I have been making so much, and posting so little. Sorry about that. I've been cooking/baking my fool head off. I did lose my knitting mojo for a while there, but we're back! I'm almost finished with my friend Janeal's birthday present (she turned 18 yesterday). It's a doilie applique'd to a knitted bag. I'm in the applique-ing phase. I just need to finish that, add a lining, and sew the whole thing together. The question is; to add a pocket or not to add a pocket? I'm undecided as of yet. I also haven't chosen the lining. The bag is grey, and the doilie is varigated orange. So really, I could use anything, and it would just make the thing quirkier. Well, enough of that.

I made some no-bake cookies for Dave yesterday, but the choice to use skim milk instead of whole turned out to be very, very wrong. So, I opted for a "sorry your cookies were gross" carrot cake.

Haven't tried it yet because the birthday boy isn't back from work.
...
Okay, I took a brief hiatus because the birthday boy pulled up in the driveway. But, just like anything else cake/cookie/muffin-like that must be baked, it was just ... dense! Nothing was too terribly wrong with it, and the frosting was AMAZING. But the actual cake was dense. I don't get it. What am i doing wrong?

But here is the recipe.

CARROT CAKE

INGREDIENTS
Cake:
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup chopped pecans
Frosting:
1/2 cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped pecans. Frost the cooled cake.


I've had better carrot cake, to be honest. But I just can't get that recipe (I'd have to talk to my estranged stepmother to do so).

Well, I finished the scarf of experimentation. I took pictures of it, but they're terrible, and you'll just have to wait. I'll post the pattern when I have better pictures.
I also started working on what I will call my family reunion scarf. I took some nice white worsted-weight angora up to Logan, Ut for the James family reunion, intending to continue working on my surrender sweater. Well, I dropped a stitch and lost my temper. I ripped the whole thing (well, I had only finished about half of the front, but still). So, I began the family reunion scarf. It has a couple wandering cables and stripes made of grandma's old acrylic scrap yarn.
I am still working on the ugly blanket, as I suppose I will be doing until the day I die. I had to make a new gigantic ball of yarn, which is always encouraging.
Oh, and today I whipped up some mashed potatoes with cheese and the perfect blend of seasoning. Too bad I didn't take down any ingredients. I remember I put some celery seeds in, which I think made a good bit of taste.

I found myself at school today with four of my current projects in my messenger bag. So, I figured I might as well document them before I got sick of them and ripped them all apart. I'll post patterns for each when they're done.

GREEN CHIFFON SKIRT

You can't really tell here, but this is going to be the top of a VERY ruffley skirt. I'm working with a yarn that feels chenille-y, but I got it wholesale with no tags so I don't really know what it is. It's a small fingering weight, that's sort of a ... kelly green, I suppose. When I run out of yarn (which will be quite soon), I'm going to save up to buy a ton of lighter green chiffon, and attach that to the bottom of the crocheted bit. It will be flowy and wonderful and I will wear it all of the time. Too bad I already have 3 green skirts. Honestly, I really do. Not even exaggerating.

KIM'S HAT WITH FLOWERS

It's alpaca, a smaller worsted weight, and this picture makes it look to bright. There's more brown than you can see. But I snuck the idea from a pattern somewhere on the internet, and made it better, I do believe. But I am running out of yarn. And I increased too quickly after the first row of flowers. But I think she'll like it.

THE SCARF OF EXPERIMENTATION

I'm just learning how to knit, and so I thought a free-form scarf of many patterns would be a good way to get acquainted with the craft. So, I do twenty or so rows of one stitch or pattern or whatever, and then move on to whatever's next. It works with my short attention span and is informative--perfect. It's made of a vintage, fingering weight yarn that reminds me of the Great Depression. In a good way.

