Here's a little project that I completed recently. The idea came from Martha Stewart - printing with fruit. Using pieces of fruit, cut in half, as stamps, and then printing them with acrylic paint on canvas tote bags. I really love anything that has motif arranged in a grid. I never tire of it.

And here's another recent Japanese-style meal, with recipes taken from The Cook's Encyclopedia of Japanese Cooking by Emi Kazuko.

I have finally completed the Hemp Flowers Necklace from the Fall 2005 issue of Interweave Crochet, which I started over a year ago. I think the results are quite nice.

To refresh your memory, here is an old image of the photo from the magazine and an in-progress shot of the large flower and my yarn.

The necklace was a gift, as is the following creation. It's another Cellphone Cozie (patern from Knitting Pretty by Kris Percival, though pretty easy to improvise if you're good at that sort of thing). This was made for my friend, Anna, by request after she admired the one I knot for myself years ago. I like how I just happened to have a button that matched the colours perfectly.

And, of course, here's a pic of Suki-cat. You will be seeing quite a bit of her on this blog, I imagine. This was taken this morning. She's admiring the snow, and watching Dave shovelling the driveway (haha).

My friend, Joanne, who recently travelled to Japan, told me that Suki means "love" in Japanese! How appropriate!

Hello gentle readers,

I am back. Again. For real this time. I have been crafting a little for holiday gifts, as so many of us are this time of year (us being knitters and crafters in general). So, let's look at some knitting, shall we? But first... I have someone to introduce to you!

It's Suki - our new kitty! We adopted Suki from the SPCA in Corner Brook about two months ago, and she is really a member of the family now. Remember when I said that we couldn't have a cat while we were staying in this house? Well, a (nightmare of a) mouse problem changed all that! Suki performed her duties as mouser very well, and found her first victim in her first week here. The rest of the mice moved out shortly afterwards, and we haven't seen them since. I am so glad to have her with us - she's a real sweetheart too.

Here's another photo of her playing with a feather toy (which I was using to keep her away from my yarn while I was knitting - she likes the yarn very much! haha).

So, I'm starting with the Christmas knitting a little late this year, but things have been very busy lately for me, as I recently volunteered as assistant stage manager in a community theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof, among other things. It has been fun, and such a learning experience, but it's nice to have some time back after all the hard work!

Here is a crocheted scarf that I am making for a gift. The yarn is Patons Rumor (how can a Canadian company spell it that way? Have they no self-respect? But I digress... ).The yarn is "an irresistable alpaca blend", and very colourful and soft, despite the high acrylic content (84%). It has 15% alpaca, which really is enough to notice, surprisingly! I have no idea why they would include 1% polyester, but they did. Any ideas?

Oh, and I am just winging this scarf - no pattern. It's a mesh stitch.

Since I'm really on a roll here, I will also show off a recent (okay, not too recent) dish that I tried out. It's the Noodles With Mirin from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home (one of my favourite cookbooks - you should check it out!). Served with green tea (in my favourite mug) and miso-cured carrots (from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman). Dave wasn't a huge fan of the sweet mirin soup, but I loved it! The miso pickles were nice and salty - tasty!

Did I mention that I LOVE to eat? Time for supper...

So, there you have it, folks! It may take a bit of effort to get back in the blog groove, but I am aiming to post more regularly. This time, I will be successful!

P.S. Did anyone get the musical reference in the title of this post? They are my favourite band! Especially the latest album. Possibly the best album of all time.

Why, hello there! Nice to be back. It's been a while, I know, but I went on a bit of a crafty hiatus for most of the spring/summer, and didn't get a lot done in this regard. I finished up at the college, and I had a lovely job working with the Youth Ventures program for the summer (helping young entrepreneurs start up businesses), and now after a trip home and a big move back into Dave's parent's house (we will be house-sitting for a year - gotta love the lack of rent!), I am sitting here unemployed for the moment. It is strange to be out of school in the fall for the first time, but I look forward to what the future brings.

I have recently been crocheting a few scarves. I love working with the open lacey stitches - things work up so fast! Here is an early Christmas present (I rule!), being modelled by our little gentleman, Nigel. He's got that bored model look down to a science. I think it suits him.

