Knitspiration

Welcome to Fall.

Yesterday was the official first day of the autumn season.  This is a knitter's dream :)

Weather starts cooling down and your warm cozy yarn stash starts to look more and more inviting.  I, like many others, took a major vacation from knitting during the warmer spring and summer months, but now that fall and winter are upon us, it's hard to resist the lure of warm drinks, cozy fires and new knit projects.  To also keep my inspired, someone else just bought my glove pattern on Etsy! :)

I recently spent a long weekend in Seattle, taking in the sights and weather.  It wasn't too rainy, but the weather was definitely cooler and rain was definitely present.  One of my favorite discoveries, however, was the abundance of big cozy sweaters and cute knit hats.  I started feeling rather inspired to pick up my needles and make a hat for myself.  I even found an awesome over-sized sweater pattern online...

Do you need some knitspiration for your fall?  Here are some awesome patterns I've found online!  Happy knitting!

Lucy Hat

Baggy wave-sweater

Mac & Cheese

I recently took a week off from work so I could get some rest and recharge before my next busy work project.  While I was off, I took some time to knit some gifts as well as some personal projects I'll probably keep for myself.  It was refreshing after having completed several items for my etsy shop (those should be up soon!).

But one of my proudest moments of my week off was making mac & cheese from scratch for the first time.  Most of my friends and family know how much I love the creamy, cheesy pasta dish, but many had no idea that I had never made it from scratch!  Recently, my favorite mac & cheese restaurant (Homeroom), released a cookbook with all their recipes!  I bought it right away and the first recipe I tackled was one of my faves: the Gilroy Garlic Mac.

The hardest part about it was the timing.  You have to be really precise with the timing of how long you cook everything.  There is definitely a greater possibility of ruining sauces, textures and consistencies if you don't time it right.  The most difficult timing portion is making the bechamel sauce, which is made with a simple mix of flour, milk, butter, and salt.  But it's all about timing.

For the Gilroy Mac, you simply start with the bechamel sauce and then add in your cheeses and a garlic compound butter (minced garlic mashed together with butter).  I used Pecorino Romano and a five-year aged Gouda for the cheese.  For fun, I also added in some bacon.  Who doesn't love bacon in their mac?

Bechamel Sauce Ingredients (plus some panko and the pasta)

Gilroy Mac ingredients: butter, minced garlic, Pecorino Romano and Gouda

Garlic compound butter

Finished product before adding the panko bread crumbs

For the finishing touch, I added on baked panko breadcrumbs.  To get the toasted look, you actually toast them in the oven for a few minutes before placing them on the mac and putting it all back into the oven.  It was great to pull it out and share it with friends.  Goes great with a white wine.  The authors suggest a chardonnay, but after making the dish twice, I found that any wine of choice seems to go well :)

Finished product prior to serving

Absolutely delicious!

With fall around the corner, I'm looking forward to more warm dishes, coffee and lots more knitting!  Should be a great fall!

Getting Back Into the Groove

Hello loyal readers!

It's been far too long since I had an update here.  The summer has been filled with many projects including my very first 10k!  I completed it just yesterday and got this awesome medal for the Giant Race 2013.

Other than that, I've been working on and completed a baby hat for a couple of my co-workers.  They are soon to have their first kid, a baby boy.  I'm pretty excited for them :)

 

 And last, I got an etsy sale of one of my patterns!  The Samantha Fingerless Glove pattern had it's first sale today, which is pretty awesome.  It's so validating to design and create something, put it out in the world and then not only have someone appreciate it, but appreciate it enough that they are willing to pay for it.  That's pretty cool.

All in all, a good day :)

This always makes me smile

I'm really, really excited.  Why?

Another Ravelry member made a dish cloth using my pattern and posted a photo.  I love sharing them here!  Super awesome!  Great color!

 

In other news, I'm in the process of trying to come up with some cool, quick and easy knit ideas for raising money for my work's AIDS Walk team.  I think I may have thought of something and I'm going to see what I can do tonight after work.  If it works out I'll try to post a photo here...

Hope everyone's doing well!  Thanks for reading!

The Samantha Fingerless Glove

Hello all!

I promised I would finally post this pattern online and I have!  It's now available on Ravelry for purchase!

I've dedicated the pattern in name to one my dearest friends who has inspired me to be creative in my craft and wears a pair of these all the time in cooler weather.

Here's a link if you would like to give it a whirl!

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-samantha-fingerless-glove

Lesson Learned: always use a winder... or at least a friend

This past weekend, I received some yarn in the mail that I needed to complete a gift for one of my managers.  Unfortunately, when you purchase specialty yarn, it never comes already wound.  Usually you can have the store you bought it from wind the yarn for you, but if you order it online, you're outta luck unless you personally have a winder or know someone who does. 

I do not own my winder (why not, I'll never know), but know some co-workers who do.  However, I was feeling a little ambitious and stubborn this last Saturday so I decided to try and wind the yarn myself, without a machine, and without even a friend to help hold the yarn.  I figured I could go slow and keep my eye on it.  WRONG.  Terrible decision.  The yarn began to tangle up faster than I could keep up with it and before I knew it, I was spending the next 3 days untangling yarn. 

Looking back on it, I suppose I could have draped the yarn on the back of a chair to keep it from tangling on itself, but a friend or an actual winder would have probably been the best way to go.  In the end, I finally ended up with a nice ball of yarn.  Full of love... er... frustration.

March Knitting Madness

What a busy month it's been!

My work's knitting circle is already nearly halfway finished with our March knit-a-thon to knit hats for chemo patients.  I'm about 3/4 through a cool cable knit hat right now.  Our goal is to have 20 hats completed by the end of the month.  We'll see how it goes!

Meanwhile, I also finally finished my friend's hat, using this pattern from JL Yarnworks.  Here I am modeling it horribly:

 My friend texted me shortly after she got it and said that she was planning on wearing it that night, despite warmer weather.  Ha ha!  So glad she liked it.

I am also in the middle of knitting another gift, so I'm juggling that along with my hat projects.  I have an upcoming trip and I'll need to figure out what the heck I want to bring to knit while on the plane.  The project I really want to finally start (my sweater), will have to wait just a little bit longer.  At this rate though, maybe it will at least be ready for next fall!

And lastly, I found another photo of someone's finished dishcloth pattern on Ravelry.  I'm so happy that people are using and liking my custom pattern!  It's so exciting!

I promise to have my glove post up and available soon.  It's been a busy winter/spring so I haven't had much time to make it nice.  Anyway, hope you are all well!  Thanks for reading!