Nevermind

and on second thought, scratch all of the new garb below.  I have a hoop skirt mostly made, and new chemise that is wearable... but I can't afford to make the rest of it.  I'm going to figure out how to make a new bodice since none of the ones I have fit, but the court garb... was a vain hope.

I should have known better than to think i could have nice things too.

just... nevermind.

Project: German court garb

New Project time!


It's time for me to have court garb.  I'm tired of being the shabbiest dressed when we're out and about at faires, so to hell with it.  Goal for this summer: to have court garb that matches J's by the annual trip to Bristol (3rd weekend of July).

Must match this lovely specimen of human

The main problem with this is that the above outfit was made in 2005 or so.  Before J and I had even met.  And if anyone knows a 20-something year old who will buy an extra 6 yards of fabric just because his (hasn't met yet) wife will want garb that matches his in 7 years, please introduce me to him.  After rummaging through the assorted fabric boxes, we've found about another yard of the purple used for his doublet and scraps of the other fabrics.  Clearly, not enough.  Side note: perhaps, after 5 years of living together and 3 years of marriage, it might be time for J and I to sort, clear, and combine our fabric stashes. 


**Fabric**
Step number 1) find fabric that matches, or is at least close enough.  This has been... difficult.  The main brocade/ jacquard used is actually quite a bit darker than it appears in the photo above.  Near as I can tell, they just don't make that color anymore.  I can find the exact same fabric in dark blue, yellow, red, and cream... but not plum purple.  And it's mostly plastic, so I can't even dye it.  This is an ongoing search.  Currently, I'm on fabric samples 4 and 5 for the main fabric.  At this point, if I can match color, even if I don't match pattern I'm using it.  Or I'll order an extra couple of yards and we'll make him a new doublet.


To make it even more difficult, the trim fabric (on his sleeves and pants) has disappeared entirely.  It was a gift from a friend of a friend of a friend originally, so who knows how old it is.  I'm really not even trying on this one.  I've found a trim we both think is close enough, so I'll just use that.


The silks were remarkably easy, so at least 1 thing is going right.


**Design**
First thing of the outset: What everyone thinks of as "german garb" from this period is specifically Saxon garb.  and f*ck that noise.  If i wanted a clown outfit, I could spend a lot less money on it and have something that would still look better on me.  If saxony is your cup of tea, go for it, have fun.  But not me.


J's character above is/was Ludwig IV, landgrave of Hesse-Marburg from 1567-1604.  Specifically, this garb was for 1565, before his father's death.  Normally, I would just go to town working from portraits of one of the guy's two wives... but they're so minor that they don't even have their own wikipedia pages. I'm looking for northern German garb, but of a woman who can and has travelled to at least France.  Fortunately, France and England were where all the interesting things were going on with court clothing anyway.  I'm expanding out my appropriate years... because I can and because I'm not on cast nor in SCA, so I can do whatever I want.


I'm matching the sleeves, picadils, and epulates from J's doublet flat out.  We're still discussing the neckline.  The style that will look best on me is the fairly deep, square neckline:

 Portrait of the Artist's Sisters and Brother, Sofonisba Anguissola, c. 1555

This has the added benefit of being fairly easy to stick ice cubes down the front and back to cool me off.  The high collar, doublet style bodice is coming in to style for most areas... but I don't care.  I'm compromising with a high collar partlet.


The classic split skirt seems to be in vogue in some parts of europe (England, Italy) and not in others (Holy Roman Empire/Germany, France).  

Mary, Queen of Scots, Unknown Artist, c.1561-1567

Erzherzogin Maria (1551-1608), Herzogin in Bayern, Gemahlin von Erzherzog Karl II. von Innerösterreich,  Cornelis Vermeyen, c.1577 

Once more, I like it, so I'm going for it.  I think somewhere I have information on who to do a split skirt that you can have open or closed, but I'm not sure it's worth finding the information or the engineering feat.

so, the plan:
purple brocade/ jacquard bodice, square neck, picadills and epuplets.  slashes and puffs in gold and red silks.
purple overskirt, trimed in gold silk with ribbon trim.
1 red silk sleeve w/ ribbon trim, 1 gold silk sleeve w/ ribbon trim
red silk underskirt, trimmed
blackwork linen chemise

That's not so bad... right?  I should have a picture of what I want up next.  I'm having trouble getting it into digital format.

