Coffee cozy

I received a super cute ceramic coffee mug from Santa this year, but the mug has a chalky feeling to the fingers.  I wanted to knit up a cozy for it, and found one via Pinterest.  I decided to utilize my Sunday football watching time to do something slightly productive, and whipped this up in less than 3 quarters of the Ravens vs Patriots match!  

I adapted the pattern from Sitting Tree blog.  Honestly, it was a mistake from a different blog that required my adaptation, as it had the wrong number of stitches cast on at the beginning, requiring I changed the buttonholes slightly so I wouldn't have to rip back the whole thing.  I hate nothing more than frogging a project!  I cast on 12 stitches, and like the size it turned out, but if you have a larger mug, you may want to follow the original pattern.

Knit Night!

First things first, we finally got our raspberry canes in the ground! Mark came over once again to help with some big time limb removal from the cedar tree that hangs over our north fence, and with that done, we had a ton more sunshine streaming into the area. Kevin leveled it all out, we loaded several bags of compost in, and voila! Raspberries! That was last weekend, and some of them are already starting to sprout some nice little blossoms! We'll have at least a few little berries this summer! :)
Onto this weekend: I have had several friends ask me to teach them to knit recently, and I thought I would just throw a party where I could pair up experienced knitters with beginners. At one point I was getting pretty overwhelmed because there were 12 women who wanted to learn, and no experienced knitters! Yikes! But as the day approached, many people had to bail for various reasons, and it ended up being a perfect size for me to teach, 3 wonderful women came to learn! I could probably fit one more, but anymore than that would have been complete chaos!

Here's the gorgeous bouquet my lovely friend Taylor brought as a housewarming gift. They smell soooooo good in my dining room, and go nicely with the other bouquets I put about the house yesterday!

My inner teacher came out in full force, and I made up little cards about different aspects of knitting along with examples sitting out for my pupils to take a look at as they got settled in. It was fun throwing together some of the information I have learned over the last few years of knitting and share it with such eager learners!

I wish I'd remembered to take a picture of everything all set up, but it was too exciting showing off my house to everyone to remember that! :)

After munching on some yummy snacks, we got down to the business of knitting! I was really nervous to teach everyone, I had no idea what I was going to say really, but I'd practiced my stitches and figured out ways of showing how to do it in an exaggerated way so they would be able to more easily see the stitches. It turned out really well! I showed everyone how to cast on, and then let them try it and gave them individual help as they had trouble. I had them try it several times in the hopes that when they get home they'll be able to remember how to do it!

Taylor and Heidi, hard at work!

Tiffany hopes to make a couple scarves for her little boys, in Cougar colors! I think she will be very successful!

The always adorable Heidi shows off her finished square!

The whole gang!

They learned all the basics, casting on, knit stitch, purl stitch, and how to cast off. I hadn't intended on teaching them how to purl, since it's pretty difficult to get the hang of as a beginner, but they were such eager learners, I couldn't fight them! I think it all turned out well, and I am proud of what everyone accomplished! We feasted on chicken enchiladas that I made, as well as deviled eggs Heidi made and yummy goat cheese and olive bread Taylor made. And dessert was so good, Tiffany brought homemade angel food cake with strawberries and real whipped cream! It was such a fun night! Thanks ladies for giving me the perfect first teaching experience! I hope to do it again with some more beginners, and to continue having knitting parties in the future! :)

A Holiday Feast

For Valentines Day, Kevin wanted to make me a Chinese New Year Feast to celebrate, and I do not turn down husband-made food. My man can cook! :) He wanted everything to be a surprise, so he went off shopping on his own, and came back with vast quantities of Chinese ingredients, and set to work at 10am! First on the menu were pork pot stickers, or Jiaozi, which are said to resemble gold nuggets and bring wealth in the new year! Let me tell you, once you have had homemade potstickers, the frozen ones from Costco just won't cut it anymore! Luckily, he made lots, so we have some frozen for when my next pot sticker craving strikes!

Pork+ginger+garlic+green onions=YUM!

What a pro! Perfectly filled!

Yeah, you can start drooling anytime now!

The final one was a fatty, needed to be photoed!

He served these as appetizers before he got down to the business of dinner cooking! I just kept "mmmmmm, mmmmmm"ing the entire time I was eating them!

On the menu for dinner was Chow Fun, a beef, bell pepper, and noodle pile of deliciousness! It is traditional to eat noodles for the new year, and one is supposed to eat each noodle without breaking it. This is difficult for the chopstick-impaired! I couldn't believe how good this tasted, and I have been thoroughly enjoying leftovers! We also had Jiangcai, which were amazing sauteed bok choy and broccoli veggies in oyster sauce.

For dessert, he made nian gao, which was...interesting. It wasn't the best thing on the menu, but it satisfied the need for dessert nonetheless! :) Overall, a totally amazing New Year/Valnetines celebration! Thank you for spoiling me, Kevin! :)

Yesterday, Kevin had the day off to celebrate some presidents or something, so he took some gorgeous photos in the yard while the sun was shining! Everything is so pretty! So excited to continue seeing what comes up in the yard!

Camellia I mean azalea, thanks Susan!

Vinca

A much better photo of the pink thing!

Crocus

Pussywillow!

