Yarn Along on a Misty Moisty Morning

Joining in the Wednesday Yarn Along with Ginny of Small Things.  That's a lot of capital letters.  I don't usually write in the mornings.  You can see why.

 I have a bit of a girl crush on Ginny, who recently designed a most gorgeous little cardigan, that I am eager to get started on.  However, that's not what is on the needles.  What is on the needles is another gorgeous little cardi by Georgie Hallam of TiKKi.  Wannie picked out the pattern, which is called Annie, and since it has new-to-me stitches, (I'm endeavoring to learn a new stitch, design element, or technique with each project) I said "oooooookay."  I was chucking a bit of a sad because I wanted to knit the Sunday Sweater that Ginny just published, but unfortunately I bought yarn that was too light-weight for the project.  It seemed heavier than its label described, but not long after casting on, I knew it wasn't going to work.

Never mind!  I love the Annie project so far and the daisy pattern is so much fun, and the color of the yarn -- Berroco wool blend -- is delicious knitted up.  So, it's all good.

I'm reading (which is unusual, because my normal now is listening to library recordings while I knit or clean or whatever I'm doing) this book, Discipline by Elisabeth Elliot. I just got it the other day and I'm only reading a chapter at a time (also unusual for me -- I usually devour books in a single session).  It's not a self-help book, it's a book about spiritual discipline.  I love Elisabeth Elliot, one of the few female Christian authors who are honest, blunt, and to-the-point. 

I've promised to make apple fritters for the kids this morning as it's Donut Day around here, but I'm trying to save money, and $7 for donuts is not in this week's budget.  So we'll give homemade donuts a try.   I need to get to it.  It's a gray moist morning and the fritters will be well-received, I'm sure.  I have a small conundrum related to them: the book I'm reading says a bit -- well, quite a lot, really -- about food and the eating of too much of the wrong kinds of it.  I am fairly sure that apple fritters are not spiritually enhancing, but...maybe one?  Just one? 

I Love Yarn Day (two weeks early)

   

My sister said something today about it being I Love Yarn Day.  As usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short, but fortunately I do have something that I'd already planned to share with you today.  

My project, the one I am so excited about, is finished.  It's a fair-isle stocking that I designed.  I'm surprised and thrilled it turned out.  Mostly surprised.  

The knitting group is having a Christmas stocking competition, and everyone else was knitting fabulous stockings, including all the newbie beginners.  I tried to hold out and just focus on the little girls' cardigans, but as more and more people entered their creative and colorful projects, I was feeling left out of the fun.  So I joined in too. 

One day to make the design, with pots of tea and candles and flowers and teacups and snowflakes, and hubby, the six kids and me. Then a couple days to knit it up as I could find the time.  It would have been quite fast, but I had to frog the lace at the top a lot of times, and then a few more froggings of other bits as well.  A challenge, but it was fun, so much fun, to do this.  And really, not hard.  Surprisingly easy, in fact, once I figured out what I was doing.

So here are some pictures, for I Love Yarn Day, of some of the stocking entries at the knitting group and my little stocking as well.  I do love yarn, I really really do.  When is I Love Knitting Day?

** I've just been googling I Love Yarn Day and it's not until October 12!  I'm early!  Woot :)

Project details: pattern adapted from Leisure Arts 4962, Old-fashioned Christmas Stocking.  Yarn is Berroco Comfort DK in Aegean Sea and White on size 6 needles.  Fair Isle pattern is custom design.

Bright and Sunny Sunshine Morning

Suddenly in sunshine
Out we go in Sunday best
To whirl and twirl and see ourselves
Unusually well-dressed.