Update: Wool Leaves

... I love my almost nephew.  I love my almost nephew.  And if I keep repeating it, maybe I won't set his baby blanket on fire.

2 row pattern.  Why can't I figure this out???

No photo, because I'm incredibly demoralized.

New Pattern: Solid Bottom Market Bag

The Solid Bottom Market Bag.

Or the Farmer Market Bag of Holding

Please forgive the mess

 Just a simple crocheted market bag for use at the store or farmer's market. 

Pattern available here

Also, just for kicks?  I published in on Ravelry.  We'll see how this goes. 

Today I have...

Today I have:

• Knit 4 rows on J's sweater.  Putting me at something like 100 rows total and about halfway up the back.
• knit and torn out 2 rows on the baby blanket.  72 stitches is not 71.  Nor is 70.  No, I do not know where I screwed up.
• decided to say fuck it, ripped out the entire thing and recast on, 1 repeat wider this time.  I'm using the rationale of "it was not wide enough" to justify ripping out 2.5 repeats of the pattern, something like 44 rows.  Better that than cutting it off, setting it on fire, and laughing manically at work
• tangled my yarn.
• balled my yarn and am now contemplating design changes and 

I'm currently trying to decide if adding 4 more stitches, in addition to the pattern repeat, will make the moss stitch look like moss stitch.  or if i add 8 more, i can do double moss stitch and possibly, maybe, not have the border look like ass.

I have a finished project to post, which I'll do Sunday night since I don't have it with me and I'm going to my folks immediately after work.  I don't know when I'll be back other than "by 3 on Sunday."

Pass the wine and the chocolate please.

Progress Update: Big Damn Sweater

We are at:

3.5 skeins of yarn.

Main Cable.  Please ignore the lifelines

1 Main Cable repeat

Entire Thing.

16 inches long

Not shown: the look on my face when I realized that I had screwed up 12 rows earlier, causing the entire cable to be lop-sided.  Nor the 2 pints it took to get me through ripping those stitches out and reknitting them (correctly) with grace.  I'm not allowed to work on this thing at Stitch and Bitch anymore.

I still haven't ordered more yarn.  I'm thinking after my next paycheck?

And I'm starting Baby S-H's blanket today.
(EDIT: no I'm not.  I failed to both grab the correct set of needles and stitch markers.)

General Update

In order of completion:

Sea Tide Socks: don't fit properly, and while I love the yarn, I hate the heel and how they fit.  Also, I cast off too tightly on one, so I have to work at it to make it onto my foot.  I need to find someone with long fat feet and skinny ankles.  I don't think this person exists.  So... I guess these will just kinda hang out.  Unless I decide to frog them entirely, which might happen, but is unlikely.

Fuzzy photo taking for the win!

Sweater update: am currently on skeins 2 and 3, and a little over half way through the first repeat of the main cable.  I might not need to do a full 3rd repeat, but we're not sure at the moment.  Also, the sleeves and armholes?  Still haven't worked that out.  I need to go the library and get some books.

I bought skeins 4-6 yesterday, completely emptying their stock.  And I need at least 10 more skeins I think.  The original pattern calls for about 1400 yards, at 217 yards/ skein= 7 skeins.  Double that since I have to hold the yarn double= 14.  Plus some extra because J is huge.  So I guess I'll have to do a special order.  Which is going to have to wait a paycheck, at least.

Pencil for scale again

Pirate Hat: someone gag me with a spoon.  It looks like a mini-skirt.  The pattern is overly fussy (yes, I realize the stupidity of the cosplay sweater being less of a pain than the soon to be felted hat).  Starting from the outside and working in may be the more logical way of doing this so it felts properly, but the decreases seem to be placed randomly and I'm currently at that awkward place where it's too small for the circular but too big for the dpns.  Also, that's not counting the pain finding size 13 dpns was.  And that's just borrowing them.  For a while, I was thinking I was going to need to sharpen a frickin dowel rod.  

