My gift projects are progressing. The leg warmers are done but need the ends woven in. I think they're nice. I hope they work. I'm also working on a few small crochet gift projects. After Friday I will be able to post about them. They're nice, though, trust me.
I warped the Beka looms again but am sparing you the photos. The nice thing about having them done is that I was able to return my friend Victoria's warping mill which did make the warping much much easier but took up a significant chunk of space in the living room. I am also looking forward to not having warped and unwarped looms hanging around. They were a challenge to store. I hope to cut the projects off tomorrow at the end of class and leave the Beka looms in our storage space at school. My Cricket will, of course, come home. I would like to warp it and let Stefan and Niels give it a try over break. I always have lots of plans for break, though, and not much ends up getting done.
Speaking of my living room (in the middle of that last paragraph) I have had an ongoing living room project for about a week. It's making serious progress though. We had a fireplace stove thing in the corner of the living room which I originally considered replacing with a gas stove. The cost of running the gas line was a barrier and then our kitchen remodel was so traumatic that it turned me off from home improvement projects involving workmen for a while. In the meantime I decided that I didn't want a hot metal object in the corner of the living room and decided to just have it taken out. I finally got it together to get someone to come and do that last week.
This is what happens when I post on a schedule, I end up talking about anything but knitting!
So it's no longer Friday and I should be asleep but I'm going to call this my scheduled Friday blog post. (You're welcome.)
Yesterday and today felt like crazy hectic days where I had hardly a minute to sit down, let alone knit. The evenings were slightly more relaxing, I went to BobaKnit last night and got very hungry talking to my fellow BobaKnitters about things like potato lasagne (genius) and learned about crazy solutions to leg cramping issues like soap in the bed. Be careful, though, apparently the cat might make off with the soap and you'll need to keep buying a new bar. Don't ask me, it wasn't my idea but apparently it works for Jen's mom! The topic came up because I am knitting leg warmers to help someone in my family keep from getting leg cramps. I actually think I might knit myself a pair too. My legs don't cramp but they get achy if they're too cold at night. By the time I finish them, of course, it will be back to being 70 degrees outside, just watch. I am slacking in a major way on holiday knitting this year. I'm working on those leg warmers and perhaps a couple other small things but most people are getting purchased gifts. I feel guilty about it but then I remember that I hardly got to sit down today.
Janice posted on Facebook today that December 11th is the second anniversary of Hand Knit Friday, a tradition she started that I keep forgetting to keep. I tried for a while and then it gets warm and I flake and by the time it's cold again, I forgot. But today! I wore my cowl-o-tis and my Sugnim socks.
Happy Hand Knit Friday-aversary, everyone!
Well, we see how well my posting schedule is working. I haven't posted in a week! Of course, I was sick as a dog last week adn not knitting much and then I started on a gift knitting project that I think I will be abandoning. My "November" sweater has one sleeve and I started the second one, so there is progress being made but not much. We have Arts Focus at school this week so I had to warp the looms again.
So there you have it: warping, not knitting. It's a lot like November, except it's not daily.
Glazed Chocolate-Pumpkin Bundt Cake
Source: Eatingwell.com and posted below
Comments: Everyone commented on how moist this was. EVERYONE. You'd think I'd only made them dry tasteless cakes before this! However, it was pretty damn moist. My husband said he couldn't taste the pumpkin but I could. This screams comfort food at me and should definitely be made by all. Of course, my glaze soaked in and didn't look as pretty but I'll work on that. I'm going to post my changes in parenthesis, as it turned out fab.
Glazed Chocolate-Pumpkin Bundt Cake
Recipe courtesy EatingWell.com
Yield: 16 servings
Cake:
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process) (I used dutch process)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup nonfat buttermilk (soy milk mixed with 1 T of apple cider vinegar)
1 15-ounce can unsweetened pumpkin puree
3/4 cup dark brown sugar packed
1 large egg at room temperature (I used 1 egg replacer for both this and the egg white)
1 large egg white at room temperature
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Glaze & Garnish:
1/2 cup packed confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon nonfat buttermilk (soy milk)
2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips or toasted chopped nuts (see Tip)
To prepare cake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 12-cup Bundt pan with cooking spray.
Whisk all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, granulated sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice and salt in a medium bowl.
Blend 1 cup buttermilk, pumpkin puree and brown sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on low speed. Beat in whole egg and egg white. Stir in oil, corn syrup and vanilla. Gradually add the dry ingredients, stirring until just combined. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan.
Bake the cake until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove from the pan and let cool completely on the rack, about 2 hours.
To glaze & garnish cake: Combine confectioners' sugar and 1 tablespoon buttermilk in a small bowl, stirring until completely smooth. Place the cake on a serving plate and drizzle the glaze over the top; garnish with chocolate chips (or chopped nuts) while the glaze is still moist.
To warm an egg to room temperature, either set it out on the counter for 15 minutes or submerge it (in the shell) in a bowl of lukewarm (not hot) water for 5 minutes.To toast chopped nuts & seeds: Cook in a small dry skillet over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until fragrant and lightly browned, 2 to 4 minutes.
So now that my daily posting is done I have decided that I should still post on some kind of schedule. My original plan was Monday, Wednesday, Friday and sometimes the first idea is the best so we're going with that.
The only problem with this plan is that this week I have been sicker than I can ever remember being and I haven't been knitting at all since my last post. Well, that's not true, I knit a few rows just now before I started this post. My first sleeve needs about three more inches. I might try to finish that tonight. I'm trying to decide if I push through and try to finish this thing soon or if I'm going to try to do some gift knitting this holiday. I'm leaning towards no holiday knitting this year, unfortunately.
Is that exciting? Aren't you glad I'm posting on a regular basis? I promise the next one will be better.
