My niece and I had a -get ready for Easter- art session last night. Her art is the lovely, cheerful Easter egg drawings. Mine, well, let's just say that the "chick" hatching from the egg is not a cuddly one.
My niece is beginning to wonder exactly how weird is her aunt.
Many giggles were involved and a good time had by all.
If you are lucky to have a special little girl in your life who, like so many little girls, owns and loves an American Girl doll, then you know that, said doll, must have a wardrobe.
With that in mind I set out to provide the special little one in my life with precisely that.
I found an excellent book on Amazon that has great directions and comes with the patters to make pretty much anything you would want to make for the doll: slacks, skirt, dress, jackets, and the list goes on. In total it has 30 patterns. I found the book and patterns to be perfect because I wanted to make her some slacks, jeans, skirts dress, etc.
I am a knitter and can do a little crocheting, so I also made a sweater, a vest, and a hat and scarf to match. I always have a stash of leftover yarn from previous projects, so knitting the pieces didn’t cost me anything but the use of a little imagination and some knitting time.
I did get some fabric from the store. Pretty much any fabric store sells these little squares of ¼ of a yard fabrics for quilters (I have been told by a friend who is a fabulous quilter that they are called "fat quarters"). It is the perfect amount to make a skirt or a pair of slacks for the doll. The other benefit is that they are very inexpensive and they also come in all sorts of colors and small patterned fabric, which makes them perfect for this project.
I also went through my closset and came up with an old pair of jean shorts that I will never wear again and some old T-shirts that had a couple of stains in front but had perfectly good fabric in the back, making them perfect for making a couple of long-sleeve doll T-shirts.
So, after many hours of sewing and knitting I made a pretty large wardrobe for my special little girl's doll. My biggest Christmas present is going to be seeing her reaction when she opens up her Christmas gift. I hope she likes the clothes!
Since I know she will not be seeing this blog entry I have photographed them and can offer a sneak preview here.
I am sure that there are an infinite number of variations on a theme that with a little imagination and a lot of time can offer some pretty nifty outfits. I tried to make these to be able to mix and match.
It should be a fun Christmas.
I love scarves. I love knitting. Therefore the innevitable consequence is that I have knitted, and continue to knit lots of scarves. I particularly like knitting reversible scarves because I like to be able to throw a scarf on without having to worry about whether it is on the right side or not.
This particular scarf is one I knitted using a basket weave, which is a reversible stitch, but I added intermittent twisted drop stitches to add interest to the scarf.
It is a very simple scarf to knit, easy to wear and attractive.
Materials:
I used about 3 1/2 skeins (about 375 yards total) of Cricket, Classic Elite Yarn, color 3919, which is a 60% cotton, 40% linen yarn.
Number US 6 needles.
Stitches used:
Basket weave:
Multiples of 5
Row 1: K5, P5. Repeat to end
Row2: P5, K5. Repeat to end
Row 3: K5, P5. Repeat to end
Row 4: P5, K5. Repeat to end
Row 5: K5, P5. Repeat to end.
Then reverse the same 5 rows:
Row 6: P5, K5. Repeat to end
Row 7: K5, P5. Repeat to end
Row 8: P5, K5. Repeat to end
Row 9: K5, P5. Repeat to end
Row 10: P5, K5. Repeat to end
Twisted drop stitch
Row 3: insert needle into stitch, wrap yarn around both needles one, then wrap around right hand needle once. (In other words, you are wrapping around one and 1/2 times around).
Repeat across all the stitches to the end.
Garter stitch
Row 1: K all stitches
Row 2: K all stitches
Repeat these two rows.
Scarf Pattern:
Cast on 35 stitches. (I like to use a cable cast on and a needle 2 sizes larger to both cast on and to bind off. It ensures that I don't have any puckering at the edges).
Work 23 basket weave pattern rows.
Work 3 rows of garter stitch.
Work 1 row of twisted drop stich.
Work 3 rows of garter stitch.
REPEAT THE FOLLOWING TWO TIMES:
Work 13 basket weave pattern rows.
Work 3 rows garter stich
Work 1 row twisted drop stitch
Work 3 rows garter stitch
Work 23 basket weave pattern rows.
Bind off
This morning I went with a couple of good buddies to a flower arranging workshop at a local nursery/florist called "The Weed Lady." Not only was it a great time, but we got to come home with the fruit of our labor, or should I say, the flowers of our labor. These are a couple of photos of my arranging effort.
A friend of mine has recently been undergoing chemo. I went in search of patterns to make her some hats and found that I didn’t really like the pointy start to knitted hats. That, plus all the complicated increases involved since knitting and circles aren’t really that compatible without a lot of fuss. So, I thought to myself, why not start out by crocheting the initial circular part and then picking up stitches and knit the rest of it, since crochet and circles are very user friendly. And that is what I did.
