Huzzah for the shopkeep!

I want to knit all of the baby things.  When I search around on Ravelry for projects, I'm drawn to the itty bitty little baby things, and the cute little stuffed animals and dolls.  I'm really into these crochet dolls right now:


They're by lalylala designs and there's a whole series of them.  I'd like to get one of these under my belt before nugget is born so I can hopefully make a whole fleet of them.

Enough of that pie in the sky knitting stuff.  Let's get down to brass tacks.  I made a trip to Shall We Knit? at the beginning of the month to buy yarn for baby soaker pants, knitted pants, and also to support my hexipuff addiction:

Mostly Sirdar Snuggly (with a Wendy Peter Pan thrown in for colour variation) for some baby pants:



 The ol' standby, Cascade 220, for diaper covers:

 

And a little something pretty for me, some Madeline Tosh Light Unicorn Tails for hexipuffs:





























I whipped up my first diaper cover in a couple nights of knitting.  This will be an easy and mindless knit to plug away at.














These are Milo Soakers by Kristen Rengren from Vintage Baby Knits.  They are knit flat and then sewn at the side seams.  Easy peasy, and a very satisfying little knit.  I have enough leftover from this green pair to hopefully combine it with another colour for a striped one.



What do you think, blue and red for one and yellow and green for another?  I'm trying to keep the colour combinations as baby gender neutral as possible.  I chose bright primary colours instead of blah and boring "baby" pastels.  One, because they're more fun for me to knit, and two, because they are meant to soak up "liquid", which we all know is not bottled spring water.  I can only imagine how disgusting a light-coloured pair of these would be after one wearing.  Gross.

I have to hunt around for lanolin to lanolize these puppies.  That will be a fun adventure, I'm sure it will be sticky or greasy too.  I'll bring you along for the ride when I get to that point.

I also made some baby pants.  As of this morning, I bound off that second leg and grafted the crotch hole.  I still need to weave in all the ends from my colour changes and stitch on the monster face.





The red mouth on the bum is soon to be a monster face, with eyes and teeth and everything!  These are Das Monster by Hronn Jonsdottir, to fit a baby who is 9-18 months.  I have no concept of baby sizes, so I will present these to Tam Tam and she can put them on nugget when s/he is the right size for them.

These were a quick knit too, nice and mindless once you got passed the monster mouth.  I totally have enough yarn in each colour to make another one.  A friend of mine from college just announced that she's expecting a baby in August, and I think she would really love these.  She might get a pair too.

Aside from finishing up these projects, I'm getting back in to spinning.  The speaker at the Guild meeting on Tuesday was telling us all about natural dyes for yarn, which she happens to use almost exclusively on her own hand spun yarns.  When she passed around sample of her yarns, it tickled the spinning itch inside me and I immediately went home and dug out my wheel for a little action. 

I haven't touched my wheel in almost two years, ever since we moved and my flyer got knocked against something and a piece of it snapped off.  It was still hanging on by a tread, so I very gingerly clued it back in place this week, and it worked like a charm!  To be extra safe, I also contacted Gemini Fibres (they're north of Toronto, I've seen them many times at the KW Knitters Fair as a vendor) to ask if a replacement piece can be ordered.  My wheel is my mom's, which she purchased in the 80's.  It's an Ashford wheel, but the ones Ashford sells now aren't a perfect match (the closest one looks to be the Ashford Traveller).  I sent a picture of my flyer to the kind folks at Gemini and told them all I know so they can hopefully make a recommendation. 

In the meantime, I spun some yarn yesterday!  I took a 50g hank of roving that I bought on a knitting field trip years ago and finally turned it into something.

I spun it, plied it, niddy noddy'ed it, washed it, and hung it to dry (weighted down by a Star Wars coffee mug). 



Isn't it pretty!?!?



I think this may get turned into some delicate and pretty fingerless mitts for Tam Tam.  She loves pink more than life itself.

And also while I was at the Guild meeting, I borrowed a book for my next project.  Doesn't everyone need a knitted cat?  Spoiler: these may or may not be your Christmas gift from me.



Did you know yesterday was Pi Day?  I made butter tarts to celebrate.  You better hurry up and ask for one, they're getting all cold and eaten.

Boxes full of deliciousness

 Merry Christmas Eve, readers!  Here comes your daily dose of holiday cheer in the form of the insane amount of baking I've done in the last two months.

