Mmmm.... Brownies

This weekend I made some valentines day inspired brownies. These are raspberry cheesecake swirl brownies. I got the idea to make these brownies from reading one of the many food blogs I read occasionally. I can't remember which one at the moment though. In any case, Friday night I was watching the Food Network and guess what... Alton Brown was making brownies. Wow, how did he know I was thinking about making brownies? I watched him make his recipe and it seemed simple enough so I decided to use his recipe. Iam a visual person so I pick things up faster if I see someone do it first. All I did was add the raspberry creamcheese swirl to turn these brownies into valentine brownies. They came out delicious....very chocolatey.

mmm...so rich and silky smooth

Don't they look pretty?

Nice n thick...so so so goood

I know you want a piece....

In other news, I also visited a yarn shop which happens to be in my old neighborhood and since I was in the neighboorhood on Saturday at my sister's place making the brownies, I decided to check it out on my way home. Downtown Yarns is located at 45 Avenue A between 3rd and 4th Streets. It's a cute little shop and the people running the shop were very friendly and helpful.

Here are some pictures I got of the shop for your viewing pleasure. They were so nice the even

balled the koigu for me for free and gave me a free fingerless glove pattern.

I bought some Koigu for the fingerless gloves I want to make and I bought some Zara extra fine merino in a chocolate brown for the Odessa hat.

Koigu

I was able to cast on for this hat on Sunday and have completed the one inch rib so far and started the Odessa hat pattern.

Here is a picture of a completed Odessa hat from Chazari's photos. This is the picture that made me want to make this hat, so back in December, I left a comment, asking her for the pattern and she recently emailed all those who left comments, the pattern. Which is available here.

Needless to say I had a full weekend. Hope everyone also had a great weekend.

Six Hats in about Six Months

Since late September early October I have completed 6 hats. The latest hat to come off my needles is the Basic Hat in Patons 100% wool in a olive green color. Basically, this hat is pretty simple; however, in me thinking this hat was so simple, I underestimated the fact that no matter how simple something is you can always mess it up. I ended up having to fix at least three times, a slipped stitch a twisted stitch or something...Im new to knitting and although I don't know what was exactly wrong when I did encounter a mistake, I was always able to at least recognize that there was something wrong. I just starred at the problem for as long as I needed to in order to be able to try and figure out how to fix the mistake. Eventually I was successful and able to move forward and complete the hat. At times though, I thought I would just have to wait and have Deborah fix it for me but I just kept trying and was able to fix the problem myself.

Newsboy Cap Complete

Here I am proudly wearing my Newsboy Cap that I completed on Saturday with Deborah's guidance of course. Thanks Deb! I knitted an extra round of the stitch pattern which makes my hat a bit longer so it had room to sort of flop over a bit instead of being more fitted like Deborah's hat. I like how it turned out and I think it looks pretty good on me if I do say so myself...toot toot.

Again, this was my first time learning a few techniques. First, cabeling, which is not as intimadating as it may sound or look. I found it to be very simple once I got the feel for it. It's always a bit akward when you first try something new like this. It just takes a little time to get comfortable with the way you hold the needles. I also learned how to increase (M1) and how to pick up stitches for the brim in this case. That to me was the most challenging of all but as I kept doing it it wasn't so bad. Although, if I have to do it again for a future project Iam sure I will be calling on Deborah for a refresher...lol

I know...It's been a while

I know it's been a while since my last post. I guess I've been a bit lazy when it comes to posting. Anyway, I don't have pictures of everything I have been working on but here is what I do have.

Here is the spread for the second annual christmas cookie bake off that Deborah and I do to give as christmas gifts to co-workers and friends. This year we didn't make snickerdoodles. We only made chocolate chip, chocolate chunk and oatmeal raisin. I told Deborah I wanted to make extra oatmeal raisin because I had more to give out this year. She hesitantly agreed. The cookies were a hit as usual and after we gave all the cookies out, Deborah said next year we need to make more because she had more people to give to then she originally thought. See...I told you! :o)

Here is the cover page of my 2007 scrapbook album, I completed on Staturday. It's simple, but appropriate. I was love struck in 2007 so this page sums up my year.

