cupcake relief

I made the most delicious cupcakes last night from a recipe in the "More from Magnolia" cookbook. I've never been to Magnolia (although I remember hearing Martha Stewart say it was amazing), but I fully intend to go there some day. These cupcakes made me so so happy yesterday when I was stressing about work and grad stuff!

Cookies are a sometime food *bah*

I have to work this evening, so I'm taking the afternoon off at a local bakery and cafe (I really came here for the free wireless access and a warm place to sit and work out piles of reccommendation stuff for my grad apps). They bake all their goodies fresh themselves (not like other large 'gourmet' coffee chains that make generic too sweet things). I also happened to get a yummy 8oz americano. My only beef is that they don't put a pitcher of water out (I normally use a little cool water to cool my americano down to drinkable temperature immediately), and I really just can't be bothered to go up and ask for a cup of water when I only need maybe 1/2 an inch of water.

Anyway, I got distracted and fell in love with this cookie in their display.


Rest assured, the chocolatey kitty cookie has been put safely away in my tummy. *yum* Cookie Monster sometimes you just gotta give in to the cookie cravings.

knitting tragedy!

All I can say is, at least it wasn't an Addi. In fact, these are some of the early needles I bought (hence the humongoid size 17) to whip things up quickly. I believe these needles met their fate in the car... I possibly slammed the car door on them? It still seems to work for knitting... it's kinda like a mix between a knitting needle and a crochet hook. I've currently been using them to knit a quick drop stitch stole for a preschool charity auction. It's about halfway done.


up close



food
This weekend ervy and I bought some heirloom tomatoes at the Farmer's Market at $1/lb. What to do with the tasty tomaters? Well, it just so happens that I just bought a hot water bath canner and I have a ton of canning jars. So...

hot steamy canning goodness! All 5 of the jars sealed (we heard three 'plink', and we could tell the other two had sealed by morning since the domed lids curved downward). Huzzah! I forsee more fun canning in my future.

Which of course is why I was testing out a lemon curd recipe... OMG. I've never had lemon curd before, but man, it's SO GOOD! Wow, I especially like it while it's still warm! Of course I had to make some scones immediately to go with my curd.

Cranberry Almond Scone Recipe
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbl baking powder
3 tbl butter
2 tbl sugar
some milk
1 egg
1/2 cup sliced blanched almonds
a small handful (1/2 cup?) dried cranberries

Put flour, salt, sugar and baking powder into a bowl and mix. Cut the butter into the mixture with a dough blender. Whisk egg in another bowl and add to dough mixture and stir. Add milk and mix in until you've got a workable dough (not too sticky, but wet enough to thickly hold together well). Turn onto floured surface and knead a bit. Roll out into 1/2 inch sheet. Use triangle cookie cutters to cut out scones. Brush tops with milk and sprinkle with a little sugar. Bake at 450 F for 10-15 minutes or until tops are golden brown

40 cloves of garlic, Ervy, and me...

Last week, evvie and I sat down and stared garlic in the face. I finally got a chance to try out Ina's recipe for Forty Clove Garlic Chicken.

Let me take you with me on my garlicky experience. :)

First I browned the chicken (I used 3 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs) in our much cherished le creuset casserole.


Then, I browned the 40 or so cloves of garlic.


Pair it with a young Bordeaux. It must have been from the right bank since it was mostly the merlot grape.


Serve chicken and sauce over mashed potatoes and you have a great meal


Just beware, while you may "think" you've beaten down the garlic, the next day you'll realize the garlic has beaten you. OMG, I was oozing garlic. I swear it was all I could smell the next day. I was ecstatic to leave work and take a shower. tmi? call it fair warning should you choose to take the garlic challenge and make this fabulous recipe.

While on the subject of food, check out this Guiness Book of World Records Pumpkin Pie from the Windsor Farmer's Market. It's 6' across, and they wrote, "World's Largest 2005" on the top of it.

Like a 1st grade book report about a dog book...

Meet Molly...

She's not mine. She's my friend Katie's puppy. Molly got to sit on my lap while I did work at the Business school the other day. My favorite thing about Molly is that she blushes when she gets really excited.

ok. Animals just bring out the little girl in me. I'm just like, "Ooh it's alive, and it's furry/feathered/soft/huggable" and I go all Animaniac's Elmira "I'm gonna love 'em and squeeze 'em."

