Lucky Me

I was fortunate enough to recently get my hands on some of Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop Yarn. This yarn is amazing. I can't wait to finish my Christmas knitting so I can dive into this stuff!

Even though these colorways look similar, they're different.

Above: Brown Eyed Girl
Below: Great Balls of Fire

WFDW from Sunday

Here I am, cheating again on What's for Dinner Wednesday. Tonight I feel like doing absolutely nothing since I've had a super busy week at work and it's only 1/2 over! So, I bring you the dinner Kyle made for me on Sunday night. He found the recipe in his Men's Health magazine, I think it's called Greek Stuffed Chicken. The chicken breast is stuffed with a mixture of balsamic vinegar, pine nuts, black olives and sun dried tomatoes and then baked. It was quite tasty and we both agreed that it was a keeper. He plated it with steamed asparagus and left over butternut squash (with lots of butter!). Thanks for dinner K!!

Needles of All Kinds

Brainylady has a wonderful word of advice about teeth cleaning. I busted a gut when I read this one.

I try really really hard not to go to Wal-M@rt but I found myself there sometime this past summer and I browsed the craft aisles. Check out these super neon colored huge knitting needles! They were SO bright! And no, I didn't buy them.

Two Tired Boys

I Managed to Buy More for Me

Last night we decided to hit the mall and a couple other places for a little exercise since we've been doing little else other than eating turkey leftovers and watching countless hours of Miami Ink. I managed to find more to buy myself than to buy for gifts, including this Timbuk2 bag. I'm going to retire my quilted knitting bag (for now) and use this one which allows me to also carry things to and from work such as my lunch and magazines or books. Tomorrow it will make it's maiden voyage. :-(

The Pincushion Arrived!

To complete the cirlcle of swapping pincushions, I recently heard that the pincushion I sent arrived, super fast too! I sent a pincushion to P from petulant feminine all the way to England in just 3 days. She loves the goodies, in fact she blogged about it today.
I decided to make a cupcake similar to the one I made for the recycling challenge. Mainly because who wouldn't love a cupcake pincushion? I love sending / receiving things internationally and I'm pleased that P loved her pincushion! And I need to say thank you to Julie for setting up a super swap!!

It Came From New Zealand

I arrived home this evening to find a package waiting for me from New Zealand! "It's THE PINCUSHION SWAP!" I proclaimed. What a wonderful package it is too! Prairie Mouse sent me all things hula, and everything was hand packaged in its own bag. The pincuchion is SO perfect and there's a little surfer pin on the top. She enclosed so many other fun goodies including a handmade needle case, chocolate bars, ribbon, buttons & a HULA SKIRT! How fun is that? THANK YOU PRAIRIE MOUSE!!!!!

Happy Turkey Day!

Red Sky at Night, Sailor's Delight

I managed to forget to buy the one orange I needed while at the grocery store yesterday so I had to make a quick stop after work today to pick it up. As I parked I noticed a slight red hue in the sky, it is supposed to be in the 50's for Thanksgiving so I guess that is a delight!
The store was surprisingly not too busy...maybe most have chosen the pre-cooked meal instead.?.?.?

Brewhead

Here you go, my finished meathead which I've named Brewhead since I embellished it with beer bottlecaps.
Started: November 19, 2006
Finished: November 21, 2006 (I knit it in one day but it took me a couple to get around to embellishing it)
Pattern: Meathead by Larissa Brown (adult small/medium) available only through the knitalong, I believe sign ups are closed.
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Bulky 1 skein (17 yds leftover) held double throughout
Color: M-10 Creme
Needles: Size 15-16" bamboo circular & size 15 24" bamboo circular-I opted to knit the hat in the round rather than seaming it.
Knit for: The meathead knitalong
Embellished with: 3 beer bottle caps Leinenkugel, Grain Belt and August Schell. All brewed close to home, MN & WI.
I have a few other meatheads on the horizon, aren't you curious???

Wild Nights

Saturday night Kyle & I attended a MN Wild hockey game. The game was kind of boring except for the goal by Mikko Koivu. And what do you know? He just scored a goal in the game tonight. Koivu, Koigu...quite the coincidence.
Can you tell Kyle hates these photos??

