Category: cooking

  • we interrupt…

    …your regularly scheduled Rhinebeck yarn post for an important announcement.

    NOMNOMNOM

    Soft Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.

    Make them NOW. Go to the store for ingredients if you must – they are orange and black after all, perfect for that Hallowe’en party later this week (if they make it to then).

    best. cookies. ever.

    My very slight mods to the recipe: I used 1/2 brown, 1/2 white sugar, upped the chocolate chips a touch (to use up the rest of the bag), mixed by hand, and used heaping tablespoons rather than 1/4 cup portions for each cookie. I got 30 cookies…but there aren’t that many now!

    A sneak peek at the yarn? Sure.

    my purple period

    Clearly I’m in a purple period!

  • weekend in Ottawa

    I’m a bit behind in everything, not the least of which is my poor neglected blog! Let’s see about catching up. Last weekend I headed to Ottawa for a bit of a birthday trip. A friend and I drove (okay, he drove) and got there Thursday night. We stayed at his brother’s apartment in Byward Market – very, very convenient in terms of getting around, but it’s a bit wild on the weekends. Clubs and such.

    the locks

    Friday we walked around, took the bus to Hintonberg and checked out Parkdale farmer’s market (where there were berries all over the place!), a few little shops, and the yarn store on Wellington West, Wabi-Sabi. Bit of an adventure to get there with all the construction, but it was a nice little shop that carries a lot of Americo yarns – perfect if you want them but aren’t in Toronto.

    Had a delicious pizza lunch at the Grand in Byward Market, then headed over to Parliament Hill for Fortissimo – a “musical extravaganza” put on my the armed forces. It was interesting, but they probably could’ve cut at least 15 minutes of unnecessary music.

    Fortissimo 2009

    Saturday we took the parliamentary tour and took lots of photos – including this crazy unicorn right outside the main entryway! Why’s his tongue sticking out? Weird.

    drunken unicorn?!

    archways

    This view should be familiar to Canadians who watch the news – this is outside the House of Commons, where all the journalists lie in wait.

    this view should be familiar to Canadians who watch the news

    My favourite part was the library – it’s the only part of the building that survived a big fire, and it’s quite beautiful.

    363.365 - old school

    Saturday night we went to New Edinburgh Park for the Lumiere festival, which was super fun – the park is super dark, but the trails are lit with tons of pretty lanterns.

    paper bag maze

    (Candles-in-paper-bags maze)

    swirly lantern

    more of the lumiere festival

    Sunday was pretty chill – we walked around the Glebe area and went to the Landsdowne farmer’s market. Can you tell I love farmer’s markets? So much pretty and yummy produce! I ended up baking a pie on Sunday too, with blueberries from the market.

    pretty plums!

    And then Monday it was back to Toronto and a full week of work at the store! Knitting news and some destashing is coming right up.

  • a bit of knit and purl

    It’s been a nice weekend. Staying in, doing some knitting, watching tv (the Tudors and just starting True Blood), eating.

    socktastic!

    I started a pair of plain socks out of Lorna’s Laces (colour: Cedar) and they’re going astonishingly fast! Well on the way to becoming the fastest pair of socks I’ve ever knit, actually. I started on Thursday night and was totally done one sock Saturday afternoon.

    one to go

    So today I started the second one and knit a couple of inches – the leg is pretty long on these, about 8 inches, and I got five inches done! They’re just top-down, gusset heel, 68 sts on 2mm double points. Mmm, comfort knitting.

    But then the sock took a bit of a break because I started something else – a cowl out of leftover Malabrigo!

    malabrigo cowl

    It’s just a really simple one, alternating bands of knit and purl. I need to write up a “master cowl” pattern for a class, it’ll have a couple different fits and then cast on numbers for different yarn weights. So I needed a bit of a practice cowl! It’s actually done now, but photos shall have to wait another day.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to eat some super sexy chocolate cake!

    sexy chocolate cake

    P.S. I’ve got a brand new, super cute wallet that I want to send to a loving home – click here if you need something new! Sold!