Birthday Roundup...

Yeah, I know. My birthday month was over like two months ago. Well, I've had this in drafts just waiting for me to finish. So!

Cupcakes! We made it to Spa City Cupcakes

It was later in the day and they were out of all the "exciting" flavors but we got white with chocolate frosting, chocolate with white frosting (the m&ms), chocolate with chocolate frosting, and white with white frosting. Normal flavors but they were absolutely delicious. Like some of the best cupcakes ever.

From there we went to the drive-in and saw Wall-E and Get Smart and tried...

deep fried oreos! Oh.My.God. I've never been a fan of the deep fry everything phenomenon but these? were great.

Here's an inside view


These are the best stitch markers ever that I got for my birthday from a friend at work - they easily snap open and closed so you can use them as closed on the needle style stitch markers but still take them out at the wrong time if needed!

We attempted to go to Moxie's for the many vanilla flavors but we had the hours wrong and got there when they were closed. :-( However, we did drive by this place with the slightly amusing sign.

This is my birthday Coach bag that I got the gift cards for

inside view

I still think they're overpriced but I loves it. It's the softest thing I've ever felt, and oh so pretty. And hey, you only turn 30 once.

I used a birthday gift card to get a bread machine and have made a bunch of different yummy loaves...

This is a plain white bread,

with some homemade jam :-)

And, we went to Morrette's for the veggie steak sandwich I wanted to try.

It was huge, and yummy. Mushrooms, onions, red and green peppers cooked with butter and garlic and topped with cheese. Also those yummy skinny fries.

yeah, it was a fattening food filled birthday month.

A long finished project

that I can finally show! I made the Child's Placket Neck Sweater from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts but it's also available for free online. This little gem is for my brand new baby nephew, Zach.

I loved this pattern so I think I'll make it again for other babies. (although, I forgot to look for errata and discovered when I was almost done that there was an error in the pattern. I threw in some random decreases in inappropriate yet invisible places to bring it back in line. Here's a close up of the placket neck with the wooden bead buttons.


And here's my brother modeling it on little Zach (currently one month old). He can't actually wear it yet since I made it big to (hopefully) fit him come sweater weather (it was 84 degrees today). I made the six to twelve month size and he's a big baby so hopefully this will be spot on come cold weather.

And here's a bonus of Zach trying on the Rainbow Marley hat I made him (also big for later)

(cheese part 2 coming up next)

"Gromit, that's it! Cheese! We'll go somewhere where there's cheese!"

Today we took my inlaws on a driving tour of small cheese farms in a county about an hour north of us, near Vermont. There were six cheese farms that you could visit and we managed to make it to five of them.

We started at Gillis Acres Farm in Greenwich, a goat farm.

These little cuties are Alpine goats. We talked to the farmer about the cheese process, saw the equipment and the baby goats (the milking goats were in a different barn), and tasted all the cheese!

We decided to get the Alpine Queen which is similar to a gruyere.

Next we went to 3-Corner Field Farm in Shushan, a sheep farm. This was the first time I ever had to wash my shoes on the way in to a farm!

On the way in the gate, they have disinfectant buckets and scrub brushes and ask you to disinfect to protect the "bio security" of the farm. This farm is also all about sustainability, they have water pumps that do not use any fossil fuels, and solar panels on the barns for the refrigeration and milking/cheese making equipment.

Here's one of their cute sheep dogs taking a little break from his work...
And, here's the cheese we picked out. This is a smoked artisanal sheep's milk cheese and it is heavenly. It's also $22.50 a pound so we only got about a quarter pound.

This is getting long so I'm going to break it up into two posts...

All Hallow's Eve Dishcloth Swap!

Vampire Pumpkin, originally uploaded by Alissao.

Yay, another seasonal dishcloth swap is coming up! There's only a few days to sign up if you're interested...

Here's my questionnaire that needs to be posted before the end of registration:

Knotting Yarn
1. Do you knit or crochet? For how long?
knit; a little over a year (I do know how to crochet but don't do it actively right now)

2. What sort of needles or hooks do you enjoy using the most? Are there some you've been dying to try out and haven't?
I have just about every different kind of needle, and enjoy them all for different types of projects.

