Made it to the End of the Year!!!

Happy New Year to all!!

This has been a fantastic year overall, but not without ups and downs of course. I started this project a year ago as a challenge to myself, to see if I had it in me to carry it through the entire year. Admittedly, I didn't blog everyday and I really did try to make something, or make progress on something, every day. For the handful of days that I was too tired or too busy dealing with other things that life threw my way, I tried to make up for it. In the end, each day is accounted for and on 95% of the days, I both made something and blogged about it, so I consider that a pretty good success rate :)

I will likely go back through the blog and take account of the different things - so far most are food, knitting, sailing, or event related - just because I'm curious of the final tally. I've also decided to keep blogging in 2015, though not likely every day. 2014 was a great year and I'm really looking forward to what 2015 will bring :) xx

Lamb Roast

So I didn't actually make any of this, Simon's mum did. We were invited to dinner at his parents and they thought it would be nice to treat me to a proper English roast. Clockwise from the top: mashed potatoes, English peas, roast lamb with mint sauce, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, roast carrots, all smothered in a beautiful brown gravy. I'd never had Yorkshire pudding (which is kind of like a doughy puff pastry) or mint sauce. The whole meal was truly phenomenal and cheers to Simon's mum for preparing it :)

Brownstone

My internet connectivity has been sparse in England, we've been on the move constantly since I arrived, and I haven't had the chance to upload the final three posts of the year. Here they are now :)

On our way to a little B&B outside of London, in a town called Marlow, I had the opportunity to work a little more on the sleeve of Brownstone. I brought 4 balls of yarn with me, and I've barely even touched this one, but that's ok, as I see the other three as somewhat of a safety blanket (it's always better to carry more yarn than needed).

Made a Phone Call

Ok, not really, but I love the classic English red telephone booth :)

Made it to England

Woo hoo!!

Brownstone

I'm on my way to England for the remainder of the holidays :) I started Brooklyn Tweed's Brownstone on the early part of my flight and I'm pretty excited to be knitting another sweater again, too :)

Christmas Pheasant

Christmas Day dinner always varies in our house. Some years we go all out, other years we keep it pretty simple. This was one of the simple years. We roasted a pheasant (apparently you shouldn't cook the bird whole - the leg and breast meat require very different cooking times, not unlike turkey) and then just ate Wigilia leftovers.

Wigilia

This is our traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner. We have barszcz czerwony with uszka (beet soup with mushroom-filled "ears" or mini pierogi), fish (traditionally carp, but we eat sea bass - delicious), boiled potatoes, and two types of sauerkraut - kapusta z grzybami i kapusta z grochem - one with mushrooms and the other with peas. In previous years we've used canned peas; this year we tried frozen and the dish came out much better. We finish dinner by sharing oplatki, or wafers. Finally, a cheesecake rounds out dinner, but we usually wait until after we open presents to eat that - we're too full otherwise!

Boyfriend Hat

So this wasn't for my boyfriend, rather for my dad for Christmas. I knit 8.5 inches before I started the decreases, I think I could've gone 9, but in the end it turned out ok. He is happy, so that's all that matters :)

Bacon Jam

I haven't been posting all week as I've been finishing Christmas gifts and I didn't want to ruin any surprises. Then I pretty much took a break from everything over Christmas itself, but today I'm back on the horse :)

I found this recipe for Bacon Jam and wanted to try it. And let me tell you, this stuff is pretty phenomenal (I mean, I guess it is bacon). It's fairly quick to make and it's so good that I anticipate it'll be gone soon, so I know I'll be making this again soon.

Garter Ear Flap Hat

This is the wee little adorable hat from the Purl Bee. This was such an easy knit, fun and came out absolutely perfectly :)

Boyfriend Hat

I won't say whether or not this is for my boyfriend, but I will say that I'm totally in love with the  pattern from Purl Bee. It's pretty straightforward and a good knit to have around while a million other things are going on.

I adjusted the pattern for worsted weight (Cascade 220) on 3.75mm needles. I got a gauge of 6.5sts/inch so I cast on 120. So far the fabric is thick and heavy - exactly what I want for a winter hat.

Peppermint Chip Brownies

I stumbled across this recipe about a week ago and immediately wanted to try it. I ran around to 5 different stores in an attempt to get the Andes Peppermint Crunch, to no avail. I subbed Hershey's Peppermint Kisses in the ganache; I also bought mini candy canes which I crushed with a meat tenderizer for the topping. Overall, this definitely satisfies on a number of levels and I know I'll be making it again :)

Dancing Bear

It should be pretty obvious by now that I spend most of my free time either knitting, cooking, or sailing. Occasionally, I like to branch out into a different craft. I've dabbled in paper craft before, never to a large extent, but I'm always intrigued by what can be created with such a seemingly simple medium.

