Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating today! I have so very much to be thankful for this year, as always.  My wonderful Mom, my family, my friends, my amazing boyfriend Sean, my health, my success thus far in school, my angels in Heaven, and so much more.  Even if you don't celebrate Thanksgiving today, take a moment or two to remember all that you are thankful for!

And if you feel like baking...why not make some turkey cupcakes?

I spent some time yesterday searching online for easy and cute Turkey cupcakes.  I got a few ideas and headed to the store.  I first thought maybe I'd use candy corn for feathers (like I saw online), but I couldn't find candy corn...then I thought maybe use Nutter Butter cookies for the face...but I couldn't find those either! So, I came up with my own idea.

Here's what you need:

-Your favorite cupcakes (made from scratch or from a box or even store bought!)

-Icing (if your cupcakes aren't iced)

-Vanilla wafers (I used the WhoNu vanilla wafers)

-Pretzel sticks

-M&Ms of some sort (I used pretzel ones)

-Two colors of gel to write on the vanilla wafers (I used red for the beak and purple for the eyes)

What you need to do is:

1) Make two eyes and a beak on the vanilla wafer.  Put these aside to dry (or in the fridge) so that the features harden a little and don't run....(yeah...I wound up with a "crying" turkey at first ha!)

2) Prepare your pretzels.  For each cupcake you'll need 5 sticks.  Break 2 in half.  Starting in the back middle of a cupcake, place in 1 whole pretzel.  Then put two whole pretzels on either side of that one, but push them in a little further so that they are shorter.  Then place a half pretzel on each side of the growing pretzel-feathers.  And finally place the last half on the side, pushing it in a little more.  You want the "feathers" in the middle to be tallest and the ones on the side to be shortest.

3) I separated out the fall colored M&Ms (red, orange, yellow, brown).

4) Place a vanilla wafer at the front of the cupcake--sort of in the cupcake a bit and sort of resting on the icing a little.

5) Place the M&Ms you sorted between the face and the tail to ad some color to the body.

And you're done! :)

Enjoy!!

FO Friday: Care Bear

Two Sundays ago one of my friends asked me if I would be able to make a Care Bear that was purple and that had a purple ribbon on the tummy.  He told me that the husband of one of his friends recently lost his battle with pancreatic cancer and that he wanted to give her a bear like this, but couldn't find anything online.  I got really excited at this request for a few reasons.  For one, I felt like I would be making this bear for a really good cause.  Secondly, I had a pattern for a Care Bear already that I had really been wanting to make.  Finally, it would be purple...and you know how much I love purple.  AND I love to help out my friends.

I made very few modifications to the pattern that I had.  The only things I did differently were the eyes (I just used buttons rather than fiddling with the felt) and I did not add the head tuff because it looked odd on this bear.  I also used a different heart pattern for the nose and the heart on the bottom.  I got some ideas for the ribbon on the tummy from other online patterns and then sort of made my own up as I went along--basically you just chain a large amount, figure out where the middle of the chain is, work double crochets up until like 1 or 2 chains from the middle, then make 2 or 3 double crochets in the next chain, more in the middle chain, and then the same number on the other side of the middle...and double crochet your way to the end of the chain.  Really simple.  I whip-stitched all the appliques to the bear and that was it!  I'm really happy and proud of the way it came out.  I hope that it brings some comfort and love to the woman receiving it.

Astronomical dish towels

Today I had the honor of attending the retirement party of one of my dear undergraduate professors, Dr. Mary Lou West.  Dr. West taught physics and astronomy and was basically my advisor for the concentration of my minor.  She always made any class she taught fun AND always always always got the students interacting with the subject.  The party was a lot of fun and I got to see a few professors that I haven't seen in a while.  One of my favorite things about Dr. West is how she always wore something to do with astronomy (or physics)--a funny or interesting shirt, or perhaps a quirky pair of earrings--but every day something different and interesting!  As part of my gift to Dr. West I made a pair of astronomy-themed dish towels.  I picked out blue towels and crocheted appliques for them!  She absolutely loved them!!

Here are the towels!

A close up of the sun and...

...a close up of the moon! (Note the whimsical nose on the moon ;)).

And here are a few photos from the party.  Dr. West is featured on her retirement cake!! (along with the planets!)

Dr. West and I proudly showing off the towels that I gave her.

Dr. West with one of my good friends from undergrad, Nathaniel!  We both were in many of Dr. West's classes!

Being a student of Dr. West's was one of the best parts about being an undergraduate.  Thank you so much Dr. West for all that you've done for your students.  You are truly an excellent teacher and friend.

