Archive for 2015 June

Friday Roundup: Vacation Edition!

What I’m Knitting

I’m on vacation! (A working vacation, but still.) My husband and son and I are out in the Seattle, WA area for the wedding of a family friend. Ordinarily, many hours on a plane means I’d have plenty of knitting progress to show off… but as any parent knows, taking an almost-one-year-old on a 5 hr + flight does not make for a lot of knitting time. He did really well, but there was a lot of wrangling!

I did, however, manage to stop by a really cool yarn store yesterday when we were wandering around the Pike Place Market area. So Much Yarn is cute and friendly, with an excellent selection of yummy stuff and a great view of the Sound. I was with a group of non-knitters, so I kept my browsing short, but I managed to snag this gorgeous skein of Wonderland Yarns March Hare in Curiouser.

I saw this yarn at TNNA last year and have been dying to try it out! I’m hoping I can get a little vest for my son out of it! (Apologies for the crappy phone snap. Trust me. It’s stunning.)

What I’m Cooking

Not much at the moment, as you can imagine… but I am eating some seriously yummy stuff in restaurants around here. I eat mostly vegan, as anyone who regularly reads this blog knows, and it’s so refreshing to see so many vegan options everywhere!

I did manage to bake some very tasty banana blueberry muffins before we left, however:

What I’m Reading:

I didn’t take my current book with me on the trip, because it’s A) a library book and B) huge. Instead, I’m re-reading a book from one of my favorite authors, Jennifer Crusie. It’s like comfort food in book form:

Friday Roundup: Baby Hat Edition

What I’m Knitting

I know I said I’d be working on the green textured sweater design this week, but I had to put that on hold for some emergency baby knitting (we’ve all been there, right?). A good friend of mine just had a baby boy a few days ago, so I cast on this mini-sized Koolhaas Hat for her little guy:

The yarn is buttery-soft Knit Picks Comfy in a lovely heathered gray colorway. This is my first time using Comfy, and I really like it! It’s 75% cotton, 25% acrylic, which is just about the perfect blend for my taste. It isn’t as heavy or unyielding as 100% cotton, and the touch of acrylic makes it really easy to wash.

Just when I was at the decreases of that hat, I decided I wanted to work up a little hat for a baby shower I’m attending tomorrow. This decision may or may not have been influenced by the fact that the guest of honor had another baby shower in a different town last week, and every. single. thing was purchased off their registry when I looked a few days ago. Oh well–one of a kind presents are good too, right?

So I cast on a super-quick baby bonnet this morning and have been knitting furiously in the car on the way to run errands (when I wasn’t the one driving, of course!). This one is also in Knit Picks cotton, some Simply Cotton Worsted left over from my Kari Baby Blanket. I’m ready for the decreases and on track to get it finished tonight:

What I’m Cooking

Another round of the delicious, wine-infused mushroom stroganoff (this time with added broccoli to up the veggies) over quinoa pasta:

I had a head of cauliflower to use up a few days later and was planning to roast it… but that took about 45 minutes and the husband and son were hungry now. So I steamed it and mashed it with garlic, Earth Balance spread, and chives from the garden, then served it with veggie burgers. Delicious! The baby LOVED it. He ate a whole plate by himself.

What I’m Reading

I’m still working on The Dream Thieves–but I do have some other writing/reading related news! One of my manuscripts is in a really cool online contest called The Writer’s Voice (modeled after the show The Voice, apparently, but I’ve never seen it so that doesn’t mean much to me!). The contest entries went live today, and in a few days, literary agents are going to request to see manuscripts they find interesting. Wish me luck! If you’d like to check out my entry, it’s here.

Friday Roundup: Decisions, Decisions

What I’m Knitting

The 3/4 sleeves for the sweater in progress are now done! So that means I’m ready to join and start raglan shaping:

I have to figure out how I want to do the raglan lines. I’m not a huge fan of the simple p2tog/ssp decreases for reverse-stockinette sweaters, so I’ll have to play around a bit and see what I want to do. Stay tuned!

What I’m Cooking:

Vegan, gluten-free stuffed peppers (with quinoa and zucchini and lots of other good stuff). They were very tasty, but next time I’ll cook them longer–the peppers themselves were a little tough.

An easy weekday stir fry over rice, with white asparagus. It was tasty, but honestly, I didn’t notice much of a difference from regular asparagus. But isn’t it pretty?

And faced with a banana tree full of overripe fruit, I made banana muffins. We were out of walnuts, so I went with almonds. They were really good! I might make them this way again next time.

What I’m Reading

I finally finished The Raven Boys (that ending! OMG!) and started the sequel, The Dream Thieves. It’s excellent so far:

Friday Roundup: You’ll Have to Take My Word for It

What I’m Knitting

I made some progress on the sweater sleeve I was talking about last week, but reverse stockinette doesn’t make for very exciting pictures:

Although I guess that line of loose stitches at the place where the DPNs change is exciting (for a certain value of the word). I’ll have to do some major tugging during blocking to get that to even out.

What I’m Cooking

My mom had a birthday last week and we hosted a party for 20 people at our house. My mom’s a strict vegan, so I went all out on my share of the potluck lunch: stuffed mushrooms, coleslaw, and the pièce de résistance: a vegan, gluten-free, refined-sugar-free cheesecake.

And I got exactly zero pictures of any of it. Bummer. But trust me, it was all beautiful and very very tasty.

I made an enchilada casserole later in the week and missed getting pictures of that too… but I did remember after I heated up my leftovers! This is one of those dishes where the leftovers almost taste better than fresh.

Nom. Comfort food at its finest.

What I’m Reading

Still working on The Raven Boys (which is getting really, really good!). Maybe when my son stops teething I can sneak in a little more reading at night before bed, sigh.