Seeing Red.
30 Sep 2008 2 Comments
Each year the Orphan Foundation of America puts out a call to knitters during their annual Red Scarf Project. On Valentine’s Day, the OFA sends care packages to college-age orphans, individuals who due to their age have left the system, but still have no family to send them care packages. OFA asks knitters to knit unisex red scarves to be included with these package.
At the last meeting of the Sunflower Knitters Guild a group of members decided to contribute. It’s been almost a year since I did any charity knitting, and I’ve missed it. That there is something I can do within a hobby I love for someone else who needs it is rewarding. My goal is to get 3 scarves out the door. I have a feeling I’ll have to settle for two. So far I have one.
The Pattern: Drop Stitch Scarf
The Yarn: Caron Simply Soft, Autumn Red
The Needles: US 7′s
The Verdict: Warm, snuggly, washable!
Doing the Hulu.
26 Sep 2008 1 Comment
My temp work has been a little spotty of late, so I’ve been home the better part of this week. Looking for entertainment, and finding none on live television, I have checked out Hulu.com. I have to say that I’m loving it.
The first few days I caught up on recent episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Then I caught the infamous Tina Fey/Amy Pohler Palin/Clinton SNL skit. I also managed to grab the Heroes season opener – which frankly I thought was a little boring.
Then I fell headlong into Dirty Sexy Money, an irresistibly horrible angst-filled drama with Donald Sutherland and Peter Krause. I managed to watch all 10 episodes from the first season, so that I’m now ready for this season to begin!
When that was done I trolled the rest of the archives and settled on Lipstick Jungle. Though I don’t think I’ll be catching this in Prime Time, I loved it too!
So now I have a new source of fun. You should check it out – if you miss an episode, couldn’t start a series, whatever!
P.S. I have an interview tomorrow…. wish me luck and maybe I won’t need Hulu QUITE so much in the near future.
Awash in squash.
22 Sep 2008 1 Comment
in Domesticity, Farm Fresh Foods
Fall is upon us (officially today!) and squash is in season. For the past few weeks we have been receiving generous portions of squash in our CSA basket. So Wes and I have been trolling recipes and experimenting. We made this one last night and it was TASTY!
Sausage Stuffed Butternut Squash
courtesy of Cooks.com
1 butternut squash (cut in half)
1/2 lb. Sweet Italian Sausage
3 slices of bread, cubed
1 egg, well beaten
1 small onion
Garlic
1/8 to 1/4 cup parsley.
Place squash cut side down in greased shallow baking dish. Bake at 350 for 40-60 minutes until squash is tender.
Meanwhile, remove sausage from casing and fry until brown and crumbly. Add onion and garclic and saute until onions are soft. Stir in egg, parsley and bread. Remove from heat.
Scoop seeds from squash. Remove squash meat and add to sausage mixture.
Spoon mixture back into shell. Return to oven and bake another 15 minutes until top is golden brown.
P.S. In full disclosure, I sidelined myself last night early in the game with the knife, so Wes did the actual cooking. DELISH!
The knife set is out to get me.
21 Sep 2008 1 Comment
in Domesticity
Just sliced finger with the wedding knife set AGAIN. I think it hates me.
The Apocalypse is here my friends.
21 Sep 2008 1 Comment
My husband woke me up at 8am to go running. AND I WENT.
That is all.
A wonderful Saturday.
21 Sep 2008 Leave a Comment
in Fabulous Friends, Knitting Content Ahead, The Great Outdoors, Weekend Update
Yesterday was an absolutely fabulous day. It started early. We got up around 8:30 to get ready for a day at the Renaissance Faire. With a few errands and a bit of breakfast we arrived a little after 10:30am to the huge Faire grounds in Bonner Springs. We’d bought our tickets the night before so we sailed on through the gates and started exploring. For the next few hours we wandered and saw lots of things.
There was the petting zoo for children. They had goats and pigs, and even a few alpaca!
We wandered through various shops of leather, glass, jewelry, clothing and more. We saw a variety of faces.
We watched the jousting tournament while enjoying good food and beautiful weather. We saw the king and the queen.
And we even indulged in a little fibery goodness – hand-dyed merino!
Around 4pm we packed it in and headed out north of the city. A former boss of mine was in town visiting his in-laws and there was a big party out on the farm. He invited us to join in promising great food and a band. He didn’t lie.
The estate was beautiful – over 600 acres of forest, soybean planted farmland and a beautiful lake. We enjoyed catching up with him and his wife, and meeting new people.
We took a hayride in a tractor.