Every year since Fuzzyhead and I have been together, we've given gifts to all of our extended family at Christmas time.  You may know from your own experiences, that buying presents for aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents is murderous awful work, because you see these people twice a year and have no idea what they want/need or what they would appreciate.  We've opted for consumable homemade gifts every year, because who doesn't love to stuff your face at Christmas?

In the past, I've made red pepper jelly for everyone, an assortment of jams (where everyone got one big jar and one little jar of different types of jams), and a mix of different tasty things, including homemade marshmallows, chai tea concentrate syrup, a spice rub trio, and tea blends.  This year, I went the baking route and made up boxes of tasty treats for everyone.  I can tell you right now, I will probably never do this again.

I started the process in October, when I chose all the recipes I wanted to make, based on things I've made in the past, and various other recipes from my favourite magazines and websites.  My all-time favourite magazine is the 2011 Better Homes and Gardens special holiday release called Food Gifts.  It's amazing.  You can find most of the recipes online, but the magazine is so nicely put together with lots of ideas for presenting the food in bags, boxes, and containers.  Martha Stewart is my other go-to, since it's rare that I come across a bad recipe from her.

My baking list included:

-Gingerbread men (Martha Stewart)
-Chai spice sugar cookies with vanilla glaze (Better Homes and Gardens website)
-Classic shortbread (Martha)
-Decorated sugar cookies (Martha)
-Peanut butter marshmallow squares (general internet search, it's only three ingredients so any recipe will do)
-Toffee-topped chocolate ganache tarts (BHG magazine)
-Lemony-glazed shortbread (BHG magazine)
-Pink Lady Squares (general internet search, these are also so common that any recipe will do)
-Homemade marshmallows (BHG magazine)
-Snickerdoodle thumbprint cookies with apple butter (a Martha recipe, but I added the snickerdoodle part and the apple butter)
-Red velvet whoopie pies with cream cheese icing (BHG magazine)
-Pumpkin spice cookies with brown butter icing (Martha Stewart website)

That's twelve different types of cookies.  And it took me months to get it all done.  I started making the doughs, for the ones I could make ahead and freeze, in late October.  I banged out the sugar cookie, chai spice cookie, gingerbread men, and the pumpkin cookie doughs and wrapped them up in the freezer.  Next I started making the other things that could just sit in the freezer, like the marshmallows, the lemon shortbread, and the red velvet cookies.  In the last two weeks, I really kicked it up a notch and was making or baking something almost every night.

I bought 5 dollarstore containers that were long and flat to stack cookies in the freezer, and those are all full.  I have a few things stored in the fridge, and a couple on the counter in other containers (the regular shortbread and the thumbprint cookies, which are fine at room temp).  I've only handed out 6 of the boxes so far, and I made enough for 25 of these little treat collections.  I'm looking forward to a time when my freezer will be empty again.

Now, let's stop worrying about the process, and enjoy the final product:

Clockwise from top left - marshmallows, lemon shortbread, chair sugar cookie stars, regular decorated sugar cookies, peanut butter marshmallow squares, chocolate tart (no toffee), gingerbread men, and pink lady squares.

The liners I picked up by chance at Michaels when I was buying bakers' twine.  They were from their "Celebration" line of accessories, and it was the only one on the shelf.  They're grease-free, and came in two different pretty patterns.  There were 25 sheets in the package, and it was only $5.  It was fate.

This box is mostly the same as the one above, except it has thumbprint cookies in the bottom left corner.

Again, mostly the same, but this one has red velvet whoopie pies in the top middle, and pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing in the bottom middle.

These first four boxes were for my co-workers, who all appreciate my baking throughout the year.

I hummed and hawed long and hard about the perfect container for the cookies.  I wanted something with a clear window in the top, but that would have cost more than it was worth.  I started my search online at places like the Container Store, but their boxes would have cost me upwards of $30, before shipping.  I only needed 25 boxes, and many places forced you to order by the 100's to get the best price.

My solution was G.T. French paper here in town.  They sell wholesale to all sorts of places, but they're also open to the public.  I walked in there one day after work and bought thirty 9"x"6"x2" boxes for a whopping $6.  The man who helped me was hesitant that the size I chose would be big enough, but I knew I wasn't cramming them full to the brim, and I made small-ish sized cookies for that very reason.

I used various stamps from my collection to decorate the plain white boxes, and tied them closed with bakers' twine.

