Greetings long lost souls. It’s been two weeks since my last post which, while better than the seven weeks between that and the post before it, is not cool and should be my last disappearance for a while. Things are falling into place around here – all the boxes are unpacked, all the clutter has been tossed or donated and I can finally look around the new house and sigh happily instead of having no idea where my extra food processor blades are (the horror).

Actually, there is one casualty of this move – the nubby thing on the top of my pressure cooker. Insert loud, inconsolable sobbing here. I was positive that I packed it in the pressure cooker. Of course when I took the lid off once it was out of the box, it was not only not inside the pot but not inside the box. Now that everything has been unpacked, I have to give up and order a new one. My dad gave me his (hilariously unused – hilariously because he’s owned it for 30 years and it still had the original recipe book/instruction manual inside) just a few months ago, but I can’t imagine making mashed potatoes without it now! It’s actually good for a lot of otherwise time consuming cooking, I should write an article about that.

So far this week, I have added four articles to the site – one for each section and yes, all from projects or recipes done and photographed months ago. However, they are all good projects and recipes!

	These are Pecan Pie Cookies, they have been officially counted as the 7th cookie of the year, baked back in February. I know, as if I’m only posting them now, but here they are – in all their pecan pie glory. They have all the pecany, brown sugary, buttery (and even slightly creamy) taste and texture of a pecan pie with the portability of a cookie. I know, I know. You’re welcome. Go make some. I’ll wait here.
	This torte was pulled from Smitten Kitchen, and just like everything else I pull from there, it was very, very good. It’s not fussy at all, and while its technically a summer squash, I used a butternut squash and cooked it in the dead of winter!
	Making mineral makeup was so fun!! Everything from knowing what’s actually in the makeup that I put on the biggest organ of my body, to being able to control the exact colours and richness is just amazing. Not to mention you can say you made your own (which is rad enough) and compared to other mineral makeup of the same quality, there is a decent savings there too!
	This hat is really really cool, but it’s also an epic fail if we’re determining success by wearability. Intended as a 31st birthday gift for a man with at least an average size head, it might fit Wee One #1. I decided to write about it anyway though because the pattern is great, and the finished product, while totally useless to the person I had intended it for, turned out better than I expected it to. I really love to do any kind of colourwork, but I usually sequester intarsia work to one room, out of the children’s grasp, so as not to walk into a room with yarn barf all over the place. Anyhoo, these were made in one room and somehow also made pretty quickly, for me anyway.

Tomorrow I’ll add more articles to the site and blog about them here! There are so many fun things I’ve made that I can’t wait to show off. Homemade Tater Tots, anyone??

In this post, I’m participating in three WIP Wednesdays; Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl.

Of course it’s socks, right?! I’m about to start a few sockless projects believe it or not! For now though, I’m knitting up Nemesis socks from Knitty for my Dad for Father’s Day. I’m almost done sock one. It’s amazing how little time it actually takes to knit a sock compared to how long it takes me to physically finish one. Kids, life, going to the beach, cooking, cleaning – I know, I know. This is officially a first world problem, yes? Sorry. Anyhoo, my Dad will be here any minute to stay for a couple of days, so away we go with some pictures of his sock!

Sadly, I was a little wobbily in the pattern on the foot. :/ However, I am very happy with the rest of the sock and I still have the second one to go!

The yarn is Stroll Sock Yarn in Terrain Twist. The pattern used 450 yards, and these balls are 231 yards so I got two and am hoping to use the left overs for a sock yarn blanket because I’m a big fat copy cat and I think they look really cute. The heel on this sock is lovely, but not so dainty, it’s definitely a unisex sock!

I am in love with this pattern. I really loathe knitting from a chart, and as much as I loathe the process I think it’s especially worth it for these socks.

I am weaving in ends on a blanket that originally I had planned to post as a finished object on Friday, but I’m thinking now about knitting another carbon copy of it and then knitting (or sewing) them together. It’s been done and shelved for almost two months now but after taking it out again and taking photos of it, I think it should be bigger. Much, much bigger. It’s a wedding-turned-first-anniversary gift, so bigger is better yes? That makes it a work in progress then, doesn’t it? Here she is!

Thoughts? Big enough for the newlyweds to snuggle under at least, right? <3

I’m baaaaack!!!

I know I said I’d be back in a week four months ago and as you can see there as been a whole overhaul around here, the blog has expanded to better sort and organize all the content and the really exciting news is in the middle of all of this – we bought a house!! There are a lot of reasons we love the house we bought but for now I’ll give you a sneak peak of our favourite parts – the backyard and of course the kitchen. There’s no way we could buy a house without a serious kitchen.

