everything knitticrafty

Evelyn's Hemlock Ring Blanket

2011-02-15T05:18:00.007-06:00

The Hemlock Ring blanket was a project I started back in November and finished over Christmas. It's been sent to baby Evelyn and I hope she's staying cozy and warm under it! Hundreds and hundreds of this aran/bulky weight version have been knitted since Brooklyn Tweed posted it a few years ago. It really is a beautiful little blanket, so cleverly done from a lace doily pattern - wish I'd thought of it!

I used almost 2 skeins of Cascade Ecological Wool on size 10 needles, though the pattern called for US11 (I was being cheap and didn't feel like buying a new needle) so I attempted to knit loosely for the entire thing, which affected my gauge on OTHER projects and now my tension is totally wonky. I would recommend just getting the right needle instead of re-setting your own gauge.

The hardest part about this project was blocking the damn thing. It was as big as my bed and I didn't have the patience or pins to properly block the scalloped edging evenly. You really have to stretch it in certain parts to get the feather and fan sections to lie flat.

Knitting Lace

2011-01-26T18:35:00.006-06:00

A little late for holiday recap, but here's the only finished object I managed to gift:

It's the Swallowtail shawl (for the second time) knit in alpaca lace yarn. I think next time I'll use a sock yarn just to see what the added weight is like. This turned out floaty and soft, I'm on a purple kick right now.

Baby Trellis

2010-12-18T13:49:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year! I just realized that the photos links I uploaded weren't working, so here are the pictures again. Hope you all enjoyed the holidays, indulged in lots of good food and drink, and had merry reunions with your families.

Once again, here's Trellis:

The Trellis sweater was my nephew's Christmas present - he got it early though, because I figured he'd get some more wear out of it now, that boy grows so fast! Did I mention he started walking at 8 months?!

I really enjoyed knitting Trellis and was very pleased with how it turned out. It's a free pattern from Knitty, made with just under two skeins of Plymouth Encore (an acrylic/wool mix). Soft yarn, good stitch definition, and great for babywear since it gets washed so much. If I have time, I'm going to make JJ one too.

Notes: next time I'd knit this as one flat piece to avoid all the seaming - have you tried joining together garter stitch?! It's awful. I'd also attach the collar with k2tog onto the neckline as I went along, and avoid sewing it on after - not sure why the pattern is written like that. I thought I'd be thrown off by short rows later on, but it's just a straight stretchy piece of garter band, which curls into a shawl-collaresque thing.

So cute!!

Baby Sun Hats

2010-09-17T10:42:00.004-05:00

Wow, where did the summer go? School has started and it's been over a month since we returned from our big Canadian trip. JJ turned 7-months old recently, and is really on the go - trying to clamber over anything and everything and desperately trying to crawl.

Back in the summer I made these little sun hats to protect her little bald head from a sun burn. I had grand plans of making one for all the little babies I know, but sadly that never happened...it took me much longer than I expected. Maybe next year. I've got patterns that go up to toddler sizes. I think it's a Simplicity one, I'll have to look it up.

I've been knitting too. I've actually knitted a few things but haven't gotten around to photographing them, so my blog has been painfully slow for some time now. I finished my hot-pink Ishbel, the Swallowtail shawl, and started the Tulip Cardigan for JJ. I've got some Christmas knitting on my mind too...maybe a little ambitious, but I'm going to try this year.

Hope you're all enjoying the cooler weather!

Baby Lily's Quilt

2010-08-15T08:45:00.006-05:00

I can finally blog about a little project that has been completed since early July! It's another version of the stacked coins baby quilt, this time using a pattern from Oh Fransson (which is actually featured in Sew Mama Sew). This past summer I have been doing more quilting, and I read Elizabeth Hartman's blog quite often - she's great with colours, and her designs are modern and fun.

Baby Lily was born on June 21, and I wanted to give her something handmade that would be useful (I'm sure she received a ton of clothes, bibs and stuffed toys) so a personalized baby quilt fit the bill. It turned out a little bit smaller than I expected, so I added an extra two rows of off-white sashing to increase the size somewhat. It's just the right size for the park, or using in the stroller. At the time, I didn't know if Baby Lily would be a boy or a girl, so I chose rainbow colours to keep it sort of neutral but not too boring. I love the animal fabric! Lorah said her nursery had a safari/animal theme going on so it seemed like a perfect fit.

I used stippling again to quilt the whole thing. This time, I made my designs much bigger so that there wouldn't be as much thread going onto it - the last one I made felt really heavy, probably because it was so densely quilted.

Some acrylic paint and stamps to put the name and date on...

Here's the back, with just a narrow strip of coins. This is my second baby quilt, and I'm still figuring out how to get the pieces lined up straight. Is it just practice? I thought I had cut and sewn so carefully, but still things turned out wonky and I had to rip out stitches and try again and again. I even pinned! The sashing is hard to get straight. Maybe next time I have to line it up square by square instead of just judging by the ends of each strip.

I did finish a third quilt, the Red Triangles, but I forgot to take a picture of the finished project, and now it's found a new home at my mom's house. I can show you the quilt top at some point...I do have a pic of that.

We just got home from our Canada trip - JJ had a great time visiting everyone. She grew up a lot during the vacation - learned how to sit up, eat from a spoon, and even took a dip in the river!

Daisy Wedding Cake

2010-07-06T13:03:00.013-05:00

Hi all! The wedding was this past weekend, a fourth of July wedding - we had a lovely time even with the unbelievably hot, hot weather. The cake turned out just great and yes, it survived the transport, and no, it did not melt! Who could ask for more? I couldn't have done it without D's help and JJ's good behaviour - love to you both!

The finished cake:

TA DA! You are looking at over 10 lbs of fondant, another 10 lbs of granulated sugar, and overall one hugely heavy cake! We decided to do it in two parts and finish the assembly at the reception, so that it would fit in our fridge and also be liftable by one person.

The lovely bride and groom cutting the cake:

I will be absolutely honest. It was wonderful seeing Kate and Jim pose for the cake cutting photos. But the cake cutting afterward? AIEEEEE!! I nearly had a panic attack. It was rather painful to watch. I think there's a reason that pastry chefs don't go to the weddings they bake for. I was warned that it would take a lot of willpower to relinquish control at the cutting. Generally I was quite good and stayed away, but truthfully I did wander over a few times to supervise. Anyhow, it all tasted delicious though, and the bride and groom loved the cake. What's more important than that?

Here are a few more photos of the whole process. I'm not going to offer you a schedule for making the cake like last time, because it occurred over so many weeks that I lost track of how much time I spent doing things. With JJ at home, I would just work on the daisies whenever she took a nap, or whenever D was able to watch her.

The baking was completed over two days, well-wrapped and then frozen. The icings and fillings were completed the next day, the splitting, filling and crumb-coating the fourth day, and the fondant and flowers were done the night before the wedding.

A few notes:

Cake recipes from Confetti Cakes by Elisa Strauss
Icing recipes from Toba Garrett for swiss meringue buttercream and chocolate buttercream
Lemon curd recipe from How to Bake by Nick Malgieri
Satin Ice fondant
Cake supplies from Global Sugar Art

This was probably the cutest part of the wedding:

There were so many children at this wedding, all ages. The wedding cake provided an endless source of entertainment and whenever I looked over, there were a few kids hovering about it. They would go up to have a look, get their photo taken beside it, smell it, and eye it longingly. They would pick up the daisies on the table, turn it over in their fingers, then gingerly put them back down. They were very, very excited for dinner to be done. So cute!

Field of Daisies

2010-06-29T09:29:00.004-05:00

Five hundred daisies lined up on my dining room table, in need of cheery yellow centres:

Some royal icing in the appropriate sunny yellow:

Happy daisies! I certainly hope there's enough for the wedding cake. I have about 50 backups in case of breakage.

Doesn't this kind of look like wallpaper?

The wedding count down begins! Tomorrow: tinting 10 lbs of fondant.

Daisy-making Machine!!

2010-06-25T12:07:00.003-05:00

That's right, aka me. Unfortunately I don't have an actual machine that stamps them out and does all the sculpting and moulding. JJ is sleeping right now and I managed to crank out another 130 daisies today. Whew, I'm daisyed-out.

I'm up to 379. Only another 121 to go!

Wedding Cake Testing and Tasting

2010-06-13T08:18:00.010-05:00

Can you believe I am actually blogging as promised?! That's because Daddy and JJ are playing downstairs while I upload photos and write! Must be quick here. Here are the results from Friday's wedding cake test run. This is a cake I'm making for a friend's wedding in July, and we had the tasting on Friday afternoon. I did a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and lemon curd, and chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. Both flavours turned out great, and we decided to use chocolate buttercream instead of ganache for a lighter textured cake.

Kate was deciding between two styles, both Martha Stewart designs, for her Fourth of July wedding. She loved the berry basket cake, which would look great as a whole but would be potentially disastrous when cut into (can you imagine putting a knife through all that fruit? I'm picturing berries rolling everywhere and bleeding juices). The daisy cake, on the other hand, would cut much better, and looks pretty and fresh. And more wedding-y, if you ask me. That's what we're going with. But I did mock-ups in both.

Some minor disasters didn't stop me from making my deadline, although I did have to recruit help from Daddy after my buttercream decided to curdle. Daddy made the accompanying strawberry sauce, which was delicious, fresh, and a lovely bright red.

Let's have a look at my handiwork:

There are about 55 daisies on this little 6" cake! I'll have to make hundreds and hundreds for the real thing, but at least I have 3 weeks to get the decorations done. I usually do two layers of petals for daisies, but with this many flowers on the cake, luckily it's unnecessary. (second of all, it would be the end of me to make hundreds of double daisies. I would have to cut out a THOUSAND to get the number I needed). Daisy-making will commence this week.

The actual top tier will be an inch taller and more densely covered in daisies like the photo. We might even make a 4-tier cake depending on the total number of guests, but it's possible we stick with 3-tiers and just do a few smaller cakes on the side.

Here's the basket cake, which did look beautiful. The weave is done with a leaf tip, which I thought was a nice innovation. It didn't look as stuffy and old-fashioned as a traditional basket weave, and it also didn't matter if my lines weren't piped perfectly. Unfortunately, this was a mess to cut if we didn't scoop the berries off first, which I doubt the banquet servers would be willing to do on a 130-person cake. Pretty though, eh?

I'm a little nervous about having the responsibility of making someone's wedding cake, but I'm sure it will be fine. Let's just hope it isn't the hottest day of the year that day, and that everything goes smoothly with the transportation. My fridge is going to be filled with nothing but cake that weekend, so Daddy and I are going to have to be creative about what to eat for dinners!

Blue Knit Dress

2010-06-08T08:07:00.006-05:00

It's been a long time since I've completed any knitting, but I've finally got something to show you. Yes, it's another baby garment, because they are so much quicker to knit and you feel really accomplished for getting it done!

This is called the Happily Ever After dress in Chesley Flotten's Soft + Simple Knit for Little Ones. I used about 3 skeins of Sirdar Dreambaby in blue, and 1 skein in aqua on US5 circulars. At the start, the skirt feels like it's never going to end...just round after round of stockinette. When you finally get to the waistband, switching to seed stitch is such a relief! I like how it turned out - still too big for JJ, but she'll fit into it this fall and winter. She's got a lot of pink in her wardrobe, so it's nice to have something in a different colour.

It's probably going to be another little while before I can post some new crafts. I'm working on a baby project for my friend Lorah, so I can't post that until after she receives it. The red triangles quilt is still lying around unfinished (I think it's become Gatsby's new cat bed).

I'll also be making a wedding cake in July for a friend's wedding, and this week I'll be doing some mock-ups, which I'll write about soon.

Have a great week.

Fedora...or Bucket Hat

2010-05-07T11:02:00.003-05:00

I've been able to start doing some sewing again now that JJ is becoming a better napper, and I'm getting rather skilled at doing things one-handed. With summer approaching, I started making little baby sunhats to keep them well-shaded. This one turned out just right, which also means that JJ will probably outgrow it within two weeks! They grow so fast it's unbelievable.

The hat is just quilting cotton with medium-weight interfacing and a muslin hat linimg underneath. I was able to finish it over two days. Cute!

Green Card!!

2010-04-09T14:25:00.001-05:00

Big news of the day: We are officially permanent residents! We got our papers today! Yay! JJ is super excited too.

So it means I'm allowed to work now, even though I'll be at home with JJ for a while, it's nice to have the option. This brings us to an end with the neverending applications and documents and appointments...suddenly there is nothing to worry about! It feels good.

Not a Totoro fan.

2010-04-08T10:48:00.003-05:00

My mommy made me this super cute hat and I was only able to pose in it for about 10 seconds.

This is how I spent the rest of the 5 minutes is was strapped on my head:

Modeling her finest Knitwear...

2010-03-14T19:02:00.009-05:00

I can't believe JJ is almost a month old! She's having a little nap right now, so I have a few minutes to share a few new pictures. I have taken a ridiculous number of photos of the wee one, and am clearly suffering from new-parent syndrome...I can't bring myself to delete even the blurry, bad pictures because she just looks so darn cute in all of them. Ha! That's how it is with your own baby.

This is a crafting blog, after all, so here she is modeling one of her hand-made hats:

This is the little green one from Courtney, although it appears to have rotated on her head...

The cuffed booties I knit for her were too loose, and the only way to keep them up was to unroll the cuff. Sort of a legwarmer-shoe-thing. This is the first piece of baby clothing I bought when I was pregnant - at the time I could hardly imagine what it would be like when she arrived, and here she is now...

Introducing Baby J.J...

2010-02-28T11:46:00.003-06:00

You probably guessed why I disappeared for a couple weeks.

Baby J.J. made her grand debut on Feb 16...isn't she a cutie?

She is such a joy. D and I spend a lot of time just staring at her. She's making some faces...little smiles, pouts, pursing her lips, raising or furrowing her eyebrows...

I likely won't be around much for a while, but please do check in from time to time in case I've had a burst of energy and managed something crafty. I'm not sure I'll be doing any quilting for a bit since that means lots of stairs to run up and down from all day, but I'll probably manage some knitting.

And, of course, I'll post more pictures of JJ when I can.

Jenny

More Quilting! This time, a Flock of Red

2010-02-15T08:06:00.000-06:00

Last week I started another crib-sized quilt, the Flock of Triangles quilt, which is a Denise Schmidt pattern based on a traditional quilting pattern called Flying Geese. I just googled it and found a free pattern for it online - right here. I bought the book last year and this is actually the first time I've made something out of it.

Pretty!!

I was inspired after seeing a blue and white version at a friend's house, and, remembering that it was in my pattern book, I decided to try one myself. The only rules were that it had to be made from fabric that currently exists in my stash. I could have gone with green and white, but the red looked more fun. Plus it's pretty much the perfect month for lots of red, with Valentine's day, Chinese New Year and the Vancouver Olympics.

This time, I actually cut out ALL the pieces for the quilt top at once. I see why quilters suggest you do that - now I'm committed to sewing all those suckers together! Unlike with the snowball quilt, I cut and sewed bit by bit, and got bored 2/3 the way through and ended up abandoning the plan for a queen-size quilt for a wee-sized one.

So, I cut out the pieces over a few days, and then laid out all the triangles in the order I was going to sew them. Stitching the triangles together is a little tricky because they're sewn on the bias instead of the grain, which makes them stretchy and a little fussy to iron. And, you line up the pieces to sew within a 1/4" seam, which does NOT mean just lining up point to point...I found this out after stitching a whole row of triangles and had to go back and rip the damn thing out. The even-feed foot has been a huge help, and after about 9 rows I'm finally getting the hang of it.

Here's my progress so far - only 3 more rows to go! Then I have to figure out what to do about the quilt backing. I only planned for the quilt top, and not the bottom. It might require a dangerous trip to the craft store...uh oh.

Owls & Friends (and DIY curtains)

2010-02-14T13:01:00.009-06:00

Just thought I'd show you what J.J.'s nursery looks like.

The room was already painted a light beige, and we decided to keep it that way and add colour to the room with other pieces, like a striped rug and polka dotted curtains. Eventually, we sort of just ended up with what you could call an owl theme. They must be really popular right now because there are owls on everything in the stores. Hopefully JJ likes owls, and isn't scared of them!

There's a pretty tree growing beside her crib with songbirds and owls, and there are owl sheets on her little mattress...

Here's Mr. Green Owl sitting on his branch, shocked eyes looking over the dresser (please excuse the bottle of beer...and no, I wasn't drinking it)

Mr. Hedgehog peeking up from beside the closet...

I have to say, it was a lot of fun to put up the decals! As a kid, it would have been so much fun to cover your bedroom walls with stickers...especially since stickers are usually reserved for putting on paper or in sticker albums. The wall decals actually came from Target. They were on clearance a few weeks ago and I thought it would be fun to add some animal friends to the nursery. They are supposedly easy to remove and even re-use, so we'll see...

