Progress

Thanks for all of your supportive comments/emails on restarting this!!!!! Seriously, guys... you rock. And now I almost have a Tempting II:

I’m at the neck band part….keeping my fingers crossed I can finish it without disaster!

Speaking of disasters… our regatta was Sat:
Yeah. Not too much more to say about that.

In other news… send lots of good thoughts and happiness Jennifer’s way – she’s about to start her very first sweater!

We Meet Again.

Since the horrible end to my Knitting Olympics this has been sitting on the needles…mocking me… laughing at me…. causing bad knitting karma

Tempting II

We meet again.



But this time...


Resistance is futile…








Victory shall be mine.

Knitting Mojo.

So right. I swatched for the Ballet Camisole last night and got gauge on size 5 needles…. Well my size 5’s are currently being used by the Cherry Blossom Shawl. Ok I guess maybe that’s a sign I should actually finish something before starting yet another big project.

So tonight we're at home chilling - we have our last race early tomorrow morning and we're in contention for a gold (seriously). So I picked up the Cherry Blossom Shawl for an evening of knitting...and well....

It doesn’t look right… It doesn’t look like the picture at all….

Because it’s wrong. Very wrong. On the third chart on row 7 there is a teeeny, tiny little asterix....Which I completely missed (You think with something this important they’d at least highlight it or something). I was supposed to move the stitch marker one frickin’ stitch at the start of that row. So instead of nice petals of lace I have a mess of yarnovers that don’t line up:

Shit. I can’t even handle the thought of ripping out 20-plus rows at 400-plus stitches per row of lace right now. Especially I already frogged this shawl once.

It seems like everything I’ve been knitting lately has turned to crap. The Matt sock is still kicking around, my most recent chemo cap is all wonky, I broke yet another of my Denise cables, and I’m apparently completely incapable of knitting lace anymore.

I’ve lost my knitting mojo and it's time to get it back. It's time to make a sacrifice to the knitting gods.....

It's time for Tempting II.

Sunflowers

I swear this is a knitting blog not a gardening blog but my sunflowers are finally blooming!


As far as knitting goes....hopefully tonight I will finish the Matt sock-that-never-ends....I’m forcing myself to finish it before I cast on for anything else… but after that it’s Ballet Camisole time. Thanks for voting on that everyone!

Fresh Garden Salsa

So I finally made salsa!!! I wanted to share my recipe since I’ve been talking about doing this all summer…

You will need (this is what I used but all quantities were completely guessed at… I’m pretty sure that if you add lots of cilantro garlic and onion to tomatoes no matter what you do it will end well):

• Fresh Cilantro – this may be the end of my cilantro… it’s been trying to bolt for weeks…
• Garlic – not from my garden… next year I’ll grow this!
• A little bit of lime juice
• 4 hotish peppers – I had Hungarian wax and chipolte peppers but whatever you grew is fine.
• 1 green pepper – also from the garden
• 1 yellow pepper (or red or orange or whatever) – also from the garden
• Approx. 11 large homegrown tomatoes – I had early girls and a few beefsteaks ripe… but again whatever you grew. I’ll bet heirloom tomato salsa would be phenomenal!
• 3 small yellow onions – also from the garden
• Salt (I used my salt grinder)
• Pepper

Step 1: Grow the ingredients.




Step 2: Peel and seed tomatoes. I had no idea how to do this before so yeah… What I learned is that you cut a little cross in the bottom of the tomato and then drop it into boiling water for approx. 30 seconds. Then drop it into cold water to stop it from cooking… from there it’s real easy to peel off the skins. To seed a tomato you just cut it in half and scoop out the seeds. It’s easier than I thought it would be, just time consuming. If there's an easier way to do this please let me know!

Step 3: Chop up fresh cilantro (a whole lot), a few cloves of garlic, and a little lime juice in the food processor – a couple good pulses.


Step 3: Add seeded hot peppers and chop for another couple pulses (I've been told that this takes away all of the heat...oops! if you want your salsa to be hot leave in the seeds).


Step 4: Add seeded green and yellow peppers for another couple pulses.


