The Big D

I’m in Dallas for the week, so the bloggy blog is pretty much hiatused. I had intended to set up a bunch of posts to be pre-scheduled to go up while I was away, but decided to get my submission for next year’s Jane Austen Knits ready to go early instead so I don’t have to panic about it when I get back. Look at me being all adult and stuff.

Speaking of submitting to magazines, there was a post from Rock’n'Purl’s blog last week (I will try to find it and link it but I’m writing this on my phone so we’ll see Hey! Lookee! I did it!) that made me realize that my litmus test for whether something is good enough to submit is whether I would be comfortable self-publishing it. I like to think this is a pretty high standard, and also, this means there are probably going to start being some more stand alone patterns available directly from me (and one of my goals for the next couple of seems is to get the patterned I already have available linked up here so y’all can get to them a little easier).

There may be another post or two from me this week, since I found this handy-dandy phone app, but mostly I’m just going to be hanging out and enjoying some quality time with my daddy.

Where have I been? Where have YOU been?

Well, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Life’s been crazy (again) and I just got distracted, fell behind, had other things going on…you know, life. BUT, now I’m back, and I have all sorts of things to tell you about. Not the least of which is I have actually come up with a scheduling system that might actually work for me because it’s pen and paper rather than electronic and is in fact very similar to the only other system that has worked for me, which I used in college (“college” wasn’t as long ago for me as you might think — I didn’t go ’til I was 30).

So, hopefully life will un-crazy itself a little and combined with my new-old system there will be much bloggy goodness in the weeks and months to come.

First up, November’s Taste & Create. Yes, I know it’s December. I’m late. Again. See above re: life. This month, I was paired with Angry Asian Creations. She has a ton of delicious sounding dessert recipes, and I had settled on the Six Minute Chocolate Cake. Then I had Zack’s birthday weekend, wherein I baked four cakes, three of which were miserable failures (more on that in a later post). So yeah, not going to be baking cake for awhile. In fact, my kitchen has been full of fail for quite awhile now, with very few exceptions, so I really wanted something I couldn’t eff up too badly easy.

Since I’m trying to get more veggies into my diet, Sugar Snap Peas with Lemon and Olive Oil seemed right up my alley. Except I don’t like lemon, so I went with lime instead. And they’re…okay. Very fresh, very crisp, very light. I think I’ll enjoy them more in the summer, when a cold crispy snack is exactly what I’m looking for.

Light and crispy!

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 bag sugar snap peas (I got mine at Trader Joe’s)
• Juice of one lime
• 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Slice the peas thinly on the bias. Toss in a bowl with lime juice and olive oil.

Cake-tacular!

Cake shown with glaze and berries

It occurs to me that my practice of linking to online recipes rather than including them here is likely to backfire on me at some point, when  a recipe gets moved or the blog I found it on is gone, or any number of other things. So, from now on, I’ll be adding those recipes to the blog as well as linking to the source. The first one of these is a scrumptious, versatile, and just stupidly easy yogurt cake, which I discovered via the magic of Pinterest. (I’ve also added my go-to bread, blackberry cobbler, and lime cupcakes to the Recipes page, so those are there now.)

The recipe I found was modified from a recipe found on another site, but I went ahead and modified it even further. I’ve made this recipe twice now, and both times I used the 170ml size yogurt  that’s commonly available here in the US (I used Chobani both times, honey flavor the first time and strawberry the second). I also just used regular ol’ sugar, though the original recipe calls for caster sugar (which is much finer than regular granulated sugar). Finally, the biggest mod I made was, the first time, an accident.

Zacky and I were in the middle of throwing our ingredients into the bowl, and I popped open the fridge to grab the milk…which we were out of. We had already added both wet and dry ingredients, so stopping for a trip to the market wasn’t really an option. I asked myself: what do I have that’s liquid and non-alcoholic? The answer: apple juice. My biggest concern was for the texture of the cake, and I have to tell you, it came out incredibly moist. It was dense without being heavy, had a nice crumb while still being silky on the tongue. I so <3 this cake. That one got eaten without any glaze or anything.

