Still Taking a Break...

...from sock knitting or any other kind of big, difficult project knitting.

So, I dashed off this scarf:

















It's made out of a new yarn called "Knit Collage". The pictures don't do a great job of showing this, but the yarn has little bits and pieces of things woven into it -- you can see the flowers -- there are also pieces of gold thread, beads, sequins, etc. The colors remind me of a mermaid.

We did a fair amount of antiquing over the weekend -- pictures on that another time. And, yes, there were quilts involved.

And, I haven't really been cooking at all and in fact, there is no hope for any serious cooking for awhile between work and things that are already planned. I miss it, but the farm shares will be starting up around the first week of June so plenty of cooking will be happening then.

A Post To Tide Things Over

I've been out of pocket due to being away on vacation and now trying to get caught up from said vacation so this is just a quick little post until I have time to really write.

On vacation, I did some serious sock knitting. The pair pictured are quite possibly the worst knitting I've done in the past three years. The project was just jinxed. But, they still provide what I needed which was socks with some yellow in them.












OK, so the sock knitting was really a BINGE. I knitted three socks in about five days. That is a lot of knitting when you consider that each sock is like ten thousand stitches or something crazy. It was raining, I had yarn and needles, what can I say?

But, I was pretty conked out on sock knitting, so I took a break and made this:











Another scarf out of Cascade Magnum. I love this stuff. In a couple of hours, bam, a scarf! It's a beautiful red. I suspect it will be a gift. It's nesting with the hot pink cabled scarf I made earlier this year. There are some May birthdays to contend with so it will be nice to have a couple of gifties waiting in the wings.

I know, I know -- I still owe a pic of the blue hoodie...I promise to get that posted in the near future!

Marie's Recipes

The fact is, I have a LOT of cookbooks. I'm not going to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records or anything, but still, I'm closing in on 900...And, over the last twenty years, I've sold off a lot and given some away and threw some out accidently in 2001.

And, yet, I'm not jaded. I can still be entranced and seduced into plunking down my credit card or parting with some cash and adding to my collection.

So, at the Wheeler auction last weekend, when I saw two boxes of cookbooks, my first thought was, "You don't need anymore...there's nothing there that you want." Actually, those thoughts became somewhat of a chant...and then, I saw it -- a metal box that clearly held the handwritten recipes of the woman who had lived at this house. And, the box was big and it was STUFFED. I could feel the madness taking hold.















When the second box came up for bid, they placed the metal box of recipes on top and the whole lot was on the block. It was mine for $10. I could have cared less about the books (although there are some interesting tomes in there) for I now own Marie Wheeler's recipes.

What can I say? Marie's recipe box is totally spiff.

I just picked one recipe out for you at random -- A little hand-written scrap titled, "Tuna Supreme":













I know you are dying for the actual recipe, so here goes:
1/2 lb. cubed cheddar cheese
13 oz. tuna fish
5 oz. chopped stuffed green olives
1 cup mayonnaise
8 hamburger buns
6 hard-cooked eggs
1/4 c. chopped green pepper
1/8 c. chopped onions
1 1/2 tsp. salt

Spread in split buns. Place under broiler till cheese is melted.

OK, I can't vouch for whether this tastes any good or not. Actually, with all of those hard boiled eggs, I can't even test it for you because I don't eat eggs like that and SO wouldn't go for the olives either. But, it gives you a little feel for what Marie liked.

What I can tell so far about Marie is that she loved to cook. The box is crammed with little scribbled recipes on all sorts of paper types. You can tell that she must have been the type to go somewhere, taste something and say to the cook, "I have to have this recipe. How did you make it?" and jot it down on the spot. We are figuring that Marie is either deceased or has gone to a nursing home -- in either event, I found some recipes in her collection printed from as recently as a few years ago with her notes -- like one for prime rib that had a note of "perfect" printed out from allrecipes.com in 2006.

The books that came in the box are worth more as collectibles, but I have to rescue things like this. It's my mission.

The Wheeler Auction

Yesterday, SO and I went to an auction not far from his house.

We got caught up and...

