It's gonna be someone's birthday!!!

Since I know all of you out in blogland (or at least my sister and mom) are asking yourselves the big question: What should I get Carissa for her birthday? I decided to help you out with some ideas....

Knitting Books


Domiknitrix









Naughty Needles












Stitch 'N Bitch Nation







Stitch 'N Bitch: the knitter's handbook







Knitting Stuff

Retractable tape measure

An adjustable dress form

A row counter (preferably one I can put on a string with some amount of ease)

Fun stitch markers (Zephyr Style has cool ones....or I'm sure a crafty person could make some)

9 balls of Patons Classic Merino Wool in a pretty color
OR
10 balls of Lion Brand Wool Ease (the worsted kind) in a pretty color
so that I can make this


Cupcake and Baking Stuff



Crazy About Cupcakes









Pampered Chef Decorator Bottle Set

Pampered Chef mini muffin/cupcake pan

Pampered Chef small spreader

Other fun cupcake supplies (decorations, cupcake liners, cake decorating kits)


Other Fun things I'd dig

Funky cool or stylin' clothes

Funky cool or stylin' accesories

Superchic[k]'s new CD: Beauty From Pain 1.1

Republic of Tea Traveler's Tins

Republic of Tea Mango Ceylon Tea

Republic of Tea Pomegranate Green Tea

A ceramic tea pot (preferably of at least 22 oz. capacity...Republic of Tea has some cool ones)

(Heck I just like Republic of Tea)


So thanks for checking out my list. I know in some cultures making a similar list is considered rude. Please know that I have had at least 3 requests recently for this list so I figured this is the best way to share the info. If you are offended, here's a picture of a cute baby to cheer you up:

Punk Rock Gift Exchange

I'm supposed to post answers to a questionare for the Punk Rock Gift Exchange to my blog but it is SOOOOO long that I didn't want to clutter my blog with such things. If you're my new secret Punk Pal (or I suppose if you're bored), you can go to my MySpace blog to see my post.

Bad Blogger! Bad!

I know, I know....I am such a bad blog slacker. I haven't written anything for 2 weeks now. Bad blogger! Does it count if I thought about blogging? probably not.

Sassy did this "15 minutes inside Sassy's brain" thing. She wants me to do it. I think that might be a bit too scary. I think I'll just post random musings.

Random Musing #1
Have any of you seen the TV show Top Design? I happened upon it last Thursday while I was waiting for it to be Grey's Anatomy time. Aside from having a thing for design shows in general, this one is really cool because there is a Carisa (yes, with only 1 's') in the running. I want her to win. Mostly because I'm vain like that. She wears funky cool clothes and I think she even looks a little bit like me (although Husband disagrees).

Because our kitchen/dining cubby is a disaster, Husband and I ate dinner on our couch last night and watched a recorded episode of the show. It was really funny to watch how stressed out Joe got for the contestants during judging time. Then when the show was done, he said he really liked it and wouldn't mind watching it with me again (this was kind of a shock because he almost never enjoys any of the TV shows I do). Then he said that when we move off campus after he graduates, he wants to have one room in our house that he will be in charge of decorating.

I was floored. And really scared. My husband wants to decorate something? My husband? The one who almost never understands why I'd want to spend money on something simply because it looks nice even though we already have a similar (though VERY ugly) object that "works" just fine (even if it doesn't). Yeah. Him. And he was getting really excited about it.

My response? "Um, well, uh, honey....what if, what if it doesn't go with the rest of the house? Or, um, what if I think it's really ugly? Or, um, I'm. uh....kind worried." He assured me that he would only decorate it after consulting me (whew!) but he wanted to have any area he was in charge of. Hmmmm. Somehow I don't think relegating the broom closet to him is what he had in mind....


Random Musing #2
Two Words: Book Reviews

I'd like to add a book review section to my blog. The contenders for the first review spotlight are Sexy Little Knits by Ashley Paige or Hey There Cupcake! by Clare Crespo.

What do you guys think? Which book would you rather see reviewed?

It's a ladybug, it's a cupcake, it's a cupcake addict!

Update: Want to learn how to decorate cupcakes to look like ladybugs? Check out my tutorial here.

So the more I think about my cupcake addiction (which I totally don't have!), I was thinking that I think the thing I like most about cupcakes is the artictic, decorating aspect. I mean eating cupcakes is always amazing, but I think more than having cupcakes just to eat them, I like creating miniature works of edible art.

Exhibit A: Joe's valentine's day present (well, part of it):

Exhibit B: Close up of the red velvet cupcake pretending to be a ladybug:


Exhibit C: The rest of the cupcake tower. The ladybugs are red velvet, the non-ladybugs are french vanilla:

This is the red velvet cake recipe I used. It is amazing. I got from the What's Cooking board on the Nest:

Red Velvet Cake

1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 cups cake flour
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 ounce red food coloring
1 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp white vinegar

1) Preheat the over to 350 F and line your cupcake tins with paper

2) Cream shortening and sugar then beat in eggs one at a time

3) Sift flour, cocoa and salt together in a small bowl. Add dry ingredients to shortening mix a little at a time alternating with the buttermilk and food coloring

4) Dissolve baking soda into vinegar and fold into the batter.