If Mama lingers long enough
And doesn't catch us first,
By the time we leave for church
We'll be in Sunday worst.    edit: in response to commentor's question: yes, I knitted those!  I'm chuffed, love the pattern.  It's Tiny Tea Leaves by Madeline Tosh . I'm still learning to knit.  Stay tuned, I have something cool on the needles. :)

Sign of a Desperate Woman

I went to knitting group this morning.  It was awesome.  I stayed until three, just as if I had absolutely nothing else in the world to do today.  I go there to get away from the cray-cray in this house. 
How about that tatt?  If I ever got a tatt, that would be it.  I used to sit in geometry class with this girl over 20 years ago.  I had no idea she was going to grow up to be that cool.   Much hilarity, much fun, crazy knitting ladies.  The leader/teacher/head cray-cray is running a Christmas stocking competition, so most of the knitters are working on stockings.  Most of the knitters are very new knitters.  The one in the tutu, whose head I cut off for sake of dignity, came in asking to learn how to "do that thing with the two sticks."   Lots of work done today, three Christmas stockings finished, and I finished up both my little cardigans for my little girls, plus a sleeve on the new pink cardigan for Gater.   Really, all I want to do is knit and knit and knit.  I don't really want to think about yard sales and packing and cleaning and moving and selling the house and fall and upheaval and stress. Knitting. How about you?

Irritated

... to say the least, right now!

Today we had the carpets cleaned -- which really makes me cross and out-of-sorts, I can tell you.  I hate having the furniture everywhere and rooms blocked off and kids draped across areas where they are normally not.  Gah.  It's really humid as we are waiting for weather from the hurricane, and it's hot and damp and crowded, and with eight people at home, I am just about...done.

Tomorrow morning: hope for me, as I am going to knitting group.  Yay!  I went for the first time last week, with a little strawberry-pink cardigan I'm making for Gater.

I already made her a cardigan.  This is it.



She took one look at it and said, "I wanted a pink one."



Fortunately, being a new knitter (well, not in time, but in experience -- I've learned to knit a couple of times and forgotten how between my very sparse projects -- Gater's cardigan being the third project I've completed --)I am quite an addict and more than happy to make her a pink one.  Since I made her cardi, I also made one for Wanny in autumn-red, and a waterfall scarf in some Noro variegated wool.

I really need to be working on the house. We are getting ready to put it on the market. It is an enormous undertaking, just enormous and I feel buried under the weight of it all. We have to pare down to about 80lbs of stuff per person, as that's what we'll be taking with us. Spare a thought for me, this will probably drive me completely mad. But tomorrow; Knitting Group.

Super Fancy Cake Decorating Tutorial for Broke Monkeys

This is a tutorial to show you how to decorate a cake that makes you look pretty clever.
The beauty of this method is that you can put anything you darn well want on a cake. Your kid likes a certain team and you don't trust Stuffmart Bakery?

No problemo. All you need is a picture off the webz (or a coloring book page, or a drawing you did yourself) and you can make any design you want.

In this case, Gater wanted a "Dora/Princess" cake. I didn't know how I would do a "Dora/Princess", but all I had to do was spend 10 seconds on Google, ("princess dora coloring page") and there was a coloring page all ready to print out.

First, bake your cake and let it cool thoroughly. It needs a flat top, so do what you have to to make it flat.

Make your icing; a buttercream made with butter is best. You want an icing that is smooth and soft, but that hardens in the freezer. You will probably want to make a double batch to be sure you have enough to divide into all the colors you need.

*When you make your icing, you will want to sift the powdered sugar and mix the icing up quickly so you don't get lumps. You don't want lumps clogging up your icing tips in your detail work. Your icing should be of medium thickness, not too stiff. Soft peaks.*

Ice your cake. You want a flat-topped cake. The icing job does not have to be perfect, just flat.

Print out a coloring page, and make sure it is the right size for the top of your cake. You need at least 1/2" space around the edge of your design on the cake.
*your design will be reversed, so if you are doing a team logo or similar, you will want a mirror image of your original printout.*

It is a good idea at this stage to decide how many colors you want to use in your finished design. You might want to mark those colors in the appropriate areas on your coloring page with markers. I didn't this time, because the design was simple and I was lazy.

