baby cupcakes, free to a good home ;)

Chocolate cake, orange buttercream, topped with a dried blueberry.

I think I finally found a buttercream recipe that I like. American buttercream from the "Cooking for Engineers" site. Only downside is that the vanilla version is a bit more yellow than I'm used to (because the recipe includes the egg yolks). Can't win it all, I suppose.

please note: delivery not available. Sorry, no refunds.

oil painting

So I took an oil painting class a few weeks ago (it was a 5 week thing), and came out with 4 paintings. Now the question is, what do I do with these? I also bought more canvases. Hmm.

Lesson 1: basic shapes

Lesson 2: still life

Lesson 3: different still life

Lesson 4: abstract

dobby socks and some fingerless gloves

Dobby Socks:

Yes, I'm a Harry Potter fan. And who doesn't love Dobby the house elf, who will take all mis-matched socks he can get? I was determined to finally use up my stash of sock yarn (I use the word "stash" rather loosely- remnants would be a more appropriate word, I suppose, as these were the last bits of various skeins left after finishing other projects).

These were all toe-up socks. Once I started, I loved it. These were made with knitty's Figure 8 toe tutorial (the last example of starting a toe-up sock), on size 2 dp needles. I can't really tell you where the yarn came from, but it's mostly acrylic or acrylic/wool blends of sock yarn.

Rough sock pattern:

Start toe-up pattern with 8 loops on each needle, as described in the Figure 8 toe-up sock. Once you're knitting in the round, increase the toe until there are 48 stitches total. At this point, the toe is complete, and you can throw in a pattern if you'd like. Continue knitting in the round until the foot reaches the start of the heel/ankle.

For the ankle, repeat the following 2 rounds 7 times (62 stitches total):

round 1: k11, M1, K24, M1, k11.

round 2: knit.

For the heel:

On the next round, k6, turn. Repeat the following 2 rows until you're back at the original 48 sts:

Row 1: purl 11, p2tog, turn

Row 2: knit 11, k2tog, turn.

Join in the round again, knit in the round (continuing any pattern) until the ankle is at the desired length. Bind off all stitches loosely.

I kind of made up this heel because I didn't like how any of the heel patterns looked for toe-up socks. Now I have 6 lovely, mismatched socks!

fingerless gloves:

I actually made these a looong time ago (almost a year?) on the train to/from work. I use them at work all the time (more in the summer than in the winter because of the A/C). The pattern is knitty's Fetching gloves, but I continued the cables up the back hand of the glove because I like cables.

Currently working on the Wakefield Scarf, using the rest of my super-nice Helen's Lace yarn used for my swallowtail shawl. Once that's done, I'm going back to stash-busting, this time with something felted. I'm thinking felted bag, but we'll see.

knitty knitty

Sara's wedding was this past weekend. And it was absolutely lovely.

I finished this about a month or so ago, but didn't post because I wanted it to be a surprise when she and Brian actually received it, using a pattern for an aryan sampler afghan. (For the non-knitting folks, a sampler afghan simply means it uses a variety of patterns, giving you a sample of each.) I mixed it up with a few different colors, rather than the monotone the pattern called for. I was also too lazy to do a thick border, sorry guys:

I also knit myself a lace shawl (the swallowtail shawl from interweave)

I need to re-block this. the edging is supposed to be peaked, and I didn't leave it long enough or pin it correctly or some combination of the two, because it looks more ruffled than peaked.

nutella chocolate chip cookies

I was going to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, when I realized I didn't really have enough peanut butter. So I made these, kind of making it up as I went along.

1.5 sticks butter (12 tbsps)

1 c brown sugar

1 c white sugar

1 tsp (approx) vanilla

1/2 c (approx) nutella

2 eggs

2 c flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

12 oz chocolate chips

cream first five ingredients until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition. Mix flour and baking powder, add to sugar/butter/egg mixture and blend. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoon onto a cookie tray. Bake at 350F for approx 12 minutes. Cool on tray for a few minutes before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Love.

note: next time, I might cut down the sugar slightly. 2 c of sugar is a LOT of sugar. On the other hand, they spread nicely and were chewy but crunchy all at once...