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Oh yeah, great big cahungas! I was running a simple little search on Etsy and there they were. Very in your face.
(Click the image to go to the listing) They are huge! I don't think I would have the chutzspah to make something like this much less list it! My only beef with the item is that it has knitting as a tag. This is crocheted. Not the same thing at all!
I wonder if she would make it in a more natural flesh tone.
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I started an Etsy store in 2007. I really didn't know what I was going to put in there, but I knew that I was making more items than I really needed. When I want to knit, but don't have a pattern in mind I make scarves, hats, jewelry, etc. Little things that doesn't always need a pattern. Sometimes the hands just need to work.
Well, today I finally put some of the items I've amassed onto the store. It isn't much, and they might not be popular but that is OK. Of course, they might look better with a real model, or at least someone who likes to be in front of a camera.
I have six whole items up there. They are almost all uniformly made of acrylic and acrylic-blend yarns, because when I was trying to sell things earlier I was getting a lot of push back from people I know about using wool. That might not be the same problem on Etsy, but I can add different fibers in as I figure things out.
I have at least one other scarf that I started last month (and took a break from) and a few other things I have ideas for. It's kind of exciting, because it is always like being a designer or a free form artist. There are always more things to do than time to do them in, so we'll see if this works or if it is more "Today's Experiment dot dot dot Failed."
Of course, there are a couple of things I want to make for myself in that copious free time. I would like a new hat. My old hats are nice, but are from when I had longer hair and they have stretched out a bit. One of them is my Odessa, which I love but Saru-chan snagged over a year ago. Not badly enough to not wear, but definitely badly enough that it doesn't look nearly as nice. The other is a pair of fuzzy socks. I could buy them, but I have a couple of skeins of fuzzy yarn that I bought when I started and some leftover sock yarn (about 44 grams). It should be enough to make a pair of fuzzy ankle socks with. Anyone have a good pattern for fuzzy socks? If not, toe up it is!
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My breakfast almost 100% from the crockpot. Here is yogurt that I made earlier this week using the crockpot method (4 cups milk, 2.5 hours on low or till 180 degrees Fahrenheit, cool to about 110, shove in oven overnight with oven light on) layered with wild blueberries and apples heated lightly on the stove top with homemade granola also made in the crockpot.
Not bad for a breakfast that has enough oomph to last me through the day and didn't cost me $3.45 from Starbucks. Don't get me wrong. I love my Starbucks, but I picked up one of their parfaits on Tuesday because it was almost 2 p.m. and I hadn't had lunch yet. My 320 calories were granola and yogurt with cherries. A tasty combo, but my homemade yogurt is fat free, unsweetened (and doesn't taste like it needs to be) and gelatin free. Yeah, Starbucks yogurt parfait has gelatin in the yogurt. A lot of yogurts do, but it isn't that hard to find or make a great tasting yogurt that has no gelatin.
Victor was doing a ton of pulling on his leash earlier this week (including yesterday morning), and I think part of the problem was that I walk for enjoyment and exercise myself and so when I walk, I go, Go, GO! I asked one of my friends who has a dog and he gave me a couple of links. The best one was from Diamonds in the Ruff, which pretty much runs counter what I had been told by the fosterer.
So, yesterday afternoon and evening we went for a couple of really short walks and I went for a longer walk by myself during the morning. When Victor was about to pull me off my feet, I just stayed stock still. No tugging, no reaction. Granted, it makes a very boring walk for me, but this walk isn't for me. It's for Victor. When I got too bored, I would call him and he would turn around and come towards me for a treat, and we would move forward. It's super duper slow this way, but as he learns that tugging doesn't really get him anything we will come to a better balance of walking my way and walking his way.
Super, duper slow. I mean it. I took Victor out sometime after 6 a.m. and got home at about 7:15. We went a mile. We were nearly lapped by another dog walker. I also obviously need to get a better assortment of treats, so I can give him some variety along the way (Wicked Good recommended something they called Charlie Browns, because they are low enough in calories to allow me to give a lot of treats without worrying about his diet).