Trim your coloring page, and tape it to the back side of a flat piece of glass. I always use glass from a spare picture frame.

Tape a similarly-sized piece of wax paper to the front of the glass. Now you have a coloring page/glass/wax paper sandwich.

Mix up the colors you will need for your design. Don't forget to include a dark color for outlines and details.

*I prefer to use paste colors because they are vibrant and easily blendable, they don't thin out your icing, and they last pretty close to forever. One little jar of each of a few basic colors will last you for years. Sometimes you get lucky and find a marked-down pack of specialty colors, like I did. If the specialty pack has a couple good basic colors in, or ones that you are likely to use in any case (for example, the Diego colors I bought for $1.99 had a skin color, blue, black, and brown -- all good colors,) by all means -- pick those suckers up, and some for your mommy friends too.*

Now the fun part! Fill your icing bags. For the finest details, use a #1 decorating tip -- and you don't have to get fancy if you don't have actual decorating tips, they just make it easier. As you can see in the picture below, for some of the colors I just used ziploc bags with the tiniest speck of the corner cut off.

But for the initial details, you are better off with an icing bag and a #1 decorating tip if you can get one.
Now, trace over the outlines that you want to see on your finished product. This bottom layer will be the top layer -- the one you see -- on your design.

Once your bottom detail layer is established, you can fill in larger areas over the details with other colors of icing. You can't go back in and put details in at this stage if you leave them out, so think logically, one step at a time. It isn't hard and you can fix things later if you need to, so don't stress too much about it.

Color in all the areas with the icing layers to a depth of about 1/4 inch. Fill in right to the edges and on top of your detail lines, so your whole design is supported by that 1/4" thickness of icing.

You can hold your glass up to the light to see if there are any pinpricks of light shining through your icing design, so you can fix those thin areas before you go on.

*This is when your children will come in and inform you that you have screwed up and your icing job was a good try, but it does not look like Dora. You may chuckle to yourself at how ignorant impertinent amazed they will be when you reveal the final design.*

Now, take the whole coloring page/glass/wax paper/icing design sandwich, and slip it into the freezer. You want it in the freezer until the icing is hard to the touch. I don't really know how long that takes, but I'd venture at least fifteen minutes.

Now is a good time to busy yourself with making the sides and bottom edge of the cake look pretty, or doing the dishes, or having a beer, or whatever.

Now -- the magic! Take your coloring page/glass/wax paper/icing design sandwich out of the freezer and make sure the icing is nice and hard.

Un-tape the wax paper/icing, and quickly but carefully, up-end your design onto the cake. Press it down a little so it sticks.
Then, also quickly but carefully, before the design softens, peel back the wax paper to reveal the design.

Now, make the top edge of the cake look pretty with some stars or whatever (a #16 tip is good to use for decorating the sides and edges) and pipe your message.

Voila! You are a genius!
Or a broke monkey!

COME ON OVER and see how it worked for Lea!

EDITED TO ADD:

This post is now over four years old and still every day you lovely visitors arrive to see how to do this brilliant technique.  Since there is so much interest in cake decorating, I'm just going to post this little affiliate link here for you all, from Craftsy.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE Craftsy classes.  They are top-quality educational experiences taught by really good, qualified, personable instructors.  I love them.  I've been a Craftsy student for ages and have taken numerous classes.  Right now, this little party-cake-decorating class is half price.  Here's the link.   Charming Party Cakes (w/Zoe Clark)

Gater's Third Birthday and a Trip to the Museum

I think the next several posts are not going to totally be in chronological order. I don't know why, I think I just got bored with that. Anyway, perhaps you would like to see what we did for Gater's 3rd birthday.

Daddy took the day off work in honor of her birthday, since Joman had cross-country training that night and there wouldn't be enough time to celebrate otherwise.

