#29: Bake something just for me, without an occasion

Posted on July 11, 2011 by elizabeth

Some days, I really don’t know whether all of these projects I have going are a blessing or a curse. When I’m in the midst of getting ready to move (more on that later this week), they do begin to feel more like the latter.

But because I’m a bit of an idiot when it comes to following my self-imposed rules, I power through and do things like what I did on Friday. I had the day off, the usual set-up when I work a Saturday, and I spent the bulk of the day packing and sorting and sweating in general. So Friday evening, instead of relaxing or just sitting still for a while, I decided it would be the perfect time to bake. Because baking something just because is one of the few remaining 30 Before 30 list items, and I hadn’t made anything that could count for Handmade 52 last week, either. And again, I’m an idiot.

I originally put this on 30 Before 30 because lately it seems like I only ever bake for parties or for other people. And while I love doing that, there seems to be a lot of things that I’d love to bake, but the masses wouldn’t enjoy. Or, the masses only ever request chocolate chip cookies and holy crap am I sick of making chocolate chip cookies.

Anyway! My cousin made homemade oreos around Christmastime and I couldn’t stop eating them. I can’t deal with more than three or four of the original ones, because me and chocolate aren’t the best of friends. (Oddly enough, though, cookies and cream is my favorite ice cream flavor. Don’t ask me, I know it doesn’t make sense.) So I have wanted to make them since then, and since the recipe source that I always go to first, Smitten Kitchen, had a recipe for homemade oreos, I was set.

These weren’t difficult, and I did leave off a half cup of sugar as Deb suggests to avoid an overly sweet cookie. I think I would try to make the cookies a little smaller next time, though. I learned the hard way why you shouldn’t buy the bottom shelf $7.99 hand mixer at Target while making the filling though. (And didn’t burn down my soon-to-be-vacated apartment in the process.)

The bottom line? These were heavenly. And you should totally make them. They aren’t exactly like oreos, but they are amazing in their own right.

Week 26: Friendship Bracelets

Posted on July 1, 2011 by elizabeth

$V \ \ V$

This past weekend was a sort of an unplanned childhood summer revival. First, I bought flying saucers on a whim at the ice cream store, and Dan and I housed them. I really can’t remember the last time I ate one. And I had that same feeling I used to when I was a kid: “I ate mine without dripping or making any mess! Am a champion!” Dan just looked at me blankly.

The second half of my childhood summer revival is this week’s handmade52 project, one that I really didn’t plan. I’ve been seeing tutorials and photos making their rounds through pinterest and the blogosphere for old school friendship bracelets (I think I saw it first on Elise’s blog). And at first, I thought they were fun, I remember making those, but I’m not sure I need to make them now.

And there I was, sitting on the couch this past Sunday, watching Dexter and then baseball with Dan, and I was struck with the urge. Thanks to my cross stitching over the years, I have a pretty solid rainbow of embroidery floss on hand, which meant that five minutes after I decided to go for it, I had colors picked, and was safety pinning the knot to my throw pillow.

I ended up making three that day, and have made one more this week, and started a fifth. And I’m obsessed. When I’m at work, I want to be home tying my 4-shaped knots. I’m trying to think of which ones I should make next. It’s so childhood, but the bright colors in endless combinations, the varied patterns between the chevron (instructions here) and the standard stripes… I can’t get enough.

Maybe it’s because of the pure time capsule feeling. It sends me back to sitting in the backyard picking colors with my sister. To that giant plastic box we had to keep all of our colors organized in rainbow order. To knots taped to picnic tables at girl scout camp, the town’s summer recreation day camp. To the ones with the lighthouse pattern, where you make the knots over all the threads, instead of just one at a time. To the woven one that was so complicated but I was so proud of. To ones we made longer to turn into ankle bracelets. To that Klutz book that I came thisclose to requesting via inter-library loan at work this week. It’s just summer, pure and simple. And as I’m staring down one of the busiest Julys I’ll have maybe ever, at the stress of packing and moving and turning 30 after talking about it all year and who knows what else, pure and simple and brightly colored is EXACTLY what the doctor ordered.

#6: Make homemade pizza

Posted on June 21, 2011 by elizabeth

I suppose it’s obvious at this point that I put making pizza on my 30 before 30 list because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve been hoarding recipes, and although I made pizzas on New Years Eve with Dan and his brother, we used store-bought crusts for those… and even though I wrote on my own list that making my own dough was extra credit… I really, really wanted to try to make my own pizza dough.

So I did. It gets me extra credit on my 30 before 30, AND counts for week 25 in my Handmade52 project, too.

I’m not really sure, sometimes, what changes in my head so that I stop saying “oh, I should do that” and just do it… but that’s what happened last week. I found the yeast at the grocery store (without having to call my mom to ask where she thought it would be, even) and with a whole day off, I decided it was as good a time as any.

