• April 12, 2010

    Books and Clothes

    We went to the Millenium Library yesterday morning. What a fun building. B did not get the point of going to the library at first. He kept saying “Books, buy it,” no matter how many times we tried to tell him that we could borrow them and did not have to buy them. He was so amused by the elevator and all of the chairs. O mostly slept. We took out a few books for him, one of which, I Am Not Sleepy and Will Not Go to Bed, he has become so attached to that we might just have to go to the bookstore and buy it for him because I think it might be getting woven into his bedtime routine. It’s really cute, I love the cut+paste collage style. I got a few knitting books, I am especially excited about The Knitted Odd-Bod Bunch and The Baby Knits Book. I also got a couple of books on mittens, because I  love making mittens. I’ve been looking for the perfect knit jacket pattern because I have been wanting to knit one of those vintage moosey-style jackets for B for a while (ooh! Look at this fish jacket!). I finally found it in The Baby Knits Book. It’s a plain knitted jacket that I can base the pattern on, and then I just need to come up with a design to knit on it. With at least one Moose. That will be my next big project after this current sweater and the Manda Ruth sweater for O. I *hope* to finish the hooded cardigan this week.


     My sister got back from her trip to Montreal today, so we went over to my mom’s to hang out and eat pizza. She brought me back some pretty nail polish. I am especially excited about the Diamond Base coat. I have been looking for a good base coat, since I just use Orly Bonder right now, which is great for making nail polish stay on, but not so great for strengthening. Maybe the diamond dust will save them. I had to cut them super short the other day because I broke a few really bad. She also brought back some amazing H&M clothes and Converse Runners for the boys. I LOVE the fish runners. B kept going “Neeebo,” and made me put them on O. And the Star Wars sweater is really amazing. I think Ryan is a little jealous. H&M kid’s jeans are so great. They come in great styles and washes, and last a really long time. I think B wore the same pair for over a year, from 1-2 years old, they grow with a kid that well. And they are still in good enough condition that O can wear them when he is old enough. Best kids jeans ever.

    Katya has good taste in kids clothes. There is another Lightning McQueen shirt, but B insisted on wearing it to bed. Which is where he is. Poor guy has a congested nose and at least two molars poking through. I think we will take it easy tomorrow, maybe do some drawing. I finally bought a roll of kraft paper to start drawing again on. I prefer starting on a neutral base instead of white paper, because I really like to build the colour up from nothing. The paper really lends itself to a wholly different sort of drawing, and I really think it’s a major component of my aesthetic and it really informs my use of colour. It also is a great paper for working with chalk and oil pastels, which I just happened to come across while cleaning. Maybe B and I will oil pastel tomorrow. And play with cars of course.

  • April 5, 2010

    Easter




    I was up very late last night baking chocolate Babka for easter. I use the same recipe every year, from marthastewart.com and it has served me well. But with the 10 minutes of stand mixer kneading, I don’t know how I did it before my KitchenAid mixer came into my life. 


    The dough turned out really well. It turned out super silky. After a lot of rising (it seems fitting that an Easter bread would spend so much time rising) I added the two-and-a-half (that’s right!) pounds of chocolate (mixed with butter, sugar, and cinnamon) to the rolled out dough. I can’t believe that a dough that gets kneaded that long rolls out so easily.


    After an hour in the oven, I took out the chocolate Babka. I also decided to make one regular Babka as well, as I was curious how this dough would work with only raisins mixed in (the answer is very well). Usually I don’t do so well with such finicky bread recipes (or bread recipes at all really), but this turned out superb as usual. The chocolate did not melt as well as it should have for some reason. It doesn’t change the taste at all, because the chocolate cools down before serving, but it takes away from the visual effect of the swirls of chocolate. It disappointed me when I first cut into a loaf because it looked more like scattered chocolate chips, but then I took a bite and it was so good it did not really matter anymore. It must have been all the thoughts of puppy dogs and butterflies that I tried to keep in my head while the dough rose. I read somewhere about how it’s believed that the success of your Paska or Babka relies on the purity of thought of its baker. And that some while baking would go so far as to not allow anyone else in the house as to not ruin their golden bread by allowing bad thoughts to enter their home.