And for those of you who like that sort of thing... a close up shot of the fibre and stitch:

It's a fishnet stitch on a large hook (6.0 mm) in a lovely yarn called The Cat's Meow brand - Paradiso (I'd link to the website, but it doesn't appear to be working... I picked this yarn up for $1 a ball at Wallmart, so maybe it is discontinued. You should check it out to see if it is available in your area. A great deal.) The colour is called Mauves, and it is a wool blend with cool serger-type stitches throughout. Pretty hip. This scarf used 2 50g balls. Easy as pie.

Our stuffed toy family has grown, as Dave and I adopted a couple of quirky vintage (1940's, or so we are told) stuffed animals at an antique store in Corner Brook.

Aren't they awsome? I would love to try to replicate these styles myself, so maybe I will try one of these days.

We also now have a tank full of goldfish (since we can't adopt a cat while we live here, this will have to do). I received these guys as part of my payment for tutoring a girl over the summer. She was moving, so we struck a deal. I recently fixed up the tank and decorated it a bit. Dave and I weren't too keen on the "underwater paradise" background image, so I made a backing out of some flowery fabric, which I think looks pretty fun and colourful. I also added that little glass fish (a present from my Aunt G a few years ago). Cute, eh? 

My friend, Lana (of Knitting Collage), was recently visiting Stephenville, so we took her to see the alpacas and llamas at the Alpacas of Newfoundland farm, a favourite local attraction of mine, you can imagine! Here are a few photos from that day. I love the bottom right shot - it totally looks like the llama is a family member posing, and would make a great family pic for the wall.

They sell a lot of really lovely Alpaca yarn at the craft store there too. I am really wanting to get enough alpaca to knit the Marseilles Pullover from the Summer 2006 Interweave Knits. It's pretty pricey, so I'm hoping that Santa (or Dave) will bring me some. Dave thinks that he'll seem lame for buying me yarn for Christmas again, but obviously, no knitters will think that this is a lame gift, and those who don't know are just missing out.

Hurricane Florence is currently heading straight for Bermuda, so let's all hope and pray that it doesn't hit them too hard. I was talking to Jay a little while ago, and they are preparing for a bad one. I certainly hope that they are not "doomed" as he put it, but this is hopefully an exaggeration. They were hit pretty hard a few years back (extensive damage to property, beaches, and even the causeway), so let's hope it's not a repeat of that. I'll be thinking of you guys! Good luck.

Well, I have decided that after such a long hiatus, I am going to make an effort to start posting again. I'd like to thank all of you who have been checking in and visiting during my absence - you rock! I have a few knits and crochets in the works, and I will fill you in on all that very soon. I just wanted to post this to get started again... you know... take a small baby-step.

Check back soon to see some knitting and crafting action!

And now, the long-awaited modelled pic of Tubey. Sorry about the delay, but there are computer issues to deal with, and well, I guess I just forgot. But here it is. The completed Tubey.

"Tubey makes me sleepy!"

I've decided to be helpful and post the stats on this project:

Pattern: Tubey, from Knitty.com
Yarn: Patons Classic Wool in Black, about 4 skeins (plus a little more)
Needles: 4.5 mm, aluminum circulars
Size: I knitted Small, but added extra length for the cross-shoulder section
Adjustments: I made it shorter in the body by a few inches.

I wore it out the following Friday after the Knitting Olympics were over, and it went over well. My friends were impressed, and it worked well on the dance floor too. Now, for the bad news... I think it's a little too large. For this type of body conscious style, you need a snug fit. My solution may be to shrink it in the dryer just a bit. Of course, since knits tend to shrink more lengthwise than widthwise, this may involve some extra knitting. I won't worry about the sleeves, because I made those extra long anyway.

To avoid making your own Tubey too large, I would suggest choosing a size smaller than you would expect to need. I also heard some good advice from the Tubey Knitalong page: try using smaller needles for the body. This will keep the body nice and snug, and avoid that "hanging away from the body" thing that happens to the neckline when I lean forward really far - which, we can all agree, is not a good thing. I love the neckline, though. Very chic.

I made it. Olympic gold medal! Looks like Gushue and the boys aren't the only Newfoundlanders to get the gold at the Olympics this year (did you see that great curling game, or what?). But I have to tell you... this almost didn't happen. I had a blunder that is about equivalent to falling down during an alpine racing event. On Friday night (pretty late, I might add) I was here:

This photo was taken after I took the sweater off onto waste yarn to try it on, and just before I started unravelling the whole body. Yes, that's right. I unravelled about a weeks progress (well, Dave unravelled, and I balled). I tried it on and it was WAY too big. I took feverishly detailed calculations to fix the mistake... blew my mind with math and then realized, while picking up the body stitches again, that I had just read the pattern wrong. haha. Pretty lame. Because the back is divided into two sections I cast on the back amount twice - once for each section. The result was way too large. So I picked up the correct amount and started fresh on Saturday morning.

