Knitcircus

Valentine's Treats

Inspired by Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream at TNNA  this summer, I've been experimenting with ice cream making lately, and here are the two biggest winners; delicious desserts to share with your special person (or people).

The one above is Blackberry Ice Cream; I used this recipe from Food.com, without the cinnamon.  Now, full disclosure, blackberries are one of my all-time favorite foods;  the taste of a ripe blackberry picked from our California backyard is my earliest taste memory. So when I say that this ice cream, rich and creamy, peaking into the essence of fresh blackberries, is possibly the best dessert I've ever tasted, I may be biased. But my husband Mike was equally smitten....

And a little guy I love found it easy to eat, too!

It does take a lttle advance planning, because you have to cook the berries and sugar first, then cook the cream mixture, strain the berries and cool the whole thing down, but it's really no harder than making vanilla pudding on the stove, and whoever's lucky enough to eat it with you will enjoy the taste of artisanal ice cream right at home.

Our local grocery store had a special on blackberries, so I used fresh, but this should work just dandy with frozen berries, too.

This one is pretty soft in the picture, but goes pow on the tongue; we used this recipe from Simply Recipes, and frozen cherries from our cherry tree.

The recipe called for sweet cherries, and I didn't want to mess with it the first time out, but our cherries were the pie variety, so the ice cream turned out creamy, fresh and tangy. It's deifinitely a sophisticated taste, and pairs perfectly with a warm snickerdoodle; I found the cool sour notes of the cherry alternated with the vanilla and cinnamon cookie  totally addictive. This ce cream takes one less step than the blackberry, since you don't have to strain the fruit; just stir all of the ingredients in a saucepan until it begins to make fragrant steam, then blend and toss in the fridge to cool.

I used the Betty Crocker Cookbook Snickerdoodle recipe; if you make up the dough once the ice cream mixture is cooling, you can roll the cookies in cinnamon sugar and bake once you actually start the ice cream maker going (about 20 minutes to stir the ice cream). Your snickerdoodles should be soft and warm when the ice cream is served, and your loved one(s) will have very warm feelings towards you!

 

Weekend Craft Treats

Jelly Orange Slices from Not Martha

Last year, on our NYC trip, Belle and I had tea at American Girl Place, in one of the highlights of her short life. If you have a daughter who loves dolls and tiny things, I highly recommend it. One of the most cunning little treats served on the multilayered cupcakes stands was "orange slices" using a real rind with the fruit scooped out and replaced with orange jell. When Belle and I complimented the pink-aproned waiter he brought several more on the house.

Thanks to this great Not Martha tutorial, we recreated the fun at home, and every kid in sight loved them. 

 Then we made smoothies with the orange pulp, lots of ice and honey.

Five more weekend kid-crafty projects:

• Frozen striped yogurt pops from Betty Crocker (we'll do ours in popsicle molds with GF cereal)
• Jars of solar-powered sunshine courtesy of Dornob.com
• Little handmade roadsters from The Crafty Crow
• Recycled-envelope bookmarks with attitude from OhCrafts
• Big Kanazashi Flowers from baby wipes! Filth Wizardry.

Stay cool and collected!

Jaala

 

Colors of Curacao

Just returned from a place where it's almost always 80 F and sunny; check out some pics from the Caribbean island of Curacao.

 

 

 Looks like technicolor Dutch architecture? You bet! Curacao became officially independent of the Netherlands just last October, still relying on Dutch banking/currency and defense support. The whole of Willemstad, the island's largest city, has been declared a UNESCO Historical site for its unique architeccture, some dating back to the 1600's.

Not a historical site, but lots of fun! Little shops like this one spring up along roadsides everywhere on the island.

 

 

 During Carnaval season, people stake out their parade seats early!

An island specialty; Keshi Yena, ground beef with olives, raisins and gouda cheese. Everyone on the island learns four languages: Papiementu, the original language, Dutch, English and Spanish (just 35 miles from Venezuala; I'm sure this dish used Venezulan beef).  Most small grocery stores (and most of them were small) stocked Gouda cheese and liverwurst as well as Lover's ice cream, English tea, plantains and rice. If you can ever get your hands on any Lover's vanilla, you'll swoon as we did.

Little buddy snapped this pic off the back patio of our apartment. It was our family's first trip abraod, and well, we understand now why people would take a vacation to the Carribbean; warm ocean, lots of snorkeling (we saw a sea turtle) and warm enough to play in the water all day without the humidity we get with hot weather here.

Still, we're happy to be home, back with the kitten, the guinea pigs and our loved ones. 

Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Jaala

Stitch Dictionary App

Hey, at the last Madison Knitter's Guild meeting, we learned about a new project by Madison knitter Susan M.; a mobile Stitch Dictionary! It's a similar idea to the Walker Treasury Project, but not limited to stitches found in that venerable resource and destined for your iphone. 

Any knitter can be part of the collaborative effort and get credited for her contribution. Here's some info from Susan herself:

Would you like to participate in the creation of an electronic Knitting Stitch Dictionary for the iPhone?