    I really liked it as a regular Babka as well. Delicious. This is one of my favorite things to bake all year. I always divide the dough into six loaves in those aluminum pans that are slightly smaller than a regular loaf pan. It fills them well, and are a good size to roll out on a counter too. I usually make substitutions or do something different, but other than the smaller loaves (that still bake for the same amount of time) I followed the instructions exactly. Side note: Someone really needs to invent a computing device that has some way to save online recipes in a “cookbook” of sorts and lets me write notes on it. That is my dream app. Maybe the Microsoft Courier will do that. Let me say it here that I thought of  
    that, so they better put me in an annoying ad (this ad was way better) about how the Microsoft Courier was my idea. 


    Me being the occasional non-thinker, did my nails before baking. Luckily I was able to fix them up. I decided that I wanted nails that looked like Easter eggs. Tiffany-blue with purple tips and a glittery silver stripe. I used China Glaze For Audrey and OPI Do You Lilac It. It was pretty fun.

    For the boys Easter basket, I spent some time sewing yesterday. I made O a Stegasaurus with ribbon tag plates down its back. It got a slobbery baby mouth of approval. I based it on this pig pattern from marthastewart.com. If I used it again, I would enlarge it, although I like the tiny dino. For B, I sewed him an Owly from his bedtime book, and a car mat. I really could have done a better job on the car mat, but I only had around an hour to spend on it, and considering that I think I did a pretty good job. I think I might remake it sometime though. Something more like this or this (I can’t wait to make things from B’s drawings BTW). I also got him some Cars Dominoes. “Play game, play game,” he was saying all day. I started to teach him a basic matching version of Dominoes, and he started to get it. He mostly loved dumping them out and putting them back in their tin. I am slowly hoping to work him up to my favorite game, Candyland.

    We had a really nice brunch with my family this morning. My sister left for Montreal yesterday, and family gatherings aren’t quite the same without her. After eating too much food we went home and all took naps. Now I am watching the Real Housewives of Orange County (!) and taking a break from knitting Ryan’s hat to type this up while my nails (a deep jewel green) dry. Tomorrow we have dinner with Ryan’s family, and after that I have knitting group. B and I are going to play some more dominoes tomorrow, and maybe break out the glitter glue and safety scissors during O’s nap. O is becoming such a social little baby. He smiles big at anyone who catches his gaze, and carries on long conversations to anyone (or thing) that will listen. It’s pretty adorable. It makes my day.




  • April 2, 2010

    Easter eggs and projects.


    Today I came up with a genius idea. I was getting B to help me make cookies (ok, and by help make cookies, I mean place ready to go Pillsbury pucks on a cookie sheet) and I was trying to figure out how to include him more in a pretty basic purpose. I then remembered that I had food colouring markers in the fridge still so I marked X’s on the parchment paper so B would know where to put the cookie dough. And it worked! B was soo proud of himself. And then I went and negated my flash of brilliance by using a tea towel to take the cookies out of the oven and burning my index finger pretty bad. It’s not a good finger to burn pretty bad.


    Holy yoke Batman, I did not realize how many rows of yoking there is to do on the baby sweater I am knitting. It almost makes me want to reconsider the hood, but in the end I know I will do it. I have to take a temporary break from working on it due to my finger injury though, the small stitches and needles are too much for it. So I am working on two larger chunky projects, a Mustard Scarf on 13 needles (I started it on 15 needles, but it was just a little too hole-y so I started again) which is knitting up quite quickly, and a Simple Slouchy Hat for Ryan, who shaved his hair off last night.


    B and I decorated some plastic Easter eggs the other day. I figure I’ll hold off on the hardboiled eggs until next year, because I had visions of him squeezing them to hard and being really sad about that. And he is a long way off from making Pysanky. I sometimes can’t believe we were making them in elementary school when I was in grade one. And that I can’t recall any open flame or hot wax disasters. So anyways, we made Cars eggs, which B was really excited about, and then proceeded to pretend they were cars and had them drive all over the place. Cute.


    The other day, while I was making dinner, B dragged his toy kitchen in, and made dinner himself. He stole a mushroom and some broccoli and various utensils, and it was so adorable. He even put his dishes in his toy sink when he was done with them. And put the broccoli in a metal measuring cup and pretended it was a pot. It made making dinner take twice as long because I couldn’t stop admiring his cuteness.



