dual purpose cozy

As it turns out, the carboy cozy I designed for my husband's beer making has a dual purpose, it works well for a large-pumpkin-cozy too:

Can't wait to carve this thing tonight! Woo hoo!

I want to... cut my hair!

Today I happen to catch Pink being interviewed on The View - and decided that that's the hairstyle I want. I want to chop my hair that short.

Now, I wasn't necessarily watching The View because I like that show, I rarely follow it, mainly because Elisabeth whats-her-name drives me bonkers. And, despite liking a few songs, I can't call myself a huge Pink fan, but I like her style. And I love the hair she had today.

I've no idea if that hairstyle would look good on me or not, because I've eternally not been able to get a good hair cut - like ever. Maybe if I can find a printable pic of that kind of style, I'll bring it in somewhere to see if I can get my hair chopped that way.

olympic scarves

I read in the current issue of knitsimple magazine the need to make some scarves for the Special Olympics - a pattern is available via the link, but I followed the pattern in the magazine. So far I've only knit half a skein of each colour and wound up with two scarves, which I'll mail this week, and finish knitting the rest of the skeins later on, hopefully have them mailed before the end of November.

a scarf

I found this Woolly Bully yarn when I went to the Creativ Festival the weekend before last - turned out making a fantastic garter stitch scarf.

I also bought a skein of Malabrigo (sp?) - in a great shade of orange. Just because I've read a lot of people on Ravelry bragging about it, I wanted to see what all the buzz was about. It's fantastically dyed and wonderfully soft. Just have to find the right pattern for it!

Autumn Soup (aka Squash & Pumpkin Soup)

Prep & cooking time: about a couple hours - it's a bit of a long process, make sure you've an afternoon free! (It's well worth it, it's so tasty and makes a wicked amount of soup!)


Ingredients:
1 baking pumpkin, halved, seeds and stringy fibers removed and set aside
1 white squash, halved, seeds and stringy fibers removed and set aside
1 butternut squash, halved, seeds and stringy fibers removed and set aside
1 winter squash, halved, seeds and stringy fibers removed and set aside
1 small parsnip
1 yukon gold potato
1 sweet potato
1 turnip
3 tblsp sesame seed or vegetable oil (sesame seed oil is preffered, it's got a delicious nutty flavour)
1-2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 handful fresh sage leaves
1 tblsp fresh ginger, grated
3-3.5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
3 cups water
1 vegetable or mushroom boillon cube
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp marjoram powder
1 tsp coarse salt
black pepper to taste
1 can (170ml) thick cream
1 tblsp brown sugar

Take the halved pumpkin and squashes in a dish, face down, into a preheated oven - 400F - for 50 minutes.

In the meantime, put all the seeds and fibery insides of the squashes and pumpkin in a pot with a tblsp of oil and cook for about 3 minutes. Add broth, water, bouillon cube, sage and thyme, and bring to a boil. Lower to simmer for 10 minutes, then put aside.

Put the rest of the oil at the bottom of a large pan. Add the onion - finely diced - and heat until onions are yellow/golden coloured. Dice the sweet potato, potato, turnip, and parsnip and mix in with the onion. Strain the squash and pumpkin fiber and seeds from the broth and disgard, and add the broth 1 cup at a time, mixing well with the potato mix. Simmer.

When pumpkin and squash are ready, remove from oven, and scoup out pulp from skin and puree in a food processor, along with the ginger. Add to soup, mix well, and simmer for another 5-10 minutes.

Remove from heat. Pass the soup through the food processor again to turn the entire thing into a puree. Mix in curry powder, marjoram, salt, and black pepper. Put back on heat and cook for another 15-20 minutes.

Remove from heat, mix in thick cream and brown sugar, and serve.

Refrigerates up to 7 days, freezes for 6 months.

This makes a boatload of soup, I recommend storing a bunch in the freezer to thaw and nuke for those cold winter days!

completed hat

I haven't done much knitting for myself, but I did manage to finish this hat:

It's a slight adjustment from the original pattern - first, adjusting the pattern for the thicker yarn, and also realizing that once a floppy hat was made, it absolutely didn't look good on me, so I frogged it. But I do like the fact that it's done top-down.

Le Killer Bunny est fini!

Finally finished knitting the killer bunny for the husband! It's hard to tell that there are two bottom fangs, due to the camera angle in each picture, but they're there! Phew!

I've been published!

The new issue of the anticraft - the Samhain '08 issue - has just been put out today, and I'm in! Not once, but twice! Huesos Deliciousos and Calacas de Arcilla are my two contributions to this skullish issue.

There are a few other very cool things as well - a pasta recipe that I'll need to try, and there are a few surprises that'll appear over October that I can't wait to see!

this week has been one of those weeks.

I got around to my bat shawl today, I haven't touched it in a while. I was about 2/3's of the way through my third row of bats, and seriously botched the 1st bat in the pattern severely. I had actually botched it a bit for about 3 or 4 rows, but I was hoping that as I knit, I could fix it. I didn't, it just got worse. At this rate, I wonder if I'll have it done for Halloween?

Oh, but there is a fun thing though: Last saturday, DH and I went to see Spamalot at the Canon Theatre in Toronto, it was so funny and so much fun to watch! And hubby is - like many guys, I think - such a huge fan of Monty Python.

It has inspired me to knit him a killer bunny from theanticraft - goal is to have it done before Christmas, which is plenty of time. I hope. I already have the head and torso knit up and stuffed, so, yay!