Happy 5th Birthday!

Today is Little A's 5th birthday! At some point (maybe if she's taller than I am) I'll have to stop calling her Little A but she's still Little A to me. I can't believe that she's been around for five years already and getting ready to enter kindergarten next Fall - time flies! This morning I made apple pancakes with golden syrup and veggie sausages and then Little A opened her gifts.

 There were books and art supplies and a board game to play as a family. She received this giant atlas from her Nana and it's a new favorite already.

I knit her a Bunny Girl with two different dresses and I now have a standing request for a Fox Girl so they can be friends (I did not disillusion A about the "friendship" between real rabbits and foxes). Also, "more clothes in lots of different colors" for the bunny and the fox. 

Little A is going to her Grandma's house to make and decorate sugar cookies later today and we're having the requested dinner of burgers and french fries with cupcakes for dessert. In case you're wondering, we did throw a birthday party for A a couple of weeks ago that involved around 20 of her preschool friends with some parents, lots of food, dinosaurs in party hats, a book exchange, and all the attending noise and mayhem of a room with loads of children free to run and yell. It was exhausting and wonderful. 

Happy birthday, Little A! 

Just in case you want to knit some little bunnies and foxes of your own here are the details: 

Pattern(s): Little Bunny Girl (or Fox), Seasonal Dresses by Julie Williams

Yarn: Rowan Kid Classic in Cream, Millamia Naturally Soft Merino in Fuchsia, Lime, and White

Needles: US #3 (for the body) and US #2 1/2 for the clothes

Mods: I knit the skirt portion of the dresses in the round and the bodice back and forth since I didn't want to knit colorwork flat. You'll also need black yarn for the embroidery on the face. I used DMC perl cotton thread in black since I already had a little ball of it hanging out in my sewing kit and it is nice and smooth to used for the french knot eyes. The dresses are great to knit in leftover balls of sock yarn since they take hardly any yardage and you can add all sorts of details in a contrast color. Little Bunny has already been stripped down multiple times and redressed this morning - I think she's a success!

A Month of Favorites: Day 16 through 20

One of my favorite things is...vacation! I'm taking some time off to spend with my best friend and family who are all visiting Seattle for my birthday. I'll be back on Monday for some musicy goodness! Have a great week!

Two!

Little A's birthday just happens to be Christmas Eve. I've found Christmas the last couple of years to be a lot less interesting now that I have a little one's birthday to celebrate the day before. This year we had balloons, a taco bar, and a tasty cake with ice cream. It's no small feat to come up with something everyone can eat - vegetarians, the lactose intolerant, and the gluten-free. Tacos just happen to be A's favorite so we had corn tortillas, beans, rice, and a myriad of taco toppings and fillings. Delish.

She got a lot of good presents. Good as in the day after the party she's still playing with them and having a great time.
I knit the sweater, Prudence, from Rowan Miniature Classics for her second birthday and while I'm very proud of it she's a bit reluctant to wear it. I managed to wrangle her into it for about 10 minutes on Christmas so I could snap some photos. Let me tell you, wrangling a toddler for pictures is not the easiest thing to do when there are people and presents and food around. Happy Birthday, Little A!

Prep

Just a little knitting before I launch into my latest debacle. It involves baking.

I knit this slouchy hat for my Mother in Law for Christmas. She's allergic to wool but may possibly be able to wear alpaca so I dug out a skein of Cascade Pure Alpaca in a nice red and cast on. The pattern is Ripple by Wendy Bernard and I loved knitting it! This is the worsted weight version but the pattern also includes a sock weight version which I'm contemplating for myself.

So. Baking. Little A's birthday is tomorrow so I attempted a birthday cake. I am NOT a bad baker, in fact, I have a pretty good track record with the oven. My problem is egg whites. They hate me. I do research and follow tips and treat them as I would a fragile work of art and... they fail. Every. Single. Time. Granted, I was working with a Martha Stewart recipe (usually these work great for me) which I found to be over complicated. You know, extra steps and hard to find ingredients where regular ole grocery store ingredients would do and stuff like that. But really, the cake just did not rise more than 1/4 inch and was far too sweet and and and I should have known when I saw the batter that resulted from following the recipe. No good. In steps google and I found a super easy and fast recipe that turned out as batter-y as a cake batter should be and not too sweet and just came out of the oven deliciously golden and birthday cake smelling.

There you have it. Two cakes in a little under three hours and I need to pick up more vanilla for the strawberry frosting. Phew.

The Big 3-0

This weekend marked my thirtieth birthday so I got the heck out of Seattle with my sister and my friend and went over to Port Townsend for a couple of days. As usual, I packed far too much knitwear. The weather was beautiful, although slightly chilly, and I was able to provide warm things enough for us all to wear. I bought lots of yarn, ate lots of yummy food, and knit knit knit to my heart's content.

Top 5 favorite things this birthday (in no particular order):
1. Vegetarian Poutine
2. Knitting with friends
3. Being on my own schedule
4. New yarn
5. Drinking beer in the afternoon

This birthday went exactly how I wanted it to go, relaxing and easy-going. Thanks to everyone for the awesome gifts - you rock!!! A girl couldn't have much better friends!

Happy Birthday!!!

Today is the Little One's birthday. She's now officially 1! I can't believe how quickly the year has flown. We had an afternoon birthday party with family and cupcakes. I knit her a dress and it fits like a dream. (Dale of Norway book #208 in Dale of Norway Baby Ull, size 0 & size 1 needles) Her favorite gift is a xylophone which she banged away on for the majority of the party. Or chewed on the mallets. She's also entranced by the little accordion and her new set of wheels (Skuut). We had so many well wishes from so many people, thank you so much!!! I can't imagine a better little person to spend my time with and I'm excited to see what happens in the next year! Happy Birthday, Boo!!

Birthday Recap

Friday was my birthday and we spent the whole day tromping around downtown Seattle and eating. Breakfast at Mae's was good as usual and I had my favorite vegetarian biscuits and gravy. After heading downtown we decided to catch a movie and on the way I stopped to check out H&M which just opened in Seattle. We trotted up to the theater to see Religulous which I found interesting/horrifying/funny to watch. Plus it had a great soundtrack. Food again! Of course after about 4 hours I was starving so we went over to Serious Pie which was seriously good. Chanterelle pizza with truffled cheese? Hell, yes! And I had the most mouth-watering, jaw-droppingly good dessert I've had in a long time. Cannoli with pumpkin mascarpone, candied pepitas and squash, and yummy saucy stuff. I'm still dreaming about it and wishing for a bowl of the mascarpone with cannoli chips to eat myself sick. Yum. A few hours spent at Uwajimaya and Kinokuniya poking at strange foods and deciding amongst knitting books and we were off to eat dinner. (Seriously, we ate every 4 hours or so). Bamboo Garden is my favorite cheap vegetarian/chinese restaurant. We stuffed ourselves and walked over to Seattle Center to watch Night of the Living Dead performed by Seattle Children's Theatre. It was so incredibly funny and campy and a tad bit scary that as we were leaving I said that I could watch it again. Maybe I will. Highly recommended even if you're not into the horror genre. (There is a suggested age of 13+ for this - I think it depends on the kid.) Finally at home again I picked up my knitting and soaked my feet in some peppermint foot bath.

The little hat above is a free pattern on ravelry whose name eludes me. I knit it up while watching a movie at home this week. It's Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran on size 8 needles and I had about 16g left over from the skein.