The crocuses just keep coming!

In addition to viewing the Olympics, I'm also participating in them. The Knitting Olympics that is! I know, I'm such a nerd! :) Basically, the idea is to knit something that will be challenging to complete between the lighting and extinguishing of the Olympic torch. I don't have the greatest sense of how much I can knit when I set my mind to it, but I think I chose a good project. I can't show exactly what I'm making, because it's a present for my baby niece coming in July (squeeeeeeal, a girl!!!!!) but here's a sneak peek at it! It's coming along quite nicely, and I have full faith that I will be able to finish before the torch is extinguished at the end of the Vancouver Games.

Scarves Galore!

This winter, it became clear to me that I have failed my husband. He did not own a single solitary scarf! How can the husband of a knitter not have a scarf? Well, it took me a couple months to complete it, but he is now the proud owner of a hand knit scarf.
I followed the This Way Up pattern found on Ravelry. It was a really nice pattern with the perfect amount of interesting changes. Scarves can get awfully boring after awhile! I also took this as my first opportunity to try out blocking. Blocking is basically getting a garment wet and then shaping and stretching it to your desired shape and size. It makes things look really pretty and finished, and can give length when you stop short on a scarf, which I am prone to do! This scarf was definitely not too short, but the edges were curling in on themselves, so I thought I'd give it a shot! I used my iron on steam setting, and I think next time I do it, I will use more pins and more steam, but it worked pretty well.

All laid out for drying after being steamed and set into place.

See the pretty chevron pattern?

Damn having such a tall husband!

In the middle of the scarf, it switches directions so that both sides point up. This was the hardest part of the pattern, but eventually I figured it out!

But the scarf excitement doesn't end there! Last week, the Seattle Sounders FC did a campaign around the city, putting up scarves in several neighborhoods for people to take and show their pride with! They canvassed Phinney Ridge, and Kevin went out to see if he could get any for us. Most of them were way out of reach, on the tops of light poles and such, that one would need a ladder to get down, but he did find on in the community center's garden. That one may have been dropped unintentionally, but he took it and was very excited to have his own. That afternoon, my friend Danielle and I were heading out for a walk around Green Lake, and tried to get the few left that we saw down, but they were too high up for a couple of shorties.

Then later this week, I came into work, and sitting on my desk was a present from Danielle! She had found one of the scarves outside of work the night before, and nabbed it for me! What an awesome friend!!! I was so thrilled (especially because I really didn't want to have to knit one for myself after spending so much time on Kevin's scarf!)

Well, the excitement continued yesterday. When Kevin was biking through Fremont to go to school, the Sounders had struck again! He said there was somewhere around 40 scarves hung up in various areas of Fremont, and he had come prepared with his pocketknife to cut some down! They were all ziptied to posts and whatnot. So he cut one down, and then waited a little while, then cut another down and waited awhile. He didn't want to look greedy, but he needed 4 more scarves to deck out the family for our first match next week! So all told, we now have 6 scarves: me, Kevin, Adam, Erin, Neal, and Susan! No mini ones for Corbchops, but maybe an auntie will have to remedy that! Are scarves safe for 9 month olds? Perhaps some wristbands or a hat? :)

Look ma, it's reversible!

Apparently, Kevin has a scarf pose!

So we are looking forward to the first match on Thursday, should be a very exciting event! Everyone root for the Sounders! WOOOOHOOOO! Oh, we also got our tix for opening day for the Mariners, so let baseball AND soccer season begin!

A lesson in pizza making

For Christmas Kevin and I received an awesome pizza stone and peel from my lovely sister Lauren. We have been itching to try it out ever since, and saw fit to invite a bunch of friends over last night to give it a whirl! We made two kinds of dough, a whole wheat one that Adam gave us the recipe for, and one white dough that we made from our bread machine cookbook. We made both doughs in the bread machine, though the whole wheat one needed a little help in the mkixing process. We've found that the whole wheat dough seems to be too heavy for the machine to mix properly when we make big batches. But nevertheless, the dough rose, and we went to work piling the ingredients on!

Chef Kevin rolls out the dough

Our first success! We were thrilled by the delicious results of the first three pies we pulled out of the oven. And then, disaster struck:

Kevin accidently made the final (and largest, and cheesiest) pizza on the cutting board instead of directly on the peel. When we try to transfer the pie onto the peel, it got stretched out pretty bad, and then when we slid it into the oven, we think it might have split, allowing some of the ingredients to end up directly on the stone where it immediatly burned on. Removal of the pizza was difficult, and ended up in our most "rustic" pizza. It was yummy, but clean up has been less than fun.

All in all though, we feel we had great success and can't wait to give it another try in the near future! We think everyone liked the pizza, as of four pies there is nothing left! :)

In other news, I FINALLY finished the other sock for Susan's Christmas present.

The carpet does not go well with the socks, but they seem to suit Susan well!

I actually finished it as she was walking in our door last night for a quick visit, and she immediately put them on, which was the greatest thing ever for me! I am very pleased with how they turned out, and hope that they keep her feet warm in THE SNOW THAT IS FALLING AGAIN! Sheesh! I must be getting old, because I am so over the snow...unless it bars me from going to work, in which case, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! :)