2018

Day 11 – Mitered Memory Blanket

stargrace July 23, 2018 2 Comments

I finished my first panel of 3×3 squares for my memory blanket and am working (very slowly) on my second panel. Only 3/9 squares are done so far, but it’s not supposed to be a very fast project. Once I have a few more 3×3 panels I’ll try different joins to see which one I prefer. I’m anticipating a heavy black border around the outside and between each panel, but we’ll see what looks best. The squares are looking more uniform and are getting slightly faster for me to do now that I’ve got 12 under my belt, too. I almost wish I were doing these squares in a heavier yarn so that it would knit up faster. I do have a patter for one from knitpicks which I may end up attempting (eventually) but we’ll have to see.

In the meantime, craft on!

Real Life

Day 10 – I helped create that

stargrace July 22, 2018 1 Comment

My daughter was born July 18th and that’s probably the most creative thing I’ve done all year. Posts may be sporadic, but I’ll try to keep up. So far the most difficult part is that my son, who is 22 months old, doesn’t understand what the heck is going on. We’ll get there though.

Real Life

Day 9 – Caribbean-Spiced Veggie & Sausage Skewers

The final meal that I was trying out from Hello Fresh was these delicious looking pork sausage skewers. The potato salad threw me off because it’s made with very simple but odd to me items. It was mayo (real stuff, not miracle whip stuff), white wine vinegar, sugar, red onion, parsley, and potato. Red ones this time instead of the yukon yellows that I had in the first meal.

Still, the flavours were fantastic. It was a bit spicy for my husband, but I didn’t mind it too much. Since we don’t have a grill and I ended up ruining the oven temporarily, I used our little flat top counter grill to cook the kabobs. I did find that the meat portion was lacking slightly in this rendition. They give you 8 skewers, but I was only able to make 6 with the portions of meat I had on hand. Maybe I cut them too large, but they seemed to be the proper size for the item mentioned.

As I mentioned yesterday, it was $32 for 6 meals (3 meals for 2) and I couldn’t really go wrong taking it for a test. None of the meals were especially fancy, they were all easy to prepare, took 30 minutes or less to cook, and were all enjoyable. We’ll see how the next trial turns out (Good Food, which I have honestly never heard of before) and then maybe we’ll stick with one for a bit to make things easier at home while I continue to heal from my c-section and watch two children under two.

Bon appetit!

Real Life Yarn

Day 8 – Zesty Hoisin Chili Beef

stargrace July 20, 2018 No Comments

Meal two from Hello Fresh was hoisin beef, which I was really excited about. Some of my favourite flavours are right there on the plate, and unlike Chef’s Plate where I found the meals almost too small for two people, this one meal seemed gigantic. It could have easily created 4 meals for myself (but of course I shared with the husband, so it came to less than that).

It was easy to prepare, didn’t take many ingredients, and was still packed full of flavour. So far Hello Fresh is shaping up to be one of the better meal delivery services I’ve tried. I do have a basket order of Good Food coming in next week, a family member gave me a coupon for an entire free trial of food (3 meals for 2 people) and they look REALLY fancy. It’ll be interesting to compare and see how the food is. From my cousin’s description she enjoys the flavours of Good Food but the meats in Hello Fresh are incredible.

Either way, it’s great to get out of my comfort zone when it comes to food. Being pregnant and running after a 2 year old all day means that I tend to stick to simple meal plans that I know we’ll enjoy and I can whip up without too much thought. That doesn’t leave a ton of room for creativity. Trying new foods and new flavours is great. Portion size is under control since they send me all of the ingredients, and it’s cheaper than buying fresh produce where I live. I understand that the price of these services is not something everyone wants to pay for, but in my case some weeks it’s simply worth it (plus I’ve only been trying out these services when they’re on sale at a hefty discount. I paid $32 for both Hello Fresh and Chef’s Plate, and Good Food is free… you can’t really go wrong with those prices).

Knitting Yarn

Day 7 – Fingerless gloves

stargrace July 19, 2018 2 Comments

If you ever want to knit something that impresses your friends but is actually quite simple – I highly suggest you look into cables. Cables are a really simple type of stitch that LOOK really complicated, but it’s nothing more than knitting out of order. You typically put a few stitches on a stitch keeper, move it to the front or back of your piece, and then knit the next stitches, then go back and knit the ones you put on your stitch keeper.

That’s it.

It looks complicated watching someone else to do it because you’re dealing with extra needles and/or a stitch keeper hanging out some place, but the stitch itself is simple and you can typically just ignore whatever bit you’re not working with. The overall effect is fancy and impressive. My fingerless gloves are about half way done and I’m slowly working gusset increases for the thumbs. The yarn is a merino / bamboo blend that knits up wonderfully and shows the stitches off – exactly what I was hoping for. I expect this gloves will get a lot of use (I hate full gloves that cover my fingers) and it’s the first time I’ve attempted gloves at all, so I’m pretty proud. For some reason I’ve found them more intimidating than the sweater I knit as well as socks. Probably because I have to knit them on DPN and that can be an awkward procedure (I know I could knit them on 2 circulars, or a smaller circular, or do magic loop, but I’m quite comfortable working with DPN so why not).

I’m also contemplating starting up some Christmas knits early. In specific christmas balls to go along with the Star Wars themed one I knit last year. I’d like a set of 6 (I have one), and I’d like to knit christmas balls for everyone in the family with their names and birthday on it. We’ll see how that goes (if it goes).

Day 11 – Mitered Memory Blanket

Day 10 – I helped create that

Day 9 – Caribbean-Spiced Veggie & Sausage Skewers

Day 8 – Zesty Hoisin Chili Beef

Day 7 – Fingerless gloves

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