There will be more pictures as we move in and get settled – which isn’t happening until August anyway. The backyard is huge and has an area already set aside for gardening, and as you may have suspected, will be growing once I get my hands on it. The other thing I adore so much about this house is that it has a pantry – an absolute necessity in my dream kitchen.


The changes to this site have been long in the making and I am so happy to finally be finished and able to show it all off. I’m still going to be posting my weeklies – I love doing them! Just now I’ll be linking to the pages instead of putting the recipe or instructions directly in the blog post – this way I can include more than one if I want to.

Tomorrow, we’ll get back to business as usual, with a few little changes. The weekly line up looks like this now:

Mondays – Menu Mondays from Kate Says Stuff

Tuesdays – Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays, Tuesdays at the Table, Tuesday Night Supper Club and Hearth ‘n Soul

Work in Progress Wednesdays – from Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl

Baking with Kids Thursdays – documenting the kids’ cooking and baking through Baking with Kids

Cookie Fridays – perhaps the best day of the week, check out the gallery

Super Cute Saturdays – if I have time for this, so do you!

Catchall Sundays – rando day, for things that don’t fit anywhere else

I have still been doing my self-inflicted challenges, so I’ll be posting them as often as I can to catch up. Right now, I have a lot of fun stuff to share with you!

As far as my domestic endevours go, I feel head over heels for Bakerella’s Cupshakes, which essentially is a milkshake crossed with a cupcake. I also made step by step instructions for eclairs, and chocolate fudge. As part of the Baking With Kids challenge, where the kids are baking and cooking their way through Linda Collister’s cookbook, I made a batch of puff pastry for them to use in the giant cheese straws recipe. I also added the 4th cookie of the year, the playfully pink cowgirl cookies to the gallery.

I have gotten my crafty groove back, though so far I’ve only posted about my stack of facecloths. Ahem. I did add two window shopping posts though, one on Charlene’s Supply Closet and one on The Loopy Ewe, two shops I am moderately to severely obsessed with. I’ve also added two interviews (Krissy of Krissyanne Designs and Megan of Radmegan) plus a book review of yet another new obsession – Martha Stewart’s Craft Encyclopedia. I’ve been busy!

There have been some health-concious related kitchen changes around here as well. I may as well just say it now without outing anyone, but two dear friends of mine have gone vegan. Which means two things really. First of course it means I now know way more than I ever wanted to know about being vegan and what rules there are and what different types of vegans there are which then also means I also know a whole lot about all kinds of scary stuff that even my vegan friends are not interested in. What’s that? SUGAR. Wowzers. White sugar is way worse than I thought and people let me tell you, I love me some sweet treats so what to do? I’ve been testing recipes using other kinds of natural sweeteners (because as bad as white sugar is fake sugar is even worse), and they’re working out pretty well. I mention this because while I am still cooking and baking my way through Deceptively Delicious, and while I am aware that adding veggies to pretty much anything is never a bad thing, I hesitate to call these recipes healthy knowing all that I know now. I am going to keep them in the ‘healthy’ category anyway because they are miles healthier than what used to come out of my kitchen. The second thing that happens when good friends go vegan is that I have to learn to cook and bake for them! I can’t have them coming up for the weekend to eat pasta and lettuce, can I?! I have been learning so much – expect some uber healthy additions to the healthy section in the coming weeks.

In the meantime though, here’s what I have added to that section to start with – Deceptively Delicious Stew (which adds pureed borccoli to a yummy stew), Dr Oz’s Green Smoothie (this is crazy healthy), Deceptively Delicious Mac & Cheese (with cauliflower puree and two kinds of cheese), Deceptively Delicious Applesauce Muffins (with applesauce duh and carrot puree), Deceptively Delicious Brownies (with pureed carrots and spinach), and an old school homemade Garlic, Honey & Lemon Cough Syrup recipe. Very old school, my Granny would be proud.

Aaaaad just like I said I would, I dove right into making a ‘pretty’ section. I’ve become more of a girly girl than ever in the last year so it’s been fun to write about it! I added two window shopping pieces, Body Shop and Mod Cloth, plus a 101 on Lotions, my Make Up Bag Must Haves and my first hair tutorial ever – my Puffy Bun, which literally takes 5 minutes – no more than 10 even with all three wee ones running underfoot at once.

Phew. I hope my little hanful of loyal readers are happy with the changes. Let me know what you think guys!!

In this post, I’m participating in three WIP Wednesdays; Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl.

