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!

wrapped gift dishcloth

IMO, an 8" square dishcloth or bigger was always a bit too big for my own use, so I wanted to create a size a bit more comfortable. Plus, I can more comfortably make 2 or 3 dishcloths from 1 skein of yarn, since it's a smaller size.


needed: 1 pair 4.5mm knitting needles, 0.6oz/19grams red cotton
(I used Lily Sugar n Cream in 'red' - 3 dishcloths can be made with 1 skein with a bit left over)


finished size: 7" x 7", blocked, 6.5"x6.5" unblocked


CO 32 sts.

Make 4 rows of seed (or moss) stitch: Row 1 - K1, P1 across; Row 2 - Knit the purled sts, Purl the knit sts.

Follow the chart for the next 31 rows, by knitting the white squares and purling the red squares on RS, and purling the white squares and knitting the red squares on WS.

Continue the seed (or moss) stitch on 4 sts of both sides of the dishcloth.

Finish by making 4 more rows of seed stitch, and BO in pattern.

changing layout, and another pair of knucks

I've finally gotten around to changing the layout of my blog - I was tired of seeing the same thing over and over again, and considering it's been well over a year since its last change, it was due. So there, it's done.

I've also managed to finish another pair of knucks:

Again, knit with about 3/4's of a skein of Patons Kroy sock yarn in 'Burnished Sierra Stripes' - I picked it up because it looks Halloweeny. I've found some thicker yarn (different brand) that's a similar colourway, that I'll make some sort of hat from, but I'm waiting for it to arrive - I've ordered it from Europe off of ebay, so... maybe this week it'll get here? Anyway, nonetheless, these are done.

Naturally I changed the pattern again - for the life of me I can't figure out the cuff pattern (I think I'm just too dense to figure it out) so I left 42 sts around the cuff instead of doing the last decrease, and did a k3, p1 ribbing around, which fits really well. I think I need to invest in whatever the yarn is that's recommended for the pattern - Paton's Kroy, as much as I love using it, seems a teeny bit too thin to work with, and there's some slight stretching due to the tension being a wee bit thinner than what it should be.

Next time. Must remember for next time. Of course, it's what I thought last time, but forgot. :P

a vest for DH...

Just finished this vest for the husband...

I knit it in the round, using 4.83 skeins of Bernat Alpaca Natural Blends in Ebony. The neck collar was a bit high, but he prefers a tighter neckline and liked it that way, despite my initially wanting to knit a deeper v-neck.

But, it's a good bulky vest for whenever he wants to wear it! :) Hopefully it'll get some good use, now that the weather's starting to cool off!

oh no! what's this? there's magic in the air!

How fantastic is it, that the Nightmare Before Christmas has been rereleased?

yay!

I just picked up my copy over the weekend! What bliss!