Christmas gifts part 1

Tomorrow is Christmas eve.  This year I set out to make most of my holiday gifts, unfortunately I've not been able to complete all of them yet....but I will get them done!  I'm setting a second goal of January 7th, which is technically the Christmas that I celebrate.

Anywho, since I've given out a few of my gifts, I no longer have to worry about posting about them and ruining the surprise! (And I'll freely post about my mom's gifts because she does not use the internet!)

First, I knit my friend Stephanie a "Honey Cowl" in Madelinetosk DK in "Fragrant."  It is a mixture of different pinks (her favorite color) and really came out nice!  I made the one skein version and you can wrap it around your neck twice--when you do this it is snug on your neck (which honestly I found to be very nice). [Steph really liked the cowl!]

For my bosses at my internship, knit them each a coffee cup/mug cozy and crocheted a coaster.  Each got really excited when I gave them their presents--that's always nice to experience :).

Finally, one of my mom's gifts is a set of two towels for the kitchen.  In 2009 I started making her two kitchen towels....she got them in 2010 as well and now again in 2011.  I learned a new technique of embroidering a chain stitch along the edge of the towel and then crocheting on to that.  It really saved time when making these.  (Yes, I made these today....Christmas eve eve!).

My mom is also getting the knit vest I made, which I posted about here.  I'll get some pictures of her in it once I give it to her.  I really hope she likes it....

Blogging on the back burner...

I need to blog, really, I do.  It has been far to long since I last posted.  ESPECIALLY since I finished my Central Park Hoodie on 7/24/11! It took me just under two months to complete it! (Which is great to me since I didn't work on it alllllll the time because I work and have my dissertation to work on.)  I really wanted to have a big **ta-dah!!!** post about finishing it...but I just can't find the time to take proper photos of the finished project, so this one will have to do for now. BUT the proper **ta-dah!!!** post will come soon! Pinky swear! Oh, as well as a group photo when everyone is done!

Saturday, Alex and I spent some time knitting/crocheting by her pool.  I, of course, brought over my finished CPH to show her and her mom.  Well, what was the next obvious thing to do on a summer day?  Take a photo in our bathing suits and sweaters of course!

So here, for your viewing enjoyment, is our lovely summer sweaters and suits photo!

Central Park Hoodie KAL, first meeting!

On Sunday my KAL group had our "first meeting" :).  Our group consists of me, Lindsey, Alex, and Alex's mom!!   I'm very excited about this because this is my first knit OR crocheted adult size sweater---and it is for me!  We met on Sunday, had some lunch, and got to knitting!  Some of us had cast on prior to this first meeting to begin the ribbing--because ribbing can be a bit boring/annoying/blah...  Well, Alex was a bit gung-ho and finished the back of her sweater DURING our first meeting.... :) Way to go ALEX!  You can see her finished pieces in the picture below :).  The rest of us either completed at least all of the ribbing during this first meeting and began the pattern repeats.

Pictured here is Alex and her mom.  I'm so happy that we have Alex's mom on board, we can learn so much from her!!!!  She is a wonderful knitter and it makes me very excited that she decided to join us!  Both Alex and her mom decided to use Knit Picks Wool of the Andes for their sweaters.  Alex's is a purple/red heather color (Claret Heather) and her mom's is a light blue/gray color (Lake Ice Heather)

Lindsey got a good amount of her sweater done. (Notice her stitch markers!! I made those :).  Lindsey is using Caron One Pound in a navy blue color.  I'm also using the Caron One Pound, but in white.  I had a bunch of this yarn in my stash (3 pound in each color) and we figured that since this was our first real big sweater project, it was best to try and use up a stash yarn instead of buying something new :).  A bit plus is that this yarn is machine washable and dry-able!!

From left to right: Alex, me,  and Lindsey.  We are all so proud of our progress on these sweaters!  This was taken at the end of our knitting session!

Finally, here is my progress (by the end of Sunday night) on my sweater!  This is the back.  I'm slightly nervous that this might be too small since this pattern is said to run about 4 inches too small.  I went up a size and got a slightly larger gauge with my yarn than the patter, so I'm hoping that it will be ok.

Our next meeting is on June 19th!  We made an agreement not to have more than the back and two front sides made by this time.  Alex is really knitting this quickly and we thought it would be best to try to stay at a similar pace for this project.  I hope that I can do the back and the fronts by the next meeting!!!  I think I might take this to work with me :) so I can knit on the train!  WOOHOO!!!

Until next time!