Currently, this is on hold while I find the other ball of yarn that got moved somewhere over the weekend.  I currently don't even have enough to finish the row I'm now.  I'm pretty sure I saw it this morning, or at least the bag it should be in, but I was in a hurry and didn't have time to check.  I should be able to at least finish the knitting part of it this weekend, but probably not the felting.  I should probably go look up good instructions on how to felt.  Hrm.

Birthing Socks: These were originally supposed to be for me, in their toe and heel-less glory.  But those stupid stirrups at the dr's office get really cold.  And in summer, with it already being freezing inside due to the A/C? Screw that noise.  So these are now for Baby SH's mom.  Hopefully, she'll get more use out of them than just birthing, but, whatever.

Currently, there is no progress to speak of on these as I somehow dropped 7 stitches (or cast on the wrong number) while knitting from ball band to the heel, so when I went to increase for the almost gusset... bad things happened.  So it was promptly frogged.  I've about 3 more rows where I need to pay attention and then it drops into a much less attention needing rib.  Unless I decide to do the bottom in moss stitch for some extra cushioning?  Not sure yet.  This is definitely one of those pattern as a general guideline sort of deals.

Goals list:  I went through and pruned and updated it.  Every time I try to knit something for myself, it ends up getting turned into a gift anyway, so I just dropped most of the stuff I was doing for me.  I might add a second shawl in, as I found a couple patterns that are making me go all lustful and stuff, but that's still a maybe.  If I have time before Yule.  At this point, as long as I have a new pair of gloves/mittens and a hat by winter, I'll be happy.

Life in general: It's not looking particularly optimistic for getting a new job.  So I need to start looking for apartments.  And clearing out our crap.  If I get off early this afternoon, I should probably go find and apply for more jobs instead of playing with yarn.

Today is one of those days where you see why chemises, pettycoats and hairpins were invented.  At least then I'd be comfortable in my look like hell status.

Joys of geekery

OMG Squee.

For the truely geeky knitter in your life: Chaos Knitting.  http://www.knitivity.com/diceyKnitting.html

Essentially, you roll dice to determine what you're going to knit.  I feel a need to go to michaels and pick up some wooden d6s to play with....

Update: Big damn sweater

The continuing adventures of the big damn Washbourne.

After several days, I am one skein of yarn in.  And it only took casting on 3 times! So far, I have the bottom ribbing done and 5 rows of the pattern.  I might be able to elk out one more row with the amount of yarn I have left, but rather than have to stop mid-row, I'm stopping here for the rest of the work day.

Normal sized mechanical pencil for scale

There are definitely errors that knitters will be able to notice, and J said he could see where the pattern is different but not how I screwed up, but I decided it wasn't a big enough deal to have to rip back out.

The start of the central cable

Twisted rib?  Not my friend.  Since I finally got the gauge to work out, I'm not nearly as worried about this fitting properly (yarn held as double, size 10.5 needles) as I was, however I know the arm holes and sleeves are going to require some more editing to make work properly.  I've not even started thinking about the sleeves.  Oh darn, I'll have to spend large amounts of time watching Firefly when I get there.

I'm going to start stringing lifelines every 20 rows or so.  I've got the first one about 2 rows ago.  I'm thinking I'm going to leave them in place until everything is finished.

The longer cables for my circulars are making this much easier.  I went ahead and ordered the 60 inch length last week which is almost twice as long as what I was using.  I can now hold it up to J for sizing guess-timates without it being a huge ordeal.  Also, there's room for my backup row counter.

I'm mostly using "Knit Counter Lite" on my phone for this project.  And this might be enough to convince me to drop the $2.99 for the full version.  As I can link counters together so it keeps track of not only which row of the sweater I'm on, but also which row of the cable pattern.  The only real advantage of having the full version is the ability to have multiple projects going at once.  

