[knitting] Aramis socks- oops

I knew I should have started the shawl right away. I worked on my second Aramis sock instead and when I took a picture:

Ugh. I forgot to do the purl rounds after the cuff! I'm going to rip it back. I really can't abide having that big of a different between the two.

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Speaking of the shawl- I think I found lots of nice yarn to use for it. I've had a bag of alpaca skeins in in my stash for more than a decade and I think this is a perfect project for them. I might throw in some other specials things (cashmere, baby camel).

Bethel University just announced their classes- all free. I've signed up for a couple.

TGIF. Going to take a day trip tomorrow. 

[knitting] Facehugger

And it is done:

I really, really love the finished creature. 

The pattern is free on Ravelry. I used most one 8oz skein of Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool in Oatmeal. For most of the project, I held the yarn double and used US 8 needles. For the skinny parts of the legs, I dropped a strand and knit with US 5 needles.

The legs were fiddly. I knit them all individually and sewed them on at the end. I would knit up to the first knuckle and then insert a pipe cleaner and knit around it/push it up as I went along. I only stuffed the tip of the legs and the base.

If I were to do this again, I might twist three pipe cleaners together for each leg, to make them stronger. They are posable with just the one pipe cleaner but they're a little floppy.

The xenomorph went after Murderface:

Then it set it's sights (wait- do these things have eyes?) on Penny:

Now on to a shawl and lots of colors.

[misc] Santana

The old girl had a falling incident so we've moved her back to the spare room. It's good- we keep a space heater going (when we're home) and it get so nice and toasty in there. She can sprawl out on the bed to sleep:

She had been huddled up on a little cat bed next to the radiator downstairs, constantly cold. It's so nice to see her sleeping, totally stretched out and relaxed. It's good to keep the other cats away from her, too. Although Penny does like to come in because it's nice and hot in the room.

Santana's doing okay- not eating as much but drinking a lot and going to the bathroom fine. She's happy and purring. Sleeping a lot. 

[cooking] Peanut Butter cookies

Sunday's peanut butter cookies:

I'm keeping them closed in tupperware and they're so sooooooooft. The recipe is from King Arthur Flour. The original recipe calls for shortening but I just used butter instead.

One of the band members brought me flowers last night (which he does sometimes) (which I love):

I rummaged around the yarn stash and started picking out possible colors for the Fantashawl. I bought the pattern I guess I'm going to make it.

[cooking] Jjapaguri and Buldak

So I did cook all the things I wanted to over the weekend, plus more. It was a good food weekend.

Friday night I made Jjapaguri from the movie Parasite:

For local people, I found both instant noodles at Yipings Asian Market in old West Leb. *But* I grabbed the last bag of Chapagetti. I told them it was the last- maybe they have more in the back or are ordering more. 

The beef is just a couple strips of sirloin (no hanwoo here), cut up and browned on either side. I made the noods (omitting the dehydrated veg packets), saved a cup of the pasta water, drained, added the noodles back to the pot with both seasoning packets, oil, some of the pasta water until things were slippery. Then into bowls, topped with beef and scallions.

I really liked it but I like jajangmyeon. Sean doesn't like it. I can tell because he at all the beef and two bites of the noodles. (Maybe I shouldn't have called it "Parasite Noodles".) I somehow resisted the urge to finish off all his leftover noodles.

Saturday my sister came over and I made cheesy fire chicken (buldak) for lunch from Maangchi's website.

So... cheesy...

I would make this again, but with chicken thighs instead. We didn't eat it all and when I reheated it for dinner, the chicken breast pieces were very dry. Also, I'd go a little easier on the sauce- it's very thick. My sister wanted something a little smoother/silkier like tteokbokki sauce.

Sunday morning I made a nice breakfast pizza. In the evening I boiled up some eggs for egg salad (work lunches). Made some peanut butter cookies. Baked a loaf of no-knead bread. Supper was salmon, garlicy spinach and bread. It was a busy cooking weekend.

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I'm almost done with the facehugger legs. I'm on the 7th leg. MAYBE I can finish tonight? While I worked on knitting the legs, I watched Season 3 of Chef Show (which is probably why I was in such a cooking mood all weekend). I also started Schitt's Creek. It's good- I'm liking it more than I thought I would. The writing is very funny.

Once the facehugger is complete, I'm tempted to make the new Stephen West Fantastitch shawl. I want a project that's really going to chew through a lot of yarn.

[knitting] Facehugger progress

I'm knitting a facehugger creature from the movie Alien. The pattern is free on Ravelry.