Here's the crafty part of this post: here are the curtains that took me, oh, about 4 months to get around to making. I bought the fabric ages ago, and as usual, there were more interesting things to work on than curtains! I was originally going to make Roman shades because of the way one window frame is flush with the wall, but D was able to install a curtain rod that worked with the width of my curtain.

They were very simple to make since I only did one panel per window instead of two. Each panel is approximately 1.5 yards of 45" upholstery-weight cream fabric, with 1/2 yard of the same weight polka dotted fabric attached to the bottom. Then I did a 1/2" hem along the length (I left on the selvages so I wouldn't have to fold under). Because I was a little short on yardage, I decided to serge the raw top and bottom edges to keep as much length as possible. Then I turned up a 1" hem on the bottom, and did a binding on the top with some leftover cream fabric. I made the curtain rod loops also with leftovers, each one cut to 5" long and about 3" wide and sewed them onto the backs (just eyeballing the distances between loops).

Now if only J.J. would make her appearance so she could start enjoying her little nursery! There are only 4 days left until my due date, and STILL no signs of her coming. It'll be slightly depressing when my response to "when are you due?" becomes, "Oh, 3 days ago". Although I am told this is entirely possible and actually not uncommon for first babies!

Anyhow, I didn't really have anywhere else to put this, but here's a pair of socks I've been knitting...just some basic, cuff-down, 64 stitch socks. It's by Socks that Rock in the Knitters without Borders colourway...so far making some crazy tiger stripes. The wool is incredibly sock and squidgy!

Happy Valentine's Day, and Happy Lunar New Year!

Woodland Shawl

2010-02-13T10:09:00.005-06:00

The Woodland Shawl is done! I started knitting this at the end of November and finished about a week ago. I'm happy with how it turned out - warm and cozy despite being a lace scarf. Here I am modeling it on our front porch:

Pattern: Woodland Shawl
Yarn: Knitpicks Gloss Lace in Sterling, 1.5 skeins
Needles: US6 circulars

It's a free pattern on Ravelry, written by Nikol Lohr (find it here). I'd definitely recommend working with the chart, as the written instructions get tedious after a while. The great thing about the leaf motif is that it's easy to memorize so you can work on it anywhere. Occasionally I'd forget to do some YOs, but it's easy to drop down and fix if you mess it up. I was a little worried that the shawl wouldn't be long enough until I blocked it. Gatsby supervises:

If you've never knitted lace before, this is actually a good one to start with - you can easily use any weight yarn, needles, and adjust the width of the shawl to your liking. I think this would look really nice in a heavier yarn.

We got a ton of snow over the weekend and the roads are finally starting to clear up. Today we took Gatsby to the vet, and we're off to see a movie soon - Up in the Air. Tomorrow is the Lunar New Year, so happy new year to everyone!

The Snowball Crib Quilt

2010-02-12T12:01:00.006-06:00

Thought J.J. arrived in my blogging absence, didn't you?

Nope. She's waiting until she's good and ready. In the meantime, I've actually been quite productive with crafting, and just haven't had a chance to post much. Knitting and quilting have been keeping me occupied while waiting for my due date (which is February 18, in case you were curious).

The big news of today is...I'm finally done with the Snowball Quilt!! Does anyone even remember this thing? It's been through a lot. Packed and moved, sat all over by the cat...I had planned this as my first large quilting project, and began sewing precisely one year ago. Originally I had ambitiously wanted to make it a queen-sized quilt with a two-coloured border, but I got so sick of cutting out the pieces that I decided to truncate it into a lap quilt. Turns out that it makes a nice crib-sized quilt too, so it's going to be for J.J.'s room.

The octagon design is traditional quilt pattern called the snowball. I first decided I wanted to use this pattern after seeing an amazing Kaffe Fassett quilt of a similar design (although I selected quite different colours). To assemble each snowball, you need one 5" square and four 1.5" squares. You place a small square in each corner of the large square and sew along the diagonal of the small square. Marking this with a pen probably helps, but if you're lazy like me, you can just eyeball it. Then you iron out the small squares to get the nice octagon shape, and trim the excess off the corners. You end up with many, many little scrap triangles...whether they can be used is up to you...if you're willing to work with such tiny pieces go for it! I have mine stashed in an envelope in case the urge ever strikes me. So far it hasn't.

The actual quilting was done on the machine, in rows, stitch-in-the-ditch. You can see some hand-quilted circles in the octagons, which I was working on whenever watching an episode of Lost and needing something to do. I think the Fassett quilt had circles that were machine-stitched, but I chickened out of doing this since I don't have much practice doing curves. Hand-quilting looks beautiful, but is painstaking work. Especially stitching circles. Over several weeks I only managed to do about 20 circles, and there are about 80 in this quilt. I am considering this quilt done, although I may go back and add a circle or two here and there if I feel like it!

The backing was cut 1.5" larger than the quilt top so that I could cheat a little on the binding. Mine's a fake binding...it's just folded over and sewn down using a blind hem stitch. From the front, you can't really tell though, since the thread matches the border pretty well.

All the fabrics I used came from Joann's, which has a decent selection if you are persistent in your hunting. Next time though, I think I'm going to try some online fabric shops that sell more interesting fabrics that I learned about through these nifty quilting blogs:

Oh Fransson!
Bison Girl

Now I'm working on a Flock of Triangles quilt in red and white! I saw one in deep blue and white and it looked gorgeous...but I'm on a craft diet and not allowing myself to buy new stash until I've used up a good deal of what I've already got.

Baby Orangina Dress

2010-02-01T12:40:00.004-06:00

I have to show off the prettiest little dress that my friend made for J.J....

Apparently it was one deceptively difficult, hellish knit that took at least 8 attempts and lots of ripping back, because the pattern was written in another language and didn't make any sense. And the final garment had to be heavily modified. Something like two other people on Ravelry had ever knit it.

BUT!! Is it the cutest thing ever or what? And the fabulous thing is, it'll be super long-wearing - she can wear it as a top when she gets bigger. Thank you, Rachel! This baby sure has some talented aunties in the Lehigh Valley...

In other news, I am officially in waiting mode - I surpassed the 37-week mark without any labour drama, and will be 38-weeks on Wednesday. The waddling is getting comical...

Totoro Bonnet

2010-01-19T15:00:00.005-06:00

I've never actually seen the show, but this is the much-recognized character called Totoro, a tree-spirit from Miyazaki's anime film My Neighbor Totoro. I really ought to rent this sometime. Isn't he cute?

Anyhow, I saw a knitted pattern online for a cute Totoro hat and couldn't resist making it:

It's made with leftover Lion Brand Cotton Ease, knit on US6. I had just enough to make the ears, ties and tassles, and the face details are just white felt and black scrap yarn. The pattern is a free one by Hello Yarn and calls for DK weight, but it's not hard to sub in worsted weight. It's quite a clever little pattern...basically a toe-up sock using a figure 8 cast-on, and then you make a few decreases to shape the back of the bonnet.

I think Totoro's nose should have been a little bigger, and I forgot he had whiskers...oh well. he's still pretty cute as he is. This staircase bannister is the best baby mannequin ever.

Stacked Coins Baby Quilt

2010-01-18T13:19:00.004-06:00

Ta-da!! The Stacked Coins Baby Quilt is done! Yay! I love how it turned out! This is a really simple, straightforward pattern for a beginner quilter and the size is also perfect for a not-too-daunting project.

First time at doing mitered corners!

I was able to finish it over four days, working on it about half a day each time. The binding was a bit fussy to do because I finished it by hand, but it looks clean and tidy that way. I also got better at the free-motion quilting as I went along, although it took much longer than I would have guessed. Plus it ate up nearly a spool of thread! I like the look of the squiggly bits over top of the rectangular design...I think straight lines would have looked a bit boring.

Here's the quilt sandwich pre-quilting:

Here it is after. I took this picture last night in bad lighting, sorry:

All you really need is about 1.5 yards of fabric in at least 2 colours for the sashing and backing, plus a few fat quarters to make your coin strips with them. There are 22 coins in each strip, each coin cut to 2.5" x 5" and sewn with 1/4" seams. Now, I think of myself as a decent sewer...I can sew tidy, even seams, install invisible zippers, you know, all round proficient enough. But my coin strips didn't line up AT ALL with the sashing when I was done. Even if you're off by a millimeter it adds up when you iron things out and try to get them lined up. Not a big deal, but it's not perfect. Some chop chopping solved that problem (but I guess I can't do that for more complicated quilting designs). For quilts to turn out beautifully, you have to be ultra precise...when all the corners and seams match up, it looks amazing.

I bet this will fluff up nicely in the wash!

What else but more baby knits!

2010-01-15T14:00:00.009-06:00

JJ is quickly acquiring a stylish hat collection....

This one is based on the Gooseberry Ha t pattern, except with some heavy mods because I only had 20g of this pretty yarn from Tasmania...I only included 6 sections instead of 8. I still had a few yards left at the end though, so I made a fat crochet flower to top it off.

Leftovers hat using a generic baby hat pattern...this will match the Crossover Top also made with Jaeger Aqua. I cast on 80 stitches on US6, and just alternated stockinette and garter rows. When the hat reached about 5" in length, I decreased 8 stitches every round until 8 stitches remained, then pulled it shut. The bow thing is made of the last couple yards knit into I-cord.

Ok, I didn't make this one...Courtney made it. She is spoiling JJ already. Isn't it cute?! It's super soft. This one is coming with us to the hospital!

Bitty baby socks made from leftover Plymouth Happy Feet...

And some adorable rollerskates and stuffed bunny from two lovely ladies at my knitting group!

Not particularly chatty today...just got back from an all-day Lamaze birthing class and feeling a little pooped. We talked about labour and delivery for almost 8 hours! It was a good class though and we are feeling more prepared for the big day.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Baby Quilt

2010-01-15T13:21:00.006-06:00

I'm still here! Blogging had to stop all week because our camera batteries died, so no new pictures...but I ordered some new rechargeables that arrived last night!

This week I suddenly had the urge to make a baby quilt. I started a quilt ages ago, but it's just been hanging out unfinished because I can't decide how to quilt it and what colour backing to make. So, I went online to look for an easy baby quilt pattern. There are so many great quilting blogs out there! I ended up spending hours browsing through them, and admiring all the beautiful quilts...I thought this Stacked Coins quilt by Crazy Mom Quilts was super cute and didn't look too hard, so I made it using some pretty blues and yellows I bought a while back.

So far so good. There are a couple of booboos, but I'm learning as I go. For one, it was a LOT harder to line up the coins than I expected...I thought I cut everything carefully and stitched 1/4" seams on each one, but they turned out as all different lengths! Plus, when I put the cream sashing on (the strips between the coins), I somehow ended up with very uneven edges that requiring some heavy duty trimming. In some cases I had to trim off a whole damn coin. Grrr.

I wanted to try free-motion quilting on this project, so I've been practicing on a little square. It's rather tricky...you have to control the fabric with steady hands and maintain a steady speed on the pedal. It's kind of like learning to drive again, trying not to accelerate or brake too suddenly and not jerk the wheel around. It's turned out pretty well, but I can definitely see my learning curve from one end of the quilt to the other. I have about 1/4 more to quilt, and then I'm moving onto binding!

Baby Crossover Top

2010-01-10T08:28:00.004-06:00

Here's another baby sweater I made for JJ, which I started some time back in November and only just finished seaming this week. It's a Debbie Bliss pattern called the Crossover Top from the Essential Baby book.

Knitting a DB pattern always makes me crazy, but the projects look so beautiful it's hard to resist. For some reason, they never seem to put any diagrams in the pattern to show you how the project is assembled. Considering everything is knit in itty bitty pieces that require outrageous amounts of seaming and weaving in ends, you'd think they'd make your life easier by giving you a schematic. Nope. You get weird, awkward directions on how to set in a sleeve, or attach a button loop, with instructions like "starting 4 rows up and 3 inches over from the first point of decreases in the left underarm, attach the band". That's not much of an exaggeration. Ugh!!

I knit the newborn size but my gauge was much bigger, so the sweater is probably closer to a 3-6 month size. I put it off this long because it didn't turn out as nice as the model in the book...the edging seems a little uneven after picking up all the stitches, and the underarm seams seem a little awkward. I'm not sure if it's because I knitted this in cotton (with leftover Jaegar Aqua from my Cherry cardigan), or perhaps because the contrasting yarn was a little thinner that the main yarn, but there's just something a bit off about it.

It's still adorable though, and I made a matching hat to go with it. Doesn't everyone wear matching hats to their sweaters? :)

Anyhow, here's another super sweet knitted baby sweater that JJ received at the shower...I didn't knit it, but it's so cute that I have to show it off. It was made by my friend Courtney in the most beautiful Sundara Yarn. I have only ever oggled Sundara yarns online and in other people's stashes, and now I find myself petting this sweater every time I go into the nursery. It's Elizabeth Zimmerman's February baby sweater without the lace stitches.

And there are booties to match! Too cute. Thanks Courtney!

Mince Pies

2010-01-08T11:29:00.008-06:00

Christmas treats were overflowing at our house this year. Shortbread, spritz cookies, caramel corn, pastries, cakes....and mince pies. I was introduced to mince pies and all sorts of other English treats when I met D, and have been eating them every Christmas since. His sister makes them every year, and when we visit Deep River we always look for the green tin (that's where they live) and sneak as many mince pies as we can throughout the day without being noticed. And then have a few more at tea time with everyone else. Did I mention they are delicious?

Since we didn't travel this year, there was no magic green tin of mince pies. So I emailed D's sister and got some instructions on how to make my own. Mince pies are little pies filled with a mincemeat - a mixture of chopped dried fruits (raisins, currants, apples), sugar, spices and traditionally, some sort of suet/fat. Mincemeat may have originally been made with meat, but these days the meat component is probably limited to suet. You can make mincemeat from scratch, or you can buy it pre-made in a jar - mine was a store-bought vegetarian kind. If you go online looking for mince pie recipes, you'll find that a lot of people seem to add extra chopped cooked apples and liquor to spiff up their fillings. I just used it straight from the jar. I'm not exactly a mince pie connoisseur, but I thought they tasted pretty good.

For the pastry, I just used the basic pie crust recipe on the back of a box of Crisco, except that I used a bit of butter instead of all shortening. Each pie was made from a 2" circle of rolled dough, topped with a star cut-out. I made them in a little cupcake pan, but if you are a serious mince pie maker there are special tins you can buy.

As for updates, I think my backlog of blog stuff is dwindling. I only have a couple more things to post about...a few little knitting projects I just finished up. My crafting to-do list includes some curtains (boring) and working on a quilt. D's been working a lot, and I've been volunteering. Plus we've had to run around getting all sorts of errands done. We had to get our chimney flashed because there was a leak. We had to get medical exams for our permanent residency application. This Saturday, we are hosting a book club (The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon...very gripping and beautifully written...) and I am cooking a gluten-free vegan dinner for that. Tonight we're having dinner at my volunteer boss' house.

Oh! We also went on our hospital tour of the birthing centre...the facilities were really nice, the staff seem great, and the program itself seems quite progressive and they offer lots of support to new families. Yay!

That's all for now!

Grey Tweed Cruiser Mittens

2010-01-07T11:57:00.004-06:00

Now that winter is here, there has been lots of snow to be shoveled from our walkway - I decided the D was in desperate need of some hand protection this year, given he has been mittenless and gloveless for about 2 years in a row now. Of two yarn choices, and he chose the Plymouth Tweed in charcoal grey, which made a nice slubby texture in the mittens.

The pattern is called Cruiser by Cailyn Meyer (free download on Ravelry) and I cast on for the size large. I made a few modifications as I went along:

I started the afterthought thumb hole after about two pattern repeats (4" from the cuff) because I didn't like how the cuff looked when you started the hole earlier, and I left 7 stitches on scrap instead of 6.
I still picked up 4 stitches on each side. With decreasing, I decreased 3 stitches every row.
For the hand I had a total of 8 pattern repeats before decreasing the top, and I made my mitten a little pointier and left a total of 10 stitches at the end for grafting.

This is a really quick knit because of the aran-weight yarn. Even though I used US6 needles (to get a denser fabric), I think I started around Christmas and finished in less than a week, which is probably my record for fastest knit in 2009!

The Box Bag

2010-01-06T14:33:00.006-06:00

Wow! Maybe I should have resolved to "Update blog more often" for New Years because I'd totally be kicking ass on that already. Would that be cheating?

I've been spending some time getting re-acquainted with my sewing machine and over the holidays, I made a few knitting bags (I forgot to take pictures) and also attempted a box bag using a few different online tutorials, but mostly based on this one. They're great for stashing unfinished projects in, and make cute presents (if you can finish them in a timely fashion, that is. Easier said than done). Here's my box bag, looking a little rumpled from all the turning inside out and outside in:

A box bag is not at all difficult to make. The directions in the tutorial are easy to follow. Folding and sewing the corners is maybe the trickiest part, but with a little practice, you can get your seams looking nice and neat, too. However, I discovered that nearly all the online tutorials leaves you with unfinished seams inside. And most of the ones you buy are just finished with a serged edge, so that it doesn't unravel. This is all fine and dandy unless you are a neat freak about sewing (I sometimes am guilty of this) and think you can cleverly solve this problem. But I did eventually figure it out:

Ahh, nice clean enclosed seams...so happy....

