Knitwith Homespun

From time to time, I have been known to post about cooking or upload a recipe or two for you all to enjoy.  This time, my daughter, had an idea.  Here are those details.

Today as I was grocery shopping, I thought Isabella might enjoy munching on some grape tomatoes and small boconcini, which are small, dime sized fresh mozzarella balls. I thought I could toss them with some salad dressing and a little basil and she would enjoy this healthy tasty snack after her homework was done. I was wrong! I told her what I had gotten for her to munch on and she said, couldn’t we just bake them Mom? Oh, I guess we could.

So, on Isabella’s recommendation and suggestion, we started on this new recipe that is completely credited to her.

1 pint grape tomatoes
1/2 cup boconcini (small fresh mozzarella balls)
2 large basil leaves
salt and pepper to taste

1. Slice tomatoes in half lenthwise. Remove all seeds. This was easily accomplished by sliding your thumb along the flesh and the seeds popped right out.
2. Season the tomatoes as you like with salt and pepper at this point.
3. Roll the basil leaves up and slice them into tiny ribbons.
4. Distribute the basil leaves into the cups of tomatoes.
5. Place a ball of cheese into each tomato.
6. Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on each tomato with cheese.
7. Bake at 450 for 7 minutes or until cheese is melted.

As these pictures show, quite a bit of moisture will be released by the tomatoes and can easily be directed away from the tomatoes by putting the tomatoes on a rack before baking. Another incident we experienced was the flexing of our cheap cookie sheet that caused our tiny tomatoes to jump around and toss their cheese onto the tray. It was tragic, but still edible. We had a great time and they were delicious. Enjoy Isabella’s recipe! We sure did. I am the proudest Mom on earth today! Thanks Isabella!

This is a tribute to my good friend Jacqui who I love to death! Thanks Jacqui! She sent me this today and though I refuse to forward e-mails, I see no reason why I can’t post it on my blog since I don’t write anything original anymore.

Jose Cuervo Christmas Cookies

1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup or brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups of dried fruit
1 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequila

Sample the Cuervo to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the Cuervo again, to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.

Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.

Add one peastoon of sugar. Beat again. At this point it’s best to make sure the Cuervo is still ok, try another cup just in case.

Turn off the mixerer thingy.

Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.

Pick the frigging fruit off the floor.

Mix on the turner.

If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaters just pry it loose with a drewscriver.

Sample the Cuervo to check for tonsisticity.

Next, sift two cups of salt, or something. Who geeves a sheet. Check the Jose Cuervo. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.

Add one table.

Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.

Greash the oven.

Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.

Don’t forget to beat off the turner.

Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the Cose Juervo and make sure to put the stove in the wishdasher.

Cherry Mistmas !

This is too funny to not post. I must be too tired. What’s the problem with these? Did I notice it as I was knitting? Yes. Did I kitchener stitch the thumb anyway? Yes I did. Why? I don’t know!!!!

This picture is in focus and the other picture shows the actual size of the thumb for this mitten on the ruler. Laugh all day people! It is very funny!

If anyone still checks my blogs, I am back. Somewhat ayway. To make a long story short, I started therapy with a very nice therapist. Frankly, I was dealing with some lifelong issues that came to a head last year with my mom. I got depressed about it and lost a whole bunch of weight (about 50 pounds so far). I told myself that I would deal with it when I was done losing my weight but my good friend and therapist told me my grace period was up. It had been a year since the incident with my mom and I had to address it or it would affect my own daughter and family too much. This is what I did. It was very difficult but worth it in the long run. I haven’t been doing any of my normal lifetime stuff like taking pictures or knitting or anything. I feel like getting back into all that so I suppose that is a good thing. I have missed you all and I hope I still have a reader or two.

On to more pleasant things: I would love to discuss some Christmas crafting but since so many of my recipients are not on Facebook and other online places that attach to my blog, I can’t do a lot of it. However, I am working on one I can totally share. I will take some pictures tomorrow but I am knitting a wrap for my mother in law (she can’t even turn on a computer) from merino/bamboo that I ordered way back in March. I am thrilled with how the yarn came out and now the knitting is looking lovely as well.

I have a couple of woven objects that I would love to talk about but I can’t. I can say, however, that my first and second objects made on my Kromski Harp have really turned out nicely. I can’t wait to do my after Christmas blogs to show you all. I am proud and pleased.

I firmly believe in having a photo in every blog post. My dilemma is that I haven’t been taking any pictures, so I have to go all the way back to Halloween to get a shot of Bella to show you all. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before you hear from me again. Happy Holidays all!

