Belinda Bunny (It's almost spring)

 Belinda Bunny's all dressed up in her Easter finery.  Just in time for class.  Looks like Spring is about here.

Instead of an Easter bonnet, Belinda bought a new dress and shoes.

Her panties are pretty cute too.  Even what's underneath is important to the well-dressed bunny.

We took a little winter vacation to get away from the snow and this is where we went.  Isn't it lovely?  Dusk is beautiful in Arizona.  The backyard was just warm enough to sit and enjoy the scenery and wildlife.  My Sister-in-law has a gorgeous desert mountain home on a golf course which she so generously lent us for a week.  

I hadn't shown you my Christmas gifts (because the recipients read my blog).  I made socks of course. 

Both pairI knitted turned out lovely...except my husbands didn't fit.  

He has a large instep and the socks fit too tightly there.  Because the yarn was merino and silk and an investment, I wanted him to wear them and that meant they needed to be comfortable.  So...

This happened.

 

My knitting group cringed.  They asked if it didn't hurt to rip back two lovely socks (size 12) just above the toe where the instep started.  

NOPE!

I want him to wear them and so they need to fit. I now have a custom pattern just for him.

 Here's the finished pair.  Not nicely blocked but finished.

I couldn't resist taking a photo where I re-knit them.

Quite a different scene than the snow and ice where they were born.

No wool socks were needed in this winter weather, but unfortunately we had to go home.

And it snowed again yesterday.  The socks were just what he needed.

Little Cotton Rabbits....hooray!

Aren't these just the cutest little animals you've ever seen.  Julie Williams' Little Cotton Rabbits are addicting to knit.  I may have knitted 35 or so a few of them.

It's been busy here.  Nothing earth shattering or bad...just busy.

We hived two new packages of bees last weekend and they're doing fine so far.  The queen is out and they're gathering nectar. We've had house guests and a family wedding coming up.  Abby graduated from university and Rachel got a new job. And tax season is over!   It's a good life.

I hope to get back here sooner rather than later.
Hope all is well with you.

Nougat...Big Hunk Copycat Candy

November and December have flown by...fast.

I did make some deliciously chewy and retro candy.  Did you eat Big Hunk candy as a child?  It was my favorite. If we were at a movie theater, it was the chosen treat.  Forget popcorn.  I could have that at home any time but a Big Hunk could be made to last the entire movie and then some.
I told my Mother I wanted to make it when I was about 10 years old.  I was convinced that all I needed was some flour and shortening right?  It was white after all.  Mom told me I couldn't make it but I was certain I could and bless her heart....she stood by and let me try.  Yeah...it didn't turn out so well.

Flash forward a few years years later to this week.  I got this great recipe from my daughter and made a batch of Big Hunk, or nougat, which is the correct name for this delightful candy from my childhood.

And it is delicious and surprisingly easy!  You'll need a candy thermometer to get just the right "chew".  And who would have guessed that it is actually made with marshmallow creme from a jar.
One batch made many, many pieces; which is good, because no one missed a few while they were being wrapped and there were still more than enough to go into the treat bags for the neighbor gifts.

So if you need a quick last minute treat before Christmas... make sure you have some MARSHMALLOW CREME on hand.  Shortening just won't work.  But then you knew that already.

Big Hunk Nougat

3 cups of dry roasted peanuts (about 18 oz.)                      

1 ½ teaspoons of vanilla
3 jars (7 oz. each) of marshmallow cream                        

6 tablespoons of butter
2 1/4 cups of light corn syrup

1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 1/4 cups of sugar

Spray an 11 x 17-inch baking sheet (a half sheet tray) with non-stick spray; sprinkle it evenly with the peanuts and set aside.  Take a bit of the butter and grease a large bowl.  Place the marshmallow cream in the mixing bowl and set aside.  Combine the corn syrup and sugar in a saucepan and place over it over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil.
Place a lid on the pan and leave it for 2 to 3 minutes to wash any sugar crystals down into the pan. Remove the lid and add a candy thermometer to the pan.  Bring the syrup to a rolling boil and cook it
to 280 degrees (at sea level).  The syrup will make a soft crack sound when dropped into cold water and it should be firm but pliable when picked up with the fingers.  Adjust the temperature for your altitude.  At my altitude water boils at 202 degrees F. so I cook this syrup just until it reaches 270 degrees F.  Remove syrup from heat and allow to cool 2 minutes in the pan.  Pour the sugar syrup over the marshmallow cream.  Do not scrape the pan.

Add butter, vanilla and salt.  Fold all the ingredients together using a wooden spoon.  Pour the mixture over the peanuts and spread evenly on the prepared sheet.  

Allow nougat to stand at room temperature for 3 hours or until firm.  

Cut into bite-size pieces and wrap in wax paper or cellophane wrappers immediately.  If you let the candy sit without wrapping it may flatten and stick to the adjacent pieces.

