Quick Holiday Knit (free pattern!)

Well, I planned on posting two patterns, but I hope this is sufficient for those of you who still need a 1-2 day knit for a last-minute chic gift. Have a very Merry Christmas and holidays, everyone! Enjoy this super-duper easy and fast pattern! I'm off to brew some hot cocoa and do the annual snowy drive-around in the neighborhood to look at the Christmas lights with my hubby!

"Double Looped Scarf" PDF

Skill: EASY
TYPES: Seed Stitch & Garter Scarves

MATERIALS:
Needles: 1 skein (240yds) bulky yarn in Main Color. 10-20 yds in contrast color for the border.
Needles: size US15 circular needle (29'') & darning needle.
Hook: size K or N

GUAGE: approx. 5 sts=2''


MEASUREMENTS: 47'' circumference

ABBREVIATIONS:
K=knit P=purl ST(S)=stitch(es) RD=round

leftovers never looked so gourmet...

Just checking in. I just got back from work from the library (yup, on a Sunday), and I was planning on making this gourmet leftover dinner ever since I made the grilled steak and chicken dinner last night.

Above is a soup-salad-sandwich combo that's mostly Asian inspired. Because the steak and chicken was grilled with a sesame, ginger and garlic marinade, I used the sauce again for the salad that has sesame seeds, almonds and carrots and the leftover medium-well cooked steak. I also used the marinaded chicken to make an Asian chicken salad sandwich on a fresh croissant. The soup is cheesy cauliflower soup that is semi-homemade and topped with crustini bread that is seasoned with oil, salt and garlic and is crusty enough to taste like flat croutons. Goodness gratious... it was Delish!

Check in with me in a day or so. I plan on uploading a couple of free scarf patterns (the double-looped scarf & also a new unique scarf one) in the next post so you have another fast and east knit pattern that you can knit up really quickly for the holidays. Off to watch more Meerkat Manor (so cute and addicting!!)

Winter waltzes

Sorry, gang, for being rather quiet and boring the past couple of weeks. I've been as busy as one of Santa's elves with a lot of the holiday bustling. I've been taking photos along the way, but they just haven't made it into the computer until just now.

Above is a photo of one of the many batches of gingerbread men I've been making. They are scrumptious! I plan on hanging with a friend or two tonight to make gingerbread houses!

I'll just jump into the knitting right away, since these are just WIPs, and not really worth the suspense. These two knits are both KUAS originals that I've started and worked on here and there. The purple knit is a baby cardi that is a little similar to EZ's "February Lady," but has a different, and more wavy lace pattern. The blue heathered project (not really visible in the photo) is a hat pattern that has a different construction than the hat patterns that I'm sick of used to. I knit the cabled band first, and then picked up the stitches around the rim before continuing with another cable pattern.

A little ironic: once I did all the cable work, and picked up stitches (twice, since I ripped it out the first time to do things differently), I realized that the cable pattern could probably have been done vertically, and still look the same. To stop laughing myself silly, I told myself that I wouldn't have known how many stitches to cast-on to fit my head perfectly (who's swatches really work out in the end?), and this way was better because I'll just end up doing another cable pattern that can't be done vertically for some other hat...and this is my guinea pig project. Fair enough.

On another note, I was excited when the first snowfall happened. There is something magical about that first fall...an electric spark of awe and hope for that white Christmas that you remembered as a kid. Or it might just be me...one who is a little into the sensory around this time of year. Cold crunchy snow. A warm fireplace cracking and popping. Aromatic pine needles burning. Cookies of all sorts baking. The soft yet brilliant glow of the lights on the Christmas tree. Holiday-inspired coffees of peppermint, eggnog and gingerbread...

Speaking of winterly things. Joe and I rode the train to Chicago and enjoyed a Saturday in the city, shopping and eating at a pub. We enjoyed all of the lights littering the city trees, and checked out Macy's displays. Let me tell you, that store is a little intimidating, what with its 8 or 9 floors...

Macy's had a magnificent Christmas display. I can't even imagine how much it cost, but things where hanging every which way from the ceiling.

And the most current news: I celebrated my 24th birthday on the 12th. We had a great time going to see the Nutcracker and eating out at Jimmy's Charhouse and drinking up at Chilies. I'm enjoying my birthday gift, the new Wii Mario game (awesome!! I love mario, and I'm stoked that they remade the game while trying to keep the wonderful elements of the first couple of marios). Last night, I cooked a yummy dinner, a Shepherd's Pie that I tried to replicated from the pub in Chicago (Elephant & Castle...or was is Castle & Elephant? I forgot).

Let me leave you with a wonderful photo from one of the winterly Sunsets from a week ago:

Giving Thanks

For about a year and a half, I have been dreaming about me and Joe hosting our first Thanksgiving together as a married couple. Of course, in these dreams, our living quarters were a tinsy-bit larger in the ways of the "dining room," but, nonetheless, the dream lives on no matter where you do end up (and I do love my first apartment). And should I mention...boy, the mind is a powerful thing when it comes to over-estimating accommodation space for 10 people. But you know what, cozy as it was, we all had a great time together...and the food couldn't have turned out better!