 

I’m looking for samples of knitting stitches.

• Photos of something you’ve already knit
• 4x4” swatches of various knitting stitchs
• You pick or I pick the stitch
• Prefer: stitches with <= 14st repeats
• Best are clearly knit stitches in “eye candy” colors
• Knitter will be given name credit

I’ve love to have you be a part of this fun project. For more details, email

[email protected] (ETA: please note email addy is now correct!)

In non-knitting news, we've recently gone from this:

To this:

Hope your weekend has been just as exciting,

Jaala

 

 

Holiday Happy

 We enjoyed the school vacation and holidays with a lot of baking:

We had four generations of cookie-baking women sorting and packaging these up for our friends and neighbors; the thumbprints on the left used our homemade cherry jam.

 
Sledding and roasting marshmallows on a snowy afternoon.

 
Holiday knitting--Belle made this for Li'l Buddy--it's stuffed with lavender, entirely her idea, "So he can put it his drawer and it'll smell good!" We modified the pattern in Sarah Keen's Knitted Wild Animals book to make it smaller.

A tiny project I made for Belle as a companion, also stuffed with lavender. Lavender=suprisingly difficult to work with; since it has almost literally no weight, the dried blossoms don't naturally fall to the bottom, or even naturally move at all, when you're stuffing an abject. But they smell fabulous. I used my Malabrigo Silk sample from Stitches in a little basketweave pattern on size 3 needles; a surprisingly satisfying project to work standing in line at the Post Office.

More holiday knitting pics coming soon...

Belle took this photo to celebrate Purl's first Christmas.

And here she deomonstrates a position only a cat could find relaxing:

Happy 2011! Can't wait for all of the fun knitting, crochet and sewing projects this year...

 

 

 

Survey Giveaway Winners and Happy Day After Halloween

Harry Potter and the Cute Chipmink had a blast on Halloween. Belle wanted this cotume, so we used a vintage kids' sleeper pattern that even included the cap and ears! You have to see the back to know she's a chipmunk:

Little Belle has been doing some knitting; all on her own, she decided she wanted to to stripes. And colorwork. In the round.

 Her neckwarmer's turning out so fun!

In Knitcircus news, thanks so much to everyone who took the survey in the Fall Issue! We've learned some intriguing things like:

Your favorite knitting techniques:

Cables: 82%

Lace: 73%

Simple knitting: 79%

 

Your favorite things to knit:

Socks: 66%

Scarves: 64%

Hats: 64%

Shawls: 60%

 

Thanks for taking the time to share your ideas and preferences with us; now we can better tailor the designs for the magazine to what you'd like to knit.

Without further ado,  the third and last batch of survey winners are:

Knitcircus Subscription:

sally@dolmus

A skein of Kollage Scrumptious yarn (thanks, Kollage!):

jg.crews@wildblue

Knitcircus Gifts Pattern Collections:

jposkozim

wooll3n

[email protected]

Cables Untangled, by Melissa Leapman (thanks to Potter Craft):

dv802

All winners have been notified by email.

You're the best readers ever!

If you're in the US, remember to vote tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never Not Knitting and Handwerks Winners

It's fall for sure, now that our maple trees have turned. Last week , hardly anything-- this week, they're a chlorophyll rainbow.

This weekend there was adventure afoot at Hogwarts. My dad, or Dumbledore, helped me put together an adventure treasure hunt, which not only involved finding clues in the freezer and under a big rock, but meeting Hagrid and some house-elves, and finally coming face-to-face with Voldemort. The Hogwarts students won, and came away with a bag of gold (Or maybe it was chocolate).

Spurred on by the kids' ardent desire, I sewed up five robes and made eight House badges (thank goodness for internet graphics). My favorite part was making  Chocolate Frogs with Li'l Buddy.

They turned out quite convincing, I think, even though they didn't even have one really good jump in them. We used one of these, and didn't have to grease it or anything! Just melt the choloate, pour it in, put it in the fridge and Bob's your uncle.

One guest and her parents even brought handmade dogwood wands for every kid.

After all the waffles had been eaten, robes and toothbrushes located and jellybeans handed out, we all just rested on the sofa for a while. Whew.

In Knitcircus news, it's giveaway winner time!

Handwerks Sock Plus 8 in Pacific View.

One lucky survey winner gets not one, but two skeins of this luscious Handwerks yarn, and it's mee-pai!

Another lucky winner takes home the Never Not Knitting Patterns, and it's: renaes123!

Knitcircus  subscriptions go to: rdj215 and artisanatheart!

Gifts Pattern Collections will be sent to: dyeingtoweave, dolores7777 and canalstreet. All winners will be notified by email.

If you didn't win yet, check this out for fun giveaway action:

Lovely podcasters Jenny and Nicole of Stash and Burn are hosting a Knitcircus giveaway on their latest episode. Listen to their latest exploits from inside the stash!

ETA, whoops, this is next week, the 11th.  Thanks for pointing that out. It's going to be an exciting Guild, with Guest Speaker Jared Flood. I hope he'll have some of his new yarn with him....

