what do you do when you can't find the sweater you want?

Well, if you're me, you knit it.

I have a cute black bolero that I bought a few years ago to wear with a dress to a wedding, and I love it. Even more so because I bought it at a second-hand clothing store so only paid like $6 for it.

I've been looking for another bolero-ish sweater in another color but haven't found anything, so I modified the pattern for a baby bolero in Louisa Harding's book, Natural Knits for Babies and Moms. (By the way, knitted baby clothes are so freaking cute, but I can't help but feel like it's a bit of a waste of time, because they grow out of them so quickly. I usually knit baby blankets for baby presents, because I can never be sure if the baby will be the right size for a knitted garment at the right time of year.)

Anyway. I added a longer rib to the bottom because I realized it was too short as knit, and I also wanted to give the body a little shaping (I have some curves that babies don't). I also really wanted a sweater with capped sleeves, so I finally looked through the Knitwear Design Workshop that I bought a while ago and used their gathered sleeves. The sleeves are also short, about 3/4 length.

And I have to say, all in all, it turned out pretty well. :D I kept track of the pattern as I knit, and I just typed it up quickly here in case anyone was interested. (Of course, it will only probably be useful if you're about my size. This one was about 34" bust and 13" long. I would imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to modify for larger/smaller but I haven't done the math, sorries!) This is my very first sweater of (mostly) my own design, and I'm pretty stoked. Maybe someday I will get to the point of having an idea, making a sketch, and going from there, rather than modifying patterns, but for today I'm rather pleased with myself.

(to be fair, next time I would shorten the length of the shoulders more, maybe 15-20 sts on each shoulder rather than 25. I forgot to consider how much the edge ribbing would add.)

Next project: either a tomato sweater or some cute mug cozies for my sister's bridal shower in April (the mug cozies, not the sweater). And of course I'm still working on that Wakefield scarf...

projects

a (possibly not inclusive) list of my current projects:

• baking bread (I got the book Artisan Breads in Five Minutes A Day recently. Heather had it, I wanted to try it. I love fresh bread.)
• oil painting
• knitting (currently: a sweater. I'm making it up as I go along, kind of. Also, another scarf/shawl thing. Also on the list: mug cozies for party favors for my sister's wedding shower. Her shower isn't until April, there's plenty of time, and I'm not the only one knitting these.)
• studying the New Testament
• reading for Librivox (starting this up again. Next chapter: Section 20 of "The Antiquities of the Jews" by Josephus.)
• reading in general (on my list: "Walking with God", "Experiencing God", "Restoring Joy", "The Pleasures of God", "When I Don't Desire God")

Sometimes, I wish I didn't have to go to work and could just do fun stuff all day.

I have an eggplant in my fridge and a recipe for eggplant parm that I really want to try (will need to get some breadcrumbs). I just got my October issue of Food & Wine, and I really want to try to roast a pork loin. But (1) when do I have time for that, and (2) who would eat my roasted pork? Anyway.

kimchi time

So yesterday I stopped by the Lincoln Square farmer's market, a series of booths in the small parking lot outside the Western Brown Line stop every Thursday night in the summer. And I decided to buy a very large head of cabbage, because I've been wanting to try my hand at making kimchi. My mom makes cabbage kimchi pretty regularly- it's a bit easier/more forgiving than the traditional kind made with napa cabbage, and it lasts longer.

So, I started with this:

Step 1: make some paste. My mom uses glutinous rice flour, but I didn't have any, so I just used all-purpose flour. I'm going to say I used about 1/2 c water and 3 tbsp flour, but who really knows? (and this was WAY more than I actually needed). Set this aside, let it cool.

Step 2: cut up the cabbage into manageable pieces. Salt liberally. Recipes for napa cabbage kimchi tend to say to soak it in saltwater for 6 hrs - overnight, but it isn't really necessary here.

Step 3: assemble the rest of the ingredients. Scallions (green onions- I used 4), garlic (about 5 cloves), ginger (about 1.5 in piece), red pepper powder (the Korean kind, probably about 2 tbsp?), and fish sauce (maybe 3 tbsp?). I cut the scallions into about 1 in pieces, and minced the garlic and the ginger. [So I basically made these proportions up. The recipe I had said to use 1 tsp of garlic and ginger for 1 head of napa cabbage. I didn't think that was possibly enough, so I upped the amounts.]

Step 4: Add the above to the cabbage. I also added maybe 2 tsp of sugar. Mix it all together, adding about 3 tbsp of the paste as you do so. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Voila!

One head of cabbage got about 1 gal of kimchi. I hope it tastes good tomorrow, haha.

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