Spring, finished booties

Never one for great wisdom, you should interpret this as you will:

ZOMG GREEN THINGS!!!  SPRING!!!  YAYAYAYAYAAY!!!!

And now for the crafting porn.

Starbucks Monkey says: BOOTIES!!!

In in further examples of how gauge matters: same pattern as the booties for Baby W, at least an inch bigger.  No new pattern notes other than at some point, I should probably try these with the yarn called for (sock weight) instead of worsted.  Maybe for the next pair.

In other news, found and ordered the yarn for Baby S-H's blanket.  KnitPick's Comfy Bulky in Marlin.  So I have yarn, pattern, and knitting needles.  Now I just need to actually knit it.  I also need to actually make progress on J's sweater instead of just toting the yarn and needles with me.

Have not even started on the pirate hat yet.  If Ostara celebrations get cancelled this weekend due to weather, I might start it then.  Other wise, it's going to wait until I finish this second sock.

Bren's Birthday Dinner

Dinner for Saturday night/ Brenna's birthday dinner type thing.
Roasted Veggies
Bacon Explosion
Peanut Butter Icebox Pie (sky high variety)
Colcannon

(Original recipes are located at the links)

I forgot photos again.  Like normal, just use your imagination.  Obviously, this was not a "healthy" night.  I got everyone to eat their veggies, there was meat for those who wanted it and more than enough veggies for those who didn't.  Final count: 1 lb of butter, 2 pints heavy cream, 5 lbs of potatoes (not all of them got turned into Colcannon, only about half).  I'm not even guessing about calorie count as I am very certain I DO NOT wish to know.


Roasted veggies are kinda a obvious one: parsnips, carrots, asparagus, red pepper, cherry tomatoes, butternut squash.  Maybe some other things too, I feel like I'm forgetting something.
Preheat oven to 350-375.
Peel, chop, etc everything into bite sized pieces.
Arrange on sheet pans in single layer, douse with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and roast until done, about 30 minutes.  May want to separate out smaller/faster cooking things (asparagus and tomatoes) and roast them on separate pans as they'll take less time.

They're roasted veggies, of course they're tasty!

Bacon Explosion.
Not going to lie.  This was my brother's contribution, I merely provided kitchen space and clean hands occasionally.
1 lbs bacon, thick sliced, uncooked.
1/2 lb bacon, cooked until crispy and chopped into pieces
1 lb sausage of some variety (we used italian)
bbq seasoning
bbq sauce (KC Masterpiece works well)

Pre-Heat oven to 300.
Take 1 lb of bacon and weave it together into a mat, like you would do for a lattice topped pie.  Except closer together.  Season with BBQ seasoning.
Spread sausage on top of mat.  Douse with seasoning and bbq sauce.  Along 1 end (narrow end), spread the cooked bacon.  Roll the sausage and cooked bacon into a roll and then roll that into the bacon mat.  So you have a jelly roll type thing with layers of cooked bacon, sausage, and bacon mat.
Coat liberally with BBQ sauce.  Place in tin foil lined roasting pan (or a disposable) and cook until done, about 45 minutes per inch of thickness, or until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees.
Allow to rest before slicing.

Make this for large groups with healthy cholesterol counts.  It's tasty, but that's a lot of bacon.  The seasoning on these made it really spicy, and the italian sausage just multiplied that problem, so watch out for the level of spice.

Colcannon.
2-2.5 lbs russet potatoes
6 tbsp unsalted butter (plus more for serving)
3 cups loosely chopped Kale
1 cup milk or cream.

Peel, chop, boil potatoes until fork tender.  Set aside.
Melt butter into a pan and add Kale.  Cook 3-4 minutes until wilted down.  Add into potatoes, along with milk/cream  Mash together.
Per the recipe, serve with a knob of butter melted into the center.

Fail.  Apparently, you need to cut the stalks from kale?  Didn't know that.  It never really cooked down a whole lot, and just... failed.  I might try again, with the info I've gained from this, but... yeah.  Fail.

