Promises, promises

I know, I know, I keep saying I’m going to actually write more here, and I don’t, so who’s going to believe me now? Especially when I just joined Facebook.

The All Cats Are Grey hat has been re-knit in Cascade 220 Sport, which was just awesome to work with.

All Cats Are Grey final

All Cats Are Grey final (inside)

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The test knit for it just finished up, and I need to do some final revisions before sending the pattern off to my tech editor!

Next on the designing list is a pair of socks. And I have kind of a vague plan for something in the current Design Along challenge, but I don’t know if I’ll get to it any time soon. But it’s the fifth month of the year, and I’ve still only released 3 patterns. I’ve got to get cracking if I’m going to manage 12 this year!

In non-designing news, at least with me as the designer, I’ve been working on a test-knit for Rachael Richardson. She released the pattern yesterday, Connemara Coast. It is really, really cute, and I definitely recommend it, if you have any little girls in your life.

I’m also supposedly working on Laura Nelkin’s Juego, and Laura Aylor’s Sunstruck, both of which are mystery knit-alongs, but I’ve been so busy with other things that I haven’t gotten past clue #1 on either! They both started last month.

I really will try to post more here. So far, this year has been kind of crappy, to be overly polite about it, and I haven’t felt much like writing anything. Here’s hoping it’s getting better, for all of us (even if you weren’t having a crappy year)!

Busy as the beat goes on

No, it doesn’t really make sense to me, either.

The last couple of days, I haven’t really done any knitting. I’ve been working on finishing up a few projects instead, and I’m really happy to have them done.

I still haven’t posted about my resolutions here, but one of them was to publish 12 patterns this year. So far, I’ve got two down, and a third one just got sent to my tech editor.

First up is A Sweater for Fritz, which is a free sweater pattern for 11 1/2″ male fashion dolls. (download now)

And Kitsune Cowl was finally released on Valentine’s Day! It’s available for $5.00 from my Ravelry store.

The next pattern released will be another free one, for this:

I wanted to get it released before Valentine’s Day, but I really need to work on my timing!

What’s for dinner, Mom?

Well, the other night, it was my new favorite soup recipe — Golden Cheese Chowder, submitted to the AFC PTC Cookbook by Margie Buhrow — along with a double batch of Alton Brown’s Southern Biscuits. I am, in fact, eating the last of the leftovers of the soup right now. It is at least as awesome as a leftover as it is when you first make it.

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There are a few posts I want to have written by the end of January. This is not one of them. This is just a post saying I want to write these posts. I’ve already mentioned most of them, I think, but I’m putting this post here so I have a fairly easy place to find the posts I want to write, so I can (hopefully) actually post them. I also want to see just how many times I can use the word “post” before someone tries to stab me through the phone lines.

1. Weaving in ends.
2. Ripping back.
3. My new favorite soup (which I’ll probably be making for dinner sometime this week, which would seem a good time to post about it). Done!
4. My resolutions for 2013. If you ever remember hearing me say that I don’t make resolutions (which is entirely possible, because I say it almost every year), you’ve probably also heard me say, “Never say never.” Of course, one of those resolutions is to write more on my blog. You know, this one.
5. Ken’s sweater.
6. The All Cats Are Grey hat (and maybe mittens, and scarf . . . and possibly even slippers?), which Cascade Yarns has been gracious enough to give me yarn to make for the final pattern.
7. Valentine’s Day crafting. I have a great idea for making Valentines for Little Cat Z’s first-grade class. If it works, I’ll even tell you how we did it, with enough time for you to make them, too!
8. Little Red in the City. I got a copy for Christmas/Monkey Day 2011, and I’ve been meaning to post about it. Maybe I should finally do that.

I think that’s it.