This is the second watch cap I've done. On this one though I made it shorter so it wouldn't have the fold up flap. I used a cotton yarn on this one.

I cast on for my fifth hat last night. Im knitting the Headline News Cabled Newsboy Cap that Deborah is also knitting. She will be done way before me though. This will be my first time learning how to do cables. We will see how it goes. Looking forward to learning something new!

New Year, New Beginning

I guess I could say 2007 was a good year for me. One of the main reasons I say this is because I found love and happiness in 2007. I’ am looking forward to 2008 bringing continued love and happiness but also bringing success and accomplishment of my goals. I hope to be more focused and determined in realizing my goals this year. Focusing on my health and well-being, my finances and my creative outlets.

This holiday season was pretty quiet for me and I was fine with that. It gave me more time for myself. I was able to knit three hats so far. Two for my two nieces and one for one of my nephews. I have two more hats to knit for my other two nephews. Since I have already posted the pics for my neices hats here is the pic of the hat for my nephew. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to take pictures of the kids in the hats…duh! I was so upset when I realized. Anyway, the hats do fit so that’s good.

New Year's Eve this year was also quiet. I did get one spread done though and here it is. My youngest niece Mia as Tinker Bell. This was her Halloween costume this year that she decided to model for me during her sister Alicia’s birthday party.

Wishing you all happiness, success, and accomplishment of all your goals for 2008!

Christmas Baking and Knitting

This weekend Deborah and I had our 2nd Annual Christmas Cookie Baking Day. This year we made Oatmeal Raisin, Chocolate Chip and Chocolate Chunk, ...mmm. They were delicious. Well, you know we had to taste test the cookies before we could give them away to our co-workers, friends and family right? We started bright and early in the morning and finished baking and packaging around 5 or 6pm. In between baking we were knitting. It was a long day, but we had fun.

Here I am in the hat I Knitted for my niece. It's not completely done. Deborah still has to help me seam it up and weave in the ends. I just pinned it in the back so I could take a picture in it. I actually adjusted this cap a bit. This cap is knitted flat so as I was knitting it, I wrapped it around my head to see how it fit. It was about 5" in length from bottom to top. The instructions said to work the 8 row pattern stitch for a total of 6 repeats until the piece measures approx. 5 1/2" . I had completed four full pattern repeats and 6 rows of the 5th repeat when I wrapped the cap around my head and it measured 5". The cap came up to almost the top of my head. I didn't want the cap to have alot of room at the top. I wanted it to fit snug and since my neice is smaller than me I made the decision (without my teacher's knowledge...sorry Deb :0)) to skip pattern repeat 5 and 6 and start the decreases. It turned out fine I think. I photoshop'ed the picture to blur out the background crap in my apt.

Weekend FO

For those of you who are not knitters, FO means finished object. I just recently learned that myself. Anyway, yes I do finally have my first ever FO as you can see from the pictures below.

This is my very first hat. I made it for my youngest niece Mia. Hopefully it will fit her. If not I can always make her another hat. Here is the hat when I switched to the double-sided needles. It took me a while to wrap my mind around how I was actually going to do this but, I was patient and figered it out in the end.

This weekend I visited my friend who lives upstate in Willow, NY and we went to a Christmas Tree Farm where you pick and cut your own chistmas tree. We were in the holiday spirt as we walked around to find the perfect christmas tree. We both picked the same christmas tree at the same time. It sure didn't take as long as I thought it would. Another thing that did not take as long as I thought it would was cutting that tree down with a hacksaw. I did however, have experience with a hacksaw...remember Debrorah? Anyway we cut the tree down and carried it to the area where they wrap it up for you, then we carried it all the way back to the car to tie it to the top of the car. Boy did we both wake up sore the next day...lol. Anyway I had a great weekend.

Here is Pat after we spotted the perfect tree.

Me with the Hacksaw...

Here is the tree once we set it up in her house. Unfortunately we did not have time to decorate it. We were pooped...plus I was busy knitting and she was busy making us dinner.