Peanut Butter IceBox Pie
Adapted to be Gluten Free

crust
1 box/3 cups Gluten Free 'Nilla Wafers or Not-Graham Crackers, pulverized into bits.
2 sticks butter, melted
Up to 2 cups buckwheat flour

Filling
Caramel Sauce (made according to this recipe.  I'm sure you could use store bought, but I forgot it)
2 cups heavy cream
3 blocks cream cheese
1.5 cups creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp + 1 tsp vanilla extract (or 3 capfuls, which ever)

Topping
2 Cups Peanut Butter Cups, chopped into pieces

For Crust
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine crumbs and butter in large bowl, adding buckwheat until stiff enough to hold to side of pie pan.  Form crust in pie pan and bake until stiff and not jiggly (All told, I think it took 10-15 minutes).  Cool to room temperature

Caramel sauce.  Made according to recipe above.  I hate sugar work.

For Filling:
Beat heavy cream using whisk or mixer until stiff peaks form.  Cover, place in fridge

In separate bowl, beat cream cheese on medium high until smooth and creamy.  Add Peanut Butter, sugar and vanilla, beat until incorporated.
Fold in whipped cream, gently, until fully combined.

Assembly
Drizzle about 3 tablespoons of Caramel sauce in bottom of cooled pie crust.  Carefully fill crust with peanut butter filling, spreading out to the edges and smoothing out.  Sprinkle peanut butter cup pieces artfully on top. Cover, refrigerate at least 5 hours before serving.

Eventually, I will live in an area where obtaining GF not-graham cracker crusts will be fairly easily done and I will just buy them.  They will be prettier and folks won't look at me like I'm stupid when I'm staring blankly at the gf cookies.  This is really really tasty and really really rich.  Even people who normally go for double slices of pie went for half slices on this one.

Starting: J's Washbourne/ Big Damn Sweater

I love my husband.  I also have a feeling that this is going to become my mantra for the next several months.

J has wanted Wash's sweater from Firefly since he saw the show.  Long before he met me.  And now my knitting skills are finally where I'm comfortable making this sweater.

This is what he wants, only he wants it in green:

Because Cables are fun!!

Okay, good enough, I can do this.  Thank you Ravelry for useful things like more creative/talented people than me who have already figured out this pattern.

Pattern I am using is here.  This lovely thing is sized for a much smaller person than J.  42 inch chest would fit me nicely, but not him.  I need to add 12 inches around, a third repeat of the cable up and lengthen the arms as well.  It's hell knitting for an ogre.

Currently, I'm on gauge swatch number 5.  I've tried needle sizes 9 through 11, no dice.  Always too many stitches per inch.  I'm back on size 10.5 (the closest I've come) and doubling the yarn.  Hopefully, this will work.  It will make knitting it go slower, but at this point, it's more important that it fits right than he gets it soon.

It's a good thing he doesn't want this until fall.  Personally, my goal is for it to be done by Yule (Dec 21).

Yarn is Berroco Vintage.  I forget the colorway off hand, but dark heathered green.  Will ultimately need about 8 skeins I'm guessing.  Once I figure out the gauge, I'll get that part figured out.

And then, as an off project, I have a pirate hat to knit.  damnit.

FO: Baby C's 8 point Star

Baby C's 8 Point Star Blanket

You'll have to forgive the colors on the photos. Apparently, my camera doesn't like rainbows?  Properly, this is Red Heart's Mexicana, Forest Green, and Royal Blue.  I'm sure those are easily found.

this is the better of the 2 photos and is still awful.  But at least you can tell what the colors are supposed to be!

Pattern, such that it is, can be found here.

My final yarn count:

2 entire skeins of Red Heart Mexicana

Most of 1 skein of Royal blue

1 and a smidge of Forest Green.

I try not to pick on other folk's pattern's too badly.  Everyone has screw ups, everyone fails at math occasionally.  But, just so you know if you decide to do this one as well, the stitch counts stop being accurate after the 8th shell row in the printer friendly version.  The main pattern appears to be accurate through out (but my math could be wrong).  it's not a huge deal to fix, just add 1 dc in each side up the shell every row.