And enjoyed a sunset.
And oh the food – several different kinds of smoked meat (smoked all day next to the lake – smelled wonderful!), and salads and sides, and dessert.
All in all a pretty spectacular day.
The deadliest read.
19 Sep 2008 1 Comment
in A Book is a Woman's Best Friend
A while ago a friend of mine hooked me up with LibraryThing, a site for avid readers and bibliophiles. Aside from great book reviews, and being able to list your collection of books, the site hosts an Early Reviewers feature. Each month LibraryThing receives a few hundred early review advance copies of books, and you can request books. A lottery system determines if you win or not. So far I have been requesting books for a little under a year, and I’ve won twice.
Which brings me to today’s book review, Time Bandit. This is the story of brothers Andy and Johnathan Hillstrand and their Bering sea crabbing boat the Time Bandit. You may think these names sound familiar – that’s because they’re one of five crews who are also part of the Discovery Channel’s The Deadliest Catch.
Crabbing, according to the brothers, is like the most extreme of extreme sports. This may explain why I’m not always tuned in to the series, and why I didn’t have super high expectations for the book. (Those of you who know me know that I’m not into anything with the word extreme in it, unless it relates to knitting!)
I was, however, pleasantly surprised. The book is really gripping and chilling, and was an enjoyable read the way Into Thin Air was; if you put aside your horror at what these people are doing, they are truly amazing individuals, much, much different from you and I. I learned a lot about fishing and crabbing, as well as a lot about Alaska (although I don’t think it improved my diplomatic relations with Russia, unlike some people….).
I would heartily recommend this book!
Knitting Crisis
16 Sep 2008 2 Comments
I know you’re thinking I’m being overdramatic here, but here goes.
You remember the other day when I mentioned that I had a ball of yarn that could not, WOULD not become a pair of socks? Well I’ve been sailing right through the scarf I’m making with it, except it’s only about half done and I have only a small amount of the ball left. Ruh-Roh.
So late last week I started looking into where I might find more yarn to match mine. The original ball was purchased at MisKnits and the store is sold out of this colorway. I checked another local spot, The Studio and found a ball of yarn but, to my dismay, it is no where near the same dye lot and looks very different. I then turned to my old pal Ravelry to see if I could find one there. What do you know? There’s a ball that LOOKS like mine and is even for sale! Except that I emailed the woman about it and I haven’t heard back and it’s been several days already. And I MIGHT be getting a little panicky. See if I don’t find another ball the same color my options are:
1. leave it ridiculously short
2. start with the new color and have the two halves look completely different
3. rip out what I have done and start again, alternating yarn every few rows
As you can guess, I’m not pleased with these options. Enter The Loopy Ewe. Last night PlazaJen suggested I email Sheri and try to purchase a skein similar to mine in coloring. When I got home last night, around 9pm I did just that. And she replied IMMEDIATELY. By 9:15 she had already pulled out her stock, let me know what she had and told me I could purchase one and return it if it wasn’t what I needed! How’s that for service?!? I slept on it overnight and decided to give it a try today. And I may have just bought a few little goodies for me. And I definitely just found my new favorite online yarn source!
Off the Needles.
15 Sep 2008 Leave a Comment
in Off the Needles, The Boob Tube, Weekend Update
This weekend was fairly quiet. It threatened to rain most of it, so we opted to stay indoors for the most part. We did a fair amount of cleaning, managing to make several trips to the dumpster and fill my car up with stuff for Goodwill. We also managed to clear a lot of the wedding clutter into the newly cleaned closets, hang some pictures and generally make our place more presentable.
Sunday I went knitting for a bit with the girls and then hubby and I watched some good TV/DVDs. We just started The Tudors, Season 1, which I’ve rented through Netflix. So far, we like it quite a bit. We also watched the re-airing of Fringe on Sunday night. The first showing we came in about halfway through the episode, and I have to say it made a lot more sense this time around. I’m LOVING this new show – it’s a few parts X-Files and a little bit CSI-ish. I really like Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv.
Finally, I finished up a knit that has been on the needles for a while.
The Pattern: Roped Shell from Interweave Knits, Summer 2008
The Needles: US 4′s
The Yarn: Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette, 3 balls blue, 2 balls brown
The Verdict: This is a great looking top. I found the finishing work to be a little tedious (the i-cord edging at the sleeves, and the cabling at the neck) but I’m very pleased with the result. The yarn is wonderful to knit with: a blend of alpaca, merino and silk that is so very soft. I think I would probably make one of these for myself! This one is going to A Mano for display.
