Happy New Year chocolate cake

A friend of mine gave me a beautiful Christmas present: a cookbook called "Jam and Honey" by Hannah Queen. Here's her blog. The pictures are gorgeous and the recipes look enticing. I thought it would be fun to welcome the New Year by inviting chocolate cake into my home, so I made the dark chocolate flourless cake with pomegranate ganashe from my new book. I love a rich flourless chocolate cake. They are so decadent and seem so fancy even though they are fairly simple to make. In fact, the part of this recipe that took the longest time was the harvesting of the pomegranate seeds and making the juice. Otherwise, it was a piece of cake, so to speak. 

Little jewels. I decided the most effective way to squeeze juice out of these jewels would be to use my food mill. It worked quite well. I squeezed the pulp with my hands too which yielded a bit more juice. 

 Here is the cake fresh out of the oven.

The pomegranates burst as you chew, which is fun and delicious. 

On a knitting note, I finished a baby blanket. I love knitting blankets in the round. You can use the blanket as a pouch to hold the yarn! 

It's fun when the stitches are all smooshed up on the needles and when you cast off they are freed to be the blanket they were meant to be. 

Fresh off the needles and blocking. 

I used Bernat "softee baby cotton" yarn and the pattern I made up as I went along. 

Happy New Year! 

From one hat to another

I was searching for the perfect yarn to use for a Christmas present when I found it-in my finished hats bin, knitted up into a hat already. I love knitting hats and creating experimental patterns. I knitted this hat with a tube on top. It reminded me of the Snorks, rememer those?

Anyway, it was a failed hat to be honest; too big for a small person, and probably too crazy for most big people. I decided to turn it into a different and more successful hat.

There are times, when reusing yarn, in which one would unravel the project, rewind it into a skein, wash it, dry it, and wind it into a ball to be used again. This was not one of those times. I just knit one hat straight into another. This was Christmas knitting after all, time is too precious when knitting holiday gifts.

I wanted to make stripes so I found a contrasting yarn in the recipient's favorite color and of I went.

 And done. I had previously knitted a child sized scarf with the same yarn so it was a perfect gift set! 

Happy Christmas to those who celebrate. Bring on the season of light!

Christmas Mania

During the year I knit things here and there and think, "I could give that to someone for Christmas." It's not well thought out, it's just kind of vague. Then the Christmas season comes and I freak out. "I need to make 5 hats, three pairs of socks, four pairs of mittens, what's the best yarn for this children's project? What is this person's favorite color?" etc.  I have to get specific so I start stash diving for the perfect yarn for each project. Of course, none of the yarns I come up with are quite right, or I get distracted and see all my beautiful yarn and all it's potential and I cast on a bunch of non-christmas projects, and before I know it, I'm up to my ears in projects. That's when I have to give myself a talking to and get with the Christmas knitting program. So here's where I am now:

Two right mittens. (I could blame this on that I have a toddler, but let's face it, I probably would have made this mistake at any point in my knitting life).

Two baby mittens which I'm trying to knit at the same time so it gives me the illusion of going faster. 

A half knitted toy, also, I freaked out and cast on a pair of socks for no one in particular, as well as a lace weight shawl. I have three hats done but I 

still need to start one more. We'll see what happens. There's still time.

On an arts note, I watched the film "YARN" written by Krishan Arora and directed by Heather Millard, Una Lorenzen, and Þórdur Bragi Jónsson. It features quotes written and read by Barbara Kingsolver which were lovely and poetic. It focuses on four artistic perspectives. I found it interesting that crochet was the focus of three out of the four artists. Crochet is often overshadowed by knitting. But these women brought to light some ways in which crochet is strong and well suited for certain projects. It was a film worth watching. It was thought provoking for me. I loved watching the artistic thought behind the nets which were created for children to play on. There is a rebellious thread running through the film which I also appreciate, and the subject matter is well suited to the fluidity of film.

Well, I had better post this before days go by. Back to the Christmas knitting!

Let's Begin Again

Well, it's been a few years since my last post. I've hemmed and hawed about deleting my blog, the blogosphere is so saturated now. Do I have anything to contribute? And I'm kind of a private person, so I had to think about it for a while. Ultimately, I need to practice writing or I will forget all the beautiful vocabulary words I have learned over my lifetime like denouement and languor. And there is a difference when people can actually read your work. It creates a sort of accountability.

Making and crafting will still be a main focus but there will be other life reflections too. Not to get all profound or anything, but just to notice things out loud. 
In the creative realm since I last wrote, I There are so many topics i could have been writing about; like learning to knit, crafting mistakes, grieving and making, screen printing, candle making, humming bird battles, weaving, plus all the inspiring makers I have come across over the past few years. So, I will write up some flashback posts as well as some current event posts and see where that leads me.

Picture Frames Mural

This is another work related craft. It could be cute in someone's home as well! I use it to post the children's art. I just painted the frames directly onto the wall with acrylic paint. You can't really tell in this picture but I mixed silver into the black so it wouldn't be so stark.

This is one of my favorite things ever. I had to kind of walk on the construction area to get the picture and the next day it was gone. Good thing I snapped a picture!

Origami Cows 1-6

This is work related crafting. First, I folded origami cows and then I contact papered them to the wall so the children could see and touch them, but could not rip them off as children are so inclined to do. We have fun counting the cows and mooing!