I also added a little "from the kitchen of..." sticker (I have a few different stamps that say things like that, so I stamped out a few onto mailing labels) so everyone knew they weren't junky store-bought cookies that I jumbled together in a box.  Fuzzyhead was concerned that some people might not appreciate all the work I did if they didn't realize they were all made by me.

In total, I made about 615 cookies/bars/tarts.  Phew.  And a Merry Christmas to one and all.

Onward,

vrock

Keep your fingers out of your mouth

Happy New Year readers!  Today I created a "knitting 2012" folder for all my new pictures, and I didn't waste any time taking the first round of shots. 

Let's begin with a catch-up on one of my last projects of 2011:

  Finished, and had also been worn twice by the time this picture was taken.  The socks were accidentally washed in the machine (but not through the dryer thank goodness) and got covered in little bits of kleenex.  I'm the guilty party there, I regularly stash kleenex in my pants and sweater pockets for later use and then forget to check pockets before laundry day.  The socks weren't harmed in any way, and I picked off the white fluffies just before taking this picture for your benefit.  You're welcome.

I love the twisty design on a plain socks, it really lets the pretty yarn shine through.  This yarn was purchased in September at the KW Knitters Fair from Viola Fibres.  I hear that Emily, the name behind Viola, is taking a break from creating beautiful yarns, possibly forever.  I can't seem to find any information to support this claim on the interweb, but I'm concerned nonetheless.  Now I'm a sad panda, and I have to use and appreciate the yarns I bought from her.  More on that shortly.

I've been working on yoga socks, to keep up the inventory at the studio.  The two remaining pairs that I had at the studio before Christmas have been snatched up, and I'm still one pair short to fill someone's order for 3 pairs.  Here are my latest happy little campers, about half-way done the first sock.  The pattern is Blackrose from Knitty winter 2008.  I was searching for a lacey sock pattern that wouldn't drag me down.  For yoga socks, since I sell them for pretty cheap and I need to produce them quickly, I look for a single panel of pattern without many rows to the repeat.  This pattern is absolutely perfect - the chart is 8 rows, only 4 of which are pattern, and it's done over 17 stitches for a nice off-centre or centred design.  The rest of the sock is done in plain stockinette stitch. 

The yarn here is the rest of the skein of KnitPicks Tonal Sock yarn in "Gypsy".  I bought this yarn specifically for yoga socks because it puts the material cost to make a pair squarely under $5. 

And I finished a pair of yoga socks to add to the pile.  There ones are the same pattern as my lovely Viola socks above, but done on a simply yoga sock.  I also like this pattern for yoga socks - it's simply to follow and makes for a quick knit.  While I don't tend to use fancy yarns that need to be shown off with simple stitches, I think they are a handsome pair of socks in a pretty colour.

The finished pair, blocking on sock blockers and getting some air exposure on top of my swift.  I'm back at the studio late next week for the first class of the season, and I would love to have two finished pairs to pin to the board.  

While yoga socks are consistently in the background, I can also start thinking of all the lovely things I'll be making this year.  Top of the list right now is making something with my Viola yarns.  Remember this pretty young thing, also one of my finds from the Fair?  She is destined to be a shawl for Tam Tam, I knew that from the time I first picked her up.  This may or may not be a wedding shawl for Tam Tam (a ring is supposed to be making an appearance this year, but I'm not holding my breath), but I know she'll like it.

I decided on Brooklyn Tweed's "Rock Island" shawl for Tam Tam.  It's light and airy, a classic triangle, and I'm sure she'll love it.

I have yet to purchase the pattern, but it's at the top of my queue and my next big project.

Also on the list of yarns to use is my "Bruised Plum" from Viola.  I think it will be destined for a pair of fingerless mitts to wear at the office during the winter.  I've had my eye on Anne Hanson's Curling Neckwarmer and Mitts set for a while, I think that might do the trick.  Anne spoke at a Guild meeting a few months ago and I really enjoyed her designs. 