This is my 5th Work in Progress Wednesday and while we all know I post other weeklies (Marriage Monday has been going on since last summer), this weekly specifically really calls attention to what you managed to (not) get done in a week. I mean, yes I have three kids that I enjoy spending a lot of time with, and yes my husband has turned me into such a serious neat freak I can’t knit or sew or…well anything, until the house is clean, and yes, I cook everyday and bake almost everyday, but I’m not really thinking about any of that when Wednesday rolls around and I am posting about a single 3/4 done sock – that I started LAST Wednesday.

Anyhoo, let’s show some love to these socks, for my Uncle Peter’s birthday, called Jules. They’re actually a pretty quick knit. Pretty much all of this knitting was done over three short sessions while watching Law and Order at night. 😉

This is a close up of the waffley pattern in the leg of the sock. I think they’ll be extra warm because they look like thermal underwear!

So! I’ve carved out a piece of my nightly schedule to get more done around here, craft-wise. If I don’t, Wee One #1’s curtains will never be sewn and I will not get this amazing blanket done by July. I haven’t even touched it again yet because there are birthday socks in the way!

This is the heel of the sock. I adore socks with a slightly patterned heel. Especially if it’s not painful to knit!

My goal this week is to have at least finished these socks, if not finished these socks and started on the next ones. I need some pressure lol. I’m always a fast knitter in December!

In this post, I’m participating in three WIP Wednesdays; Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl.

I’m really loving this whole WIP Wednesday thing. It’s been a month now that I’ve been participating in these three link ups and it’s been a fun and motivating way to keep up with my ideas.

Work in Progress Wednesday is supposed to be just that, works in progress! However, since this is generally the only day I post about my projects, I’m posting my finished objects too! You’ll live, right? Great!

My No Tears Socks (pattern on Posh Yarn) are finally finished!!! Just in time too! Wee One #2’s Godparents will be here this weekend. I think he’ll really like the cable and that it’s not too fussy for a man’s sock but it’s not so boring either because he appreciates the work that goes into a nice sock. 🙂 We’re all really excited to see them and I’m excited to show you what we’ve cooking and baking for their visit. Fun!!

Since I just finished his sock last night, I’ve only just cast on today for my new sock, Knit Picks’ Palette in Navy.

My new Knit Picks order came in at the end of last week and I’m so excited to dive into it. Wanna see? Of course you do!!

I piled it onto the kid’s easel to show it off! This pile (3 balls of Knit Picks Palette in Navy for the socks I just mentioned are not pictured) will be knitted into; 3 pairs of socks, 1 hat, 12 facecloths, and a pair of mittens! I can hardly wait to get them all knitted up.

There is one other work in progress I don’t have good photos of! Hopefully by July, it’ll look like this! My sister made one for our parents and I looooove it. I’m making it as a wedding turned happy first anniversary gift! Mine is coming together in a green apple colour. Its made in triangles, you need 49 squares to make a decent blanket, and there are four triangles per square (duh) – so yes that’s 196 triangles! Whaaaaat?! My first triangle took a whole day (it’s pathetic I know, but I’ve got three wee ones running around and a kitchen calling my name lol), and my first triangle had a glaring error in it. Awful, glaring, beacon of light style error. I trucked on with the next triangle and made the same error – always towards the end where the bigger leaves are. Originally, I thought of just making smaller triangles, up to the point where I wasn’t messing up, but then my dear friend Talea (who I can’t link to because she is ‘between blogs’ right now) pointed out that the smaller triangles wont make a perfect square (sigh) and I’d need approximately eleventy million more triangles to complete the blanket (double sigh).

Sooooo, after I’ve finished a few months of birthday knitting, I’m going to attack this blanket head on and find the error in the pattern (maybe I wrote it down wrong??). If I want it finished for the middle of July (let’s set a July 15 deadline), and it takes me a day per triangle, that’s July 15 minus 196 days is 19 days ago. Hmm. Hahaha, so maybe I’ll make a smaller blanket! I will do some math and try to bend the time-space continuum and get back to you next Wednesday!

I know they’ll love it though, and my husband spent a lot of time with this cousin growing up and I’m especially fond of her parents so we do spend a lot of time together. 🙂

I’m still waiting on the skully fabric to make curtains for Wee One #1, and since his room is currently green and white with a weird brown border I have no doubt those curtains are going to set off a desire to paint the room. We’ve been here for 4 and a half months and while everything has a place and our routines are pretty firm in this new life, other things (like decor) are still coming together!

In this post, I’m participating in three WIP Wednesdays; Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl.

