Wasnt I just blabbering on about how I want to have fewer projects going at a time? Please avert your eyes while I unapologetically go back on that little statement.

I saw the new magknits...and the Rainbow Socks.

I nearly sprained an ankle digging through the stash to find the perfect yarn. I didnt even swatch. While the munchkin napped, I got through one of the short row repeats:

Specs:
Yarn: White Oak Studio TVYarn in Sex and the City
Needles: 2.5 mm knitpicks DPNs
Mods: none

They are a pain in the butt to knit, what with all the turning and such, but they sure are prettiful. This certainly isnt a knit you can pick up and put down easily because its easy to lose your place but it might also get easier once you do a few repeats. I've gotten another half a repeat done since I took this picture and I'm really loving the color combo!

Posted by fruitychick at 06:03 PM | Permalink

I love getting mail--especially when its fiber related! I got two packages this week: my Hello Yarn Fiber club and my Spunky Eclectic Fiber/Sock Yarn Club.

Spunky Eclectic:

I really love being a member of both the sock club and the Fiber club. I find it absolutely amazing how differently the same colorway looks in a sock yarn and a fiber. This fiber, by the way, is named Aspen after the colors of the region. Its and incredibly soft merino/tencel blend. Lovely!

Hello Yarn:

I couldn't capture all the lovely colors in a single shot, so heres two shots of the fiber. Its a Merino wool and its incredibly soft with rich colors. I can't wait to spin it! I'm almost a little sorry I started new spinning last night!

Speaking of--I'm playing catch up with most of these clubs since I'm only now getting a bit of regular spinning time. Right now, I'm working on the July shipment of the Spunky Club--named Celebration. When I first opened the box, I was, honestly, a little unimpressed. The colors just didnt seem to go and the large amounts of black and white in the roving just didnt appeal to me. But then I saw lots of other people's spun up and just fell in love. A real lesson in how an ugly roving can be a pretty yarn and a pretty roving can make an ugly yarn.

This is a little overspun but I'm ok with it. I'm either going to chain-ply it to keep the colors in tact or just run it through the wheel backwards and keep it as a laceweight yarn with very long color repeats. I wanted to mainted long color repeats either way, so I didnt split the roving at all down the middle. Its my first time doing it successfully and I'm really enjoying seeing the gradual color changes.

After finishing Munch's Hallowig, I realized I only had one real project on the needles--time to cast on for something new!

This is my second try with this yarn. The first attempt was just a poor pattern choice: it had eyelets and a little laceyness to it and the yarn was completely overwhelming. I really love the garter rib (from sensational knitted socks). I think it breaks up the colors just enough to have a nice mottled sock.

I also cooked up a little something last night--an old standby: Pasta Pizza.

And a little something special for dessert: Strawberries with White Chocolate Sauce (try #2):

Yum! Recipes are in the description over at flickr!

Posted by fruitychick at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Two (actually, three since I did one of them twice) things I've done in the last few days have been pretty much absolute failures.

First, the seemingly hilarious project I was working on. Cute? yes. Funny? yes. Do I love it? yes.

Then why, you ask, is it a failure?

I give you Exhibit A:

Hate wouldnt exactly be a strong enough word to describe munch's feelings toward her hallowig. I saw alison over at the blue blog knit one up for her little girl and it was so incredibly adorable and fun I had to knit one up myself. After all--her baby girl loved hers! I used her alterations at first but it came out much too small, so I added 4 stitches to each section. It came out perfectly but it might as well be made out of steel wool as far as Munch is concerned.

I'm still holding out hope that she will come around by the time the weather changes....

Crappiness the second was a quickie desert I tried to whip up one night after a failed dinner attempt (I didnt even get far enough to take a picture...lets just say, it is awfully hard to make baked ziti without pasta sauce and no matter how many times you look in the pantry, it wont magically appear if you didnt actually buy any.) We ended up ordering out and I thought I'd save face by making Frozen Berries with Hot White Chocolate from one of Ina Garten's Cookbooks.