EASY DRESS

I guess it's kind of pointless to show this here since I've already ripped it out. I did a few rows, and then realized that I didn't want it to be made out of this great merino/alpaca yarn, but more of a cotton. So, now I find myself with three skeins of Naturally Soft or whatever the brand is, and no idea what to do with it. We'll see. Perhaps a vintage shirt.

Those are just a few of my current projects. There are many many more--it's neverending, really.

I'm currently working on patterns for iPod socks that look like those sock-puppets that are kitties and gorillas and bears. But I got fed up with writing the patterns, so last night I made this in about 25 minutes. Yeah, it's a bit too cutesy for me, but atleast it keeps my new JukeBox safe and warm. That's an embroidered flower in the corner. Basically I just did single crochets all the way around. I think I made it a bit too small--sometimes it's hard to stretch, but I like the yarn because it's 100% cotton. It feels like a dishcloth.

This is what happens when you prepare a red pepper and don't use the flash on your camera. But all the seeds still attached to the innards just looks cool.

Red peppers are great in sandwiches (the best food ever) or wrapped up in a tortilla (just mix flour with water, honestly. They're really easy to make) with sour cream (one thing you're allowed to buy), and a bit of green sauce from Bahio or Durrango. I really need to know how to make that stuff.

Warning: Red peppers are disgusting if fully cooked. Like in pastas or soups. They get all stringy and gross. The best way to cook peppers is to just barely sautee them. Give 'em a few little burn marks on the back, and then pop them into that sandwich/tortilla!

This is the scrap yarn blanket. It's wide enough to cover a king-size bed, but really only a couple (few?) feet tall. Long. You get the picture. I love how two abutting colors can clash horribly, but they all just blend into the general squalor, so you don't even notice how hideous they are. I know it's going to take forever to finish, and I know that I can't possibly have enough scrap yarn, but I'll just buy more at thrift stores, and continue until I have a beautiful schmorgasbord (sp?) of color. It's very warm so far.

The entire thing is made of simple single-crochet stitches (because they're sturdy and familiar, and I didn't want to distract anyone from the beautiful colors). I have no idea how many stitches across it is, as I just don't like counting. I highly recommend this project to anyone who has Tivo, as it can become to easy to only watch TV, and not multitask.

P.S. Interesting fact: So far, all of my post labels start with a "C." I don't know why; it certainly wasn't planned. Hopefully my creativity will branch into the other letters of the alphabet.

And by the way, everyone out there must read "Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life." I only remember that the author's name is Amy, or something similar. But it's just great. I'm reading at the bookstore now, because I don't have the balls to spend the fifteen or so bucks.

I am currently crocheting a scrap-yarn-blanket and a green skirt; knitting a scarf; knifty-knitting 3 hats and a pair of leg-warmers (the baby sized loom works perfectly with the proper application of drawstrings); cooking some macaroni and cheese; and painting 2 things. Just so you know.

It is cold outside. Very very cold. Therefore, we must bake warm things. And of course, when we are too tired (or cold) to bake something wonderful or interesting, we must bake the most delicious baked apple chunks I have ever tasted. So here is the recipe:

-2/14 cups peeled, cored, chopped apples (I just used 4 medium-sized ones. And I wouldn't worry too much about how good they apple is for baking, in fact, I used sweet Fuji apples and it was perfect. Also, I chopped the apples into small pieces, not semi-circles.)
-1 1/2 t. lemon juice (not absolutely necessary)
-1/4 cup granulated sugar (more if you used tart apples)
-1 T. all-purpose flour
-1/2 t. ground cinnamon
-1/8 t. salt
-dash of ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix everything together gently in a large bowl, let apples sit in a warm place for 20 minutes or so, to let the sugar and apple juice make that delicious syrup. Then put as many apples as you would like in several of those paper muffin things in a muffin pan. Bake for anywhere from 7-15 minutes, depending on your oven. Just make sure that the apples are not crisp anymore, and the juice is almost bubbly. Do not burn, that would be a terrible shame. Serve warm, with an exorbitant amount of whipped cream, if desired.