Except I want to share something else right now. I did a very fun swap this past fall in the Mystery 220 group in Ravelry (if I haven’t already posted about that, it should be added to that list up there). So when Linda Browning, aka tinyknit, suggested doing a swap in her Ravelry group, Tinyknitters, I joined that one, too. It’s the Valentine Pampering with Hot Cocoa swap. If you’d like to join, all you have to do is log on to Ravelry, join the Tinyknitters group (Linda does some amazing things with lace, you won’t be sad you joined), and post in the swap thread that you want to be part of it. There’s one catch. Sign-ups end today, January 7, 2013. I don’t know a specific time, but I do know that Linda lives in Florida, so I’d probably say, try to post before 9 pm Eastern. The swap is international, so you don’t have to live in the US, or even the western hemisphere, to join.

I think that covers everything I wanted to post about tonight. I hope everyone is having a happy new year so far, and I’m glad you all survived the apocalypse last year!

I could use a day at the beach right now

And, luckily for me, I’ve just released the pattern, A Day at the Beach, through my Ravelry store!

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,/”To talk of many things:”

Like how to convince my two-year-old that it would be perfectly reasonable for her to go to bed around 8:00 at night, and wake up around 8:00 in the morning. She seems to think it’s much better to stay up as late as possible (sometimes the sky is starting to get light already when she finally conks out), and then probably wake up in the middle of the night and refuse to go back to sleep unless Mommy holds her (which means I get to sleep sitting up), and then sleep until 10:30 or 11:00. I’ll admit, she did fall asleep around 6:30 tonight, but then she only slept until about midnight. Now it’s anyone’s guess just how late she’ll stay up. And I can’t just pop her in the playpen or crib and let her stay up while I sleep. She’s a climber. In fact, we call her our little jewel thief, because she’s frighteningly good at it, and quiet to boot.

Or we could talk about the real purpose of this post, which is what I’ve been up to for most of the last month.

Busy, busy, busy

I know I haven’t written anything in a while, but I have been doing a lot of knitting.

I test-knit the Anatomical Heart Lace Patch for outoutdamnknot. Now she needs to release the pattern so other people can make its awesomeness. (Yes, I know, that was amazingly horrid grammar.) She’s also going to make more anatomical lace some day. I can hardly wait.:-)

I finally finished the knitting on the vest I’m finishing for a friend. I still have to do the finishing finishing, which I could probably be doing right now instead of writing this post. But I really wanted to write something.

I also made another Kitsune Cowl, this time in more foxy colors. I still have to finish weaving in ends (there’s a post about that coming, too), and block the tails. Then I get to find a tech editor, and eventually get it published. I’m really pretty excited about this pattern. I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but I want to re-do As a Flower Blossoms to go along with it.

I took part in an autumn swap in the Mystery 220 group on Ravelry, and I joined another Ravelry group, Designers Challenge. DC is kind of like the Design Along -DAL group. It’s a monthly design challenge. September’s challenge was to design and knit a bag, inspired by patterns in nature, and incorporating garter stitch somewhere (or rows of single crochet if it was crochet). I designed a bag to send to my swapee.:-)

I’m calling it A Day at the Beach. It’s currently being test-knit in my Ravelry group, Wild Talents Designs. Yeah, I finally started one of my own. Please come join us if you’re on Ravelry (and if you aren’t, and you knit or crochet . . . or spin or weave, you really should be!). I’ll probably run tests for new patterns through there (although you don’t have to belong to the group to test), and I’m posting goofy quizzes sporadically (it was supposed to be weekly, but I think we all know how well I keep things like that up), and hopefully it will be a fun group to be part of. Anyway, A Day at the Beach uses two colors of Knit Picks CotLin (or whatever DK yarn you want to use), has a garter stitch square for a base, then you pick up stitches to knit the rest in the round. The lace pattern is both written and charted. It’s a perfect bag for carrying a few necessities to the beach or for a run around town, or even to use as a small project bag.

I have more to write about, like the scarf I’m designing, and the presents I need to knit, but I’m falling asleep at the computer. It’s weird. It’s not even midnight. I assume it means I’m going to wake up really early, not that I’m going to get a lot of sleep. However it works out, I’ll try to write more tomorrow.