This past weekend, we had another shindig to go to and I decided to bake another one of these cakes, only to take it a step further and go with OJ, which I also used for the liquid in the glaze. As noted above, I used strawberry yogurt this time and also put some lightly macerated berries between the layers and on top. So good. Oh — one more thing: the first time, I baked the cake in an angel food cake pan, and this time I baked two rounds. Both came out just fine.

I’m gonna make another one for the party we’re going to this weekend. I think I have finally found a go-to cake recipe, and I love that it’s so, so easy. Did I mention the best part? You use the yogurt cup for all your “cup” measurments, plus it’s a one bowl recipe. Love. It.

Recipe

(originally discovered on The Boys Made Me Do It, via Pinterest)

Ingredients:

 Note: YC = Yogurt Cup

• 1 YC yogurt
• 1 YC  all purpose flour
• 2 YC self rising flour (make your own)
• 2 YC sugar
• 1 YC juice (you pick the flavor!)
• 1 YC vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp baking powder

Pre-heat oven to 350°. Grease a bundt, angel food cake, or two 9″ round pans. Mix all ingredients until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan(s). Bake for 40-50 minutes (a toothpick inserted halfway between edge and center should come out clean). Allow to cool in pans, then remove and top as desired.

Inspiration

You may have noticed that I’ve been absent from this space for a while. Frankly, I’ve had a lot going on. I’ve been sick in a couple of different ways; I’ve got some Very Awesome but also Very Secret projects going on that I can’t post about (yet); and then I was away at Otherworld, which was more magical this year than ever before, which is a pretty tall order. More about that in a later post, because today I want to talk about someone else.

Yesterday, I followed a link from a tweet to Gregory Patrick’s blog. I read a little bit, and then I read a little more, and then I kept reading. This man’s story — no, this man — is amazing. When he found himself unemployed and eventually homeless, he used his knitting skills to make teddy bears, which he sold/sells to keep himself and his cat fed. He is slowly rebuilding his life, step by step, and the things he’s gone through and gotten himself past are just incredible. I’ll let you read his story for yourself, in his own words, but I’ll tell you what touched me: the strength and dignity and courage with which he has faced down the challenges he has been given. Add to that the kindness that shines through both in his blog posts and his policies (for instance, if you buy his three-bear set and give one to charity, he gives a pretty hefty discount on the set…read his story and you’ll see what a big sacrifice that must be for him, but that seems to be just the kind of guy he is).

All that I’ve been going through lately is nothing compared to what Gregory has and is going through. He has inspired me to pull myself up out of my funk, to strive to be a better person, to throw myself into trying to make making my dreams coming true.

New Feature! Found It on the Interwebs Fridays!

I have for some time now been collecting sites with cool craft ideas to “get to later”. I use a nifty widget called “toread” that lets me just click a button and then it emails me a snapshot of the page, with the link to the original page right at the top so I can get back to it. And recently I’ve been using Pintrest in a similar way, to mark photos that make my crafty juices start burbling with ideas — one of my favorite things about Pintrest is that I can group together elements that I want to combine for a project like, say, next year’s Fortunetide dress, or the train cake that Zack has requested for his birthday.

There's really no pic to go with this post, so here, have this monkey-pony monster. I personally think they may have used too many monkeys. (From PAXEast10 -- I did not make it, but I do think it's awesome.)

It struck me recently as I was emailing myself the 5th or 6th link of the day, that (with the exception of recipes) I almost never get back around to actually making any of these awesome crafts. And then an idea came to me in the shower this morning: every week I’ll go through my backlog of these things, pick something out to make, and post about it. So, starting next week (because I just thought of it this morning, so I don’t have one for today) every Friday there will be a project made either directly from instructions I found online, or inspired by something I found online. Aren’t you excited? I am!

All the Difference in the World

In fact, this is how I feel right now (I'm the Vader, not the kitten).

Last week, I didn’t blog because it was just a rough week and I was away from a computer for most of it and, well, no blogging got done (gotta learn how to use the WP app on my Droid!). This week, I’ve been planning to blog all week but have just fallen victim to a nasty sort of ennui and not gotten around to it. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me where said ennui was coming from, but I finally realized that I haven’t really done anything creative for about a week now. I mean, I’ve been working on a couple of ongoing knitting projects, but they’re just following patterns — nothing to get the creative juices flowing.