3. What kind of projects do you most enjoy? Small things you can take with you, or big complex ones that are just gorgeous when they're done?
both!

4. List one pattern for a dishcloth that you love to make, or just tell us about one you've made or received that you loved.
I'm a big fan of the "petal" dishcloth pattern, and I also like the ones that make different pictures in the center.

5. What are your 'must have' notions? Are there any notions you need or can never have enough of? Any that might make you cry if you owned more?
hmm, stitch markers? I've been doing a few projects lately that need them. I can't think of anything I have too much of...

Petting Yarn
6. What are your favorite yarns to work with? Any you hate or are allergic to?
cottons and intriguing cotton blends (cotton with linen or silk, etc.). I am allergic to wool, even a small amount in a blend. Not only can't I wear it but I get rashes when I work with it!

7. What colors do you like to use in projects? Any we'd never catch on your needles?
I am partial to pinks. I can't think of any absolutely hated colors, just depends on the project.

8. Any cottons you'd like to try you can't find by you, or just haven't gotten around to getting?
Nothing specific I can think of.

Halloween, Fall, and General Stuff
9. Do you like to use bar soap or shower gel more? What kinds of scents do you love? What kind do you hate?
Shower gel! I'm not a bar soap person. I love food scents (fruit, baked things, pumpkin, etc.). I don't like vanilla (yeah, that's a food scent but the one I don't like!)

10. What's more 'Halloweeny' - Ghosts, Pumpkins, or Witches?
I'd say all are equally Halloweeny but I guess I'm partial to pumpkins of the bunch.

11. What's your favorite Treat to get? Sweet or Salty? Anything you're allergic to or just hate?
chocolate! sweet and salty is the best combination! I'm not a fan of nuts unless they're ground like peanut butter.

12. What was your favorite Halloween Costume as a kid? As an adult??
hmm. When I was in kindergarten I was a nurse with a coffee filter cap... I don't think I've had any costumes as an adult? My usual halloween gig these days is the Target halloween tshirt of the year with goofy socks and the like.

13. Are you on Ravelry? What's your ID?
yup. yarnlibrarian surprisingly enough ;-)

14. Anything else you'd like to be sure your pal knows?
um, can't think of anything?

A Tale of Two Butterkitties

This

is Butterkitty, you may remember her and her balloon. We named her Butternut but our niece, Lily, dubbed her Butterkitty and it stuck pretty hard.

Butterkitty is very nice and let's Lily haul her around by her armpits, basically.

Butterkitty has a new friend

but not for long as come Christmas this Butterkitty will be going to live with Lily!

Notice a resemblance?


The two Butterkitties like a lot of the same things... this Butterkitty likes food
and sitting in the double-decker kitty house.
And, she has a tail! That might seem obvious but the pattern didn't call for a tail! Of course, if this is to be an authentic Butterkitty it needs a tail.
And so ends the tale of two Butterkitties. :-P

A bit of knitting...

Like I said last time, most of the knitting I have finished recently are gifts I can't show yet. But here are a few things I can share... (Amy - when you read this don't let Lily know because there's something for her!)

A few weeks ago the owner of a LYS did a beginning knitting class for me at my library. To thank her (she did it for free!), I did a quickie dish/face cloth. (of course I got this idea the day before the class so it definitely had to be quick!)


I packaged it up in a take-out style container with two pretty face soaps and there you go.


One of my coworkers is on a Conference committee and they are looking for prizes for next year's conference. She asked if I'd knit something and I said "a baby hat???" ;-) The conference theme is red, white, & blue so I did stripes. This is KnitPicks Shine Worsted in Sailor, Cream, and Hollyberry and I love the muted old fashioned tones so I call this Colonial Colors. The top doesn't show well but it is i-cord that is tied in a cute little knot.


