I Think I'm In Love.

with this.  So read on.

The other day I caught myself noticing that a particular blog that I read on hadn't posted anything new in a long time, I realize "why do you think someone else should do that, you don't "  OOPS..very true !!

Sooo..here I decided to get busy and show you something new that I started in a class at my local yarn store.  I wanted to learn to knit continental style, which means you hold your working yarn on the left hand instead of the right hand.   This is ideal when you are doing colourwork, as you are carrying multiple colours of yarn and that can create a big frustration if you are not doing it with two hands involved.   I have to say it was frustrating to learn to use the two hands simultaneously, but once I got the rhythm it is a lot of fun.  I wouldn't say it was quicker, but it is more efficient. 

I chose this pattern from Spillyjane Knits and it's  called  Camilla Mitts..   It is a free pattern on Ravelry.   My notes on Ravelry are here.

 I have followed Spillyjane on her blog for awhile and really liked her glove patterns.  Lot's of fun, fresh ideas.   It's a great way to get to know a  designer  when you can try it out free..that says alot about the designer too...very generous people out there.

I have only worked about 2" inches but so far I would recommend this pattern, I tend to complicate things myself....but..oops..I was wrong I did mess up with the instructions at the beginning.   Here I was thinking  that I just breezed through this, but that was not the case.   How quickly we forget the steps that brought us to where we are !!!    The pattern says "Round 1: K2tbl,p2. Repeat accross all sts for the entire round|"   After I did that I had less stitches than I started as I interpreted that as K2together through back of loop, I had never seen K2TBL....they are not the same thing !!!!   I couldn't figure out how this was going to work, when I read ahead, the pattern does not tell you to increase at anytime ahead in the pattern.   So I did a call in to my local yarn store, Black Sheep Yarns, and read the instructions, of course she got it right away.   Experience definitely makes you better at your craft..and this was new to me.   I have seen K1tbl..but I was not computing that this was anywhere the same thing.   The funny thing is, when I did "get it" it seem so obvious !!    I tell you, knitting is so much like life, you  learn lots about yourself along the way.

Go ahead and have some fun and make yourself some gloves for this winter, or maybe it's someone you've been thinking of.  

Forgot to mention, I did change the pattern a bit..I had read the notes on Ravelry that people found them too big.  Which means enormous for me.   So do check my notes to see that I changed the cast on stitches for the cuff and then increased the asked amount to start working on the pattern.    

Well, I better get back to my knitting..they won't knit up by themselves.

Have a super weekend.

Alice xox

Muffin Break

I have been exploring some great food blogs over the last couple of months, what I have enjoyed is their passion for food, being told through their skills in photography, and wonderful  story telling.  These people so  love what they do, they graciously give so much of their time to their readers.   How awesome is that !

I don't have a sweet tooth, but my husband does, so there is baking most of the time around the house, just not made by me.    But the last month or so, what has been in the house has been made by my loving hands.   It's really not that hard, I thought baking was some mysterious force that I just didn't care to investigate.  Not saying I know everything, but I'm not scared to try it now.

I have found a blueberry muffin recipe I wanted to share with you, as it has been the favourite for the last week.    It's not a healthy or unhealthy sort of muffin, but I'm starting to believe  when it's made by your own hands it's healthy in so many levels of your being.   Everyone benefits.

Perfect Blueberry Muffin

 

I hope you give these a try, especially great in the evening with a cup of tea.  Enjoy !   This recipe was copied from Smitten Kitchen Blog, which is the link I have if you click on the heading under the picture.

Perfect Blueberry Muffins
Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated
Muffins are really best on the first day (another argument for halved recipes) but I’ve never met one I couldn’t resuscitate split, toasted and patted with salted butter.
My major changes: As always, attempted to rewrite this into a one-bowl recipe (because muffins should just not require a lot of work), halved the recipe and added weights.
Makes 9 to 10 standard muffins

5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces or 71 grams) unsalted butter , softened
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams) sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces or 191 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon (7 grams or 1/4 ounce) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon (2 grams) salt
3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces or 105 grams) blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t bother defrosting)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a muffin tin with 10 paper liners or spray each cup with a nonstick spray. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well, then yogurt and zest. Put flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a sifter and sift half of dry ingredients over batter. Mix until combined. Sift remaining dry ingredients into batter and mix just until the flour disappears. Gently fold in your blueberries. The dough will be quite thick (and even thicker, if you used a full-fat Greek-style yogurt), closer to a cookie dough, which is why an ice cream scoop is a great tool to fill your muffin cups. You’re looking for them to be about 3/4 full, nothing more, so you might only need 9 instead of 10 cups. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean (you know, except for blueberry goo). Let cool on rack (ha), or you know, serve with a generous pat of butter.

Now, on a knitting note, I have finished a super beanie/toque for my husband.  I had knit this pattern before for him, but he has lost his first one.    But at that time, probably 2 yrs ago, I didn't belong to Ravelry, so I don't have any notes on how I did it.   Somehow this one appears to be a lot bigger, and Jim says it's also itchier.    So, the lesson is..keep good notes !!!   

The pattern is  Turn a Square, by Jared Flood,

My notes are here on Ravelry:  
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/ADheartknitting/turn-a-square

Back view

Give the muffins a try as they are super simple to make and you probably have most of the ingredients at home, the only thing I didn't have was the sour cream, so I'm warning you now, put that on your grocery list, you'll need it.

The toque is a must as winter is coming on, so if you are not knitter, this is a good starting project.  I hope it inspires you to start.