Girl Mouse in a Flowery Dress!

Julie Williams' newest pattern.  I am working on the Boy Mouse now.  Julie always does a boy and a girl version of her patterns.  My girl is a little bit pudgy.  I am  loving her though.  I will be adding her to my basket of toys in the studio.

Knitting Up a Storm!

Thanksgiving is still weeks away and I am seeing Christmas decorations in the stores already.  So I don't think I am out of line in showing you some of my Christmas gift knitting.

If you are my children....stop right here!  Don't look.  These may spoil your Christmas surprise.

I got a late start this year but the annual gift socks are underway.  I knit them toe up and I love the freedom this gives me to use every last bit of the skein (at least to make them as tall as I want).  I divide the skein into two balls that I weigh on my kitchen scale so the skein is divided in half by weight.

The green socks are knit with Scorched Lime "Smooshy" from Dream yarns.  The yarn is soft but it's more of a sport weight so I chose the Van Dyke sock pattern, which is written for sport weight yarn. The heel is a basic gusset heel which is less bulky than the split stitch heel.  Smooshy is thicker than other sock yarns so the gusset heel is a good pattern choice I think.

I loved the Must Stash yarn in the Dark Side of the Moon colorway that stripes and would happily order it in other colorways but the web store is closed until the owner can fill back orders and restock.  The Yarn Harlot made socks and posted them on her blog and the yarn sold out almost immediately.

The striped socks are basic split heel socks.  This yarn is fine and thin and oh so soft.  It knits up less bulky and I have family who likes not-so-bulky socks.  And best of all, the hank comes in two separately tied skeins, which are then twisted together.  The store owner has started both skeins at the exact same place/color so your socks come out evenly without the knitter having to mark the skein and try to find the exact color spot to cast on to make the socks identical. Genius!  I hope this catches on and other yarn vendors start selling their yarn the same way.  A knitter can dream can't she?

Both patterns can be found in Wendy D. Johnson's Socks From The Toe UP book.

2 pairs down and ....a few lot more to knit.

At least I am not hanging them in front of the mantel yet.

Wedding Dresses....and more dresses.

Much of my spare time the last two months has been devoted to sewing dresses; specifically a wedding dress and a bridesmaid dress for Abby and Patrick's wedding.
Abby is my daughters freshman roommate and we've long considered her one of our own.  Patrick really is one of our own...he's an actual cousin. Now Abby is officially part of our family and we couldn't be happier.

This is Abby in her wedding dress just after the ceremony.  Doesn't they look happy? They are such a handsome couple.

Abby fell in love with the fabric and fit of a strapless wedding gown, but she wanted more coverage and she wanted sleeves.  The wedding date was set for late October and the weather turns cool by then so she chose 3/4 length sleeves.

This was the dress she purchased.

Abby's mom was able to acquire extra fabric and lace from the designer so I could build Abby a bodice with sleeves.  I took apart the entire dress; bustier, boning, lining, zipper and both fabrics (lace and underlining).  I fabricated a bodice with neckline and sleeves, took up the hem about 3 inches and put it all back together with tiny satin covered buttons up the back.

We added a satin ribbon and quite a while later,  the dress was done.
Abby was happy and I was happy. I was happy I didn't ruin Abby's wedding day with a dress she didn't like.  It's always a risk remaking an entire (already beautiful, I might add) wedding gown.  I will admit I was relieved when I finished and it was what she had envisioned.
It was a win/win situation.

My daughter Rachel arrived home from a 16 day European trip the day before the wedding. I made her a bridesmaid dress rather quickly.  She's the tall blonde to the left of the bride.

I really loved how her blue lace dress turned out.  More photos to come of Rachel's dress.

The send off was a success. 

Congratulations to the new bride and groom.

A Few Knitt-y things.

 We've had a bit of car time lately and I've been knitting up a storm. B has been nice enough to do all the driving so I can work on projects.

The talented and amazing Julie Williams from Little Cotton Rabbits sent me a free preview pattern for her newest pattern, Mouse girl.  Here's my little mouse in progress to the right of the fox head. The patterns will be available for sale at the end of October.  If you are interested in the Mouse Girl or her Mouse Boy knitting pattern (or both of them), go on over to Julie's blog  or check her out on the Ravelry link above. She also has a generous giveaway for two stuffed toys on her blog right now.  Two winners will win these darling ballerinas.  Go on over and comment.

 You won't want to miss it.

This skein came in the mail a few days ago.  It's Must Stash sock yarn, in the Dark Side of the Moon colorway.  She must be getting bombarded with orders as her store is down until mid November, but I will be purchasing another skein as soon as she has some in the store.  I love this yarn company and the soft wool yarn as well!  The hank comes divided into two perfectly even skeins that start at the same color in the rotation.  You just ball each one separately and start just start knitting; there is no way to mess up the self striping pattern.  Why doesn't everyone sell their yarn like this?  I had my kitchen scale out, ready to divide the hank, and promptly and happily put it aside.

