Yesterday was the munchkin's 2nd birthday. It was....less than awesome. She had a high fever most of the day and it got so bad at one point (103.7! yikes) we took her to the doctors where they did unspeakably awful things to her. It was terrible for everyone involved--certainly worse than my birthday a few years ago when I got both a dead rabbit from the dogs and jury duty from the state.

Anyway, we did try to make the best of it. Munch's favorite treat in the world is Reese's Peanut Butter cups and I was determined to make her something awesome related to said treat.

So, I made the only thing that could improve on a peanut butter cup.

(notice daddy's arm defending against the lightning-quick chocolate induced movements of a toddler)

What is it, you ask?

It is, my friends, a gigantic peanut butter cup.

Here it is shown with one of the reese's Big Cups for scale. I wish I had had a regular size pb cup for comparison but someone.....umm....ate them all.

She knew exactly what it was and dove right into it as soon as we served her up a slice.

I think she really liked it--there was even finger-licking.

As for the recipe and process, I didn't take pictures during the process (I was afraid of dismal failure--and who wants photos of that?) but I'll post a general step by step and recipe for the filling next week. It really wasn't hard to make though your life will certainly be easier if you have a heavy duty stand mixer, as the filling is quite hard to mix.

Posted by fruitychick at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I never had anything against people who knit dishcloths, I just never really got it myself. Why would I knit something I was purposefully going to get dirty and nasty? (and yes, I do knit socks--worn on the feet, get dirty, get worn out....I see the double standard there, I'm just ignoring it).

Then late last week, I had the urge. I don't know if it was flipping through Mason Dixon Knitting again or just getting frustrated with the total craptasticness of every dishrag I have ever purchased. They never seem absorbent or scrubby enough for me.

You know where this is going, right?

I knit one...then another

then another.

Its madness, I tell you. I couldn't stop. I even went deep into the reaches of long forgotten knitting and pulled out two washcloths I never use to repurpose as dishcloths.

This cute little flowered one from Weekend Knitting..

and this other one from Mason Dixon...

I don't know how I never realized it at the time but this last one is totally wonky. I think I somehow managed to knit an extra section so its a little umm...not flat. Oh well though...its just a dishcloth.

The February Lady sweater is still coming along though the rapid dishcloth knitting has gotten in the way a tad.

So..do you knit dishcloths? In my new found passion for these things, I've been doing a lot of looking on Ravelry and found all sorts of householdy type knitting--like a reusable swiffer cloth modeled on the ballband dishcloth--genius, I tell you!!

Posted by fruitychick at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Holy Crap. I put this off for a very long time but I finally did it today.

I totaled up the yards in my stash.

I am totally overwhelmed. The major contributor was laceweight. 72000 plus yards that fits into a single rubbermaid tub.

Anyway...I guess the only good part is that this includes the yarn in my current WIPs, so I'll be able to start taking that number down pretty soon.

any words of encouragement?

Posted by fruitychick at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As this is our first summer in our house, I've been pleasantly surprised with most of the landscaping. Some is a little...well, boring but there have been some really lovely things pop up.

Like these:

This spike is absolutely huge--probably about 7 feet! I was a little suspicious of the plant when we moved in since it looks like an overgrown aloe vera (without the awesome gooey medicinal qualities) but this spike is totally worth it. You can vaguely see another spike in the background here but you can see a wider shot here.

Just next to that plant there is some low shrubbery that is putting out some lovely purple flowers:

These are only about 6 inches long so not nearly as impressive as the pink flowers but I just love the tiny little purple-blue bells.

Next year will probably be a year of ripping out what we didnt like and replacing it with more flowers but this year it has been nice to just let nature run its course and see what comes up. Of course--that does mean a lot of weeds have taken up residence... oh well. At least they flower, right?

Last night while I was waiting for dinner to cook, I whipped up some refrigerator pickles (the recipe in this month's Everyday Food). I've never made pickles before but, like a stereotypically pregnant woman, Im eating a ton of them, so I though I'd try my hand at my own! I'm going to try them with dinner tonight and I'll let you know how the recipe turned out!