 

Holiday Knitting Ahoy

You know, since I was a kid, they've improved some things about this city; now we have veritable bicycle highways where the railroad tracks used to be, complete with bridges and on/off ramps! The kids, Buppa and I pedaled over to the the Willy Street Fair, where we met new Knitcircus Photographer Kate by chance and watched her brother blow glass right out in the street.

The great, cool weather (and maybe the Gifts Issue...)must have jump-started my Holiday Gifts fever, because my needles are just clicking away! Last year, I swore off gifts knitting,  and decided to only sew presents but this year, I've just got too much holiday spirit to keep it away from the skeins... 

 

Finished One Scarf for my mom.

And I've started a second one for me with the deep, vibrant Cascade Magnum from Ewetopia:

 

Usually, I re-use clear bags from my LYS purchases as my project bags, but with Secret Projects around, I realized that just wouldn't do! So I used some of the fabric Mom and I picked up at the Quilt Show to make a medium-sized bag with a wrist loop so I can take it to soccer games, etc.

Before:

After:

The big button was from my Grandma's vintage stash; the pretty green bag jewelry is a ring of small markers from Crimson Orchid just hanging from the button attachment. Now I can work on holiday presents and my dear family members will never guess.

Hey, Miss Megan made it into the next round at Project Foodblog; check out her mouthwatering Eclairs for Round #2!

More giveaway goodness: the Knitting blog at CraftGossip is giving away some Pattern Collections, so head on over there for a fun roundup of knitting events, people, etc and to maybe win the Gifts Collection for your very own.

Fair Play

 

Cotton candy--freshly spun, check. Ferris wheel, check. Bucket-o-mini doughnuts, still hot, with cinnamon sugar, check. Demo derby,and another bucket of mini doughnuts, check. Tilt-a-Whirl, Berry go Round and Catch 'n Air before wristband time runs out, check. Organic hamburgers, chili and pie at affordable prices--wow! Yep, it was Vernon County Fair Weekend.

And of course, I made some purchases at Ewetopia ...

From left: Cascade Magnum, Ewetopia Panda Bamboo Sock (green), Hand-Dyed Alpaca/Wool, and Woolly Bear Farm Merino Hand Dyed worsted.

 

The One Scarf, by Allison Harding.

Over the weekend, I also cast on a One Scarf of my own:

Just started this Saturday morning, and I forgot my cable needles for the soccer game, so really, I could have gotten further. This is such a quick, satisfying knit! The yarn here's Rowan Big Wool yarn (held double, but only because I'd originally knit it into a sweater that I then frogged and it got smushed. I think virgin Big Wool would work just fine for this project). This one's a holiday gift, but that Cascade Magnum up there? That one will be mine, all mine...

You'd like giveaways you say? We've got giveaways!

Designer Jane Prater's doing one on her Merely a Suggestion; JPKnits blog!

We're still going strong with out Big One, the Alice Starmore Giveaway, so email me or post pics of your Knitcircus projects in our Ravelry Group to be entered for that. The drawing will be September 29th.

Thanks again to Wendy Johnson, and to Sunset Cat and Fickleknitter for their lovely giveaways last week!

Hope you're getting the cool fall weather we're enjoying here. I love being able to get the crock pot going in the mornings with some good soups and stews...

Jaala

Apples for Sauce

Over the weekend we enjoyed using some of our bounty of apples:

Applesauce!

It's so easy and fun: not so much a recipe, but a do-by-feel project.  This particular batch was enthusiastically hand-cranked on my dad's  apple-coring/slicing/peeling gadget by a seven-year-old with some help from neighbor friends. We got out our two big pots and simmered the apples over low heat for about an hour. Just keep throwing thinly-sliced apples in your pot(s) stirring and roughly splitting with a wooden spoon and cooking until desired smoothness. We used a couple of teaspoons cinnamon in each pot, adding several handfuls of brown sugar to one and about a half cup of Agave to the second.

My blood sugar's a bit feisty, so I have to watch my sweets intake (tricky, since I love to bake and adore sugar in any form). If you haven't tried it, Agave Nectar's a great honey substitute, and doesn't spike the blood sugar. So now I have two containers of mama-safe applesauce (I may have already eaten the small bowl pictured here).

The apples do cook down quite a bit; our big pots made about two sixteen-ounce tupperwares each. The applesauce freezes nicely for future waffle topping or bag lunches.

In Knitcircus News, the Special Gifts Issue's coming out in just a couple of days, so we're doing the last-minute whirlwind of editing, linking and updates.

Here's a peek at a Gifts project that I can't wait to cast on:

This issue's not only our first Gifts Issue, but it's our first time with two issues (Fall and Gifts) running simultaneously. I'm excited and a little scared, but I know Webmaster Cindy's on the job...

The Alice Starmore Giveaway's still in full swing, so if you show us a link to your Knitcircus project, you're entered to win! 

Take care and craft on,

Jaala