Meatheads Unite!

I couldn't resist joining the meathead knit along and I'm really glad I did. The meathead hat is such a quick knit and even though it requires knitting a pattern exactly as written there's also a bit of creativeness involved too. I did finish my hat today but I haven't embellished it yet so I'll wait on a final photo until that happens. Until then, you can visit the Flickr page and check out some of the other finished meatheads.

MM #1

I finished the first Malabrigo Mitten (MM) this morning, I've even woven in the -what seemed like 100- ends but was really only 12. It looks like my gauge changed a little bit when I went back to knit the thumb, other than that I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, it's very thick and warm. I think Casey likes it too.

Just Because They're So Darn Funny

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (pet and current street name)
Casey Edgewood

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your moms side, your favorite candy)
Virginia Whopper

3. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of last name, first three letters of your middle name)
Obet

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Pink Dog

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Beth St. Paul

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom's maiden name and first 3 letters of the town you grew up in)
Ohncamusho

7. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, favorite drink)
The Pink Ace

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first name of both your grandfathers)
Oney Stanley

9. FUTURISTIC NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne and the name of your favorite shoes)
CK Rocket Dog

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother & father's middle names )
Jane Earl

I Can Handle a Half-Hour

This morning I waited a half-hour outside Target in 25º weather to nab one of the Cities 97 Sampler CD's. As I was walking into the store, there were other people camped out front waiting for Playstations to go on sale tomorrow morning! That's over 24 hours. Waiting. For a video game. I can handle a half-hour.
I can't wait until there's more sunlight, my photos are so bad these days...

WFDW

This week I actually cooked on Wednesday! No cheating for me. At work last week, I found a recipe for Sesame Chicken in the latest issue of Hallmark Magazine, there was also a double baked sweet potato recipe that I'd also like to try. The sesame chicken is served with a peanut sesame sauce which I didn't picture here. There's just enough cayenne pepper in the sauce to give it a bite, I love peanut satay so the flavors were right up my alley. I served this meal with a side of sticky rice and an asian green salad with ginger-sesame dressing.
We both gave this recipe a thumbs up, it's a keeper!

Knitting with Friends

I spent the afternoon knitting at The Yarn Cafe with my fabulous friend Splatgirl. I worked on my Malabrigo mittens although I'm not to crazy about how the purple is pulling a self striping jig. Once I started the stockinette stitch and then increasing for the thumb the striping has disappeared so I guess I can live with it for an inch or two on the cuff. Rumor has it Splatgirl will be posting some cool pics from the afternoon so keep an eye on her blog. I, on the other hand, was too busy knitting to walk around the store much. I did pick up some yarn for a bit of trial size knitting for the holidays. More on that later of course...

Trial Size Flapjacks

Amy from good to be girl makes these awesome little stitch markers and I was lucky enough to get some from her this past September. I think she plans on having some of her sets for sale on her blog soon. Unfortunately each time I use these on my knitting projects I become hungry...
And the alternative is to use the cupcake stitch markers I got from my secret pal last spring and they make me hungry too!!!

Gettin Knittin on the Mitten

We've been having quite the lazy day here at Chez Knit-Whit. Oodles of yard work yesterday gives us permission to have lazy bones today. I knit a gauge swatch for the Malabrigo mittens I have in the works and I'm happy to report I was right on! Yay! Maybe I'll get started tonight right after I finish up my pincushion challenge for the month, a pincushion swap.
To elaborate a bit on my post from yesterday, yes I heard we are supposed to start getting some cold weather, flurries and possibly some snow starting tonight and again on Tuesday. Not really a "storm" but cold and snow none the less.

Saturday Sky Take 12

The calm before the storm...

Is Winter Near?

Casey is trying to hide from the impending cold weather headed our way. Not too far South of here, a lot of snow fell overnight. Like 16 inches worth. We had nothing. Next week looks like our lucky week. I'd better dust off the shovels.