Clever like a kitsune

Back in June, I posted about a new design I was working on, the Kitsune cowl. I’m happy to say that I’ve finished the prototype, and have the pattern open for testing in the Free Pattern Testers group on Ravelry.

If you’re interested in testing it, please pop on over there!

I’m going to be ordering the yarn to make it in foxy colors soon, but I’ve decided I like these, too.

And that is me in the picture, sporting my brand new old people glasses. I got bifocals just in time for my 43rd birthday. I’m glad nerdiness is kind of fashionable right now, because I really like these frames, and the nerdy part certainly suits me.

the names have changed but it still sounds the same

I am going to be changing my username in Ravelry in the next week or so, after the scores for Nerd Wars are finalized. I’ve already changed my Ravelry store name to Wild Talents Designs. There’s been a lot of discussion this past year in the Designers group about usernames and business names, and I think if I’m going to change, it would be best to do it now, rather than wait until I get rich and famous.

Now the question is, do I change the title on this ‘blog, or do I start a brand new one, keeping this one for more personal knitting stuff? I’m planning on switching to WordPress.org at the end of this year or the beginning of next, so maybe any changes of that sort should wait until then, but I kind of want to figure out what I’m doing before I do it. Otherwise, I’ll make the change and then a week later think, I really should have done it this way. Which isn’t to say that I won’t think that anyway, but at least when that happens, I’ll know I could have had a V-8.

I don’t really want to have a third ‘blog, so I am most inclined to change the name on this one to match the new username and store name on Ravelry, and when I switch to WP.org and get my own domain, have the domain name match as well as I can, also.

Another problem is what to do with the patterns I’ve already published. Should I bother re-doing them with the new layout I’m trying to set up with the new name?

So many things to think about, so few brain cells to think with.

Hey, good-lookin’, what ya got cookin’?

(Another post I can scratch off my mental to-do list.)

I am not a great cook. I’m not a bad cook, either. I just have a limited repertoire. This is largely due to the fact that I’m an insanely picky eater (although I’m a lot better than I was before I got married), and I don’t do a lot of cooking-things-that-I-don’t-eat. I’m trying to work up my courage to make tacos for everyone else. Not for me, because one of those things I don’t eat? Is meat. No, I’m not a vegetarian. I just don’t eat meat. Don’t ask. It’s complicated.

But, one thing that I’ve got down pretty good is chili pie. Which is also something that you wouldn’t have gotten me to even try fifteen years ago.

We bought a can of Westbrae Natural Golden Corn many years ago, and there was a recipe on the back of the label for, you guessed it, chili pie. I think the good spouse made it once as it was written, and then started experimenting with it. Here’s what he came up with:

3 large eggs
1/2 can creamed corn (all cans are 14.5 oz. cans)
1 can whole corn, drained
1/2 c corn meal
1/2 c margarine, softened
1 sm. white onion, diced
1 4 oz. can green chiles, diced (we actually use crushed red chiles, but I think diced green are easier to find)
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 c. sour cream
1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 pound grated authentic Mexican cheese blend (Colby Jack works, also, or even cheddar, but I like using Queso Quesadilla, Asadero, Manchego, etc.)

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 3-qt. casserole. Break the eggs into the casserole and beat. Add creamed corn, whole corn, and corn meal; mix well. Mash margarine into corn mixture. Add onion, tomatoes, chiles; mix well. Add sour cream, cheese, and Worcestershire sauce; mix well. Sprinkle paprika over the top. Bake for 1 hour, or until it’s firm in the center. Remove from oven; let sit for ten minutes. Serve with tortilla chips and sour cream on the side.

This feeds the six of us, sometimes with nothing left over. Everyone really likes it. I need to start making a salad to go with it, or something (refried beans, maybe?), although that would make it no longer a one-dish meal. It’s great reheated, or even cold, when there is anything left. Also, it’s a pretty flexible recipe. If you try it and make any changes that you think work really well, please let me know!