You know, the opposite of work. (Both are occurring this weekend, but the not-work is more fun to photograph.)

Boh likes to “hide” behind or underneath the blanket on my bed. He also likes to chew on it, or pretend to chew on it, as a way of getting my attention.

I see you.

Slow-roasted tomatoes and raspberry muffins. There was also applesauce — a lot of it — but I didn’t take any pictures. Oh, and some knitting!

I am ready to start the decrease rows, and I am absolutely in love with this hat.

I also adore this pastry cutter — a lovely surprise from a friend who found this at an antique shop and knew that I’ve been looking for a a pastry cutter with a wooden handle. I may have to make up a batch of pie crust to welcome this into my kitchen.

This is how I know that I’m feeling better. Last weekend, I could not spin – too much work and motion for my tired body and achy head. This weekend, I finished spinning all 3 bobbins of singles, let them rest for 10 hours, and late last night, after a fun evening out with friends, I decided to sit down and ply so that I could set the twist and hang the yarn to dry overnight. (It’s almost dry!)

I think this is Boh’s “get back to work” face.

Lots o’ pictures today — I have a (digitized) pile of shots (like this one) to share! Yesterday, the wheel won out, and rightly so. I may have spent another hour and a half spinning last night. I’m still breaking the yarn every so often because I haven’t quite balanced the pull of my bobbin with the speed of my treadling, so I was getting underspun yarn that wasn’t quite strong enough to be pulled onto the bobbin. (Does that make sense?) I am already way better at starting and stopping the wheel, and at sliding the guide around to get a more evenly filling bobbin. Though the specific mechanics are the same, drafting with your hands in your lap is different from spindle spinning, but I like it. (I like them both.) More writing today, but I will be rewarding myself with time at the wheel — that luscious undyed oatmeal BFL is going to be all spun up by the end of today.

First up: Food. Here’s a picture of the last piece of quiche. I forgot to take a “before” shot. We were too busy eating.

A strawberry cake I baked last night, totally impulsively. Deb at smitten kitchen posted this around dinner time, and I could not resist.

Pile o’ cookbooks — they looked pretty to me when I was in the kitchen snapping food pictures.

Those pears need to become pie, stat. We’ll see how far I get with the paper today. This next one does not fit into a category, but it was chilly early in the week, and I was wearing my 28thirty for added warmth. (I’m one of those people who would rather throw open the windows and put on a sweater than keep them shut and not need layers.)

I love it. I may have made the upper sleeves a tad tight — in response to how loose the shoulders seemed — but I think with a little more wear, these will stretch just enough.

Next: Work photos.

This enormous primary source was way too big to rest on the desk next to my computer, so we had to curl up on the couch. Boh was not pleased that the book took his spot. There’s my whisper, about an inch into the ribbing, for “thinking” while working.

Yarn-winding is work, right? Here’s my technique. I’ve got about an inch and a half of the whisper ribbing, and I’m ready to start the second ball. I’m glad it is already wound!

Okay, one more wheel pic. This is my spinning “work” space, at the moment. Bright yellow bowl for fiber, sturdy chair to sit in, rug for wheel to stand on…Have I mentioned yet that I love my new wheel?

Blogging helps me to get words in my fingers — time to pour the coffee and switch over to academic writing. Have a great day!

We did a lot of playing in the kitchen this weekend, which, when I think about it, is pretty much what we do every weekend. This time, though, we remembered the camera (and the blog) BEFORE completing the eating. (This is key.)

If you’re here for knitting, you won’t find any today. I am hoping to play with buttons for my 28thirty. This week. Ahem. You heard it here first! Now, onward to the photo-documentation of this weekend’s kitchen-time.

I present Deb’s vegetarian dumplings. These are simple, fresh, and flavorful. (Like that, Champ?) In fact, after dipping our hands into the mixture before adding the egg, we siphoned off almost half of the tofu-veggies-ginger-garlic-seasonings “salad” to eat by itself. I actually ditched all the other dumpling recipes in my blue binder as a result of how tasty these were. You may recall that last time we followed a recipe that had us make our own wrappers and had a pork-based filling. Those were definitely very good, but these were incredibly tasty, and yet light enough that one could eat A LOT of them and not be incapacitated an hour later. I’m just saying.