Now I can tell you that I spent WAY too much time figuring out how to get my inside seams looking pretty. Unfortunately I did not take pictures and will not be writing a tutorial on how to do this given how big a pain it was and how many times I had to rip out the seams and try again. And it involved some hand sewing around the zipper part. To sum it up quickly, you basically have to sew the box corners of the lining and main fabric separately, then turn the whole thing inside out and close up the seam that is perpendicular to the zipper on the end with the handle. Blah! I'm just going to serge the edges next time.

Vive le Croissant!

2010-01-04T14:39:00.011-06:00

There is nothing like a warm, flaky, buttery croissant enjoyed with a dollop of strawberry jam and coffee. YUM!! Enjoying the above at a Parisian cafe doesn't hurt either.

Unfortunately, good croissants are still an elusive thing in this part of Pennsylvania (although an hour away in NYC you find some of the best French pastries in the world...if only there were a train connecting us to the city! sigh) If and when the real thing is found, they cost at least $3 each piece, and the inexpensive supermarket ones just taste kind of boring and leave a funny feel in your mouth.

Over Christmas, I learned why croissants made from scratch cost $3 each. They are a big, huge, pain in the butt to make, although worth the time and effort...and you get really sore arms. I'd been looking up different croissant recipes for some time now, thinking that I'd like to give them a try...and what better time for indulgence than Christmas!!

I used a recipe from Ciril Hitz's Baking Artisan Bread book, which has nice photos of each step as well as a DVD component that teaches how to make beautifully formed croissants. I had to make two components: the dough, which had flour, egg, milk, yeast, salt and sugar; and the butter block, which was a mixture of regular unsalted butter and a little flour (if you use European plugra butter, it has a higher fat content thus not needing any flour added to make it roll-able)

Laminating the dough was a fun process...you place the butter block inside the rectangle of dough you've rolled out, close it up like an envelope, roll it out, fold in thirds, and repeat. I think altogether there were about 27 layers of dough and butter. The dough it also going in and out of the fridge and freezer this whole time.

I forgot to mention that this process takes 2-3 days and requires some degree of patience. And, on baking day, rolling out the dough takes some major muscle work. I thought my arms were going to fall off and that I was going to break my rolling pin. I should have recruited D to help me, but I didnt' think it would take me 45 minutes to get the dough to roughly the correct dimensions. The elasticity kept making the dough shrink back, and it needed small resting trips in the freezer to gradually achieve the 1/4" thickness for cutting and rolling. In the end, I think my dough was still too thick, but I was too tired to care by then. I made my nice even triangles and rolled them up like in the video.

Not only did they bake up beautifully, they tasted as good as they looked. The frightening part was looking at the baking tray afterward and seeing the butter swooshing around on the pan. Yikes. As usual, we were too impatient to wait until they cooled, so we scarfed down some hot croissants, which were delicious, and then after they came to room temperature, we scarfed down some more and they were perfect. With great satisfaction, I peeled about my croissant and examined the dozens of delicate layers inside...beginner's luck seems to be my thing!

Final note: it took 2 days for my arms to recover.

Happy 2010!

2010-01-03T12:08:00.015-06:00

Happy New Year, everyone!

2010! It's going to be a big year for us. I had really wanted to squeeze in one final blog entry for 2009, but the usual things got in the way....I fully blame pregnancy for that! But I do have a few new photos to share and lots of updates to chatter on about.

D and I experienced our first ever Christmas alone here in Bethlehem. It was was restful, pleasant, and very quiet. A pretty blanket of snow covered the town just in time for Christmas Eve.

The Saturday before, the doorbell rang and a large basket filled with delicious cheeses, sausages, bacon, exotic salt, olive oil and Christmas pudding surprised us on the front porch...a present from D's parents in case our stomachs got sad and lonely. We missed seeing our families and friends, but this year we didn't think that at 34 weeks my back would have done too well on an 8 hour car trip.

We had holiday lunch at the Hotel Bethlehem, roasted Cornish hens for dinner and opened some gifts. D got me a new sewing machine! I picked it out, so it wasn't a surprise, but it's fantastic and I can't wait to try out the quilting functions. It puts my old machine to shame...I never realized what bad condition it was in until I used the new one. Over the years, bits and pieces had gotten chipped, bent, and broken off during moves and I'd just learned to sew with wonky tension. The new machine purrs like a happy kitty.

A few days before Christmas, we got a new car. I was sad to say goodbye to the old big blue car, but it was starting to need lots of repairs and we just didn't think we could keep up with the unpredictability of things going kaput, especially in the winter and after JJ arrives. Here is our shiny new car:

Our nursery is also coming together... she has more furniture and gear than D and I, the lucky girl. The due date is Feb 18, but it's possible she'll arrive sooner, as early as 37 weeks instead of 40...

Not surprisingly, I am feeling even huger these days. My weight seems to have plateaued even though my profile keeps getting bigger. I can no longer see my shoes or do up my boots. When I feel JJ move now it feels like an elephant crashing around doing somersaults, and is more groan-inducing than cute-fluttery sensations.

Knitwise, I made this bunny hat with some leftover worsted weight Misti Pima Cotton (free pattern right here)

I have also been working on the Woodland Shawl for about a month now...it's taking forever and I'm not even halfway done! Pretty though, huh?

Stay tuned for pictures of...homemade croissants!! (and a workout like you won't believe)

Bib-o-rama

2009-11-03T08:51:00.006-06:00

Bibs! In anticipation of lots of drooling, spilling and spitting up, I sewed up a whole bunch of little bibs, modeled here by Mr. Bear.

The bib pattern is a free one from Chickpea Sewing Studio, and you can find it right here. There isn't as wide a fabric selection around these parts, but I did manage to find some prints that I liked at Joann's. The pattern recommends making the backing piece with flannel, terrycloth or something a little bit thicker for absorbency, but since I didn't have any, I made the backing with muslin, and sandwiched a piece of cut-up bed sheet (leftover from this project) in between to lessen the seepage factor.

If you look closely, there are mini Gatsbys marching across the bib...

It's been so long since I've done any sewing, I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it until I started these projects last week, so I feel like I'm on a bit of a roll. There's that quilt I started way back when that is mostly stitched up, but lacking a border, backing and the actual quilting part. That will be next. And I've got some curtains to make for the bathroom, which I have procrastinated on until now (fabric which I bought in September)

Duh, I cut the print out upside down and of course put it at the top of the pile to photograph.

We had a quiet Halloween weekend and gave out candy on Friday night (the city decided that trick-or-treating should intuitively NOT be on the 31st).

Gatsby and I spend a lot of time together these days, and he sat on the couch helping me take pictures of the bibs. He is looking very healthy as usual, and has been in a major showing-off mode for our guest...racing up and down the stairs, roughing with the catnip toys, and being a generally quite rambunctious.

Is that a pumpkin under there?

2009-10-28T09:05:00.003-05:00

It's been four weeks since my last growth chart! Here are a few more photos of my middle since then:

Last Sunday we went to a pumpkin patch and I wondered if I would be accused of stealing a fat, round pumpkin under my shirt...There have been bibs galore over here. I pulled out the sewing machine and have been stitch stitch stitching away.

We will be giving out candy on Friday night (it's a Lehigh Valley thing, not scheduling trick-or-treating on the actual holiday - weird) and then Chris is visiting us this weekend! Yay!

Happy Halloween!

A Nice Apple Pie

2009-10-21T18:07:00.005-05:00

Fall brings out a different kind of sweet tooth in me. Canadian thanksgiving was a couple weeks back and we didn't have the usual treats, so I made a pumpkin cranberry bread to satisfy that pumpkin craving. Um, it was all gone before the evidence could be photographed for blogging.

But I did save some pie for you. A double-crust traditional apple pie!

I'd been talking about making pie for ages, but every time I got too lazy and decided that making the crust was way too much work and opted for apple crumble or apple tarts on pre-made puff pastry. However, D just returned from a conference and I was in the right kind of mood, so I made this as a (large) treat for us.

The recipe is from Gourmet magazine, which sadly announced that is was shutting down this week. Boo! I was thinking of getting a subscription, too. So sad. Anyhow, here's the recipe for the pastry, and here's the recipe for the filling. I subbed a half cup of whole wheat flour in the crust, and used Macs and Galas for the filling. Since I didn't have any vegetable shortening on hand, I just put in all butter. My crust was flaky and tasty, but not super light, which is probably because of the WW flour and lack of shortening, although I kind of liked the texture. Macs release a lot of juice, so beware of hot sputtering apple goo if you cut into the pie before it's had a chance to cool!

After it came out of the oven, we each had a slice. I woke up at 4am needing another piece (the baby convinced me to have it). It is taking everything in me not to substitute the pie for regular meals, but as a result there is still some left. Oh, and this makes a very big pie - I used a 9.5 inch plate and we've had about 9 slices out of it so far, and there's still two left for a midnight snack.

Booties, Beanie, and Stuffed Buddies

2009-10-19T11:41:00.007-05:00

Lots to show you today! I have one item on backlog, the blocked Amelia, but I'll get to that eventually (she turned out really well, and I have been wearing her quite a bit). First, some baby knitting. I was thinking that winter babies will need some warm things to wear, so I found this cute garter stitch booty pattern on Ravelry and made a few pairs... Aren't they super cute?!

The little hat is made from the Freshly Picked Baby Hat pattern also available on Ravelry...yes, I know it's not garter stitch to match, but whatever. What I didn't realize is that babies heads are shockingly large. Maybe that's why they're so cute. But man, their heads are BIG. I cast on 96 stitches for this on US4 dns, which is pretty huge! I just cast on 96 stitches on US6 for a hat for myself, as a comparison...

I also made a blue pair for baby Audrey (which I forgot to photo), and her mother says that they should stay on well (apparently socks can fall right off newborns, chilly feet being a bad thing). It takes about 4 hours to knit these up, which isn't too long, and I've got lots more DK superwash merino to make a couple more pairs.

Then we have: more animals! You might recognize these from a few (?) months ago, and sadly it has taken me this long to get around to putting faces on them now, and making a little bandana for bunny. I love, love, love this pattern (last minute knitted gifts)...I've probably made 6 or 7 of these toys by now!

That's about all for knitting. Now for some ultrasound pictures! Meet Jenny Junior, who is, in fact, 90% likely to be a girl:

Waving her fist at us...stop scanning me!

The anatomy scan was totally fascinating, and I pestered the technician endlessly about what we were seeing. Prior to this experience I had no idea you could see things like brain ventricles, heart chambers, kidneys, diaphragm and bones! From what we could tell, she wasn't missing any important bits and things looked just fine.

This one is my favourite b/c you can see the profile so clearly...along with the spine and heart too. Cool, eh?

Almost Amelia

2009-10-03T08:03:00.005-05:00

Amelia is nearly done! I can't believe I actually weaved in ends and did all the finishing. Now I just need to block her and sew some buttons on.

First impressions: it's warm, but very lumpy. The sleeves also seem a bit loose around the underarms and the collar doesn't sit in a round shape right now...blocking should help all of these problems. I'm a little scared to submerse this in water because I'm sure the dye is just going to bleed everywhere - gotta find a sink or bucket it that won't stain. Will let you know how it turns out. I think I'll be able to wear it for a couple months undone at the bottom, although my belly is protruding even more at this point.

Here are some growth pictures to entertain you with:

I still occasionally forget that there's a little person in there, but I'm starting to feel wiggles and gurgles. The other day I even felt some crazy purring, as if Gatsby were trapped in my tummy. It just occurred to me that the baby is arriving in February, and will need some warm winter things, so I am planning on making a couple more little hats, booties, and sweaters....so much fun!

Last Saturday we went to the Celtic Festival (surprisingly huge!) here in Bethlehem and saw hundreds of bagpipers, a haggis toss, and ate some fish and chips. Yesterday, we wandered along Third street during Friday First night in South Bethlehem. Today we are going to Babies R Us to scope out some nursery furniture and learn a thing or two about cribs, strollers and the like. It's shocking how much baby gear exists. See you soon!

Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream and Chocolate

2009-09-24T09:53:00.004-05:00

The colours are a bit wonky in this one, but there's only so much I could try using my primitive editing program...the kiwis looked much better than above.

I made this fruit tart a couple weeks ago when D's parents came to visit, and it turned out well - tasty and pretty. The recipe is from the Bouchon cookbook, which I can't post, but it's easy enough to make something very similar. Martha Stewart lists this pate sucree recipe that is practically identical to the one I used. For a thick pastry cream, try this recipe, which uses cornstarch instead of flour (you may want to increase the cornstarch - if it is too thick after cooking, you can always loosen it slightly by adding a little milk).

After your tart crust has cooled, brush the bottom with melted chocolate before topping with pastry cream and fruit. This was how they made all the tartlets at my old bakery, which I thought was pretty common to prevent sogginess, but everyone I served it to commented how much they liked the chocolate, so it's worth mentioning I suppose.

Off to my volunteer shift - see you later!

Wee Update

2009-09-15T15:15:00.010-05:00

The Knitticrafty household is seeing some big changes this year. First a house...

...and now Gatsby is getting a sibling!

I've been sitting on our happy news for a while, and now seems as good a time as any to share it. We'll get to meet the wee one in February, and in the meantime I've got lots of little baby projects in mind to keep me busy. I figure that once baby arrives, my crafting life will be put on hold indefinitely. Must fit in as much as possible between now and then!

Today was a good finishing morning - I finally sewed in loose ends, kitchener-stitched toes together, and blocked. Here is my first FO for baby, the placket neck pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I know, I've already made it four other times, but it's just so cute. And you can't beat the minimal seaming - it's all knit in the round! The yarn is Kraemer Tatamy Tweed DK, an acrylic cotton blend that should be easy to machine wash. It's made right here in Nazareth, PA too!

Yarn: Kraemer Tatamy Tweed DK in Birch
Needles: US 7 dpns and circulars
Pattern: Placket Neck Pullover (Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Hoverson)

Next up, my mom's socks are done!! Yippee! I don't think she'll mind the fact that one is slightly taller than the other - can you tell in the photo? I guess I over-enthusiastically added half a pattern repeat. Not sure how that happened since I was trying to follow the chart...

Yarn: 2 skeins of Plymouth Happy Feet (from Conversational Threads in Emmaus),
with enough leftover for a pair of baby socks
Needles: US2 dpns
Pattern: Pomotamus Socks

Amelia is coming along as well...I've got the sleeves pretty much done, minus a couple more increases on one arm, and I've got about 4 inches to go on the body. Sadly, this cardigan is not going to fit around the girth of my ever-expanding middle - I should be able to button it up at the top for now. I've made a few mods so far: cast on for size 34" sleeves, but for the body I cast on 191 stitches to get approximately a 36" size (the pattern jumps from 34" to 38") and I played around with the positioning of the stitch markers to get more or less the right ribbing placement. I'm a little worried about washing this yarn...I touched it with a wet hand a few weeks ago and ended up with deep teal streaks across my palm. There's probably something I can wash it with to help set the colour or remove the excess dye.

Have a great week! I'm off to knit night tonight for a piece of chocolate cake...mmm.

Beef Liver Pate

2009-09-03T14:48:00.007-05:00

Check out my pretty liver pate, made with the other half portion of grass fed beef liver:

The recipe was really simple, and quite tasty - I have unintentionally been on an Emeril kick lately...somehow all his recipes keep popping up whatever I search for. His calls for chicken livers, which I think would be smoother, sweeter and lighter-tasting. Nonetheless, D gave a thumbs up for this version. I made him eat it on crackers with lunch which he (politely acted as if he) enjoyed.

The recipe made enough for three small ramekins, so I froze two of them. Apparently they freeze really well, but who knows when I will want to dig these out from the ice box again.

Gatsby seemed to be curious about the liver, and was making it a challenge for D to eat his lunch. That, or he was still mad at us for going on vacation without him, and in need of some cuddles at the most inconvenient times...

More socks and a blanket

2009-08-26T10:43:00.007-05:00

Seems I have been very eager about casting on for new knitting projects! I've been working away on all of them, but it's getting to that point where nothing seems to be getting closer to being done. Once again, I'm making the Pomatomus socks (my fourth pair), which I'm giving to my mom. I love how it looks in solid yarns! I honestly tried to pick a different pattern, but it just didn't look as good.

The pinwheel blanket is for one of many babies I know that are due early next year. The baby rush is still going strong!

Other news: I was officially chosen to be on the board of directors for my volunteer gig. Pretty exciting! Sounds important, doesn't it? First meeting is at the beginning of next month. It's nice to have a 'real' position to make up for not being able to work just yet.

Knitting and Pottery

2009-08-24T08:29:00.009-05:00

Spending a week in Deep River was not only very nice family time, but very productive crafting time. There was lots of knitting and pottery, along with some good beaching, kayaking and swimming. And some good butter tarts.

