Happy birthday, Walter! I love you more than words can say.
(And I’m sorry that since you are the second child, I forgot post pictures of your birthday until three weeks later.)
(Oh, and happy 150th blog post to me! haha.)
I can’t believe I completely missed November altogether. Oh well, how about a pictorial catch-up post on Thanksgiving?
ingredients…
Gingersnap crust (waiting for the pumpkin to go it) and the pecan pie and cranberry sauce.
Pecan Pie 
This is a Long Island cheese pumpkin. We had a very hard time finding any kind of pumpkin. Ryan managed to find this one at Whole Foods; it was the last one! It made an amazing pie. (I used this recipe from Alton Brown.)
Rolls.
Par-baked rolls waiting for their final bake. Pies and cranberry sauce waiting to be eaten.
The table setting
(Please excuse the matches, embroidery floss and scissors. We had some last-minute table runner adjustments going on. Also please excuse the bad light. We had a late dinner.)
And… the TURKEY! I literally had three separate nightmares about ruining the turkey the night before Thanksgiving. It turned out great, though. Very tasty, if I do say so myself. I used this recipe from Bon Appetit: Salt-Roasted Turkey with Lemon and Oregano.
Thanksgiving is always fun for me, but this year was especially exciting because I was hosting! I got to cook most of the food. My in-laws brought some veggies. We had a great time eating and visiting and even got to skype with Ryan’s brother and his wife who just moved to California. Good times. I am so thankful for my family. We get along so well and it’s always a joy to be with them.
How was your Thanksgiving? Did you cook anything daring and delicious?
Meet Mr. Dog and Mrs. Rabbit. I made them using instructions from Miyako Kanamori’s book Sock and Glove.
Edda LOVES these two. Technically, the dog is Walter’s and the Rabbit is Edda’s. But Edda has pretty much taken over ownership of both.
I made a little, toy Santa Claus for Edda. Actually, it’s for Christmas decorating but Edda doesn’t really understand that… So it is now Edda’s Santa. At least, until she forgets about it and I pack it into the Christmas decoration box while she’s not looking.
The pattern is from Itty Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson. I seem to be knitting a lot of things by her. I really do like her designs!
He’s a cutie. He was kind of tedious to make because of all the little details (beard embroidery?!), but I feel like without all the detail stuff he wouldn’t look so nice and “finished.” I wish there had been more picture of him to help with the sewing together, so I took a few for the benefit of others.
An up-close of the beard/face:
(Oops, I accidentally left off his mustache!)
His back:
His side and arm-join:
Sorry for the long absence. I have been trying to get some serious knitting done. The computer seems to hinder knitting in a big way, so I have been trying to limit the computing as much as possible. (Emphasis on “trying”… Pinterest, you will be my undoing!)
So, on to Walter’s hat. I unpacked all the winter/fall clothes this week and discovered that Walter did not have anything from last winter to fit him. This should not have been surprising, considering that he was just born in December and therefore he was very tiny last winter. Of course, I had to drop all the Christmas knitting projects and immediately cast on a little hat with earflaps. It’s from Susan B. Anderson’s Itty Bitty Hats. I used the “simple baby cap 2” pattern and knitted the 12 month size. I worked it flat in garter stitch for a while, then joined in the round and finished according to the directions, adding a little i-cord at the top and tying it in a little knot. And seaming the garter stitch portion. Then I added the earflaps according to the directions in the techniques section of the book. Obviously, those are worked in garter stitch as well. The yarn is Plymouth Jeannee, one of my favorite baby yarns. (It’s not a “baby” yarn, though. Just a yarn I like to make baby things out of… not that shiny, acrylic stuff.)
And now some gratuitous Walter photos. He just turned ten months old! I am in shock.
South Carolina peaches are a wonderful thing. This post is a bit late, since I made the peach pie several weeks ago, but better late than never, right? Peaches are the best part of summer. I wish I had been able to can some like I wanted. Next year it is happening!
Sorry, I forgot to snap a photo of the pie before we cut into it. Doesn’t the inside look yummy, though? I used my new favorite fruit pie ingredient, pictured below. King Arthur Flour’s instant clearjel powder. You substitute it for the flour in a fruit pie filling (Add a little less clearjel powder than you would flour) and it works much better. The fruit flavor really shines; no muddy, flour-y taste at all. Sometime I feel like fruit pie filling looks kind of like gravy… but not with this stuff. It’s sort of like a soft-set fruit jam that forms inside the pie. MMMMMM. I want more.
I used King Arthur’s pie crust recipe, too, and it was AMAZING. Gosh, those people who work in the test kitchens at KAF really know what they are doing.
“Our Favorite Pie Crust” recipe from King Arthur Flour.
I’ve been working on this sweater for an embarrassingly long time. I seem to be experiencing a knitting lull right now. (sad… I know. I think it’s the heat.) In spite of how slowly it’s growing, I like this sweater a lot! The yarn is Knit Picks Swish Tonal in Queen Anne. The pattern is Tiny Tea Leaves from madelinetosh.
I knit a few more inches on the sleeve after taking the picture. Now I’m really almost done. I might just finish tonight.
Coconut layer cake from Bon Appetit magazine (link)
I made this for a customer, but I had a reeeeeally hard time not eating this myself. I think I know what the next family get-together dessert is going to be. (In case you’re interested, here’s my cheesy little cake website. Just a stand-in until I get time to make a nicer one.)
I deviated from the recipe a bit by baking three layers because my cake pan are shorter than the ones called for in the recipe. Also, I toasted the coconut a little to add some color and extra flavor. And I mixed some into the frosting. YUM.
I made a “horsie barn” for Edda out of another old diaper box. It was a huge hit, much like the diaper box dollhouse was in its day. (It’s getting a bit ragged these days.) I noticed that a lot of people have been arriving at my blog by using search terms like “what to do with an empty diaper box,” so I thought I would oblige them with another project.
It’s not very polished or fancy. Mostly because you have to hurry when you have a two-year-old helper that wants to play with her new horse barn ASAP. But you get the general idea.
Materials: diaper box, scissors, glue, tape, construction paper, black sharpie, yarn or string, darning needle (or any needle with a big, fat eye.)
Cut off the flaps.
Tape the short flaps in as seen in the photo and glue along the seams. (I put them against the edges of the box’s bottom flaps– now the back of the barn– to give a sort of ledge to help them stand up.) Stalls are created!
Poke some holes in the side of the barn and the short edge of one long flap as seen in the picture. Make sure they line up.
Use the darning needle to make some yarn or string “hinges.”
et voila.
Glue/tape on some construction paper “siding” and add details in sharpie marker.
Let the glue dry (or not) and start filling your barn up with horsies and all their friends.
The diaper box dollhouse was brought in as a second story of the barn.
And much playing ensued.
Happy times.
It has been quite a month. (Lots and lots of crafting and doing) Details to come. Sorry for the almost-month-long break.
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