I started knitting something new. It's another scarf and I just started it last night, so no pictures yet. Nobody needs to see the end of a scarf. That's boring.
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So, I'm trying to eat healthy not that anyone would know that by what I want to bake or what I have recently baked (well, except for the blueberry muffins from the Change One book). About two weeks ago or less I made a giant chocolate chip cookie for one of my friends as a Hanukkah / Christmas present. When I made this for my husband's birthday, I used my pizza pan and baked it pretty much as directed. For my friend, I instead patted the batter into two 9-inch cake pans and baked for about 20 minutes and cooled in the pans.
That wasn't enough. I wanted this to be like a giant cookie whoopie pie, and I didn't want any old whoopie pie filling. I wanted chocolate flavored whoopie pie filling.
That is apparently a hard thing to find a recipe for, because I spent over an hour with google, recipe sites and blogs looking for something that wasn't another copy of the exact same chocolate whoopie pie with the normal white filling.
My filling was cobbled together out of a bit of whatever. The main thing was that it worked, smelled delicious and looked like it was a roaring success. Of course, by giving it away, I got to enjoy my time baking without eating everything I make. A win for all!
My Chocolate Whoopie Pie Filling
1/2 cup chocolate buttercream frosting, estimated (all I had left after frosting a different cake)
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup Marshmallow Fluff
I beat them in my stand mixer with the whisk attachment until very light and fluffy. The normal whoopie pie filling recipes I saw had butter or shortening, but this was what I had on hand that wasn't super duper cold. I was out of vanilla having finished it off in the buttercream frosting. And the kicker for me is that there was two tablespoons of alcohol in the frosting (total for the entire batch, so just a smidge in a 1/2 cup): 1 of kahlua and a second of Godiva chocolate liqueur. Yum!
Oh, and thank you, Cookie, for the suggestion about the blanket over the baby gate. While he still gets over excited, it seems to take a bit longer before things start to feel out of hand. Maybe in a month they will tolerate each other in the same room without too much skittishness from Saru-chan and too much OMG Cat! from Victor. I just keep telling myself that it has been 4.5 days. Not that long in the grand scheme of things.
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Victor is my first dog, and while I was prepared for most of the things dog owners need to do (pick up poo, walk the doggie, pick up more poo, feed and water the doggie, pick up poo, watch the doggie mark everything, pick up poo, etc.) it has been a bit more work getting Victor to stay calm enough near Saru-chan so that they can at least stare at each other through the baby gate. Makes me almost wish that the baby gate were solid, so he could hear her and smell her but not see her.
That's not to say things aren't going well. He's mostly calm, but the longer he sees Saru-chan the more he wants to go to where she is. Her platform we moved today, because she wasn't using it with him in the living room. Her food will be moving soon too, so she doesn't have to run the gauntlet past the baby gate to where her food is in the kitchen. It's just not fair for her when he is so excitable. Poor Saru-chan.
Needless to say I'm getting plenty of exercise right now. I don't know how often Victor needs to be walked, but I'm walking him in the morning around 6 a.m., again at 3 p.m. (which is when we'll hopefully have a dog walker when I go back to work) and again before I work on dinner at 7 p.m. My legs work and hopefully when there is less snow on the ground I will be able to go back to running. I would love to have a better showing this year in the Boston's Run to Remember in May and the Applefest Half Marathon in September.
With all of the Victor Walking and Victor Playing and Saru-Chan cuddling, there has not been as much knitting as normal. I'm hoping to finish the Noro Scarf this week along with a pair of other scarves (one of which needs to be measured for length and then bound off). I guess that will be what my small amount of television time will be for and my commute. Yeah, commute!
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There has been no knitting for two days. Yesterday was a bit of worry that I was not going to be a good doggie parent, and today was a comedy of errors that resulted in bringing Victor home.