I know Christmas was only over a week ago, but I'm already thinking of ideas for this year's extended family gifts.  Fuzzyhead thinks I'm thinking too far ahead, but I know that my Christmas jams took hours and hours of time to prepare, and had to be done months before Christmas when the fruit was in season.  I just spent a few minutes tooling around the internet for inspiration, and came across some potential ideas:

• Homemade chai tea syrup - just add milk and heat, yum!
• Baking.  I've done this a bit in previous years, but usually only for a handful of people, not everyone.  Based on my counts for jams this Christmas, I need something for about 24 people, and that would mean a butt-ton of baking in December when I have literally no time.  The doughs can sometimes be made ahead and frozen, but our freezer capacity right now is pathetic (thanks a lot tiny Japanese robot fridge), and the actual baking still needs to be done within a day or so.
• Knitted ornaments.  A recent Vogue Knitting had a feature on colourwork knitted ornaments and I thought they would be a great idea, one for everyone.  There are a few flaws with this plan - Fuzzyhead pointed out that many of his family members don't do Christmas trees or have taken all the fun out of Christmas by having colour-coordinated trees (totally lame, right?  In a delicious Martha Stewart way, except homemade ornaments aren't acceptable), and it would mean all of the work falls on me for our joint gifts since Fuzzyhead doesn't knit.  This isn't terribly different from the jams - I made all batches of jam entirely by myself and decorated the jars by my lonesome - so I guess this one is still an option.
• Home-made baking mixes.  I found this idea in a magazine two years ago, and I had intended to do it this year but didn't.  Along with the jams, I was going to include gingerbread scone baking mix (just add liquid), but then I didn't.  It's still a good idea, so I'm keeping it on the pile

In case you're wondering why everything on this list is home-made, it's because I literally have no money, and I don't know most of the people I have to produce presents for very well.  Most of the list of 24 or so people includes aunts and uncles and cousins who I see once or twice a year, and it's too hard to think of things to buy them that they might actually want.  Plus, it's hella expensive.

Thoughts, suggestions, comments?  I really liked the jams/jellies I did this year, but I feel like people are expecting so much more from us.  We included smaller extra gifts for some people, and despite my hours of work on the jams, I think the more traditional store-bought gifts were better received. 

Onward,

vrock

Charging all my batteries at once

Quiet weekend at home this Thanksgiving my loving readers, I will be enjoying some time to knit for sure.  I've managed to bring the usual run-around of Thanksgivings down to one, by only going to one this year (clever, huh?).  Fuzzyhead's family Thanksgiving is on Sunday, and true to form, my family made a last-minute decision to have our dinner on the same night.  I'm eager for a home cooked Momma meal, so I chose my own family's dinner, and Fuzzyhead will go to St. Catharines with his family, a perfect compromise.  No run-around, and plenty of guilt-free time to knit.

Let's start the recap:

  Hello Namaste Zuma bag, I love you.  Ordered with my most recent KnitPicks order, it was kind of an impulse buy.  I had been looking for a cheap Namaste bag, but it doesn't even come up on a local Kijiji search, and eBay only seems to have the "buy now" option for them, which means it's just an online shop selling them at essentially retail prices.  I bit the bullet and bought one through KnitPicks, it wasn't a bad price considering I didn't have to drive to my LYS to find the one I wanted.  In the end, I chose the Zuma bag, because of its look.  I have already taken this bag out and about as a regular purse, with a substantial haul of knitting inside.  There are also no zippers on the main pocket for yarn to get snagged on - I hadn't even thought of this as a selling feature, but I love it.

The yarn for Fuzzyhead's sweater, all 22 balls of it. 

So pretty!  I really love the colour, I'm glad I chose something light, to show off the cables.

Speaking of cables - my gauge swatch!  I did a very generous gauge swatch, I think it ended up being 6 or 7 inches square.  My tension was pretty bang on, 27 stitches over 4 inches, but my row tension was wonky.  I decided that was OK since all of the pieces are measured in total inches rather than in numbers of rows.  This little beauty used up most of the first ball of yarn, I'm very glad I over-bought (at least at this point I think I bought too much).

The work in progress, in its pretty little Zuma bag.

The first few inches!  As of today, I'm at about 10 inches.  This piece is the back and the sides of the cardigan, all in one piece.  At 18 inches I start to do some shaping, but I've got a ways to go before that fun.  For now I'm perfectly happy to be doing some straight boring knitting.  It's nice to have an easy project to fall back to, something I can bring with me anywhere without needing to look at a pattern.

Also, I've chosen a pattern for my next sock project for myself, using that tasty blue Viola Fibers sock yarn I got at the Knitters Fair.  First off, a quick refresher:

Viola Sock in "Sea Storm"

And the pretty little socks that caught my attention:

Kalajoki pattern by Tiina Seppala, a free Ravelry download (score!)