Which of course explains why I get all googly-eyed when I see these beautiful owls. These gorgeous birds were at the Windsor Farmer's Market last weekend.
A barn owl


A Winnie the Pooh Owl


A poor tiny one-eyed owl

If only all wines could be Meeker

I had an absolutely fabulous time in wine country this past weekend. AdaLi, Pli, ervie and I headed out to a timeshare in Windsor on Friday. Actually, ervie and I went first, and we actually made it out to a tasting before they all closed. The first place we went to was Paradise Ridge where the owners of the winery/vineyard poured us some wonderful glasses of pinot noir (excellent), Cabernet Sauvignon (didn't like it, weird afternote), Zinfandel (yum), and Inspiration wine (double yum). The estate winery was gorgeous. The tasting room was at the top of the estate on a hill overlooking vineyards and the Russian River Valley.

We ended up buying the Zinfandel for dinner and stopped by Mulberry (?) Grocery on the way back to Windsor. We had a simple dinner of yummy cheeses, bread, a local jam, and some of the last heirloom tomatoes of the season.



Saturday was set to be a full day of tastings, and we headed out to Healdsburg's local farmer's market to check out the local produce and grab some lunch before the alcoholic part of our day began. We found these gems at the market:

They're lemon cucumbers. Yum. They don't taste like lemons (just look more lemony). They are a bit sweeter than normal and are wonderfully light. Apparently, they are a bit easier on the stomach than normal cucumbers for some people. After the farmers, we headed over to Costeaux french bakery for some yumminess. I had the best-quiche-ever. Here's minli+scone+a to-die-for chocolate thingy

Wouldn't you know it, but chance just took me to the town's yarn shop which was right next door to the bakery. I picked up some Lopi to make another Jayne hat for a friend which I had every intent of knitting Sat night except that plan was put on hold due to a wine headache.


the wine
We went to Silver Oak Cellars to begin our grapey journey. Their motto is "Life is a Cabernet." Well, their cabs were good. They had two available for sampling--one from Alexander Valley, and one from Napa. I found the Alexander Valley one to be harsher than the Napa, (I attribute this to the fact that the Napa Cab is actually a blend including merlot), but our group was in disagreement about which was better.y
On our way out we hit Geyser Peak Winery where we listened to Journey with a couple of the pouring staff who couldn't tell us very much about the wine... to be honest, the wines were not anything to write home about (so why is it on my blog? bah i'm such a rambler).
After that disappointment, we drove over to Meeker's tasting room. HUZZAH! OMG, I love their wine!

In fact, we all loved it so much that each couple joined their wine club (the Meekers refer to it as the Tribe, I think because their first tasting room was a very large teepee). All their reds were fantastic (even the merlot was good, and I don't even like merlots). Their dessert wines are created ice wine style and are soo yummy. Plus, this winery has no uppity stiffness about it. They have a wonderful sense of humor and love that goes into their wines that shows in the finished product. You can't help but smile at the wine names like Barberian, Pink Elephant, TaxiCab, etc. We tried 12 wines while we were there (we left rather tipsy, the Meeker man told us he had a tendency to end people's wine tastings... by giving out lots of yummy wine). They really specialize in red wines, the only white wines in our glasses were one of the dessert wines and some chardonnay he poured in our glasses to *wash* them out between tastings. Definitely make this a must visit if you go to Alexander Valley. The tasting room itself is situated in an old bank and the wines are actually stored in the old vault! It's kinda neat to look at!

Blogging by Mail 3 - Home for the Holidays

omg, I'm going to sign up for the next Blogging By Mail!! It's like a foodie version of the Secret Pal program.

I have to tell you, I have been gearing up for this weekend's trip to Napa. I've been listening to my foodie podcasts (Dining on the Vine, and Good Food), surfing my favorite foodie blog reads (Chocolate & Zuchini, Bay Area Bites, Delicious Delicious, 101 Cookbooks, 52 Cupcakes, etc), and dreaming of visiting certain wineries.

yeah, that's basically it. I'm in love with food and wine. I'm also in love with these cheeses I saw at Whole Foods. I haven't bought one yet. I think I'll buy it and sneak it into the movie theater with some crackers.

Serenity

You must see this movie... Actually, you must buy/rent/netflix/borrow/steal the Firefly Series dvd set so you can fall in love with all the characters and then see this movie. You can enjoy the movie without doing this, but I think it will be best appreciated if you see the DVDs too!

