Win some and Lose some....

I had an idea.... I thought it was a great idea even though various gauge swatches told me it wouldn't work....  I ignored my intuition and the, rather, solid evidence of my swatches and cast on, deciding that "you never know" ..... The idea was to have some ruched panels around the bottom of a tee and then have wide open short sleeves (sort of a cross between a Dolman sleeve and a Batwing) and an open neckline. Well, I finished it last night and tried it on... It was ugly.... I decided to wash/block it to see how it turned out..... The top is close to what I had envisioned, but the bottom is still ugly.... Now, what to do.... do I rip it out and try again, hopefully with a pattern at the end?? or do I cut off the ruching and fix it so that I can wear it... and call it a day??? I'm going to sit on it and decide later... I'm leaning towards a total re-boot.... there is a great top in there, I can tell...

and yes, I know... it looks pretty good laying flat on the ground... it loses it's appeal when worn, however..... looks a bit like a mushroom, masquerading as a shirt.....


On a more successful note... I thought I'd share my recipe for phyllo wrapped salmon.... I'm not a fabulous cook, but I get the job done.... this recipe is pretty darn awesome though...... If you've never used phyllo before it's not difficult. Just make sure it's thawed (you buy it in the freezer section of the grocery store... near the other types of pastry).

You need:

a couple of filets of salmon with the skin removed (not huge thick chunks..... )
about 3 sheets of phyllo pastry per filet
some melted margarine or butter... I used about a tablespoon per fillet
Last night I added some fresh dill and a splash of lemon  to the margerine, but usually I add a clove of mashed garlic... I left it out because of the garlic on top of the salmon.
Boursin cheese to taste. (I use garlic and herbs and tried the "Cuisine" version last night... it was great because it's spreadable).

Preheat the oven to 350F

On a cookie sheet (you can do this on a counter and move the finished package to the sheet, but I don't like having to clean up the counter afterwards so I do it on the cookie sheet) spread a single layer of phyllo dough  and using a pastry brush, wipe a layer of the melted butter combo all over the phyllo. Add a second and third layer and repeat. Place a fillet of salmon on the phyllo and spread about a tablespoon or two of the Boursin cheese on the top of the salmon. Wrap the salmon in the phyllo adding the margarine to any of the phyllo that does not already have some.

Repeat for as many fillets as you choose....  bake for about 20-30 minutes or until the phyllo is golden brown.... They are a bit of a PITA, but I think they're worth it... YUM!












Finally, here are a couple of pictures of Chey playing with her new umbrella in the rain.....

Bolero

I recently found the perfect summer dress for Chey. It was perfect because, not only did I think it was beautiful..... but so did Chey... which is rare, indeed..... The only real problem was that it was a spaghetti strap dress. At the time I was knitting myself a cardigan and thought that the yarn would be awesome with the dress. When the cardigan only used 2 of the 3 skeins of yarn in my stash, I did a little happy dance.

This is the bolero that resulted from the yarn..... a wonderful way to extend the wearability of a dress..... It was knit top-down and a lace border was knitted onto the bolero when finished. I did something wonky when I turned the corner around the bottom of the bolero and the stockinette of the bolero puckers a bit, but nobody would have noticed if I hadn't mentioned it.....

Silly Frilly Flamenco skirt....

About a week ago... a new yarn store opened in Calgary, called The Loop. The news of a new LYS was greeted with exuberant anticipation. Of course, this meant YARN CRAWL..... my local small group of knitters organized a trip on the opening day and at the last minute, I was able to go..... While we were there, enjoying all kinds of fibre goodies, we saw a ribbon yarn called Rizos, by Katia. I'm not normally a big fan of novelty yarns, but I thought this one was pretty.... It had been knit into a ruffle scarf and was quite lovely and we immediately began discussing other options for the yarn. Although I didn't buy any that day... I couldn't get the yarn out of my head and made a trip back a few days later with Chey to see how she liked it (she doesn't really like skirts much... they say they make her "too attractive... to attractive to homework")..... Once she agreed that a ruffle skirt would be worn, I purchased a couple of balls and started to plan.

My first three attempts were total failures.... Firstly, I didn't know how to knit with the yarn. I treated it like regular yarn and knit it as a big wide ribbon... this didn't give the neat ruffle that was intended and made the skirt really bulky... and after several inches, I frogged it.  I did a google search and discovered that I was using it incorrectly (this is the correct way to knit with this yarn, although I knit into every loop, rather than every second loop). Once I ammended my method, the next attempt was much better..... sort of..... knitting with Rizos row after row created a look that resembled a clown collar... not quite the look I was going for in a skirt.... so I ripped and started again.... My third attempt was MUCH nicer, but my sizing was WAY off... I didn't realize how off, until I cast off and tried the skirt on Chey (it fit me, actually)... it was terrible... I mean UGH-LEE.... I frogged the whole thing and started again.. this time, I started the skirt from the bottom (my other attempts had been top down) and alternated it with another yarn. This allowed the ruffle to lie much flatter and reduced the bulk and weight of the final skirt....

Final Result:.... AWESOME!

I'll work out a pattern and release it very soon......

Mother's Day = Gardening

Happy (one day late) Mother's Day to all the Mommy's out there!