    We had a fair bit of running around to do after Ryan finished work yesterday. We went to the mall to get some dinner, but B was too excited about playing in the play area to eat. While Ryan watched him play, O and I did some shopping. I went to The Children’s Place to see if I could find Easter outfits for them, but they were out of everything good in B’s size. So frustrating! It’s hard enough to find cute little boy clothes as it is. And even sadder was that they were all out of B sized matching sweater vests (well, they had the purple and green ones, but I wanted the blue and yellow ones). They had lots in O’s size though. Disappointing. I had great plans of matching Easter outfits. Well, there’s always Christmas. I might still yet go check the Polo Store for this shirt, because it was pretty nice, the picture does it no justice.


    After that, we had to go to Sally Beauty to pick up some clippers to do Ryan’s hair with. I figured with 3 guys in the house, it made sense to get some better quality ones. And it was an excuse to take advantage of their buy 2 get 1 free on all nail polish sale. I just picked up some Sally Girl mini bottles (there are some seriously cute colours), and some nail polish remover. The dark green is seriously pretty. Right now my nails are Purple Panic. It’s insanely bright. I think I’ll go pastel for easter, doing something fun with For Audrey and Do You Lilac It.




    Why does it have to be so gloomy out today! Ryan has the day off, but I think we are just going to take it easy. I think I am going to sew up the car holder I posted the other day out of whatever fabrics I have around the house (which is not much so it might clash a little). And I might make O something with ribbon tags, because he loved the little blankets I made him. I need to make a grocery list for tomorrow morning. I wish grocery stores were open today. And make sure to get everything to make Chocolate Babka.



    I’ve decided my goal is to crochet a dorky Granny Square Afghan. And of course finish up the baby clothes quilt I started with B’s old clothes. I first need to figure out how to crochet, and then how to crochet a granny square, but that should not be too bad. I’ve been looking at lots of pictures of them on Ravelry. There is so much consideration to make in the colours. Do I just use scrap yarns I have around, or do I just buy a few colours of yarn to make a more focused afghan. Once I go through the yarn I bought the other day I will start working on it, because I am not allowing myself to buy anymore yarn until then. If you have Ravelry, I love this one, and am tempted to do something really similar, with the four colours and white edging. I also really like this one a lot, and how the chaos of all of the colours is pacified by the strong white borders.

  • March 25, 2010

    I am vacuuming while writing this.


    I can’t say enough how much I love the Roomba. It’s vacuuming for me right now while I eat lunch and type this. Pretty sweet. I have only pulled out the real vacuum once since we got the Roomba.The boys are both asleep, B just went down for a nap and O is due to wake up at any moment, and I am enjoying soup and Jello. Like an old lady.


    I finally went to Chatters the other day and got some new nail polishes. I finally found OPI My Private Jet. I have been looking for this one for a while. Not only did I find it, but I found the original holographic version. They have come out with a new version since, and it is not as pretty, as I loooove the holographic glitter. This is probably not very exciting to anyone else. Ha. I also picked up OPI DS Divine. Best part was that all the DS polishes were on sale. It was a good shopping trip. We also went to the Chapters next door, and B looked at books. Well, rather he played with “Thompsy” and then looked at books once he realized they had Cars: The Movie books. I of course fawned over all of the beautifully illustrated children’s books, and B picks a Cars book. That’s how it goes. It’s a start. I’ll get him hooked on mid-century modern inspired illustration yet!What I really don’t understand is why does B get so excited about the Thomas table when he has one at home.

    B’s cars book came with stickers inside, so yesterday we set out to make our own book. I folded up some construction paper and got out some crayons. What resulted was “Lightning McQueen Drives.” B put stickers down and made me draw roads for them and then filled in some more colour. I would then ask him what was going on, and write it down. It was fun, and B seemed really proud of it.

    I finished the first sleeve on the sweater, now for the second. Ugh, sleeves. It just feels like I should be on to something more exciting already! I am going to try to finish the second sleeve as quick as possible. I am getting ansty about moving on to other projects already! And I found out Ram Wools is having a 25% off sale, and I really really want to go. I should probably add another really in there. I think this year I am going to make more Christmas presents. I know it is early to think about Christmas, but when you are making things, it is best to start as soon as possible. I always want to make Christmas presents, but I always feel that whatever I make won’t be good enough. But then I realized I make good stuff. Seriously I have way to high expectations of myself to let myself make something I can’t do really well. Or let myself do something sub-par. So yeah, we’ll see how that goes. I mean, we live in Manitoba. Everyone needs mittens. Ask me in November how much I have done. Ha.