lunchtime yarn binge

I'm taking a class for work all week down in Springboro and I tracked down Wooly Bully yesterday after lunch - it's a little LYS only 25 minutes or so from my house, but I'd never been there before! Today I packed a peanut butter sandwich so I could eat it on the road and spent my lunch hour yarn shopping! whee! It's such a cute little place and has a lot of yarns that I hadn't seen elsewhere. I got two skeins of Mirasol Miski (100% baby llama) for an Opus beret,This one is a pretty blue, with bits of purple

This one is navy, but it's hard to photograph.

And 3 balls of this Queensland Sugar Rush, just because it's made of sugar cane fibers and I don't have anything in my stash made of sugar cane!

and it's soooo shiny and purple - so why not? Oh yeah, not to rub it in or anything, but I'm going to be in the same room with Cookie A on Friday! woot!

Everybody needs to make these!

Goulish cookies - perfect for halloween and SO easy to make!! I swear I couldn't stop cracking up every time I looked at them! I didn't make these up, but here's my version of how to do it:

So it's just a basic shortbread cookie recipe (that's just butter, confectioners sugar, flour and almond or vanilla extract) and you roll pieces out into something kind of like a finger size, then just squeeze it a little in the middle for the knuckle and make little lines for wrinkles with a knife. Then take almonds (the recipe called for blanched almonds, but I only had the regular ones, and I kind of think that looks creepier anyway!) and press them in the end as fingernails. Bake them for something like 10 minutes or until they look done. The "nails" don't stay in the cookie on their own - they'll fall right out, so you just

mix up a little icing with a bit of confectioners sugar, water, and red food coloring, then take out the almond, run the back of it through the icing and press it back into the nailbed so that it sort of oozes out like blood. If anyone is going to a halloween party, you totally need to take these! Walk around with one hanging out of you mouth - it'll be both hilarious and delicious! (because really not much beats toasted almonds and shortbread in the delicious department!)

I love buttons

Yesterday the BF and I walked down to Remember When Anitques - it just a few blocks away, but I haven't been there in years. I love living in the city where you can walk a few blocks and hit something like a little antique shop! Plus there were leaves on the bath through the boulevard, so it felt like a fall walk ought to feel! The shop is in an old house and it's just packed to the gills with stuff - like so much stuff that you feel more than a little nervous walking through the halls lined with shelves of glassware, wishing you'd brought a smaller purse. There's one room with tons of kitchen stuff, all arranged by color (I love it when they do that!) - I managed to get through it without finding anything I had to have, even though there were tons of things I'd have liked to pick up. Then I hit the buttons. uh oh. I'm such a sucker for buttons! Most were $3 or less per set, so obviously I couldn't help myself!

I got these

and these

and these

and these

and these.

(I think I'm in the middle of a sparkle phase! I couldn't resist the rhinestones!)

Guess I'd better start cranking out more cardigans, huh?

I can't stop taking pictures of this

Isn't this just the most beautiful geranium you've ever seen?

I've had it for years - first I put it in a pot on my porch, then brought it inside for the winter - then I take it back out to the porch in the spring and back in again. It's the most amazing color and I can't believe how much it blooms.

It seemed so happy on the porch in the sun, but I don't want to risk losing it if we get a particularly cold night (which is quite a possibility these days!) So now it's in my dining room and I'm sure I'll soon have an inch of geranium petals on the floor. I just had to take a picture one more time!

Despite my glut of Christmas knitting, I cast on for a scarf this week.

Maybe because I feel like I'm making pretty good progress on my Christmas stuff, or maybe because the mister so rarely asks for stuff, I decided it was ok. and I kinda needed an excuse to do something different for a minute anyway. He wants a black scarf and I nearly went out and bought something like wool ease for it, but then decided that it was ridiculous to have 800 yards of Adrienne Vitadini Trina in my stash and not just use that. Now you could also say it's ridiculous to use discontinued merino/cashmere on a guy who doesn't always take the best care of his stuff, but I figured it'd be nice for him to have something really soft around his neck, and even though I got the yarn with a project in mind, the chances of me getting to that project within the next 20 years is slim. seriously. Plus, it's nice to be able to knit with it - I mean isn't that half the reason we buy lovely stuff? It's seed stitch, which is simple but manly and if I'm making something for him, I don't just want to churn out a plain old garter scarf - even if he can't distinguish it from garter, he deserves more than that!

rockstars in Ohio!