They looked tasty:

I just did everything wrong on this one. Super-cook that I am I thought I didnt have to go actually *look* at the recipe again. After all--the name of the recipe said it all! Berries. check. chocolate. check. heck--it even went so far as to be specific on the white part of the chocolate.

So now, looking back at the recipe, I didnt add the cream to the chocolate and I used strawberries which stayed far, far too frozen to actually be able to eat despite the thawing power of a mound of hot white chocolate. The chocolate topping wasnt bad--but it solidified the second it hit the frozen berries... Mr. Fruitychick tried to humor me by eating a few berries but eventually gave up before he cracked a tooth.

ugh. next time--only slightly frozen smaller berries and make an actual chocolate-cream sauce instead of just melted chocolate. And maybe I'll dig out the cookbook and actually read the recipe....

Posted by fruitychick at 05:30 AM | Permalink

I'm going through one of those phases that everyone goes through in knitting--I have several WIPs going right now and its starting to drive me a little batty. In an ideal world, I would have one (and only one) project going in each of the following categories:

a. a sock
b. a big project
c. a lace project

the boundaries there are a little blurred. if a sock is overly complicated (I'm looking at you, twisted flower socks), they count as a big project or a lace project.

Right now, I feel like I'm not making any progress on my knits because I'm spreading myself too thin. Its time to whip some of those WIPs into FOs.

First up:

Morehouse Merino Booties (project in their book)
Yarn: Morehouse Merino 3 strand

I started these ages ago and then they got stuffed into the knitting bag nearly done. I worked on them for about 30 minutes then seamed them up. DONE! I'm glad to get them out of the WIP pile.

Of course, endangering my plan... this came today.

grr...although, since I did finish the Monkey Socks, I get to start a new sock project, right??

OH--and I got my ravelry account! yay!! my username is--get ready for the crazy amount of creativity here--fruitychick. Come find me!

Posted by fruitychick at 01:58 PM | Permalink

I am so close!

Found you!
You signed up on July 5, 2007
You are #14309 on the list.
20 people are ahead of you in line.
19421 people are behind you in line.
42% of the list has been invited so far

Woohoo!

Posted by fruitychick at 02:13 PM | Permalink

Whew. That sure was close. I've been getting a heck of a lot of spam comments lately so I was going to try to install some type of utility to "fix" the issue. Ha. A few hours later, movable type wouldnt even load to let me log in any more.

yikes. Anyway--half a day later, the hosting people have it fixed. I thought I was going to lose the whole blog and have to reimport every post and picture again but it is magically still here. whew. That was a close one. I can't say enough for my hosting people; I've had a few problems in the past and they've always solved the issue within a day. Usually less.

That, unfortunately, hasnt been my only technical problem. My nifty new phone that I've been snapping all my photos with has decided it does not like the internet anymore, so I can't send photos to flickr directly.

I'm giving up on the tech issues for the time being. I only have one more repeat on the second monkey sock then its all toe, baby! I'm so close to an FO I can taste it!

Posted by fruitychick at 03:27 PM | Permalink

I admit, the Backyardigans are cute. Heck, I even occassionally find myself humming the catchy little showtunes. However, the 576th time through each episode it gets a little old; last night the music from Cops and Robots was the theme music to my dreams.

The problem is that backyardigans episodes are like lays potato chips. Munch can't have just one. Shes fine if she doesnt see it but once you play one episode you must continue to play them until (a) a meal or (b) going out of the house. Needless to say, there are many many snacks and trips to the store around here.

We are starting to feel a little more settled here in Plano. We chose to do a short term lease in an apartment before buying a house here for a variety of reasons and, despite the tiny apartment kitchen, I've actually managed to turn out a couple of tasty meals over the last few days. The other night we had Chicken Breasts stuffed with Hatch Chiles and Pepper Jack Cheese.