Going through some things and will probably be gone for a bit. Nothing bad or troubling. See you all soon.

The fall issue of Interweave Knits is out and the cover has a coat on it that I just had to have. It’s called the Clasica Coat (Ravelry Link) and I am knitting it with my Dulce de Leche handspun yarn. The chances are I will run out of yarn but I contacted the vendor for my fiber that I used and she said she gets that colorway in all the time and she will be in touch and I shouldn’t worry. I am not worried any longer. My yarn doesn’t match the gauge for the pattern. I have modified to meet my needs. I am very happy with what I have so far. The back and hood extension are both done. The measurements of my finished piece fit the large size. That’s what I am trying to do so things are going well. I cast on 10 stitches less than the smallest size written in the pattern and adjusted the pattern to fit this adjustment. All is going well and I can’t wait to finish it. I cast on 78 and decreased by 10 stitches where it says to decrease. When it said to increase to 32 for the hood extension, I followed those directions exactly as that was for the textured pattern and I couldn’t adjust that appropriately. The hood extension says to stop at 22 inches but when I finished one of the pattern repeats for the textured stitch I was at 21 so I stopped there. Here are is a picture of the back with the hood extension.

Yep. Dulce de Leche is for sale in my Etsy shop. I had planned on knitting the Dollar and a Half cardigan but economics dictate I at least try to sell it before I get to knitting it. So that’s the plan. It’s 1002 yards baby of 3-ply 10 wpi yarn. If someone buys it before I get to it, that’s fine with me. I am proud of this cause it’s a good amount of yarn and pretty darn consistent. This is one of the reasons I put it in my Etsy shop because it’s pretty good. The only flaw is one knot in one of the skeins but I have found several knots in yarn I have bought so I don’t feel that bad.

Secondly, I spun this specifically to sell in my shop as sock yarn, however, with 264 yards, I don’t think there is enough yardage for full socks. Perhaps you can knit anklets or something but it’s very nice coloring and a good fingering weight. I tried to spin this as quickly as I could and I did it in about 4 hours. Not bad, eh? Here are some more shots.

I will be posting shorting about the finished coverup for my step niece. I finished it in plenty of time and she wore it at the beach but I just haven’t blogged it yet. Have a great weekend all!

With my dad gone, I get busy doing silly things like blogging my lunch.  Today is one of those days.  I love this sandwich so much I can’t get enough of it.  Give it a try and tell me what you think.  Prepare this Herbed Goat Cheese spread and spread it on two pieces of bread. Slice some cucumbers and sweet onions thinly and place on the goat cheese. Add three slices of cooked crispy bacon. Slice and serve baby! Enjoy on a beautiful hot summer day with a glass of lemonade.

My friend Jesh posted a blog about her new wheel and took a video of it spinning so I thought I would do the same.

The fiber I am spinning here is 2 pounds of merino mohair that I bought for a meer $32 on ebay. It is soft as silk and I love it. However, now it is hindering me cause it’s been on my wheel for months. I have decided to hurry it along. Last week I had one full spool of this and I wanted to start my Christmas spinning. Damn! I have to finish this before I start. I have split this up into 6 piles of evenly weighted fiber so I can finish it into a 3-ply for my Dollar and a Half Cardigan (Ravelry link). Now that I have started spinning again, I am so excited to do it. I am not annoyed with this fiber for getting in my way. I am enjoying spinning as I always do and kicking myself for having set it aside for months. I should spin at least once a week but now I am obsessed again. Now I have 4 full bobbins and only 1.5 or so to go before I finish.

Now for the fiber I was itching to spin. Christmas is right around the corner (well it is for knitters and spinners). I ordered this fiber in March for my Christmas project for my mother in law. She has told me in the past about the colors she wants for anything I might knit for her. She asked me for black with jewel tones. I e-mailed Amy at Spunky Eclectic and asked her advice. She recommended this fiber. This is a blend and it’s very soft. She explained, though, that the colors wouldn’t dye up very saturated which is what I had asked for. This is the softest nicest fiber and I can’t wait to spin it. However, the colors don’t really go together as I had hoped. Amy tried to steer me in another direction I think but I ordered this anyway. Here is the plan:

A 2 ply finished yarn. I have 8 ounces of the black (more gray). I have 4 ounces of the red and orange. I have 4 ounces of the blue and green. I will spin it all the same and ply one black strand with each of the others. This should give me a few skeins of black with the green and black with the orange. Then, when knitting, I will knit portions with the one color and then portions with the other. I think it will end up working very well. I haven’t picked a pattern but I think the pattern will also play a huge part in how it ends up working.  I do love how the colors turned out alone. They are all so beautiful and the tones are exactly what I had hoped even though they don’t work together. I was hoping the saturation would be deeper but I am thrilled with this end result anyway.

