Picture post

I just wanted to share a few bits and pieces quickly.

My ripple-along blanket grows slowly. I stopped the other evening to take a picture (I'm afraid many of my pictures will be poorly lit due to bad timing and the fact that very little light gets into the first floor of our house once there are leaves on the trees).

Can you see the blur at the top of the first picture? That's my daughter swooping in to steal my crochet hook. Second picture is the best of the full amount of progress thus far (I've actually started another colour/row since that was taken) -- it's only taken me a month. But then I have so much help, when my daughter isn't taking my crochet hook (holding it aloft victoriously as if it's Excalibur or a magic wand, and then chewing on it), she's climbing all over the blanket, stealing my yarn or demanding my attention be directed to her needs (which is my main job at the moment after all).

This last weekend though I got to spend hours in the sewing room! We were going to a birthday party for a little friend who's turning 2. I started a present for her last year which I'm finally finishing up. It's a pointy kitty (a free pattern at the Wee Wonderfuls website), here it is Cheshire cat style (since the head isn't actually attached to the body -- last step still to be completed). I also made the birthday girl a dress from the same fabric as the body of the kitty. I don't have a good picture of it yet so I'll post it another time. (Also we didn't end up going to the party since the birthday girl is under the weather so I don't want to post the finished articles before they're delivered even though they're not likely to see them here.)

Even though I stayed up way too late sewing Saturday night it was totally worth it. I feel so recharged by getting something I'm happy with sewn! And, I'm totally excited that I finally figured out how to do buttonholes on the sewing machine (which I inherited from my husband's grandmother who doesn't sew anymore). I've tried and failed in the past. Then on Saturday I tried again, thought I'd totally messed up the sewing machine as it was stuck in the middle of the button hole setting and called for help. My husband sat there reading the manual and using judicious pressure until the mechanism started moving again. And lo and behold I could sew buttonholes! (I really should get the machine serviced, oh and oil it more often.)

Today I've been more creative in the kitchen. A friend came over and played with the baby for a while and I baked some cookies (mashed banana + oatmeal + baking soda + cinnamon&ginger + a little molasses and oil, based on the Oats & 'Naner Drops here) and some squash for my daughter. Later I cut up some past their best strawberries to mix with rhubarb I stewed the other day (see picture) which I topped with some crumble and baked for pudding (aka dessert) for me and my husband. Yummy! (I almost made muffins after reading this post at Posie Gets Cosy, but then I remembered the rhubarb and strawberries.)

And to end, since I didn't do my mother's day post, here is the hanging basket that my husband bought as a mother's day gift when we were at the farmer's market (I got to pick the colour). I wasn't sure I really wanted that to be my gift (time in the sewing room is pretty high on my wishlist after all), but they're hanging right outside the kitchen door and make me happy every time I catch sight of them out of the corner of my eye. My daughter's pretty excited about them too.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that if I'm going to keep up with posting to this blog I have to spend a little less time at the Bloglines website. The problem is I just keep coming across more and more blogs and flikr groups and adding them until I could spend the whole day just trying to keep up. After all, I think part of the point of the exercise here is to interact more with the blogging world rather than continue just sitting and staring at it.

My daughter has been teething for the last month also (4th of 4 top teeth hopefully making its appearance soon and then giving us all a break). This makes sleeping hard work for the little girl and at night time she won't fall asleep and stay down without being in bed with me. Consequently I have to go to bed with her instead of grabbing a few hours of time when I can actually focus on anything for more than a minute (which is the kind of time I find useful for writing among other things). You'd think this would have the advantage of me feeling more rested, being forced to go to bed and all, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be working that way.

The arrival of warm, even hot, weather has also been keeping me away from the computer. I've taken the girl out in the stroller for walks on a lot of days over the last week. Often she'll take a nap, sometimes we'll eat together. One day I met another mother and daughter who we chatted with. Sometimes I've managed to get some rippling in while we've been out.

I have been making slow progress on my ripple-along blanket, on my fourth colour. I'm making it wide enough to fit on our queen sized bed so one row takes a long time, and there are two rows of each colour so I don't think I'm doing too badly. I can't get too far before acquiring more yarn anyway since I want at least one more colour than I already have (I'm using greens, blue, purples, an off-white and I think I want some yellow and a dark brown which may just be for around the edge when it's done).