As a proud knitting fiend, I happily sported my recently knitted Jayne Cobb Hat to the opening of the movie. I have been encouraging shy knit bloggers that have knit the hat to wear it to the movie, and honestly, I expected to see a few other hats in the audience.... NO ONE ELSE HAD A HAT! Not one. Which meant I got a lot of stares, and comments, and even a tap on the shoulder from another knitter (who apparently hadn't had time to make the hat before the movie) who proclaimed me something to the effect of one of the coolest people ever. There were even people who as I was leaving were talking about how they wanted to STEAL my cunning hat. Dang! I held on to my hat tightly, I assure you!

It was a great evening though. I got to meet my friend Chris from livejournal, and a big group of us headed over to Passage to India's buffet for some yummy Indian food. Here are some blurry camera phone pics to commemorate the moment...
Me and Chris, Adam and Emi


Fu, Adam and Emi


Nick "I thought I could finish my second plate of food" Chan,


I actually think the lunch buffets I've been to at Passage are better. First of all, they didn't have those yummy fried honey soaked balls for dessert that I absolutely NEED when I go to Indian food. And they were so crowded that they couldn't keep up with having clean plates and bowls at the buffet line, so we were waiting around a bit. And while this doesn't affect me (I don't like mango), the mango soft serve was... um... too soft... or just liquid. Overall, they were just too busy. Go there for lunch.

As seen on my friend Chris's blog, here's a link to Orson Scott Card's review of Serenity. btw, Orson Scott Card totally ruled my middle school universe :) Does that make me geeky? bah.

Vintage Pattern(s) of the Day (from 1961 McCall's Needleworks)
Some cute knitted toys... (I have to knit the black sheep with 3 bags of wool!)

knitting spinning content, I SWEAR!

So last Wed, when I started freaking out about a certain Monday Fellowship deadline that had slipped my mind, I came home after a day of stressin' to find a wonderful gifty from my Secret Pal!

She sent me one of the books I've been wanting FOREVER!!!!



From Interweave Press!! I've flipped through this book many times at the LYS, only to force myself to put it down as I grab more yarn to fit into my budget! Now, HUZZAH! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the dragon charted for the scarf in there. My dad was born in the year of the dragon, and I've wanted to knit him something with a dragon on it! I admit, even though I was supposed to be stressin' for the fellowhip, I did enjoy flipping through the book again anyway! I'm also really really tempted by the neat sort of patchworky type scarf and some more of the lace scarves (I have to admit, I'm loving working on the FBS! Lace is really really FUN now! Am I crazy?). Thank you thank you Secret Pal! Sorry it took a bit to post about it, I know how anxious I get about packages reaching their destination, I was just a bit crazy this past weekend... Oh and I'm super excited that you got an ingenuitea!! I personally believe everyone should own them. :)

knitting
Really, I do have to emphasize how much I love knitting the FBS. Everytime I get a chance, I knit a couple rows. The lace repeats are easier after getting to know them a bit, and everytime I need new markers (every 10 rows), I go over and make a few.
Here's my progress thus far:


I've also started knitting a couple squares for the Diva Knitting contest. I'm using some of my hand dyed yarn for one, and some handspun for another! Pics to come later :)

Spinning
So yes, I actually can buy roving from several of the farmers that come to the Palo Alto farmers market! I've noticed a couple handspun skeins showing up at different stalls, but then 2 wks ago, one of the stalls also was selling roving! I got almost a pound of ivory shetland wool roving (from a sheep named Sunny) for $15.

Here's my progression on that lovely wool... from this:


to this:


to this:


to this:


It's a wonderfuly bulky two ply that I dyed to make a hat (although I think I'll have enough for two hats) for my friend who likes orange! I dip dyed it in the crock, And I was hoping where the orange and blue crossed I would get a more purple-y color... oh well. I LOVE how bright the colors came out. It will make a fabulous hat!

random
I heard the black eyed peas song "My Humps" in the car last night and this morning (a break from my all day npr listenings)....

i was open-mouthed about how stupid it sounded. its lyrics were uninspiring (ok, i wasn't expecting to be inspired, but still "my hump, my hump, my lovely little lumps"?? wtf?), also the song construction is quite dull and monotonous. ick.

sort of back

oh the stress. I don't think I was speaking very coherently by the end of Monday... or even yesterday, blah. As I told ervy, "This is only the beginning of application season" to which he promptly turned green and died.

or at least, he turned to evil. Yes. My boyfriend is a thief. He has trespassed on the most sacred territory. HE STOLE MY BLOG POST!!!! or at least part of it. If you go to said post, you'll see some very cute pictures of a very naughty kitty. When we discovered Nikko had gotten into our dishes and ervy was going to go wash him off, it was me who said, "WAIT! I need to take pictures for the blog." Perhaps he was confused that I meant MY blog. While I was tearing my hair out over my personal statement, he quietly posted said pictures to his own blog.

