Snow-athon

We've had a wicked awesome snowfall here. Chris and I went for a stroll this morning and I took some photos of the neighborhood. I also made my first snow angel! So much fun. We topped off the walk by coming in and sharing some hot cocoa and popcorn.

And now I'm debating making homemade cinnamon rolls AGAIN! This would be the third batch in less than two weeks. I think that I have a sick addiction. Damn you Farm Chicks! I really love this recipe. There's a serious investment of time and effort but it's so worth it. I love kneading the dough, watching it rise, rolling it into beautiful, tasty little rolls and then watching those rise up into fluffy and amazing giant hunks of awesomeness. It's so worth every calorie.

Photo of the Day

The Sock: Day 2

I'm just before the point of making the heel flap on the first sock. I love the colors.

The Beginnings of a Sock

I've just started making a sock using the basic sock recipe from the book Knitting Rules. I got the yarn in my stocking for Christmas (It's so COLORFUL!) and I'm excited to put it to use and to make something for myself. The very basic pattern should prove to be relaxing and I'm hoping that after I get a better understanding of what makes up a basic sock I will be able to try out more intricate and pretty lace socks.

Also, I've been totally into the men's Olympic skating competition and was very excited when Evan Lysacek won the Gold. His performances rocked and reminded why I used to love watching the figure skating competitions so much as a kid.

Giant Octopus

It's a bird!


It's a plane!


It's a GIANT OCTOPUS!!


I finished this belated Christmas gift for my Mom last month but have been forgetting to post about it. This is the most ambitious toy that I've ever taken on and I have to admit that from about the halfway point to the end I felt like throwing in the towel. It's loosely based on the pattern by Hansigurumi only much, much bigger. I had to improvise most of the head shaping and there were many times during the making of it that I would look at it, realize that the shaping wasn't going where I'd hoped, tear back a couple of rows and start over. Man, does that start to suck after a while. As much of a headache as it may have been to make, I'm super proud of how it turned out. It's very, very cute. And while this will remain the one and only giant octopus I may try to make a few tiny octopi following Hansigurumi's pattern.

Just for scale here's a photo of the giant octopus attacking me upon competion.

Cinnamon Rolls

Totally delicious.

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls and a Valentine's Day Walk

This morning I surprised (not really because he saw me making the dough last night) Chris with some fresh baked, homemade, cinnamon rolls this morning. The recipe was from The Farm Chicks cookbook that I got for Christmas and they were very tasty. They were huge, like double the size of one of the Pillsbury in a can ones. The recipe makes 12 and I have a feeling that it'll take us the rest of the week to get through them all.


After our lovely breakfast we went for a nice afternoon walk around the neighborhood. I took these photos along the way. There's still a decent amount of snow piled around but the weather was nice and crisp and the sun was bright and shiny.


Tonight there will be homemade pizza eating , movie watching, and lots of snuggling in front of the TV. A lovely, low-key Valentine's Day.

Nautilus for Chris

I finished gluing on the eyes for Chris' nautilus today. It came out so cute. The pattern is from Knitty.com and was quick and easy to follow.



I'm not sure what to take on next. I'd like to make something for my sister-in-law, Amy, who's expecting a baby this year. I'd also like to tackle this sock pattern. It seems challenging but cool and I have a few balls of sock yarn from Christmas. Then there's some fingerless gloves I'd like to make in order to sell on my etsy shop. Plus there's always Christmas knitting to start.

Snowmageddon!!

Another Adorable Pirate Monkey

I am totally in love with making these pirate monkeys. They are just SO cute. I swear I have to keep one for myself eventually. I made the one above and sent it to our friends' adorable little man Memphis for his first birthday. Chris drew the card which Memphis won't even notice but we know that his parent's will really like. So I just got the photo below from them saying that he loves his new little pirate monkey. I'm super proud. I love knowing how something that I made was received. It kills me that I can never be there to see them open these presents so whenever I get any kind of feedback and, especially, a photo this freaking cute I just fill up with warm fuzzies.

Terrible Photo of a Work In Progress

I'm nearly done with making this little Nautilus toy for Chris but I was super lazy about taking some in progress photos of it last night. It's based on a pattern from knitty.com that I've had on my queue on Ravelry for at least a year. I'm trying to make an effort to use up a lot of my stash yarn before embarking on bigger Christmas projects that will involve yarn buying.

After this I'd like to try my hand at knitting another pair of socks. I got some lovely skeins of sock yarn for Christmas and if I can get the hang of it I might make some cute pairs of socks for Christmas gifts this year. I love the Yarn Harlot's plan on her blog and in the awesome page a day calendar that I got for Christmas to set up 12 Ziploc bags at the beginning of the year, each with a sock pattern and a paired yarn. Grab a bag at random and knit one pair per month and by the end of the year you have 12 nice new socks for Christmas/Birthdays/yourself. But before I can jump into my own sock of the month club I need to, you know, learn how to knit socks well.

I also have a plan for some cute little mittens to make for my little etsy shop. I'm going to do a practice run with some cheap red heart yarn that I have way too much of before I go out and get something nice and soft.

Finally, and really most importantly, tomorrow is Puppy Bowl!! Since I'm totally not into sports and actually couldn't remember who was playing against the Saints in the Super Bowl tomorrow I'm going to turn my attention to the only sports event that I watch all year. And I'm most excited by this little puppy here.


Someone somewhere bred a chihuahua with a pug and I'm not sure if that person is a genius or madman. Sometimes I look at this puppy and think it's freaking adorable and sometimes it looks like some mad scientist glued the head of a pug onto a little chihuahua body and created an appalling abomination. Right now I'm leaning toward totally adorable. Chris voted for abomination. Either way I will be oohing and aahing as this and many other puppies chase around toys for several hours tomorrow. I'm weird, I know, but it'll make good TV for knitting.

Photos of the Day

I've fallen a bit behind on photos of the day. The blame gets sort of spread around between Christmas knitting, bone-chilling cold, and total laziness but I'm hoping to get back on track. Here are a couple of photos from a little walk around Battery Park the other day.