Peanut Butter Cookies

I made peanut butter cookies today. It's the easiest recipe in the world.

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg.

Mix, bake for 10 mins at 350 deg.

That's it. It's a really small batch so I usually x4 to get enough cookies to last more than an hour. It's best to use peanut butter that's smooth and not separated. It's impossible to stir the oil back in and makes lumpy cookies. Family doesn't mind anyway and it gives the cookies pockets of peanut butter. Still tasty but hard on the wrists.

Knitting news

Still working on the Pinwheel sweater. Just knitting up the i-cord border now and then have to start the sleeves. It knits up fast but all that plain knitting in the round is really boring. I was getting to that point where I want to poke my eyes out with my lace needles.

Doll Pattern

I've had several people email me asking about the pattern. I don't mind sharing it but I need to re-write my doll pattern. I was making notes as I went along on my ipod touch when I accidentally lost the app (bad sync on my part) and lost all the info. It's easy enough to re-write but just have to find the time to do that.

Things that makes me happy:

1. A picture of my nephew in his transformer costume. He won first place!
2. Birds in the garden. I love watching the birds in my backyard.
3. Rainy weekends - guilt-free days of sitting on the couch, knitting, and watching old movies.

WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC AND SHOCKING PHOTOS...

...for knitters.


In the spirit of Halloween that was yesterday, here's something to put fear in the hearts of all the fibre people out there.



I love this cardigan. It's just a plain sweater with a picot edge around it and mother-of-pearl buttons. Somehow I had snagged and broke a thread on the back of this cardigan. I knew that and had meant to fix it before I washed it. Completely forgot and washed it last night. Yup. This was the biggest fright I ever got on Halloween.

The good news is that it's fixable.

Other stuff

Ever since Black Sheep Yarns opened up last year in Port Moody, I've been doing a lot more spontaneous knitting. Before, it was a planned trip to the yarn store. I usually take transit to work so I would have to plan in advance to drive in to Vancouver, find time either at lunch time or end of the day to hit all the stores. And if I forget something, it's a pain to go back. Now, I just drive 5 mins and Black Sheep is there. Although I try to go for specific things, I'm more likely to pick up a new yarn just to try. If I like it, it's easy enough to go back and pick up enough for a larger project. The down side is that my yarn stash has grown way too much this past year.

Yesterday's yarn haul yeilded 2 balls of Noro for a scarf, a skein of Koigu sock yarn, and the Rowan Lima Collection pattern book. There was a couple of samples of the Lima knitted up at the store. That yarn is really amazingly soft, not surprising with 80-something % Alpaca. Considering that it will use 5.5mm needles, the yarn is very light and the sample sweater had a lot of drape to it. The yarn itself is actually a chain of thinner yarn. My guess is that it will trap air inside itself to give it bulk and warmth without the weight. I'm tempted to go back today and pick up a ball to try out. But I know that would mean going back and getting enough for something larger...something that I wouldn't have time to knit up right now.

Maybe buying the pattern book wasn't such a good idea.

Things that makes me happy:

1. BC Lions lost last night.
2. Hell week at work is over.
3. Sushi for dinner last night.

Weekend Warrior

I actually made up a list of things to do this weekend. I will not post the whole entire list but I will share what I've accomplished...

1. Finally finished sewing the last seam in my felted tweed cardigan. I love this stuff! It's so soft and squooshy!

2. Blocking the above cardigan. Keeping my fingers crossed that it will dry before the end of the day. I don't trust the dog to not sleep on it. That's an annoyed dog butt sticking out.



3. Started knitted the Pinwheel sweater with the Cascade Heather. I think this might be it...the yarn seems to be happy being the Pinwheel sweater. The February sweater is now back in the queue. One day I will find the perfect yarn for it and it will be wonderful.

4. Knitted the stem & leaves for my pumpkin and finsiehd the second pumpkin. I'm going to make a couple more before I felt everything as one batch.

5. Finished the last 1 & half inches of a sock. The yardage for the Noro sock yarn is really incredible! I don't know why I thought I would need two skeins for pair of socks.

6. I have over one and half skeins of the Noro sock yarn left that I started the New York Plaid scarf. So far, I have nearly 6" done.

7. Fixed the problem of my apps not showing up on the new computer for my ipod. It was as simple as manually transferring the files over from the old computer to the new. I spent a lot of time on the phone and emailing the folks at Apple. No one suggested this and they couldn't figure out why the apps weren't showing up. I posted the problem on Ravelry (a knitting forum) and someone suggested this.

7. Finished some work-related stuff.

Who am I kidding?

I had to go to the yarn shop to buy some green wool. For my pumpkins, I said. But before I left, I did some quick calculations on how much Rowan Felted Tweed I would need if I were to make a sweater with it. Now, why would I do that if I had no intentions of buying more wool? I can't say it was all my fault. I had this ball of the soft grey sitting on my computer table for a couple of weeks now. It was supposed to be a bunny rabbit but it will now be part of a soft grey sweater.