Here's the main body and one (of two) air sac attached:

I'm knitting with Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool yarn, held double, on US 8 needles.

The legs are taking forever (and I need eight!):

The legs start out with the yarn doubled on US 8s, then after the first purl round, I switch to a single strand and US 5 needles. I insert a pipe cleaner at this point and kind of push it up as the legs get longer.

I think if I devote a good chunk of time to this thing this weekend, I can finish. 

Which reminds me.... TGIFFFFFF. I think my cold is tapering off. Work is busy and stressful- I have to have a nice, relaxing weekend. Maybe I should make a list of all the nice, relaxing things I need to get done.

My weekend cooking goals are to make Maangchi's buldak and jjapaguri from the movie Parasite.

[knitting] Aramis Socks

New socks in the works:

The pattern is free on Ravelry: Aramis. I finished the D'Artagnan. There's an obvious Three Musketeers theme. The designer, Caoua Coffee, published the patterns and I'll be doing either Porthos or Athos after this pair.

The yarn is Frolicking Feet by Done Roving Yarns and it's been in my stash for a long time. I know this because the tag says I bought it at White River Yarns and that shop has been closed since October 2016. I get to all my yarn... eventually.

Speaking of socks: Sign-ups for Sock Madness close on Feb 28. Join the Sock Madness Forever group on Ravelry. I participated for a few years but March is a crazy-busy time at my work and trying to make socks in a competition is so much extra stress that I don't need. But it's an active, supportive, fun group and you get many exclusive and interesting patterns for free. If you're into knitting socks- check it out.

[knitting] D'Artagnan Socks

All done.

The yarn is Plymouth Dye for Me Happy Feet Shimmer. You can't tell in the pictures but there is lots of sparkle in the yarn.

I was pretty paranoid about knitting with white yarn but I managed to not drop them in the mud or spill pasta sauce all over them.

My only deviation from the pattern was to use my regular old slip one, knit one heel flap. I had to futz around with numbers a bit and I'm glad I had to the foresight to scribble down the turning heel numbers after the first sock.

I basically got through the legs and heel flaps during my travels. At home, I finished the gussets, feet and toes of both socks in basically one day. One frigid day. By late afternoon, I could put them on:

I will never get tired of slipping on new wool socks.

[misc] Back Home

Was in DC last week for a conference. I should start keeping all my stuff chained to me. I almost lost my phone, almost lost my work ID card, I *did* lose a travel credit card last year. I need it all tied to my person. 

Anyway, I had lots of good food down there- oysters, a full Korean dinner out, amazing ramen, peri peri chicken. Back at home, I was motivated enough (since it was Valentine's Day) to make a pizza for supper:

I gotta say, cutting out the heart shaped pepperoni makes this so extra. 

Speaking of Valentine's Day:

The rest of the weekend was good. Saturday I finished my D'Artagnan socks. Sunday was a clean-all-the-house-things day. Monday was going to be a relax-and-enjoy-the-dayoff day but it turned into a wallow-in-self-pity-because-you're-getting-sick day.

I'm getting sick. I blame everyone I was anywhere near in DC.

I'm still working on my alien facehugger- I have two legs done. Six more to go. I'm pretty annoyed at how long they're taking. I started a new pair of socks just to have something moving along quickly.

[crochet] Lots of WIPs

The Macy Beanie crocheted hat was featured on the front page of Ravelry a little while ago. It would be perfect for all my balls of Elann Impromptu with long color changed. I bought the pattern and started one:

This is after I got the hang of the pattern. I gave it three tries and was ready to give up on it but then it clicked. There are a couple aspects to the pattern that could be explained more clearly:

1) SC in 3rd loop. A graphic in the pattern of how to make this stitch would help immensely. The designer just released a revised pattern that simply advises you to check out YouTube videos on how to perform this stitch. Personally, I have no qualms about free patterns advising you to look up techniques- how to do a provisional cast on, pick up stitches, whatever. But for a pay-for pattern, I think that should be included in the pattern. 

Anyway, from looking at the pictures and seeing how one row should have the top chain of the stitches pointing out, I found a loop (I think it's the 3rd one) to stitch into.

2) Puff stitch. Again, a graphic would help. At the back of crochet doily books (at least, the Leisure Arts ones that I use), there's a picture in the back that shows you how to perform special stitches. The way this pattern is written, you skip a stitch, do a HDC, go back and do a puff stitch in the skipped stitch. I was trying to do this solely in the skipped stitch while trying to hold the HDC toward the back of the work. I think you're meant to do the puff stitch in the skipped stitch but also around the HDC. Wrapping the HDC with all puff stitch yarnovers. Not a big deal but I did spend one very frustrated evening on making a few weird looking puff stitches and considered giving up.