I started the worsted-weight Amelia cardigan by Laura Chau, using Valley Yarns Northampton in Ocean Heather. It'll be fall before you know it, and I'm getting a start to my cooler-weather knitting. One skein has so far gotten me through 1.5 sleeves, which is good because I only have four more skeins left. I think I'll make it.

We tagged along to the pottery studio and played with clay while D's mom worked on new pieces for her display at the Valley Artisan's Guild (click to see some of her work!). Inspired by a photo, D made this cute Trojan horsey donut on wheels:

I managed to throw two rice bowls in a row that looked decent, despite not having been near a wheel in a year! Those cylinders, I tell you...I think it was a plot to prevent us beginners from making too many pieces and crowding the kiln.

I asked D's mum for a brown glaze with ash spots that I think will look really cool, here's hoping they turn out!

Today is the first day of school at D's college, all the eager young kiddies coming to class, probably terrified and getting lost on campus left and right. It made driving a pain in the arse because they were all J-walking all over the place. I told D he should really give them a good scare and tell them how hard his class was going to be...hehe. Seeing as it's not first day of school for me, I am going to spend the afternoon knitting, cooking, shopping, and doing some general organizing. Salmon cakes are on the menu for tonight. No more liver for me!

In Which I am Determined to like Liver

2009-08-23T09:32:00.013-05:00

I knew someone once who was determined to like sea urchin roe, even though it disgusted him every time he tried it. When I asked him why, he seemed puzzled and said he hadn't really thought about it, finally concluding that it seemed like he should be able to like it, that as an amateur foodie he ought to overcome this food phobia, and that the challenge of it made the whole thing more exciting. I thought he was weird.

I have found my sea urchin roe nemesis. It is called Beef liver. It is one of those things I think I can and will enjoy, and in my mind has a particular appeal to it - in fact, I can actually imagine how it tastes, and it tastes good. Crispy fried, tender on the inside, with onions, bacon and gravy, I am drooling thinking about it. It has been a few years since I had the desire to try liver (last time was around 2005, I think, not a particularly successful attempt), but earlier this summer, I read a passage in Julie and Julia that reinstated the bizarre urge. In the book, she describes a delicious-sounding calf liver dish that is pan-fried, then baked with breadcrumbs in a delectable sauce that is creamy, rich and wonderful. Ooh. How could that possibly not be enjoyable? Second time's a charm?

Enthusiastically, I bought a pound of grass-fed, organic beef liver but continually chickened out of making it. What if I hated it? What if I could never like liver? It stared at me every time I opened the freezer door. I had returned the copy of Julie and Julia, so I couldn't turn back to it for inspiration. Then last week, after several discussions about cooking liver with D's mum and uncle, I finally got the nerve to cook this thing.

A pound is a lot for two people, so I would use half for our dinner, and half for a pate. I forgot to get D's mum's recipe before we left Deep River, so I used an Emeril recipe I found online - Calf's Liver with Bacon, Caramelized Onions and Sherry. Title sounded good.

Here is a tiny tiny photo stolen from Food Network.
Sorry I don't have a picture, but I was too hot and grease-covered to think about pulling out the camera.

I soaked the liver in milk...caramelized onions...crisped bacon....breaded with seasoned flour...pan-fried to a beautiful golden brown...deglazed the pan with sherry...made a delicious gravy with some beef stock and mustard...it smelled sooo good. D kept hovering about the kitchen, unable to resist the enticing smells of frying onions, bacon, butter and booze. We plated it up with some mashed potatoes and dug in. The verdict? Tasty! Yummy! ...at first. I actually really enjoyed the first 5 or 6 bites I had. It was perfectly cooked, still tender inside. The sauce was great. But then suddenly it tasted too grainy, iron-y, livery and the texture and flavour started grossing me out. Plus, the thinner part of the liver cutlet tasted more liver-y than the thicker part, which I didn't like. Maybe I overcooked those bits.

To be fair though, the recipe itself was a success, if you were a capable, normal-eater of beef liver. D seemed to thoroughly enjoy his plate and polished off practically the whole thing. He informed me that if I didn't like this dish, than I would probably never like liver. My conclusion is that my liver enjoyment limit, served as a dinner entree, is a maximum of 3-4 ounces and must be disguised in breading and smothered with lots of sauce and bacon.

That still left me with the other half pound of liver to contend with. I couldn't face cooking more liver (even for a pate), so I left it until this morning to sort out. I made the pate this morning and it is now sitting in three cute little ramekins in the fridge, mellowing and developing its flavours. I am so sick of tasting beef liver pate. I still have a lingering liver taste in my mouth and throat even after brushing my teeth twice. I think the pate is good, but I'll have to ask D. I'll report back on that.

I haven't given up on hope on chicken and duck livers. I'm thinking that it's the beefiness I am averse to, and I've read that chicken is milder, sweeter and silkier in texture. I hope all this perseverance is rewarded.

Big Bad Baby Blanket

2009-07-14T07:54:00.006-05:00

First, some chatter, and then the baby blanket.

How on earth did it get to be July already?! I've really been slacking with my blogging (sorry!), but it really doesn't feel like that long between posts until I check the last date. When I started the blog, I wasn't sure how much I'd be actively posting, but 2008 was a pretty good blog year, and I credit that to being much busier (with work) and thus motivated to multitask and write about all the things going on. Crafting for me seems to be directly related to how busy I am - growing substantially the busier my schedule is. The other change this year, though, is that I've joined a knitting group and I think that has become my new outlet for showing my finished crafts. And once I've shown it there, or talked about it there, I guess I feel less like writing about it on my blog a second or third time...but since I know you are all dying to see new crafts, I suppose I can try a little harder. :)

My other excuse is that June and July have been incredible busy for us. I think I mentioned a while back that we bought a house. Then we went on vacation for a week in June, and as soon as we got back we closed on the house, moved, and have been living in a state of semi-chaos up until now...I hope we never move again for a long time! Ugh! We love the house though, and it's great to be settling in. It looks a little bare, actually, since it's more space than we've ever had/needed. We're 95% there, but the last bit is always so hard to get done! We're lacking some serious closet space in the bedroom, I guess people didn't build houses with built-in closets in 1900.

Bakery work has been on hold since May...I've made a brief switch back to health care work, and I'm volunteering at a community non-profit organization for mental health, as well as the nearby hospital. In the fall however, I'm hoping to pick up a couple days at a bakery (or perhaps chocolate shop!) We'll be heading back to Toronto in a week or so - we're going to a wedding and looking forward to seeing friends and family very much. We'll be visiting all the babies that are sprouting up like crazy, and eating loads of delicious sushi and other Asian goodies. Yeah!

My recent knitting includes this baby blanket for baby Sophie, who was born on June 30. It's the Big Bad Baby Blanket pattern from Stitch n Bitch, knit in Bernat 100% cotton yarn, the biggest skein I have ever seen, and get this, not a single knot or break in this yarn the whole way through! It's probably about 400-500 yards total, I'll have to check.

Oh, and here are some pretty flowers from our garden! Unfortunately, Gatsby decided to eat have the bouquet and then promptly regurgitated it on the newly washed carpet. Dumb cat.

Honeycomb Socks

2009-06-13T13:05:00.009-05:00

If I were out in the wild hunting some deer or game, then these socks would totally complete the outfit.

Unfortunately, I have no intention of taking up hunting.

Needles: US2 dpns
Pattern: honeycomb stitch
Yarn: Sorry, I threw out the label! 50/50 acrylic wool

What do you think? You can't really tell that the colours are much more mottled than the picture shows, but they're a blend of gray-brown-cream. When I bought this yarn, I was hoping it would give me more of a subtle striping effect, but instead it gave me this hunter's camouflage effect. I can't say I love them, but they're fine....at least the yarn is really soft.

Hmm, come to think of it, they match Gatsby's fur surprisingly well. Maybe I can get them on his little paws.

Gatsby's Outdoor Adventure

2009-06-01T18:13:00.005-05:00

Happy Monday!

I haven't done any cat-blogging in a while, so here's a little homemade video to amuse you. Also my very first youtube attempt. We stopped by the pet store today and got him a little harness so he can prowl about and enjoy the lovely weather. Notice the excellent job he does of ripping out the dead grass. The birds were sounding with alarm calls. Now if he would only stop pulling the cord too far and strangling himself...

Good boy!

First Time Gardeners

2009-05-30T15:01:00.005-05:00

Happy Saturday! It's beautiful here in Bethlehem, and our vegetables are starting to sprout like crazy. I've been meaning to show you our little garden, which we started from seed. First I have to say that I am truly a non-gardener, and D did 98% of all the hard work (I get points for observational participation, with a little bit of hands on work) The lettuce has finally grown big enough to eat, and we've been having some nice salads with our dinner. Everything is coming along slowly, hopefully soon enough to enjoy a bit before we move on to the new house.

I can't believe these things grew from seeds. They were so widdly and pathetic back in March, smaller than alfalfa sprouts, that I just couldn't imagine them turning into enough for a salad. There might have been just enough for a little tea sandwich. Two months later, the bunnies are feasting away on the lettuce, but there is still enough to feed us too.

These are teeny tiny carrot tops! We might get a birthday candle-sized carrot by the time we move...

Tomatoes! I guess the next tenants will get to eat them. Boo!

Radishes...we usually don't buy radishes at the grocery store, so I'm not sure why we decided we should plant some. What do you do with them besides eat them raw? They are flourishing anyway.

Things are progressing with the house process. We are waiting on our mortgage application, have house insurance, have a cleared inspection, and are showing the rental to prospective tenants. It's been a busy month. And I started packing already.

I started the Whisper Cardigan a couple weeks ago and it's about 2/3 done. The next time I blog about it, I'll probably be in the new place! I may have a post or two in between, so stay tuned. Have a great weekend!

Swallowtail Shawl

2009-05-18T11:24:00.006-05:00

Pretty!! Another finished project: the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits, done on US5 needles and using up about 400-500 yards of lace weight. I picked up the purple yarn in Columbus, but now seem to have lost the label so I don't know the brand, although it is definitely merino wool. I loved this pattern and the lily-of-the-valley lace sections! So dainty. The P5tog was a little tricky to do, but after a row I got the hang of it. I gifted this to a friend for her birthday, and will make another one for myself at some point.

Baby Shower Daisy Cake

2009-05-17T18:39:00.005-05:00

Last Friday, D and I went to our first co-ed baby shower, and I brought along this cake for the parents-to-be (congrats C&J!). I was really quite excited to make this cake and test drive my in-development decorating skills. Actually, it's the first all-buttercream cake that I've done since I started interning, and I was hoping that I absorbed some of the techniques I watched my pastry chef use every day.

Let me tell you about the cake first - it's a lemon layer cake, with lemon curd and coconut cream filling. MMmmm. I used the vanilla cake recipe from Confetti cakes (replaced 1/4 cup of milk with lemon juice, and reduced sugar by 1/2 cup), and the coconut filling was made from swiss meringue buttercream whipped with shredded coconut and extract.

I'm sure there are many tricks to get buttercream really smooth, but the trick I learned was using a credit card instead of a spatula. It's nice and small, fitting easily into your hand, and your arm doesn't get really tired holding the spatula at a weird angle. Now, it's another thing to know how to actually use the credit card! You have to have your cake centred on the wheel, and you need to be careful about not scraping too much icing off as it turns. The goal is to smooth, not carve an edge on the cake. To make a clean edge around the top, drag the card toward the centre of the cake, which will take off the excess bits. If there is still some lumpiness and uneveness in your covering job, you can either spray the cake with water and run the card over the cake again, or, you can dip a spatula in hot hot water and slowly smooth around.

Saartje's Booties and MDSW festival

2009-05-17T09:15:00.006-05:00

Happy May!

It's been a bit of a crazy few weeks. First, a little finished project to show you before I get into all the updates:

Soooo cute. These are for baby Bunny who is due in early July, and she'll be getting another handmade item to go with the booties. The pattern is Saartje's Booties (it's free!) and make great baby gifts, and also a great way to find a good use for those little balls of sock yarn leftovers (recognize Pomatomus III?) I used US2 dpn needles and it probably took me a few hours to finish them, including sewing on the buttons. Actually, the buttonloop was the trickiest part, but I found a little tutorial over at My Fashionable Life that was a big help.

Onto the updates! I'm not even sure where to start, since there's yarn and baking and home updates all over the place...

At the beginning of May, I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival - my first time at a yarn conference - it was so much fun. I have never been surrounded by so much yarn, roving, sheep and all things knitting and spinning related.

Everywhere we went, there was silk, merino, bamboo and all sorts of lovely fibers to grope and pat. I am proud to say I acculumulated only a modest stash consisting of 3 skeins of sock yarn, 2 skeins of wool/silk DK, and some dpns. It was very, very hard not to buy more than that. :)

My bakery internship, sadly, finished at the end of April. I am quite disappointed, but what can you do. After a few weeks of unresolved drama among the company, my pastry chef decided to leave. Fortunately, I have met some great people in Bethlehem and have gotten some offers for introductions at other bakeries, which I may explore in the fall. In the meantime, I have a lot more time on my hands for knitting, and an abundance of partially completed projects piling up.

Last piece of news: Pending inspection and all that (fingers crossed), we bought a house! Yes, we did. It was bit of a whirlwind...everything happened very fast. We started looking around a couple months ago, and only recently decided to begin working with a realtor. Everyone's advice was that home-buying could take a long time, so it was a good idea to start early. So of course, we immediately found a house we really like. Then we went back and stalked at night to explore the neighbourhood. Then we went to see it again. Then we stalked some more. Then we slept on it. And then we decided to put in an offer. I really thought the process would take a heck of a lot longer, that there would be some feet-dragging from the sellers, delays....Friday we put in the offer, on Sunday we had a deal. Surprisingly efficient! We're very excited, and still kind of shocked. Hopefully things will go smoothly through to closing.

That's about all for now. I've got a baby shower cake to show you soon, I promise. It won't take me another three weeks inbetween posts!

Moss Placket Neck Sweater

2009-05-04T07:48:00.005-05:00

From Last Minute Knitted Gifts, modeled by the lovely baby Kate:

This was done in Knitpicks DK superwash yarn, in a heathered green. It's been washed at least once, and it looks like it's holding up pretty well.

Last week we had visitors!! Margot, Janet and Kate...we wandered around historic Bethlehem, sat on the giant lawn in adirondack chairs at Lehigh, ate lunch at the Blue Sky cafe and of course, oggled the cutest, most well-behaved baby I know. I pinched those round pink cheeks so many times (it was probably very annoying, but she couldn't say so...hehe).

They were off to D.C. on the next leg of their trip...I was most jealous when I received a text that said "i just saw the obamas!!" Whaa!!!!

Hope you had a fun road trip and a safe drive the rest of the way home.

Shawls, bunnies, pencilcases, Oh my!

2009-04-15T11:02:00.008-05:00

It's been a bit of a boring month here in Bethlehem: taxes, immigration, and reading about how to buy a house. Very boring, time-consuming, grown-up stuff. It's been rainy, which stinks (although trudging about in the new rubber boots is delightful). D and I are currently on a strict spending diet that has put a huge damper on our favourite hobby of eating out. After about two weeks we caved and raided the change jar, which yielded a decent count of $14.92 so we went out for some tasty beefy burgers, fries and coke at the new local diner - yippee for change jars!

Easter weekend was quiet...workwise, it's really not a big deal here in the US, and people don't get the Friday and Monday off. People go crazy decorating their homes, however. We have witnessed many bunny flags, inflatable 7-foot bunnies, and plastic eggs adorning the trees and shrubs like it's Christmas all over again. Last weekend D fixed up our bikes, just as it started to rain, so they haven't been out for a spin yet. We planted little tomato, lettuce, and basil seeds which will hopefully be big enough to transplant when it warms up...

I keep starting new projects (conveniently, when another project has been botched), and now I've got a dozen things on the go. The purple thing is the Swallowtail Shawl, the brown is Ene's scarf, and the bunnies just need some faces before they're all done...actually, one's probably going to become a lamb or some other small-earred creature...I'm low on yellow yarn.

I also pulled out the sewing machine and made a pencil case thing to put my double-pointed needles in. That quilt I was working on? The top is about 2/3 done, but I ran out of pieces so I have to cut more before I can keep going. Of course, I'm procrastinating on the cutting...

I'm still working on those Moravian bonnets which I keep forgetting to photograph. I've made about 10 now, and I usually pick one up when I'm feeling totally indecisive about what project to work on...

Stuffies

2009-04-08T15:17:00.004-05:00

Has it really been that long since my last post? I really thought I was posting more regularly. Clearly, being unemployed doesn't make me a more prolific blogger.

I've been busy...two or threes at the bakery each week, twice at the afterschool program, sewing Moravian costumes (well, just the bonnets so far...which I have yet to blog), and most recently, I'm signed up to volunteer at the local hospital. All last week I was assembling my application for licensure in PA. You wouldn't believe how much paperwork and bureaucracy there is when you're from just across the border. They don't seem to believe that my degree is legit.

