Eat your heart out

The refreshments for my small quilting group last night came in three sizes: big guilt, bite-sized guilt, or no guilt (the strawberries).

Most opted for a large guilt with no guilt on the side. It all evens out, I guess.

I found the brownie recipe on Martha Stewart, but I replaced the unsweetened chocolate with Ghirardelli's Intense Dark, Twilight Delight. De-ca-dent.

In the Meantime

Although I have all the projects I mentioned last week still in the works, I decided to knit a pair of socks for Valentine's Day.



Be Mine from the book 2-at-a-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes. As with the last pair of socks I knit, I made both socks in tandem, one per pair of circs and using two separate skeins of Knit Picks Palette, fingering weight yarn in the flagrantly poignant color name Red. (It's actually refreshing to not see strained names such as Flashpoint Red or Hearthside Red on the ball band. If this hue had a more flamboyant name, it'd probably be Prickly Heat Red or Digital Clock Red, something bright, exuberant, and kinda annoying.)

These Be Mine socks ARE mine. No giving these puppies away. I do have to say, however, that while this pair of socks fit me, mostly, I think I'm going to knit socks in a tighter gauge from here on out. The bottom part of the heel on each foot still pooches a little over the backs of my clogs. I'd like the heels to be smoother.

Other than that, though, I HEART my heart socks. And they're wool! Another first for me.

Works in Progress

We have way too many recipes. Most of the excess comes from recipe magazines we've collected over the years. So, one of this year's projects is to vet the mags and various internet recipes I've printed out. Here's one we're going to keep:



Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies.

Instead of icing them, I dusted them with powedered sugar. I've had the set of miniature cookie cutters for awhile, thanks to a sister-in-law. I won the set during one of her Christmas Open House games. The recipe makes hordes of miniature cookies.


I have several other works in progress going on right now. In my 2009 quest to use yarn in my stash before I buy any, I've got a bag and a blanket crammed into my chair-side knitting trunk.



Windmill Bag

The pattern is for a cotton bag, but I'm using wool yarn. I doubled the width of each panel and lengthened them so I can felt the bag to a normal size. I hope. I'm guessing the math, of course, so I've got nothing but adventure ahead of me.



Waterfall Throw (Ravelry link)

I'm hoping this one will turn out as a decent thank you blanket for someone who helped us tremendously on Dad's house. I have two afghans to make, and the first afghan was a flop. I'm not going to post a picture of it here lest looking at it turns you to stone. It was wonky, and the chenille yarn wormed wildly. It's kinda like cuddling with a shag rug that keeps whispering "Feed me, Seymour."

My last work in progress is a left turn, happy accident from what I had intended for the thrift store sweater. I bought the sweater--along with a boat load of other ones--during Goodwill's annual dollar sale at the end of the year. I was going to unravel the sweater and reclaim the cotton yarn. BUT I didn't notice that the shoulder seams had been serged (cutting the yarn in the process, rendering it useless for winding easily) until I'd already removed the collar. Sooo, I decided to make a bag out of the thing. It's got beautiful cables. Here's what I've done so far.



It's the first time I've used fusible Peltex. It fused to the back of the sweater without a hitch, but the thickness is a little hard on my sewing machine. So, I'm proceeding slowly to reduce the frustration factor.


Now for a confession... I have acquired some new yarn. Before I was allowed to. The first two skeins, however, I am not counting as a 2009 acquisition because it was set aside for me in 2008 as a prize from the yarn shop hop.



Sock yarn!

The next TEN SKEINS (of Wool-Ease Thick and Quick) are meant to replace the befouled blanket I might be too ashamed to give to a house fire victim. So, while I'm making myself count them in my 2009 purchases, I'm not feeling a bit of guilt about having bought them before I used up twice as much yarn from what I already have.

I think that's enough to keep me busy for a while. I'll try to post again before the month is out to let you know how it's going.

And, okay, Melanie... I KNOW I said last night that I was doing only practical stuff lately. I guess, not really. Lord knows I don't need another bag.