So last night, I decided to chef it up a bit. I made a bunch of stuff that not only had I never made before, but that I was making up right on the spot! This is one of my very favorite things to do in the kitchen, and I can’t believe how much shinier the world is after having done it. Yesterday, I was cranky and down and bored and today I feel like singing and twirling and hugging people. Not that I’m going to actually do those things — I feel like my officemates might frown on it and possibly have me committed — but in my head? Singing and twirling and hugging.

This is a little bit of a tease, because I will blog about all this shiny happy making kitchen creativity tomorrow — no pictures of the yumminess have yet occurred. But I do have a little something for my knitting and crocheting friends today: a couple of blogs I did for work about how to decrease:

• Less is more, pt.1: Crochet
• Less is more, pt. 2: Knitting

And a little more teasing of upcoming blogs I have planned: a non-fiber 5 minute craft project that’s both super easy and super useful; caramel-filled chocolate cookies; bacon cinnamon rolls; the finished Nurgake; and a couple of new projects on the needles. Oh, and if I can ever get some decent pictures, that hat pattern I keep promising! There are also some more work-blogs coming down the pike that I’ll link over to. So stay tuned, and I’ll try to avoid the lengthy radio silences in the future!

(Image via Akira the Don)

Yikes!

I actually have a ton of stuff to blog about (mostly foodie stuff like key lime cupcakes and s’mores pie, but don’t think I’ve forgotten about all my other projects, like that hat I keep promising that just needs a quick test knit before I publish) but life has gotten in the way. So very quickly today I’m just going to say that I’ve re-discovered Project Spectrum: a create-along that I’ve always meant to participate in and have always been unsuccessful at actually doing. This year will, hopefully, be different. Of course, that means I’ve only got 5 days to do something awesome with red and/or orange…

Done, done, and done

Last weekend was one for finishing projects, apparently. I finished not one, not two, but three projects…and that’s not even counting the castle cake! I’m really pleased with all of them, but I think the one that pleased me the most was my Little Easy Shawl. The only change I made to the pattern was the yarn (I used Lion Organic Cotton in Cypress), and it really was a delight to make from start to finish. I even love the way the holes from the (unwrapped) short row ends make a great set of eyelets going across the ruffle. I went outside to take some pics, and discovered it’s even more versatile and adorable than I thought. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. (The other two projects will get their very own posts, coming soon!)

Neck wrap

Neck wrap, closeup

Sideways wrap around the shoulders

Back view

I also got a little bloggy maintenance done…the Recipes page is fully functional now, and I’ve added the first pattern to the Patterns and Projects page. I hope to get all of my current patterns transitioned over in the next week, and that new hat pattern I promised is on its way!

Same as we ever were (only different)

I feel a little weird writing this post as if it’s my first blog post evah, because I used to have this other blog where I blogged about lots of crafts, and a little bit about cooking, and a bunch about personal stuff. I stopped blogging there regularly for a number of reasons, but mostly it was a combination of Blogger (where I hosted that blog) changing some stuff that required me to make a bunch of changes that I never really got around to, and Facebook, which is really where I now talk about all the little personal stuff that I used to blog about.

Shown: Iunctio Socks -- A Lauriginal pattern available for puchase on Ravelry

I don’t miss sharing my personal life with a bunch of strangers…that was always a little weird for me, this idea that I was posting picture and anecdotes about my life so that my friends and family could keep up, but that really anyone with a computer and some free time would also now know all these things about my life. What I do miss is sharing all my great recipes and craft ideas and patterns.

Shown: Pear and Grape Pie, with All-Butter Crust

I considered just relaunching the old blog and changing the nature of the content, but the old blog was called “A Frayed Knot Knits” and I wanted this new, er, improved, er, can I get away with “new and improved” just this once? Anyhow, I wanted this incarnation of my blog to be about more than just knitting. It’s not a knitting blog that sometimes has some other stuff…it’s a blog about creating and inspiration, whether that’s in the kitchen, on the needles, at a park …whatever.

So please, come along with me and let’s make something delicious.