My own recipe inspired by the intoxicating smelling fresh roasted chiles available at our local Whole Foods:

Hatch Stuffed Chicken

Serves 4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour

4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
4 Large Roasted Hatch Chiles (see note at bottom)
4 oz Pepper Jack Cheese, cut into small cubes (¼ inch)

1.Preheat oven to 350.
2.Butterfly the chicken breasts. Pound out flat with a meat pounder.
3.Remove the seeds and stem from the Hatch Chiles and place one on each of the flattened chicken breasts. Place 1 oz of cheese on the chiles and fold the breasts in half, enclosing the pepper and cheese. Place in a baking dish and salt and pepper the chicken.
4.Bake for 40 minutes or until juices run clear or a meat thermometer reads 165.

notes:
1.Hatch Chiles are available here in Texas in August and September. If hatch chiles aren't available to you, try using another large mild pepper like a banana pepper.
2.My local market roasts hatch chiles daily. If your local market doesnt, you can easily roast chiles on your grill or a gas burner. Roast up a batch and place them in a small container covered with oil. They'll keep up to a week and are great additions to sandwiches.

I also made Roasted Vegetable Gratin, a recipe inspired by one in Cooking Light (June). I made some additions and changes:

It was incredibly tasty and couldnt be easier to make:

Roasted Vegetable Gratin

Serves 4
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

1 red bell pepper
1 green pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 yellow squash
1 zucchini
1 large yellow onion
1 medium red onion
1 large tblsp fresh thyme

1 tblsp paprika
2 tblsp olive oil
½ cup panko bread crumbs
½ cup breadcrumbs
¼ cup parmesan cheese (grated)

1.Preheat oven to 400.
2.Chop all the vegetables into ¼ inch slices. Combine in a bowl with the olive oil and paprika. Salt and Pepper well.
3.Combine breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. Set aside
4.Spread into a large sheet pan as close to a single layer as possible.
5.Roast for 45 minutes, stirring often.
6.Sprinkle with breadcrumb mixture and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until breadcrumbs are toasted.

Mr. Fruitychick took the leftovers to work and reported them equally tasty the next day. This recipe is a total keeper.

Photos taken by my snazzy new Palm Treo 750. I'm still learning the art of the mobile photo so these are less than fantastic. Did you know you can send photos from your phone directly to flickr? Probably. I am so behind the curve on this stuff...this is my first camera phone.

I also updated a few things in the sidebar--my 52 pair plunge total for one. I finished the flourescent socks for Elizabeth (I have a photo somewhere in my email...), the no bake cookie socks and the georgetown socks. Our stuff is split between the apartment and storage right now and I think my socks are, sadly, in the storage category. I'm nearly done on another pair:

Monkey Socks
STR Fire on the Mountain (lightweight? I dont remember)

I bet I'll be done with these in the next few days. They are a quick knit and I'm trying (hard) to be a monogomous knitter so I can start getting a few more things done. I'm predicting I'll fail and cast on for something new but I'm trying, people.

Posted by fruitychick at 10:09 AM | Permalink

I've been so absent lately. With Miss S to take care of and Mr. fruitychick working from home, my computer hours are significantly down from where they were a few months ago. I've been keeping up with everyone elses blog though--its good to see what everyone has been up to.

Icarus is growing though it still doesn't look any different. I have one or two more repeats of the column pattern and then the border to go. I have enough yarn to add at least one extra repeat to the pattern to make it a little bit of a larger shawl but I don't know if I have the willpower. I'm itching to start something new--especially because I got this:

That is one big huge honkin' bag of fleece artist and handmaiden yarn. Heres whats inside:

ahhh...Theres two shawl kits, a texture2 scarf kit, a silk sweater kit, two skeins of sock yarn and two skeins of sea silk. its delicious. My favorites are the two shawl kits:

I ordered from Colorsong Yarn. I've ordered from them before and they are really fast. The only problem I encountered was that I wanted the yarn shipped to an address other than my billing address and there isn't a way to do that on the form you order through, so I had to email them. Then, they ended up shipping it to my parents neighbor, who luckily recognized my first name and held it for me. I'd order from them again though.

I cannot believe I haven't dug into these yet. It helps that my swift is in storage (along with the rest of my yarn and belongings).