I figured it out and the pattern started moving along rapidly. A 60 row band is too small for me. I finished the above hat (lots of yarn leftover) and started another with an 80 row band:

I do like the pattern. It's a yarn gobbler and the result is very pretty.

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I couldn't resist starting a new pattern this week when I saw it released:

It's going to be a Baby Nut. A baby Planters peanut from the Super Bowl commercial. It's going... to be... so... cute. I checked my button stash last night and I'm going to have to get some black buttons for eyes.

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TGIF. I'm traveling next week. I'll bring the neglected D'Artagnon socks to work on. And maybe finish??

[crafting] Lamp Shade

I upcycled a lampshade:

I had a laser-cut blue felt table runner that I bought in Quebec City. I think I remember it being rather inexpensive. I took my fabric rotary cutter and cut it according to the height and circumference of the cylindrical shade. I used Elmer's Craft Bond adhesive spray and coated one side of the felt strip and just rolled/attached it around the shade.

I'm so pleased with how this turned it. This project used no new supplies and I finally get to use this brand new lamp that has been sitting around for years (the frame inside was broken- I also fixed that at the same time). I plugged it in in the bedroom.

Not to start hanging up all the misc artwork we have.

[crafting] Map Magnets

I made some map magnets over the weekend:

Supplies:

Twenty four 1-inch glass cabochons and magnets, JudiKins Diamond Glaze, 1-inch hole punch, glue (I used E6000), map books (or any images you like).

I punched out images I liked:

I did try cutting these by hand but using a punch kept the images perfectly round. I will say that I wish the craft store had a 7/8th (or even 15/16th) inch hole punch. The paper just started to show/extend ever so slightly from under the glass on mine.

Take your image:

Add a tiny bit of Diamond Glaze:

Top with the cabochon, pressing down to evenly to distribute the glaze and get rid of air bubbles:

Wait for them to dry and then glue a magnet to the back. DONE.

I will say I had an embarrassing "Magnets- how do they even work??" moment before gluing them on. Like, is there a right side and a wrong side? A plus side and a minus side like a battery? Am I stupid to be wondering this? I think my confusion stems from magnets attracting and repelling other magnets. I spent an embarrassing amount of time sticking the magnets to things around in the house, to see if one side worked and one side didn't. Spoiler- you can glue either side. 

This was a fast and inexpensive project. Can be personalized, which is nice. I used so little Diamond Glaze for these, I'm prowling the internet for more projects that use this stuff. I also need more ideas for my 1-inch hole punch.

[crochet] Yip Yip

I made a Yip Yip over the weekend:

Crocheting the body only took a few hours. Less than an hour to add the fringe. Cutting and sewing the lining probably took more than an hour (I sewed it by hand).

I used Loops & Threads Charisma yarn and an 8mm (L) hook.

I searched the Upper Valley for Ping Pong balls with no logo and couldn't find any. I still bought a box of 6 and made the holes for the pipe cleaner through the logo. It's at the back of the eyeball and you really can't see it.

As written the lining was way too large for my creature. Now that I understand how the lining is cut and sewed, I will measure my next Yip Yip and cut fabric to size.

I brought it in to work to hold dry erase markers. And it's soooooo cute.

It's kooky eyes are never not funny.

I think I'll make a couple more. Sean asked for one that's longer and narrower to hold drumsticks.

[cooking] Shepherd's Pie

Inspired by my needle felted sheep tapestry, I made a shepherd's pie this weekend:

I'm going to start putting mashed potatoes in a piping bag and decorate every shepherd's pie. Or every recipe that calls for mashed potatoes.

My vague recipe is: make mashed potatoes. Brown ground lamb in a pan, drain. Saute onions, then add garlic, rosemary and thyme, add the lamb, add some Worcestershire sauce, tomato sauce, Country Bob's (my secret ingredient- I buy this stuff in bulk) to make the meat filling a little saucy. Put the meat in a casserole dish, layer a whole bag of frozen corn over, cover with mashed potatoes. Bake for 30 min at 325 F.

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Good weekend. Felt too short. I only started three new yarn-y projects (a crocheted Yip Yip, an Alien facehugger, a crocheted hat). I also finished all my map magnets and fixed a lamp shade. 

Last night we went to watch the Super Bowl in Norwich and I brought bean dip:

I love this so much- I use the recipe for homemade refried beans in a Instant Pot from Simply Recipes. Then just cover it with tomatoes, avocado, black olives, pickled jalapenos, cilantro, sour cream.