5) Fill cupcake tins a little more than 1/2 full and bake for 22 minutes, checking for doneness with a toothpick.

6) After removing from oven, alow cakes to cool in the pan for 5 mintues then tranfer to a cooling rack.

7) Once cool, decorate to your creative little heart's content.

Finally the Skully Dish Cloth Pattern

**UPDATE**
If you are new to color knitting, please see the FAQ about this pattern for help

Remember this guy? Well I've gotten quite a few requests for the pattern. Hopefully yours will look better than mine. But the theory is if you follow these basic directions, you'll be able to have a rebellious dishrag of yer very own.

The link to the Skull chart I used to make this pattern can be found here (I used the large one).

Please let me know if you find any errors in the pattern as I am remembering it in retrospect and may have gotten something wrong.

Skully Dish Rag

Gauge = 17st = 4” (sz. 10 needles) although gauge doesn’t matter for this project

Yarn = 1 ball Sugar’n Cream Brand cotton yarn in black (color A)

& 1 ball Sugar’n Cream Brand cotton yarn in raspberry (color B)

CO 34 stitches in color A

Bottom Edge

Row 1 (right side): P1 K1 across.

Row 2 (wrong side): K1 P1 across.

Alternate Rows 1 and 2 for 6 rows

Main Body

Row 7 (right side): P1, K1, P1 K to last 3 Stitches, P1, K1, P1.

Row 8 (wrong side): P1, K1, P1, P to last 3 stitches, P1, K1, P1.

Alternate rows 7 and 8 for a total of 6 rows

Start Pattern

Right side: P1, K1, P1, K3 and start pattern at the bottom (which means you will knit 2 more stitches in color A before beginning work with Color B). Once across first row of the pattern, K3 and work last 3 stitches of row in P1, K1, P1 pattern.

Rest of rows for pattern: Continue working back and forth following the pattern beginning with the P1, K1, P1 edge, 3 stitches of stockinette, work across the pattern, 3 stitches of stockinette, P1, K1, P1.

Finishing

Once pattern is complete, work two rows of P1, K1, P1, stockinette across until last 3 stitches, P1, K1, P1.

Work rows 1 and 2 as for bottom edge.

Bind off and weave in ends

I'm not so bad...

Thank you all for your recent expressions of concern regarding my cupcake habit. I am happy to report that I have been cupcake-free for 4 days now (moslty because my husband ate all the cupcakes and there were no more left for me).

I would also like to put my obsession in context. I'm not nearly as bad as these other addicts:

The People who Knit Cupcakes

The Cupcake Knitting Needles Creator

The Cupcake Tattoo lady

The Cupcaker who created Tomato Soup Cupcakes

See? I'm not so bad. I just like them....a lot. But that's okay. I haven't gone totally cupcake mad (yet).

The Great Felted Mitten Experiment

One of the first things I ever knit was a pair of mittens for my hubby to wear on his way to work. Joe says they are pretty wam but that the wind cuts right through them. So after a few months of wearing them (and then losing them) He asked if there was a way I could make a pair of windproof mittens. Windproof mittens? Honey, they're knit wear.... *Sigh*

But I set to work brain storming and trying to figure out how the heck I was going to do this. I figured I could use tiny needles to make the stitches tighter....but that would take forever. I had read about thrumming on the Yarn Harlot's blog and I thought that might be a good idea to try. In fact, the plan was to make a pair of thrummed mittens but I couldn't find wool roving anywhere so I kept storming. Then I thought prehaps felted mittens might be more windproof since the yarn would kind of mush together an eliminate the holes....but I still wanted cuffs. So after some research I devised a plan...

I started with the basic 2 needle mitten pattern I had used to base Joe's original mittens on (I modified it...so mine looked way cooler than the pattern picture). Now, I'm sure if I wanted to be scientific or smart about it, I would have made a swatch and then felted it and calculated starting gauge from that.....but I didn't. I figured if the mittens were too big that I would just keep felting them until they shrank enough. So without testing gauge, I used size 11 needles and 2 strands of Patons Classic Merino Wool (one strand of grey and one of black) and I knit the upper portion of the mitten following the largest size on the pattern (plus some extra inches of length) and then used cotton yarn to do a single crochet border around the bottom. This is what I got...


So then to felting.... Since we don't own our own washer and dryer I decided I wanted to try and do the felting on the stove, alternating the mittens in hot water and running them under cold water. Doing this successfully got the stitches to "mush" together but there was not much shrinkage going on. So after spending almost an hour messing with it, I decided to suck it up and pay the $2.25 to run it through the washer and dryer.

This got it to shrink nicely but the thumb was looking a little wonky so I had to cut it and sew it back together and then re-felt the thumb (to hid the new stitches) under the sink. The good news, though is that when Joe came home from work, he said it fit well. So once it dried, I attached the cuff using one strand of black yarn and size 7 dpns to do a K1 P1 rib pattern with a grey stripe in the middle.

This is the "before and after" shot:


So after making the second mitten, it was time for the moment of truth....Joe using them to ride his bike 1 mile in 30 degree weather. The conclusion....they work! Joe says the mittens are like tosters and they are msotly windproof for his bike ride.

Now, the pattern still needs some tweaking so I'm not going to post it today, but I think I might make a pair for me with a fun intarsia design and if those turn out well, I'll post the pattern later.