Knitting Designs, this and that.

So, I have now sold 4 designs, and have 2 more submitted for which I'm anxiously awaiting a reply.

I plan to resubmit some ideas to another publication, and i have some new design ideas, too.

The Knitmore girls are having a contest for designs of baby hats, so I threw together (and knitted) a pattern for that, too.
So I'm busy with that.

I should mention that I have a story on the Never Not Knitting podcast , The Prodigal Knitter. Alana was also nice enough to mention my new pattern. Check it out - you'll enjoy it:-)

Next Friday I'm going to the LA Stitch 'n' Pitch event; a bunch of knitters sit and knit together at a Dodgers game. One of our LYSs is organizing a little party beforehand and renting buses for us to go all together. They are having a yarn sale too.
I'm so looking forward to it!



Gratuitous baby pic.

OK, now some knitting

First, the play, The 3 Musketeers, was fun. Some actors were better than others, but overall I think they did a great job. They took some parts of the original very long novel and made it hang together fairly well. The setting was gorgeous, in Topanga Canyon at the Will Geer outdoor theater.


I still continue to be surprised that there are these lovely pockets of wilderness right in the city.


So, in knitting:

I finished the baby booties for my granddaughter, and they were very well received.

It's winter there, so she will get good use out of them. They match a sweater I made for her last May. It's on the right over here.

She is staying incognito so that the paparazzi don't stalk her :-)

Next, I've almost finished a super secret project for publication (Yay!). It's a child's cardi for Tangled - an online magazine. I'll post a link when it's published, natch.

This is my second published pattern! Here is the first.

I've been inspired lately to submit design ideas everywhere. I've also had 2 more designs accepted for a hand-dyed yarn company (Yay again!)

Also, I'm working on the Sassymetrical sweater. I'm not sure that it is going to drape properly, so i'm going to add beads to the border. Sneaky, eh? I hope it works.

I have a pair of socks on the needles which I work on sporadically. I do have one done.

This is a really different pattern - they are knitted sideways!

And finally, I couldn't resist casting on this cute baby hoodie, called Snug, done in sideways garter stitch. So adorable! I'm doing it a rust cotton worsted, with cream trim.

More next time...

P.S. I'm continuing to throw out one thing a day, at least! Plastic containers, jars, expired grocery items... and I haven't even hit my closet or bathroom yet.

Cooking, a resolution, and of course, knitting

In cooking:
Sometimes we get into a rut and just make the same old stuff again and again. Well, I do.
Pasta, burger, fish, chicken; Pasta, burger, fish, chicken; etc. (we try to limit red meat as much as possible, so the burgers are mostly veggie-burgers).

Anyway, one of my favorite French desserts is clafouti– a custardy cake made with fresh cherries. So I finally made one, for the first time, last weekend. It was yummy, just as good as the ones I’ve had in France. And here it is.
You can only do this when cherries are in season, so it’s a fairly small window of time. It’s really an easy recipe: you make a batter of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter, and you pour this over the cherries in a baking dish, and bake. You don’t even pit the cherries!

I don’t know about you, but when I was little, my mother would never dream of heating up the oven for just one thing. I guess the electric bill was a big item for my family back then, and you just didn’t waste energy (we had electric stoves).
I still feel guilty about using the oven for one item. Therefore, I made up a batch of blueberry bran muffins at the same time. They were great too. After eating two while they were still warm, I froze the rest for quick snacks or breakfasts later on.

Resolution
After living 18 years in the same house (yikes – where does the time go?) we have accumulated a fair amount of “stuff”. I wouldn’t say our house is terribly cluttered because we do manage to find places to put our stuff, but nonetheless we have too much. Both DH and I have trouble letting go of things; we get sentimental about the little artifacts, souvenirs and gadgets that we accumulate.
At the same time, I’m lazy and don’t care to spend a beautiful sunny day indoors cleaning out a closet. When I saw this suggestion in a comment on the Crazy Aunt Purl blog, I knew it was for me. This is it: Throw out one thing a day. Simple, no?

I started with an old cookie sheet that’s old, tarnished and stained. I have 2 like-new cookie sheets that I will use in the future, so why keep this one?
The second thing was a glass jar. I have many of these (sigh, I have trouble not washing and saving jars from jam, olives, pickles, etc.) This is also a habit inherited from my mother.

Between kitchen stuff and clothing items I’m sure I can get rid of lots of stuff. And you don’t have to literally throw it away -- you can put it in a box to donate.

Knitting – I will have to talk about it next time, as I have to go now; we’re going to see a play – The Three Musketeers – in an outdoor theater set in Topanga Canyon. Should be fun!

Bye for now!

NEW POST !

Well, long time no see, right? I will try to avoid cliches like that in future, but, hey, it seemed to fit. Yes it's been almost a year since I last posted.
I've been lured away by Facebook and twitter.
But, I will attempt to write every couple of days and thus eventually catch you up on my all my doings. Assuming you're interested in my doings, of course.
OK, I will start with a major one -- I have a new baby granddaughter, called Elise. She is the cutest thing, of course, and is both intelligent and beautiful.




We've been fortunate to have been able to visit her 3 times in the last 9 months. (She is in Sydney Australia.) On one trip we even brought my mother in law with us, so she could meet her first great-granddaughter. That was a wonderful and emotional visit. My MIL is now ill and so it's not likely she will be able to travel that far again.

I have knitted her lots of cute things which you can find here on Ravelry.
More tomorrow!