Feminine arts
And today is the day in which I've been catching up on the last of the backlog of unshared photos, since I started out the day with not much else on the "to do" list but kitchen stuff in the morning and getting my manicure done (which I've been working on while on the computer).
So. To start with, a couple of baking photos.
Gingerbread cookies (from a mix), dropped onto cookie sheets and then pressed with stampers to leave designs. Also, the dough was rolled in colored sugars before being stamped. I need more cookie stamps, since this was fun and easy.
This morning I made sugar cookies, testing out some Halloween-themed cookie presses I'd gotten well past the month of October. They didn't hold their shapes well during baking -- probably because I added some water (going from cutout cookie instructions to drop cookie instructions) to help convince the dough to hold together. In the ziplock bag are the remains of the muffins I made Sunday -- some strawberry cheesecake and some blueberry cornbread.
This is as much baking as I had planned to do this week -- but Mom pointed out that she had a couple of over-ripe bananas to dispose of, so I made banana-chocolate-chip cupcakes as well.
And my sole New Year's resolution was to do more knitting, which I've been doing.
Here's the New Year's project. I'm well past the one little ball of Cascade 220 "Pacific" I found in my stash and into the yarn that finally arrived from the Loopy Ewe -- so the dyelots seem to be close enough a match not to make an obvious color shift.
This rides around in my purse and is what I work on when visiting Grandma. So it's moving along, slowly, but I'm adding some rows each week.
Here's my designated plain-stockinette project, which got a bit of extra attention recently as I finished the first sock and got the toe of the second out of the way. And then I went to see a movie or two, giving me a foot, and now there's a heel...
This one has been in hibernation for a while. It's been a project I could just about manage to work on at the gym or while reading, but I had more simple things I could do in plain stockinette. However, when the above Zauberball sock hit the phase where I was finishing up with the ribbing on the first sock and then doing the toe of the second, I needed to be able to pay attention to what I was doing, so this teal sock got put back into production. And now here I am at the fancy part around the top, and it's good TV knitting, and I'd like to get it finished and on to the toe of the second.
(Also there is the thing where I have a kneesock that ran out of the main color prematurely, and this sock's yarns are a match for it, so I'd like to get this project finished to free up the leftovers so I can finish the Absinthe Stripe socks.)
And here is this, which I cast on for almost a year ago, got half a row done on, and then put into hibernation. Until I found myself looking for something else to knit, having finished up a few other projects. (Though I'm putting this on the backburner again, until I get the colorwork section of the teal kneesock done.)
And I've also got six weeks of manicures to share...
Crappy picture, decent (albeit lazy) mani. Some decals and some glitter gradients.
This one involved seven green fingers, three gold glitter accent nails, and a few gold decals. Festive with minimal effort.
The actual Xmas mani was carefully planned. The plaid thumbnail especially amused me.
Another terrible blurry photo. That was a very handsome deer decal on my middle finger.
In keeping with the pink champagne theme, here was my New Year's mani. That was supposed to be a firework on the ring finger -- but of course I did it in soft pink to keep the color scheme, and it's too subtle to really make out. The right thumbnail of course had the "18."
A frigid week led to me experimenting with icicles drawn with a striping brush. I was very happy with this mani.
Last week, another pale wintry mani. Crappy snowflake decals that started chipping off by the weekend.
Nothing much of note to report -- cats getting into trouble, us getting a smattering of snow last night in the wee hours and it being freaking cold today, me needing to go eat something and get some sleep before work tonight...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
So. To start with, a couple of baking photos.
Gingerbread cookies (from a mix), dropped onto cookie sheets and then pressed with stampers to leave designs. Also, the dough was rolled in colored sugars before being stamped. I need more cookie stamps, since this was fun and easy.
This morning I made sugar cookies, testing out some Halloween-themed cookie presses I'd gotten well past the month of October. They didn't hold their shapes well during baking -- probably because I added some water (going from cutout cookie instructions to drop cookie instructions) to help convince the dough to hold together. In the ziplock bag are the remains of the muffins I made Sunday -- some strawberry cheesecake and some blueberry cornbread.
This is as much baking as I had planned to do this week -- but Mom pointed out that she had a couple of over-ripe bananas to dispose of, so I made banana-chocolate-chip cupcakes as well.
And my sole New Year's resolution was to do more knitting, which I've been doing.
Here's the New Year's project. I'm well past the one little ball of Cascade 220 "Pacific" I found in my stash and into the yarn that finally arrived from the Loopy Ewe -- so the dyelots seem to be close enough a match not to make an obvious color shift.
This rides around in my purse and is what I work on when visiting Grandma. So it's moving along, slowly, but I'm adding some rows each week.
Here's my designated plain-stockinette project, which got a bit of extra attention recently as I finished the first sock and got the toe of the second out of the way. And then I went to see a movie or two, giving me a foot, and now there's a heel...
This one has been in hibernation for a while. It's been a project I could just about manage to work on at the gym or while reading, but I had more simple things I could do in plain stockinette. However, when the above Zauberball sock hit the phase where I was finishing up with the ribbing on the first sock and then doing the toe of the second, I needed to be able to pay attention to what I was doing, so this teal sock got put back into production. And now here I am at the fancy part around the top, and it's good TV knitting, and I'd like to get it finished and on to the toe of the second.
(Also there is the thing where I have a kneesock that ran out of the main color prematurely, and this sock's yarns are a match for it, so I'd like to get this project finished to free up the leftovers so I can finish the Absinthe Stripe socks.)
And here is this, which I cast on for almost a year ago, got half a row done on, and then put into hibernation. Until I found myself looking for something else to knit, having finished up a few other projects. (Though I'm putting this on the backburner again, until I get the colorwork section of the teal kneesock done.)
And I've also got six weeks of manicures to share...
Crappy picture, decent (albeit lazy) mani. Some decals and some glitter gradients.
This one involved seven green fingers, three gold glitter accent nails, and a few gold decals. Festive with minimal effort.
The actual Xmas mani was carefully planned. The plaid thumbnail especially amused me.
Another terrible blurry photo. That was a very handsome deer decal on my middle finger.
In keeping with the pink champagne theme, here was my New Year's mani. That was supposed to be a firework on the ring finger -- but of course I did it in soft pink to keep the color scheme, and it's too subtle to really make out. The right thumbnail of course had the "18."
A frigid week led to me experimenting with icicles drawn with a striping brush. I was very happy with this mani.
Last week, another pale wintry mani. Crappy snowflake decals that started chipping off by the weekend.
Nothing much of note to report -- cats getting into trouble, us getting a smattering of snow last night in the wee hours and it being freaking cold today, me needing to go eat something and get some sleep before work tonight...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.