Itching for fall

This past week was unseasonably cool for Baltimore and I loved it.  I made pumpkin bread, drank apple cider, and started my Knitterly Things mitten kit (I chose the color way ‘vintage appliance’).  They’re moving along swimmingly.

(there’s a lot going on the living room right now)

I’ve also started another project with odd balls of stash yarn.

No, not a butt-warmer.  A striped cardigan in felted tweed.  I’ll probably have to buy another ball of the oatmeal color, but I am fairly certain I have enough of the other colors to make it through the project.  It could turn out looking like a technicolor disaster, but that is a risk I’m willing to take.

Old and new.

- Year old Knitterly Things wee skein kit in Halloween colors + last year’s Tacky Witch Sock pattern = new technicolor socks.  I just received a Cheveron Mitten Love kit the other day, and I can’t wait to get started on them.

- New Ikea shelves used as a little wall partition + AJD’s record collection = a more exciting way to store our nice tchotchkes.

- And, I’m probably pretty late to find these (so they might be old to you, but are new to me), but I am seriously lusting after these new versions of Alexander Girard’s wooden dolls, from the always fabulous Design Within Reach website.  Holy cow.  I am obsessed.  I think three of these delightful folk would look fantastic on our shelf set.  But with that price tag… I think I may just have to imagine them there for a long while.

Mmmmmm…. Look at those beautiful little smiles!

home coming

So, when last I posted, I was kvetching about not having enough time to do everything, and I made  a list of what I wanted to do.  While I did not make blueberry cake with peanut butter frosting (but I will, don’t worry), I did get a new job, move to a new city, and knit a pair of socks.

Not bad, right?

So, look at the socks while I fill you in on the deets:

The pattern is Treetop Socks from Knitty.  I am now really quite down with O.P.P. (yeah you know me).  I substituted Koigu Kersti for recommended fingering weight yarn and knit the smallest size, though my foot is about a 9.25″ circumference.  The substitution worked out pretty well, I ignored a few rows at the cuff, and knit the heels and toes differently than written, but that was it for changes.

The yarn was very difficult to photograph.  The color is more of a mid bottle green- sort of a dirty moss color.  In my opinion, it is beautiful, and very 1950’s.  Which is great, because our new abode happens to be a pretty excellent example of Modern Architecture.  Our mid-modern furniture feels right at home, and we feel pretty happy about the move ourselves.

To celebrate our move to Baltimore I baked the always much appreciated donut muffins.  This time I filled them with black raspberry jam.  I was thinking that peach butter would taste great with these, but the only recipes I could come up with were for a peach jam spread, which is not at all what I want.  I was imagining more of a proper butter- sweet, with bits of peach in it.  Any ideas?

Sorry for leaving you in the dark….

….after I begged you to keep reading and all.  Things have been busy here, weekend guests, job hunting, work, and trying to enjoy the summer.   So I’m going to share some photos from 4th of July weekend and a list of what I’m looking forward to this summer.

1- Wild blueberry picking at Blue Job (a mountain with a hiking trail, but I knew you’d love its name).

2-Trying to eat as much tasty fruit as possible.  The local strawberries have been amazing and I’m hoping that with more sun, the raspberries and wild blues will soon follow.

3- Eating more pancakes on Fridays.  I recently stumbled across a fantastic recipe, and making it lactose-intolerant friendly made it even more delicious.  I used almond milk instead of regular milk, and it made the lightest, sweetest pancakes imaginable.  Yum.

4- Using the blueberries I pick to make blueberry cake with peanut butter frosting, blueberry pie, and jam.

5-  Swimming in the lake and rowing the boat around in circles, all the while wearing my new (so new it has yet to arrive) Esther Williams swimsuit.

6- Watching the next few episodes of Marple on Masterpiece Theater.

7- Spending my birthday weekend at a farm house in upstate New York with some old friends.

8- Wandering around the beach after dinner.

9- Knitting the partners to two socks I have going- Treetop Socks and another pair of Tacky Halloween socks.

10- Going home to Philly at the end of July for my cousin’s wedding and some quality time with the family.

With all of that going on, I may not even make it to Canada, which was my goal for the summer.

(find the star fish)

socks & shoes

Another part of my ‘get rid of all the scrap yarn I have ever owned, ever’ plan has been accomplished:

I save all the odd bits of yarn after I complete socks and this habit, paired with the great Koigu Mill-Ends Binge of 2008, has left me with lots and lots of little 30g balls of sock yarn.   If you, like me, want to get rid of about 200g of awkward amounts of sock yarn, here’s how I did it:

1- Grab enough skeins to equal 200g of yarn and a scale that measures oz.  My colors’ weights are as follows, from the top down:

Maroon: 40g

Light Blue (all the blue stripes are from the same skein): 50g

Pink: 30g

Light Green: 40g

Brown: 30g

Other Maroon: 30g

Second Green: 30g

Mauve: 50g

Other Brown: 40g

Third Green: 20g

2- Divide all the colors into evenly weighted balls as best you can.  I couldn’t really get my weights completely even, so my stripes aren’t always the same width.

