Monthly Archives: September 2008

giveaway time!

Apologies for the lack of blog posting! I’ve been working and otherwise a little busy this week:

that's a lotta tomatoes!

Yesterday I (with some help) canned two bushel boxes of roma tomatoes from the grocery store – getting to the last of the season, they were only $10 each! I’m so tempted to go back and get another one to make sauce. The tomatoes that didn’t make the canning cut went into a vat of sauce to be frozen, and the good ones became 29 L jars of halved or diced tomatoes plus 18 500-ml jars of diced tomatoes.

I can’t wait to crack some open a little further along in the winter! Mmmm.

Another random food-related little note – I’ve been working on following a hypoallergenic and anti-candida diet these days (except for at my launch party, that was a special occasion!) and today I made the most awesome snacky food!

brown rice oven chips

I found brown rice tortillas in the frozen section of the grocery store where I bought the tomatoes – they have quite an extensive health food-type selection. I had ripe avocados today, so it was time for the guacamole and chips! I cut a couple tortillas into wedges, sprayed them with a little olive oil (I’ve got a little pump bottle that you can fill with whatever you want), sprinkled them with a little salt and garlic powder, and then baked them in the toaster oven for a couple minutes at 400 F. They were super crispy and tasty, just what I wanted. I’ll definitely be making these again. I think they’re go great with all the soups I’ve been making.

In other news, I had my book launch party at lettuce knit last Wednesday and it was great! Unfortunately I suffered a bout of camnesia and didn’t take photos at all. People dropped by, yummy food was had (thanks megan!), I signed books and even managed to knit a little bit.

And now to celebrate, how about I send some more books out into the world?

53.365 - good mail day

I’ve got THREE (3) copies of my book, Teach Yourself Visually Sock Knitting, to send away to three blog readers! All you need to do is leave me a comment to this post pointing me to something that you think is cool, interesting, funny, delicious (and vegetarian), or otherwise entertaining!

Comments will close Friday, October 3 at 11:59 PM EDT (can you believe it’s almost October already?). Winners will be chosen at random.

a kick from colour dominance

So – the koigu mittens I’ve been working on (yes, there will be a pattern, hopefully pretty soon!). They’re pretty. They’re knit in semi-solid koigu. And they were started last winter.

a lesson in colour dominance

So when I started the second mitten, I wasn’t sure what colour I held in which hand, and went for the easier way – the brown in my left (because I knit continental, and more of the stitches are brown) and the purple in my right.

Wrong! I totally had the nagging feeling as I started the chart that it wasn’t that easy the last time. Then I looked at the mittens together, and yup – wrong hands. The background colour (brown) should’ve been carried in my right hand (the strand which is carried “over” the other) so that the foreground (carried under the other) would pop. Darn.

riiiiip

The fact that it’s a mitten means it’s pretty fast going, though, and I’m almost done the thumb gore again. And it just occurs to me now that I have two projects on the go that are chocolate brown + some other colour (the socks from yesterday are the other project).

Tomorrow’s my book launch at lettuce knit – won’t you join me?

what’s on the needles?

Way too much, my friends! Let’s concentrate on knits that are actually in play, hm?

one long sock

Stripey knee socks. I started these on the trip, and am almost done one – I probably would’ve made more headway had my needles not broken in the middle, there! I did pick up a set of double points at le bon marche in paris, so I was able to get back to it in the later part of the trip. The yarn’s Indigo Moon fingering weight, in raspberry and chocolate. I really do love the stripes!

crochet

And on the hook rather than the needles, a crochet project. I like crochet, but I have a really difficult time finding projects that I’d want to make. I’m working up a cardigan, but I’m not entirely sure about how it’s going…oh well. This was a trip project too. I’m really not sure what I’m doing with this! The yarn is Fibre Company Savannah DK – it’s a really interesting yarn, sort of dry-feeling and nicely tweedy. The crocheted fabric is so much thicker than it would be if it was knit up, though. I think this one’s going into hiatus for awhile.

Still working on the koigu mittens, but they’re coming along – and since I’ve finally gone and made the chart on the computer (I’d written it by hand), the pattern’s coming right along too.

And then there’s all the various secret projects. One in particular is going to take up a bit of attention for the next little while! I’m cooking up some new designs, and wanting to do a website redesign (so don’t worry if it goes wonky in the next day or few, I’m just working on it), redo my workspace, buy software and hardware…so many things to do. I almost don’t know where to start, these days.

(Although I do enjoy making lists.)