December 31, 2005

Moulin Rouge!

So today we got Direct TV… oh yeah. 160 channels, HBO Showtime and Starz and we can pause and rewind live tv. And the PWT look of having a satellite dish strapped to our house is such a bonus. We went from not even having an antenna to having the most kick-ass tv ever…. Well at least for the first 3 months. Needless to say today got sucked down by that… I didn't even knit - I just stared at the happy box amazed at all of my viewing options. So one of our many channels seemed to be a gay and lesbian channel. Who knew that such a thing existed? I have to admit I’m super excited about the programming opportunities of a gay network. They were doing a “Queer Year 2005” year in review clip show kind of thing while showing a movie… Although I’m not sure what Moulin Rouge has to do with Gay culture in 2005 but whatever. Great Flick. Great TV… I was even able to rewind it because Matt came in late and missed the love song part. Love me some Elton John sung by Ewan McGregor. That should happen more than it does. Anyways tomorrow we’re off to the C-bus for Rgill’s Rockin’ Eve. Should be funtimes.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Andy's Normal Hat

So the blitz of posts about Christmas knittnig continues....

My brother wanted "just a plain old normal hat"…. So this is what I knit him:Pattern: Hot Head Hat from SnB
Modifications: I knit it in the round – I made the large size but I think I accidentally only knit the amount of rows in the medium… not sure. Added stipes – 7 rows gray, 3 rows black, 2 rows gray, 3 rows black, finish in gray
Yarn: Patons Classic Merino Wool in Dark Grey Mix and Black
Timeline: One night. That's right. I cranked this bad boy out in one SnB and an hour or so at home afterwards. Go me!
What I would Change: um… well I would have said pay attention and follow the directions but the shorter hat actually fit him really well - check it out: He has it on backwards! The stripe jog should be in the back but oh well....Also notice the slippers - knit by me! I'll post on those later....

December 28, 2005

Apollo's Kitty Pi

Sorry I missed out last night, girls! Long story but we ended up going out with some college friends of friends we hadn't seen in literally years. Very weird... anyways here is the first of a long line of posts about individual Christmas gifts....

I made this Kitty Pi for my brother-in-law and his girlfriend's cat Apollo. I met her this weekend for the first time and man is she adorable. We tried to introduce her to Dexter with mixed results - basically what would happen is they would ignore each other, then one would get curious about the other, the other would get scared and their hair would go up and they would hiss or bark, then the curious one would give up and they'd both go back to ignoring each other and playing separately. Perhaps next time they will make friends.

Hopefully I can get a pic of Apollo in her Kitty Pi so that she can be in the Kitty Pi Gallery but until then here's some unfelted photos: Pattern: Kitty Pi
Modifications: I added a few rows at the top to complete my striping pattern.
Yarn: Reynolds Lopi in Navy and Dark Grey, random gray wool from grandma doubled up.
Timeline: 2 or 3 football games plus blocking time.
What I would Change: I would follow the pattern as is next time – the 2 or 3 extra rows really made the bed tall.

Here it is felted being blocked:

December 27, 2005

Merry Christmas!

I have so much material for this blog now that most of the gifts have been given that I don’t even know where to start! I basically wrote a post per project as I went along but didn’t actually post them for the public to see since I didn’t want to spoil any Christmas surprises…so I have a backlog of posts… plus I took a whole ton of pictures this weekend… so there’s that… plus I want to tell you all everything that I got for Christmas and how all of my gifts went down etc. etc…So I guess I’ll just post a bunch of pictures.
Our happy family:

Oh and by the way this picture makes me very, very happy that my Christmas gift this year is a membership to Fitworks. My god when did I grow another chin?! Notice the shirt that Matt is wearing - a gift from me - I couldn't resist - He said it looks like the logo for the superhero "rat terrier man" and all he needs now is a cape.
Dexter got some gifts too – and we discovered that he loves taking toys out of boxes and bags.

Check out all of the handknit gifts that I gave this weekend:

Yeah buddy. That’s a lot of gifts… notice one of those is an entire SWEATER. That’s right people. I knit AN ENTIRE SWEATER!!!! That would be the epic project I've been referring to… There will be much more details coming on that one (and she will be sporting it tonight at SnB - be sure to come so you can see it in person!)… and on everything in that picture.... but for now here's another random weekend shot:

Yes that would be my husband cruising on the turnpike with the dog on his lap. Eh. No more unsafe than alot of other things I guess...