Making the dough was much, MUCH easier than I expected. (I used the Smitten Kitchen’s easy pizza dough recipe.) I definitely want to try this with whole wheat flour next time. (Side question for you homemade pizza dough pros out there: do you make the dough ahead and … refrigerate it? It seems like a lot of waiting for a weeknight dinner.)

I went simple with this first pizza (and okay, fine, I planned it for a day when my cheese-hating boyfriend wasn’t around, so I could avoid sauce and the large number of meat toppings he prefers. Not that I won’t make this with him some other time) and just used grated Parmesan and mozzarella.

And oh BOY was this super tasty. I can’t wait to make it again!

Weeks 22 and 24: Afghan!

Posted on June 14, 2011 by elizabeth

Guys, I finished the granny hexagon afghan yesterday! And I am SO HAPPY with how it came out. I’ve been working on it on and off since last November, as best I can figure, and the past few weeks have been a flurry of weaving in ends, stitching all 95 hexagons together, weaving in more ends, and crocheting the scalloped border. While this afghan will go to my parents with the orange couch it was made to match, I’m really glad I finished it a few months before moving day, because it means that I can enjoy it, too.

I decided to join the granny squares with slip stitches rather than the recommended whip stitch, just because I can work faster with the crochet hook. It’s a nitpicky process, but I like how it looks, with the seams only visible from the back of the blanket.

This is the largest item that I have ever crocheted, which is noteworthy since I’ve been crocheting for at least 15 years and have never finished a blanket (other than the baby-sized one I made last summer, which was what got me itching to make a full-sized one).

Yay!

Week 23: Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Lemon Pasta

Posted on June 8, 2011 by elizabeth

I realized recently that I haven’t really been cooking lately. At all. (Looking back – it’s been almost ten weeks!) Granted, there has been a lot going on. But now that things seem to be settling (at least until my birthday and moving this summer, but we’re not talking about that right now), I felt like it was time to get back to trying to cook again. Of course, I picked one of the hottest days of the year for my cooking renaissance. Nice.

Anyway, I wasn’t looking for anything too complicated, and I settled on the Smitten Kitchen’s recipe for Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Lemon Pasta, because it seemed new enough (goat cheese!) but still easy enough for a weeknight dinner. I seem to go through phases with cooking, phases in which I become obsessed with one particular ingredient and only recipes containing said ingredient sound tasty to me. I suppose I could pick worse things than asparagus.

Anyway, it’s still the right time of year to get good asparagus, so I made this for dinner tonight. As per usual, I managed to make more of a mess than might have been strictly necessary, but this came together so quickly and easily! It was creamy but still light, the asparagus was so fresh, and the lemon brightened the whole thing up perfectly. Yum.

(Don’t worry; I didn’t forget Week 22. It’s coming, just later than usual!)

Weeks 20 and 21: Still Hexagons

Posted on May 26, 2011 by elizabeth

So I obviously didn’t post anything last week, but I was and have been hard at work on my hexagons. Last week, I finished the final color combination and weaved in a million, billion yarn ends.

Then, thanks to a few days at jury duty, I started in on the fourth color on each hexagon. (And thanks to Erin‘s suggestion, I smuggled in a nail clipper to cut the yarn, since I was pretty sure scissors would be frowned on at the courthouse.)

This week, I’ve been continuing with the gray rounds, and as of this writing, have added the final color to all 95 hexagons! Next up: more ends. And then stitching the hexes together! The pattern suggests whip stitch, but I think I might go with the slip stitch method described here, which I used when I made my famous granny square blanket last year. (How did I never blog about that? I SO wish I had recorded the pattern I ended up cobbling together from various other places. Since I will, eventually, one day, make another blanket like that.)

Week 19: Lots o’ Hexagons

Posted on May 11, 2011 by elizabeth

Crochet Today had a pattern for a giant afghan made out of hexagon granny squares about a year ago, and I knew I had to make it, simply because the photos in the magazine feature an orange couch very much like mine. I started collecting the yarn for this afghan last summer, and I already owned quite a few of the colors thanks to all of those Gryffindor scarves I made way back when. I am not sure when I started making this officially, but it was in the late fall; I’d bring the yarn for one color combination out to Dan’s for the weekend and crochet while he and his brother played video games. And while trying to keep poor Bluecat away. (I did end up crocheting him a few circles with extra long tails, because they do make pretty perfect cat toys. And I felt bad for having to keep him away from something so enticing.)

And then Handmade52 started, and the great baby hat factory went into business… and the yarn and already made hexagons sat on my coffee table for quite a long time. Until recently, when out of nowhere, the urge to crochet became too big to ignore. So I picked this project back up, and have been making pretty solid progress over the last few weeks.

There were, of course, a million loose yarn ends to weave in from the hexagons I had already finished…

And then a few more color combinations to work on. I’m now working on the last color combination, and next up will be adding the gray rounds to all 95 hexagons. And then, of course, stitching them all together and adding a border. I’m pretty excited.