Much of the "free" time that I have had recently I've spent on being a bit more creative in the kitchen (since I have to cook it's somehow a more legitimate use of time than sewing). Last night I made pizza (ever popular) with fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce, kale and mushrooms (having made dough on Monday to rise overnight in the fridge). The night before I was more experimental having bought tilapia which I'd never cooked before. I did what I often do in such situations and searched at various websites for interesting looking recipes and then used them to make my own. So we ended up with this baked fish and vegetable dish with roasted (red-skinned and sweet) potatoes. Here's what I did, for future reference:

• Heat oven to about 375


• Roughly chop 1 large tomato and mix with crushed garlic (2 cloves), lemon juice (tbsp), herbs (basil & oregano) and a little salt and pepper


• Put a knob of butter in baking dish big enough to hold fish, set in oven to melt. Meanwhile wilt 8oz spinach in steamer.


• Spread spinach in bottom of baking pan on the melted butter. Place fish on top of spinach, then tomato mixture on top of the fish.


• Bake in oven for 15 minutes or so


• Serve and enjoy!
  

You will notice that there is also corn. I served up the food and then put some frozen corn in the juices to warm through and added it to the top (as per husband's request). There was quite a bit of liquid in the baking dish after I'd served out the food which I put into a jug -- I ended up using most of it on my potatoes. I think we'll be having this again.

Since I really love to bake (and eat the results) I've also been making cookies. I discovered this recipe for Flourless Nut-Butter Cookies at Baking Bites a while ago.
I really like it because it's really quick and easy to throw together. The first time I made it the cookies spread more than I was expecting, either because I pressed the balls down too much, or because of the nut butter combination perhaps (peanut, almond and homemade cashew). This picture is of my second batch of dough (made with peanut and almond butter) which if you clicked on the recipe link you will note looks nothing like the picture there. This is because I added some cocoa powder for extra chocolaty goodness, and used chocolate chips instead of Hershey's Kisses. (I don't really like Hershey's chocolate, particularly their milk chocolate, probably because I grew up in England and ate Cadbury's which I still bring from England and horde. Also these days I like darker chocolate.) I think they came out pretty tasty this way, husband agreed.

Rippling

I've been watching all the rippling (and then the granny squares, and miters) that have been going on in the crafty blog world. My fingers have been getting itchy to join in. I looked through my yarn stash and pulled out some Red Heart Super Saver yarn that's been lurking upstairs and put it in a bag and looked at it. My daughter likes to pull the yarn out of the bag, rip off the label and start to unravel it...

I haven't really felt as though I should be starting a new project right now since it's hard to find time to finish what I already have on the go. On the other hand I've been meaning to make more afghans, and with concerts the next three days there will be some time spent sitting in a car where something crafty I don't need too much concentration for would be most welcome.

And then, just when we thought Spring was coming there's been a return of coldness. Cuddling up inside with sleet and snow coming past the windows renewed my interest in making afghans so I left a comment at the The No-End-In-Sight Ripple-Along website and started making a swatch.

I have a booklet that I think I must have picked up at a Joann's store some years ago called "Rippling Effects" by Carole Prior. I've made a couple of the afghan patterns in there (and have another that's an UFO I found when searching my stash for yarn). Here's a picture of one, it's unfortunately the least interesting but it has the advantage of being on the bed and therefore easiest to photograph. (The other finished afghan is a lap sized one that lives in the car.)

My problem is that I'm so good at procrastinating! I'm having a hard time deciding what stitch/pattern to use this time. There are some fancy ones I'm not going to do because I don't want to have to concentrate too hard! Most of the afghans in the aforementioned booklet are more zig-zag than ripple to my eye, and I think I'd like something that ripples. Somewhere I have a book full of knit and crochet stitches but I can't find it, grrr.

Anyway, here is the swatch I made while my daughter was napping this afternoon (I photographed both sides, please excuse the fuzziness of the bottom picture). It is from the "Rippling Effects" booklet, (well, not the colour combination). I can't decide whether I like the way the colours change over, or hate it. And if I like it whether I should do single, double or more rows of each colour. This I should figure out before trying to make a whole blanket I think, except I want to start NOW. Help!

What might help is if I could actually find my book of knitting and crochet stitches. I've been digging in piles of stuff all over the house for weeks to no avail. I'm just afraid of how sidetracked I'll get if I go searching for patterns on the Internet!