Alice xox



Walk in the Park

This morning I purposely took the camera with me to caputure some trees in the neighbourhood for their striking autumn colours, but most of their leaves had now fallen down.  So instead I went to a local park.

I had seen people earlier at the parking lot of the grocery store wearing heavy coats and gloves and thought that looked a bit too much, but once I was in the park even though it was sunny it was cold.   A hoodie does not constitute as a jacket.    But the park was beautiful.

Enjoy your day wherever you are.

Alice xox



The Search Continues

I had promised I would continue where I left off in my book "Everyday Zen", love and work, by Charlotte Joko Beck,.  She is a Zen teacher addressing her students who are practising meditation:

"If we cease looking, searching, what are we left with?  We're left with what's been right there at the center all the time.  Underneath all that searching there is distress.  There is unease.  The minute we realize that, we see that the point isn't the search, but rather the distress and unease which motivate the search, but the magic moment-when we realize that searching outside of ourselves is not the way.  At first it dawn on us just a little bit.  And it gets clearer over time, as we continue to suffer.  See, anything that we search for is going to disappoint us.  Because there are no perfect being, perfect job, perfect places to live.  So the search ends exactly in one place which is.... disappointment.  A good place.

I we have any brains at all, it finally dawn on us:  "I've done this before."  And we begin to see that it isn't the searching that's at fault, but something about where we look.  And we return more and more to the disappointment, which is always at the center.  What's underneath all that search is what?  Fear. Unease. Distress.  Feeling miserable.  We're in  pain and we use the search to alleviate that pain.  We begin to see that the pain comes because we are pinching ourselves.  And just this knowledge is relief, even peace.  The peace we've been searching for so hard lies in recognizing this fact:  I'm pinching myself.  No one's doing it to me.

So the whole search begin to be abandoned and instead of searching, we begin to see that practice (meditation)isn't a search.  Practice is to be with that which motivates the search, which is unease. distress.  And this is the turning around.

It never happens all at once.  Our drive to go after things is so powerful it overwhelms us.  No matter what I say, after we all leave here, in five minutes we'll all be looking around for something to save us.  As the vow says, "Desires are inexhaustible." But you won't exhaust desires by searching; you will exhaust them by experiencing that which  underlies them."

I'm typing this from the book, so I hope I have not missed anything.   There is a bit more so I'll post that under another day.   Of course you don't have to be in a Zen Center to be doing this practise of being with what is, but it does take  discipline to push yourself through your self-created illusions.   

Thank you for reading.

Alice xox

For the love of yarn

I like to introduce you to Moxie.  She is one of my cat's (we have 2).    This is my knitting basket.     I managed to get a picture of her on her way out..but for a moment she was laying in it..then kneading my yarn..way too cute!!!   First time ever doing this little trick.  Moxie likes to get herself into things..sometime it gets her into trouble.  But this time she did not get into trouble..just a good laugh by me.

As soon as I turned my back from watching her climb out of my basket, I find her in this position.  This girl loves her yarn.  

Alice xox



The Search

Wanted to share some reading I've been doing..this is a book I've had for years:  I plan on sharing some points that I find very powerful, here is the first, hope you find in it meaningful:

"Every moment of our life is a relationship.  There is nothing except relationship.  At this moment my relationship is to the rug, to the room, to my own body, to the sound of my voice.  There is nothing but my being in a relationship at each second.  As as we practice what grows in our life is this first, our realization that there is nothing but being in a relationship to whatever is happening in each moment, and second, our growing commitment to this relationship.  Now that seems simple enough - so what interferes?  What blocks our commitment to a specific human relationship, or to studying, to working, to having a good time? 

Because we don't understand what it means to be in a relationship to the present moment, we search.  What are we searching for? Depending on our particular life, our background and conditioning, what we search for may seem different from one person to another but really we're all looking for an ideal life.  We may define it as an ideal partner, an ideal job, and ideal place to live.   Even if other people's ideals sound very foreign to us, people are sure of what it is they think they have to find.  And they are searching for it".     (to be continued)

 - taken from Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck.

Alice xox



Summer Vegin

The summer has warmed considerably the last couple of weeks  Wanted to share some more of the lovelies still shinning their beauty:

Here are a combination of yellow onions and shallots, the package called them gourmet onions, being that I have never bought shallots, that's what I'm calling them.

We've had probably 4 of our own cucumbers this summer.  Gave a few away too.  A couple of weeks ago, one of neighbours down the street came by with her little girls to check out the backyard.  The girls had fun seeing the veggies grow.  I gave them each a carrot and a cucumber  to take home.  They were so cute, they began to eat the cucumber like it was a popcicle.  Apparently they love their veggies. I was so impressed.

Green peppers are big, we are just waiting for them to turn red ! 

Sunny Sunflower, I had to get on top of ladder to get this picture.

First time growing gerberas, but did really well, lots of flowers!

These are grapes that my dad had given us many years ago,   We don't make wine with them, but they are good to eat, if we ever have a chance at getting at them before the raccoons.  They are not fully ready yet, but raccoons are making a fine mess of checking them out. 

In the last week or so, since our temps have risen I have started a scarf.   A knitting friend who has written a pattern asked me  to test knit it for her.   I would say I would make a good test knitter because it wouldn't take long for me to find something I don't understand.   The pattern has not been fully completed,  but so far I am  enjoying  working with cables, it's an easy pattern to memorize, but you do need to keep an eye on your row counting.   Sorry, I can't show you a picture of it, or at least I don't think I should !

May summer continue to shine !