This time, my blog surfing took me to paper cutting. I found the dancing bear and was immediately enamored. As a designer, I'm pretty comfortable with xacto knives, so I thought I might try it out. I used card stock because I wanted mine to be red as well, but I think that the card stock is actually too thick and inside corners are hard to get perfectly sharp. In any case, I think this still turned out pretty well and it was a pretty fun project, too. It was a nice break from the knitting.

Balls of Yarn

After Christmas is over, I'm starting a new project.. a sweater. The last sweater I knit was Boxy and that feels like ages ago. So I'm pretty excited to take on another big project :)

However, a big part of the knitting process is the prep. I've been fussing over the pattern for a couple months now; I want to make sure this one comes out just right. I need 11 hanks of yarn for this sweater (I bought 12 just in case. I've played the I'm-out-of-yarn-with-half-a-sleeve-left-to-go game before. It's not fun.)

In my sickly haze, just about the only thing I could cognitively process was winding yarn. But at least it's done now and I'll be able to start it soon, maybe even on Christmas Day..

Lemon Tea Concoctions

So the lack of recent posting is due to the black plague flu that's been going around. I left work before lunch on Tuesday and then didn't leave the house again until Friday evening. And that was to check the mail. Ok, and to run a couple errands. I needed to rejoin the living.

I drank quite a bit of tea concoctions over the past few days, steeping herbs and spices in an effort to alleviate the symptoms. Finally, after 4 days, I feel better.

Gather Ear Flap Hat

This is the second-to-last knitted item that has to get made before Christmas. Fortunately, this little hat is sized for a baby, so I should have it done by tomorrow :)

Mince Pies

Third time's still not a charm. I made these in preparation for our holiday pig-out at work and I learned that mince pies need to release steam as they bake, or else the mince kinda escapes everywhere. On another note, I think that I've finally got the size right!

Tortilla Soup

There aren't many days left in the year, and I'm ready for the blogging to ease up in the new year. I've decided I'll still keep the blog, but I likely won't be posting on a daily basis. You can tell I'm tired; I'm still making things but today is a 4-post kinda day. The holidays brings out the madness in all of us.

Anyway, dinner on Sunday was tortilla soup, from this recipe, and man was this good! In addition to dinner, I'm pretty excited I'll be eating this for lunch over the next couple of day too :)

Placki

Or potato pancakes, based off this recipe. I never remembered beating an egg into the shredded potato mix before. Mom? How do you typically make them?

Gift Tags

I made gift tags last night. This helped me accomplish two things: 1- I used up a bit of scrap paper leftover from another paper project I'm working on, and 2- this totally makes me feel like I'm ahead of Christmas. (Athough I should probably knock on wood for saying that, because if I'm not careful, it'll get away from me quickly enough.)

Stitch Block Cowl

Stitch block is finished!! I love the way this turned out :) This was a really fun and easy knit. Each section is knit for 20 inches, so it changed just frequently enough to keep me interested. Pattern is from the Purl Bee.

Snow Angel

It's been a really long while since I posted anything about snow angel, but she is finished!! And so incredibly crazy beautiful that I almost want to keep her for myself. I may have to knit another :)

Christmas Tree

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.. 

Stuffed Zucchini

I should've blogged yesterday, but I got home late and needed to get to bed in a hurry. I should've also started knitting something today, but I got sucked into the Internet instead. So I'm one post behind.

In any case, this is a great little recipe for leftovers. We (still) have too much stuffing, but roasting it in a zucchini (or eggplant or green pepper) makes a great second round meal. I tried both tomato sauce and sage-garlic-butter sauce; the sage worked a little bit better with this particular stuffing. Dad also made tomato risotto, and that worked really well in the zucchini too :)

Salmon + Spaghetti Squash

The salmon was done in my favorite soy-poach and the spaghetti squash was seasoned then roasted for 45 minutes. The sauce is something mom gave me; it was the perfect compliment to this dish :)

Apple Crisp

I'm not sure why I was suddenly craving this today.. Fortunately I had all the ingredients on hand and just threw it together quickly...and ate the entire thing in one sitting :)

Stitch Block

Knit a couple rows of this between classes. And it's the last day of class!! In any case, I'm ready for this to be done..

Rapid Prototyping Art

We use a number of rapid prototyping tools at work. We had a bunch of spare parts and decided to engage in a creative exercise and make a handful of art pieces from them. This one is mine :)

Stitch Block

Ok, I'm just about to the point where I've had enough of this cowl. This needs to get finished and I need to move onto other projects. Christmas is in 22 days and that knitterly clock, the voice inside my head that just invented two brand new projects in the past two days (you can do it! is what she says) despite Christmas being 22 days away, is starting to get louder. The pressure is almost-but-not-quite-yet in crazy mode.

Stitch Block Cowl

Happy December! Now this blog project is really in the home stretch.. I can't really believe how quickly the year has gone by!

The other thing that's going by quickly is this cowl. With about a third of the third pattern knit up, it's really coming together. I'm pretty excited about it actually and kind of want to make a couple more :) We'll see...