Anyhow, craft time has involved knitting mostly toys...

There's some bread in the oven which I'd better check on...

Chocolate-spotting in NYC

2009-03-28T11:29:00.003-05:00

Happy Saturday! I love cute chocolate mice...spotted them at a patisserie in NYC and snuck a photo.

No new crafting pictures, unfortunately. There were several cast-ons for new projects, but I screwed them all up and had to rip them out. I'm doing another Ene's scarf and about 1/3 the way in, I realized I had totally messed up the border. But I'm still chugging along... I'm hemming some bonnets, still cutting out pieces for my quilt, and starting to think about more baby shower gifts for the many pregnant ladies I know.

This afternoon we're doggy sitting and also going to a garden center to check out the goods. Maybe we'll buy some seeds to start at home!

A Spooky Wedding Cake

2009-03-18T09:33:00.000-05:00

Last Friday the 13th we were invited to a 13th anniversary party in historic Allentown, and I was asked to make a special cake for the occasion....spooky themed, of course!

And it turned into an surprise wedding. Which means that really, I made a wedding cake! It was a hectic week considering I was traveling back and forth to NYC for my class every day and coming home to work on the cake, but I'm so happy I did it. It was a ton of fun to construct, and the couple who asked me are just super nice and I didn't want to say no. It helped that I had sketched a design to follow. I chose 10", 8" and 6" cake sizes, each with about 1.5" layers inside to get the most height possible. I ordered my first bucket of Satin Ice fondant, which is what my boss uses and actually tastes pretty good, along with a whole bunch of other nifty decorating supplies.

So, according to all the online guides I could find, this amount of cake was supposed to serve about 75 people. The hosts were expecting up to 100 guests, so I made another 2 dozen cupcakes, an idea which I have to credit to Cake Journal - too cute! The faces and eyes were cut from fondant, and the mouths were drawn on with food colour marker...also my first time using such a tool. It worked just like a regular marker, which made it feel a bit weird to be using..

Remember these little guys? I had a whole slew of little characters I wanted to add to the cake, which I started making early on in the week...you can store them covered with plastic wrap and use them when you're ready. Who knew my gumpaste flower cutters would come in so handy...I made the spider legs with a daisy cutter and added two little black balls, and made the bat wings using an orchid cutter, slightly reshaped. My favourites though, are still the pumpkins.

If you want to hear all the details, keep reading and I'll give you the whole cake schedule.

How to Make Your Own Spooky Cake for 75 People on a Friday:
(...when you can't do any decorating on the Friday...if you can, you can push the schedule forward by a day)

Sunday:
1) Up to a week before, make all your decorations out of fondant so they have plenty of time to dry and you can see how they turn out. Make extras in case anything breaks. I made about 4 skulls, 4 pumpkins, 2 ghosts, 4 bats, and 2 tombstones.

Anything upright should be cut from a thicker layer of fondant. Attach fondant pieces by moistening slightly with water and a brush. You can use a toothpick for the details, like poking eyes, or making ridges in the pumpkins.

Tuesday:
2) Three to four days before, you can bake all your cakes, remove them carefully from the pans, wait until completely cool, and wrap really well in plastic wrap before putting them in the freezer. Not fridge! You will have suspended them in animation and they will taste fantastic. , with a nice fine, dense texture that will be easy to work with. Choose a recipe that works for wedding cakes, such as a pound cake. I used the chocolate and vanilla recipes from the Confetti Cakes book, and turned the vanilla one into a lemon cake (yeah, I know. I never get tired of this flavour...it's just so good). Oh and the cupcakes were Red Velvet.

3) Prepare your simple syrup to brush the cakes with. Equal parts sugar and water, bring to a boil and remove from heat.

4) Make lemon curd, and save the egg whites for use in tomorrow's buttercream.

Wednesday:
5) Remove your cakes from the freezer; leave wrapped until ready to use.

6) Prepare your icing...I made the swiss meringue buttercream recipe I learned in class, which made about 2.5 quarts. Half was turned into chocolate buttercream by adding cooled, whipped chocolate ganache (chopped chocolate melted into heated heavy cream) and the rest was saved for the lemon cake and cupcakes.

7) Unwrap your cakes, trim them nice and even, brush on the syrup, and do the filling and crumb coating. I decided to pipe the entire filling, but didn't think I needed to spread it flat, and when the cake was cut you could still see all the tubes of icing...not a big deal. Also, when you're using a filling like lemon curd, pipe a dam around the perimeter of the cake to prevent it from leaking out:

Stick everything in the fridge overnight, covered in some plastic wrap:

8) Now, even though you're tired, you should really tint your fondant for the next day, because this is TIME-CONSUMING! It took D and I about 30 minutes to tint all the purple by hand. The mixer didn't seem like it could handle kneading the fondant, which is too bad. We tinted about 4 lbs of fondant total which was more than enough. Don't forget to make black, too. About 1/2 pound should be fine.

Thursday
9) Cover your cake board. I bought a 1/4" masonite board which is pretty sturdy. For a bigger cake, you'd probably want to get a 1/2" thick one. Wrap it with cake-decorator's foil or florist's foil, or if you don't have either, just use wrapping paper like I did. With the cake cardboard under the bottom layer and all the fondant, it shouldn't get too greasy.

10)Pull out your cakes, and then knead the purple fondant to warm it up. Cover all the cakes with fondant. With a serrated knife, trim the cardboard base flush with the cake. To make the swirls, roll out small pieces of black fondant and taper the tips. Wet a small brush with water, and paint a swirl directly on the cake. Don't use too much water, or else the black will run everywhere! Carefully follow the water swirl with the black fondant and press gently to adhere.

I think I've written about stripes before in another tutorial:

11) Dowel your cake. I'm not going to explain it here because there are hundreds of tutorials on the internet. I like using a stake through the whole thing to give it more support. Assemble the tiers 2 and 3.

12) Make a small batch of royal icing. Pipe your spiderweb design on the second tier, and pipe some more webs onto some parchment to dry. They break easily, so pipe more than you actually need. Now, attach two skewers to the back of the moon and 13 sign with royal. It'll dry hard as rock by the next day. Next, tint the remaining royal icing purple and pipe the borders.

13) Oops, I forgot about the word plaque...that's just a circle of fondant and food colour pen. Make sure it's still pliable and adhere to the cake with a little water.

Friday Party Day:

14) Stick on the piped spiderwebs with a dot of royal icing, because they're not going to travel well in a box. Pack all the rest of your cute little decorations in a paper-towel padded tupperware, and bring a pastry bag of royal icing along with a small round tip and the tip you used for the borders.

15) Once you get to the party, insert the moon and 13 sign and glue on all the decos with royal. Pipe your last border, and you're done! Try your best not to drop the cake now :)

The cake dissected...

Spring and Cinnamon Swirl Bread

2009-03-16T16:18:00.005-05:00

Spring is really here...the crocuses are poking out of the ground and brightening up the gardens.

A couple weekends ago, D and I enjoyed the warm weather and walked along the canal path...where we saw DEER!! Four of them! It was my first time seeing deer outside of the zoo. I did not grow up somewhere where deer roamed your backyard, so I think it's pretty cool.

You can see the old steel mill in behind the branches...

We are impatiently waiting for the weather to start being consistently warm...I took some gardening books out of the library and starting to think about what to plant this year, our first time having a backyard! D is excited about grilling sausages. Oh, spring.

Anyway, here's some baking from last week: a pain de mie variation, cinnamon swirl bread, from Baking Artisan Bread by Hitz. This was good stuff, and quite easy to make - the dough has milk and butter in it, and inside is just a 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. The house smelled sooo delicious while this was baking that we basically tore into the loaf and devoured most of it in one sitting. Amazing, there was a little bit left that got added to a bread pudding...

Hope you're all having a good Monday...after a such a busy week, it's strange not having anywhere to be first thing in the morning. I did do a number of housekeeping type things, along with booking an appointment to get our taxes done and getting the car serviced. Oh, and I signed up to make historical Moravian costumes...more on that some other time. I've got a stack of bonnets to sew.

Cake Decorating I: the Rest of the Week

2009-03-14T11:59:00.015-05:00

My course is done! The last class was on Friday, and my finished cake made it home on the bus with minimal bumps and bruises. So, I had meant to write up the course as 5 posts over 5 days, but sometimes things just don't work out that way. But, at least I remembered to take pictures, so here it is. I'm going to give it to you all at once - Cake Decorating Level I Day 2-5 with Toba Garrett.

Day Two:
We started off with making a decorator's buttercream icing, which contains a small portion of solid hi-ratio vegetable shortening to give the icing more structure and stability. A lot of people poopoo the idea of adding shortening to their icing, claiming all sorts of 'ew! that's disgusting, it's fake' and whatnot...but they have probably never had to produce a cake that must be stable enough to withstand very warm weather or make decorations that require more structure. Pure buttercream icing on a hot day? You'll get a melting, drooping cake in no time.

Tastewise, if you use only a small quantity, and if you can get a hi-ratio shortening (apparently Crisco leaves a greasy taste on your palate), your buttercream will still taste great. Remember, you're adding flavourings too. This type of icing is great for small cakes and cupcakes where your want the extra sweetness - children's birthday cakes, etc.

We spent the day practicing learning and practicing basic borders and decorations that should be in every decorator's repertoire: the reverse shell border, ropes, fleur de lys, rosebuds, half-open rose, and garlands.

I was the worst at these...they were surprisingly hard to do

Day 3:
Again, the day started with making another icing: Decorator's buttercream for roses, a stiff consistency icing used to make decorations that require more structure.

The teacher's roses...

We learned to pipe a full blown rose in traditional way, which is much harder than it looks...

Piped roses are certainly 'old school', but when done well, are actually really beautiful! Sadly, buttercream roses have been reduced to a lower status over the past decade - the poor workmanship and horrible colouring seen at supermarket bakeries have made them unpopular and a symbol of tackiness. I'm not sure how often I'll be piping these, but at least now I know how...

In the afternoon, we practice swags, ruffles, bows and basketweave. Truthfully, I'm not a big fan of the bows and basketweave, but I think you can probably find a way to give these decorations a more contemporary look. By now my hands are sore from all the squeezing.

Day 4:
We made marzipan (a mouldable almost paste with corn syrup and other flavourings) and modeling chocolate/chocolate plastic (just dark chocolate and corn syrup!). The chocolate plastic has to age for 24 hours, so we made it for the final day's class.

Tinting and working with marzipan was so much fun!! We made the cutest little fruits and vegetables...all afternoon there was endless gushing over how adorable these things were. Check them out:

Pre-petal dusting

We survived the bus ride home!

They were painted with petal dust to give a more realistic look to them, and the stems were fashioned out of clove studs and stems. Somehow I ended up showing a bunch of strangers at the bus station my marzipan fruit, which drew a little crowd of 'oohs' and 'ahhs'. I felt like a marzipan superstar. My banana was the only thing I didn't finish properly because it required water and gel food colour, which I thought would probably stain all my other little fruits on the way home, so I left it plain. You're actually supposed to paint the ends brown, and add the tiniest amount of green and draw it up the seams with a wet paintbrush. Too cute.

Day 5:
The entire morning was spent learning the chocolate rose, bows, and leaves using our modeling chocolate. Who knew you could knead and mould chocolate like playdoh? It was awesome. If you have any aptitude for making little figurines from clay or playdoh, you'd love making these - and they're edible!

We used this cool silicone mould to make the leaves - so lifelike! Mine are a little dull-looking because my chocolate was rolled too thick, but when done properly they are shiny and amazingly delicate. Toba pays attention to every possible detail - the thinness of the petals and the way they ruffle out, the direction the petals overlap...I felt like I'd never seen a rose after how she described it...something I've seen dozens of times but never really paid close attention to.

Finally, we each got to split, fill and decorate an 8" take to take home - yellow cake with amaretto mocha swiss buttercream. Soooo delicious! Smoothing the icing was so easy with her technique, which involved dipping the spatula in hot water and drying it off - somehow the heat helps to draw all the little bubbles closed and even everything out. It was nearing the end of class and I wanted to catch the early bus home, so I rushed and didn't ice my cake as carefully as everyone else. Still, I think it turned out just fine...and tasty...I'm bringing this to a dinner party tonight!

If you have any interest in cake decorating, this course is worth taking. Toba's enthusiasm and knowledge is just incredible and takes your appreciation for cake artistry to a new level. If there's anything that was really emphasized in the class, it was that your decorations should taste as amazing as they look, which means using the best quality ingrediants you can afford, and not taking short cuts - when you're putting in the time and effort of hand making a cake, you don't want it to be anything like something you could buy from the grocery store. You really do learn a lot, including some great industry tricks that make you feel like you're all that. I can't wait to take Level II and III!

Toba's Cake Decorating Class: Day 1

2009-03-09T19:34:00.005-05:00

Guess what today was? Day One of Toba Garrett's Cake Decorating Level 1 at the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE)!

Half asleep, I somehow dragged myself out of bed at 5am (along with poor D) and managed to get to the bus stop and throw myself into an empty seat on the 5:45 am run to NYC. A lengthy snooze later, I woke up to the sounds of New Jersey commuters piling into the bus and, forty-five minutes later, we pulled into Port Authority Bus Terminal in the middle of morning rush hour. Since I was there way too early, I had plenty of time to wander my way down to 23rd street and have a coffee.

Here's our classroom, with about 10 students total. I think this class is going to be really great! It's beginner/intermediate, and a good refresher for those who already have some decorating experience. We got our pastry kits, which included a piping bag and a small box of tips. We made swiss meringue buttercream, tinted some green icing, made parchment cones, and practiced piping lines, small and large shells, scroll borders and rosettes. Here is my friend Amy wielding her piping bag:

I really like Toba's teaching style - she is so articulate and well-organized. I am finally understanding proper pressure control with the icing bag, as well as dragging vs. lifting and pulling techniques. I don't think I've ever done a proper star-tip flower, or a shell! Check out our practice samples from today:

Zigzag with shell overlay

Large shells - I started on the left, got better by the time I reached the far right

Tomorrow we're making another type of buttercream icing, and I think we're piping more borders and also practicing writing. I can't wait!

Fondant Pumpkins

2009-03-01T19:21:00.000-06:00

I'm test driving these pumpkin babies for a big edible project I have coming up in a couple weeks!

Other cake decorating news: I'm registered for Toba Garrett's class in NYC, starting in just over a week! It's the first course of a three-part series. Post secondary education is important!

Lemon French Macarons

2009-03-01T12:00:00.000-06:00

I think I made these a couple weeks after the first batch of macarons I made back in the summer. Why I am only getting around to posting these now, I have no idea, but late is better than never.

There were pros and cons to this batch. Appearance-wise they weren't nearly as pretty as the first ones, but they tasted better, and I took a few notes on what I did differently; what worked and didn't work.

For starters, the egg whites whipped up much stiffer than last time and had far more volume - I degreased the bowl carefully and added few drops lemon juice. But, this resulted in a far thicker batter, perhaps a bit too much. Maybe I didn't mix it enough to reach the 'molten' stage. Somehow, I ended up piping nearly 3 times as many macarons using the exact same recipe as last time!

I left them out to form a skin, but they didn't flatten out into pretty flat-topped discs, again probably because the batter was too thick. At least 2 dozen of them cracked during baking, so that meant lots of snacking...

All was not lost however. The taste and texture of the macarons were far better with more chewiness to crispiness than last time.

The macarons were filled with some raspberry buttercream and a dollop of lemon curd...

I forgot to mention that they also formed little feet, which is a sign that they are baking properly, but really they're supposed to be a lot taller...

The macaron baking has stopped for a while, since I'm the only one that seems to eat them, and they have such a short shelf life, and I tend to forget about them if I throw them in the freezer...right now there is more bread being made in Knitticrafty kitchen. I'll probably try them again some time in the spring, when I am craving for pretty pastel colours!

Cork Gnomes

2009-02-28T18:37:00.004-06:00

Cork Gnome pattern (Korknisse)

I got addicted to making these a few weekends ago...now I mourn the loss of all those corks I threw out before!!

Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas this year :)

Perfect Baguette: IV

2009-02-25T21:12:00.005-06:00

The baguettes are coming along nicely. Here's a second batch using the recipe from Baking Artisan Bread by Ciril Hitz....

They turned out even better this time. The crust is nice and crispy-chewy, and my stipples are looking prettier. I forgot to take a picture of the inside, but it was pretty good - not enough holes though. I guess I'm still not proofing it long enough, or maybe I'm degassing it improperly. I'll roll the dough more gently on batch 3 to see if that helps.

Weekend Cat Pics

2009-02-23T10:27:00.007-06:00

Last weekend Gatsby became a member of The Seniors Club at our local vet clinic (!) I guess 9 isn't that young anymore in cat years. He's mellower, friendlier and lazier...but the gleam in his eye informs us he can still be a feisty beast. And the yowling around meal time has only gotten louder. Ah Gatsby. You lovable pain in the neck.

