cosmicpluto knits!

more pretties

I’m not sure I’ve hit the ground running this new year, but I have hit the stranded colourwork!

A fresh off the needles wee colourwork project, designed to use up bits of yarn. I used Koigu in about 18 colours! They weren’t all leftovers; the main background colour is one full skein, and a bunch of them I bought as mill ends (a couple grams of each). I’m hoping to have this pattern up very shortly.

And it’s so nice, I knit it twice! Well, technically this is a slightly different option of the pattern. But it’s basically the same. Also, can I say hooray for daylight-spectrum bulbs? I put one in my office and now I can take photos like this one without having to massively colour-correct.

I’ve also been hard at work writing up a bunch of patterns in the backlog. Here’s hoping it gets flowing soon – I have a few with test knitters and some that need new photographs too. It’s a bit tricky to take photos outside in this weather though; it’s pretty chilly out there!

Hope you’re staying warm.

(Sunday morning breakfast: chocolate chip yoghurt pancakes and coffee. Mmm.)

two weeks

Um, yikes. Time’s going by rather alarmingly quickly, isn’t it?

This scarf has been on my rigid heddle loom (Ashford 24″) for months and months, since before I moved! It was even still in its plastic garbage bag under my desk until I decided this week that it was high time to finish it. And of course once I picked it up again, I was finished in 2 hours!

That led to warping the loom up again, and right now I have 2 scarves have their soak. The loom is empty just now, but I might even warp it up again tonight.

A knit I’m really excited by, but was putting off because it’s fiddly – Some Assembly Required. Personally I’m not really one for knitting very fiddly things, especially small fiddly things (I’m pretty game for complicated sweaters and things). Toys are pretty challenging for me just because there’s so much finishing and fiddling compared to the actual knitting! Give me a big swatch of stockinette any day.

That said, this is a pretty fun knit so far. I’ve only done the head, but I’m hoping to make a good dent in the torso-knitting this afternoon.

Oh, and just in case someone out there needs a yummy recipe to bring to one of those numerous parties this time of year?

Twix-alike bars! So good. The only changes I made were to add some sea salt to the caramel (probably about 1/2 to 3/4 tsp) and to cut the squares much, much smaller. Nom.

we interrupt…

…your regularly scheduled Rhinebeck yarn post for an important announcement.

Soft Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Make them NOW. Go to the store for ingredients if you must – they are orange and black after all, perfect for that Hallowe’en party later this week (if they make it to then).

My very slight mods to the recipe: I used 1/2 brown, 1/2 white sugar, upped the chocolate chips a touch (to use up the rest of the bag), mixed by hand, and used heaping tablespoons rather than 1/4 cup portions for each cookie. I got 30 cookies…but there aren’t that many now!

A sneak peek at the yarn? Sure.

Clearly I’m in a purple period!

weekend in Ottawa

I’m a bit behind in everything, not the least of which is my poor neglected blog! Let’s see about catching up. Last weekend I headed to Ottawa for a bit of a birthday trip. A friend and I drove (okay, he drove) and got there Thursday night. We stayed at his brother’s apartment in Byward Market – very, very convenient in terms of getting around, but it’s a bit wild on the weekends. Clubs and such.

Friday we walked around, took the bus to Hintonberg and checked out Parkdale farmer’s market (where there were berries all over the place!), a few little shops, and the yarn store on Wellington West, Wabi-Sabi. Bit of an adventure to get there with all the construction, but it was a nice little shop that carries a lot of Americo yarns – perfect if you want them but aren’t in Toronto.

Had a delicious pizza lunch at the Grand in Byward Market, then headed over to Parliament Hill for Fortissimo – a “musical extravaganza” put on my the armed forces. It was interesting, but they probably could’ve cut at least 15 minutes of unnecessary music.

Saturday we took the parliamentary tour and took lots of photos – including this crazy unicorn right outside the main entryway! Why’s his tongue sticking out? Weird.

This view should be familiar to Canadians who watch the news – this is outside the House of Commons, where all the journalists lie in wait.

My favourite part was the library – it’s the only part of the building that survived a big fire, and it’s quite beautiful.

Saturday night we went to New Edinburgh Park for the Lumiere festival, which was super fun – the park is super dark, but the trails are lit with tons of pretty lanterns.

(Candles-in-paper-bags maze)

Sunday was pretty chill – we walked around the Glebe area and went to the Landsdowne farmer’s market. Can you tell I love farmer’s markets? So much pretty and yummy produce! I ended up baking a pie on Sunday too, with blueberries from the market.

And then Monday it was back to Toronto and a full week of work at the store! Knitting news and some destashing is coming right up.

a bit of knit and purl

It’s been a nice weekend. Staying in, doing some knitting, watching tv (the Tudors and just starting True Blood), eating.

I started a pair of plain socks out of Lorna’s Laces (colour: Cedar) and they’re going astonishingly fast! Well on the way to becoming the fastest pair of socks I’ve ever knit, actually. I started on Thursday night and was totally done one sock Saturday afternoon.

So today I started the second one and knit a couple of inches – the leg is pretty long on these, about 8 inches, and I got five inches done! They’re just top-down, gusset heel, 68 sts on 2mm double points. Mmm, comfort knitting.

But then the sock took a bit of a break because I started something else – a cowl out of leftover Malabrigo!

It’s just a really simple one, alternating bands of knit and purl. I need to write up a “master cowl” pattern for a class, it’ll have a couple different fits and then cast on numbers for different yarn weights. So I needed a bit of a practice cowl! It’s actually done now, but photos shall have to wait another day.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to eat some super sexy chocolate cake!

P.S. I’ve got a brand new, super cute wallet that I want to send to a loving home – click here if you need something new! Sold!

giveaway time!

Apologies for the lack of blog posting! I’ve been working and otherwise a little busy this week:

Yesterday I (with some help) canned two bushel boxes of roma tomatoes from the grocery store – getting to the last of the season, they were only $10 each! I’m so tempted to go back and get another one to make sauce. The tomatoes that didn’t make the canning cut went into a vat of sauce to be frozen, and the good ones became 29 L jars of halved or diced tomatoes plus 18 500-ml jars of diced tomatoes.

I can’t wait to crack some open a little further along in the winter! Mmmm.

Another random food-related little note – I’ve been working on following a hypoallergenic and anti-candida diet these days (except for at my launch party, that was a special occasion!) and today I made the most awesome snacky food!

I found brown rice tortillas in the frozen section of the grocery store where I bought the tomatoes – they have quite an extensive health food-type selection. I had ripe avocados today, so it was time for the guacamole and chips! I cut a couple tortillas into wedges, sprayed them with a little olive oil (I’ve got a little pump bottle that you can fill with whatever you want), sprinkled them with a little salt and garlic powder, and then baked them in the toaster oven for a couple minutes at 400 F. They were super crispy and tasty, just what I wanted. I’ll definitely be making these again. I think they’re go great with all the soups I’ve been making.

In other news, I had my book launch party at lettuce knit last Wednesday and it was great! Unfortunately I suffered a bout of camnesia and didn’t take photos at all. People dropped by, yummy food was had (thanks megan!), I signed books and even managed to knit a little bit.

And now to celebrate, how about I send some more books out into the world?

I’ve got THREE (3) copies of my book, Teach Yourself Visually Sock Knitting, to send away to three blog readers! All you need to do is leave me a comment to this post pointing me to something that you think is cool, interesting, funny, delicious (and vegetarian), or otherwise entertaining!

Comments will close Friday, October 3 at 11:59 PM EDT (can you believe it’s almost October already?). Winners will be chosen at random.