This pattern is super easy and it takes only a few hours to make. I would like to make some recommendations as to what yarn to make a hat for the purpose of someone who is undergoing chemo.
Use a soft, non-scratchy yarn. Also, make sure it breathes. You want something that wicks, therefore I recommend a natural fiber or blend of fibers. You also want something that is washable. Hand washable is okay, but you don’t want something too fussy, or for that matter, fuzzy.
You want something smooth. This is not the time for knobby yarns or anything that would cause discomfort. My friend said she liked the hat to sleep in. So keep in mind that you want something comfortable: soft, breathable, non-scratchy, and non-lumpy.
Also, a pure cotton yarn wouldn’t work because the hat has to be stretchy. It has to be able to fit comfortably, to do that it must be able to stretch. Cotton doesn’t stretch. A blend of cotton and wool would probably be fine because the wool would lend some stretchiness to the finished product.
Materials:
The yarn I used for this particular hat was Sublime-Cash Merino silk (color: sage). This yarn was a blend of 75% extra fine merino; 20% silk; 5% cashmere. It is extremely soft and gave the finished hat a tremendous amount of stretch. I used about 175 -200 yards. So you will need 2 skeins of this particular yarn.
Size 5.5 crochet hook
Size 8 – 16 inch circular knitting needle.
Crochet Abreviations:
ch – chain
sl – slip
st – stitch
dc – double crochet
Row 1
Ch 4, sl st to join and form circle. Ch 3 (counts as one dc) dc 11 into circle for a total of 12 dc. Sl st to join.
Row 2
Ch 3, dc into same top of the dc as where the ch 3 is. You will then dc into each top of dc. You are increasing to end up with double the number of stitches. You will have 24 dc at the end of this row. Join by sl st.
Row 3
ch 3 (counts as first dc). Just as in row 2, you are going to dc 2 st. into each top of the dc to double the number of stitches. You will have 48 st. at end of this row. Sl st to join.
Row 4
ch 3 (counts as first dc). You again, are going to double number of stitches by 2 dc into top of each dc stitch. Sl st to join. You now have 96 stitches.
Now you are going to knit. With 16 inch circular needle you are going to pick up 96 stitches (the top of each crocheted st. (see photo).
Place a marker at the end of picking up the stitches so you will always know where you row begins. This is important because you are going to be knitting in the round. From here on just knit to desired length of hat. The measurement of the hat I knitted was 12 inches from the top of hat. Since this hat is done all in stockinet stitch, it will curl at the bottom. This is good because then the person can pull it as low or high as they want it to fit.
Bind off very loosely. You want this hat to be as flexible as possible. I bound off with a crochet hook because that way I could control that the bind-off would be even but very loose.
This year I put up my Dickens Christmas Village. It is a whole day's project to put up and another to take it down. I admit that it is much more fun putting it up, and that I dread the taking down part. I hadn't put it up for a couple of years. I took lots of pictures of it and I'm posting some here to share.
T'is the season . . . again
And again, this year the Fates of Weird made their annual stop-over at the Nill/Apple homestead. Last year’s visitation was a Zeus zap of lightening. This year’s visit was more subtle yet had the potential of causing catastrophic consequences. When we got home after running errands for a couple of hours one extremely hot July afternoon, in need of a soothing, cold glass of water, Chuck went to get some ice from the fridge’s dispenser. Nothing happened. That is, no ice came out of the dispenser. So, he opened the freezer door to see if there was a cube stuck in the dispenser preventing the ice from coming out. When he opened the freezer door the whole front of the ice dispenser fell out and the odor of burnt refrigerator innards wafted out along with it. The dispenser mechanism and the whole ice bin around it was charred. Weirdly, the ice in the dispenser was still in ice form and not melted water. However, it was completely covered by a layer of black, toxic-looking, oily goo.
After a few seconds of stunned incredulity, the reset button to our brain’s cognitive functions kicked in and we sprang into action. We emptied, as fast as we could, the whole of the freezer and refrigerator’s ruined contents into garbage bags to get them out of the house and also to reduce the appliance’s weight so we could force it out of its tight-fitting home between the kitchen cabinet and the wall to yank the plug before some other part of the possessed thing decided to spontaneously burst in flames. All of this, while inhaling the malodorous and certainly toxic fumes from the burnt plastic, or fiberglass, or whatever in hades the thing was made of. I’m sure we probably reduced our life expectancy by a decade because of all the poisonous crap that we inhaled during this maneuver. On the bright side, the thing that saved the fire from spreading was that the burning ice-maker motor ran out of oxygen in the air-tight refrigerator interior and extinguished itself. Otherwise, I’m sure we would have come home to, well, maybe no home.
Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.
~C.P. Snow, New York Times, 15 March 1971
Like I’m sure so many of us do, I have a love/hate relationship with technology. Among the many modern technological doohickeys and amenities I love, the list would have to include the availability of information on the internet, the convenience of on-line shopping, the versatility of word processing, e-mail, instant messaging, hands-free calling from my car and my GPS path finder... well, then again, let me rephrase that because my GPS doesn’t really like paths, but I do. It eternally wants to get me to my destination via expressway even when the more scenic and direct route might be a back road or two-lane highway.
I only turn the thing on when I don’t know where my final destination is, which usually only involves the last couple of miles of the journey. For example, to find a specific place in East Lansing, which is a favorite destination of ours. We like going there to enjoy an outing at Eastwood Mall for a must stop at the Schuler’s Book Store or to dine at a couple of our favorite restaurants. East Lansing, for those of you who are not from Michigan, is about an hour drive from my house. All things being equal, I prefer to take Old Lansing Road, a scenic two-lane country road, which was there long before the expressway was ever built, and which runs parallel to the freeway a few miles to the south of it. Coming home, usually after dark, the expressway is safer than maneuvering the curvy, pitch black, country, deer infested road. But in daylight it is a lovely and relaxing drive through farms and tree-lined foresty areas. The thing is, that like I mentioned before, if our final destination is somewhere we are unfamiliar with, I punch in the address of where we are going into the GPS. The result of this is that, Geepers (my nickname for the GPS) goes berserk the whole way there. At every major intersection along the way, in her stubborn mission to guide me to the freeway, Geepers warns me to turn right. It’s now become a game that we have timed to the millisecond to say in unison with the computerized female voice “recalculating” as we continue straight on our scenic road ignoring the advice from the nagging mechanical device.
I almost feel guilty and it’s often crossed my mind that I hope she never does a “Hal” on me (for those of you too young to know what I’m talking about, Hal is the computer that goes insane in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”). I imagine her voice getting more and more agitated and annoyed with every “recalculating,” until eventually she starts to scream “RECALCULATING! WHAT PART OF TURN RIGHT DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND! ARE YOU RETARDED? WHEN I SAY TURN RIGHT, TURN RIGHT, DAMN IT! . . .” or words to that effect. Hmmmmm, if it ever does do that I’m throwing Geepers out the car window. Just saying.
Technology to the Rescue
In one of her comedy routines Rita Rudner comments that you know you’re in love when you meet that “certain someone you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” She isn’t wrong. In every relationship there are things that annoys, frustrates, infuriates or just irritates the other person. I don’t care how much you may love and cherish your partner. It is a given. Nothing wrong with it, it’s just the way things are. The trick of it is to embrace it and poke fun at it when you can and just enjoy and accept your differences. One of the things that I do that makes Chuck crazy is the catastrophically messy condition a previously pristine newspaper is left in after I have had my way with it. I don’t see what the problem is. Yes, it is left with folds in odd places, some parts are upside down, others are inside out, but it is basically still intact, if you define intact as being all there . . . somewhere?
Before we got our Nooks last year we used to get the paper version of the Sunday, New York Times. I usually got hold of it first and my sweetie would go apoplectic at the sight of the paper’s painfully distressed state when it was his turn to read it. Patiently, he would pick up the confussed mess of newsprint and proceed to organize it and refold it to it’s original condition before trying to read it. When he had finished reading it the paper always looked as pristine as if it had just come out of the newstand. It is a mystery to me how he does it, or for that matter, why he does it. I find the page size of American newspapers awkward. It is too big to read without folding it, difficult to turn the pages, impossible to fold them in any cohesive manner or to manage it in any user-friendly way. In short, it is a sort of news warfare that I engage in whenever I read the thing. Technology, however, has come to my rescue. I now subscribe to the electronic version of the NY Times. For the price of only the printed Sunday version, we now have it daily, and guess what? I get to read it wherever I am and there are no remains at the end of the day. I’ll have to ask Chuck if he misses the Sunday paper restoration ritual. Who knows, maybe he does.
Cart . . . astrophy
Another idiocyncracy that makes my sweetie scratch his head also involves a mess. It is interesting when you think about it. I am fastidiously neat when it comes to most everything, hosekeeping, bookeeping, and having a place for everything and everything in its place. But the chink in my armour, so to speak, are three things: the first I’ve just covered, newspapers; the second, is the tupperware cupboard – I’m not allowed to go there because I just shove with disastrous results; and the third is, according to Chuck, the way I “throw” (his words, not mine) things into a grocery cart. On the occassions when we are together at a grocery store he rearranges the cart every time I stop to put another item into the thing. Funny that three of the things that make him nuts have to do with messiness. But the chaos that is his desk and workspace are perfectly normal and acceptable to him. Just goes to show you, we all have our quirks. It’s what makes us who we are, and that’s alright.
