Plum Stitches

Cake!

Or rather cupcakes...Chloe's party went off without a hitch, except for our demolished staircase, but what can you do?  I made cupcakes galore for the party, chocolate with vanilla icing, butter cake with chocolate icing and carrot with cream cheese (although this ended up modified, could seem to follow the instructions on this). 

All three recipes came from Martha Stewart.  I've made this dark chocolate cake before and I think it's great.  Although this time, I used 1/2 coffee and 1/2 milk.  I think using all coffee makes it better.  I've made the butter cake before as well and it's very good.  The carrot cake I'd never made before.  Everyone said the carrot was really good, but I'm not sure if they were just being polite ;-).  I left out the orange and walnuts on this one, because this was Chloe's.

Unfortunately, we didn't get any good photos.  Now I'm craving a cupcake, but we tossed what was left, too tempting

Love this Photo!

Just came in the mail yesterday...

In My Stash

I picked up enough of this Koigu to make the Placket Sweater from Last Minute Knitted gifts.  This will be my third one:  first was a gift, second was for Chloe, which is now a belly-baring sweater and this one will be for Chloe again, just need to make sure I make it big enough to fit over that burgeoning belly.  Why is it that those chubby rolls are so cute on a twelve month old and not so cute on a 36 year old?  Hmmmm

I also bought this Koigu Kersti Merino Crepe to make a bear hat from a Debbie Bliss pattern that I bought over the summer at Stitches with Style in Delaware.  I can't seem to locate the book online that it's from, which makes me think it might be out of print.  I'm obsessed with this Koigu yarn, but have to say their Web site does not do the yarn justice.

Phildar Swing Jacket Knitalong

I joined the Phildar Swing Jacket Knitalong a few weeks ago.  This is my first knitalong and my first 'big' clothing project.  Needed to break out of my rut of baby sweaters, baby toys, hats and scarves.  I'm excited to get started

Finally made a decision on my yarn for the jacket, ordered it from Webs and it came last week.  I selected Brown Sheep Lambs Pride Superwash in Romantic Ruby.  The color is much different from the neutral pictured in the pattern, but I though this was a better color for me. 

The pattern calls for bias tape and I'm thinking that I'll make a trip to Purl Patchwork and pick out some quilting fabric and make my own tape.  Thanks to a class at Purl Patchwork, with Heather Ross, I know how to make it!

A Few Different Things

So, we have one party down (Thanksgiving) and one to go (Chloe's birthday).  The turkey was fab-u-lous, which Jim was in charge of, the sides, which I was in charge of, weren't so great, but it's over.  We bought an organic turkey at Sobsey's in Hoboken and brined it in burbon for 48 hours.  I think the brining really works.

This was the centerpiece for our Thanksgiving table, which I thought was so sweet and simple.  I bought it at the Green Market in Union Square.

We're busy getting ready for Chloe's party tomorrow.  I picked up the paper at Target the other day and am working on a sign.  I saw a sign at Paper Access in the city that had been strung together, so that was my intent with this.  Also, since I have so much leftover paper, I thought I would take a crack at making these adorable party hats! We'll see how far I get, I'm probably being WAY ambitious...

Victoria & Albert's Web Site

Just read about this in the Winter 2006 issue of Interweave Knits.  The V&A launched a knitting page dedicated to its collections and other useful information.  I particularly like the gallery for people to post pictures of what they knit, as long as it's not a garment.  Check out the Crocheted Taco, the section on Knitting Weblogs and the section on Knitting Links.

We're headed to London next week, definitely planning on a trip to the V&A...

Gray November Day

This is a crazy week.  We're hosting Thanksgiving, having Chloe's 1st birthday party on Saturday, and the contractor FINALLY started on the construction to the facade of our brownstone.  Funny, we've been waiting for him to start for about three months and the week that he starts is the one week that we're having lots of guests come and visit. 

Oh well, at least it's getting done.  One thing I don't like is that they hung a blue tarp from our cornice down to the ground, so now our house seems really dark.  Reminds me of my studio in NYC.

Made a trip to Calico Corners on Saturday.  This was the fabric that I picked out.  The flowers are for valances and then the blue/yellow dots are for the window seat cushions.  I finished the valances this morning and one of the cushions.  Next up is the other cushion.  I bought these sheer curtains and this stool at Ikea over the weekend.  I'm not sure how great they'll look, but for $6.99, plus the fact that I can just cut them and not have to hem, I figured it was worth a shot.  As for the stool, they were out of colors, so I need to make one from my fabric stash.

On Friday, our new furniture came, so I'm trying to get our parlor level in order.

Then, I need to start on the cover for Chloe's glider.  My goal was to finish it for Saturday, but I'm not so sure that will happen.

We also painted our bathroom on the kitchen level over the weekend.  Well, actually Jim did and I'm going in for clean up.  We chose a tangerine color, although I can't seem to locate the paint chip, anywhere at the moment, so I'm not sure of the name.

Phew, I'm tired just thinking about all of this.

holiday card photos

Attempted to take our holiday photo today.  Suited Sadie up in her "Santa suit", which she was none too happy about.  The lighting was all off today, but this was one of the best shots we got - guess we'll have to try again later this week...

polar, baby

Found some balls of Rowan's Polar (which is now discontinued), in my bottomloss tub of yarn and decided to make this sweater from OneSkein.  I think this will be a gift, actually I probably have enough yarn to make two of them.

fingerless gloves, chapter 2

Just finished these fingerless gloves from Knitty called Fetching.  This was my first foray into the world of cables, not sure why I stayed away for so long, cabling is pretty simple.  I used the "magical loop" method for these to avoid using DPNs.  What else?  They still need to be blocked.  I used the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran that the pattern called for, wish that I had a little more yarn, because bascially you use the entire ball.  I was crossing my fingers that I didn't run out!  Also, we finally have a decent weather day, so the lighting was right for me to photograph.