And to round out this post, I couldn't overlook a glimpse at my latest Suzy Homemaker creation:

Pumpkin spice cupcakes with brown sugar cinnamon cream cheese icing.  I made these on Thursday night so I could take a small batch to work on Friday before the long weekend and hand them out to my favourite co-workers (aka my family plus a few special extras).  They were truly excellent, the cupcake part especially.  I didn't even use a boxed cake mix for them, totally from scratch yo!  The cupcake recipe is apparently by Martha Stewart, but I found the cupcake and icing recipe on a blog - check it out here. 

 Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Onward,

vrock

Sunday afternoon matinee

Dearest blog readers, here come some updates:
Garden News:
First and foremost, I have a garden, that’s news in itself.  My last post show updates from my little weensy garden space, and now I present to you the progress report:

The back of the yard garden, which has exploded with zucchini and radishes.  The giant patch of overgrown green you’re looking at is the most successful batch of plants.  To the left, if you squint real hard, you might be able to make out the carrots and the single green bean vine that’s clinging desperately to the fence.  The lettuce was a dead end, I never saw a single plant.  They have since been dug up and replaced with a more formal spot for my exploding tomato plants.  I didn’t have the heart to choose which ones got to live and die, so I let them all live, and now I have 5 tomato plants.  Only 4 actually fit in this teensy patch of garden…

….the other one gets to live it up bachelor style in his own plant pot on the porch, next to the saucy downtown herbs.  The tomato cages are courtesy of Momma Vrock, who let a giant tree fall on them, so they are mangled and twisted and look like they belong in a Tim Burton inspired garden for twisted and mangled things.  I bent them back into shape as best I could.

The shady corner garden to pretty plants that we don’t plan to eat.  They’ve all grown bigger, and I really should have weeded before taking this picture.  Please don’t assume I’m a horrible garden mother, I do eventually get around to pulling out the offensive plants.

Keep your pants on readers, now we’re getting to the knitting news:

Remember the humble beginnings of my Laminaria shawl?

 

Ummmmmmm, it’s DONE!

It was a long road to get there, as you may recall…

(imagine sappy recap music, tenderly playing as we stroll through my blog montage of how this glorious shawl came to be)

Waaaaa-bam!

I also just bought a shawl pin yesterday, a sassy little wooden number that won’t weigh down my delicate lace.


Also, I may or may not have finished a baby sweater.  No big.
Ms. Bear is modeling here, showing off the finger details of the owl cables.

The completed little package, with my personal care instructions card.  I had 500 of them made (vistaprint.com, love it!), and I left the spaces blank to write in the washing and drying instructions for all of my handknit things.  I also included my personal “handknit with love by vrock” stamp on the back.

The finished and wrapped package, ready to ship to Virginia for Fuzzyhead’s cousin’s baby, arriving in August.

And late last night and this morning, I started and finished a pair of felted slippers.  These are French Press Slippers, from Fresh Press Knits, and I love them.  I’ve loved them since I first saw them on Ravelry, and I only very recently got together the gumption to actually purchase the pattern and make them myself.

Here they are drying on my porch.  I used two strands of grey and one strand of black for the three-strands-held-together-extra-thick soles.  This was partly because I didn’t think I had enough grey yarn, and partly because I liked the idea as a design feature.  This is my tester pair of these slippers so I can mass produce them for Christmas presents this year.  So far Slim Jim and Hamster are getting a pair, and considering these took me a grand total of 3 hours to make, I might just make them for everyone I know.  We’ll see.

The flaps for the slippers, drying on my clothsline.  I wonder what my neighbours must think of the knitting-related things I hang on the cloths line.

Also, I’m into paper crafts now.  To accompany the owl baby sweater to Fuzzyhead’s cousin, I made this little card:

We just need to sign it, and then the whole kitten caboodle can be sent off.  I was waiting for more than a week to zip to the fabric store to get buttons to sew on to the card. 

This is my collection of card making stuff.  I bought a card organizer recently, and that sparked my obsession with making my own cards instead of paying way too much for them from Chapters.  My collection of embroidery floss from my childhood days of making friendship bracelets really came in handy for the stitching details on the cards.  Oooooo, I’m so crafty!

And finally, I will leave you with images from my Canada Day celebration on Friday:

Actually, just cupcake pictures.  The fireworks, puppydogs, and ice cream party was in full swing, and I make ice cream cone cupcakes so we could avoid the giant line-up at DQ.

Onward,

vrock