The Mini was stuffed!!! Hardly anywhere for a passenger!












Yes, you see quilts! Yes, there are old hand-made baby clothes...and dishes...and a vise...and a set of green suitcases (3 for 6 dollars)...and old cookbooks...and a fleece and deer hides...and a whirly-gig!!!

After the auction, we went to a barn/yard sale and picked up a few more items -- one thing that was really neat is a picture dated 1956 that is an original oil painting painted to look like paint by numbers.

Fun, fun, fun! Especially at the end of the auction when we were trying to get the quilts. I had to let SO go for those -- I was too emotionally attached and a bunch of women were hovering. He got them for me!!!

Now it's time to start decorating!!

Coming Soon...The Blue Hoodie

All the knitting is done!!!

Last night I stitched up the sleeves to the fronts and the back.

In the next day or so, I will get the hood on and then crochet the edge all around.

I had to custom order a zipper so I could get the right color and length -- only cost $10, so I was glad.

I know you are dying to see what this project is -- I offer the picture as the sweater appeared in Vogue Knitting, Fall 2009.





















The color is a pale powder blue and as you can see, we are talking 100% seed stitch! I think I started around November. There was a complete re-do of the back so that slowed me down. The sleeves are a bit full, but at this point, I can live with that. This is the first sweater I've made since I learned how to "really knit" instead of whatever that stuff was that I was doing previously.

I will post pictures of my finished version but that's going to be in another couple of weeks. I was hoping to take this on vacation so I could wear it on the plane and looks oh-so-kicky and cute, but I fear the custom zipper is going to foil that plan.

I Won't Be Quitting My Day Job

Back in my younger days (about 17 years ago), I thought perhaps I would learn how to decorate cakes and have some cute little side business in making cakes...and I would be so fabulous that I would be able to quit working in an office and just make beautiful cakes.

So, I enrolled in a six week Wilton cake decorating class which met one night per week. For each class, we had to bake a cake in advance and mix up a large tub of a buttercream frosting that either had a lot of butter or Crisco or both.

For the first week, I prepared my cake and frosting over the weekend so that I could dash out the door to make the class after dinner. I remember there were problems right out of the gate when I got to the first class and discovered that my frosting tub was only about half full because my then-husband had eaten a large quantity of the frosting (frosting was a food group for him).

Things didn't get much better as things progressed each week. I was constantly getting remedial lessons from the teacher who usually would just take over and frost the cake out of her own frustration with my lack of aptitude.

I know it was hopeless when even the people at work wouldn't eat these cake-things that I was making -- and it wasn't that they tasted badly, they just looked horrific (think about grey icing).

So, I let that little dream float away like a balloon.

Last week SO purchased a pan that makes 9 little Easter egg cakes and we decided that for Easter, they would be carrot cake and then decorated. So, yesterday, I spent a couple of hours decorating the cakes. Yes, you read that right, it was a couple of hours.

Behold!















Honestly, I didn't have the best tools at my disposal. I didn't pay enough attention to what kinds of tips I needed, etc. No, a cake decorator, I am not. Most decidedly, NOT. It's a good reminder that I'm much better off doing my regular office job. The pay is not bad and sometimes I can tell that I even do it pretty well.

Scenes from my Sewing Room

Somehow my sewing room is developing a personality. I did not do this intentionally. It's just happened little bit by little bit over the past year.


For starters, we have what's happened with my yarn stash. If you've read much of this blog, you know I've gotten a little crazy over having old suitcases to store my yarn stash in:
















And, actually, I have two other ones that just came into my possession but I haven't fully integrated them into the room, so no pics yet.

The other major theme that has developed started out with three little dresses that were mine when I was a baby. First I cleaned them and pressed them. Then we found old hangers to hang them on...then I started adding little knitted things to them such as hand-knit booties and mittens.













This shot is of the "little girl" area". In the picture, it looks sort of cluttered. I confess that I really don't have a good eye for design and I believe it shows in this picture. I'd say this looks more like a small collection than something with real aesthetic appeal.











What I need is to get SO, who does have the design eye, to straighten this out so it doesn't look like a small junk shop!