Mmmmm…Sweet and Salty

Let’s be clear: I am not one for salting things. I don’t believe I have ever used a restaurant salt shaker in my life, and I generally halve the salt called for in recipes because it always seems like a bit too much to me. I think the whole “salted caramel” trend that’s been going around lately is an abomination against caramel. But…but. Chocolate covered potato chips are one of my very favorite treats. And I do dig a nice chocolate-cashew combo. So when I came across this recipe for chow mein noodles mixed with cashews and covered in chocolate, I decided to give it a shot. It’s fast, easy, and delicious – definitely a keeper.

So, so nommy.

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 c. bittersweet chocolate chips (the original recipe calls for 3 part chocolate chips to 1 part butterscotch – I didn’t have butterscotch so I just used all chocolate)
• 1 c. chow mein noodles (maybe a little more – just throw the whole can in)
• 1 c. cashews

Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper. Melt chocolate (I used my fondue pot, but you can use your microwave or double boiler). Mix in noodles, then cashews. Deposit spoonfuls of mixture on prepared cookie sheet and put in fridge until firm.

My Heart Shaped Bruise

So I did this to my hand yesterday. No idea how. Hurts very much bad. It’s going to be a loooooooong hurricane if I can’t knit or crochet.

(non)Intelligent Design

Three things happened to me yesterday, directly related to my designing of knitted things. Two are super awesome, and the other one not so much (and the lack of awesome there is exacerbated by it being avoidable):

Thing the first: I received notice that a submission I sent out a while back had been accepted. YAY! Emails of that flavor always give me a good 10 minutes or so of pure, unadulterated happiness before I start organizing and moving things around on my schedule and updating spreadsheets and whatnot. And even after the organizing part starts, there’s still a happy little glow there from the acceptance.

Thing the second: Jane Austen Knits Fall 2012 hit newsstands, and I received a note from a lovely woman asking me to please add my Maiden Fair Blouse pattern to Ravelry, as it was so beautiful and she’d like to add it to her queue. Done! A few notes about the Maiden Fair Blouse:

Slightly puffed sleeves, a low-cut neckline, and empire styling under the bust all evoke Regency-era fashion. Like many of Jane Austen’s characters, this little sweater has a sweet girlishness but also a hint of sophistication and elegance. The lace rib of the bodice is reflected in the detailing of the raglan sleeve shaping and easy ruffles adorn the edges.

It’s worked in Rowan Cashsoft DK, which is lovely both to look at and use. I really want to make one for me, if I ever have the time. Much like the cobbler’s children, I’m quickly finding that the designer never has cute new sweaters for herself. [Note to publishers: This is totally a problem I’m okay having.]

Thing the third: I tried on the sweater I’ve been working madly on (for self publishing! Finally a sweater for ME!) the past couple of weeks to check the armhole shaping…and discovered the chest measurement was way, way off. Let’s talk about this a minute, because I really have no one but myself to blame here. I mean, clearly my swatch is a filthy, filthy liar, but I know better by now than to ever fully trust a swatch.

I had a feeling while I was working the ribbing that it was going to be a bit wide, but I decided to ignore it/hope for the best/pretend it was all going to be fine once I was working in stockinette. THEN, I somehow never got around to actually measuring the width of the sweater (I’m blaming this on the fact that I was, at that point, determined that it would be my Rhinebeck sweater, which clearly didn’t happen anyhow — god, can you imagine how pissed I’d’ve been if I actually had managed to finish the thing for the show only to find it didn’t fit?). So I really could have saved myself a lot of heart/finger ache here, if I’d only a) trusted my instincts and/or b) actually taken a moment to check that I was on track. Sigh. At least it’ll be faster to knit it back up once I lose the extra stitches, right?

I’m going to put this one aside for awhile to focus on a couple of submissions and a super cute hat that should, in theory, be ready for release next week, but then I’m going to jump right back to it as, fit issues not withstanding, I think it’s going to be fabulous when it’s done properly.

Found It on the Internet Friday #16

Fall has…fallen. The temperatures are dropping, and I’m chilly ALL THE TIME. So when I came across this tutorial for a super easy, lightweight cowl I was all over it. It’s exactly right for chilly-but-not-cold weather.

I’m wearing it doubled — cute, right?

It’s seriously so, so easy. Take an old tshirt (or a new one you picked up on sale or something). Cut the bottom hem off. Then cut parallel to the bottom hem just under the sleeves. You now have a tube of fabric. Stretch that mutha out as much as you can. Start with stretching it your full wingspan, then you can step on one end and pull the other up — the more you stretch it, the longer it will get (obviously) and the curlier the edges will get. I think I might make a few more of these and decorate them with bleach pen designs, or dip dye them, or applique them…

Cat, I’m a Kitty Cat! And I Meowmeowmeow and I Meowmeowmeow*

You know that sweater you didn’t get a picture of yesterday? Ta-da!

Yes, that is the best picture I can take of myself without my big fancy camera and tripod. It doesn’t help that my new phone (which I lurvs) is just slightly too large for me to hold in one hand.

This is a super-crazy modified version of Big Tile Pullover from the Fall 2012 Interweave Knits. The most obvious differences are the motif (the originals were a little too phallic for me) and the change to a mock t-neck from the full turtle on the original (my story here is that I thought it would be too bulky with the short sleeves and IN NO WAY indicates that I was too damn lazy to finish it). I also shortened the waist shaping a bit (by removing rows between the decreases and increases. I like the end result, but I’m not 100% in love with it. There are some yoke shaping issues — I had to leave out a bunch of rows there to keep it from being waaaaay longer than the pattern said it should be (yes, I compensated for the few extra rows from the change in motif) — and it rides up like crazy, which I’m not sure is more because of the way the arms are shaped or another issue caused by the yoke shaping. I don’t wear a lot of yoked sweaters, so maybe this is just a yoke thing. In any case, it is fun and cute and warm and a pretty quick knit, so overall I am pleased.

Oh — on the new motifs: these were the kitty cats from one of my stitch dictionaries (I want to say the Knitting Stitch Bible, but don’t hold me to that). I worked them as Fair Isle, but they really should be intarsia. And I did the top few rows of each one in duplicate stitch, which I still hate (sorry, Docstar — from now on I’m bringing all my duplicate stitch to you). So that won’t be happening again any time soon. The heart is there because I neglected to make sure my chosen motif would actually work evenly across the stitches I had available, and it’s on the right instead of the left because that’s where the end of the round happened to be and I wasn’t ripping back.

Now, back to designing!

*This is my current alarm: 

Photo-A-Day: Red

Sneak preview of tomorrow’s sweater!

ETA: Or, you know, not. Also, this seems to not have posted until just now when it was meant to have posted yesterday. So we’re going to just chalk this one up to WTF and move on. Okay? Okay.

Well, hello there!

Yes, I did just fall off the face of the earth. But I’m back now, and I have things to show you! Up there? That’s the beginnings of a swatch for a new sweater design. Also, the Fall Jane Austen Knits is now available in electronic format, and includes my Maiden Fair Blouse design, so be sure to check that out.

More soon — I just finished up a supercute mod of a bulky intarsia sweater from the latest Interweave Knits, there’s been some sewing and baking happening (and there will be plenty more now that the weather has cooled off — I can hardly wait for fresh-baked bread!), and I’m going to try to get back to doing the photo-a-day project, too, not to mention fun Found-It-On-the-Internet-Friday projects. It’s great to be back!