The last thing I have is a Christmas present but since she's 3, I think we can manage to keep it from her! ;-) For my niece, we have Finger Puppers! A tiger, a pig, an elephant, a rabbit, and a bear (or a dog, Trevor thinks it is a dog, so whatever she wants it to be). These are very quick, very cute, and only use scraps (of baby hat yarn coincidentally enough). So I think I might make more... we just got an invite for a 2nd birthday party that I don't think we can make but these would go in the mail no problem.

Edited to add an updated photo of the Tiger! Pattern note, I realized that the Tiger has a tail in the photo but there isn't one in the pattern. So I used the elephant trunk pattern except in stockinette instead of garter...

A Blue Ribbon Day!

I decided to enter a few knitted things in the fair this year! Thanks in part to Jenna's post reminding me that I had thought of it earlier in the year. :-) I dropped my stuff off on Friday then waited until Tuesday for the fair to open so I could go see if I won any ribbons.

My Dutch Bonnet was entered in the Knitted Baby Bonnet category and it got a green ribbon (Honorable Mention)My Cherry Entrelac Scarf was entered in the Miscellaneous Knitted Accessory category and it got a yellow ribbon (Third)
And... my Another Rainbow Marley was entered in the Knitted Hat category and it got a blue ribbon!! Everybody knows what a blue ribbon is, right? ;-) edited to add: for the Canadians - that's a first here!

I'm very happy with that, and it gives me the confidence to try again next year. If I hadn't gotten anything, I probably would have given up. :-P

Here's a wide shot of the Marley hat in the cute baby crib display
and the Cherry scarf in a pink-ish display

I also entered a bread contest, I didn't win anything there but it was still fun so I'll blog that in another post.

p.s. I have been knitting up a storm but it is almost all secret gift knitting for people who will see it here so I have nothing to share!

Batter Blaster!!!!

Last week we were grocery shopping and saw this intriguing thing near the eggs

Batter Blaster!!!!!1!!!! Pancakes! Organic, even. That's right, they now have pancakes in a can. The same kind of can as the miraculous squirt whip. They were a bit pricey ($5) but we've already made pancakes for the two of us 3 times and it isn't empty yet. And whoa, the convenience factor (not to mention the coolness) - we really wished we had seen this a week earlier for the tent camping trip. Totally worth $5 to avoid mixing etc. while camping. We are planning on getting it again for our cabin trip in September but that has a real kitchen and everything so it isn't really necessary...

Handy diagrams

Pancake squirting action shot

They're good but they do taste a little different than my usual pancakes... lighter? fluffier? Like there's a lot of air in them, which I guess there is.

Speaking of breakfast breads, here's a gratuitous shot of the yummy french toast Trevor made with my homemade potato bread. It made really good french toast!

A garden is never so good as it will be next year. -- Thomas Cooper

This is the first harvest from my garden! It doesn't look like much but considering that last year every one of my pepper and squash plants gotten eaten by the groundhog, this is a great start. The little green guy is a jalapeno, the yellow one is a hot banana pepper, and the orange one is a Yummy sweet pepper. Or maybe that's supposed to be Sweet Pepper Yummy, whatever. And a few cherry tomatoes.

Tag, you're it!!

I'm way behind on everything, both in life and in blogging but I wanted to get this one out there:

Sign-up for this year's Dish Rag Tag is today! And I got in!! woo! The thrill of competition... :-) The wonderful Emily at Yarnmiracle started this last year and it was fun just watching so I'm excited to participate this year. Basically, she creates teams and each team starts with a box - ball of dishcloth cotton, a small goodie, the pattern, and a completed dishcloth. You log in to the super agent dishrag software and strategically determine which team member to send to next in order to attempt to be the first team to get the box back to Emily. When you get the box you keep the completed dishcloth and the treat, use the cotton to make a new dishcloth, and put in a new ball of cotton and treat along with the completed dishcloth. Then it goes on to the next team member. A few things are different this year, such as there is an official pattern that must be used instead of using your choice to make it more even among competitors. Emily keeps track of finishing places and there are prizes.

If anyone wants to try and get in, this is the sign-up page, and this has more info. I'll be putting the button up on the sidebar at some point or other.