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A little slice of orange

I’m so excited to be at the top of the “hot right now” patterns on Ravelry! I really really can’t wait so see projects when people get them going. Thanks for all the lovely comments about the pattern.

ravI’ve also been working on my Goodale on and off. I started it one day before I got the yarn and cast on for Ruffaluffagus, and then I got so excited by the baby tunic and writing up the pattern as quickly as possible, so I set Miss Goodale aside for a bit.

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The pattern is a breeze. It’s a top-down raglan. As long as I check myself every now and then to make sure I’m increasing as I should, it’s no problem.

It also has a pretty little i-cord edging. I think it makes it look polished and lovely.goodale

I’m really enjoying the Frogtree Pediboo. It’s the first time I’ve worked with this yarn. It did feel like it was taking forever to get through the increases to separate the arms, but I think it will go much faster now.

I have a couple of other things on the needles that haven’t gotten a Ravelry project page yet. I’m knitting Ruffaluffagus in a 2 yr old size. I’m also working on something for Matt that’s semi hush-hush for now. I also desperately want to cast on a giant shawl to take to work with me. I have Litchfield in my queue and some alpaca blend yarns earmarked for it in my stash. My office is so cold sometimes! I’m talking 60 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s too much air conditioning for me.

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French Toast Fridays

I can’t remember exactly when this started, but sometime in the last 6 months or so, every Friday has become “French toast Friday.” It’s easy to whip up fairly quickly, and it makes Fridays seem a little celebratory.

Last night, I decided to play around and do a little prep ahead of time. This is what I ended up making:

ImageIt’s sort of a cross between bread pudding and French toast. I’ve been obsessed with cardamom lately, and I wanted to include that in the breakfast, so this little baby was born.

If you want to replicate this, here are some general guidelines. I’m not much of a measurer when it comes to cooking, so this is my best guess about the quantities:

The dish holds slightly more than 3 cups of liquid and is oven safe. If you have a larger dish, bread puddings in general seem flexible enough to alter ingredients to suit any size dish, so you could add an egg or two, use more bread, and increase the liquid to fill your dish.

Cardamom French Toast Bread Pudding

6 slices whole wheat bread (about 2 cups when cut into 1″ pieces)

3 eggs

1/2 cup half and half

1 cup whole milk

1/4 cup agave

3 tsp cardamom

2 TBS turbinado sugar (raw sugar)

Cut bread into 1″ cubes and place in dish. With hand mixer or immersion blender or by hand, mix half and half, milk, eggs, agave, and cardamom until smooth. Pour over bread cubes. Sprinkle raw sugar on top. Leave in refrigerator overnight, or at least for several hours. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes, or until it slightly wiggles, but a knife poked into the center comes out clean.

If you’re feeling really decadent, you can also make an optional blood orange icing to go on top. I’m sure any orange would be delicious, but I happened to have one little lonely blood orange on hand that wanted to be involved.

french toast friday-2For the icing I used 2TBS of butter, 1.5 TBS juice from the blood orange, and about 1/2 cup powdered sugar. I melted the butter, added juice and sugar, and stirred till smooth. Drizzle over the bread pudding and enjoy.

Hope you have a lovely Friday!

*Edited to add agave

 

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Ruffaluffagus

ruffle tunic-6Oh hai. Did you want more pictures of a baby in a sweater? This is the little number I whipped up out of the Luna Grey Fiber Arts Astro. I looooove the subtle color changes and the tunic turned out almost exactly as planned.
ruffle tunic-11It’s got super girly ruffles and puffy sleeves. I never felt like making stuff this girly until I had a wee one to dress. Then it seemed even more fun.
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It’s more of a tunic than a dress length. I made the 12 month size, and that comes with about an inch and a half of positive ease, so this should transition well into fall and maybe winter.
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The pattern is almost ready! I just need to insert pictures and make a few more edits. I plan on releasing it within the next two weeks.
ruffle tunic-14
I wasn’t sure what to call it. I keep calling it Ruffaluffagus in my head, so maybe that should just be it’s name. I was trying to think of something elegant, but it’s for a baby, so a fun name seems to suit it.

It will be available in 3m, 6m, 12m, 18m, 24m, and 4 yr sizes. ruffle tunic-15

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Capture the elephants!

ellybob-3Just try and take pictures of this kid. She is squirmy! I should have done these outside where she could crawl around in the grass, but I took these mid-day, so it had to be in the house, and of course I dressed her up in a silly and girly white dress underneath.

She’s crawling, mostly on her belly, but she can MOVE. And she wants to pull up on lots of things. Naturally, this made for a good way to capture the back of the sweater.

ellybob-5This is the Ellybob Cardigan. Click the link for more details. If I made it again, I think I would start with more stitches and increase less at the neck. It has a fairly high collar and I wish it were a bit wider. It was fun to make, and the back and forth Fair Isle wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated. If I made it again, I might go up a needle size overall, and up a needle size from that on the Fair Isle portion.

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ellybob-6I have a feeling that Zooey is going to have eyes like Matt’s that seem to match whatever blue or green item they’re wearing.

 

 

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Ah, family.

This is a picture heavy post. You have been warned. I can’t help myself though. I had a fantastic Mother’s Day with Matt and Zooey in the morning, taking pictures of them in their matching sweaters. Later we had a fantastic afternoon “brunch”, because afternoon is the only time all of the babies are not napping at the same time.

Neighborly-Dapper-3I absolutely love how Matt and Zooey’s sweaters have turned out.

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Neighborly-Dapper-5

Neighborly-Dapper-13

Neighborly-Dapper-4I may have to re-block Z’s sweater, or take out the bottom and add to it a bit. The width is great, but I think it would be better with one more stripe repeat at the bottom. She’ll be taller next fall when she’s likely to wear this the most.

Neighborly-Dapper-9I still need to get some pictures of just Matt in his sweater, to capture all of the essential details for the pattern, but you can see lots of it right now. I’m also debating redoing his collar to make it wider. The Cascade 220 Pyrite Heather color looks great on both of them. I hope it looks as good on me. Zooey is in a Neighborly pullover, and Matt is in a sweater of my own design, in case you haven’t been following the matching family sweater journey.

I feel so grateful to have such a wonderful family, and great friends that feel like more family. My first Mother’s Day was amazing. The afternoon went a little like this:

Mother's day-34

Mother's day-40

Mother's day-61

Mother's day-82

Mother's day-94

Mother's day-102

 

I hope everyone had as wonderful a day as I did.

 

 

 

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The winners are…

The remaining yardage in my stash totals 46,726.4 yards. Gulp. That’s a reality check! 

ImageThe two closest guesses came from Jocelyn and Damaris: 

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ImageI will be contacting you ladies to find out where to send the yarn to Jocelyn, and how to get a pattern to Damaris. Thanks for playing! Reading all of the guesses was really fun.