pooh! pooh I say to you, thieving boyfriend! I will better protect the digital camera... see if you can find it now!!!

ack

so the realization that the first fellowship application of the 'season' is due this upcoming Monday has sent me into a tizzy

Since I'm going to be absent from the blog until at least Tuesday night (and I can't talk about/show y'all the wonderful shetland roving I picked up a last Saturday's farmer's market or my progress on my knitting projects), I seek to appease you all by revisiting the vintage pattern of the day. The upcoming pattern pictures are from McCall's Needlework, 1961

Today's vintage knitted pattern is a couple of neat knitted dresses. I particularly like the white one on the left. I think it could be fun to play with nowadays too!

*stressed*
fellowship app due monday...
nuff said,
I'll be back in the blogging world Tuesday

whew! what a weekend!

I'm exhausted. I had a fabulous and full weekend starting off with a simply wonderful evening with Hilary and Steven on Friday.

As mentioned previously, we went to The Village Pub in Woodside, CA for dinner. The one downside of the dinner was that, although we had reservations for 8:30pm, we weren't seated until around 9pm. The maitre' d (sp?) came over (after I asked how much longer we would be waiting) and apologized profusely to us explaining that people just weren't leaving... and within 5 min we were seated in a wonderful cushy booth near the fireplace.



They gave us three different types of menus, the dinner menu, the wine menu, and the pub menu. Our waiter came over promptly and explained the menu and some of the specials of the evening. We ended up ordering both specials, which were appetizers, some fabulously rich lamb meatballs on black chard in a yummy broth and heirloom tomatoes with a delicious local extra virgin olive oil, a 25 year old oak barrel aged balsamic, water buffalo mozzarella from Spain, and some special rock salt from Australia (i think). Before we had even ordered, the sommelier came over to the table to inquire about what we might like to drink with the meal. He was relatively young, so it was actually quite fun to engage him in conversation about what it takes to be a sommelier. I also found it amusing that he would say things like, "I like to drink a lot" and "I found this wine to go great with everything, including cheerios." We ended up getting a bottle of this delicious rioja to go with our meal:

Rioja, Crianza, Sierra Cantabria 2000

The rabbit meatballs:


The heirloom tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella salad. Btw, I've had some water buffalo mozzerella, and it is indeed much much tastier than normal fresh mozzarella, but THIS mozzarella was the YUMMIEST one I have ever had the pleasure of eating.


Actually before our appetizers, they brought us each out a complimentary first plate of local sliced beets (bright orange and yummy) with asparagus which we each demolished before I remembered to take a picture.

Both Steven and I ended up ordering the pork chop dinner on the menu. How could we not order that after the waiter so deliciously described it? It is Niman Ranch Pork that had been covered in some sort of maple glaze and grilled as a huge rack before being cut up into servings. It was served over Italian butter beans and roasted figs. *drool* Ohmygodyumiwishicouldeatthateveryday



Hilary ordered the gnocchi with clams which she reported to be also quite wonderful.


ervyscurvy ordered the grilled 28-Day Dry Aged Rib Steak which he said was also amazingly tasty, although he did keep nibbling on my porkchop...but who could resist that chop?!!


Before we finished our main courses, the sommelier came over and had us try another wine to go with the last bit of our meal. It was the Calera Central Coast Pinot Noir 2000. I found it absolutely wonderful!

For dessert, each couple got one of the yummy chocolate hazelnut souffles...oh how I love a good souffle.


We were also graced with a small platter of petit something or others (yummy sweet goodness including the best macaroons ever, some chocolate bark, a truffle, and some tiny rendition of a provencial french dessert)


I highly highly recommend this place if you're in the area. I'll blog about the rest of my weekend tomorrow...

The Village Pub

I'm so excited for dinner tonight! As much as I tried to dissuade my wonderful friend Hilary from taking us out to a nice dinner, she insisted she and Steven really wanted to do this to thank us for our help with their wedding.

Anyway, she insisted I give them the name of the restaurant that ervy and I had originally planned to go to for our 3rd yr anniversary (before we bought the smoker instead).

