Baby Bonanza

I got to spend my weekend with some pretty wonderful friends which just happend to include two of my very newest ones.

Ephraim

and

Harriet

I suppose this little guy counts too!

Tiny Baby

He`s one of four born two weeks ago on a shelf in my garage. The mom is a feral cat we`ve been feeding for a while now.

Saturday night was spent with more of the grown up kind of friends, and some of the best ones, celebrating a birthday. I didn`t bake the cake but I sure as hell stuck all the candy on top of it.

cakecakecake

FO: Dean Street Mitts!

uuuh, I have nothing to say for myself other than that I got sucked into the insane world of Twilight fanfiction. Edward is the manager of a Staples and Bella is his employee, he smiles at her covering his teeth while opening a case of Bic pens. It’s kind of gloriously awesome.

However, I need to take my life back before things get too out of control. So I present to you (finally) a Finished Object which are too few and far between these days.

Dean Street Mitts

Pattern: Dean Street Mitts by Nina Machlin Dayton

Yarn: Malabrigo, Purple Mystery

Made for: Malabrigo Swap Round 7

Ravelled Here

I loved this pattern, the mitts were a quick, clear knit and I`ll definitely be making more of these in the future.  And, thanks to Sarah for being such an excellent hand model!

Dean Street Mitts

Kool-Aid = Heart

Bib Lettuce

The strike is over, the weather today was glorious, if not a touch too warm and sunny and it feels like summer is really beginning. This weekend was spent visiting my parents, where I left my Ishbel in progress so it will be a while before I can make it back home to pick it up again. I did spend time with my cousins and Nanny playing Mexican poker (whether it’s actually Mexican, or poker is unknown). My mom also made homemade spinach and ricotta ravioli (with handmade ricotta cheese!) and fresh tomato sauce. It was quite lovely. As was my dad’s garden. The cool summer has meant a slow start for home grown veggies but things are starting to pick up now.

Snow Peas!

Romaine Lettuce

My gardening experience is pretty limited to herbs and sprinkling some poppy seeds around but last year I grew peas and cherry tomatoes out of pots on the back deck. If I did have a proper garden I’d definitely plant asparagus. I’ve been begging my to plant some for years but because it takes so long to harvest it never seemed to be a priority. This year they planted some. How adorable?

Asparagus - Year One

I am counting down the days until there are bagfuls of ripe tomatoes!

Last week I also made one of my favourite salads – a nectarine feta salad. I know not everyone loves fruit in a savory salad but when all the flavours are balanced perfectly it’s one of my favourite things. This one has firm nectarines, lots of red onion and red pepper. I soak the onion in water first, to take a bit of the sting out.

Feta-Nectarine Salad

There’s no real recipe for this, I toss the ingredients in your basic balsamic vinegarette with a touch of dijon and honey. I always up the ratio of vinegar to oil so that it’s just over half vinegar. The most important ingredient is pepper – the salad gets it’s spice from the pepper so there should be enough that you can feel and taste the heat. It keeps for a few days and is really yummy.

Nectarine-Feta Salad

I think I wrote out the recipe and saved it on my computer so send me an e-mail if you are interested.

I did manage to start a new knitting project since I was unable to continue limping along with Ishbel. I picked up some Noro Kureyon Sock yarn at The Purple Purl’s 30% off sale two weeks ago. I’ve never made anything with the sock yarn before and I generally find knitting with kureyon kind of annoying. I hate how the yarn gets really weak in some areas where there isn’t enough twist and the sock yarn feels a bit on the rough side. What convinced me actually was a plain sample sock at The Purple Purl. It was gorgeous and the yarn was soft! I’m hoping it just needs a soaking and blocking.

I cast on for the Primavera socks by natalja on Ravelry. They are interesting enough but don’t deter too much from the gorgeous gradient colours. Here’s the first one in progress beside my favourite, matching, Kool-Aid:

Primavera in Kureyon Sock

I’m ready to send my malswap7 package out to my secret spoilee. I was hoping to do it today actually but I’ve run into a little problem in the form of my 22 pound cat, Alistair, who has decided the Canada Post shipping box belongs to him. He perched himself right there all morning before work and again this evening. Hopefully I can distract him long enough to grab the box and ship it tomorrow. I’ll have to find another, slightly too small, box for him to take over.

Alistair Cat

It’s really summer?

Farmers' Market Summer Pasta

Oh glory that is local Ontario produce, please let the garbage strike end so our green bins can be open for business again. Despite wanting to bring as little fresh food into the house as possible as there is no where to store the scrapings and seeds and bits that don’t get eaten (other than the freezer), I made one of my favourite pasta dishes this weekend.