The good news is that the rounds went much faster this time. Of course, to be true to myself, I was finishing this during the closing ceremonies - such a deadline pusher. I bound off the edges once, near the beginning of the show, and realized I'd like it too be just a little bit longer (I didn't make it the 18" that the pattern called for - that seemed way too long for me). So I took back the bound off edge, and knit until I started to get freaked out that that the flame was going out soon, and re-finished it. haha. I think it is just long enough in the body now.

Here is the first completed photo (on the left) and then the second, and final version (on the right).

I will post a photo of the modelled sweater tommorrow, when I can get some natural light (forgive the terrible flash photos above... not the best lighting situations) and when I don't look so strung out. I'm looking forward to the receiving my medal. This was truly challenging, especially in terms of finding time amidst other priorities, but I really feel like I can take on other larger, more challenging, projects now, so I guess that makes this a sucessful challenge.

Congratulations to all the participants of the Knitting Olympics!

Well, I finally have some photos of Tubey's progress to report. I am a little further along than this at the current moment though... I have knit several inches of the body. There are still quite a few left, though, so it's looking like it will be a photo finish. Hopefully, I will have the luck of our Canadian athletes in Torino.

So, for starters, here I am at the beginning, with pattern, yarn, and needles at the ready. I did all my swatching prior to the flame being lit. I selected Tubey because I really love the design and I thought it would be a challenge for me to knit all the way through a sweater (something I have yet to do), let alone to do so in just 16 days. The yarn is Patons Classic Wool in black. Yes, black. What my wardrobe needs right now is a good basic black top in a flattering kinda-dressy style. Bingo.

Then there was the crochet cast-on (a technique that I found very easy to do and ripe with potential). The lovely green yarn that I used made me momentarily sad that I would not be using colour or doing stripes in my version of Tubey, but I had to remain focussed.

Then, after hours and hours of stockinette stitch, I had this:

I adjusted the shoulder width ever-so-slightly, and as a shrug, this is an excellent fit right now. We'll see how the body goes, but it's looking like it will be fine. I think my gauge for length was off from the pattern yarn (I rarely check this, especially when all the instructions say to knit to a length, rather than number of stitches), because the number of stitches that I could pick up around the body was different. I am confident that this will not be a huge problem, based on my own calculations.

I received a lovely surprise in the mail yesterday from Lana. It was a great little note with a set of artist trading cards that she made (which are super cool, especially the Guiness one), and an altered frame magnet with a fun pic of us with our knitting. Knit wits! hehee. Thanks so much, Lana! ^_^ What a great surprise.

Now, for a few other random photos of knitting, food, and other household stuff. I've been unable to post for a while, so this stuff tends to pile up.

First, a few skeins of sock yarn that I picked up on sale at the ol' Walmart (which, in Stephenville, has a letter that doesn't light up, so it's called AL-MART... haha. All-mart).

Next, the food. I have been keeping up on my cooking pretty well. I even tried my hand at making soy milk from scratch (recipe from How It All Vegan). While I'm glad that I was able to make it myself, I was not a huge fan of the result. I was also quite repulsed by powdered soy milk, which I picked up on a whim at the local bulk store. Maybe it's an acquired taste (if one could like chaulky, bitter, beany liquid). My personal advice would be to to stick to the storebought stuff.

A beverage that was a success is this honey, lemon, and ginger tea. I got the recipe from the January issue of Vegetarian Times magazine, and it is delicious, soothing, and keeps colds at bay. As you can easily see from the photo, it's just sliced lemons and ginger (I use a couple of lemons and a tonne of ginger) marinated in a cup or so of honey. Add a portion to a mug of boiling water and you have a soothing hot winter beverage. The ginger makes it nice and spicy. You have no idea how many jars of honey Dave and I have consumed in the last few weeks. 

Another winter favourite of mine is a vegetarian pea soup. This recipe came from Everyday Food magazine, which I tried last year. I make a large batch of this and freeze it for those days when you just can't get the energy to make something. This soup is yummy and soothing on cold days.

I planted a few "babies" from my mother of thousands plant, and I love seeing them grow right before my eyes. They are pretty quick - easily twice this size already after one week.