So tonight we're heading to The Village Pub in Woodside, CA. YUM! 'pub' is a misnomer according to most accounts. It's really just a truly fancy restaurant down here on the Peninsula. The chef is Mark Sullivan who apparently turns out wonderfully tasty meals (and I hear it's not the tiny cuisine you get in most fancy restaurants...). The James Beard Foundation says, "Today, The Village Pub is the poshest pub around, with plush leather chairs, arty black-and-white photos, a mahogany bar, Lamborghinis in the parking lot, and contemporary Mediterranean-inflected food so good it earned the restaurant three and a half stars in the San Francisco Chronicle. As Chronicle critic Michael Bauer wrote, "Those who get to eat Sullivan's food regularly are privileged: he is producing some of the best food in the Bay Area. Few chefs have more talent-or restraint...Dish after dish proves Sullivan's mettle.""

oh yeah... i'm excited.

oh and here's a pic of the sky yesterday afternoon for Sandy's contest. I actually caught it a little cloudier than it had been yesterday:


In my knitting life, I'm on the 3rd set of repeats still for the FBS. I would take a picture, but I'd rather wait another couple repeats so that my progress since my last picture will be more evident. I did swing by target at the beginning of this week to see the $1 yarns. They had some novelty yarns (a furry one and a ribbony railroad type yarn). I'm not really someone who knits with a lot of novelty yarn, but I picked some up to make a shawl for a charity auction at the local preschool. I figure, people who don't knit seem to like this novelty stuff more than complicated stitch patterns anyway. So I'm knitting a big dropstitch stole on large needles for the project.

the best rating fun since netflix...

thanks to Esmerel, Evvie and I have found ratebeer.com. The rating system isn't the best (if they're going to make you comment a 75 char comment, why don't they have a character counter? and what's with the different scales... who rates 1-20???), but we at least now have a nice centralized way of reviewing the beers evvie seems to bring home from his many trips to Whole Foods. Too bad we didn't find it earlier. It's hard to remember specifics of many beers now.

I do want to mention, randomly, that I've found some of the best packaged biscotti I've ever tasted. Semifreddi's chocolate dipped almond biscotti is frelling fantastic!

on knitting
every time I get through an odd lace row of fbs, I'm pretty proud of myself for my concentration. I'm on the second set of ten on the lower fbs chart now... I'm thinking of scanning and printing out the chart in different colors to help myself visually keep track of where I am better (I don't want to write on the magazine... for some reason, that just makes me cringe...)

jayne hat, fbs progress and dumpling adventure part #1

weekend
This weekend involved alot of settlers playing, and some work and part 1 of an amazing dumpling adventure.

I did see ervy's new cube. Here's ervy at work


Sunday, instead of going to work out, Ervy and I decided to embark on a tour de dumplings. We roped fu into our journey, and although we had about 9 dumpling places to try on our list, we only got through 3 of them before being defeated by the fullness of our tummies.

Part 1 included the Taipei Stone House, A&J, and the Tong Dumpling Pot - all of which were in Cupertino.

1. Taipei Stone House:
0877 N. Wolfe Road, Cupertino, CA 95014
Cupertino Village (Ranch 99 Complex)
(408) 255-8886
This is not only a dumpling restaurant. It is a normal Chinese restaurant, and I must say, while waiting for our dumplings, we saw many other delicious looking dishes heading to other tables. Also, fu and I had much guilt about going to a full restaurant and only ordering a couple dishes of dumplings. Fu apologized before ordering (in Chinese), but the owner/waiter was nothing but polite and happy to serve us. We had an order of xiao long bao ("pork steamed buns" on the menu) and an order of fried dumplings/potstickers. The first to arrive was the xiao long bao. Our waiter brought it out in a large full size bamboo steamer (not one of the tiny ones, so the dumplings were able to rest far apart from each other, getting rid of the risk of sticking to each other and breaking, losing precious soup). He also brought us all soup spoons to eat the dumplings with and a dish of black Chinese vinegar and shredded ginger. He explained how we should eat it, and then revealed the dumplings with flourish. OMFG. They were fantastic. The wrappers were thin and perfect (not the thick chewiness you might find on others), the soup was wonderful, and intact in the dumplings due to the care in spacing as mentioned above. Wow. Afterwards, the waiter/owner man explained that they are actually famous for their xiao long bao (although I'm not sure what he means by 'famous.' articles? awards?). After finishing the first dumplings he brought out our fried potstickers (jiao zi(sp?)). These were made in an interesting way. Instead of fully enclosing the meat with the wrappers, the dumplings were wrapped more like open ended egg rolls. Very simple, but wonderfully fried and nicely flavorful. A++++... I'm going back for sure.

