Thursday, March 26, 2009

Gnocchi Time!

Kara's home for her Spring Break from SJSU, and she offered to make gnocchi for us. She learned how to make this during her Food Preparation class for her Nutritional Science Major.
It takes a little practice, but the pasta dough made from riced potatoes is rolled with your thumb over a special gnocchi board...much easier than with a fork...and it makes these neat ridges.
The gnocchi is then gently boiled for a few minutes, and then you can lightly fry it a pan with some marinara sauce, or put in an oven proof dish and broiled until the sprinkled smoked cheese is melted thoroughly on top...both methods tasted so delicious! Definitely stealing this recipe!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Needleprint Beatrix Potter progress...

As you can see, I'm making some progress...I've added some of Vicki Clayton's hand dyed Dried Roses to the mix, and it's coming out so well...very pleasing to the eye.
The above motif is done in the Dried Roses...kind of pinky and orange, but it goes very well...very cheerful!
The above flower was fun to do...I used the White Chocolate hand dyed silk to accent the center of the blooms...
Above you see the entire progress as it stands right now...I will pick it up inbetween my knitting...I did re-cast the twisted cowl pictured in a previous blog...I'm almost back to where I was then, only not twisted!!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Most Dedicated Male Athlete

I am so proud of my son Peter who was awarded tonight with a "Muskie" trophy for being the Most Dedicated Male Athlete of the year at his high school. I think it surprised him more than it did us, but since he does mega volunteer hours with the Striders Youth Track, the award is well deserved!!

With everything that's been going on, it sure is nice to have these positive events happen...they are very sweet indeed and even more appreciated...

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Knit FAIL...twisted...

Well, it started off good...I could have sworn I checked to make sure when I connected that it was all nice and straight, but it was twisted as you can see below...
And I thought it was going so well...it was fun to just knit, knit, knit...oh, well...
I suppose this is what the kids would call a KNIT FAIL and could qualify for their favorite Fail Blog which I also check almost everyday...I have it listed along the side here. Anyway, I thought of just leaving it and calling it a Moebius scarf, but I think I'll have more fun ripping it apart and then starting over...there's a metaphor in there somewhere...but it's worth doing over since I do love the colors of this Patons Kroy sock yarn.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Cable Knitting

I decided it was about time I get over my fear of cable knitting. I found myself a dirt easy free pattern at www.ravelry.com :

Quick and Easy Cabled Scarf

US size 11 knitting needles
Worsted weight wool
Cable needle
Yarn needle

You simply cast on 14 stitches.


Rows 1, 3, 5, and 7: K3, P8, K3
Rows 2, 4, and 6: Knit
Row 8: K3, slip next four stitches onto cable needle and hold in front, K4, K4 from cable needle, K3.

That's it...repeat rows 1-8 until scarf measures 38" or desired length. Cast off and weave in ends.

Anyway, I'm amazed how easy and fun this is...I can't wait to try another cable pattern that's a little bit more difficult...

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Monkey, the rat...r.i.p.

When my daughter Kara wanted to do her 6th grade Science Project on animal behavior and wanted to buy a rat about eight years ago now, I said, "No way." But we relented, and got our first ratty named Dot. Then Dot looked lonely, so we got a second ratty named Snoopy, and, folks, the rest is history. I would say we've owned about a dozen or so ratties, some that only lasted a couple weeks because of the respiratory disease that many of these rats are born with, but we knew Pinky (later named Stinky since she always bit), Spastic, Sweetie, Cookie, and Monkey...

Monkey got her name because of the way she hung onto the top of her cage with only one arm...she actually swung back and forth and was totally a sight to see. The respiratory disease took her first two partners quickly. I thought she was destined to be an only rat until I tried one more time and got Cookie after seeing Monkey looking aimlessly in her cage for company. Now I see Cookie doing the same thing looking for Monkey, but she was able to get a sense that Monkey is gone when I brought her home from the vet where she literally died in the Vet's hands when he was examining her...that Monkey wasn't going to be told what to do, and she died just to make her point. So energetic to the end, and I'm so glad that prior to our visit to the vet that I fed her bananas, yoghurt, and Cheerios, all her favorites.

So now Monkey is part of the garden out front...found a perfect spot below a freshly planted flowering vine...I'll miss her and sharing my bowl of Cheerios with her...these critters sure tug at our hearts...too bad ratties don't live long enough...