::edit:: apparently the pattern author has corrected this since I printed the pattern.  nevermind!

Attempted close up of the center.  Camera Fail.

The main part of the blanket took almost no time to knock out, even after adding additional rows to make it big enough.  The granny squares took longer than the blanket it feels like, just because there were so many, and then I had to sew them together.  All in all, this was a good learning skills blanket (granny squares!  sewing together!  sizing!).  It ended up way bigger than I thought it was going to.  I don't have the final dimensions yet, but it works quite nicely as a lap blanket for me or J, which is just amazing.  Before I added the granny squares, point to point was 34 inches and valley to valley was 27.  I possibly should have stopped there?  Adding the blocks between points adds at least 8 inches, possibly more.  

Baby C's blanket is now done.  Totally done even, outside of tossing it in the wash to get the cat fur etc off and out.  His booties will be done... in the next two weeks?  Baby shower is at the end of the month, so they'll need to be done by then.

FO: Baby W's Booties

And the matching booties are done too!

Poor kid isn't going to be able to wear these for a while (while Ravelry said they were newborn size, only if your newborn has ginormous feet) but they're cute.

Pattern can be found here (Ravelry link)

These killed the blueberry yarn from the blanket.  I guess somehow there was significantly less yarn in that skein?  I have maybe 1 foot left of it, not even enough to ball up for the cat.



These weren't too bad to make once I got it figured out.  The really tricksy bit was joining the tops (purple) with the bottoms (blue).  It really shouldn't have been as hard as it was, but the instructions weren't making sense in my head.  Theres a chance this is going to be the default bootie pattern for everyone, it's pretty easy to knock out over the course of the afternoon.  This is what I did while we were snowed in with the blizzard week before last.

The Baby Blanket that would not end (but did finally!)

It's finally done.  Finally.  Well, it's been done for a month now, but it's done and I have time to write about it.

Baby W's Circle Blanket.

overview of the entire blanket

These were all taken after I had washed it and blocked it out slightly (stretching it out on the living room floor counts right?)  Total measurement is 36 inches across, 113 inches around, 1017.9 square inches.

Close up of center

Total yarn use: Most of 1 skein each of Caron Simply Soft's blueberry, limelight, and grape.  I finished the blueberry skein making the matching booties.  There's probably enough of the limelight and grape to make another pair of booties, but I don't think I'm going to do so.

cat provided for scale.  If that's not particularly helpful, 36 inches

Overall, this pattern wasn't awful, except for the start.  The start, as I may have said before, was just infuriating.  3 hours to cast on is kind of ridiculous.  Accurately placing the stitch markers is really important for this one, as are tip protectors for when you have to put it down.  The biggest issue I ended up having was getting needles that the blanket would fit on as it grew.  I already had a 40 inch needle, but the 60 inch took over a month to arrive (and, apparently, the shop I purchased it from lost the notification that I had come to pick it up, as they called me last week to let me know it was in) which really slowed the whole process down.

The final edging I kinda just fudged.  It would have worked better if I had actually done the math and realized that 550 isn't divisible by 3 and 3x3 ribbing wasn't going to work very well.  But the end result ended up looking kinda cool and who's really going actually look at the ribbing when there's a pretty baby wrapped up in it?  Making it divisible by 3 would have involved another 6 rows and I was already in tears because I just wanted to be DONE with it.  (Knitting at 2 am because you promised yourself you'd finish it tonight?  Might not be the best idea ever)

When I make another one of these, I think I'm going to stick with 1 color and do different stitch patterns for each section.  Also, I will know better than to set arbitrary deadlines for it.

vaguely tex-mex chicken soup.

Theoretically, this was supposed to be Taco Soup.  But as I was prepping it this morning I realized that if I wanted J to eat it... that wasn't going to happen.  I threw in other foods instead.