3-  To make sure you can get equal amounts of sock, if not equal sized stripes, put one ball of each color into two piles: left and right sock.  Then, weigh left sock.  Then, weigh right sock.  Switch the color balls from pile to pile until until both piles weigh the same amount.

4- Knit a toe-up knee sock.  I did a short row heel, jogged stripes, and I increased along the back center of the sock when I had to accomodate my calf width.

And, AJD got a pair of Toms.  I already have a pair and I love, love, love them.  I wear them to work almost every day and they are amazingly comfortable.   Plus, as I’m sure you all know, for every pair bought, a pair is donated to a kid in need.  Wonderful!

I have to admit I’m surprised that shoes this inexpensive to make (I mean, they are making 2 for the price of 1) would be this comfortable, or last as long as they do.  Hm.  I kind of want the tweed looking ones now too.

Cuckoo

I’m so excited, I just had to share this.   My birthday present to myself arrived about a month earlier than I thought it would.   I am now the proud owner of a cuckoo clock!  Believe it or not, it is the first clock in our apartment.  AJD and I use our cell phones as watches, alarm clocks, calculators, and very seldom, we use them to communicate.   I may change the pastic stag head on the clock for a wooden one, and likewise the plastic pine cones for metal ones.  We’ll see.

Speaking of changes, I’ve been rearranging quite a lot around here.  My living room, my time, and my priorities.  I need to spend less time with the knitting and more time with the painting, which means less knitting in general.  When I do knit, the patterns are not going to be terribly creative.  More like easy-knitting, stash-busting projects or Christmas presents.   And I’m on a diet, so there’s going to be way less baking content, at least until my birthday.  Not terribly exciting blog fodder, but then, I’m not sure how many people still read this blog after my hiatus last month.  I’m doing a really great job of encouraging you all not to delete me from your browsers, aren’t I?  Lest you think the knitting content will completely disappear:

Another hap shawl.  The navy blue hap shawl is for BK, and the light blue shawl is for JR.  Both ladies are my grandmas, and as such, I can be garunteed that they will at least fiegn delight in their Christmas gifts.   BK’s shawl colors are closer to the original Bressay Hap Shawl (Rowan 42), and JR’s shawl colors are taken from her clan’s tartan, and mixed with natural sheep colors.  JR’s closest clan is Campbell, and Ancient Campbell tarten is made up of lovely teals and light blues.  I think she’ll like my interpretation for her, even if it doesn’t scream ‘tartan.’

New Slippers for Dulle Griet.

And new slippers for you too, if you like.

Materials:

Notes:  I made myself way more ‘felt’ than I needed (yes, I know this is fulled knitting, but for ease, I’m going to use the word ‘felt’).  The amounts written in the list are the measurements for the final pieces of felt I made.

These slippers would look great made out of felted fairisle sweaters, aran sweaters, colorful scarves, anything else like that.  Don’t skip the felted brushed suri, though, it is key to making super comfy slippers.

- Felted Blue Sky Alpacas Brushed Suri (about 5 x 45″).  I knit a swatch, felted it, and calculated how many stitches and rows I needed to knit to get a piece of felt 5 x 45.”

- Half yard of quilt batting.

- Felted worsted weight yarn, knit with a stripe pattern (about 12 x 45″).  I knit this bit with scrap tweed yarn.

-Solid felted worsted weight yarn (about 12 x 45″).

-Scrap yarn that matches the striped knitting.

-Two buttons.

-Tapestry needle.

-Sewing needles.

-Matching thread.

-A heavy weight thread or embroidery floss.

-Scissors.

-Rotary cutter.

-Cutting mat.

-An old slipper that fits you well.

-Puffy paint.

-A computer or way to play Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on itunes.  I love books on tape and HP and Charles Dickens books make for the most entertaining character voices.

Steps 1 & 2:

Using the slipper or your foot as a template, cut out one layer of alpaca, one layer of solid felt, and two layers of quilt batting.  Cut another foot shape out of the solid felt by tracing the slipper, and adding about 1.5″ of seam allowance.

Then, place the layers as shown (large foot shape, batting, solid felt, alpaca) and sew layers together.  I stretched the alpaca a little bit and only sewed the alpaca and largest foot shape together, keeping the other layers wedged inside and making a nice pillow.   This is the sole of the slipper.

Steps 3 & 4:To make the shoe top, I put my foot onto the sole, laid a peice of alpaca on top, and trimmed the piece to the size of the shoe sole.   Then, I cut three strips about 1.25″ in length.  I sewed two pieces together for the shoe back, and then one across the top for a Mary Jane style strap.  If this bit seems confusing, and you’re interested, leave me a note.  When I make slipper #2, I’ll try to photograph the process better.

Steps 5 & 6:

Then, I laid the striped felt over the shoe shap and trimmed around it to get the shape of the shoe.  I used the scrap yarn to make a blanket stitch around the mouth of the shoe and Mary Jane strap.

Step 7:

Then, I curled up the edge of the solid felt (the bottom of the sole) and used the heavy duty thread to sew the lip around the edge of the shoe, catching the bottom edge of the striped felt as I did so.