This was more like kitchen sink sushi — filled with things that needed to be eaten, like asparagus and carrots, and topped with dollops of wasabi mayonnaise. When the boy makes sushi, I watch, and “help” by eating enough to keep some room on the cutting board for the next roll. Hey, somebody has to do it! (We had enough to pack sushi lunches for Sunday. I’m willing to argue that a sushi-lunch makes working on Sunday a tad easier.)

Okay, I may have misled you before when I said we took pictures BEFORE we ate. In this case, I just have pictures of these gorgeous treats before we prepared them: locally grown oyster mushrooms and ramps from the farmers’ market. You’ll just have to take my word for it that the oyster mushrooms sauteed with onions and the ramps fried in butter with a pinch of salt and folded into scrambled eggs were incredibly flavorful and delicious.

And then, as a mini-break from all of my reading and note-taking, I made Deb’s chocolate caramel crack(ers). This recipe may be joining the rotation of treats that get made with such regularity around here that the ingredients are always on the resupply list. I was eating these before the chocolate had fully hardened last night, and this morning, I broke off a small corner, just to see, after I snapped this photo. Delicious.

One last picture for you, of some of the daffodils I cut from the yard to brighten up my apartment. The forecast says it will rain all week, but at least I have daffodils in every room!

Nope, I didn’t knit this — but someone did. This slouchy, sheepy cardigan is a find from my new favorite thrift store in town. The sweater has been clearly loved — a few small holes, some evidence of repair, a missing button, but I just could not leave it to languish on the hanger. This sweater is perfect for reading, tea-drinking, and crafting, don’t you think?

And it cost me 9 dollars. Crazy. While wearing this sweater, I made some progress on my toe up socks at a lovely craft night/This American Life radio gathering hosted by a dear friend. Here’s the Monday morning kitchen photo of how sock number 2 is coming along:

I can’t wait to wear these. Maybe by the end of the week?

Also, we enjoyed more “Deb appreciation time” this weekend, in the form of smitten kitchen recipe preparation. On Friday afternoon, I made her key lime coconut cake. I halved the sugar in the frosting, but otherwise, followed Deb’s instructions. This is a a fantastic dessert — light, citrusy and a little sweet, with the added bonus that it is easy to rationalize eating a slice for breakfast.

We also made a recipe from Deb’s archives for dinner on Friday night: the indian-spiced vegetable fritters. These were absolutely delicious, and the process was just what we needed. Nice to be in the kitchen together chopping, frying, stirring, etc. after a long week. We were too busy eating to take lots of photos, but I do have one of the final batch of fritters in the frying pan:

Again, yum. I ate the last few fritters for dinner on Sunday straight out of the fridge, and they were just as tasty!

How did it become March? As seems to be my blogging/morning routine, it’s time to pour a second cup of coffee and continue reading. Have a great day!

The keyword there is “feeling,” folks. Yesterday was such a day: only a few hours of academic work was completed, but I managed to go grocery shopping, make all sorts of deliciousness in the kitchen, teach someone to knit, and attend reading group.

Smashed chickpea salad, adapted from Smitten Kitchen. (Shocking, I know.) My version lacked olives and bread, to make it a sandwich, but this was even better than I expected.

More applesauce bread (I’ve been making at least a loaf a week lately) and Mark Bittman’s basic brownies — I know I’ve posted these before, but it has been several months since the last time I baked them. These were for a friend’s birthday. and they were every bit as good as I remembered them to be. And so easy! Why aren’t you making them already?

Yesterday afternoon, after several days of green grass and muddy walks with Boh, the snow began to fall again, in huge, wet flakes. Yay!

Progress on the baby sweater. At last. The ribbed baby jacket is blocking, and is almost dry. This afternoon, I will sew the seams together and weave in the ends. I ended up making a buttonhole in case I go that route, and after looking at snaps yesterday, I think I’d prefer a bright button. If I can’t make it to the yarn shop, I may swipe the blue button from my gathered cardi. We’ll see…

Time for coffee and actual productivity, instead of just feelings of productivity!

It all started innocently. A dear friend came over to bake and decompress. She is far more talented in the land of dough, so she did the honors:

In my desperate search for a heart cookie cutter, I came across a few other shapes that I simply could not bear to abandon mere days before the retail holiday of affection.

Thus, love lobsters. (These cookies are also courtesy of Deb at Smitten Kitchen — the coconut shortbread cookies posted recently.)

My valentine and I (and Boh) managed an afternoon walk to celebrate. The ground was frozen, but the sun was shining.