2. The second spot we hit was A&J also in Cupertino Village
10893 N WOLFE RD 160C CUPERTINO, CA 95014-0605
PHONE (408)873-8298
We've been here previously for other yummy taiwanese/Chinese snacks. We couldn't help ordering a non-dumpling dish of sliced pig ear in sichuan peppercorn oil. That was delicious. Unfortunately, the dumplings were not as tasty - at all. The xiao long bao were unfortunate. the wrappers were too thick and chewy at the top. Plus all the dumplings were shoved together in the smallest of steamers such that in picking one up, you'd rip the dough and lose the soup and possibly any filling. We also had some vegetarian dumplings and beef dumplings. The beef dumplings were especially average. The veggi ones were ok, but most lost filling when picked up. Also, the waiter was a bit annoyed with us for just ordering a few dumplings and pig ear. I like A&J, but I wouldn't order dumplings there ever again.

3. Lastly, we hit Tong Dumpling Pot
in cupertino, follow Wolfe Rd past the dead mall (Vallco?) as it turns into Miller. When you hit Bollinger, turn left and go into the Safeway parking lot. Go past the Chef Woo side and turn the corner. It's near the water place. Maybe 6184 Bollinger?
This place is mainly a dumpling spot, so there were no worries about just ordering dumplings. The prices were quite reasonable 12 dumplings (boiled or fried depending on your choice) for $5.50 (for lunch it's $5.50 for 12 dumplings + soup or porridge + snack). You can also buy them frozen in packs of 50 for about $12+. They have 4 choices of pork dumplings, one vegetarian choice, two lamb dumpling choices, and 3 chicken dumpling choices (i think). We ordered the pork with shrimp and chives dumplings, the vegetarian dumplings, and the lamb and squash dumplings. It's a very small shop, but since it was the middle of the afternoon, we were the only ones besides the owners who were there. They have a small counter where you can sit and watch them make the dumplings (they handmake them from the wrappers to the fillings.. yay!). Indeed, the handmade wrappers were highly praised by fu. The first set of dumplings we received were the pork/shrimp/chives. These were ok, but had an odd aftertaste that we attributed to the shrimp. Get the ones w/o the shrimp, and I'm sure they'll be good. 2nd came the lamb/squash dumplings. Fu and Ervy LOVED these. They are unique and lamby tasting. (I actually detest the taste of lamb so after one bite of half of one of those dumplings, I passed the rest of it off to ervy). The veggie ones were also good. They tasted highly of mushrooms (so if you don't like mushrooms, do NOT eat this), plus it had yummy noodle bits in them. I would go back here.


The dumpling adventure left us full and lethargic. Even tho we had tea at each place, ervy and I craved espresso. We headed off to Castro (after pulling Adam with us). Ervy and I got yummy Americanos from Red Rock, and we headed across the street to Tapioco Express so Adam and Fu could get pearl milk teas. While there, ervy and I tried to remember how to play Chinese checkers... I lost.


Jayne hat:
I bought the yarn for my hat Friday afternoon and got cracking right away... I realize that the photo I posted from Firefly doesn't show the color of Jayne's hat very well. There are some better images here. Anyway, I grabbed 2 skeins of Lamb's Pride bulky (1 in a red color, 1 in an orange color). There wasn't a yellow I liked enough in LPB, so I bought a bulky in Numero Uno by Lana Grossa. Here was the finished hat Saturday:

You might notice the colors are a bit brighter than Jayne's hat's colors are... So last night I tea dyed the hat. Unfortunately it didn't tone down the red enough... I plan to dip dye just the bottom half of the hat (the red part) in coffee this evening to darken it down a bit.

Flower Basket Shawl Progress

I stopped by Uncommon Threads on Friday to pick up some yarn for my Jayne hat, and while I was there, one of the workers... (Carolyn?) helped me figure out the lace charts on FBS. (I totally didn't realize that the first 2 and last 2 squares on the charts were stitches I was actually supposed to KNIT! (i thought they were just designating purl or knit....). That's why I wasn't ending up with the right number of stitches... duh!

Also, my sp5 Nancy is still rocking my world!!! She sent me a great link to some notes on the fbs which is perfect for right now as I'm just moving on to the lower fbs chart. The site she sent already answered my question about the repeats!

Here's where I am now (although at this point it doesn't look like much unless I stretch out the stitches (then I can see some of the first "leaf" pattern repeats). Oh and if you can see where I made my mistakes... shh! I am actually having a hard time keeping track of where I am on the charts as I often knit while watching tv... this type of knitting seems to require a little more attention than i'm used to giving.