Overall it was a very nice weekend... all of the handknits were appreciated and Matt loved, loved, loved his gift of "guyland" - I got him a beer fridge, a tv, and a heinz field poster for the basement pool room - my 'rents got him a dartboard and his 'rents got him some sports related accessories to finish the place. I got a wonderful pair of garnet earings from matt and a pasta machine from my mom. My mom btw also knit me a great scarf and hat set - I will have to post pics of that later. It's almost as fun to receive something handmade as it is to give something handmade....

And finally - Our Christmas Tree:

December 23, 2005

I knew it!

Ok I finally broke down and did a quizilla quiz... I liked my results so here it is:

What Rare and Beautiful Stone Are You?
Dimond
You Are A DiamondThe ancient Greeks believed that diamonds were
splinters of stars fallen to earth. It was even
said by some that they were the tears of the
Gods or perhaps crystallized lightning or
hardened dew drops. The truth is, however, that
the exact origin of diamonds is still something
of a mystery, even to scientists and
geologists.

What rare and valuable stone are you?

Ok and I'm editing this post to add a few more quizzes. What can I say... it's the day before break and noone is here and I have half of a lunch hour left.....

What Kind of Knitting Needles Are You?
pink aluminum
You are pink aluminum.Retro, straightforward and fun, you love classic
things. If they're 99 cents at Goodwill all the
better! You are moved by striking colors and
tasty morsels, and you like a stitch-n-bitch
session in the sun. Just remember, while
you're being kitschy cool, don't get too cold.
Ice cubes are best kept in your cocktails,
baby!

What kind of knitting needles are you?

What Kind of Yarn Are You?
You are Mohair
You are Mohair.You are a warm and fuzzy type who works well with
others, doing your share without being too
weighty. You can be stubborn and absolutely
refuse to change your position once it is set,
but that's okay since you are good at covering
up your mistakes.

What kind of yarn are you?



Ok back to the real world now.... sigh.

December 22, 2005

Christmas Randomness

Ok so Christmas Eve is in what 3 days…. And get this…. I’m done with the holiday knitting!!! Well…. Kindof. My mom’s family is doing their Christmas on New Year’s Day this year and I still have some knitting to do for that… but everything that had to be done by Christmas or Christmas Eve is Done Done Done Done Done!!! All I have to do now is wrap!!! And I used to be such a procrastinator….

Oh and if you are also knitting gifts here are some great gift labels – I’m not sure if I will use them yet since I may not have time to print them all out and such.

So Knit Ohio is going really well – There is a blurb on it in Current News on the Cincinnati Knitters site.

Does anyone know anything about Bloglines? I joined since it seems that there are more blogs than ever that I am attempting to keep up with – but somehow I can’t make my list of blogs public… even though I have a screen name and I have "publish my Blog and/or Blogroll" clicked… what else do I need to do?

And Finally – I joined Secret Pal Seven. I’ve never done one of these secret pal exchanges before and am really looking forward to this one. I even got in gear and made them a few buttons:








The week after Christmas I hope to post lots of knitting stuff as all of the gifts will be given and I no longer have to worry about who may be reading this.... until then...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

December 20, 2005

Domestic Bliss

December 18, 2005

Crab and Artichoke Dip

Ok so…. I’ve had several requests for the recipe for my crab and artichoke dip…. And I finally wrote it down! I’m famous for adding stuff to recipes as I go along and loving the result but never being able to duplicate it. This one was a hit so I actually wrote down what I did:


1/4 cup Mayo
8oz cream cheese
16 oz crab meat (chopped)
1 can artichoke hearts (chopped)
2 cups shredded Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
2 or 3 cloves garlic (or to taste – I like things very garlicky)
Ground Black Pepper to taste


Throw it all into a blender or food processor except for 1/2 cup of Parmesan. Blend until smooth. You can add more sour cream as needed to get the consistency you want or skip the food processor and just mix all of the ingredients for a very chunky dip. Put into an oven safe dish, sprinkle extra Parmesan cheese on top. Bake in a 350 degree oven until cheese bubbles. Serve with crackers, tortilla chips, or toasted bread rounds.

December 13, 2005

Cool Cleveland

Here's a great letter that I found on Craving Cleveland.

We have a wonderful city!

December 11, 2005

1,617 Ravioli

I’m exhausted. Today I made 1,617 ravioli. By hand. From scratch.

Every year for as long as I can remember and for many years before I was even born my great-grandmother has made ravioli for the family Christmas meal. Over the years the tradition has changed – as they do – and when we eat the ravioli has shifted. We no longer eat them with my mom’s cousins but we split them up between my grandfather’s family and his brother’s family…. And recently we’ve gone down to the next generation and split them once again. But the ravioli have always been there. For me they are as much a part of Christmas as cookies.