Chop Chop

There’s no real recipe – I use anything and everything that’s hanging around. You basically chop everything up into similarly sized cubes and roast the vegetables in the oven with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and a splash of balsamic vinegar once they’ve started to caramelize. In a few weeks I’ll use garden tomatoes but right now, I used some tomato puree from last year’s tomatoes. Once the veggies are roasted I toss them with pasta, tomato sauce and whatever cheese I have around and then pop the whole thing back in the oven to bake.

Ready to Go

yum

Oh yes, I toss in some fresh basil too. For this one I used a bit of mozzerella, some cheddar and parmesean that I had in the fridge. Other variations could have feta, asiago, fresh oregano and olives; or lemon, asparagus, green beans, goat cheese and white wine. It’s pretty easy, I made one for this week and one for the freezer.

As for other crafts – not much to show since what I’ve been knitting has been for secret swaps. No real revelation here but malabrigo is really the most incredible yarn in the world and if I could afford to, I’d knit exclusively with it!

I finally managed to pick up Ishbel again. I mucked up the stocking stitch somewhere and my stitch count was off by one.  I ended up ripping back to the beginning. I will perservere though, the yarn and pattern are too beautiful not to finish. I even bought the Old Maiden Aunt yarn specifically for the pattern so it’s destined for this shawl no matter how frustrated it makes me.

And for another U.F.O. may I present Bella’s mittens? The Twilight movie may be a lot of things but at least once of them is excellent choice in knitwear.

Twilight Crazytown

I’m knitting them out of some Debbie Bliss chunky tweed. I’ve made a previous pair for another secret gift that are more traditional dark grey. I love how they practically reach my elbows.

More Yarns

Really, no surprise here – I went back to the 20% off sale to pick up a little something more:

Rowan Felted Tweed

I’m thinking the yarn will be used for the lovely Wintergreen mittens by Kate Gilbert.  I’m kind of obsessed with mittens these days. In ye olde Ravely queue:  Totoro Mittens!, Breathe Deep by Kristen Kapur, Knotty Gloves by Julia Mueller, and Merion Mitts by Mintyfresh. Of course, double bonus points to any of them that can be knit in malabrigo. What would I do without Ravelry!

I have a secret finished object! I’m done finished the secret knitted item for my Ravelry Malabrigo swap partner and I ordered some yarn to go in the package last night. A hank of Hand Maiden Sea Silk for me may have fallen into the shopping basket, just saying.

Laptop Lunch!

Laptop Lunch for July 3, 2009

I used to pack one of these every day for lunch but a few months ago changed jobs and now I live close enough to work to go home for lunch. While I do enjoy not having to spend the extra half hour making my lunch everyday, with the added bonus of watching an episode of House Hunters, I do miss the awesomeness of my laptop lunch box. Today I met some old friends for lunch in the park so we brought our lunches. It started to rain so we had to move the picnic inside to the Legislative Assembly cafeteria! These are exciting days.

Stash Expansion

One of my local yarn stores, Romni Wools, is having a 20% off all yarn sale through the month of July. If you’ve been to Romni you know that it’s maybe the largest yarn store in the world! So, narrowing down the offerings to some manageable quantities was a feat. Here’s what I came home with minus some wool for a secret project I’m working on.

Araucania - Rancho Multy

This was an impulse buy almost as I was walking out the door. I think I’ll probably make some sort of shawlette with it, rather than socks. My stash is pretty manageable right now and I’m really trying to only buy yarn with a specific project in mind. This was a bit of a slip but I couldn’t resist.

Malabrigo Sock - Velvet Grapes

Malabrigo! Need I say more? This is the first Malabrigo sock yarn I’ve purchased. I thinking I’ll use it for Milkweed though that was going to be my excuse to buy some Hand Maiden Casbah. Finally, some cheap sock yarn. This will definitely be for socks, I’m thinking regular old stripey ones.

Sock Yarn

There was one thing I forgot to get so I’m headed back first thing tomorrow morning!

Birthday Baking

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

No, not Canada’s birthday, rather the birthday of one extraordinary Kerry Clare.  My dad stole the perfect muffin recipe out of a magazine at the doctor’s office. Actually, they were more of a method than a recipe and I wish I could credit the author but I have no idea who it is.  Perhaps my previous muffin attempts suffered from being over mixed? These ones go into the muffin cups with the wet ingredients barely folded into the dry ones, while you can still see streaks of flour in the batter. I made lemon blueberry using last year’s hand picked blueberries. Because Kerry and Stuart have their hands more than full with a brand new baby Harriet I thought that they would appreciate a treat they could grab and eat.

