FO Friday: Mermaid Tail

TGIF!!!!

I have the pleasure of being friends with some fabulous photographers. So for this FO Friday I’d like to share a super cute item I knit for a really cool photographer lady.

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I LOVE making baby knits. And how cute is the princess baby in the photo! The photo was shot by my friend Renee Swanson. She is a fabulous photographer who got married this past summer. So of course for her bridal shower I just had to knit something super cool for her photography business. So I improvised my own design of a Mermaid Tail. I knit in the round using US 10 1/2 circs and Knit Picks Brava Bulky. This yarn is some of my favorite to use in kiddo projects. It’s soft, easy to work with, and washable for those occasional baby accidents. I was terribly pleased with how this project turned out! I wasn’t able to attend the shower but I know she loved it because I got the lovely photo above a few weeks later!

Renee is an super adorable professional photographer who works in Kansas and North Carolina. Check out her blog and her Facebook page!

Happy Knitting!

Sweater 911

I got a call a few weeks ago from my Aunt Barb. She was packing up her summer clothes and found a summer knit/crochet shell that needed a little TLC. So she packed it off to me via USPS.

When I got the garment I could see that the sleeves were pulling away from the arm holes. I stared and looked and studied and turned the piece over and over again. For one, I couldn’t decide if it was knit or crochet! For two the pattern was complicated and there was definitely no way to frog it, re work it, and piece it back together without a pattern. And there was no pattern because this was a store bought garment.

So I surrendered and took it to the Yarn Barn in Lawrence, Ks. Even though I live in the Capitol city of Kansas…there are NO quality yarn/wool shops!! I have to drive to Manhattan or Lawrence good yarn or good advice! But that’s a rant for another time. The kind ladies at the shop studied my sweater and suggested some creative sewing to tie up the unraveling strings. What would you know? It worked!

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No more gaps or holes! I was so pleased with the shop and customer service that I even bought some wool wash for my sweater project.

Here is a close up shot of the arm. There are still a few places that are stretched and a little holey but much better than when I started! (Sorry, forgot a before pic!)

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The whole process took less than fifteen minutes and saved a sweater! Pretty darn proud of myself 🙂

Happy Knitting!

Review: The Friday Night Knitting Club Series

I finished Kate Jacob’s series of books on The Friday Night Knitting Club! I read them all in a matter of four to five days actually. I don’t so much read books as I devour them. Especially when it’s a topic I love! When I was a little and learning to read, I struggled tremendously. I vividly remember the special classes and hours of flash cards with my mother. I HATED it at the time, but age has shown me the wisdom of those lessons. I can now speed read….and for comprehension. This skill greatly enhanced my test taking skills as a student and continues to aid me in my professional life.

Having said all that, I would also like to point out that I am not literary stickler. I don’t read for grammar, punctuation, or structure. I read for fun, to be pulled into the story and create it in my head. After years of stage acting and script reading, I read books to get lost in the story and put myself in the footsteps of the characters. (I will note as a disclaimer that several other readers in their review of this series HATED the way Jacobs writes in fractured and incomplete sentences. Ha, I didn’t even notice!)

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I personally loved this series, especially the first book The Friday Night Knitting Club. The book follows a series if characters in a knitting shop and in their lives in New York City. The main focus is the shop owner, Georgia Walker and her daughter. I found all the characters to be well developed and unique from one another. The knitting references were accurate and sounded super adorable. No spoilers, but the end of the book really threw me for a loop.

The second book, Knit Two, picks up five years later with the same characters dealing with the ramifications of book one. I enjoyed this book (not as much as the first) and still found I was invested in the character stories. Both books are full of love, angst, family drama, knitting, and friendship. I blasted through the second book in less than a day.

I got a little lost in book three, Knit The Season. This book tried to wrap every characters story up with a nice neat bow. Life doesn’t always work out like that but it’s nice to pretend once in awhile. This book did stir up some feelings/memories about the holidays and family. That was both nice and bittersweet for me.

As a whole, I recommend this series to knitters of all ages and skill. All three books include recipes and knitting patterns for items referenced in the story. Nothing I just had to make right away, but lovely all the same! I plan on keeping these novels on my shelves and I bet I reread them in the future!

Happy Knitting!

Monday Fail

Apologies for the barrage of cooking related posts lately. It’s just that I am currently knitting for craft fair stock. Which means endless repetitions of the same patterns, over and over and over again. Not very exciting for a knitting blog! T-minus 25 days to the first show.

So I have been taking my creativity out in my cooking. I have a whole freezer full of beef to cook! So yesterday I pulled out some sirloin tips to slow cook in the crock pot with cream if mushroom, beef stock,and veggies (carrots, onion, and celery).

Turns out your crock pot works better when it’s PLUGGED IN! (Insert string of curses here………) The husband luckily found my neglected pot and got everything on the stove and cooking away. And we managed to save dinner, sort of….

There are no photos of this dish because well it looked like……ok so I won’t tell you what it really looked like. Lets just say it resembled wet dog food. The flavored weren’t bad, but the carrots had turned everything a orangey brown and the beef was very grey. I skimmed out the meat and put the veggies and broth through the food pro. All this accomplished was a thick creamy sauce in god awful orange brown. I would note that this color change probably would have happened in crock pot anyway, sigh.

The husband and I poured the sauce over the meat and served over streamed rice. It tasted fine, I just really couldn’t get over the look of it. Food should be pretty AND tasty!

Live and learn! It was a recipe I had never tried (and probably won’t again) and I vow to always check the crock pot cord. The good news is that yesterday is gone and I get a chance to do it all again today!

I hope Monday was kinder to the rest of you!

Beer N Cheese Bread

My Beer N Cheese bread came out gorgeous!