2012 – The End is Nigh?
According to the Maya Calendar the world is supposed to end on December 21, 2012. Can’t remember if that is supposed to be Eastern Standard Time or Greenwich Mean Time. Either way. The theory is that there is supposed to be some sort of stellar alignment that will make the earth’s axis tilt and there goes baby, cradle and all. My theory is a little different. I think it is linked to the whole incandescent light bulb phase-out and the horrid mercury-laden fluorescent replacement ones that are supposed to be gradually phased-in starting next year. One of two things related to this event will bring about the annihilation of the human race: we will either all die of mercury poisoning from the damned things, or we will all gradually break our necks because the ghastly new light bulbs take half an hour to actually light up. It’s only a theory, but I think I’m on to something here. You decide.
I wish you all a bright and Happy Holiday and a healthy and grand New Year.
Affectionately,
Cynthia
We had our first snow of this winter last night. We also had a power outage because the snow was wet and therefore, heavy, plus it was very windy. But this morning we woke up to a pristine and beautiful scene. These are some of the images I caught just outside my house.
Ingredients:
2/3 cup sugar
½ tsp. cinnamon
3 eggs – slightly beaten
3 cups liquid – 2 cups milk and 1 cup half & half – scalded– I scald it in the microwave - total time around 5 minutes. However, MW first for 3 minutes. Stir, then MW in 1 minute at a time, stiring after every minute. Watch it carefully so it doesn’t pour over. Then let it cool.
4 cups bread cubes
1 tsp. vanilla
¼ cup rum
½ cup raisins – soak the raisins in the rum
2 or 3 granny smith apples coarsely chopped
3 tbsps. butter -- melted
Fresh ground nutmeg – about ¼ tsp.
Preparation:
Blend sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and eggs.
Add the egg mixture to the cooled scalded milk. Add the bread cubes, raisins, apple, and butter. Mix all together well but don't overwork it because you don't want to mush the bread cubes. I do it with my hand because it is easier and gentler than trying to blend with a spatula.
Grease the baking dish (2 quart rectangular baking dish) with butter, pour the pudding mixture into baking dish.
Place the baking dish in a larger pan and fill with water half way up. It is a custard, so it is really a steaming process to cook the pudding.
Bake 1 hour at 350.
Brandy Sauce:
1 Tbs. cornstarch
1 ½ cups milk
2 Tbs. brandy – you can use whiskey if you want
1 Tbs. sugar
Blend cornstarch with a little of the milk into a smooth paste. Put the remaining milk into small saucepan and heat until it boils. Watch it carefully because milk will burn and if it overflows you can have a fire. Always take care when heating milk. When it comes to boil, remove from heat and slowly pour in the cornstarch paste stirring constantly until completely mixed.
Add the brandy, and sugar and return the pan to the head and stir frequently for 2 to 3 minutes or until thick and smooth.
Serve immediately over the bread pudding.
Remember when movies were not about comic-book characters, or, let’s see how many explosions we can fit into an hour and a half? You know, the kind of movie that actually has a plot, good acting, good visuals that were not computerized, and maybe even made you. . . heaven forbid . . . think?
The Reckoning, released in 2003, and staring Paul Bettany and Willem Dafoe, combines drama, mystery, history and masterful performances. Nicholas (Paul Bettany) a priest running from the law because of a crime of passion, meets up with a troupe of traveling actors, headed by Martin (Willem Dafoe). When they reach the town where they are to perform, they are faced with a town in uproar. A deaf-mute woman is condemned to be hanged for the murder of a teenage boy. Nicholas and Martin find out that the woman is innocent.
The excitement and drama builds as Nickolas, the self-defrocked priest and Martin learn the truth and then face the life-threatening decision of revealing the truth to the townspeople. During the Middle Ages the only plays actors were allowed to perform were biblical morality plays. In order to save the woman from death the traveling troupe must decide whether to defy the law in order to reveal the truth.
I don’t want to give too many spoilers, so I am giving the barest of sketches in this description of the movie. However, It is a sensational movie that probably few people have even heard of.
There is a scene where Willem Dafoe is preparing himself for his performance by doing a set of exercises. WOW!!!! The man is not only chiseled, he is unbelievably flexible. The movie would be worth watching for that scene alone. We are talking the perfect body with perfect control – absolute symmetry.
I highly recommend this movie for anyone who loves a good story, wrapped in a good mystery, and topped off with historical tidbits that make for a pleasurable movie experience.
Change is Good