WFDW

Last night we ate too fast to get photos of the meal plus the sun is down almost before it comes up so photo taking opportunities are rare these days. So, I'm using a meal we made last month or maybe in September but never blogged about. Chicken Caesar Pita Wraps. This recipe was inspired from Splatgirl's boy, so thank you boy! I start by dissecting a rotisserie chicken purchased at the local grocery store, mix some of it up with broccoli slaw, romaine lettuce, fresh shredded Parmesan, Caesar dressing and fresh pepper. If I have tomatoes I'll throw those in too. Warm up some pitas and place the stuff inside. It's decent the next day too.

Remember, don't use all the chicken because the remainder is good for chicken enchiladas, chicken soup, pasta with pesto and chicken, even Splatgirl's Gumbo Ya Ya! The possibilities are endless.

Double Ewe

I took a visit to a new local yarn shop yesterday after voting and managed to add to my yarn stash. I picked up a skein of Malabrigo in the Hollyhock colorway and a ball of Bunny Hop for a quick baby hat since there's 4 babies on the way at my office. Yes, I said FOUR. I've quit drinking the water...
The yarn shop is a quaint shop tucked in the corner of a strip mall. She's got some nice felting yarns, Cherry Tree Hill (one of my favorite sock yarns) and many more types of yarn that I can't remember. Each yarn has an information card posted next to it with things like the fiber content, what it is best used for, feltable or not, stitches per inch, etc, a nice touch IMO. I can tell the owner is tuned in to how to run a good business, I'm looking forward to seeing the shop grow in the coming months.

Did you?

Novemer Blahs

Deb, a local blogger is interested in seeing November calendar pages since it's her birthday month and when she was young they were typically quite boring. We have one calendar in our house and it pictures Weimaraner puppies photographed by William Wegman. We've been getting this same calendar for about 9 years now and this year I haven't seen it in the bookstore, could it have disappeared?

Wontons

Recently my mom mentioned she wanted to make wontons, something we used to do occasionally with a recipe my aunt brought back from when she lived in Japan. This afternoon my mom came over and we whipped up a batch while watching the football game. The recipe is simple, the construction is putsy. We started by mixing the pork, onion, water chestnut, soy sauce, salt & pepper.
Then we placed a dollop of pork mixture onto a wonton wrapper and folded them into tiny envelopes.
We sealed them with a beaten egg and froze them on cookie sheets before we placed them in freezer bags. Thanks to my mom's quick math skills ;-) the recipe yielded us 15 dozen wontons. Plenty for the upcoming holiday season, they'll be a great time saving appetizer for all those last minute parties.
Of course we had to try a few to make sure they were as good as we remembered, and they were. Thanks for the great idea mom!

Fortune Teller

Resting atop my latest knitting project is a fortune I happened to come across this afternoon. It sounds interesting, I'll keep you posted!

A Must Buy

Check out the description on these detailing cloths. Can you even stand it? Dental floss for your car!!!! I love it, and at a clearance price I couldn't put this back on the shelf.

Candyswap Goodies

Thank you to Libby for sending me some fabulous Halloween candies! The pumpkins are filled with chocolates, all except one which contained a spooky spider ring. The PEZ is crazy cool, it glows in the dark! The candy necklace kit looks interesting and did you see the size of that peanut butter cup? I know the See's candy will be fabulous, it may be the 1st things I try. Since I had a belly ache last night (too much candy the night before??) I haven't eaten any of this but I plan to really soon. Libby is also new to the blog world, go give her a look!

Thank you Libby!!!!!

Halloween...The Day After

I failed at Socktoberfest just like I did last year. Oh well, the socks are for me so there isn't a deadine.

Casey wore the same costume he used last year. Since he wears the costume for about 1/2 hour it doesn't pay to get him a new one each year.

And my 2 pumpkins. I roasted my seeds already, 1/2 the batch with this recipe and 1/2 with salt and olive oil. I found some really cool candles at Jo-Ann Etc.; battery operated, prongs on the back so you can stick it anywhere in the pumpkin and they flicker like candles too. They're sort of like these. They keep me from having to check the pumpkins every 10 minutes for a blown out candle, it always seems to be windy Halloween night.

A new yarn shop opened here in the Northern suburbs, it could be on my way home from work and it's the closest shop to my house so I'm sure I'll become a regular. I haven't been there yet, maybe this weekend. Have any of you been to visit?