This is really simple.  I managed to get it together and going before work this morning and still have time to check my email (not eat breakfast though... probably should have reversed those).  It took... 15 minutes?  Ish?  I should have, and meant to, get everything ready last night so all I had to do was put the crock in the base and flip it on, but other things happened.  Like knitting.

Right.  Vaguely Tex-Mex Chicken Soup

Ingredients
4 chicken thighs, skin off, bone in.  This is where most of the fat comes from, so you can use breast etc to make it lower fat
1 large can diced tomatoes
1 small can diced green chilies
"enough" baby carrots.  I think I used about 1/2 lb? 
1 1/2 sweet yellow onions, diced.
1 quart box of low sodium chicken stock
1 tsp curry powder
2 tsp chili powder
pinch of cayenne pepper
salt, pepper

Method:
Chuck every thing into a crockpot.  Set on low, let do it's thing for 6-8 hours, stirring occasionally.  When chicken is falling off the bones, remove bones, shred slightly, and stir back in.  Serve.

"African" Chicken Peanut Stew

We were in the mood for something new, creative, and well, different for dinner the other night.  I'd seen this on Simply Recipes last week and it looked like something that would be right up our alley: Peanut Butter?  Chicken?  Sweet Potatoes?  Hells to the yeah!

I did make some subsitutions to allow what we had in the pantry.  Mostly, switched out spices for what was easily available.  The original recipe calls for fresh ginger root, coriander, and cilantro.  Which I'm sure tastes fantastic.  But we don't have these in the pantry.  So I used cayanne (in the recipe), curry powder, "Chili 3000" (blend of ancho chili, garlic, cumin, onion, cilantro, paprika, cayenne, lemon peel, mexican oregano, black pepper and jalapeno), and a bit of dried powdered ginger.  When I first tried this, it was far spicier than it ended up being.  After it's been cooking for a while, it actually lost most of the spiciness, so that it was well within the reasonable limit that I can have J eat without problems.

African-ish Indian-ish Chicken Peanut Stew.

• 2-3 lbs bone-in, skin on chicken thighs
• 2-3 lbs sweet potatos, peeled and cubed
• 3 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 large yellow or white onion, cubed
• 8-10 garlic cloves, chopped roughly
• 1 15-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 quart chicken stock
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup roasted peanuts
• Salt and black pepper
• 2-3 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp "Chili 3000"
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 Heat the vegetable oil in a large soup pot set over medium-high heat. Salt the chicken pieces well, pat them dry and brown them in the oil. Don't crowd the pot, so do this in batches. Set the chicken pieces aside as they brown.
2 Sauté the onions in the oil for 3-4 minutes, stirring often and scraping any browned bits off the bottom of the pot. Add the garlic and sauté another 1-2 minutes, then add the sweet potatoes and stir well to combine.
3 Add the chicken, chicken broth, crushed tomatoes, peanut butter, peanuts,  and spices and stir well to combine. Bring to a simmer and taste for salt, adding more if needed. Cover the pot and simmer gently for about 1 hour or until the chicken meat easily falls off the bone and the sweet potatoes are tender.  It should look similar to red curry at this point.
4 Reduce heat even further (medium low to low).  Remove chicken pieces from pot, remove skin and bones and shred meat.  Check spice level and add more if wanted or needed.  Add meat back to pot and bring back to simmer.
5 Serve over plain steamed rice.

We served 4 with plenty of left overs (I think we have enough left for 4 more bowls?  I didn't get any of the leftovers) Yummy tastiness.

Goals 2011

By Jan 31, 2011
finish Baby W's blanket  Finished Jan 15, 2011, write up coming here

finish 1 pair of socks Finished March 27, 2011.  No write up.  Not happy with them.
pick out yarn and pattern for Baby C's blanket- Done Jan 8, 2011
Finish C&C's Christmas present
start A's socks

By Febuary 28th
corset for A started (edit 3/11/2011, may no longer be on me, nor her other garb)
finish Baby W's booties Finished Feb 2, 2011, write up here
start Baby C's blanket   Started Jan 23, 2011
paint onesies for Babies W & C (possibly S-H?)
finish A's socks  Finished 2/22, 2011.  Write up coming

By March 31st
finish Baby C's blanket  Finished 3/10/2011, write up here
Corset for A done no longer my problem
kirtle for A started no longer my problem
pick out yarn and pattern for Baby S-H's blanket- pattern picked out Feb 26, 2011, yarn picked and ordered Mar 22, 2011
start 1 pair of socks Started March 31, 2011.