I just signed up for a class with Cookie A. - I'm not sure I could be more excited! I'm not much of a class person, and what's even stranger is that this class is for designing socks from the top down and I assume that it's kind of an in-person version of the beginning of Sock Innovation where she goes through all that. and I do own the book so I could totally figure it out - but it's Cookie A. and I'll be in the same room with her. undoubtedly talking to her. i may well pass out. or worse yet, die right on the spot!

a different kind of needle, for a change...

My niece's upcoming birthday got me to put down my knitting needles for a minute and take up the needle and thread! Every time I sew I wonder why I don't do it more often - it's like I forget how much fun it is. Anyway, my mom is getting my niece, Savannah, an American Girl doll for her birthday (the whole American Girl thing kind of turns my stomach, but I suppose I begged just as much for a Cabbage Patch Kid, and got one, when I was her age so I really can't say anything) and I decided to make her some clothes.

These things crack me up - I don't know if it's just that little things are so darn cute, or what, but whatever it is, it's making me love sewing doll clothes! I think it's the little details that tickle me so much - like the fact that the shirts have set in sleeves, just like big people clothes! The little buckle on the corduory pants I found and sewed on (which I think must have been saved from a doll shoe at one point - it was in my grandma's button box and I had to pry it off a little leather strap) and the mock zipper flap on the jeans: I'm also pretty proud of myself that I didn't buy anything except for the velcro - the rest is all fabric that I reclaimed from clothing destined for the Salvation Army, or scraps from stuff I made in the past. Oh, I also knit her this little cardigan! I think I know what Savannah is getting for Christmas! I've got plans already - I could modify the patterns to make a party dress, or put a peter pan collar on the shirt! oh - she better not get sick of this doll anytime soon! (but I'm sure she will -she's a kid!)

The christmas knitting monkey...

...is on my back! Even though I told myself I wouldn't get crazy with Christmas knitting this year, I feel myself doing it already. I planned the Rowan sweater for my favorite uncle plenty early, got the yarn, and started it - then got derailed by an irresistable test knit for Carol Feller. It's nearly finished. And now there's another test knit that I absolutely can't turn down - it's colorwork (hello? love!) and it's for Hannah Ingalls, and I can't wait to do it! I know it's still August, but still, the sensible thing would be to pare down my plans for gifts, but this time of year I just start adding them on, and on, and on! I definitely want to knit for my mom because she's the one who appreciates it and deserves it more than anyone else. I'm going to make her some thrummed mittens because she's got perpetually cold hands. However, that just doesn't seem like enough, you know? I fear that I'll make some rash decision to start on something like a 2000 yd. lace shawl for her 2 weeks before Christmas! Then there's my father's birthday on December 1st, which always catches me off guard because my mind gets fixated on the 24th. I want to make him a pair of socks because I can't ever think of anything else to get him - no wait! it's the standing gift of date bars (my grandmother's recipe) for his birthday, then socks for Christmas - ok, I just got a month back! Oh, and have you seen that new kit from Knit Picks for the ornaments and garlands? It's adorable. and so cheap! I ordered it. I'm already envisioning a strand of knit lights on my mantle! and of course that's also going to lead to little knit ornaments for my mom and sister-in-law too! I told myself I would not knit for the nieces or nephews - it's all just going to end up in a dog's mouth or on the garage floor eventually anyway. Buuut, my oldest niece is getting an American Girl doll for her birthday in October (and I decided I'd sew some clothes for her - pattern is in hand, but when am I going to get around to that? a week before? probably) and there are some pretty cute American Girl knit patterns on Ravelry. How long could that possible take? Gaaaaa! It's August - this is only going to get worse!!