Miss Rose dressed Gater in an appropriate princessy-dress (the same one Miss Rose wore for her fourth birthday -- a Princess Party!) and off we went on a special outing.

We made a re-run to the Cincinnati Museum at the Union Terminal. I took the kids there in May for a free school function, but we weren't there five minutes when Roks threw up, so we hastily left. He was mortally disappointed, as the museum is expensive and we hardly ever go. This time, we bought a membership. Clever of us, hey!

We thought the little girls especially would have fun in the Children's Museum part. It really is a super-fun place, all hands-on and interactive.

It was a crazy noisy place when we were there, overloaded with preteens who were loaded up on pop-tarts and off their medication for the summer (true story, I heard it in the bathroom,) but the little kids managed to have a really fun time, anyway. There was a shop to buy groceries from, a cafe, a house, cars to drive and fill with gas, a post office, mailboxes at every station, a nursery, a veterinary office, a water discovery center, buildings and construction "vehicles" and so much more.

One of my favorite parts is where they have all different kinds of homes, from all over the world, to go in and have a look at. That was really interesting.

As an aside, I kind of want a yurt.

Roks and Bert got to visit the state where they were born! Western Australia. This was a display of some Aboriginal folks who live up north of the state, and below, is a letter the little boy wrote about Perth, the capital city where my little boys were born.

Pretty cool!

I guess all the continents were represented, and there were drums and thumb pianos and all sorts of things to play with.

Gater and Bert spent the most time at the veterinary clinic. They looked at x-rays and examined their animals.

Roks got to play at his dream job in the cafe. He constantly talks about having a restaurant. He informed us that when we die, he is turning our house into a restaurant. There was more to that conversation, which was very funny, but I can't remember it now.

He can be a bizarre child.

When we got home in the afternoon, we had cake-and-present time. Gater had requested a "Dora Princess" cake, and that is what she got. It occurred to me that I post a lot of pictures of these type of decorated cakes, which are so simple and cheap to do that a broke monkey could do it, and perhaps I should do a tutorial. I will try to do that tomorrow.

Miss Rose had made a whole box of Easy-Bake Oven mixes for Gater. It was a great effort, and Gater was so excited to receive them. We haven't baked any yet, but we will.

And Gater's present from Mamma and Daddy was her very own big-girl Princess Bed, with all the beautiful Princess bedding. She has been sleeping in a crib this whole time, and she was finally ready to move up.

I think she had a great birthday.
Happy Birthday, Gater!

Adventures in Eating -- Cooking from the Pantry

Jumping to the present time, for a moment, since it only takes me approximately 5 minutes to forget whatever it was we just did, I want to talk about something small that I'm doing right now that is making a bigger impact than I expected on my kitchen attitude.

Simply, I've put my mind and energy to really using what is in my (fairly extensive and eclectically-, if not well-stocked,) pantry. You see, I had just completely lost my motivation to cook or do anything in the kitchen; there was no creativity in it any more. I mean, I made up an 8-week rotation of menus, I would go buy the stuff, I would cook the stuff, we would eat the stuff. Good stuff, but really boring for the kitchen help.

Ever since I can remember, I've wanted to create something from "nothing". I guess it comes from growing up with little money and few toys. Once the creative spark is planted as a child, and, as a child, you make very pleasant and useful and pretty things from "nothing," -- found objects, cast-offs, what-have-you -- well, it is kind of a let down to be able to get whatever you want to make whatever you want. It feels spoiled and, frankly, boring.

I've always preferred scrappy quilts to designer quilts, just for this same reason -- the pleasant surprise of never knowing quite what you will find put together in it, but knowing that whatever it is, if a clever person put it together, the end result will be delightfully more than the sum of its parts.

Well, that is a very long way of saying that my cooking has gotten to be like a designer quilt, and my pantry has gotten to be like a hoard of scraps, leftover from my designer (not gourmet, lol) habits. It's a boring way to live, and it can turn out to be wasteful, too.