One sock finished and one on the needles.  Christmas present knitting is underway.  I finished the green pair of socks this week as well.  I'm on a roll.

I'm off to sew on a Bridesmaid dress.  

Have a great week.

A Few Things...

I've been working on a few things.

The Antler Cardigan in progress.
It's finished now and is waiting to be blocked.

The first sock from my favorite sock method/book by Wendy Johnson was halfway finished when I tried it on.  OOPS!  It was just a little too big around.  So I frogged it, wound it around my I Pad mini, 

wound it into a skein,

 made a hank out of it by tying it off in three places so it wouldn't get all tangled up and immersed it in cold water.

 Into my salad spinner it went.

 Look how much water I was able to spin out of the hank.

 
I hung it over the sink to dry.  Please ignore my sad, worn out faucet.  It's being replaced next week with a shiny bright new one.  The bath in cold water did the trick.  The kinks are gone and when the hank dries I'll wind it into a ball and re knit the yarn into another project.  I decided to frog the picot edge on the sock as well.  It was just too tight, so I did Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off and the second sock is now well underway.

Abby decided she wanted satin covered buttons up the back of her bridal gown so after making 15 of them, I laid them out and spaced them before hand sewing them to camouflage the invisible zipper..  Her dress is now finished.  I'll post photos of her in it later.

That's what I've been doing the last few weeks.
What's been keeping you busy?

The Wedding Dress

 There's going to be a wedding.

And this is what I've been doing this week instead of posting on my blog.

Abby bought a dress that was strapless (on sale).  She wanted one with a princess neckline and sleeves.  So a week later, I have taken the dress apart and remade it with a bodice (it will also have sleeves when I am finished with it).  The lining is altered, a new longer zipper's in place, the neckline was marked for the scalloped lace and cut out and the dress is ready to be joined to the lining.

All that's left are the sleeves and the bustle tape so Abby can dance with Patrick at her wedding.

Oh wait, on second thought...there may be some hand sewn embellishments later. And possibly a long row of tiny hand -covered buttons (just for show) up the back and some hand made loops on the sides and back so the 2-inch satin sash will stay in place. And did I mention that Abby is a teeny tiny bit of a thing, around 5 feet tall, so the hem will need to be taken up but that's a piece-of-cake after remaking the dress.

I'm in the home stretch and it feels good.  It's always a bit dangerous to undertake and make such severe changes on something so expensive and important as someone else's wedding dress, even if she a really really good friend.  Even if I think of her almost as another of my daughters.  Abby was blessed when the original dress designer gifted us some of the same fabric and lace.  Wow...he's amazingly nice. There is no way I could have found fabric or lace to match.  NO WAY.  The dress would have looked homemade and altered and not good at all without the same lace and fabric.

All this has been going on while the rest of the house looks like this....5 rooms of "like this".

I stuffed towels around the sewing room door and the dress is covered in plastic while I'm not working on it. The sewing room doesn't normally look like a bomb went off in there but there is overflow right now from other rooms that are being worked on.  I managed to clear out a good portion of it so I could work.

There's not much worse than plaster dust all over the house while trying to sew a wedding dress..

It might take a few months to wipe down the whole house.  There is dust everywhere!!!!!!!  The painters assure me they will be done by the holidays.

I'm hoping they mean the Halloween holidays. 

Off the needles...finally!

Church mouse yarns and teas Wee ones Baby Wrap sweater

I liked this quick knit, and I would categorize it as EASY.  I changed up the yarns a bit.  I used Koigu variegated yarn and Blue Sky Alpaca yarn and turned it "inside out" so the stripey look was integrated and less stripey.  I also used the pink Blue Sky yarn for the tie and ruffle.  I didn't like the bulk of the tie going all the baby around baby's back so I added a snap to the underside to hold the left side wrap down and just added the tie to the one side.

It was a bit boring knitting all the garter stitch ridges but I now have another project for the "hope chest".

Little Cotton Rabbits Boy Elephant

If you are a frequent visitor here, you'll absolutely know how much I love Julie Williams' Little Cotton Rabbits knitting patterns.  I've knitted a few OK...a lot of them before.  This may or may not be the 22nd animal I've knitted.  But who's counting...don't judge me.  As cute as these are, there must be others who have the same obsession.

Here he is in his "birthday suit".

 I love the little tail; and the sweater; and his little short trousers; oh, and did I mention how much I love his curly little trunk.  Yes, I love everything about him!

I immediately bought her newest patterns and made up the boy.  He's so darn cute!!!  I'm working on the girl elephant too.  Check out Julie's patterns.  They are intensive, easy to follow, and well written.