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My recipe came from my favorite bread book, The Bread Lovers Bread Machine Cookbook. I chose to use Copperhead Pale Ale from Free State Beer. This is a locally brewed Kansas pale ale beer. However, I mostly chose this beer because it was the last of the sample box I purchased and I didn’t want to drink it. It had been staring at me forlornly from the fridge…

Therein lies my mistake. This bread raised and baked beautifully. It was tender and moist on the inside and a nice toothy crust on the outside. I was terribly excited to slice it up. But my hopes were crushed, I just didn’t like how it tasted!! The reason I didn’t like the beer was because it had a bitter bite to it. And this came through in the bread. Lesson learned: don’t cook with a wine or beer that you wouldn’t otherwise drink!!

Don’t get me wrong, Free State has awesome beer and I especially love their wheat beer! I highly recommend this Lawrence, KS brewery and restaurant. It’s just that the Copperhead isn’t for me.

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This bread is okay with either lots of butter or jam. But I feel that this batch is destined for the community kitchen at work. This is my way of “frogging” my baked goods, lol! Next time I will use a tastier beer that I enjoy!!

Happy Knitting!

Sunday Is For Beef

Today has been a very lazy day. The husband and I did a little shopping, a little cleaning, and a little (lot) football watching.

But the best part was cooking up some of the home grown Kansas grain fed beef that we picked up from the processor this past Friday! We selected a nice marbled price of sirloin steak….

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(Feel free to drool! It turned out a perfect medium to medium rare!!)

We paired our meat selection with some home grown frozen sweet corn, crescent rolls with homemade jam, steamed rice, and black beans.

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I selected a nice white table wine in lemon-lime flavor from my friends at Prairie Fire Winery. It tasted like a really delicate margarita! Bob and Julie are two of the most talented people I had the pleasure of meeting during my MBA program. Feel free to check out their winery and tell them I sent you!

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Yours truly (seated in the green tee) helped plant almost 600 vines earlier this spring. It was awesome, however my back hurt for a week!!

In honor if Sunday Night Football I have some Beer n Cheese Bread in the machine. Stay tuned tomorrow to find out how it turns out! I am also on my 7th scarf for the weekend. They are great tv knitting but I’m ready for something else, lol.

Happy Knitting!!

FO Friday: My First Sweater

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I finished my Stockinette Shrug. I used Berroco Vintage DK and the Lion Brand Glitter Shrug pattern.

This sweater took me over a month, but I was running three to four shows a week at the local community theater. So my knitting time was limited to say the least, ha! I loved loved loved the yarn! It is wonderfully soft for a wool blend and I didn’t have any problems with it splitting. While I was hoping to make this project with larger yarn and bigger needles to make it faster, I was glad I chose this yarn. I will definitely use it again!!

I did have one major hiccup, see that blog here. I survived that disaster and my skills (and sweater) are better for it! I even managed to make pretty seams for the first time ever 🙂 !

My only regret is that when I washed and blocked it….I blocked it a bigger than I intended. I made the sweater a bit wider across the shoulders than I intended. I wore it to work this week and ended up having to safety pin it to my tank to keep it from slipping off my shoulders. No worries my friends, I can remedy this the next time I wash it.

Finishing this project has really stirred the sweater itch in this knitters’ soul. But alas, I promised myself I would learn socks first. And on top of that, I have TWO craft fairs to prepare for this fall. A knitters work is never done!

For now just enjoy some FO photos! Happy Friday!!

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The Only Thing Better Than Bread Is…..

…..bacon!

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I turned my fresh applesauce bread into French toast for supper! And what is French toast without eggs and bacon? Nay I say…we must always have bacon! The bread texture was amazing and fried up really well. I sliced the bread fairly thin so that it would cook evenly and completely. I even added some cinnamon and vanilla to the egg/milk mixture for an extra zip! Who says toast has to be boring!?

I may have to do a few extra minutes at the gym this week but it will be worth every decadent extra calorie!

Now the wind is howling outside and I have a sweet puppy dog on my lap (no doubt because I smell like bacon). A little knitting and conversation with make this a wonderful evening!

Good night to all!!

Nothing Beats the Smell of Baking Bread

My mother is an AMAZING baker, for almost 15 years she churned out homemade buns, biscuits, rolls, crust, and everything in between. All done daily in the local elementary school kitchen for hundreds of hungry tummies. She can make anything from scratch and her cinnamon rolls and pretzels are particularly amazing. This being said I have inherited her taste for fine homemade goods……just not the patience to do it by hand.

Two Christmas’s ago I received a bread machine and last Christmas I got the most wonderful cookbook to go with it, The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook. This book is jam packed with 300+ recipes for both bread in and out of my machine. It’s literally to die for! So thanks to this wonderful book I bring you today, Applesauce Bread!

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It’s sooooo easy to cook in the bread machine. Step one: add all wet ingredients to bottom of the pan.

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Step two: mix all dry ingredients together (except yeast) and pour over wet ingredients.

Step three: add yeast on top of dry goods.

Step four: punch in the machine settings for you bread type, hit start, and walk away!

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The machine does all the mixing, kneading, proofing, and baking! Three hours later you get this….

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This bread turned out golden and perfect. It has a nice dense texture perfect for toast and a lovely hint of apple pie flavor. This recipe gets a star in my copy of the book to definitely use again!

I packed some for breakfast today along with some of my homemade jam and it was beyond delicious for breakfast on this cool autumn morning!

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The machine lets me be my mothers’ daughter, just in my own way! I love the way my house smells because of baking bread, and this way I still get to knit at the same time!

Stay tuned tomorrow for my FO Friday and one of my largest finished projects ever!!!!

Happy Knitting! (And baking 🙂 )