I met a woman who had a crate for sale (yeah! Craigslist), but she was late, I forgot my phone, and damn these things are heavy! I got to Quincy Adams before 10 a.m. and waited with increasing panic near the Zipcars (panic that would not be an issue if I had remembered my phone). We drove down to Connecticut and picked up Victor. He looked a little uncomfortable at first. His foster home had a dog that he was pretty friendly with, so I think he was just a little confused. We got home and I took him for a walk. He played in the backyard and then we introduced him to Saru-chan.
Saru-chan has the run of the entire house, except the living room (which is baby gated to keep Victor in one spot while they are getting used to each other). They stared at each other through the baby gate, and it was pretty clear that Saru-chan doesn't really understand dog as something to be upset about, just wary of. Victor wanted to play. There was no hissing, which we consider a win for the first meeting.
I took Victor out for his second walk at about 5 p.m. (umm, the end of the first quarter of the Saints-Cardinals game), and we got home at nearly 6:45. A long walk. He's had water, food, and I've eaten too (which is good, because I was really hungry). There might be knitting tonight, but that is still up in the air.
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Rib. Rib. Rib.
A cell phone picture, how do I love thee.
I finally fell down the slippery slope and picked up yarn right around the start of the new year for a striped Noro Scarf. Of course, that picture is from the first or second day of knitting, and it is much longer now. I'm on the last two balls of yarn.
I figured that I needed a mid-weight scarf. I have a woven scarf from Filene's, a couple of lacy crochet scarves and decorative knit scarves, and the Harry Potter scarf. My Ravenclaw (movie) scarf is big enough to wrap around my head and still extend past my jacket. It is definitely the warmest scarf I have.
However, sometimes you want a bit more color than navy and grey. You want something that doesn't almost smother you when you leave the house. You want something with a bright spring green and a dramatic teal. You want this scarf.
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One of my friends is currently waiting for surgery. Winter is such a season of leg injuries. The ice, especially the hard to see black stuff, inadequate shoveling and poor traction of shoes and boots make it far too easy to take a spill and boom! Knees, ankles, and the larger bones of the legs all pay the price. I'm really hoping his surgery goes well and he is back on his feet quickly. It's horribly demoralizing to lose mobility like that.
Of course, it was winter when I broke my knee, but I did it in a health club (very embarrassing). The woman who helped me to another room and got me dressed kept me entertained with the tale of her own traumatic fall on the ice a few winters before that. She had broken both elbows at the same time. I just thanked my lucky stars that my hands were free and clear. At the time I was doing cross-stitch a lot, and the idea of being stuck without my hands or arms just bit. I recovered from my knee surgery and try not to let the residual wonkiness set me back. I'm hoping for a better recovery for my friend.
Let's think even more good thoughts. As much as I want good doggie thoughts, my friend needs them more.
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I am seeing a potential new member of the family on Sunday. I've been trying really hard all week not to get too excited or get my heart set on this one.
Victor (name might change if he comes home with us) is a Schnauzer mix. He is being fostered and from speaking to the foster mom, Victor is a complete gem. I've been wanting a dog for so long that my stomach is turning into this pit of nervous excitement. Just the thing I was trying to avoid.
It would be a wonderful thing to have a doggie friend of my own and to get over my dog envy (yes, Brisbane, I'm looking at you!).
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This morning I woke up, and woke up, and continued to keep waking up until I decided at 4:30 to just get out of bed already. I went downstairs, got my appropriate tech together, found one of my old hats and went outside for a jog.
I'm slow but steady, and felt good when I got back. I need to start my half marathon training back up in March, so I am working on building my base after goofing off for the last couple of months.
Yesterday I picked up after work the Nike+ sensor that would work with my iPod (so I could run in style, and because I can use all of the encouragement I can take). I was reading the documentation on the way home and came to the real reason my last one stopped working completely last year. The sensor is not meant to stay in the shoe when you are not exercising. If it is in the shoe then it is effectively on even if there is no device to record the data on, and the battery runs out. Whoops!
Hopefully I'll be able to do another run this weekend and get myself safely back up to 20 miles a week without trauma or injury.
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