For Mother's Day this year, I asked Dale to build me a nice raised garden bed to grow some veggies with the kids. While he ran out for supplies, the kids and I started to work. I started digging up the sod and put the kids on "worm saving patrol"

Of course, after all that hard work, we needed to have some cookies

Dale did an AWESOME job! The box is about 10ft x 2.5ft and about 12 inches deep made from composite material so no maintenance. We plan to plant peas, carrots and radish seeds and I bought some artichokes, and a watermelon from the garden centre. I still need a tomato plant and a few others, but it's too cold yet for that..... First we need some dirt.......

The rest of my garden is coming along and I planted a couple of containers today... and did my usual herb container, but with a couple of new herbs... Curry, for instance.

Herb Garden: Oregano (3 types), Curry, Dill, Lemon Balm, Mint and probably a couple of others that I can't remember... I'm going to plant Basil, Thyme and a few others at the next go round....	My Garden Centre Purchases. I have a mainly perennial garden and didn't need many plants this year. Plus I went early and the garden centre was not yet, fully stocked... I still have a couple of pots to fill....
Front Flower pot: Some Purple Grass and Dark, Dark, Dark purple, almost black petunias.....	I  like this cluster of pots.... I thought about getting Dale to re-do the chairs, but I like them the way they are... so we'll just protect them and be done

Crocuses... I planted about 500 bulbs (not just croci, but lots of other bulbs as well) two years ago and lots about 300 of them last year when Dale put in underground sprinklers (I'm too happy about the sprinklers to be upset about the bulbs), but the ones that survived are coming in nicely.... and multiplying...... this bundle of croci was only one or two flowers last year

Once the rest of the flower garden starts growing better, I'll take more pictures.... right now things are just starting to peek (other than the bulbs and a few hardy souls).... It's going to be pretty this year, I think.......

Celebration of Spring!

It's May 1st and the snow is finally almost gone from my backyard..... a few crocuses are blooming and it reached a high of 16C today. There were even a few of the neighbourhood children in bathing suits having water-fights in their backyards.... Only in Canada.....  With the weather behaving so nicely.... it seemed like an absolutely perfect day to ..........





go SKIING!!!!!!




And so we did..... We met our wonderful friends on the hill (so awesome!) and had at it! It was a GORGEOUS Day! Super Sunny and warm and hardly any people. It was Chey's very first time on Skis and although she was nervous, she did well and more importantly, had fun! Eli was progressing to a confident green runner two years ago, but the "fear" has returned and he struggled to make it down the hill. Must.go.more.often...... Here are a few pix

Happy Easter!!

Easter at our house is a bit of a to-do. The Easter Bunny likes to do a scavenger hunt so that the kids can find their Easter Baskets. He/She does a photo scavenger hunt for non-readers and a clue scavenger hunt for older children. This year's clues included things like:

"It’s Easter Time again, my Dear
So read these clues so they are clear
The first clue leads to a kind of weird place
It has a picture with your face
It is a room on floor number two
and the place where you go when you need to go ........... (rhymes with two)
Don’t let the other eggs distract
or you will never find your baskat [sic]..... "

And

"The third clue is kind of easy
look upstairs and find something.... sneezy......
Think of the thing you need when your nose
Has turned from a button and into a hose......"

And

"For number four, you need to peep
In the place where Mom’s yarn does sleep
It’s in that room, upon the bed
Under the thing where you rest your head"

The Easter Bunny is kind of smart (even if his/her clue making skills are kind of lame) because clues for both children are in the same order and in similar places.... That way the parent taking pictures has an easier job....... and one child has a lower chance of finding the other's clues out of order.

The last clue leads to the Easter Loot...... 

And of course there are lots of other eggs to find...... I believe the Easter Bunny stuffed over 100 eggs this year...... he/she must be slightly off his/her rocker.....

We will be dyeing our Easter Eggs a little later today.... I meant to do it last night, but boiled the eggs and then forgot........ 

Prizes

At the end of 2010, a group of knitters on Ravelry (knitters that live at my end of the city) decided to do a stash-busting challenge. The goal of this challenge was to knit mainly from stash and finish those WIPs (works-in-progress) languishing in closets, baskets and bags. Several members of the group joined the challenge, but rather than join myself,  I offered to organize prizes and moderate the contest. We set up a points system to track progress and decided to do a quarterly system.

COMPLETED ITEMS KNITTED/CROCHETED FROM STASH 

0-300m = 1 point 
300-600m = 3 points 
600-1200m = 5 points 
1200 -2500m = 8 points 
Over 2500m = 12 points

BONUS POINTS 
Yarn Spun 1 point 
Item Knit for Charity 1 point 
No yarn purchased 5 points 
New Skill 1 Point

WIPs 
More than 50% complete at 1 January 1 point 
Less than 50% complete at 1 January 2 points

MAXIMUM POINTS 
Items using less than 100m of yarn can earn maximum of 3 points.

DEDUCTIONS 
Each new skein/hank/ball purchase 1 point

EXCEPTIONS 
Yarn purchased to complete WIP 
Sections (or squares) knitted or crocheted for WCOBBS count as 1 point only

EXCEPTIONS FOR THIS QUARTER ONLY 
Any yarn purchased in Make One’s St Distaff’s sale counts as 2010 stash.

As the first quarter of the challenge ended last week, I spent some time this weekend finishing up the prizes. Firstly, I sewed up some project bags (I'm not a fabulous seamstress, but I get the job done) and stuffed them with various items donated by the members of the group. I still have a little tweaking, but here is a sneak peak...... 

Our end of quarter party is Thursday.... fondue and knitting...