Party On!

BIRTHDAY BOY

Willie’s got a birthday next month ~ the big 0-5 ~ so we had to get busy knitting for the perfect party wear.  The result: my new Party Animal Dog Sweater Pattern, now available by following the previous link or clicking on the little thumbnail to your right under “My Patterns on Etsy”.

This little cutie is an EASY KNIT, a lightweight faux wrap that I made with two strands of fingering weight yarn held together and (I used Mondial Cotton Soft Speciale Baby Solid in Shade 916) and a novelty yarn for the trim (I used another Mondial yarn, Bolero, in Shade 964, a sweet rickracky, confetti-ish stuff).  It’s knit on size 5 and 8 needles and trimmed at the end with satin ribbons, like that kind you get by the roll at Jo Ann for 99 cents.  It’s sweet and soft, and Willie knows he’s the guest of honor when he wears it.

    

NOAH AND ME

We hate the hot weather, but we love the summer food.  What did you eat on the Fourth?  We had a little cookout planned (actually, for the Fifth, but who’s counting?), when Savannah’s skies let loose with a midafternoon monsoon.  The loudest thunder I’ve ever heard, and rain falling in sheets.  Some said there had been a tornado ~ maybe.  Our power went out, and we wondered how many others were in the same predicament.  (It gets awfully hot around here with no AC in July, let me tell you.)

After the storm, I ventured outside barefoot to find our neighborhood was under several feet of water!

  

That’s my corner on the top, and the second picture is of a car stuck in the water around the corner on Habersham Street, one of Savannah’s main thoroughfares.

We ended up having our little cookout anyway, as the grill was the only thing working normally, and the front porch was the only place to sit comfortably and feel a cool breeze.  The lights came on about an hour after we finished eating.  All I can say is, thank the Lord we didn’t have to sleep without AC or our fans.

YUM!

Which brings me to a favorite summer salad, for cookout or a quick lunch or anytime.  I cribbed it from Miss Angry Chicken, one of my favorite bloggers, a year or so ago. Chunks of watermelon, chopped fresh basil, lime juice, crumbled feta cheese. Yum!

Dog Days Sale

Giveaway, Little Doggies

Yo! I’ve been cashing in on some serious summer yarn sales myself, so I decided to throw a party at my Etsy shop to entice thank all my lovely customers … AND … to celebrate little Willie’s supporting role in helpinghandscrafts’ “Christmas in July” Treasury on Etsy. So honored! 

Here’s how the sale goes: For every two dog sweater patterns you purchase, you get a third pattern of your choice free.  Easy.  The sale will last throughout the month of July.  And, says Willie, “You can never get started too early on those labor-intensive but so precious Christmas sweaters for your best friend! Me, I just enjoy lolling about in the air-conditioning in my favorite summer-wear.”

(I’ll be adding another new sweater to the bunch over on Etsy tomorrow.  It’s all finished, photographed and written up.  Just have to type it in and get it posted.)

I Can See Clearly Now 

This is the new me, as opposed to the old me, the glasses-wearing me.  No, I didn’t get Lasik surgery.  I had cataracts removed from both eyes, the left on May 14 and the right on June 4.  I went from being legally blind in my left eye to being 20/20 in that one and 20/25 in the other.  Of course, I still have to wear reading glasses, and that is a total pain.  I get my final check-up on both eyes next week, and I’m kind of hoping the doctor tells me I could see even better with glasses, so I can go back to my trademark ’50s cat-eyes.  But it is absolutely wonderful to see everything again without a frame around it, to drive at night, to go to the movies without glasses, to wear eye makeup.  The procedule was nothing.  If you’re thinking of doing it, go for it.

Peaches ‘n’ Cream  

Here’s what’s on our plates lately ~ the best peach cobbler in the world, straight from Southern Living, of course. In summertime, I can’t resist those peachy peaches, so I make this yummy dessert often. Last week April and I made the first cobbler of the season, and when it came out of the oven, piping hot and smelling like heaven, we three devoured the whole thing before bedtime.

    

 

 

Bet I Can Make Just One

My Apologies

I’ve been MIA again.  Things have been hectic, what with end of the school year and a little something I’ll share with you next week.  Daughter had her prom two weeks ago.  Here’s my “baby”:

You can see the rest of the pictures on my Flickr page.  A great time was had by all, and we nearly went to the poorhouse with all the prom stuff.

Chipped Off

I finally succumbed to the lure of the Chip Bag, which has been in my Ravelry favorites for a while. While the result is cute, the project annoyed me. Here’s my bag:

   

I used two yarns held together ~ Blue Heron Texture (89% cotton/11% nylon) in “Leaf” and Cotton Licious (100% cotton) in “Spring Green”.  Because of the texture of the Blue Heron, I knew the cables wouldn’t show up, so I did the center cable in just the Cotton Licious (two strands) and eliminated the two smaller cables on either side of center.  The 9″ bamboo rods are from M&J Trim, and the lining fabric is Amy Butler’s “Full Moon Polka Dot” in Lime from the Lotus Collection.

