“a short post”…..or “soup!!”

hello strangers, it’s me!

i’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with this blog.  but this is mainly due to the fact that i had been in hell graduate school trying to earn my master of science in nursing…the knitting has been sporadic (which is definitely disheartening)…the yarn shopping even less frequent. but i am hoping to get back on top of things and get my creative juices flowing again.

since i am devoid of anything knitting related (and knitting pictures!)…i’ll post my most recent kitchen victory:  potato soup!  This was a product of the CSA bounty we had this fall.  (CSA = community supported agriculture).   We often struggled to find dishes to prepare with the, at times, weird food combos.  however, this soup just came together.  i made a giagantous batch of the stuff.  the neighbors loved it.  my brother’s MIL said it was better than her “good cook’ husband’s potatoe soup.  even my filipino parents liked the soup – and they are NOT soup people.

potato soup with leeks & mushrooms

ingredients:

• • • bacon, 4 or 5 strips
    • 2 medium carrots, diced
    • 1 small onion, diced
    • 2 celery stalks, diced
    • 1 pint button mushrooms, diced
    • 3 leeks, chopped
    • 3 medium potatoes, peeled & cubed
    • 2T butter
    • 1T herbs de provence
    • 1t ground coriander
    • 1/2 & 1/2, 1 pint
    • chicken broth, 1 box
    • salt & pepper to taste

directions

1. 1. 1. in large stock pot, render fat from bacon.  reserve bacon for garnish, if desired.
      2. add butter, then saute onion, carrots, celery, leeks and mushrooms until tender.
      3. add chicken broth and potatoes.  bring to a boil then turn down to a simmer until potatoes are tender.
      4. temper 1/2 & 1/2, add to soup.
      5. in a blender or food processor, blend soup in small batches to a smooth consistency.
      6. adjust seasonings if needed.  garnish with whatever you choose!  (bacon, croutons, green onions, cheese…sky’s the limit)
      7. enjoy!

i hope you get the chance to try it!  don’t forget to save me some!

have you seen this?

i don’t know how to embed you tube videos….wait…lemme google it….

wow. (hits easy button). that was easy. butter sent this to me today. and i cried. what a baby!

happy feel good, don’t you think?

i mentioned in my last post that i have acquired some stash recently….and i’ve just gotten around to posting about it.

have you tried fearless fibers yet? i was browsing etsy one day and saw some to-die-for colorways. i pounced on two skeins of sock yarn….come on….are you surprised?!?! i’ve had a hankering for more subdued tonal colors because of a recent cable fetish. have you seen the august six sox pattern? (dear god!!). so present to you a generous 550 yards (yes 550!!!) of fearless fibers 100% merino superwash sock yarn:

fearless fibers sock yarn in brick house colorway
100% superwash merino wool | 4 oz : 550 yds
note: a little more orange in real life…

fearless fibers sock yarn in smoke colorway
100% superwash merino wool | 4 oz : 550 yds
note: more blue than i expected, but still very happy with it

i haven’t posted about the sock club recently, but that doesn’t mean i don’t have beautiful yarn from that too….the most recent is a 50/50 cashmere and alpaca (ack! allergies!?! lynne says that baby alpaca might not be too allergenic for me) blend that is gorgeous and soft. it is stored double bagged and hermetically sealed amongst the rest of my stash.

the sock club, july yarn
50% cashmere : 50% baby alpacal | 219 yds | 2 skeins

as you read this, i will be jetting to the west coast to vacation in seattle and vancouver!! it will be a short, whirlwind trip…do me a favor and cross your needles and wish for good yarn and knitting!

the sweetest gift

butter and i try very hard to show k (my step-daughter) how to be kind and thoughtful. it’s so easy to throw a gift certificate into a card and call it a day, you know. but that little something extra you bring into your daily life is guaranteed to bring warm fuzzies.

have i told you this story already? maybe not.

anyway, for mother’s day, k gave me a giant bag of yarn. six skeins of craft store yarn in blinding shades of red, orange and yellow. it was worsted weight. and yes, it was acrylic. yikes.