As usual, I am knitting. Socks. What else is new? These socks are wonderfully unisex and they’re being knit up for a very dear friend as a late Christmas gift. He is Wee One #2’s Godfather, and I’m technically not late because he and his darling wife have not crossed the border for their Christmas visit yet!

I came across the pattern on Ravelry, and then hopped over to Posh Yarn for all the deets. The only thing I don’t love about these socks is the weird jog from the rib on the cuff to the rib in the leg – you can’t even see it unless you know it’s there – but *I* know it’s there!

The rest of the sock? I love. It’s amazing. It knits up super fast even though it’s got a cable, and it’s not boring because there is a cable in the front and the back! I find that if I’m lucky enough to come across a fun pattern, like say the really cute polka dot socks in Paton’s Socks in the City, there is a serious gauge problem. Or if I come across a pattern that has little to it there’s no chance of a sizing issue, but it’s a total snooze and I don’t want to finish it!

I think I’ve finally stopped being wobbily with my cables. Pretty!!

I am knitting these in my hands down most favourite yarn ever – Malabrigo Sock, in Azules which is a really deep blue with little bursts of lighter blue and white. Delicious.

I have a knitting resolution this year. I’m going to try a few new sock knitting techniques. I’m going to properly knit toe up socks, perhaps Leyburns, and for sure I will try to knit up socks two at a time too! That would be nice! I don’t know if it will actually save time, but when I’m done – I’ll really be done!

I ordered a new box of yarn from Knit Picks last night, and I really want to finish this pair and my Dad’s birthday socks before the new stuff gets here. Fingers crossed next week I’ve got a new project to show off – and eventually I’ll have one that hasn’t been knitted. Maybe. 😛

2. January 19 – No Tears Socks

1. January 12 – Princess Curtains

In this post, I’m participating in three WIP Wednesdays; Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl.

I am aware that it’s already well into the evening on Wednesday, but I really wanted to check in with my Christmas knitting progress and still blog about some tasty creations in the morning. 🙂

This morning was Wee One #2’s last day of school before Christmas vacation, so I packed up her teacher’s Socks of Kindness, that I blogged about earlier. I also packed up a few of the mini stars and tree cookies I made last weekend for her kids (she has three also), but she wasn’t there today! Bummer!! Hopefully she checks in before the school is officially closed for two weeks (kindergarten is only a few days a week out here). Anyhoo, here’s her little package!

Since my last knitting post a few days ago, I’ve finished a stack of facecloths and one mitten. I posted about the first two facecloths here. They’re all knit from the same pattern, Mock Cable Facecloths, in three colours of Shine Worsted. Clementine is pretty obviously the orange pair, Wisteria is the light purple and Green Apple, of course is the green. I really adore this yarn and will be using it for more facecloths for the fam and for gifts!

I’m on a serious Knit Picks bender lately, this time using Wool of the Andes Worsted in Dune Twist. These mitts are for the kids’ school bus driver. He’s a new addition to our list of gift recipients since we have moved out to the woods! He’s a very nice guy and the kids always say that he’s not a yeller! I’ve never taken the school bus to school personally, but I always heard about mean school bus drivers. Glad to know he isn’t one! Also, wee one #2 tends to move slowly in the snow and he never gives her a hard time about waiting for her so he deserves something special. He’ll get a tin of treats too of course!

I will be baking a whole lotta cakes and cupcakes in the next three weeks to catch up on my self-inflicted cake challenge. Which may prove extra tricky since we’re away for 5 days, but I can do this! I made a little dent tonight with cake #45, Candy Cane Cake. No adult could stomach this. Maybe Andrew. Maybe. Don’t take that as a challenge, I even tried it in milk and the peppermint still knocked me on my butt.

I wish I could crank out knitting as quickly as baking! Ha! I tend to let baking get in the way of my knitting, which at this time of the year is as hard to avoid as it is necessary to avoid! Between that dilemma and being on Time of Use pricing for our hydro consumption, I only bake on the weekends now, so knitting should pick up. I’m posting these finished objects knowing that the recipients may be reading this so I wont say who they’re for!

First up are these Wickerware Socks. They’re knit in Knit Picks Palette in Delta, two skeins and a bit and while my official time on them is November 9 to November 15, if I hadn’t taken two nights off for sketching up Christmas lists and baking brownies they would have come together even faster. Lovely!

