IS #9: For Your Cookbook Library

Apparently, when it comes to inspiration, I'm largely inspired by books. I've talked about a sock knitting book and a spinning book and now I'm going to totally change it up and gush about a cookbook. (Warning: this post will have nothing to do with knitting or yarn. It will also make you very, very hungry.)

Deb Perelman is the delightfully down-to-earth cook and blogger behind my hands-down-favorite food blog, Smitten Kitchen.  Anything delicious I've ever made has come from her blog. Can you even try to resist roasted sweet potatoes with pecans and goat cheese? Thick and hearty oatmeal pancakes? Lime yogurt cake with blackberry sauce? Whole wheat pasta with cauliflower, walnuts, and feta? No, you can't. Alright, what about salted brown butter crispy treats? Yeah, I got you with that one, didn't I?!
 
She cooks such a wonderful mix of fancy and simple, sweet and savory, and throughout it all her goal is to minimize effort and the number of dishes the meal creates without compromising the recipe. I can totally get behind cooking like that. And now, she has a book, and it is wonderful.

Each recipe is beautifully photographed and makes you want to practically eat the page. I don't know about you, but cooking can feel like a real chore to me sometimes, especially when I'm hungry, so tantalizing photos really help to make me look forward to cooking instead of dreading it. The Fiasco and I have made variations of her vegetable fritters (zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, leek) over and over and they never fail to please, especially with her garlic-lemon-yogurt sauce.

She covers all sorts of food groups but her desserts really shine. Look at those peach dumplings! I don't think I've ever eaten fruit dumplings before and now I feel like I've been really, really deprived. Besides the recipes, Deb is a very entertaining writer, she has a lovely, friendly, witty voice and begins each of her recipes with a little story behind it -- you can read it like a book, it's not just a list of ingredients and techniques.

I, obviously, am in love with this cookbook and highly recommend it (personal opinion, not endorsed in any way). If you don't want to spring for the book just yet but want to get a feel for her general style, be sure to check out the super helpful recipe index on her blog. You can search for anything you'd like to make by ingredient, season, style, or meal type.

Have you got a favorite food blogger or cookbook? I'd love to hear about it or anything else that has been inspiring you lately, please link your blog or leave a comment below!

 

FO Friday #11: Fierce Fracas

I hope your Friday is more exciting than mine! I spent the week with a wicked sore throat that has progressed to voicelessness and fever/chills. It is bad enough that I took a sick day yesterday and am even more grateful than usual for the upcoming weekend. Being couch-bound is one way to get some knitting done, at least.

The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga, colorway Fierce Snake

These are my modified Fracas Cuffs by Hunter Hammersen from her very cool Rabble Rousers collection of accessories. The original pattern involved some too-painful-for-me k4tog's and ssssk's, which I changed to k3tog and sssk, with an added purl stitch thrown in between repeats. It worked out nicely, you can find details on my Ravelry page.

Both elegant and sassy!

This pair is for my mom and was the last holiday gift I needed to finish up! Just in time for her birthday next week... for which I am knitting something else as a surprise, so you'll have to wait to see it (if I can finish it in time!).

Oh, before I forget, I just realized that my Fiasco sock pattern would work well for this month's Sock Knitters Anonymous challenge! If you've never heard of SKA, it's an extremely active sock-knitting group on Ravelry that chooses a different challenge each month. It's a wonderful group of knitters who really push sock-knitting boundaries and being a part of it will make your sock queue grow by leaps and bounds. March's challenge involves either patterns with unique construction or patterns designed specifically for men.

BMFA Socks that Rock heavyweight, colorway Drop Dead Sexy

I designed the Fiasco socks for my own dear Fiasco (a.k.a. fiance) and he's been wearing them to bits. If you don't have a knit-worthy man in your life, the pattern comes in three different sizes and includes gauge information for fingering, sport, or DK-weight yarn, so you could knit a pair for anyone, really. I would love to see some Fiasco's in the SKA KAL!

Work-In-Progress Wednesday #18

It's been quite a while since I've participated in a WIP Wednesday! My dear friend Katy has been complaining about the lack of knitting content on this blog lately (so demanding! haha), so let's catch up with what I've got going on...

Festooned Joy:

BMFA Socks that Rock LW, colorway Comfort and Joy

I'm easing back into sock knitting with this simple pair of festive, waffle-knit socks. I modified the pattern to make it more to my liking and am just about ready to work the heel, if I can find a minute to focus on it.

Fierce Fracas Cuffs:

The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga, colorway Fierce Snake

This is a sadly belated x-mas gift for my mom, the only one I failed to finish. It is a set of Fracas cuffs from Hunter Hammersen's fun little Rabble Rousers collection of patterns. I think the Fracas cuffs and matching hat are my favorite from the book but all of the accessories are quite sassy and sweet.