By April 30th
Kirtle for A done no longer my problem
Over-dress for A done no longer my problem
Finish Baby C's booties Finished 3/20/2011, write up here

By May 31st
start Baby S-H's blanket
finish 1 pair of socks
pick out yarn and pattern for shawl

June 30th
Finish Baby S-H's blanket
finish Baby S-H's booties
start 1 pair of socks

July 31st
paint Baby S-H's onesies
start shawl
finish socks
pick out yarn and pattern for J's sweater.  Done March 13, 2011

August 31st
Knit 1 pair of socks
start sweater  Started March 14, 2011
reach at least half way on shawl
sew Starfleet Uniforms for Babies C and S-H

September 30th
start christmas/yule presents
finish shawl
reach at least halfway on sweater
start baby kimono

October 31st
start and finish 1 pair of mittens
finish sweater
finish at least half of christmas presents
finish baby kimono

November 30th
finish christmas presents
knit 1 pair of mittens

December 31st
knit 1 pair of socks.
make sure there are at least 1 photo of every FO in use
write goals for 2012

Baking! Gluten Free Chocolate Gooey Cookies!

I cheat, a lot, when I'm baking gluten free.  Every time I try to not cheat and just sub in gf flour mix (which should just sub in 1:1 with normal flour even!), I end up pie crust as hard as rocks, inedible cobbler or other, similar, atrocities.  So I cheat.

This time around, cheating took the form of GF Chocolate cake mix.  And, I suppose, doesn't even really qualify as cheating as the original recipe asks for box cake mix.  I made this pretty much according to directions, but with subsitutions.

Gluten Free Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies.

Having failed at actually taking pictures of the cookies in question, have Paula Deen's

Ingredients

• 1 8oz block of 1/3 fat cream cheese, room temperature.  (This might also be called Neufchâtel cheese, but should still be located with the cream cheese)
• 1 stick butter, room temperature.  I'm sure you can use stick margarine to make these lower fat still, but I've not tested it
• 1 (large) egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 18oz box GF Chocolate Cake Mix.  I used Betty Crocker's GF devil's food cake mix, but any should work fine.
• powdered sugar for rolling

In a mixing bowl, combine the butter and cream cheese thoroughly.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix in the egg and vanilla.  I stop midway and scrape down the bowl again.  Everything needs to be well incorporated.  Gradually mix in the cake mix, in batches, fully mixing in the previous batch before adding more. 

Cover mixing bowl and chill for at least 1 hour, 2-3 hours would be best.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll the dough into walnut sized balls and cover in powdered sugar.  Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Do not over bake.  Cookies should still be gooey when removed from oven.  Allow to cool for 1-2 minutes on sheet before evacuating to cooling rack.  Makes about 20 cookies. 

I have no idea how long these will keep for because, well, I'm lucky if they're allowed to cool fully before they're all gone.

Cigar gloves

And another project done for Yule.  Well, these were done after Yule and after Christmas even, but they're done!

"Cigar" gloves courtesy of Knitty.

as an example of how off the colors on my camera are: that orange in the upper corner?  Is actually crayon red.

Pretty much made these according to pattern aside from lengthening them.  I ran into trouble with the fingers and had *a lot* of sewing to do to patch up holes.

Next up:

Stocking Cap attempt 3.

Making a simple crocheted stocking cap should not be this hard, but I somehow keep screwing it up.  Attempt 1 was too small, attempt 2 was never going to turn into a hat (maybe a bag, but not a hat) and so was completely frogged.  On to attempt 3 tonight.  Probably at Stitch n' Bitch for a change.!