Step 5: Add seeded, skinned, tomatoes a few at a time and pulse for a few pulses each. If you want a chunkier salsa you can chop the tomatoes and onions and just stir them together with the pepper concoction without using the food processor… but I wanted a more pureed, restaurant-style salsa.


Step 6: Add chopped onion and pulse a few more times – it’s important to add the onion last and to chop it beforehand b/c apparently onion in the food processor ends up with a yucky consistency… something about it not chopping completely….


Step 7: Taste and adjust! I added another garlic clove and a few more cilantro leaves, salt, and pepper at this point because it seemed somehow lacking in flavor.

Step 8: Refrigerate overnight. I didn’t know this but salsa tastes kindof bland at first… I kept trying to add things (step 7) and finally gave up in frustration. Well then the next day it was AMAZING. All of the flavors had melded into tasty, yummy, fresh, wonderful, salsa!


Enjoy with chips, tortillas, on chicken for a burrito, on nachos, in bean dip, etc. etc. etc.

I have to warn you…this "recipe" makes a boatload of salsa… unless you’re having a lot of people over it might be better to halve the recipe.

Stay tuned for info on canned salsa – I did that this weekend but I haven’t downloaded my pictures yet!

Snakes on a Secret Pal

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!!

Sorry. I wouldn't feel like a real blogger without mentioning that this weekend is SoaP weekend. check out this amazing promotional site:

Snakes Voicemail

You can make Samuel L. Jackson leave voicemail on your friends phones!!! And really, what's cooler than Samuel L. on your voicemail?

oh yeah. Snakes on a Plane.

We went and saw it on Fri. night... it was highly entertaining... a great B-movie... and there was even a guy in the audience who had a stuffed snake with him! Gotta love pop culture!!!

Aaaaanyways... Friday I also got my last SP8 package:

It's the pattern for the Cocoon Lace Wrap from fibertrends which is BEAUTIFUL, and some cashmere/merino and cashmere/silk yarn which is soooo frickin' luscious. Love it! She also included some pink silk which I can't wait to knit with... I'm thinking of making branching out with that. THANK YOU SECRET PAL!!! Seriously - I know alot of people have been having issues this swap but my secret pal has been wonderful. She even took the time to draw little pics of veggies on the outside of the envelope! I can't wait to figure out who she is!

Stitch ‘n Pitch (almost)

I had a great time this weekend at Matt’s Aunt’s 70th…The cornhole set that our friends made us was a big hit!


Then on Sunday we went to the Pirates game:



Sadly Stitch ‘n Pitch was there and I didn’t know about it!!!! I found out between the 8th and 9th inning when they had a couple of knitters up on the big screen. The knitters were awesome –one even kept working on her sock while being interviewed for the scoreboard! That rules! Had I known I so would have gone down to say hello – I even had the Matt sock in my purse…. Oh well… I will definitely be at the Stitch ‘n Pitch Cleveland in a few weeks. Hope to see all of you northeastern Ohio knitters there!

In knitting land…. What should this Elann’s Endless Summer Luna from my SP7 become?


Should it be a tivoli/picovoli?

A Ballet Camisole?

Or a Soleil?

I’ll even put up a poll…Please vote! I’m seriously torn… and right now I need a project that isn’t a sock and isn’t complicated lace….

What should I knit with the Luna?
	Tivoli – yeah for top-down raglans!
	Ballet Cami – perfect for the pink sparkly yarn!
	Soleil – the lace part will go super-fast
	Um… don’t you have a tempting II floating around somewhere… maybe you should finish that first.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Something Old, Something New...

So when I got married my "something blue" was an anklet that I made myself. I found sterling silver links that were in the shape of an infinity symbol and combined those with Swarovski crystals… it was real nice…. Anyways…. a friend of mine from highschool is getting married in a few weeks and unfortunately I’m unable to go to the wedding (it’s in Colorado and our travel budget was eaten by the patio) so I wanted to do something nice for her… I dusted off my jewelry making supplies and got to work on another "something blue" anklet.

While I was working on it I remembered that her beautiful, handmade, invitations had beads on that were the exact color of the crystals that I had!