Itty Bitty Baby Booties:

Cephalopod Yarns Skinny Bugga, colorway Blue Ringed Octopus

A good friend of mine is having a baby in a couple of weeks and I cannot wait! These little booties are getting me even more excited. I don't think there's anything more adorable than itty bitty footwear, except perhaps the tiny human it will eventually adorn.

Handspun Chai:

Cephalopod Yarns Bugga Fiber, colorway Yubaba

This is a handspun sample of one of my secret designs for the Afghans for Afghans e-book of patterns so I can't really show it all, but just look at the colors in that handspun! The way they shift and change is delightful, if I do say so myself. :)

Handspun Hat:

The Wacky Windmill, Merino wool handspun

This is just a simple, basic hat I started with some crazy cabled handspun yarn I finished on my wheel. I like the way it's knitting up, I just hope I have enough of the bits with the white mixed in to knit the whole top of the hat!

Alright, I think that's everything I've been busy with lately... Be sure to check out the other WIP Wednesday posts by clicking the image below.

Visits and Yarn

Thanks for all the lovely comments on the quilt my Fiasco made, your kind words made him very happy. :) I hope you all had a lovely weekend. My parents were visiting so mine was really nice! It's awesome finally living in an apartment that is large enough to have visitors. We did quite a bit of shopping and now that my mom is big on crocheting, that shopping involved yarn! The highlight was when we went to Slater Mill to visit the market for the knitting weekend event they were hosting. It was basically a mini fiber festival with just a handful of vendors held within an historic cotton mill.

How I love these yarn wreaths!

Colorful rope

Rope spinning contraption

Loom

Big ol' bale of cotton

Cotton carding

Lots of bobbins!

Spun cotton

North Light Fibers

North Light Fibers is a yarn company on Block Island, an actual island off the coast of Rhode Island (not an actual island). They sell handwoven garments as well as luxury yarn and spinning fiber. My mom generously purchased me a tiny bit of brown, fluffy gold:

This stuff is unbelievably soft!

While crazy expensive, I've been wanting to work with quiviut fiber for a very long time. Softer and warmer than cashmere, it comes from the undercoat of the muskox and has an incredibly short staple length. This is only a tiny bit but I am going to blend it with some merino/silk and try to spin it finely to stretch it a bit. It is going to be glorious! 

Since it was my birthday weekend, I also splurged on a little bit of pretty, pretty yarn:

from Play At Life Fiber Arts

These yarns are both made from Blue Faced Leicester wool. The top skein is a 3-ply DK weight and the bottom is a 2-ply fingering weight dyed in a gorgeous dark teal to bright blue gradient (check out her website, she'll dye to order!). I've been wanting to work with a gradient dyed skein for a while and I have yet to knit with such thin BFL wool so I'm really excited to give this one a try. In fact, I think I might need to cast on right away. This little gem is going to become a Harmony Shawl, I just need to decide whether to start the shawl with the bright part and end with the dark or vice versa... I think I know which I'm going to do but how would you knit this skein?

IS #8: My Makin' Man

I'm posting my Inspiration Saturday post a bit early this week as my parents are visiting for the weekend and I'll be busy... plus I couldn't wait to share it with you! My birthday was this week and my dear Fiasco made me a beautiful and thoughtful present. He kept it a complete secret and I really had no idea what was coming. It was this:

A handmade quilt!

When he was a hyper little kid his mother sat him down and gave him some fabric to sew to keep him occupied... and it stuck. Over the years he's made beautiful quilts that he's given to various family members. He prefers to create quilts that portray pictures  or scenes rather than just repeating geometric shapes. This one was inspired by a marshy spot in one of our favorite places to hike in Connecticut:

He put so much thought into his gift, it is amazing. He had two of my favorite quotes from chapters of Kahlil Gibran's book-length poem, "The Prophet", embroidered and added them to the water and a cloud:

Each of the plants uses a different patterned fabric and he used light and dark green thread to create shadows and depth... and the cattail heads are even fuzzy!

 He used silvery yarn that picks up on the silver flecks in the water fabric to create circular ripples coming out from the quote like concentric rings:

He chose a flannel backing in my favorite blue-green color with a neat woven look to it:

And finally, because he knows I'm a stickler about this stuff, he made sure to use only 100% cotton fabrics and natural cotton batting! I'm certainly a lucky girl. Even though I'm a knitter and a spinner, I can't imagine having the patience to carefully and meticulously cut out strips of fabric of the correct size, iron them, pin them, zig-zag stitch them, add batting, put a back on, and quilt the whole thing together. I just can't, I'd quit at the first mention of 'iron', honestly, so it inspires me tremendously that he doesn't... that he continues on and makes something beautiful just for me!

What's inspired you lately? Link below and share!

P.S. Don't forget! All my patterns on Ravelry are 28% off through Monday with coupon code 'bdayweek'!

P.P.S. And thank you for all the birthday wishes! :)