Here he is in action, running to the fridge at mealtime:

Seeking attention while D tries to work:

Friday night Yuengling...

"Do I look fat to you?"

D and I took a little trip down to Philly and participated in some touristy stuff, and ate a lot of Chinese food...the non take-out kind. It was awesome. On the way home, we also scored some IKEA goods to furnish our little house, so now I'm typing on our new coffee table which I think makes our living room a bit more complete.

More to come later.

I finally started quilting...

2009-02-20T07:56:00.008-06:00

Indeed I did! I finally overcame the quilting inertia... I'm following the basic idea for the snowball quilt in Kaffe Fassett's Kaleidoscope of Quilts

Are you thinking the same thing as me? It's bright, eh? I'm hoping it will look less kindergarten-decorationish when it's all sewn up. It took me the longest time to choose a pattern because there are just sooo many to look at...of course, it was my own fault for looking at so many books at once, but I like having lots of options.

The cutting was done over two days, which could have gone faster if I just focused on doing that instead of arranging the squares as I went along...a difficult task, I have learned. And then I ended up spending ages rearranging them all over again. When you stare at so many colours for a long time, your eyes start playing weird tricks on you and you lose your sense of design (I do, anyway), so D had to help me finish up as Gatsby sat on the squares, getting them all hairy.

So, each octagon is made by sewing four small squares diagonally from corner to corner, then folding it over and trimming the excess bits. That means LOTS of little bits. Maybe I can use them for something...? It would mean teeny teeny work though...

I've finished three of these strips so far, each one 13 octagons in length...another twelves strips await. I'll probably add a big border around it so that it will be a queen-size quilt. I'm hoping to finish before next Wednesday since we'll be having people over that night, and I've got to be all cleaned up. I'm staying home all day today, so I should get a lot done. After that, I'll have to think about how to actually quilt this thing. Likely by hand.

Pleated Smock Dress

2009-02-17T13:01:00.009-06:00

Three for three this week! More sewing this time.

This little dress was made from Simplicity pattern 3808, which claims to be a top but I think it could be a dress. The fabric is just quilting cotton from the stash I've managed to accumulate over the past year, and I think it's just a little bit girly and not dripping with pink sugariness. It's got tucks in the front, pockets, and a scalloped hem...in fact, I'd like to wear this myself, if it were in a bigger size.

Who's it for? Not me...but I do know several little girls whose mommies might dress them in this.

I woke up this morning feeling completely wired, thinking it must be time to get up and that I'm just feeling refreshed from a good night's sleep. Noo, it's still the middle of the night. I've been up, doing dishes, tidying up, looking at knitting magazines, cutting quilt pieces and blogging. It's about 6am now. Ech. I blame the cup of coffee I had at knit night.

Hmm, I wonder if I'll be able to manage four for four this week...

New Clothes for Queenie

2009-02-17T09:21:00.006-06:00

Another excuse for not blogging as much is that I was working on some pretty boring stuff that I didn't think was particularly blog-worthy, but because I'm feeling pretty pleased with the results, I'm going to share it with you, in case you had some home furnishing craft urges too.

...I made a bed skirt. Because it was outrageously expensive to buy one.

We got a new bed for Christmas, but it's just on metal rails. One day my dream is to own real bedroom furniture not made of pressed wood, but since that's expensive stuff, it'll be some time before that happens. But while I'm waiting, I figured the least I could do was give the bed a skirt to make it look a little nicer. After some research, I realized I'd need a skirt length of 17", which just doesn't seem to exist. I found some 18" skirts, but they were usually full of ruffles and eyelets... I just wanted something plain. Plus, I would have had to hem an 18" skirt, and I wasn't about to fork over $175 to do another 2 hours of work myself.

Being thrifty is kind of fun, especially when you've got lots of time to spare and like crafts. I went to TJ Maxx and bought a luxury King-sized sheet, got a DIY book from the library, and set about making this box-pleated skirt. The book was Simple Soft Furnishings by Katrin Cargill, and I did the skirt without the cording in the pattern (a major pattern errata: it told me to add 22" to one piece of fabric when it should have been 2". Stupid typo).

My box pleats turned out quite neatly if I say so myself! But not without significant whining and fussing, and bit of cursing...I had to do it over a few times, but that's because I'm a semi-perfectionist. The plus side is that I've now totally got the box pleat down, in case I ever need the technique again...maybe a table cloth? A chair cover?

Anyhow, I'm liking the skirt. I think it makes my bed more appealing. Gatsby and D agree too. Maybe I should have chosen a more exciting fabric...the book used a cute gingham fabric. I never really thought about making clothes for my bed before...my eyes have been opened!

Total cost: $9.99 plus tax, and a full day of fussing. If I ever make a second one, I'm sure it would take less time.

So, what are you going to make for your bedroom?

Perfect Baguette: Part III

2009-02-16T11:41:00.008-06:00

Does anyone remember my ranting about eating bad baguette after bad baguette in Columbus? It seems like a long time ago, but it never got better. The best bakery I came across was actually passing off sourdough as baguette-shaped imposters. At the time, this baguettelessness lead to some big talk about how I was actually going to bake them myself and become the artisan baking pro...

There was a loaf here and there, but admittedly my baguette-making had been unusually slow, which I readily blame on such problems as lack of ingredients, laziness, poor timing, vacationing, moving, and preoccupation with cake decorating and knitting. Consultation with blog records show that it has been well over a year since I last attempted baguettes. A year! Excuses no more. I recently acquired a copy of Baking Artisan Bread (written by my friend Devon's chef from school), loaded with fantastic pictures and descriptions to make beginners feel like they, too, can join the ranks of seasoned bakers.

Just look at those loaves! Crispy, chewy, and flavourful. Consultation with the book's trouble shooting section told me that my loaves were a little under-proofed, oh well. See how tight the crumb looks? It should have more holes, but whatever. Tastes good, and is on its way to being a regular in my kitchen. D said it was the best baguette we've had since moving out of the mid-west.

The Baguette recipe was rated as a medium-difficulty bread. I followed every instruction step by step (rare), and where I didn't have the equipment mentioned, I improvised - a dish towel instead of a couche, a greased mixing bowl covered in plastic wrap instead of a lidded box, a wooden chopping board instead of a peel. From start to finish, there were only a few hours of active work and a whole lot of waiting around spread over 1.5 days (machine mixing = no sore arms!) Shaping the dough was simple with all the nice pictures provided in the book. I was even brave enough to roll the tops in sesame seeds and trying out the snip/fan thing. Pretty. Of course, this means that it was no longer a true baguette, which only has flour, salt, yeast and water. Did you know that in France, there is a law that prohibits anything else to be added to a baguette sold in a bakery? I didn't know you could face charges involving bread. Be warned.

My dinky oven presented an annoying challenge. With its ridiculously small size (think large microwave), a regular cookie sheet just barely slides into the rack holders, and it burns things more quickly than a large oven. Forget about double-layering your pans to reduce bottom-burning. I ended up putting an extra cookie sheet on another level in hopes of offsetting some of the heat. It destroyed my pan, but at least my bread bottoms survived.

D and I devoured two loaves immediately by dunking the pieces in hot molten cheese (Valentine's day fondue) and I saved the other two in the freezer. With results this good, I'm sure going to be making a lot more out of that book....so stay tuned!

Turn-A-Square Hat

2009-02-15T08:17:00.008-06:00

It's never too late for more winter hats!

While I was back in Toronto last month, I churned out two of these Turn-A-Square hats and busted through some of my worsted weight leftovers. How I love using up leftovers! There is something just so satisfying about it.

It's an easy and free pattern, so go and download it for your pattern library - you'll be glad to have it when you're thinking about Christmas presents later this year. Each hat took only a few hours to make, and I gifted one to my SIL. You also get to practice jogless stripes, which I now realize I did completely wrong for my striped vest. Just shows you how you're never as clever as you think you are...

My knitting is a bit all over the place right now....I finished the orange sweater and blocked the sleeves, but haven't photographed it again. Another pair of fair-isle mitts are in the works, but after about 4-inches of progress I realized I forgot to leave a thumb hole - GAH. I'm not ripping out sticky wool, forget it. It will probably become a cell phone cozy or something. With that failure, I cast on for a pair of ankle socks to use up some leftover DK weight wool with a simple cable lace pattern, which will hopefully knit up quick enough to maintain my interest.

I've been baking and making bread too, which I plan to post soon - I've been a bad blogger lately, so I've got to pick up the speed and try to redeem myself a little.

Hope you all had a great Valentine's weekend and did something fun with your sweetie. D & I gorged on cheese and chocolate fondue, an appropriately 80s date-like dinner for two.

Ingenue in progress

2009-02-01T12:15:00.005-06:00

Meet my red-orange Ingenue, the sweater I started at the end of December in a fit of knitting enthusiasm - I'd just discovered Wendy Bernard's (of Knit and Tonic) new book called Custom Knits, which seemed to answer all my questions about top-down knitting. I had no idea you could knit a set-in sleeve from the top down, or how you could make a big scoop neck from the top down. This pattern is actually really easy, and has a simple garter lace pattern to make it a bit more interesting. I haven't yet decided if I'll roll the neck down and stitch it in place, or leave it as a funnel. Did I mention that I *LOVE*LOVE*LOVE* how there is virtually no seaming, and being able to try it on as I knit?

After holding onto the book for as long as possible from the library, I decided this was worth ordering. Thanks to my brother for the exciting box of craft books that arrived in the mail yesterday: along with Custom Knits, I got the Well Decorated Cake, Denyse Schmidt Quilts, and Kitchen Confidential! Yippee!

It's almost done, but as usual, finishing is taking me forever. I gave it a good soak and blocked it last night since the bottom hem was creating this ballooning effect near the hip decreases. What's left is the sleeve cuffs...it's meant to have 3/4 sleeves, but since I am running out of yarn (what else is new) I am planning to knit the cuffs separately and join them on with a Kitchener stitch. I think the short sleeves will look cute.

I'll probably jinx it by saying promising when it'll be done. Let's just say it'll be done when it's done, and hopefully that doesn't mean next year!

Lemon Meringue Cake

2009-01-30T19:26:00.009-06:00

I never get tired of lemon...especially baking with it. Homemade lemon curd has firmly maintained a high position on my list of favourites, spread straight on cake layers so you that it's super tart and sweet. Yum. A couple of weeks ago I baked the lemon meringue cake from the Tartine cookbook to indulge a little (more) for my birthday. The cake baked up really well - light, moist and fluffy - and was especially tasty after it was smothered in the lemon curd, blueberry preserves, and meringue.

This was my first time using a chiffon cake recipe. Instead of butter, the recipe calls for oil, and the eggs are separated with the dry ingrediants being combined with the yolks first. The whites are then whipped and folded into the rest of the batter. When I pulled it out of the oven, it was super poofy, and after resting about 10 minutes it deflated to an even, flat top.

Cutting, filling...

Slathering on the meringue...

It's just like toasting marshmallows...

Gobble gobble...

There you have it. I've been baking other things, but just not been that good about taking photos and blogging. There are still a few outstanding knitting FOs that haven't been blogged, too. January has come and gone...it's been a busy month with bakery interning, getting all our move-related stuff in order, and visiting Toronto for the lunar new year. Things at the bakery are going well - with the winter being a slow season, I'm only spending about 8-14 hours there each week, which is not much. I'm hoping it picks up. Today I graduated beyond cupcakes and am now decorating the 4" bridal sample cakes. We successfully got our PA drivers licenses, registered our car and completed the inspection and emissions testing, changed our car insurance, and figured out all our bills and services.

I won't be going anywhere for a while, so hopefully blogging will pick up again!

2,000 Cupcakes Later...

2009-01-10T21:36:00.009-06:00

This Friday was my first day in the pastry kitchen: a tiny little room with just enough room for two, a convection oven, two big stand mixers, a small table mixer, one big work bench, a little metal cart, a sink...and that's about it. Tiny! I set up and got ready to pipe icing on cupcake samples for the Pennsylvania Bridal Show this weekend.

Five hours, a ton of Swiss meringue buttercream, and 2,000 mini-cupcakes later:

A sampling of my hard work on display. :) It doesn't actually take 5 hours to pipe these, but I had to make many many trips back and forth to the storage unit, fold about 20 large boxes, put all the cupcakes away, and clean up. My arms were throbbing all Friday night...

I think I'm going to really enjoy this internship...the pastry chef does some really, really great stuff. I watched her decorate a 5-tier wedding cake in all buttercream in just 4 hours, with etched snowflakes and silver ribbons and everything, all the while dealing with constant interruptions on the phone, making the buttercream for my cupcakes, getting me set up, and running about to prepare for a bridal show.

I was invited to stop by the bridal show so that I could check out our stand, as well as scope out what the other bakeries/competitors were doing. The cakes I've uploaded in this post are an assortment of what I saw at the show, in no particular order, including some from our bakery.

I forgot what bridal shows were like! Vendors shoving pamphlets and coupons in your hands, giving you free cake samples, models parading around in gowns, pimped out SUV stretch limos... There was even roasted pork loin and chocolate fountain samples. It smelled pretty good, but I was full of cake by the time I got to the other food.

Some of the gumpaste work was just amazing, so realistic! Lots and lots of free samples...I pinched a few for D on the way out...

You know, it's funny when I look back to when D and I got married - I wasn't the least bit interested in choosing a fancy cake! In fact, we had the plainest cake imaginable. Who would have thought I'd be learning to make these elaborate, massive things one day?

Porom Beret

2009-01-07T15:53:00.009-06:00

Ooh, I jumped on the beret train. They are everywhere. I finished in December, before we moved and wore it around a few times before it got packed away. I have only just rediscovered it during the unpack. It's Brooklyn Tweed's Porom Beret. A very nice pattern indeed, and the photos, as usual, are beautiful.

I knit it with Knitpicks DK Swish in Nutmeg, which is also a heathered colour, and might I just say I am really liking it. So far, I've knit the Ducky Cardigan and another baby sweater, and this is my third project using it. I haven't tried throwing it in the washing machine yet, so I don't have a review on its performance in the wash. Nonetheless, I am planning to buy more of this in the future - inexpensive, soft, and pretty colours.

It's snowing over here, and I'm hiding out at home today, doing some more knitting. I'm gradually starting to feel the quilting motivation returning, but so far it hasn't been enough to reign me in to actually start anything. I've been thinking about quilts a lot though, does that count? Thanks to my mommy for the early b-day gift which was spent on books at Amazon.com - I just got Last Minute Patchwork & Quilts, Confetti Cakes, the Bouchon cookbook, and Breadhitz (recommended by Devon), so I've got lots to keep me going for a while. As I type, I am waiting for English muffins to rise. I had no idea they could be cooked/baked in a cast iron pan! Those are for breakfast tomorrow. Hope they turn out. I went to a wedding show today, for work, so I have a few pictures of that to post soon. Have a good weekend!

Daina Mittens

2009-01-06T09:10:00.008-06:00

A finished project to show you! The Daina mittens are finally complete. This was my first fairisle project, and when I started them I was knitting a bit too tight, so the gauge on the two mittens are a little different. Of course, the second one fits a lot better, but I didn't have the heart to rip out all that strand work. Plus, this was the stickiest yarn (Knitpicks Palette) I have ever used and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have survived a ripping.

Pattern: Daina Mittens by Tuulia Salmela
Yarn: Knitpicks Palette in Black, cream and cloud
Needles: US2 dpns

I started these sometime in October, finished them in early December, and then they sat in my knitting pile forever waiting to have the ends woven in. It's always like that eh?

I love the picot edging...so pretty. But a pain to sew down. I avoided having to sew by just folding it over and doing k2tog when I started the mitten portion. Still, on tiny needles, it was kind of a pain.

The inside of the mitten - not bad for a first time fairisle.

And there you have it! It's nice to finally blog about some knitting again. I have another finished beret to show you so it won't be long before another post!

In other news, today is our 5th day of 'real' life in Bethlehem. D started work on Monday and moved into his shiny new office, and I helped him unpack some books and things to get settled in. We have otherwise been trying to get all our utilities and services set up, which takes a while. Yesterday we got our Lehigh ID cards, which lets me use the gym I think, and get 15% off at the school bookstore. We now have the biggest variety of insurance ever - car, tenant, life, health. Tomorrow we go to deal with the car plates and new licenses.

One of the strangest things I have experienced so far is setting up garbage and recycling service. Unlike in Toronto, waste disposal services are not provided by the city. There are a zillion little private sanitation companies, small-business style, that you set up an account with just like getting a phone or something. Ours is run by a couple who have been doing it in the neighbourhood for years. Each house can choose a different company, which is also weird - doesn't that mean there are endless garbage trucks stopping in during the week to pick up? Anyway, it makes you think twice about how much garbage you throw out, cuz it isn't cheap!! $96 for 3 months! But that's if you have 4+ bags each week. I went with the more sensible option of buying a book of 10 'bag tags' which you attach every week to your trash, and it should last about 8 weeks. I will never take Toronto garbage service for granted again!