So basically I turned this:


Into this:

I hope she likes it (and doesn’t mind that I took apart her invitation!)

My New Toy

Look what I got last night:

I’m soooo excited. After much research (and a failed attempt at making fresh pesto in my blender) I bought the big, kick-ass, 12 cup kitchen aid food processor. The fact that it matches my mixer perfectly had nothing to do with the decision (ha!):

Can you say pesto? And bean dip? And salsa? And crab dip? And sliced potatoes and zucchini? And chopped nuts? And chopped herbs? And zucchini bread? And Guac? And Hummus? And stir-fry? And jam?

And if you combine the food processor with the pasta machine that I got last Christmas you get ravioli.

Such tastyness ahead!

What I've been up to.

I can’t believe it’s been a week since I blogged! Time flies when you’re having fun (or working long hours on a deadline)….

This weekend was a ball… Matt played softball with his coworkers Fri. night while myself and one of my friends (who is dating one of his coworkers) sat in the bleachers and knit…. then we all went back to our place for some Phnom Phen and Monopoly…. Oh yeah if you’re looking for a great, cheap place to get some pad thai I highly recommend phnom phen – and if you eat there you can bring in your own wine! Bonus!

So then Sat. we went to Pittsburgh for a wedding – of which I have no pictures - Weddings are so fun – especially when there’s lots of young people, you don’t know very many people, and there’s an open bar.

And Sunday was Ikea. Do I really need to say more?
I have a new lamp:

And several new plants (the ones on either end are new andI have no idea why there is a dump truck in front of my neighbor's house)

And lots of other randomness to be posted later….

In knitting news.... I finished one of the Matt Socks:

Since then I’ve been going through a bout of instant gratification knitting. I finished my chemo cap :

Then immediately started another one which I finished on the car ride home:

And I’ve also jumped on the Mason Dixon washcloths bandwagon:

I don’t have the book or the pattern but that stitch was in a book that my grandma gave me on socks. So I used the knit along to figure out how many to cast on (33?) and just went for it on size 8’s b/c that’s the size of needle that I had. I can definitely see how these are addicting…

Oh. And I broke yet another one of my denise chords. WTF. So now I’ve broken almost all of them…. I so need to get the knitpicks options needles but I’m trying to hold off so I can ask for them for Christmas…

Whew. That was long ‘n random. Hope y'all had a good week!

A recipe and a story.

So Sunday morning I went out and worked in my garden and was super-excited b/c I had an entire bunch of cherry tomatoes that were finally ready to be picked….Well when I went back in the afternoon to pick them for lunch half of the bunch was gone. GONE. It was sad but I moved on. Other than that my garden had been good to me...

It surprised me with 3 ginormous cucumbers:

The Salsa garden continues to thrive:

My sunflowers are finally starting to look like sunflowers and maybe are even growing an actual flower:

The impatiens have grown so large that they have completely overtaken the lights that we put in:

And I still had enough ripe tomatoes to make "tomato deliciousness" for lunch:

Life was good.

Well then last night I got home, let the little dog out, and stopped inside to check the mail before going out back to water the veggies – as is my routine every day – and I see this:

Dexter! what are you chewing on….you’re not eating grass again are you….wait… is that a tomato?!!
I caught him red handed. Apparently rat terriers like cherry tomatoes.

So anyways… here’s the "recipe" for tomato deliciousness:

• 1 bunch cherry tomatoes (or half a bunch if your dog is a vegan)
• 1 package fresh mozzerella – I bought this at Giant Eagle but it’s much, much better if you get it from Galucci’s – just make sure you get the fresh stuff…
• Fresh Basil to taste – I used a lot b/c my basil plants are threatening to take over my back yard.
• Fresh Parsley to taste – I used a little b/c my parsley plant is pathetic– it has been completely crowded out by the tomatoes.
• Balsamic Vinegar (red wine vinegar works well, too but I like the balsamic/basil combo)
• Ground pepper to taste.
• 1 little tiny glug of Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Chop up the cheese into big hunks, halve the cherry tomatoes, chop up the basil & parsley, and combine everything. Let it sit for a little while before eating - just make sure your dog can't get to it!