For dinner, I turned to Deb again — this stuffed cabbage recipe had caught my eye. There are lots of leftovers, and all parties are excited about that. My only hot tip? Next time, I’m going to use cooked rice, as the half cup mixed into the filling seemed to take forever to cook. (As in, many jokes were cracked about our romantic three course meal — the first two courses being delicious rolls of cabbage and filling, with slightly underdone rice.)

I rarely remember to take pictures before we eat — while I was packaging leftovers, I realized I wanted to document this meal, so I dumped the container back into the pot…splitting open a few of the rolls. Trust me when I say this can/did look prettier, and that it was delicious, homey and hearty.

Time to get some work done on this Sunday afternoon — hoping to have some knitting to share very soon…

I have a whole slew of unrelated (or maybe loosely connected) photos: knits in action, kitchen adventures, knitting mistakes… Hmmm. I promise NOT to name this post something about the letter K.

Friday:

Bolero Jacket in action. I feel like I read a lot from folks about how sometimes knitting is not super wearable, and my blog gets lots of visitors who are looking for advice on wearing things like legwarmers, so I’ve been a bit more mindful of snapping photos when I am actually wearing things I’ve made (not that I consider myself remotely fashionable). This sweater gets a lot of wear around the house, and steps into real life when the weather is variable enough to warrant a heavy sweater but not a winter coat — this works best for me with a big puffy vest. I wear this when I need to bring a bit of comfort with me — in this case, the discussion of a tough book.

Friday night, we made pizza and lemon tart (from deb at smitten kitchen, of course). No pictures of the pizza. Note the fork for scale in this picture. I also discovered some serious errors with my increasing on the BSJ I’ve been working on — I literally had 6 ridges left to knit when I realized that my increases (for the fronts of the sweater) were uneven. I don’t even have the heart to photograph the problem, nor could I stomach ripping back. I just put it aside, dug through the stash, and cast on for a baby version of the bolero jacket.

Saturday:

Moroccan Stew (from deb) and biscuits (a la Mark Bittman). Also, a new spindle arrived:

I LOVE this spindle. I spun the sample fiber it came with immediately, and may need to dig through my fiber stash to start something new so that I can put it to work. The spindle is from Spinsanity, and it spins wonderfully. Hooray for birthday presents to myself.

Sunday (actually anniversary of my birth):

Homemade birthday cake, not baked by me. Honey-Rosemary Cake with Lemon Frosting, from Apples for Jam. This is incredibly delicious, the kind of cake you can eat several pieces of during the day and not feel like you’re overdosing on sugar. I intend to have some for breakfast after I post this.

And since this purports to be a knitting blog, here’s the progress I’ve made on my replacement baby sweater. Just about halfway done already — what a difference worsted weight yarn makes. I’ve had enough distance from my BSJ to take a look, and I imagine I’ll rip back and keep going — it may go to this baby, or to the next. Lots of folks in my life are adding to their families this year!

Hope you all had lovely weekends. Sadly, you don’t get to stop reading when it is your birthday, but I did slow down a bit. Time to have some of that cake and prep for class!

Apologies for my kindergarten-esque approach to blogging this week. I’m going to chalk it up to the fact that my brain is tired — first “real” meeting with my committee this morning. It will be fine, but the meeting does have the word “exam” in the title, and I’m still a tad nervous.

Onward to the letter “P”.

Purple Potatoes. These are, in fact, from my friend P.’s farm! Aren’t they beautiful?

Pickled Onions — from  (where else) Smitten Kitchen — Deb made a pickled red onion and escarole salad last week that sounded incredible, so I made the onions, put them on a bed of spinach and fried an egg to make it dinner.

Progress. This baby is going to arrive any moment now, and I really would love to be able to give this to my committee chair next week. I have a knitting date right after the meeting with my committee. Knitting friends + garter stitch = therapy.

Happy weekend.

Titled for you, Champ.

This is one of the most delicious things that has ever been prepared in my kitchen: a roasted butternut squash and carmelized onion galette. Recipe can be found here, at Smitten Kitchen, where the photos are always drool-worthy and the deliciousness is routinely replicable. Thanks, Deb.

I’m so close to finishing my June Bug socks. So close. Like, I just have to knit the toe. Though I’ve again failed to complete a pair of socks during the month of Socktober, if I can get these finished this week, they will still be the fastest pair of socks I’ve ever knit. I’d like to make a few pairs as Christmas presents this year, so I’ll have to work on my speediness…