Steps 8 & 9:

Tack one button on to the outside of the shoe where the strap meets the shoe body.   To give the slippers traction, use the puffy paint to make dots on the sole of the shoe.

I’ll have better photos when I make the second slipper.

a nice weekend.

AJD and I don’t usually have the same days off (I take my weekend in the middle of the week to avoid tourist mayhem, and AJD’s schedule changes weekly), so when our schedules work out we try to do something fun.   Last weekend, we were supposed to go to NYC but AJD’s nasty cold kept us out of the city.   Instead, we spent the morning at the beach in Maine:

And the afternoon at Webs in Mass:

“webs, I salute you”

I scored some Malabrigo worsted in burgundy and in ‘Paris Night,’ a really beautiful navy blue.   I didn’t take any photos inside the store- but I’m sure you’ve all seen photos of the store and the infamous warehouse.  It did not disappoint.

And this is the state of my knitting.  In another effort to use up odd balls of scrap yarn, I’m knitting a pair of knee socks.  I have a ton of koigu mill ends and a few balls of leftover yarn from sock toes and heels on other projects.  I pulled 200g of scrap yarn from the cookie jars in the photo, divided each color into two evenly weighted balls (one per sock), and started knitting.

And, right after I took this photo I realized the livingroom/ studio needed a complete tidy.

enough to be getting on with.

The last two weeks have been busy:

Plus a graduation, six day work weeks, and out of town guests.   More information in a little while.

German Chocolate Cupcakes? Yes, Please.

I’m going to be boastful for a moment- these cupcakes are the best bit of baking I’ve done since I made gingerbread at Christmas.   I promised my friend Milan a batch of cupcakes one Sunday.  A few days later I saw a German Chocolate Cake sitting out at our local bakery and I thought, why not combine the two?  So I culled a few recipes, picked out the bits I liked, and here’s what I came up with.

The cake recipe is from the Inside-Out German Chocolate Cake recipe on Epicurious.  The coconut icing comes from The Cupcake Project, and the satin glaze comes from All Recipes.   The only real changes I made were in the procedure, but to make it a bit easier to follow, I’m going to write out the whole recipe as I used it.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/8 teaspoon almond extract
• 3/4 cup boiling-hot water

For the Coconut/ Pecan Icing:

• 1 C sugar
• 1 C evaporated milk
• 1/2 C butter
• 3 eggs, thoroughly beaten
• 1 1/3 cups baker’s coconut
• 1 C chopped Pecans (finely chopped so they can fit through a pastry bag)
• 1 t vanilla extract

For the Chocolate Satin Glaze:

• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup (I loath to use corn syrup.  Instead, I used some local maple syrup, and it did the job nicely.)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Odds and Ends:

• Pastry bag & icing tip
• Cupcake/ muffin pan
• Paper cupcake liners

Directions:

Make the cupcakes:
1- Preheat oven to 350°F

2- Put papers in the cupcake tins.

3- Sift together dry ingredients in a large bowl.

4- Whisk together whole milk, butter, whole egg, yolk, vanilla, and almond extract in another large bowl until just combined.

5- Beat egg mixture into flour mixture with a fork until thoroughly mixed.

6- Beat in water until just combined (batter will be thin).

7- Pour batter into cupcake papers, until each paper is about 3/4 full.

8- Bake in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching position of pans and rotating them 180 degrees halfway through baking, until a tester comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes total.

9- Put cupcakes on a rack to cool completely.

Make the Coconut/ Pecan frosting:

1- In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, evaporated milk, butter, and eggs.

2- Cook over medium heat until the mixture starts to lightly bubble. Stir CONSTANTLY!! or you will end up with scrambled eggs in your frosting!!

3- Remove from heat immediately.

4- Stir in remaining ingredients. Cool until the icing is room temperature.  Don’t let it get too cold, or it will be impossible to pipe the icing through the pastry bag.

Fill the cupcakes:

1- After the cupcakes have cooled completely, put only the inner icing tip in the pastry bag.  This should leave you with a hole the size of a nickel to pipe icing through.

2- Fill the bag with coconut/pecan frosting.

3- Jam the tip of the pastry bag into the cupcake as far as it will go, without breaking the cupcake.  Pull tip halfway up (not entirely out of the hole!) and fill the hole with icing.  Keep filling until the hole is full.  The cupcake shouldn’t break, but if there’s a little cracking along the top of the cake it doesn’t matter, the glaze will cover it up.

(Step 3 is a very satisfying thing)

Chocolate Satin Glaze:

1- In a double boiler over hot, but not boiling water, combine chocolate chips, butter and maple syrup. Stir until chips are melted and mixture is smooth, then add vanilla.  I don’t own a double boiler, what I do is fill a pot with water and put a tin pie plate on top of the pot, it works well.

2- Ladle over cupcakes so that the glaze pools neatly within the walls of the paper liners.

Allow glaze to cool before you put cling wrap or anything else over the cupcakes- the glaze will stop being liquid and will turn to a nice thick, fudgey icing once it cools.

Eet Smakelijk!  (Eet Smakelijk is Dutch, not German, but German Chocolate Cake apparently isn’t German at all, it is all in keeping with the theme of the post).