The past few years my mom and her cousins, Anita and Joan, have been helping my great-grandmother with the ravioli (under her extremely close supervision). But this year my great-grandmother is no longer with us... unwilling to let the tradition go with her they decided to make the ravioli again this year with the addition of the next generation - which means that I got to be there.

I think we did a pretty good job. I’m not sure if they are exactly the way that nonni made them – noone has ever written down the recipe and there was great debate about when to add the parsley and how much to add…. But my god that filling tastes amazing. I got mocked because my ravioli were so straight and uniform – well there is nothing wrong with making things look good! That and after 6 years of architecture school I’m completely incapable of not making things straight and square.

And I had no idea that handmade pasta was so easy to do. Flour and eggs? I can handle that! And rolling it out in the pasta machine was actually really fun. Filling the ravioli took forever but just to make pasta isn’t as big of a deal. I think I need to add a pasta machine to my Christmas list. Especially since it freezes so well – how great would it be to come home on any random work night and pull hand made pasta out of the freezer for dinner? I know that would make Matt very happy since that’s his favorite food ever - although he would never admit to having a favorite anything.

In knitting news I got very little done on anything this weekend since both Friday and Saturday were spent at office Christmas parties, Sat. afternoon we got our Christmas tree, and Sunday was ravioli day. I hope to get a lot accomplished this week though. I can’t wait for January when I can post everything that I’ve been working on!!!

Oh and by the way – I now completely understand why Ohio City Pasta sells their ravioli for $1 each!

December 6, 2005

Another Weekend Recap

So I love my crazy husband. He comes up with the most randomly creative things such as this:

It now says "Go Steelers" in 6' letters across our front yard. Which kills my plan to take a pic of our house with freshly fallen snow for our Christmas cards but is incredibly amusing and so very, very Matt.

This weekend was great. Friday night we went to Scrooge's Night Out a benefit for the Ohio Canal Corridor - which was actually a huge part of my master's thesis. It's basically this plan to connect the state through a recreation corridor along the tow path for what was the Ohio Canal. So someday you should be able to bike from Scranton Peninsula in downtown Cleveland all the way to Southern Ohio. Pretty cool if you ask me. Here's an interactive map showing the proposed canal way routes.

Anyways I got tickets through my office and a whole bunch of us went. Punch the Clown was playing - who are now my new fav cover band up there with the Reaganomics. So we rocked it out all night. And have big plans to rock it out again next time that they play at McCarthy's.

Saturday we laid low-meaning we recovered from the massive hangovers that only an open bar can bring on.

Then Sunday we went to the 'Lizard to watch the games... which last minute ended up being quite a few people. So there was a group of us, at the bar, watching football and knitting. The perfect Sunday afternoon.

After that we went to the park and played snow football for hours. It was dark by then but the park is really well lit. It was a ball. I was so frickin' sore yesterday! And I have tons of random bruises - not sure if they were caused by the Friday night drunken dancing or by being repeatedly tackled by Osam. Either way it was a great weekend.

So someday I promise that I will post about knitting again. It's just that everything currently on the needles is going to be gifted. And I have no idea who is reading this... so yeah...look for lots of knittng content in January!

Oh and the new Knitty is up. I love both tempting II and tubey and I did want to knit an entire sweater at some point...although I'm not sure that tubey is in my yarn budget. I'll have to look into it and see b/c I think the yarn it calls for is pretty expensive.

December 2, 2005

Knit Ohio

Ok my super-secret lunchtime project has finally been unveiled!


Knit Ohio – a Webring for Knitting Bloggers in Ohio


I looked for an Ohio Knitters webring like months ago… and when I didn’t find one even went so far as to set up the blog address and make a few buttons (not like those take very long but still). But then I didn’t have time to actually get it up and running. Well this week I finally got around to doing it! It was actually really, really easy to set up. Ringsurf rules! And I learned a lot about how to do things like actually put a button into a link.


So anyways – if you’re an Ohio Knitter please join!

Cool Links

Ok I have been emailed a few really really cool websites in the past week so I though I’d share.

Tom Cruise is Nuts – this one is great if you’re sick of hearing him rant about things he has no business ranting about. Good luck with the vitamins and exercise, Kate.


Pandora – this is great if you listen to music online. Basically what you do is you type in a song or an artist that you like and it creates radio stations for you based on that. I’ve been listening to it for 2 days straight. It’s awesome.

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