“wow! thank you k! it was so thoughtful of you to buy me some yarn!”. then she said the sweetest thing. “i remembered that you were obsessed (was i obsessed?!? cough. um. yeah.) with finding yarn for the flame socks you really wanted to make, so i asked pa-paw if he could take me to get some yarn for your socks. you said you wanted these colors, right?”…..they are the perfect colors.

fire blanket (baby size) in carron wintuk
yarn gifted by k
ripple pattern in single crochet
started: july ?, 2007

now, of course i wasn’t going to make acrylic worsted weight socks. but i’m definitely going to use the yarn and i’m definitely going to let her know how much i love the colors and DEFINITELY going to tell her over and over and over again how impressed i was with her thoughtful gift.

i have since bought some regia solid sock yarn to make the socks. (no pics yet.  oy! so very behind on ravelry pics and what not.)

contest winner!!

i consulted with experts in order to determine the most statistically random and fair way to select a winner for my ‘you lucky dog’ contest. said experts indicated that i should “stuff a sock in it” and to “bug off”, to which i said, “but isn’t the point of the contest to make socks, not stuff them? “( i have no idea how bugs were going to make any type of decision for me. ) so instead, i opted for the following:

though i technically had 19 comments, someone had emailed me a response, making the total 20. i receive an email every time i get a comment…so i selected the 17th email…and tricia won!! hooray tricia!!! select your color and i’ll mail off the yarn!! here are the pics again for your viewing pleasure:

may i add something cheesey? thanks for responding, folks. you can’t imagine how theraputic it is to hear about happiness in your lives.

knitting? oh, i’ve been knitting. but my neices and my sister are in town from california…no time for pictures right now! but i will have some soon!!

a vacation yarn…

we’re back from vacation! (for yarn/knit stuff scroll down)

we try and get away from the dreary ohio weather about this time of year. butter (k) swears he has s.a.d., and sometimes i feel like i do too! i mean, come on, anyone who has experienced the ohio ‘winter’ months of gray skies would probably say the same. our cure was a trip to north carolina to visit our best friends in cary (near raleigh-durham). while the cold temperatures dipped into the 20′s here, we were enjoying blue skies and spring-like weather.

originally, we were going to start our drive on wednesday, butter’s birthday, but a twharted birthday surprise left me with the idea to leave one day earlier for skateboarding – especially for butter. he mapped out his skate stops (thanks to concrete disciples) and i searched for local yarn shops and found us a hotel in winston salem.

during the drive there i finished my first roza’s sock AND finished my first slipped stich sock with a 2×2 rib and tubular bindoff. whoot!

roza’s socks by grumperina (interweave knits spring 2007)
lorna’s laces shepherd’s sock douglas fir
started: february 27, 2007
needles: knitpicks size 0 dpn’s
notes: very snug fit on me with this needle size, first sock finished on 3/06/07

do you mind the tubular bindoff slanting to the left?
slipped stitch sock pattern by lynne
midnight fire from the sock club (jan)
started: february 2, 2007
notes: small size, toe-up (12 stitches) with short row heel; first sock finished 3/06/07

if you haven’t visited winston salem, go now!! the people were super nice and the city was so charming. we will plan to stay longer our next trip there. being smaller than columbus, i wasn’t sure what to expect of the lay of the land. we had no idea where to eat. (i tend to distrust the hotel concierge for some reason). instead, we turned to wheel of food. no, not the wheel with pat and vanna. it’s a wheel similar to the wheel of fortune wheel but with restaurants. you enter in a zip and spin away!! it’s not without it’s quirks (mcdonald’s and other food chains show up as choices)…but we hit the virtual food lottery! the west end cafe (a pub with great atmosphere and fantastic food) and mary’s, of course (a local hang-out with plenty of character and an imaginative menu) are two definite musts if you visit the city.

before we hit the skate park, on HIS birthday, butter drove me to two yarn shops. now that’s love.

we hit knit picky first.

knit picky is located in historic hanes town, a short drive from downtown winston salem. the store is an adorable renovated 1910 vintage house with a large sign in the front. as soon as we walked into the store, i was struck with how charming it was! displays of yarn and accessories quickly drew me in. almost immediately, we were greeted by store owner sammie jo thomas (hi sammie jo!). she was ever so helpful and so nice, too! although the store was small, i could picture myself spending a lot of time (and money yikes!) there. they had a nice selection of yarns ranging from standard cascade to noro to debbie bliss…oh, go visit and see for yourself! she also carried a few different types sock yarns by including trekking. there was a table in the back room for lessons and for knit-in’s as well as a large selection of pattern books. wireless internet access and a screened porch are also two amenities worth mentioning! we were introduced to another lady from near my old stomping grounds canton, ohio (i was so yarn shop-drunk i forgot your name, i’m sorry!)! we walked away with favorite socks, by interweave press, and an adorable lantern moon notepad with knit picky post-its! sammie jo, my whole experience at your shop has set the bar ever so high, i’m afraid that all of my future yarn shop experiences will be ruined by this! this stop was one the highlights of my vacation this year.

yeah! favorite socks and a lantern moon trinket
i really do think you MUST stop by knit picky if you’re in the winston salem area

we went to visit another yarn shop after that…but i’m afraid that all i can rave about is the fact that i was able to see colinette jitterbug in person! oh, and i took some home

colinette jitterbug yarn in jay
purchased from (the other winston salem lys that escapes me at the moment)
100% easycare merino wool | 100 g : 267 meters
thoughts: the color is beautiful, but the yardage is skimpy?!? thank god i have freakishly small feet!

i have more knitting news, including new socks started and more yarn!! but i’ll have to end this already long post…and put up pictures later.