Happy News on the Cake Front

2009-01-05T20:45:00.004-06:00

I got the position, yippee!

Starting this Friday, I'll be interning at a specialty cake shop that makes some absolutely amazing, beautiful cakes. I won't say where, for privacy's sake, but this place is definitely up there with places like Confetti Cakes and Charm City Cakes. What's nice is that it's only about 25 minutes away from home, instead of a 2-hour commute.

I'll be doing a lot of the baking, which I am very excited about - strange to get excited about convection ovens and mixers, but I am. I have been wondering what all the fuss is about with commercial equipment. Hopefully I won't lose a finger or anything.

Apparently, there are 3000 cupcakes awaiting icing on my first day...yikes.

Wish me luck!

Happy 2009!!

2009-01-05T09:01:00.013-06:00

Happy New Year folks! Hope you all had a lovely, restful holiday and are getting back into the swing of things.

Cardinal in the holly bush in our backyard!

The past month has been crazy, hectic - but plenty of fun, and it was great being able to spend time with so many people. I know I haven't been blogging any new crafts, but I've been stockpiling a few for the new year. Thanks for checking in over the holidays though, it was nice to see that my daily hits hadn't completely gone down to zero. I promise to have crafts soon.

Lehigh Canal

Something I've been enjoying in blogland this past week are New Year's related posts - some are writing their reviews of 2008, some are making new resolutions for 2009. I've never been good at making resolutions, much less stick to them (I admit I have been one of those "I'll start working out" people - that usually dissolves before the month is out), but I do like the idea of compiling a list of things I'd like to work toward. A goal list, if you will, that I can go back to when I'm feeling like I need some direction. First though, here's my Year in Review.

**Knitticrafty 2008 in Review**

January: I celebrated my 30th birthday; D was offered a job at Lehigh University; I turned down my first job offer in Ohio (I don't regret it one bit); we started taking pottery classes; I read many, many food books; Sonja and I took ballet classes; we visited Bethlehem where I twisted my ankle. Knits: Ene's scarf, misty garden scarf, and one striped sock.

February: My first part-time job at a private practice; we went to Cleveland for D's birthday; I started doing more baking. Knits: Shetland Triangle, started the Sweetheart Socks.

March: I started working at the bakery and was loving it; I came close to quitting the private practice job a few times; baked my first few loaves of bread.

April: I started taking a jewelry class. Knits: Cherry Cardigan, Shetland II. Nothing that exciting seems to have happened as I didn't blog a lot that month...

May: I went to a bunny/alpaca show; baked lots of cakes and goodies; made more pots; had my first real kitchen day in the bakery; we traveled to Paris, Milan, Venice, and Opatija (Croatia).

June: I finished my big jewelry class project; came back from Europe; visited friends in Toronto; baked a heck of a lot; Knits: started the Pomotamus socks III

July: I started working as a freelance cake decorator for a second bakery; learned how a wedding cake is assembled; bought a bike and rode it around a lot; discovered El Arapezo in Pearl Alley; practiced a lot with rolled fondant.

August: Our big trip back home to Toronto and Deep River; lots more baking. Knits: ducky cardigan, socks.

September: I visited Toronto again; started baking classes with Devon; first Buckeyes game; lots of cookie and cake decorating; panicked over my future visa status but then got some good news on that; made a bridal shower cake for Zarafa which I am uber-proud of.

October: I was promoted to being an assistant pastry chef; I tried knitting fairisle and entrelac for the first time; went to Z and Ken's wedding in upstate New York; Gatsby started mellowing out; I made French Macarons for the first time; I also bought my first stand mixer.

November: My last month at the bakery; we got ready to move; I made a practice wedding cake; I bought a nifty culinary torch; we found a house to rent in Bethlehem (this time I didn't twist my ankle); we visited a culinary school in Philadelphia.

December: Jay and Sonja threw us a goodbye party; Devon made us this awesome cake; we moved to Bethlehem; my cousin Baryl came to visit; Dom's parents came for Christmas; our visa got approved; and I was called for my first interview at a nearby cake shop.

Things I want to do in 2009:

1) Intern at a cake shop, and learn how to use commercial equipment and scale recipes
2) Take Toba Garrett's Cake Decorating courses at the ICE in NYC
3) Take a bread making course
4) Travel to Asia
5) Make a quilt
6) Try to become a licensed counselor in Pennsylvania
7) Plan a trip to reunite our Columbus friends
8) Take advantage of unlimited calling in the US and Canada on our phone plan
9) Volunteer for a mental health organization
10) Try not to strew clothing all over the place in my bedroom, and use the nice closet instead.

Luminaria in Historic Bethlehem

2008-12-16T14:29:00.010-06:00

We have a lot to learn about the Historic Bethlehem District, but something we discovered right away was Luminaria during the holiday season. Each home is given candles, paper bags, and sand and you put all the bags outside to line the area just outside your door.

Sorry for the poor pictures - my night-time photography skills still need polishing :)

Street after street, you could see glowing candles in every direction. It was quite a spectacular sight. Pretty, isn't it?

The only unfortunate thing was that our moving truck was supposed to arrive that morning at 8am, and instead it arrived twelve hours late, right in the middle of this peaceful, beautiful Luminaria event. Nothing like pissing off the new neighbours like throwing a loud orange 18 wheeler in the middle of a quaint event like Luminaria. Luckily, though, we received no complaints.

Below is an example of a very typical Christmas light display. Practically every other house has either glowing reindeer, snowmen, sleighs or something equally festive in a balloon version.

Still Moving...

2008-12-13T19:31:00.004-06:00

We are now in Bethlehem, but still waiting for our boxes...the movers are now about 12 hours late. Waiting around stinks, and the moving company will hear about this on Monday. At least we are connected to the internet again.

Gatsby in the empty apartment.

Moving Week

2008-12-08T17:15:00.002-06:00

It's moving week!

Tomorrow the moving crew comes to pack our apartment, and Wednesday they load the truck and drive away with our things. We will be heading out soon after that, on Thursday, with cat in tow. Poor Gatsby has been sleeping under our bed all week; he knows something strange is about to happen.

It's a very weird feeling to move again so soon - we just started feeling settled and off we go again. Our friends Jay and Sonja hosted a lovely going away party for us on Saturday, and a great time was had by all - especially delicious and sweet was the Pennsylvania map cake made by Devon. Thanks guys! We'll be saying goodbye one more time before we go.

The blog will be a little on the slow side for the next couple weeks, but I promise there will be lots to update you on once we get settled.

Happy Christmas!

Fruit Tartlets with Pastry Cream

2008-12-03T16:20:00.008-06:00

Here's what you do when you've made too many tart shells and then find yourself with some leftover pastry cream!

Tart shell recipe: Pate sablee from the Tartine cookbook

Pastry cream recipe: How to Bake by Nick Malgieri.

I swear this hasn't turned into just a baking blog...I've got a new beret to show you, and the finished fair isle mittens. Tomorrow is photo day!

Hope you're all having a great week.

Blue & White Wedding Cake

2008-11-25T15:13:00.010-06:00

I'm here to show you my newest cake project:

I spent this past weekend making a miniature wedding cake as a practice project for my portfolio (that's right, I am making a PORTFOLIO. First ever!). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, except for a few minor things that probably aren't noticeable to anyone besides the decorator. If you're interested in my critique, scroll on toward the bottom - I'll add my notes there.)

This would have been done and eaten sooner, except that the weather was absolutely horrid yesterday which prevented me from taking any decent photographs with my little point-and-shoot camera. So, today was the big photo day. I even put up some wrapping paper behind the cake to hide messy background (talk about going pro).

My goals for this project were to practice several decorating techniques for my portfolio: hand-molded roses, scroll piping, stripes and dots, applique and detailed cut-outs, borders, doweling and working with multiple tiers. The roses were made with fondant, which I find easier to work with than gumpaste. The fondant doesn't dry as quickly and has this kind of pretty soft glow to them (that is, when they're still semi-damp. I don't know how they'll look in two days...)

I made the doily cut-outs using a scallop-edged cookie cutter, a small round tip and a petal tip; the whole thing is glued on with a bit of water.

Why, yes! That is real cake inside! That's a lemon blueberry cake (I think this my latest favourite combo) on top, and chocolate on the bottom.

The middle tier's real, too...

Yummy.
The cakes have been divided up and sent to good homes around Columbus.

Here are a few pictures of the process...I traced the stencil design onto parchment using food colouring, and then pressed the parchment onto the fondant, kind of like one of those temporary tattoos.

Making a lovely mess in the kitchen, much to D's dismay.

Minor problems with the cake:

1) Top square layer is too big for the circular base. I was thinking the sizing would work out just right at 8", 6" and 4", but I forgot that a circle is a lot smaller than a square...always measure is the lesson.

2) Top tier is slightly uneven at the top and some sides, which I tried to hide in the photos. This is a result of becoming tired and impatient during the most important part of the process...the layering and crumb coating. I guess I could have fixed it by applying another layer of buttercream to even it out, but I got lazy. Oh well.

3) The blue food colouring I used for stenciling isn't fully covered by the royal icing. I've never piped over-top of a design before, so it took a bit of getting used to.

4) The lines on the second tier aren't all straight or lined up along the centre of the cake. I free-handed it, when I should have marked it off first with a ruler.

5) I forgot to cover the bottom edge of the cake with a ribbon or piping to cover the board. Doh.

6) The fondant started cracking at the corners and edges, probably from being overworked during tinting. There you have it, my critique. Next time, I think I'm just going to cover a styrofoam form so that I don't have to worry about the cake going stale if I'm delayed by the weather.

My last day at the bakery is this coming Saturday, which seems crazy since it feels like I just started working there. But, it will be good to have a few days off before our move. I've been busy with some other things too...working on a new resume and putting together my portfolio. I've just sent off my internship application to a popular bakery in NYC, so I've got my fingers crossed about that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lemon Meringue Tarts

2008-11-15T21:11:00.008-06:00

Like I said, there has been lots of baking going on this past week, but finding time to blog about it is a different story! Do you like these little tarty guys? Yes, that is some culinary torch-action you see going on. D and I were going to the CAC 30th anniversary event and I wanted to bring some desserts for the spread. The components are borrowed from the Tartine cookbook (pate sablee for the shell, and Italian meringue for the top) and How to Bake (lemon curd), two books that you will probably see me reference quite a lot from now on.

This is a really good make-ahead recipe. You can make the shells ahead of time, even freeze the dough or the baked shells, and the lemon curd you can do a couple days beforehand. When you're ready for them, the only thing you have to do is the meringue, which assembles very quickly.

Use a large star-tip to pipe the swirls. I love the cute little curl it makes at the peak.

D contributed to the project by operating the little torch and toasting all the little meringue tops. We bought this butane-powered one from the Cookware Sorcerer. I'm guessing there will be creme brulees and more meringues in our future!

Too bad they're all gone! I've got a ton of meringue leftover, so you'll probably be seeing another meringue type dessert coming up soon.

An almost no-knead Bread!

2008-11-15T18:24:00.008-06:00

Or, 'Best and Easiest Home-baked Bread' by Nick Malgieri in How to Bake. This is the most successful bread recipe I have made so far, which we enjoyed in the form of some yummy sandwiches last week. Doesn't it look good?! It was crusty, dense and really flavourful...so good! You know, it was better than some of the bread I have bought around here, if I do say so myself (tootoot!)

This bread involved a starter, a sponge, and then the making of the dough. Now, I don't really understand the difference between a starter and a sponge (I thought they were sort of the same thing) but you put one in the other, and then make the dough. This recipe requires some planning since there's lots of waiting, but very little labor overall. No tired arms!

In a nutshell, here's the basic recipe. If you want the full details, then I encourage you to buy the book or at least borrow it from the library. To make the starter, you mix warm water, 1/4 tsp yeast and 1 cup flour. Let all that sit overnight. Then you take a cup of that, put it in a new bowl with 3/4 cup water, 1/2 tsp yeast, and 2 cups of flour to form the sponge. Let it sit overnight again. Finally, you put all the sponge in your mixer along with 2 tsp salt and 1 1/2 cups of flour and set the dough hook on for 5 minutes. Let it rise once, deflate, shape it into a round loaf, place on a pan sprinkled with cornmeal, and allow a second rise. Slash the top. Bake for 45 minutes at 450 F. That's all there is to it!

The Great Canadian Butter Tart

2008-11-13T20:43:00.008-06:00

Aside from poutine, I don't think there are very many 'Canadian' foods that we are known for. The butter tart, however, is definitely not to be missed. And hard to miss, in fact. You can pretty much find a butter tart anywhere - bakeries, coffee shops, vending machines, and even gas stations (including those in the middle of nowhere!)

So what exactly is it? It's more or less a tart made from a flaky pie dough, traditionally with raisins, pecans, or walnuts, and a brown sugar filling. It's a bit like a tiny pecan pie.

There are tons of recipes online and I randomly chose one from the Joy of Baking website, which I've cut and pasted below. The recipe said to make muffin-tin sized tarts, but I decided to make cute little 2-inch tarts - not bad, but they lacked the gooeyness of a bigger tart. Next time I will make them bigger.

Butter Tart Recipe (from Joy of Baking)

Pate Brisee (Short Crust Pastry):

1 1/4 cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon (14 grams) granulated white sugar

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, chilled, and cut into 1 inch (2.54 cm) pieces

1/8 to 1/4 cup (30 - 60 ml) ice water

Butter Tart Filling:

1/3 cup (70 grams) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup (215 grams) light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup (60 ml) light cream (half-and-half) (10% butterfat)

1/2 cup raisins or 1/2 cup pecans or walnuts (toasted and chopped) (optional)

Pate Brisee: In a food processor, place the flour, salt, and sugar and process until combined. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal (about 15 seconds). Pour 1/8 cup (30 ml) water in a slow, steady stream, through the feed tube until the dough just holds together when pinched. If necessary, add more water. Do not process more than 30 seconds.

Turn the dough onto your work surface and gather into a ball. Flatten into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about one hour before using. This will chill the butter and relax the gluten in the flour.

After the dough has chilled sufficiently, place on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough and cut into 12 - 4 inch (10 cm) rounds. (To prevent the pastry from sticking to the counter and to ensure uniform thickness, keep lifting up and turning the pastry a quarter turn as you roll (always roll from the center of the pastry outwards).) Gently place the rounds into a 12-cup muffin tin. Cover and place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to firm up the dough. Next, make the filling.

Butter Tart Filling: In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla extract. Stir in the cream. If using nuts and/or raisins, place a spoonful in the bottom of each tart shell and then fill the unbaked tart shells with the filling. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for about 15 - 20 minutes or until the pastry has nicely browned and the filling is set. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Here are the empty shells, pre-filling. I cut them with a scalloped 3" cutter and stuffed them into the tins.

Next, putting in the goodies - I made half of them with raisins, and half with pecans.

Spooning in the sugar filling. Mm. It smells delicious. Don't forget though, that the raisins and pecans will float, and the sugary goo will melt, so it's really important not to over fill the shell (like I did...):

My tarts all overflowed and oozed everywhere, so badly that I had to take the whole tray out and spoon out excess filling. Luckily they still baked well and didn't cement themselves to the tin like I was afraid they would!

These keep well for a few days at room temperature, so that you have lots to enjoy on a daily basis. D and I made a bad habit of breakfasting on them during this time, which contributed to the speed of their disappearance...I'll have to make more, very very soon.

We found a house!

2008-11-07T16:20:00.005-06:00

I'm still here. It's been a crazy week. After we got back from a Bethlehem I've just been working non-stop. Anyhow, we had a successful home-hunting trip and found the cutest little house to rent in Historic Bethlehem. It is a lovely neighbourhood and we are thrilled that we'll be living there next year. It's even walking distance to work for D!

Without further ado, some pictures to share with you of our new place:

That's going to be our little house! It's got a yard, a basement, an upstairs, way too many bathrooms, and a nice red front door:

Best of all, there is a massive kitchen that is probably the size of our current living room. I plan to spend many, many hours baking and cooking in here. There is so much storage it is mind-boggling.

It was such a relief to get the home-hunting over with, which gave us lots of free time to explore the area. We wandered around Lehigh's campus...

Enjoyed the view from the public library, which is only a few minutes from our new place....

We even had time to drive into Philly for the day...we had some great pizza for lunch, took a tour of the Art Institute's baking program, and had dinner at the Good Dog. It was exciting being in a city again.

Whew! So that's our big news. I've done a ton of baking this week, so stay tuned for more!

Friday Fair Isle

2008-10-24T11:14:00.005-05:00

Happy Friday everyone!

First of all, a big big congratulations to my talented MIL, Alison, who was recently accepted into the Deep River Valley Artisans Guild in Ontario! Congratulations! This is a big deal! It is really quite amazing what she has accomplished in one year. She has definitely moved on to being a full fledged ceramics artist now. She makes some really incredible things. I'll take pictures of her work next time I visit her, and perhaps in the near future she'll have her own website up and running! Or at least an Etsy shop of some sort!