Birthday Muffins

And, best of all, the muffins were exactly as promised, moist, tender and delicious. Honestly, I’m a mediocre baker at best but before these guys, I’d never managed a muffin that wasn’t a dense, dry little puck of a thing. I’m glad to know that it was the recipes I was using as much as my skillz. I can’t wait to try some different combinations of ingredients, I think some pecan pear muffins with the maple glaze would be glorious to make in the autumn and this will be a perfect use for some of the gorgeous Ontario peaches that are just weeks away!

Muffin and Buddies

Foolproof Muffin Recipe – thieved by father so author unknown
1. START THE BATTER
Position a rack in the centre of the oven and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil (or spray with cooking spray) the top of a standard 12 cup muffin tin and line with paper baking cups.

1 pound (3.5 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons backing powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
5 ounces (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup whole milk at room temperature
1 cup creme fraiche or sour cream, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk at room temperature

In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well. In a medium mixing bowl whisk together the sugar, butter, eggs, milk, sour cream and eggs until combined.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold gently with a rubber spatula just until the dry ingredients are mostly moistened, the batter will be lumpy – there should still be quite a few streaks of dry flour.

2. ADD YOUR CHOICE OF FLAVOURINGS
Choose add ins from the following, sprinkle them on the batter and fold them in until just combined. Do not over mix!
FLAVOURINGS – almond extract, 1/2 tsp; ground cinnamon – 3/4 tsp; lemon zest – 2 tsp, finely grated, orange zest, 2 tsp finely grated, vanilla extract, 1 tsp.
FRUIT AND CHOCOLATE (1 1/2 cups) apricots, bananas, blueberries fresh or frozen, cranberries, fresh or frozen, coarsely chopped, granny smith apples, peeled and coarsely chopped, peaches, coarsely chopped, pears, no need to peel, pineapple, raspberries, chocolate chips. Nuts – up to 3/4 cup.

3. FILL THE TIN AND BAKE THE MUFFINS
Use an ice cream scoop if you have one with a sweeper in it. The batter should mound higher than the rim of the cups by about 3/4 inch. Bake until the muffins are golden brown and spring back lightly when you press the middle, 30 – 35 minutes – the muffin tops will probably meld together – let the tin cool on a rack for 15 to 20 minutes.

4. MAKE THE GLAZE
12 1/2 ounces (3 cups) confectioners sugar
one of the glaze flavourings below.
Plain – 6 tbsp water
Maple – 1 cup pure maple syrup
Lemon – 6 tbsp lemon juice
Orange – 6 tbsp orange juice
Cinnamon – 6 tbsp water, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Ginger – 6 tbsp water, 1/4 tsp ground ginger

5. GLAZE THE MUFFINS
When the muffins have cooled down but are still slightly warm, use a table knife to separate the tops, and then invert the pan and pop out the muffins. Put the muffins on a rack over foil to catch any glaze that drips off. DAB the glaze on the muffins with a pastry brush or spoon the glaze on and let it drip over the sides. It should leave a smooth, somewhat translucent coating. You may not need all of the glaze. The glaze won’t dry completely.

*Notes: The room temperature bit is important, it prevents the liquid butter from turning back into a solid and ruining the batter.

Colourwork Progress

Bird In Hand - Progress

I’m truly inspired by everything Crystal makes, she is a knitting genius and the only reason I know how to knit today. When she last visited me in Toronto she was working on a pair of Kate Gilbert’s Bird in Hand mittens (rav link) and they were mesmerizing. I became a bit obsessed with them actually, especially the braided rows. I stalked a bunch of mitten patterns with braids on Ravelry but in the end the Bird in Hand pattern was too pretty and I decided it should be my first stab at colour work.

Bird In Hand - Palm

I wasn’t quite sure I could muster the stamina or skill to make it through a whole pair so I picked some pretty inexpensive Cascade 220 that I found at Lettuce Knit in Kensington Market. The pattern seemed like it was calling for some rich earthy colours  but in the end the electric blue and purple called my name. After a couple false starts with various gauge issues I’m one mitten down! I’m hoping some blocking will fix a few of the tension issues throughout.

Crystal gave me some great advice about colourwork and then pointed me to this video tutorial at All Buttoned Up which demontrates how to wrap stitches when you have floats.

As for the actual knitting, I hold the background colour in my right hand because that is my normal one.  I hold the foreground colour in my left hand because that is my odd one and the tension is looser.  Looser tension means the stitches will show up on the front more pronounced, which is why I use that hand.  Make sure to never twist, and knit as you normally would taking the yarn from whatever hand you need to to get the right colour.
Crystal provided this additional helpful bit of information:

A little helpful note:  one yarn will always be “lower” than the other yarn in the row.  Like, if you look at the back of your knitting, mine always has the yarn I had on the left under or lower than the yarn on the right.  This will help you never twist and switch your foreground/backgrounds.  If they all of a sudden switch, it means you reversed your back/foreground colours.