(sigh) i wish i was still on vacation.

butter’s perfect hat – completed

i would like to introduce you to my fiance, butter.

i know, i know, why would i be engaged to a dairy product? much less a high fat one? truth be known, he was nicknamed before we started dating. we were both working at a dot com. i was in sales, he was in i.t. although we shared the same group of friends, i had no idea he was such a ‘ladies man’. you see, all the females in the office would always find him if they had any problems, computer-related or otherwise. oh, and he always wore yellow t-shirts.

like many companies at the time, ours was headed for a dot com fallout. i knew it. he knew it. we all knew it. in the end, we were both laid off. up until that point we were just friends by association. he would never stoop so low as to consider dating someone in sales; i never imagined that we would get along so well. but we did. and we spent a lot of time together passing the days until we found jobs. i call it dating in dog years…

butter’s perfect hat
my own pattern in kfi cashmereno
started: december 27, 2006
finished: january 14, 2007
needles: 2-#4 circular needles
notes: cast on 90 stitches, 2×2 ribbing for and 1″ or so,
gradual spiral decrease (dec,k x rows,dec, etc…);
i would probably use 99 stitches if i had to do it over again

every time i mention him on my blog i leave him a kiss. in ‘i.m. speak’ it’s (k). i know it’s a bit cheesey, but i admit to being a bit of a sap. long story short, we fell in love, moved in, bought a house….and are planning to get married sometime…anyone know of a good place to elope (we can’t seem to get the planning started!)?

hats and tarot cards

do you remember your first visit to the public library? i do. we were living in west virginia at the time. my mother scooped up the three kids and carted us off to ‘the city’ to go read some books. (i suspect that we kids were getting too rambuctious…was it around the time that we decided it was a good idea to raffle off all of our stuffed animals with 10 cent raffle tickets?)

anyway, i loved the library. it was so much fun to browse through all of the books. don’t know why, but i was drawn to the ‘supernatural’ section. i loved to read about ghosts and witches and vampires and fantasy and stuff like that (so much so that i read bram stoker’s dracula at age 9). i was infatuated with first roman, then greek and then norse mythology. what a little geek!! at one point i wanted to learn about the art of fortune-telling. i bought a set of tarot cards….but they still lay at the bottom of my closet. someday i will figure it out. but in the meantime, here’s the result to an online quiz found via ruiningmyfun regarding my lost interest in fortune telling.

You are The Empress
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

knitting-wise i’ve been working on a hat for butter (k). he has a smallish head and requested a new hat for winter. i’ve gotten the majority finished but i’ve frogged this a million times trying to figure out a decent way to decrease. i tried a gradual spiral-type decrease (decreasing every other row)….then a more abrupt, rounded shaping decrease…it’s current form is with raglan style decreases that square off the top….i don’t really like it….but i think if i frog even further back and do the same every other row it may be a perfect fit! what is your favorite type of decrease for hats (knit in the round?)

butter’s perfect hat
my own pattern in kfi cashmereno
started: december 27, 2006?
needles: 2-#4 circular needles
notes: cast on 90 stitches, 2×2 ribbing for and 1″ or so

goodbye 2006!!

2006 – my first year knit-blogging. 

i’m so glad to have ‘met’ you.  thanks for popping in and reading.  i hope you have a fantastic new year!!

(i’m off to work in a few hours…boo!)

see you in 2007!!

sister, sister

my sister and i are polar opposites…she is hyper, happy-go-lucky and giggle-y, where i tend toward the somewhat laid-back, sarcastic and snicker camp. my theory is that i balance her. that is not to say that i am not a happy person or that i do not giggle, i do. but especially when she is around my demeanor becomes the yang to her yin. here is the conversation that i had with my sister (a non-knitter) the other day…(for effect, imagine her speaking a zillion miles an hour)

me: hi, sis…

sis: hi tan-tan…hey are you going to make ashley and ally some fingerless gloves too?

me: so you got your (belated) birthday present? did you like it?

sis: the girls really want their own pair of gloves. and it would be cute to have matching scarves…

me: so did you like the gloves?

sis: ashley loves pink right now…and ally is obsessed with yellow.

me: so DID YOU LIKE THEM?

sis: …oh, yes! i’m going to use them when i play tennis. and the girls want some too…{insert chatter here}

as i’ve said before, i DO miss my sister but i often come away from our phone calls a little frustrated. even though we live on opposite sides of the continent, we are still sisters and have the ability to drive the other crazy. for the record, i conceded and said i would try to knit the girls something before we see each other in las vegas. but can i say this:

SHE IS GOING TO USE ALPACA/MERINO KNITS WHILE PLAYING TENNIS?!? WHAT?!?! ARGH!!!