Speaking of which, my house in maryland is still on the market. I'm starting to get terribly nervous about it selling soon--we've had a lot of interest but both people who want to make an offer are still struggling to get approved for a loan. We are hopeful about one couple though--their problems are minimal and they should be able to get approved fairly soon. We've looked at a few houses around here and we are really excited about getting to do some serious shopping. The main issue we still have to work out though is school districts--the stuff (stores, malls, dining) are all in one county and the good schools are in another. Its important for me to be close to those things but then we are looking at private schools. Of course, thats a ways off, considering Miss S is only 10 weeks old, but its still something to consider.

I'll end with this--the first real picture of Miss S smiling (sorry for the bad photography, I was trying to get her to smile and then quickly snap a picture)

Posted by fruitychick at 07:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ahh...I remember the good old days when all I talked about was knitting...

I've been a horrible knitblogger as of late, but here is what I've been working on:

The Harry Potter Sweater

I initially ordered Peace Fleece in a lovely green color for this sweater but when I got it, I knew it just wasn't right. It just didn't have the tweediness that it needed to. So, I broke down and ordered to Rowan Felted Tweed in Billberry. I have Herb for the letter but I'm not convinced--I think I will do the front last so I can stall on deciding if I need to get a different accent color. As for the letter itself, after some deliberation, it will be an M instead of an H or R.

Pictured above is a sleeve--I changed the pattern like Allison did to make it a set in sleeve because, really, who looks good in a huge oversized drop sleeve sweater?

The movie comes out in, gulp, 14 days. I have one sleeve and approximately 1.5 inches done on the back. I better get cracking if I'm going to make it in time.

Socks

Arent there always socks happening?

These are a simple herringbone pattern in Lorna's Lace's Girly Stripe. To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed with LL when I first got the skiens (I had just knit a couple of pairs in Koigu) but it really does knit up into a really nice soft fabric. I also love that the colors aren't pooling. LL is done in much bigger skiens than Koigu so the colors are longer and farther apart.

You can also make out the new additions to the sock needle collection--Ebony size 1's. I freaking love these things.

The Husband Sweater

I've decided I'm going to knit the hubby a sweater for christmas. I wanted it to be a surprise but I also wanted him to really like it, so I blabbed. It turns out he likes what I had picked out but I'm glad I know for sure.

Its a simple 4x4 ribbed sweater with set-in sleeves. The yarn is from handpaintedyarn.com. It was deadly cheap but the ordering experience...was...well...slow. They don't offer any type of expedited shipping (which I am addicted to) and it takes several days to process an order. but, again...cheap cheap cheap....

Stash Additions

I've also been adding to the stash, well, an embarrassing amount. There is nothing like being sad and stressed to bring out the shopper in me.

This is for the cabled wrap sweater on the front of Contemporary knitting 2 (here) Its lovely yarn but I wish I hadn't ordered a color so similar to the harry potter Rowan.

While I was ordering the Rowan from yarnmarket (who I love...they actually called me because they could get me a better deal on the shipping and it would only be one day later) I also ordered a few skiens of cherry tree hill sock yarn. I made one of my first pairs of socks out of this yarn and they are still one of my favorite pairs. The only issue is that I knit them on size 4's, so the fabric is incredibly thin. So, I ordered two colors and then one of their "luck of the dyepot" skiens. I didn't realize it when I ordered, but they have slightly less yardage than the other skiens. Not that big of a deal but if you are making large socks or long cuffs, you might want to order one of the actual colorways or get extra.

There is much more to show but I'll save some of it for another day. I'll be going through the stash this weekend on an organizing binge--hopefully I wont get lost.

As for pregnancy related stuff: I'm still feeling generally pukey but its improving. I actually ate a decent meal last night and kept it all down. The heartburn has reared up and I'm becoming fast friends with Mr. Bottle-o-Tums. I still have my sonogram on monday and I'm still worried about it but I'm trying to be very zen about it and realize there isn't anything I can do either way. Its only slightly working but E for effort, right?

Posted by fruitychick at 12:08 PM | Permalink