We aren't going to do that any more. It's time to find a use for the random tins of coconut milk and seaweed flakes, before they go bad. It is definitely time to not be so squeamish about the squash bugs and just get out there and pick the dang squash and then not let it turn into fruitfly food, but actually USE it (btw, I still do have a butternut squash in the pantry that we harvested LAST fall, will try to do something with it tomorrow!)

We celebrated Gater's birthday recently, and instead of going out and buying gourmet goodies, I used what we had. I only had to purchase sandwich meat and cheese, lettuce, and bread for sandwiches. And a bit of generic pop. The rest -- homemade baked beans, potato salad, 3-bean salad, homemade cherry pie, the birthday cake, and the other assorted goodies, were assembled within a couple of days, from pantry and fridge goodies. I used up ALLLL of some veggies that normally get discarded before they are completely gone...celery, for example (embarrassing, but true. I'm sorry.) It's not that I don't know what to do with the stuff, it is just that using it all up doesn't fall as conveniently into the schedule as I would like it to.

Anyway, (and it is very late and I fear I am rambling), we had leftover birthday cake (will do a birthday post soon) last night, and this was the verdict from Wannie:

At Gater's party, the first time we had the cake, I had to pry the empty plate out of Wannie's cold dead hands. Not literally, but that was definitely the message she was giving. Oh my.

The cake was a Pig-Pickin Cake, deliciously fresh-tasting and moist, and made with pantry/freezer ingredients.

Well, as though two birthday cakes and a cherry pie were not enough dessert-y goodness for one week, today I went cleaning out the fridge in preparation for (rather random) grocery shopping tonight. I located 2 elderly packages of cream cheese and a just-out-of-date tub of sour cream -- and I had just processed a whole bunch of opened-but-not-finished packs of graham crackers into crumbs. And I had this leftover apple caramel dip that I had made for the party, plus some leftover pineapple and some leftover cherry filling from the pie...so naturally I had to make this:

Caramel-swirl cheesecake

and a half-dozen plain mini-cheesecakes to top with that leftover cherry filling and pineapple.

Oh, sooooo bad, but honest, I had to do it. Those ingredients had to be used up. It's the right thing to do.

Easter, 2011

It was a wet spring -- a very, very wet spring, and I think even a record-breaking wet spring. It did not seem to stop raining for at least a month.

But spring did bring two rays of sunshine, my sister Deb and her newest baby, E.

They arrived just as I was finishing up matching dresses for all three of the little girls, for them to wear at Easter. Miss Rose also got a new Mamma-made dress, but not matching.


Easter morning was as crazy as ever, with everyone running around trying to get ready for church.


Roks was looking spiffy in mint green, Bert in lavender, and Joman in robin's-egg blue.
Just right for springtime.


Miss Wannie was enjoying spending time with her little cousin so much!






Miss Rose made hats for the baby girls. Wannie really liked hers.
And it suited her, I think.


After a particularly strange and off-putting morning at church, of which I cannot share details, we went to Grandma's for Easter dinner.


Here is Miss Rose in her new dress. The fabric for this dress was such a nightmare! Never ever again. The pattern was lovely though, I plan to make her another one in a better, more manageable fabric.


Here are the girl cousins.


And here are the boy cousins.


And here was a challenge. How to get all nine children to smile/look pretty for the camera, all at the same time? Between Grandma, Aunties and Mamma, there are probably 150 variations of this particular photo, and I bet not one of them has all the kids looking the same way and smiling at the same time.
You can't take away the cute though, the cute is overwhelming.


Here is Wannie, turning her hat into what we call a "Wee-Woo." A Wee-Woo is any hand-knitted or crocheted item that Wannie hugs to her face while she sucks her thumb. I guess it is because we gave her those handmade afghans when she was a tiny baby, and the texture of the knit or crochet is comforting to her. Of course, we think it is so adorable when we give her a new sweater or hat, and she does this very thing with it.

It's so rewarding.