Posted by fruitychick at 10:38 AM | Permalink

I think my knitting mojo has returned and I couldn't be happier about it. After posting about my semi-awesome tweed yarn, I immediately carded and spun a second attempt:

And it was just what I was hoping for. Totally Tweedy. I'm have big plans to card up some other colors and knit them into a fabulous colorwork sweater but we'll see. I have so many other things on my to knit/spin list that it may be a while before I get there.

Of course...I'll have to pull myself away from my new love...the February Lady Sweater:

I fell in love with this sweater as soon as I saw it pop up on my ravelry "friend activity" page. (btw, I love that page--it keeps me updated on all the really great new patterns that are popping up around the blogs. Like this one: The Magic Mirror Socks over at Sewing, Knitting and Beyond. I hadn't ever stumbled across her blog so I wouldnt have ever known about this great pattern before Ravelry. yay, Ravelry!)

Anyway, back to the sweater. I started Juliet a few weeks ago but just wasn't loving it. It was just way to bulky for what I was looking for and the sleeve style just wasn't my thing. I thought about adding some sleeves but then it would be an awfully heavy sweater. I know...whine whine whine. So I stopped working on it and went in search of something else. February Lady totally fits the bill: cardigan (to allow for the growing baby belly), lacy (so I don't get overheated), sleeves (I'm not really a short sleeve kind of person) and cute.

Then the yarn choice. I dug around in the stash for a while looking for a basic wool without any luck. Everything seemed too variegated or too heavy. Then I found a bag of Tilli Tomas I'd been saving for ages. Saving for what? I have no idea. I decided I was tired of waiting though!

I know a lot of people have some issues with Tilli Tomas but, honestly, this yarn is gorgeous. Its like knitting with a cloud and I cannot wait to finish it so I can wear this sucker!

Posted by fruitychick at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, its been a while.... and for that, I'm sorry. I hate falling out of blogging (as I have so many times in the past.) This time though, its really been because I just haven't been doing a lot. My days, while busy, have been a little monotonous.

Typical Day:

Play with Munch during the morning.

Eat lunch with Munchkin (shown here enjoying a tortilla chip (a favorite food recently) at McAlister's Deli)

Nap.

Play the afternoon away.

There has been little time for much else--and what little time I do seem to have is spent lying fairly motionless on the couch trying to not be sick from morning sickness or trying to catch a small nap myself.

However....the morning sickness is beginning to taper off and is really only evident if I do something silly, like overeat (yum...mexican food) or eat something sweet on an empty stomach (darn you chocolate chip cookie temptress!). With that turn of events...I've been hankering for a little hot fiber action.

I knit a bit...but its plain black stockinette in the round. Boring and hardly worth taking pictures since we all know black yarn takes craptastic photos. Thankfully, I've also been spinning again.

Inspired by Abby's How to Make a Tweed Batt, I hauled the drum carder out of its hibernation in the guest room and tried it out myself.

The Prep:

Here we have the inputs. From Left to Right:

Two Shades of Blue BFL for the base color,
Yellow BFL,
Leftover Merino/Tencel Blend in the Aspen colorway from Spunky Eclectic (this stuff was a dream to spin...I can't believe I forgot about this little leftover),
Red BFL,
an 80/20 Merino/Silk blend, also from Spunky Eclectic--unknown colorwary,
Orange BFL,
and some Red and Blue Merino (leftovers from my first ever fiber purchase from hello yarn--ahh..memories.
And, finally, across the top some white Merino.

Also pictured is my sprite zero. I am never without one of those, people.

First trip through the carder:

Still lots of blocks of color. I'm not going for novelty or stripy yarn, so it goes through again...

Still a little stripetastic...another trip through:

Nice. I can still see some of the individual colors but this batt is nice and blended.

The Yarn:

Three Ply (chain plied, my personal favorite--look ma! no leftovers!)
18 WPI
About 84 Yards
1 oz on the button.

I'm pretty happy with the spinning but I wish there had been a little more tweediness to it; its a little more "heathered" than "tweedy" Its all my fault though--it was hard for me to add a lot of the other colors to the blue to get enough pops of color. I really liked the process though and I'm going to try again! The Munchkin is out of town with her Dad visiting the in laws, so I have a whole FOUR DAYS to myself. Woohoo!

Posted by fruitychick at 11:30 AM | Permalink