Here’s my main gripe about the pattern:  It’s lazy.  First off, the pictured bag is knitted in Laines du Nord “Cleo”, but there is no gauge listed, so substitutions are iffy.  The main chart is not numbered.  Finally ~ and most irritating ~ the instructions end with “Secure your dowel or bamboo to the top of your bag with yarn …”  Um, excuse me for being dense, but HOW DO I DO THAT???  It wouldn’t be too hard to put together my own chart for a simple cabled bag like this, but, being lazy myself, I paid $7.25 to have someone else do the legwork. 

So, though I like my bag well enough, the pattern gets a C- from me.  (Oh, and now that I look more closely at the photos on the patternmaker’s website, I see she seems to have wound some yarn around the place where the bag and the wrappy thingies go around the bamboo rods, so I guess I’ll add that.)  **rolls eyes**

By the way, I have a ton of the Blue Heron left.  It was $33.50 for 367 yards, and there’s about half left.  If anyone wants it, let me know.  I’ll sell for $15 including shipping within the United States.

Summertime … and the Cookin’ Is Easy

It may still be cool where you are, but it’s summertime and the crops are in where I live.  Last week I used some of our backyard bounty to make a wonderful version of the perennial Louisiana home cooking favorite, maque choux.  My favorite all-time cookbook, “The 100 Greatest Dishes of Louisiana Cookery,” by Roy F. Guste Jr., describes the origin of maque choux:

This dish is one that was in fact given to the Cajuns by the Indians of Louisiana, the Choctaws, and was originally called matache, meaning spotted.  It is a corn dish which is in fact spotted wiht the color of the tomato pieces.  I believe the Cajuns, in their own patois, twisted this word into the French sounding maque choux.  The Cajuns brought the dish to the Creole community who quickly accepted it. …

The skillet stir-fry ~ not the Asian kind but the Southern one, in a cast iron skillet ~ is my favorite kind of cooking, and home-grown and Louisiana would have to be tied as my favorite kinds of eating.  My recipe came from epicurious.com, and it was scrumptious. I used red onion scallions, tomatoes, bell pepper and jalapeno from our garden, along with some fresh yellow corn and okra from Polk’s vegetable market downtown.  Can you beat this for easy, delicious summer fare?

     

When Life Sucks … Eat Rhubarb & Frog*

MY ‘NIGHTFALL’ CRAPPED TOP

Yesterday sucked. I had just given in to my jones for Wenlan Chia’s latest book, Twinkle’s Weekend Knits, last Friday.  Since my LYS doesn’t carry any of Twinkle’s yarns and I was supposed to hold four strands of Twinkle Cruise (sportweight) together to make the darling “Nightfall Cropped Top” pictured on the cover of  the book, I decided to use Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece.  I have a ton of it, having overbought for a multi-colored ripple afghan, so I had enough to make the very same color combo that lured me into buying that book.  Cotton Fleece is more like worsted than sportweight, so I did a gauge swatch, a good-sized one, and got gauge holding three strands.  Yay! I was a little unsure about how my, ahem, round figure was going to rock this little item, but figured it would do fine over some of my droopy, shapeless Flax dresses (note to self: must change my look this summer) and maybe even give them some shape.

Worked on the little top all weekend.  Finished it yesterday, and, what a coincidence, I just happened to be wearing one of those shapeless Flax dresses.  Here’s my cute little “Nightfall” top.

  

Isn’t it precious?  I was very happy with how this turned out … for about half an hour, as long as it took to get out to Dillard’s at Savannah Mall and start shopping for my daughter’s prom dress.  First the straps started slipping down, then the whole thing began looking like a California mudslide.  I finally realized my “Nightfall” had stretched so badly it would fit an SUV. 😦

So, off to the frog* pond it goes. 

After I got home, I sat down here and started recounting this disaster at length, I’m sure way more than you’d ever want to know.  Phone rings, I slip while hitting SAVE, and lose my whole post.  As I said, yesterday sucked.

We did find a gorgeous prom dress, by Jessica McClintock, and it’s on its way from Dillard’s online.  Here’s a picture from the website.  Isn’t that apple green just scrumptious with the black?

* To frog: In knitting, to rip out a completed project and give up on it

ABOUT THAT RHUBARB …

Until this spring, I don’t think I had ever eaten rhubarb, much less cooked it.  But it’s in the stores now, so I decided to make the Rhubarb Crisp from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food cookbook.  After the first one ~ and my husband’s complaints about the price of rhubarb ~ I worked up my own little recipe for a variation, Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble.  It’s mostly Martha, but I like it better with the berries, and it so happens they’re way cheaper than rhubarb when they’re in season, which is now. 

This is so easy, just thinking of it made me throw one in the oven for dinner tonight.

   

STRAWBERRY-RHUBARB CRUMBLE

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Slice 1 lb. rhubarb into chunks about 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick.  Trim 1 lb. strawberries and combine with rhubarb in a 9×13 baking dish.  Toss with 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup flour.

In a food processor, pulse 1/2 cup flour and 1 stick unsalted butter, ice cold and cut into pieces, until the ingredients are small clumps.  Add 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup rolled oats and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon and pulse until combined.  Sprinkle over the rhubarb and strawberries.

Bake for about 35 minutes or until the rhubarb and strawberries are bubbly.  Best served with Edy’s No-sugar-added Vanilla Ice Cream, or your diabetes will act up.