—-

ps – i did buy some encore (read: sturdy and machine-washable, something i should have used for my sis) to make them some scarves and fingerless gloves…but now i’m uninspired to knit. i’ve looked through a million patterns and googled a bunch, but i can’t get excited about it. do you have any suggestions?

pps – i’m stalking the mailperson. i’m still waiting for the CTH supersock and….my STR sock club kit!!

ppps – sorry no pics today….but i promise to post if my packages arrive!!!

48 things you could care less about

i kept this post in my ‘back pocket’ for a day that i didn’t have much to write. i need more of these ‘back ups’ cuz often i find myself devoid of knitting projects to blog about. i get exhausted from work (rotating shifts) and i am worthless for a day or two after night shift…..zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..oh….huh?….where was i? …here is the 48 things meme that everyone and there brother has posted. dang i’m tired…i hate working night shift {yawn}.

1. FIRST NAME? tani. pronounced tah-nee. you know, rhymes with connie.

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? no, not really. but i was suppose to be a boy.
3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? this morning. i spilled some milk.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? sometimes.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT? does bacon count? okay, ham then. i know it’s bad for you. shut up.
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? sure, why not?

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? only my blog.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? intact. never had a problem with them

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? i’ll try anything once, even jump out of an airplane..but i think i would draw the line at bungee-ing, especially now that i’m getting older, the fear is setting in.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? frosted mini-wheats

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? only when i feel like being neat. (so no.)

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? physically, not so much…but i can lift and turn patients up to 300 pounds with some help. mentally? i’ve been known to be hard-headed; does that count?

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? vanilla…but then there’s ben &jerry’s strawberry cheesecake…ooohh and jenni’s ice cream salty caramel

14. SHOE SIZE? 5.5-6.5, depending on the brand and style. i have bird ankles and bony feet…so i slide through most sandals and open toed shoes. not so much fun shopping for shoes anymore.15. RED OR PINK? today, pink.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? i’m overly anxious

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? (she’ll never read this and i’ll never say this outloud) but my sister; she lives in cali. and although she drives me bonkers…(sigh)

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? no, i’ll stumble upon this on your blog eventually…but if you leave me a comment i’ll come visit and learn more about you!

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS, SHIRT AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? bright green socks, pj’s and a pink robe

20. LAST THING YOU ATE? leftovers

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? my imaginary friend

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? burnt sienna. it was the only crayon in the box i never used. so it was always in perfect shape (something i am not in currently).

23. FAVORITE SMELL? my df. (it must be the pheromones. grrrrrr)

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? jj (sorry dude, i just woke up)
25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? great personalities

26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON you stole THIS from? i think i would if i knew her personally

27. FAVORITE DRINK? black coffee

28. FAVORITE SPORT? is knitting a sport? no? then cup-stacking

29. EYE COLOR? brown. blah.

30. HAT SIZE? dunno, don’t wear hats, but i do know my noggin is on the larger side31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? sometimes. my eyes get dry easily so i wear my glasses mostly.

32. FAVORITE FOOD? rice with ______ (fill in the blank). hey, i’m filipino, what do you expect?

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? used to love horror flicks…now i just wish for happy endings

35. SUMMER OR WINTER? no. spring or fall!

36. HUGS OR KISSES? both.

37. FAVORITE DESSERT? my current obsession is sara lee poundcake

38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? dunno, maybe noone since i’m one of the last bloggers in the universe to do this meme.

39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? see above

40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? none currently. i’d rather knit.

41. WHAT’S ON YOUR MOUSE Pad? don’t have one

42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? didn’t watch anything

43. FAVORITE SOUNDS? geez, it depends on my mood.

44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES? rolling stones?

45. THE FURTHEST YOU’VE BEEN FROM HOME? the phillipines

46. WHAT’S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? the ability to connect with people (when i’m not cranky)

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? jersey

48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Stolen from knit-and-run

i also thought to add a pic or two of a past dyeing experiment (forgive the fuzzy resolution; i used an older cam). i started some striping socks for my bsd with this batch…but she grew too fast for me to finish them.

henry’s attic kona superwash dyed with wilton’s

my banner comes from the same photo session!

have a good thursday…send some caffeine thoughts for my night shift tonight!