Of course, this week I realized that my parents asked if they could maybe, possibly, if-you’re-sure-you’re-okay-with-it have the Great Orange Couch and Chair back, because they’d fit so nicely into their most recently-remodeled room, aka the grownups’ rec room, aka the room my sister and I shared growing up, but that has now been turned into the treadmill-sewing machine-and extra tv room. So when I move this summer, the orange couch will no longer be mine. And I’ve been making this afghan specifically to go with the orange couch. So my parents are now getting what will soon be a pretty spectacular hexagon afghan. Which means I can make another one for me. (Maybe.)

Week 18: Fingerless Mittens

Posted on May 5, 2011 by elizabeth

I have been wanting to make proper fingerless mittens for a while, and even more after my failed attempt at crocheting cabled ones a few weeks ago. (I abandoned that project; I attempted to make them with at least 5 different hook sizes to get the gauge right, and it never got there, and I was frustrated beyond the point of enjoying myself, so I let it go.) Right around that same time, Design*Sponge wrote about how to host a knitting party (which honestly sounds like a lot of fun; maybe I’ll do something like that one day), and the post included instructions for knitting easy fingerless mittens.

I finally got around to visiting the yarn store near me, figuring that this pattern was straightforward enough (and didn’t call for a large amount of yarn) that it would be fun to buy some “fancy” yarn to use. I ended up buying Debbie Stoller’s Luxury Tweed Chunky in a dusty purple, because it looked amazing next to my pale gray coat.

These knit up super fast, even for this beginning knitter, and sewing the seam with a thumbhole couldn’t have been easier. Of course, I finished them just in time to … not need wristwarmers anymore, but that’s okay. I loved this project, and will definitely make another pair someday. (And I’m pretty sure there will be a few pairs to give as gifts, too.)

Week 17: Nook Case

Posted on April 27, 2011 by elizabeth

So as y’all know, I have now had my Nook for a few months, and am really loving it. I have been using a cover that Dan bought me for Christmas, and it is hot pink and folds open like a regular book, except it has a handy dandy notepad in it, too. And it’s a great cover, but I discovered that (for me, at least) the kind of cover that opens like a book and folds back on itself is really awkward and unbalanced to hold while reading. It started to drive me crazy.

So I started shopping online for a new case, thinking a flip-top case or just a simple cozy that just stores the Nook when you’re not reading it would be the best. I didn’t really find anything I liked, but I resigned myself to choosing a really basic neoprene zip-top case and was moments from clicking “submit order” when I saw that Marianne had just posted a photo of the cozy she had just knitted for HER Nook. (What? I multitask. Always.)

And I said DUH. Why did it not EVER occur to me to make one for myself? With all the freaking MAKING OF THINGS that I have been doing since 2011 started??

I started on Ravelry, but was too drawn to the cable-knitted cozies (and I don’t know how to knit cables yet), so I turned to a basic Google search. It didn’t necessarily have to be a pattern for a Nook-specific case, but if I could find one where someone had already figured out the measurements, I was all for that. I found this pattern from Little Birdie Secrets and loved it.

I decided to crochet stripes because I was so in love with the colors I used for Thea’s hat, and had a really fantastic time choosing buttons at the local fabric store. (Okay, fine, I bought way more sets of buttons than I needed for this project.) I actually also bought white rick-rack because my brother said this would look like a kind of adorable monster if I added some teeth.

As I was starting, I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be quite wide enough, but decided to just go with the pattern’s measurements. Of course, in the end, it’s a little too snug, but I’m hoping the yarn will stretch a bit. This is also the first time I’ve ever used (or, hell, heard of) moss stitch, which works up amazingly fast and looks really great. I’m not happy with the not-perfect job I did stitching up the sides, or the fact that I probably should have blocked this with pins and all that jazz so the edges stop curling… but it’s just so cute! And stripey. I will probably make another one in other colors, because it’s not like I don’t already have the buttons. Or extra yarn.

Week 16: Gnome Hat

Posted on April 21, 2011 by elizabeth

This Handmade52 project sometimes feels like the Hats All The Time project, but I can’t help it if they are easy and so giftable. Dan’s very good friends had a baby last year, and I wanted to be able to make something for Dan (and me) to give to Oskar to honor his first birthday, which was at the beginning of April. I’ve clearly been hoarding hat patterns since the fall, but when Craft linked to a pattern for a gnome hat from Lorajean’s Magazine, I wanted to make it IMMEDIATELY.

I have made a lot of baby hats in the last eight months or so, and I might have to go ahead and say it: this gnome hat may be the winner in terms of easiness plus cute factor. Poor Oskar doesn’t really like hats right now, so I couldn’t get a photo of him in the hat, but it was just the right size and to-die-for cute. (Seriously, click through to the pattern to see it on the head of a baby. Adorable.)