I've started my first fair isle mitten, and it's actually not as difficult as I'd imagined. My main challenge so far is trying to knit more loosely than usual, which will probably mean that the second mitten will be totally different than the first, but what can you do. Hmm. I guess I could have gone up a needle size, but apparently I thought of that too late.

These are called Daina Mittens by Tuulia Salmela. I am loving the pattern - easy to memorize too, which is a plus. If only I had a little bit of red yarn for the little dots between the circles, but, oh well. I am really trying hard to make do with what's in the stash right now.

This Sunday we are traveling to Bethlehem, PA for the next 5 days to find ourselves a new home. We've got several appointments lined up, but I'm finding that a lot of people don't allow pets. How can they turn away a cat as cute as Gatsby?? Anyhow, I just hope that we're not still hunting by the end of our five days. Aside from apartment hunting, I'm hoping to stop by the Tuesday night knit group at UnderWired to meet some new friends, and on Thursday I'm booked for a tour at the Art Institute of Philadelphia. I can't wait to see Philly - I've heard only good things about the city.

Have a good weekend, y'all.

Wish us luck!

Short Row Hat & Entrelac Scarf

2008-10-19T15:23:00.011-05:00

Two finished objects to show you today!!

D, while working, was taken hostage as the model of my photoshoot

Let's start with the hat... a bit of a surprise, actually. One of those sudden urge knits. After finishing the scarf, I had about a ball and a half of the Mille Colori left so I thought I'd try the Short Row Hat by Veronik Avery, which had been on my to-knit list for a while, and...

Excuse the unwoven end poking out the top

Wow. The pattern is sooooo interesting. Awesome. Super addictive to knit. I literally couldn't put it down because I was so intrigued by how the colours were coming together and the way the hat was shaping itself. Although it looks like entrelac, the diamonds are actually cleverly done with short rows. And, the hat is neither knit top down or bottom up; it's sectional. Sooo cool. This must have been such a pain in the butt to design, but what a great pattern!

Hat Pattern: Short Row Hat by Veronik Avery

Scarf pattern: Entrelac Scarf by Allison LoCicero
Yarn: Lang Mille Colori, 3.5 skeins for scarf, 1.5 skein for hat
Needles: US8 circulars and dpns

This wins as the fastest project I have ever knit - I started on Friday afternoon and finished on Saturday evening, and I'm guessing it took about 7 hours from start to finish. Measured in other terms, this hat equaled 8 episodes of the first season of the West Wing.

Trying to photograph the top of the hat on myself.
Clearly, not such a successful idea.

I am really excited about wearing these now that the weather's getting chillier. I know they're not meant to be a set, but I kind of like them in combination, although it is a whole lotta squares. What do you think? Hat and scarf together are a little too much?

The Cat is Mellowing Out

2008-10-19T13:45:00.004-05:00

After 8 years of aloof, anti-cuddle, anti-lap behaviour, Gatsby's personality is beginning to change. Occasionally, you will find him seeking a cuddle these days.

Only, he's not fully committed to the full lap cuddle yet... He's started doing this funny half-draping thing on your lap, with his hind legs firmly planted on the couch.

Too funny.

Showing up at 6am for work really stinks

2008-10-18T04:24:00.003-05:00

...especially when you do it on the wrong day. Worse, it's pitch black outside and cold. And I was locked out of the bakery for what seemed like ages (well, 25 minutes) since I arrived way before the Friday baker. Why the hell would my boss schedule me to work at 6:00 if no one arrived until 6:15 at earliest??

Then I found out the schedule said I was working Saturday, not Friday. I was absolutely livid - surely my boss changed the schedule on me last minute. On the way home I'm having a mental shouting match with him about not messing with my schedule and making last minute changes without telling me!

When I get home and look at my scrawled note, oops. Did I really write Saturday??

I'm having one of those weeks. So, it's Saturday at 5:20am, and I'm giving this another whirl. Hopefully I can't screw up twice in a row!

Super Cutie-pie Zoobies

2008-10-16T20:19:00.008-05:00

Holy moly! Craft mania today in the Knitticrafty household. I can't believe it, I actually sat down and attached all the heads on these little animals!! Now I just need to paint some faces on them..wait and see what becomes of this little zoo.

(Oct 17, 08 - I forgot to mention that the pattern for these animals comes from the book Play Quilts by Kristen Kolstad Addison)

I'm going to bed super early tonight, as I am expected to crawl to work at 6am tomorrow. I think I am pretty sure I don't see bread and breakfast pastry baker in my future...anyhow, enjoy the animals.

Entrelac, Socks and Mohair

2008-10-16T12:23:00.006-05:00

Though it may not seem it, I've actually been knitting... from left to right:

1) Mohair Portrait Scarf by Veronik Avery in Kidsilk Haze (which, I confess, is some of the most expensive yarn I have ever splurged on...) I got a good chunk of the scarf done en route to Zarafa's wedding.
2) Entrelac Scarf by Allison LoCicero in Lang Mille Colori, which I bought THREE years ago in Chicago. Wow, that was a long time ago. I am loving knitting entrelac. I don't even know what that word means, but it's lovely. This thing is addictive to knit. It's hard to put it down.
3) Socks for Veronik by Mona Schmidt, from the Interweave Holiday Knits 2007 issue. I'm using some weird string-like variegated blue sock yarn I bought on sale a few years ago...can't wait to be done with it.

It feels like forever since I finished a knitted project! I've got all sorts of things piled up in corners around the house and I've been lazy about finishing them. Urgh. I wouldn't say I'm in a crafting rut, b/c I've always got lots of ideas for things I want to make, but I'm definitely in a 'get it done' kind of rut. To up our motivation, Devon convinced me that we should both post our progress shots every day we craft; accountability should theoretically result in some increase in productivity.

Well, this is totally not the craft I intended on doing today, but what the heck. Sewing can wait. I blocked the partly knitted entrelac to see how big it got, and boy did it grow in the water. It's a big one! I think I can bind off now...

Crossing Borders

2008-10-13T20:12:00.004-05:00

So, my boss calls me this morning and asks in a strangely cheerful but accusatory tone, 'Are you making the buckeyes over there??'.

Me: 'Um, yes. Is everything OK?'

'This woman just called me to say she loves our buckeyes. She wants six dozen shipped to Texas this week. So. Can you make them?'

Me: 'Sure'

My buckeyes are infiltrating Texas!!

The Making...of an Assistant Pastry Chef!

2008-10-09T20:15:00.009-05:00

I suddenly just remembered: somehow, with all that's been going on in the last two weeks, I forgot to mention something very exciting....ready?

I was promoted to 'Assistant Pastry Chef' at the bakery! My first actual pastry position! Yippee!

Not made by me, but you get the idea.

As soon as I said yes, Imposter Syndrome set in... What? Me? I don't even have professional training! What do I know? The title definitely sounds a lot more impressive than the actual work I'm doing. Translated in objective terms, it just means that I'm working out of the main bakery several days a week, starting early morning (6am...yikes), and only doing cake decorating and finishing pastries. And, honestly, right now I'm definitely the new kitchen bitch (ever read Heat by Bill Buford? His descriptions of being a kitchen bitch are hilarious - a great book, I'd highly recommend it).

So far, it appears I have been assigned to carrot cake and strawberry shortcake duty. The cakes are already baked, so I do the leveling, cutting, filling and finishing and slicing. I've decorated about 30 cakes at this point. When I'm not doing cakes, I'm assembling pastry sampler boxes and keeping the pastry display case nice and full. I fill eclairs, cannolis, decorate cupcakes, mini cheesecakes, sugar cookies, petit fours, truffles, brownies and more. Last week, I piped something like three hundred Jack o' lantern faces - the bakery is on a big Halloween kick - and my hand muscles ached for days afterward. I'll probably develop a huge thumb muscles soon.

It's been a good experience so far - creatively, there isn't much room to grow, but two important skills I'm learning are speed, and efficiency of movement. When you make a cake at home, it's different - you make all the components yourself from scratch, have endless dishes to do, but you only have one item to focus on. Everything you need is within an arm's length. At the bakery, it's the opposite - everything I need is pretty much at my disposal, but spread out all over the place, so I have to remember to grab all the equipment at once, otherwise it's endless trips back and forth. Also, I'm not making one, but at least 3 or 5 or 8 cakes, so it's not like I have endless time to spend perfecting my decorating. Perfectionistic tendencies can be good, but unless you're a fast worker, it will hold you back. Right now I work way slower than all the other pastry cooks - but I'm learning.

When I was reading The Making of a Chef, one of the things Michael Ruhlman talked about was the organization and multitasking involved in cooking, and the importance of having your 'mise en place' (everything in its place); in particular, a mental 'mise en place' that serves as your road map to getting everything done. My mental 'mise en place' currently sucks. It's getting better, but it's hard to remember everything. Part of this, I think, will come with experience and getting to know my way around the kitchen. Right now, it's a lot of "Oops, forgot the cake board. Oh, I need almonds too. I forgot the spatula. Damn, I should have grabbed the cake comb while I was getting the board:. What can I say, I'm learning.

Multitasking and organization are probably two of my best strengths, and, as weird as it sounds, are two things I love about working - aside from the specific skill needed for the job, that is. The more variety there is, the more to be done and to be organized, the more planning involved, the more excited I am about it. I seriously get a rush when I am in multitasking mode. Some people get it from daredevil stunts, some people get it from performing on stage...I get it from planning and organizing stuff. My last job, which was totally unrelated to pastry, was multitasking heaven. I loved doing clinical work and seeing patients, but looking back, I think I liked the organizational challenge just as much. Wedding planning? Moving? Don't get me started :)

The last few months of working in the bakery has got me thinking a lot about why I enjoy pastry work, especially cake decorating. The two I just mentioned are definitely part of it. Here's the rest of the list so far: I enjoy the crafty aspect, the making-it-with-my-own-hands satisfaction; the artsy aspect of it, in the decorating and detail work; the learning aspect, in mastering new techniques, skills, methods...there is so much to know! Plus, the small business part of it really interests me too...organization galore! But that's for the future. For now, I've got to get through carrot cake boot camp.

Here comes the Bride!

2008-10-07T20:11:00.020-05:00

Did you guess what the white dome was?

This past weekend was Z's wedding shower and bachelorette party, and I made her this little bride cake for the occasion!

I can't quite remember when the obsession started, but for the longest time I have wanted to make a Barbie doll cake (just ask D). I saw one like this on Cake Central, and loved how elegant it looked as a black dress form modeling the wedding gown. Inside, it's a lemon cake, doused in lemon syrup, filled with lemon curd and blueberry preserves, and iced with cream cheese frosting under the fondant. All the details are piped with royal icing.

I have to say, this is my favourite cake to date....it was a super fun to decorate - just like being a kid again and dressing up my dolls. I want to make another one already!! I guess I can, now that I own the Wonder Doll cake pan. Any future brides out there? :)

So, Saturday morning the cake traveled (quite well!) to the shower, where it received many 'oohs' which got a bit embarrassing (although, really...who minds a little ego-flattering??) It appears the bride-to-be enjoyed her cake...here she is, about to make the first cut:

If you look carefully, the groom is peeking out of her hoodie

Between nine of us, we ate about half the cake. I heard that Kodiak enjoyed a nice big chunk of shower cake...lucky doggy!

Ouch! That's my bum!

Considering the outer layer was ripped off and reattached, the inside doesn't look half bad:

* * HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BRIDE CAKE* *

This took a little bit of planning, as I didn't want to be making it last minute and messing up the decorating. So, my cake schedule was as such:

Tuesday: I made the lemon curd with Devon (in an impromptu baking lesson)

Wednesday: I made the lemon syrup and cream cheese frosting

Thursday: I baked, filled and iced the cake. There was a bit of a disaster with the cake - the entire outer surface ripped off when I was turning it out of the pan, probably because the cake was still too hot, and unfortunately this was one of the only times I didn't line with parchment thinking that a cone shape would be easy to invert. Luckily, I managed to salvage the outer portion and stick it back on and glue the whole thing together with the cream cheese icing. The whole thing went in the fridge in two layers of plastic wrap to settle.
Friday: Dyed the fondant, covered the cake and piped the royal icing details.

Having a schedule was really helpful, and I think being organized made the process more enjoyable, rather than running out of time for decorating (like I have done several times in the past). Plus, there would be time to make another cake if the baking didn't go well. And, it felt like there was less clean up because everything was done in stages.

1. Dye a walnut-sized ball of fondant black (wear gloves, or prepare to have black hands). Dye a large clump of fondant in ivory for the dress and the bust.

2. Covering the doll pick:

First, pull off Barbie's arms and head (I know it sounds mean but how else will you have a lovely dressform?) Snap off the little pokey bit on the neck. Form three tiny 0.5 cm balls of black fondant and press them on the neck and two shoulder sockets to create a smooth edges for the rest of the black fondant to mould to.
Roll out the remaining black fondant to about 1/8 inch thick and drape over the neck and shoulders, as if covering a cake. Gently press the fondant against Barbie's upper body.

To reduce bulk on the dress bodice, trim the black fondant where the top of the bodice will fall (just use a paring knife)

Next, wash your hands thoroughly! If there is any trace of black, it will stain the ivory fondant, so put on gloves if you have to (or, you can do these steps in reverse order starting with covering the cake first)

Roll out a walnut-sized ball of ivory fondant, and drape over the pick-end of Barbie's body. Carefully press the fondant against the doll to the edge of the black fondant. Again, using the paring knife, trim the ivory fondant in the shape of the bodice. Press the black and ivory edges together to form a complete seal.

3. Covering the cake:

Ice the cake so that it has a nice, smooth, domed shape. I applied another layer of icing to the photo below.

Roll out your fondant and drape over the cake, which will create the dress ruffles naturally. You can straighten the ruffles out a bit if they fall unevenly, if that bothers you. Trim with scissors or a sharp knife.

4. Almost done! Time to insert the doll pick into the centre of the cake:

5. Finally, make a small amount royal icing tinted in ivory. Pipe the dress details on the bodice, the waist, and the skirt, and anywhere else you want. You could pipe a necklace, or add ribbon trim, flowers, dots, lace...the possibilities are endless! (Gold or silver dragee would be pretty too - I searched my entire apartment but couldn't remember where I had stashed them, so no sparklies for me).

Last but not least, giving credit where it's due. Here's the photo from Cake Central that inspired my cake:

Whew, that was a long post. Enjoy!

What's this?

2008-10-07T15:18:00.004-05:00

Still putting together the blog post, but here's a sneak peek. Can you guess what it is?

Raspberry Chocolate French Macarons

2008-10-06T08:00:00.001-05:00

My first batch of the French macarons...and look! They've got feet! They've got feet!!

French macarons are infamously finicky to make, and supposedly even experienced pastry cooks can botch them up too, although probably far less frequently than amateur bakers. I had a lot of egg whites leftover from making a lemon tart, so I thought macarons would be a fun thing to try - they look so pretty and dainty. Tiny food is fun!

I had no idea French macarons were so popular to bake among pastry bloggers and foodies! I couldn't believe the number of blogs I found that referenced them. Here are a few: My Food Geek, Tartelette (who wrote a fantastic 'Macarons 101' article in downloadable pdf format), Serious Eats, Veronica's Test Kitchen, Mad Baker. You'll be able to link to lots of other info on macarons from these sites.

After a ton of reading, I decided on a chocolate raspberry macaron based on this recipe from Epicurious, but used the basic macaron batter recipe from Serious Eats. I was honestly expecting my macarons to be pretty disastrous - cracked, mishapen and footless (macarons form little ruffles at their base if made properly). Imagine my shock when the macarons turned out beautifully! Yippee!

Actually, I should say they looked beautiful; the texture was a little off. French macarons are meant to be crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside. Unlike American style macaroons, they are made only of egg white, ground almond, and sugar. My guess is that I overbaked them, or that it had something to do with the egg whites not whipping up properly. No matter. I'm still very happy that they developed feet! Plus the chocolate ganache makes everything better.

A few notes from my first batch:

All the recipes said to leave the egg whites out at room temperature, with the length of time varying anywhere between 30 minutes to 72 hours! This freaked me out somewhat, as I was expecting a moldy mess, but it was fine. Apparently this helps them whip up to a greater volume.
I had trouble whipping my egg whites up properly, probably because there was some residual grease on the beaters (from making buttercream icing). Note to self: wash all egg white equipment very well next time, and wipe down with a bit of lemon juice.
The whites only ever reached a soft peak stage, so batter was quite loose and runny.
All the recipes and notes I read online said to mix the batter until it reached a 'magma-like consistency'. How am I supposed to know how magma flows if I've never seen it? I can only imagine. So I guessed.
When I piped my macarons, the batter was so runny that each one spread rapidly and looked very flat:

I left them out for about 20 minutes to form a skin (to avoid cracks, I think) and encourage the development of feet (I think)

OK, I'll be honest. Not all of them turned out prettily...here is the tasty reject pile. Stay tuned for more adventures with macarons, this time with lemon!