The person I made them for had commented on my knitted socks last time we hung out and I know he really wants a pair. He’s the sort of person knitters love to knit for. He’ll be careful with them, he’ll wear them often and when he does, he’ll tell people I made them for him. I know they wont end up at the back of his closet. I never knit for people like that anymore, that’s one of the forces behind the sweater curse, dontcha know. 😉

Now, I couldn’t possibly knit up a paid of socks for this man and not knit up a pair for his wife, who is equally delightful. Really. We are so lucky to have these people in our life. This sounds like Gill and Andrew doesn’t it (minus the wife part)? It’s not you guys, even though you are delightful! Just FYI, I’m not knitting anyone a second pair of socks until everyone I love has a single pair – they got socks for Christmas last year!

These lovelies were knit in Knit Picks Stroll in Sprinkle Heather and I adore them. When Talea saw how fast they were coming together for me (I did the entire leg of the first one in a single day), she casted on immediately too! The pattern is called Duckies, and according to my Ravelry queue, I’ve wanted to knit them since Christmas two years ago!

My official time on these socks was horrible (November 16 – December 8) because I hosted a Gothy Tea Party for my sister’s 22nd birthday, and then I got obsessed with Christmas baking. Ahem. This yarn is delicious. Delicious. I loooooooved knitting with it and I will buy more in as many colours as possible this coming year. It’s my new go-to sock yarn. Ok, maybe Lorna’s Laces is still my top, but this is right up there.

Then this week, I’ve been dividing my time between Christmas crafts with the kids, baking, knitting and the usual to do’s of daily life. Facecloths are the perfect way to feel like you’re accomplishing a whole lot in a short time! Hooray!

I wanted to get as much as I could out of the yarn I bought from Knit Picks, so instead of the size 6s the pattern calls for, I used size 4s and squeezed out two facecloths from a single skein of Knit Picks Shine in Worsted – these green ones in Green Apple. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself until my husband pointed out that they look ‘mini’. Hmm. I can either block them and pray they’ll grow a little OR I can leave them as is and call them makeup remover cloths. Yes? You don’t need a whole facecloth to do the job, but you do need more than those little pads from the drug store. I haven’t decided yet, but they are lovely and fast and look great in green! Four more to go! Two in Clementine and two in Wisteria!

I will, at least, be posting my knitting on Wednesdays and just found these WIP Wednesday link ups at – Freshly Pieced, Tami Amis and Musings From The Fishbowl. Fun!

Next up on the list of Christmas baking was Ooey Gooey Chewy S’more Bars from the same magazine as the treats I posted about yesterday. There is a batch of these babies in the basement freezer right now, though I think I may take them out before Christmas to see how they froze (the recipe says they’re good in the freezer for 3 months). I had a tiny nibble of a piece that broke off and man these are so good. Essentially, you bake a spongey cake-like loaf with oatmeal and graham crackers. After it’s baked you add the marshmallows and chocolate on top and pop it back in the oven for those to melt!

Ooey, Gooey, Chewy S’more Bars – from Christmas Cookies Magazine (Better Homes And Gardens, 2009)

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
2 1/2 cups tiny marshmallows
1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate baking chunks

Preheat to 350, line your pan (13×9 was called for, but I used one more like 12×10) with aluminum foil and lightly grease the foil. I thought I was smart in using a silicone pan and skipped the foil – and my bottoms burned! Use foil, and butter it!

Beat butter on high for 30 seconds, add the brown sugar until combined scraping the sides of the bowl. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined, then beat in the flour. Now stir in your oats and graham cracker crumbs.

Set aside 1 cup of the mixture, and spread the rest of it in the pan (using the back of a wet spoon makes this eleventy billion times easier). Bake this for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned (mine was more like 10 minutes).

Now for the fun part! When you take it out, sprinkle the marshmallows and chocolate chunks over the top of it! Then take the 1 cup of the mixture you set aside and dot that over top of the marshmallows and chocolate. Now pop it back in the oven for another 15 minutes or so – just till the marshmallows are browned campfire-style.

You’ll have to let them cool completely on a wire rack before you cut them or you’ll have a seriously gooey mess on your hands (ask me how I know lol). According to the recipe store them at room temp for up to 3 days or freeze for up to three months.

I was going to post my list of Christmas baking, but it’s a little insane and full of surprises for other people. I’ll post recipes as I bake them and do a recap as I thaw and package them all.

Switching gears, but keeping with the Christmas to do, are these men’s socks. Men’s socks are tricky because if there’s too much detail in the pattern they end up looking too feminine but if there’s not enough you’re just knitting a plain tube and I literally fall asleep while knitting when I knit patterns like that.

These socks are the cure for that! A very simple 6 row repeat that keeps you focused on the knitting, but lets you carry on a conversation and are clearly GUY socks. 🙂

Back to knitting now, the countdown to Christmas is only 42 days and stay tuned for preparations for my sister’s birthday weekend!