I was most thankful that day (when it comes to the food part) that I prepped the night before-chopping and putting it into little Ziploc baggies, making the jello, the homemade pumpkin pie, etc. I was in la-la-land that night, thinking that with all the hours of prep-work, I could just sit on the couch and read inbetween bastings on Thanksgiving day. HA HA HA. Yeah, right. So naive, I know. I don't know how I would have survived if I didn't do all of that work. I also baked homemade sugar cookies in the shape of fall leaves and acorns and cleaned the apartment from top to bottom the day before Thanksgiving, and I am soo glad I decided to get everything done then.

The turkey was pretty juicy. I brined the turkey with a bunch of spices before heading to bed, and that 17 pound bird ended up soaking for 14 hours in the fridge in the biggest stock-pot my parents own. Jee, it is most convenient living a block and a half away from them when I don't have, oh, a stock-pot, some pumpkin spices, twine, a roasting pan, and all sorts of things I either didn't want to buy or forgot until last second. I used Martha Stewart's recipe for the gravy (made with a bunch of root veggies), and used her cheesecloth and butter/white wine basting idea for the turkey. I stuffed that bad boy with as much stuffing as possible, and smothered it with a bunch of butter inside and out.

And yes, even after taking out all of the turkey neck and God-knows-what innards while keeping everyone's horror stories of "leaving the giblets inside the turkey while baking" in mind,...after we carved the rest of the turkey, "oopsie dasie!"...there was a special surprise at the back door! Hello turkey company people, put a warning on the turkey label for people who honestly don't know what giblets look like, that things are not just in the inside of the main turkey cavity...it's also stuffed in the butt! I just think that they should keep everything together, instead of playing hide-and-seek.

Any who, I am most proud of my lovely set-up that made its way to the tables the night before (another time-saver!). I used so many wedding gifts, it was unreal.

We had turkey, spiral ham, mashies with garlic and cream, greenbean casserole, corn, stuffing with saged sausage, butternut squash with butter and brown sugar, cranberries, rolls, homemade pumpkin pie and pumkin cheesecake, sugar cookies, homemade berry pie, and much liquor, of course!

An another note, I've been playing around with my new photoshop program that I bought a little while ago, and have been teaching myself new things along the way (I still need that photoshop book...you know, the one they didn't put in the box!). Along with learning how to cut out something from a photo and plop it onto another one, here are some other examples:

Leaving color in select regions:

And no, I wasn't beaten in this photo. I was very, very accident-prone as a child, and this example was me leaning on a screen door that wasn't closed all the way and falling down the stairs. Thank God that this was before the whole hard-core child service thing, because the hospital was starting to know me on a first-name basis. I have to laugh at this photo because my hair kind of resembles Einstein's...

"Cloning" a color, and adding it where it might have been (the pizza sauce on the face):

My brother and I making pizza. Probably the last time we happily cooperated together. Ha ha ha.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Joe and I are thankful for so many things this year...

No biggie.

Just checking in. Nothing really too interesting to talk about except that the second "Double-looped" scarf has been completed. It's knit the same way as the first. The third may look a little different, I think, because I can only knit so many of the same style without getting antsy. Speaking of antsy, my hands have been itching to make a nice cabled hat and gloves...

Kate Jacobs

Kate Jacobs came to my library Saturday, and I was thrilled to have her do a reading from her newest release, Knit the Season which is her third installement in the Friday Night Knitting Club series, and it is devoted to the winter holidays. She talked about how she didn't even realize that she skipped winter in the first two novels, and she really wanted to show knitting and holiday spirit in this newest novel.

I was impressed with how down-to-earth Kate Jacobs was; she was honest, funny and never snoody. She made sure she had ample time for questions, because she related to us how when she was 23, and working as a journalist, she had all sorts of questions for authors...yet it was hard to get the chance to ask them. She always wanted to write books since the 8th grade, yet was pushed into the Redbook magazine business because of her mom's "you're gonna starve if you write books" comments as an 8th grader with a writer's ambition.

The audience also learned that she grew up in a small town, approx. 5,000 persons, and was a big reader who could easily have read the entire library's collection as a kid. She didn't win writing contests, but she kept writing until she made her way in the literary world. Now she has at least 4 books out, the 5th being a stand-alone book...and Hollywood is planning on making her first novel, The Friday Night Knitting Club in to a movie! With Julia Roberts starring as Georgia Walker! Neat!

The basis of the Knitting Club books is about flawed friends who find their way in the Big City by this club that meets on Fridays in Georgia Walker's knitting shop. They bring their mistakes to the table, yet find solace in eachother and learn to make amends with their mistakes, and to move-on from inevitable things that you can't change. Unlikely friendships form in the process, and long-term relationships mend or break. The book is charming, although not fast-paced, and should make you want to join a knitting club if you haven't already.

Kate Jacobs also talked about a "Warming families" hat-drive that she is part of with Land's End, with a goal to have around 25,000 beanies knit for the homeless. But like she said, she can't knit it all up...and she needs our help! You can visit her website for more information on Vickie Howell's free beanie pattern that you can use to knit up the hats. If you're interested in the 2x2 ribbed hat pattern, you can find others knitting it on Ravelry. You can even send in a scarf if you're still a beginner knitter. If you can a spare skein of yarn and a spare day or so, please help her out. It's for a really good cause. :)

"Friday Night Knitting Club"

Just wondering if anyone else was going to Kate Jacob's reading at my library tomorrow, the 7th. If you are, you know where it is...and just holla, cause I'll be there. I'm excited!
Sorry, I'm off to try to read more of the book, since I stopped a while ago....eek!!!