Rowan Felted Tweed is my new favourite yarn. I'm fickle that way.

Thankful for:
1. Rain.
2. Halloween chocolate. Every year we buy more and more candy but have been getting fewer and fewer kids. I know where all the extra chocolates are going.
3. Good dental coverage - need a crown...maybe it wasn't good idea about the extra chocolates.

Garter stitch ranting

I hear a lot of people say stockinette stitches are the most boring thing to knit. Not true...garter stitch is the most boring thing to knit. At least with stockinette, you get to purl on the wrong side to break up the tedium of plain knitting. Garter stitches makes me want to poke my eyes out with my needles.

The Cassidy cardigan is now on hold. It looked ok but it wasn't want the yarn wanted to be. It wanted to be the February Lady Sweater. That's what it's going to be. The only problem is the huge amounts of garter stitch to be done. It looks great so far but so very boring! Fourteen more rows to the end of this section and then on to the fun stuff!

I broke up the monotony of garter stitch knitting with a side project of knitting a pumpkin.



The pumpkin itself turned out well but can't say much for the leaves & stem. After the leaves & stem were knitted & had gone through the felting process, I noticed (as you can see in the picture) that they didn't felt at all. Took another look at the ball band and it said "superwash". D'oh!

I'll have to dig around some more for green wool tomorrow. It hasn't been a good knitting day.

I also made some little clay rabbits who looked more psychotic than cute. Not a good craft day either.

Thanksgiving

1. I know I've said many times how thankful I am for my friends and family but it bears repeating...over and over again. I didn't want to say the same thing every post but I really am thankful for them. I'm really lucky to have them. There's no rule that says I have to come up with something different everyday.

2. The use of my hands that I could make stuff on a whim.

3. Coffee - did you know coffee is good for you?

Towashi! Towashi! Towashi!

The crochet class was fun. Dotty at Black Sheep is a very patient teacher. I'm well on my way crocheting this scarf. But like any lace project, it looks like something the cat threw up until it's done and blocked. I'm using something Malibrigo that I had in the stash. Good for me! Stash busting!

BUT! At the end of the class, Dotty showed us a crochet scrubbie...a Japanese towashi. The concept is simple enough - you increase at one end and at the same time you decrease on the other end. Sew together and you get a spiral shaped scrubbie. My crochet version was really really bad and asked myself how hard would it be to knit them? Apparently, not hard at all.



Instead of working on my scarf, I've been making towashies. I've been experimenting with different size needles and different numbers of stitches. While they are supposed to be used as dish washing scrubbies, the larger ones can be used as a body scrubbie. They're knitted out of cotton so they are quite soft.

Thankful for:
1. Drop Bears - a group of people I play WoW with and they have been very kind to a noob like me.
2. 2010 Winter Olympics - Whatever one's opinion on such events, I really do believe that it's the reason the economy in my little part of the world is not as bad as others.
3. Family members who are sane and rational. They keep me grounded and relatively normal.

Oh look! Shiny!

I have a LOT of yarn and fibre and I went to the yarn sale at Black Sheep anyway last weekend. Of course I bought more yarn. What else do you do at a yarn sale?

Last Sunday was the first Beginner's Crochet class. I kinda know how to crochet but I always wondered if I was doing it wrong. It never looked right. Anyway, Dotty at Black Sheep was more than patient with us. I learned so much in that first class. I never knew how to count my stitches properly...one reason why I sucked at crochet. Nothing worked because my count was always off. She went over everything - how to hold the yarn. different ways of holding the hook, and a few of the basic stitches. I came home and practice a bit and jumped right into something that she recommended NOT to do....crochet with mohair. I made a little crochet cap to make the wig for my doll. It looked great until I took a closer look in daylight. Yuck. I'm going to have to add more hair.

The second class is tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it. We get to start our scarf!

My problem is not the lack of ideas of what to make but the opposite. I have too many things I want to do RIGHT NOW. I have so many projects going and will jump from one to another whenever anything new and shiny catches my attention.

The latest "new and shiny" is the Gail (aka Nightsongs) shawl. I don't remember where I first saw it. Probably Ravelry. I blame Ravelry. So last night I got home around 8pm. Ate dinner, watched a bit of TV with the Hubby, played a bit of Warcraft, and thought...hmmm....the yarn I spun from Sweet Georgia's fibre club would be perfect for this shawl. Next thing I knew, it's 2am and I'm knitting a shawl. Not the wisest thing to do because it was frogged out this morning and restarted with larger needles, same yarn, and minus the errors. It's thicker than most lace things I make but I'm happy with the look so far.