Not Much Being Created This Week

I’ve had a busy week at work (even though it is only Tuesday!) so not much is being created right now.

In place of pictures of things I have made, I give you some gratuitous Cici pictures

New Chroma Colours

KnitPicks has released new colours of Chroma yarn. Chroma is a single-ply yarn so it isn’t my favourite to work with but the colours are so amazing that I just want to buy one of every colour.

I’ve mentioned Chroma before when I posted about making these mittens, these mittens, these mittens, these socks and these socks.

Chroma has always come is some wonderfully bright colours, but I’m also liking the new muted tones.

I think my favourites are Orchard and Forest Floor.

Happy Pancake Tuesday!

Nothing better than panycakes and bacon!

Cici worshipping the dog dish that contains bacon - practicing her telekinesis without success.

Hoping a high five will work to get me to move the bowl down to the floor.

Long Weekend Bead Sorting and Cookies (Mmm)

I made good progress this weekend with about 10cm of sock leg knit. This was mostly due to the enjoyable company of Meredith.

As far as the beads go, the progress on Saturday was limited to putting them into a big pile and admiring them. It is hard to believe that any completed piece of jewellery would be as beautiful as the way the beads look just sitting in a pile.




As I looked at the beads it occurred to me that while many had the standard single hole, there were also many that had two holes. The addition of the second hole would make stringing them with a single hole bead challenging. So, I decided to do some sorting and yesterday and today was spent moving the beads into these two piles.

I’ve come to realize that my favourite beading tools may be the bead mat and bead scoop that my sister sent me. Both tools made the sorting exercise much easier.

Now I have to figure out how to string these beads to bring them together into a beautiful necklace.

Tonight is cookie baking night in our house.

My cookies…

Jacob’s cookies…

Long Weekend Projects

I’ve looked through my stash and pulled out the following to keep me busy this long weekend (I love long weekends!)

I’ll be making starting a pair of socks out of KnitPicks Imagination in the Frog Prince colour. It is a discontinued colour so I feel happy to have a chance at using it.  

And I’ll be coming up with some sort of idea of what to do with this batch of pink and white beads.

The weather outside is warm (love this winter) but wet enough that the thought of staying at home is nice.

Happy Family Day everyone!

Looking Forward to the Long Weekend!

The work week is done and I am ready to begin my long weekend. Three glorious days of doing whatever I want!

Last night I finished this bracelet.

This week I almost finished the unknit mitten.

So, if I finish the unknit mitten tonight, I will have three days of unlimited crafting ahead. I’ll get to start a new knitting project and pick out some beads to work with. What a great way to start a long weekend!

Presenting... My First Necklace

This week I finished my first necklace. Sure I’ve made necklaces before but this is the first time I picked out the beads, strung the beads and attached the findings all by myself.

Here is my creation…

Next up is a coordinating bracelet, something I can wear for special occasions.


Unknit mitten update

I’m making great progress on the unknit mitten and will potentially finish it by my needless deadline of tomorrow night. A new Survivor starts tonight which offers the great potential of a new Survivor pool, and hours of TV viewing enjoyment to knit by.

And finally, a little something for Kim

Happy Valentine's Day

Don't Start Beading

My recommendation to my blog readers is to not start beading, or rather don’t start buying beads. If you do slip up and buy beads, you should definitely start beading with them.

I still haven’t made anything with my New Year’s bead purchases, but yesterday I went out and bought these beads.

Now that they are home I’m already waffling on what to make with them. I bought the lovely black beads with the silver cross hatch intending to pair them with these round black beads and silver seed beads.

I’m already changing my mind and thinking of taking the seed beads out of the mix and replacing them with some silver tubes.

The one challenge with beading is that my world is filled with bead enablers. Meredith’s love of beads set the stage for my constant distraction by shiny things in bead stores. Once she cracked the surface Stephanie just chipped away at me until I caved and started buying beads. 

Through Steph, Nora has also influenced my bead purchases and yesterday Nora whisked Steph and I off to BeadFx which is a dream come true for anyone who likes beads. It is a crazy big store with more beads than anyone could imagine. Once in the store you can’t help but buy and buy and buy. Steph bought the most but we all did some damage to our credit cards and walked out with enough beads for multiple projects.

Now it is time for me to get focused on completing a necklace or something out of beads. I was all set to string the brown beads I’ve been showing you lately and then Steph (as enabler) brought down some more brown beads to add to the mix which means it is back to the drawing board to determine the best composition for the final necklace.

So many beads, so little time.

Unknit mitten update

I’m hoping that I can reknit this mitten by Thursday night. I’m really getting bored with this project and would like to get it over and done with before I head into the long weekend (Long Weekend – Yay!)

