I'm probably eating healthier for it so I'm not complaining.  

2.  I finished the Heart to Heart scarf that was part of the lace club for May.  I love the pattern, it's SO pretty.  The color is not up my alley, but this will make a wonderful gift for somebody.

3.  I have been out shopping for key summer wardrobe pieces over the last few weeks and it struck me that a lot of the skirts that are on the racks right now are pencil skirts.  Hmf.  I don't like pencil skirts.  They are uncomfortable to sit at a desk in and sometimes hard to walk in, I'm past the phase in my life where I will suffer for fashion, so I'm not buying them.  This has led to a dearth in fun skirts in my wardrobe this year. 

 

Now then.  I have a sewing machine...I have access to fabric...I (theoretically) can fit my knitwear to my body type...so...why not try to make skirts?

I ordered Sew What! Skirts from Amazon after reading the reviews and I am excited!  I went to our local fabric shop and picked up some fun fabric and bias tape to make a cute little number and I am planning on making an a-line skirt this weekend.  This book has you take your measurements then plot out a pattern on paper using the measurements and make the skirt from there.  Brilliant, no?  It's so logical when you think about it, no trying to make the fashion industry standard measurements fit on your body, no settling for that color when you really wanted THIS color & so on.  

On advice from the book (and again, so logical b/c this is what we do with sweaters) I took a few skirts that I love from my closet to check out the shaping & measurements.  The measurements were spot on with what the book said I should be using, all good, but HORRORS, every single skirt I picked up had DARTS.

Now, the book vaguely explains darts, recommending them for the curvy among us, but it says to put them on the back and front of the skirt.  My skirts only have back darts, which, if you think about it, is logical b/c there's a bit more of a steep angle necessary on the back of one's garment compared to the front.  So I am going to attempt to make two separate pattern pieces, front & back, so I can have darts only where I need them.  

So yeah...wish me luck!  I think it'll be a small miracle if I don't get so frustrated that I want to set the whole mess on fire by the end of the weekend.  (Quilts, what quilts?  I don't remember any quilts that I should be working on...)

Hope you all have a great holiday weekend & I will be back at the end to report my success (or failures)!

Obsession

My obsession with finishing up these baby quilts continues.  This weekend I finished sewing up the top of the little boat quilt and the binding is ready to go on after I quilt it.  I sewed up the binding for the dick & jane quilt so that is ready to go on and sewed up the binding for a sampler quilt I finished eons ago that has just been waiting - it'll be about 7 years in the making by the time I finish it.  On top of all that I started a lazy 9 patch quilt, lazy because the 9 patches will be 12" square and I'm putting in some plain squares as alternate blocks.  

Hopefully next weekend I will finish sewing the top of that one, quilt the boats, and sew all the respective bindings on.  As always, time will tell.  I have two more weekends to get these done and start on the final baby quilt.  When those are done I will be free to sew whatever I want for whomever I want...but realistically I will probably take a decent break and avoid it all b/c I pushed myself so hard to finish these.

____

We started getting a CSA share a few weeks ago, this week we got rhubarb, strawberries, kale, collard greens, bok choy, and eggs.

I haven't ever really used greens like this so I've been using recipes from 'Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone', I make this yummy dish with the kale, spices, and cannelini beans.

I also made a strawberry rhubarb crumble which is quite delish and because dh doesn't eat desserts with cooked fruit in them, it's all mine.  Which is both good and bad...

Today is the first day of summer and I'm supposed to be starting my big, giant lace project and I spent the day quilting...ah well.  Maybe after dinner...

Lots to tell...Sunday

We took the dogs on a nice long walk this morning, it was already hot.

These spots of sudden beauty in the city can really take your breath away because they are so rare, and that much more beautiful for being so rare.

I made gnocchi this morning.

(riced potatoes)

And we had gnocchi with brown butter sage sauce for lunch, which is way more high maintenance than I usually do for lunch, but the gnocchi were fresh, I had to make them!

It was MUCH easier and less time intensive than making pasta and they were SO much lighter and fluffier than store bought gnocchi.  And the bonus, I froze them so we have 4-5 meals of fresh gnocchi ready to go!

I finished my first spotcheck sock.

I like the inside out picture.

The fabric is a little stretched, I'm hoping it will loosen up when I wash them.

Either way, they'll be super warm & cozy.

We went to a Soap & Suds at a local soap place, Duross & Langel (LOVE their soap, btw).  There was a beer tasting & then there was soap made with the 'notes' of the beer.  

I would have actually liked to know more about the soap making process and less about the beer, but it was free & a fun way to spend an hour on a Sunday afternoon.

Tomorrow I am going in for my sinus surgery at 6:00 a.m., at least that's what time I have to be at the hospital.  I'm nervous and not at all looking forward to the recovery period, but hopefully it will help with my sinus troubles and it will have been worth it.  And hey, this time next week I will have gone to MDSW and THAT is something to look forward to!  (assuming I'm feeling well enough to go, that is)

I will be offline for a few days until I'm functional and no longer in a drug induced wacked out state, so I won't be responding to comments on this post, but I will sincerely appreciate any happy thoughts you send my way!

ooh, and one last thing - this cracked me up.