Salty Caramel and How to Make It
Over the Christmas holiday we broke in our new ice cream maker. Our first batch was salty caramel ice cream (and damn was it good). We've perfected the salty caramel dance over the last few months. It's one of those things that looks super complicated (read impressive) to the uninitiated but is actually ridiculously easy. (Truffles and cranberry sauce fall into the same category.) It's totally worth adding to your repertoire (and there's no reason your pants should fit any better than mine). To make it, you will need: 1/4 cup butter 1 cup cream 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup [...]
Not A Jellyfish
I think I (scandalously) neglected to show you an on-the-head pic for the blue poufy hat. Bowl shots more or less work for round hats, not so much for poufy hats. We took a little stroll through a local park on Christmas and got pictures of the red hat and the blue hat and The Boy's hat. Apparently my hair is pretty much exactly the same color as leafless willow branches. Who knew? I'm still having some internal qualms about how to wear a poufy hat...my inclination is to send it off to the side, but the proper way seems [...]
Testing Call
The Boy's hat (scroll down to the post from the 26th to see a pic) and some matching mitts are up for testing on ravelry. All the details are all in the thread. I'll be picking testers tomorrow, so if you're itching to make these right away (ya know, while the pattern is still riddled with errors and doesn't have proper pretty pictures), head on over and volunteer. And yes, this is a fairly cruddy picture of the mitt. It was soaking wet, I was half asleep, and I wasn't really enjoying standing out in the snow wrapped in wet [...]
At Long Last
From time to time some of you have been kind enough to ask to be notified when a particular pattern is released. This is terribly flattering, but I am just not organized enough to pull it off. So I'm putting technology to work for me. Well really I'm getting The Boy to put technology to work for me, but the end result is much the same. I've set up a mailing list. If you sign up for the list, you will get an email when a new pattern goes live or I have a sale. I promise it won't be [...]
A Lovely Few Days
Went quiet for a few days there, sorry about that. We were holed up playing at hibernating. We did a bit of ice cream making. We are, by the way, ice cream geniuses. Our first batch is some of the tastiest ice cream I've ever had. That swirl is salty caramel. Because I like you and want you to have a happy and productive life (and because I don't want your pants to fit any better than mine) I will tell you how to make it some time in the next week or two. We atoned for our caramel-y sins [...]
Hobbits
"Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule...but it was not a bad system. Actually in Hobbiton and Bywater every day in the year was somebody's birthday, so that every hobbit in those parts had a fair chance of at least one present at least once a week. But they never got tired of them." -- From The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien Well I'm too tall to be a hobbit (and I try not to let my feet get too furry) but I still think it's [...]
More Hats
He wanted another hat. I can do that. Cast on Sunday, should be casting off tonight. Might be able to convince him to let me get some proper pics tomorrow. I'm very much liking this 'double up two otherwise unlikely to be used yarns to get one nifty yarn.' Isn't that a pretty color? You have to pay a bit of extra attention to make sure you get both strands when you're doing purl decreases, but otherwise it's not really a challenge. In non-knitting news, the oven has finally committed suicide. Way back in July it started acting up. It [...]
Uncharacteristically Productive
Finished things have just been falling off my needles. I blame the hats. They themselves are quick and easy, and they lead to mitts which are also quick and easy. The basket that usually holds the half dozen or so projects in various stages of completion currently holds a mere two works in progress and a stack of things awaiting a photo day. (Having a knitting site and selling patterns means that you don't just have to finish a knitted item before you can use it, you have to finish it and photograph it. This can be very taxing if [...]
Testing Call
I've put up a call for testers for the red leaf hat and mitts over on ravelry. Head on over if you're just itching to make them right now.
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