Here is where it is at after yesterday. I hoping a good round of watching TV will allow me to make some good progress today.

In other thoughts…

Why is it when we give my dog a biscuit she must eat on the carpet instead of the ceramic tile that is much easier to clean? (She just pulled a biscuit out of her food dish and took it to the living room to eat. Sigh)

Unknitting

Today my mittens look like this…

Sigh

First Mittens of 2012 - Arrrggghhhh

Here is what today’s post should say…

Tonight I finished my first pair of mittens for 2012.

The mittens are made of KnitPicksPalette (no shock there) using the Cream, Wallaby and Mai Tai Heather. I love how the colours look together. Mai Tai Heather is one of my favourite Palette colours.

Here they are blocked and waiting to dry.

These mittens will be heading out to the Herbal Magic Yonge-Lawrence craft sale to help raise money for MS Research. If they don’t sell there, they may come back to this blog, looking for a good home. I’ll let you know how that turns out.


Here is what today’s post does say…

Tonight I finished my first pair of mittens for 2012.

I happily finished up the thumb, wove in the last of the yarn ends, turned the mitten right side out and admired its beauty.

Then I damped the mittens, pinned them for blocking, and stepped back to admire them once more. And then I said Arrrggghhhh!!!!

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that one wrist has a 1x1 rib…

And the other has a 2x2 rib.

Seriously, I’ve just made two different mittens and I’m seriously annoyed.

Tomorrow when the mittens are dry it will be decision time. Do I rip back one mitten and redo it, or do I buy more yarn and knit another mismatched pair so that in the end I have two matching pairs.

I repeat, Arrrggghhhh!!!!

Getting Closer to a Necklace

The brown beads continue to draw my attention but have yet to form themselves into a final creation.

As of now it is looking like I might make a necklace and a bracelet.

Jalapeno Poppers and Cornbread

Last night we had some friends over and so I made some more snacks.

First up came the idea to make some easy and tasty jalapeno poppers which are simply jalapenos stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon. I was running out of bacon so mine look a bit patched together, but still tasty. Thank you to Christina for inspiring Glen who inspired us.

Next came the idea to add some cornbread. The recipe comes from Paul Prudhomme’sLouisiana Kitchen cookbook.

And here they are both fresh out of the oven and ready to eat. Mmm.

In other crafts… the beads continue to draw my attention but have yet to become a necklace. They are now off the strings they were bought on and sitting in a pile waiting for further inspiration.

Pluckets

This morning we had a friend come over, the type of friend that would appreciate some home-baked hospitality. This was the perfect time to make some Pluckets.

Way back, many years ago, I helped a university friend make these and they were so good that I wrote down the recipe and still have the scrap of paper it was written on. The recipe is basically a lazy way to make cinnamon rolls, without the roll. They are yummy, and given the amount of butter and sugar it is easy to understand why. We don’t make them often because they are so good warm that the entire batch will be gone in moments, but when the right friend comes over they are a perfect recipe to share.

In the pan, before the final rise

After rising, ready for baking

Out of the oven

Ready to eat

The recipe

I love that the recipe ends with “reheat in foil”. That’s funny.

Dreaming of Winter Woodland Mittens

Even though I have more than enough yarn for mittens, as seen in past posts, it is just cold enough out today that I find myself dreaming of making the Winter Woodland Mittens from KnitPicks.

Winter Woodland is a kit that lets you (as KnitPicks says) knit your way through the seasons. The kit has enough yarn to knit six pairs of mittens to keep you warm from October through March. The scene on each pair of mitts shows of the transitions of winter, starting with falling leaves, then grazing elk, Northern lights, snowflakes, snow birds, and finally a sprouting seed. Each mitten has a different picture on each hand, which creates a larger scene when you hold your hands together. And best of all, the mittens are made from Palette, my favourite yarn.

Sadly, my knitting produces rows that are shorter than average which means I often need to knit more rows than a pattern calls for, to get the right length. So, a pattern such as this with pictures that are made up of a specific number of rows doesn’t work for me.  Sure I could just buy another ball of brown and throw in a few rows of plain brown before the picture starts, but that would still leave me with a short mitten from where the thumb splits off to the tip of my fingers. Or, I could spend more time than I care to modify the pattern to add more rows. Or, I could just make them as they are and curl up my fingers when I wear them. At only $39.99 for six mittens, this kit is oh so tempting.

In search news this week, someone found my blog by searching  “how to dye a dog with kool aid”. I just keep imagining a tye-dyed dog that would look great wearing my kool-aid socks.

Sadly this made me do some Googling of my own and came up with this site with an actual tye-dyed dog.