over the river and through the woods...

Paul and I made the trek to Minnesota for Thanksgiving. It was unseasonably warm and sunny, which was a delight. We managed to squeeze in visits with family and friends, a baby shower, a trip to the Happy Gnome in St. Paul (great selection of microbrews from the Midwest), and a walk along the mighty Mississippi in St. Paul. So pretty despite the lack of foliage!

view from Mississippi River Blvd. in St. Paul

Plus we stopped at State St. Brats in Madison for a Spotted Cow and cheese curds. That's a lot to do in just a few short days! All that time in the Jeep was good for my knitting mojo, although my leg muscles feel as if they've atrophied from too much sitting.

Pattern: Upside-Down Daisy, by Susan B. Anderson (rav)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (pink), less than 1 ball
oddments of Lion Brand Cashmere Blend (cream) and Cashmerino DK (green)
Size: 6 months
Needles: US 6 needles for the hat
US 5 for the green stem (I used a DK weight yarn to make it less bulky)
US 7 for the cream-colored petals

Notes:
This little hat reminds me of flower fairies! The hat itself is very quick to knit, and the pattern's very clear but rather fiddly. Only 5 petals fit on the hat (rather than the 6 specified in the pattern), and applying them is a pain in the neck. I made each of the petals a few rows longer, a fairly common mod on Ravelry. The finished product is darling, and I'm looking forward to giving it to my friends' new baby girl next Sunday.
Babies are popping up everywhere, by the way. My friends are reproducing at an alarming rate, and I'm hard-pressed to keep up with the baby knits!

I had sworn off knitting baby blankets a while back. They take too long, they use so much yarn, they get pretty boring... you know the drill. Well, apparently I fell off the wagon, as I'm almost done with one:

I'm using Jennifer Braico's Hip to Be Square pattern (rav) and (many, many) balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky. It's soft, squishy, and nice to knit, but most balls have a knot or two, plus the yardage is pretty skimpy. All that's left is the applied i-cord edging and weaving in a million ends.

One more photo from Minnesota:

Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis

homecoming

I'm back from a whirlwind trip to Minnesota. Some highlights...
- spending time up north on Roosevelt Lake (NW of L. Mille Lacs)
- visiting a new cidery in Stockholm, WI -- Maiden Rock Cidery. Their Honeycrisp hard cider is delicious!
- seeing Public Enemies -- the scenes of Billie's apt. along the El tracks were shot in my back alley! I enjoyed the movie; that Johnny Depp can really act. It's a pretty straight portrayal -- not overly stylized, as many gangster movies are.

Strangely enough, I didn't knit much on my trip. Staying at my parents' house causes me to revert back to my teenage self -- lots of reading and listening to the Smiths.

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Pattern: Moderne Baby Blanket by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne

Needles: Clover US 8 bamboo circs
Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, many skeins
(305 lemongrass, 207 chili, 102 ivory, 400 fog, 209 maize, 401 chicory, 403 sky)

Notes: Great pattern - very fun and easy to knit. It's a yarn-eater, so be forewarned. I started off using leftover skeins, so I didn't follow the number of rows in the pattern -- I just knit until I ran out of yarn or thought it looked good. This blanket was a great opportunity to play with color. I hate doing actual colorwork, so this was perfect for me. Mission Falls is great to work with -- not too much wrist/hand fatigue considering that it's 100% cotton.

Time to pop this in the mail to Colorado!

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My cousin adopted a new cat while I was home last week. Such a cutie. See those paws?
Yep, he's polydactyl. He looks like he's wearing big mittens. :-)

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The Hap Blanket is almost done... I'm still loving the Eco Wool.
We've reached the amorphous blob stage where it's all bunched up on the circular needles.

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In the kitchen

I whipped up a Lemony Zucchini Goat Cheese pizza for dinner last night. Yum! I substituted thyme for basil, and I added a sprinkling of shredded Parmesan. Next time I'd cut back on the lemon juice a bit. I used Smitten Kitchen's simplest pizza dough recipe, too, but I made it in the breadmaker on the "dough" setting, which worked perfectly.

snow day

March came in like a lion; apparently it's going out like a lion, too.
Yesterday's rain turned into snow overnight. I awoke to a wintry wonderland. My poor daffodils were all set to bloom!

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Oh well, a few good things to keep our spirits up:

• The rain put no damper on a fabulous show by the Fruit Bats at Schubas last night. I expected a more mellow show, but they really rocked. Highly recommended! The older woman (seriously, 60+, how great is that) standing next to me waved a fruit bat finger puppet during her favorite songs.

• Ysolda's Whimsical Little Knits book arrived on my doorstep over the weekend, and it's just precious. As much as I love the convenience of pattern PDFs, there's something wonderfully tangible about leafing through a real book.
• My second Ishbel is nearly complete! The yarn is Malabrigo Silky Merino in Teal Feather. [I'm still seriously behind on blocking and photographing FOs -- the other Ishbel is first in the queue.]

• Capricha in another one of her trademark "cat yoga" poses. See those little paws peeking out?

• I made it to the Bohus exhibit at the American Swedish Institute while I was in Minneapolis last week. It was neat to see all the sweaters, but my expectations were a bit too high. I wish I had made it to the kick-off event with all the classes and lectures.

The Turnblad mansion, home of the American Swedish Institute