Friday, October 30, 2009

Scary Pumpkin People, Chocolate Cupcakes, Socks, and a Shawl (Oh My!)

So, It's nearly 11 pm on Friday night and I'm still going strong.  I think the three, quad non-fat, caramel sauce lattes I had today may have something to do with it.

Anyway,  Aaron has duty and Parker is at a friends and I'm all alone, YEAH!  Well, sorta, I got bored.  Ivce done some cleaning, then decided that I needed to make some yummy homemade, chocolate cupcakes with a cream cheese, chocolate, butter cream icing.  Heart attack anyone.  Thought it would be fun to take the picture in front of the pumpkin people.  Turned out a bit frightening.




I've also been working on my shawl that I started this week.  It is turning out very nice and I can't wait for it to be done.  Technically the pattern calls it a "shawlette" but I think that that sounds pretty gay, so I'm going with shawl.  It's not super huge but I love the yarn and hopefully after it's blocked it won't look to grandma-ie.  I got the yarn last Saturday when my partner in crime - Denise - and I went to the Bitches with Stitches Expo in Hartford.  Really, it was the Yarn Expo and it was wonderfull, wish that I would have had thousands to spend.  So here's the picure.  Will post a new one when it's blocked and you can see the pattern better but you can kinda, sorta, maybe,see the lovely, deep colors here.  Oh yeah, it's the Bison Shawlette from Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders by Judith Durant.  And, if you want to learn more about the Yarn Expo with Denise, check out her blog: http://lastbraincell.blogspot.com/




Finally, the damn socks.  Denise and I always joke that we have "Sock ADD" unfortunately, there is no cure.  It appears that you start knitting a pair of socks, rip them out, start another pair, rip them out too or finish one sock and are tooooooo damn bored to start another.  Now, I really have made many, many pairs of socks for my self, friends, family and babies and kids.  But sometime, ahh.  Well, this pair is from the Socktober Mystery Sock 09 that should be done by October 31, wait, yes, it is tomorrow.  Halloween.  As you can see, I'm not gonna make the deadline, been a little distracted by stitches, shopping, cupcakes and scary Pumpkin People and all.  But I really do love them.  For more information you can click here.



I'm using the Flat Feet yarn to make the socks.  First time using it, I really like it.  The sock on the left was completed through week 2 and while I was waiting for the week 3 directions I started the second sock.  Well, you can see that it's not even on the needles,  I was almost done with week two and found a problem, yep you guessed it, I ripped it out back to week one.   Well, I was so ticked, I'm now two weeks behind and need/want to finish them.  After the shawl (well, unless I find something better to knit, damn ADD).  Here's a close up of the left sock.





So, I'm off to finish the shawl and I'm thinking that I may try to pull out my stitches (from my hand, not the shawl).  It's healing very nicely and it's closed and I have no patience to go to the doctors to wait hours for them to take them out.  Maybe I'll search the web first and find direction on how to do it.  Yeah, yeah, I know clip them carefully and gently pull them out.  I just want to be sure I won't pass out.  Let you know how it goes.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Getting ready for Halloween.

I love Halloween.  However, this year, I'm the Grinch of Halloween. 

I decided that I was going to make some cute pumpkin cookies using my cookie press.  I made the delicous butter cookie dough and dyed it a lovely shade of orange.  I loaded the dough into the press and the plunger wouldn't move.  So, with my left hand I was pulling the trigger and with the right I was pressing on the plunger.  And wouldn't you know it, yes, you guessed it, my right hand slipped and my web went down the metal teeth of the darn thing and I cut my webbing between the my thumb and first finger.

The pain turned my stomach over, I looked down and there was a huge hole in my hand.  I grabbed a wad of paper towels and applied pressure and threw my hand up in the air.  I gave my son Parker the phone and told him to call Aaron at work. 

Aaron thought I was going to take myself to the hospital.  I told him that wasn't possible because I thought I was going to pass out.  About 15 minutes later he was home and took me to the ER.  We spent only (ha ha) two hours there and I got three stitches.  Hey, that works out to 40 minutes per stitch.  OUCH!  Oh yeah, and a tetanus shot.  You, have gotta love injuring yourself. 

And yes, as you can tell I am a HUGE BABY.

So, Here's a picture of my right hand and the stitches. Kinda hard to see because it was kinda hard to take the picture.



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This all happened on Friday.  On Sunday, I decided to finally make the cookies.  I put the dough into the cookie press and I decided that it wasn't such a great idea.  I decided that rolled cookies would be easier and safer.  And behold, it was.  I used melted chocolate to decorate, nice and easy.  Parker helped and it was kinda funny, we were tying to paint the chocolate on using a toothpick..  They turned out frightfull.  Could have done alot better, but hey, at that point I just didn't care. 
 
To package them up for friends I made cute little cards with hand stamped "Eat, Drink and Be Scary" sayings and burned the edges for an authentic Halloween look.  I also made cute candy corns (say that three times fast) useing candy corn colored paper and a corner rounder.  Tied it all together with some nice hemp cord.  I also included a package of caramel corn I had made a few days earlier, that resulted in a blister on my thumb.  I guess you can say that I'm accident prone lately.  Lovely.  And no, there was no blood or anything in, near or around the cookie dough.