I have been busy getting my house in order for houseguests and family visits. It has been hectic and hot and busy but worth every minute. Here are a few images from the last couple of days with my dad and my family. My dad got a phone call the day after his arrival that broke his heart so I am hoping that we can cheer him up a bit while he is here. His best friend of 38 years died the day after his arrival very suddenly and unexpectedly. He was very sick but the doctors had said he had 6 months minimum and if treatment went well up to a year. So my Dad came on his trip. I am blessed that my Dad taught me the value of friendship in this way. He has had many many friends over his many years of life and he is losing them quickly. He is (luckily) incredibly healthy and many of his friends aren’t. He will be 75 next year. In the last couple of years, he has lost two of his very best friends and has just one left from his early childhood. I am somewhat pleased he decided to stay here instead of returning home for the funeral but I believe it has been very very hard on him. We will give him extra love.

He brought his step-daughter-in-law with him and step granddaughter, who is 5. They left this morning (hence the time to blog). We went to Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo, parties, the beach, and other local haunts. I took 5000 pictures during their one week stay. I won’t bore you with all of them but some are quite nice. Her dog is an outdoor dog at home so she was so pleased to hang all over our dog, Lucy, who is very patient and tolerates everything very well. We will give her extra love this week as well.

Harleigh’s mother takes as many pictures of her as I do of Isabella so it’s hard to capture her in her natural habitat. I was lucky to get her her concentrating very hard on my sister’s Nintendo DSi.

Amanda is my first niece and turned 17 this week. She takes the most amazing pictures.

While the family was all here, we went to the park to take some pictures at the park. Here are a few that I liked. Oh yeah, and I bought here this dress for her birthday. Isn’t it great on her?

I am working on getting my house together for my dad’s visit. He arrives tomorrow and I am cleaning and rearranging and getting everything done. It’s like a spring cleaning kind of situation for two weeks now. I am hoping to finish up my Teeny Grownup Coverup pattern within the next couple of days and get the finished post up too. Just wanted to check in cause it’s been a couple weeks since I posted. WTF? Thanks for your patience and I hope to post a real post soon.

Here is a random picture from my flickr photostream to keep you entertained. I feel it’s illegal to post without a picture. This is the best dog in the world just after her haircut for my dad’s visit. She is tired! It’s tiring to get embarrassed when they cut all your hair off and leave you naked!

Remember the BFF coverups? I’ll refresh your memory:
Now, Bella’s didn’t turn out as nicely mostly because she won’t stop growing. Darn kids and food! What a combination! If only you could stop feeding them all would stay status quo! But no, you have to feed them or they arrest you! But I digress. Bella’s turned out a bit snug so either I will make a new one or she will stretch and this one will fit her (which is what I expect will happen). However, this coverup has been so popular with those who have seen and Catrina’s family that I decided to write up the pattern. If you are interested, please let me know. I may post it for free or put it on Ravelry for just a few dollars. The girls love it for the slit in the side. They feel so grown up with that that they get too excited to wear it. Also, Catrina has a petite Aunt who apparently would like to steel it. She took it at a pool party and tried it on and loves it. She has asked Catrina if she can have it and Catrina said no she could not. I have an out of town guest coming to visit with my father in a couple of weeks. This is my step niece and her mother. She is 5 or 6 now and I think she would love to have a coverup like the big girls so I went and picked some yarn in her favorite colors and I cast on her coverup today. Here are the day-glow colors we chose: It should be done within a couple of days given the fact that I am frogging my shawl! That’s right, it’s over.

This is a shawl I am currently working on. It’s called the Seraphim Shawl and I love it. The link is a Ravelry link and is beautiful. My problem is that I have run out of my yarn. The pattern calls for 800-1000 yards of yarn and my yarn is the proper weight. I am in the middle of the second chart and I have about 50 more rows and two charts left to knit. I was going to use some of my two ply alpaca that I was selling on Etsy to finish but I don’t think that’s enough either. This yarn for the shawl is handspun and I don’t have any fiber left to spin more yarn. The brown alpaca is the same fiber that I spun with the silk alpaca I am using for this shawl. I am seriously considering frogging this shawl and choosing another pattern to use this yarn. I really want a shawl for this yarn and I have really enjoyed knitting it but if I continue with the alpaca and I run I may end up frogging anyway. Does anyone have any other suggestions for me? Any other ideas? Please help me out! I could really use the input!