Season of Cake

Last week was my birthday and, of course, there had to be cake. Cake season has officially begun at our house. Between late August and early November, there's a pretty good chance there's going to be cake in the house of some kind or another. I spend a lot of time trying new recipes or decorating so that each person gets a really special cake. This year, I made Hershey's especially dark chocolate cake and some jam-based frosting as follows:

Jess's Jam-based Frosting

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter (4 oz), at room temperature

1 brick cream cheese (8oz), at room temperature

1 lb. confectioner's sugar

1/3 cup jam 

Combine all ingredients and mix with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until thoroughly combined. Try not to eat it out of the bowl. 

Have a taste anyway. 

Frost when cake is cool. Share cake with friends and family.

This year, mom gave me a jar of black raspberry jam that she made out of berries from her garden and it made amazing frosting. The pink is strawberry from my own stash. I think this counts as this week's technique. I'm gonna count it. 

I also finished a couple of those dish towels and used up some kitchen cotton stash. This is Lemon, Tan, and Green, which includes the Ballband Dishcloth by Peaches and Cream via Mason Dixon Knitting and a simple towel of my own design. All that is is linen stitch with a moss stitch border, which I didn't have to think about too much.

I've also been working on Leto, which looks about the same as it did last week, but with a little bit more brown on it.

Amazingly, I've even been spinning! I think the back to school blahs are about done. This is a 100% silk top dyed by Rain's Obsessive Stitchery in a beautiful coppery color. I'm spinning woolen, which makes for a smooth, shiny single and I'm very excited to see how it turns out. 

It's a shame I don't get to keep this one.

And here's a little something in Crayola crayon based on a pysanka design that I did this week. It's a little wobbly and squeewonked in places, but I wasn't aiming for precision. Crayon is a highly under-appreciated medium, I feel. Just because we've been using them since Kindergarten doesn't mean it's an inferior medium at all. This guy "paints" with plastic bags and his work is amazing. 

And here's a picture for mom. Here, Bu is coloring with a little friend at dance school while she waits on Big Sister to finish her class. Bu started her first class this week and loves it so far. I keep trying to get pictures of Iris, but she's about as easy to photograph as Bigfoot. I'll keep trying.

Knitting helps

It's all dishcloths all the time right now.

 With school and dance starting up again, I don't have the brains for much else.

 Well, not all the time. I did finish one end of Leto and picked up the other end. It's not as long as I'd hoped it would be, but I think it'll be alright.

 My schedule is kicking my butt, you guys, seriously.

But at least I'm knitting.

Knitting helps.

I've done two ballband dishcloths from Mason Dixon knitting and I'm on a third one that's more towel-like than scrubbie-like in linen stitch with a moss stitch border. 

And that's all she wrote this week. Tomorrow is my birthday and I plan to make a cake. 

Another DaVinci Disorder* flare.

I'm happy to report a finished object this week. That's 356 yards (326m) of Cascade 220 in a lovely coral with the compelling color name 7830. This is a variation on the BFF cowl by Ysolda Teague and tiny owl knits. I did the first link as written, but the second link is one of my own devising. There's a tight cable braid up the middle, flanked by... I forget what the stitch is called. It's a 1x1 rib that shifts over one stitch every two rows.  The border is the same as in the first link, three stitches of ribbing: purl, knit, purl on the right side, followed by three stitches of stockinette that curls over for a nice rounded edge. It's already been delivered to the BFF in question and I'm just waiting on my link to really finish the whole shebang. That would be a not-so-subtle hint if said BFF hadn't been working on a sweater for her darling and delightful youngest child, but now that it's finished (it's really awesome work, BTW)...

Where my link at, woman?

I will wait patiently. No rush. When you get to it, you know.

I also finished a stack of small project bags. They're about sock-sized, I think, and I'm rather pleased with them. All they need is a little bit of ribbon to close them up and they'll be completely finished.

I love that the plaids are matched on the side, but my favorite part is the liner and the shirt pocket inside.

I'm not sure why that tickles me so, but it does.

These were made for Project Make as a companion piece to the plaid shirt that I made for the Outfit-a-long, where I learned to match plaids and when not to bother (such as with the shirt pockets).

I also finished plying some merino? from a sheep named Sophia that was dyed for me many moons ago. It's about 145 yards of two ply about fingering weight or so, Z-spun and S-plied, as is my custom.  So that's three FOs from three different crafts this week. Golly. Unless some miracle occurs in the next day, I've got a little over a thousand meters to go in Stash Dash to reach 3k. I'm not going to "win," but I'm pleased with the finishing I've done anyway.

It's been a busy week of crafting. I even started to cut my t-shirt, but then realized I wanted to do some alterations and needed a little help.

I've started and nearly finished a ballband dishrag out of Mason Dixon Knitting. This one is the inverse of the one I did before, which has now faded so that the colors are about indistinguishable.

One end of the Leto is about done and it's been getting some love as my travel project. These two have been my most active projects and were the ones I took to the Yarnspinner's Bee at our local library. I regret not getting a picture because these ladies were pretty great. Other than the announcement on the library's website, there's no actual presence on the web. They're not on Ravelry at all, which is a darn shame, because I think they'd get a kick out of all the free patterns available there. Ms. Nancy made some adorable pirate-themed stuffies from fleece, Ms. Vera does some amazing beadwork, Ms. Lorna who directs Children's Literature there is content to make simple scarves, and Ms. Cara is the quiet one. They all had about forty years on me, but I don't think I've laughed so hard in a month. I'll be going again, for sure.

And here you go, Mom. Phoebe hugging my elbow:

*DaVinci Disorder is not a real disease. My sister and I made it up to describe our crafting polygamy. 

The beginning is understanding

Knitting is not all that exciting this week. I'm plugging away at the BFF cowl and Leto gets some attention while I'm out, but other than that, there's nothing to write home about. The BFF should be done by next week, if I continue at this pace, so that'll be another 400 or so yards toward Stash Amble.

I've made a little bit of progress on the sewing queue, having moved the project bags on a little bit, but I haven't got all the way to cutting out my t-shirt yet. It's harder to find time to sew than anything else because the sewing machine is in the room where the Husband sleeps before going to his job in the afternoon and a certain toddler person likes to hug my elbows and will sometimes refuse a nap.

 And Iris got her pointe shoes. This is my favorite picture because there's Iris en pointe like a brand new fawn trying out her legs and there's her teacher holding her arm and the lady from the store holding her foot and leg all together in a way that expresses the idea of "support" both literally and figuratively. The knee brace is for a kind of tendonitis common in young athletes (it's a minor thing she'll probably grow out of) and shows another, more behind-the-scenes kind of support.

Little Bit got new dance shoes, too. She starts in just a couple of weeks, though she's been informally joining other kids' classes and practicing with her big sister for a year already. She knew the dance they did at Disney as well as some of the kids that were in the show because she'd practiced with them almost every time.

In other creative news, I did a short series of drawings with quotes from Captain America, Spiderman, and Thor using Paper by 53. I think I could be a little more precise if I had a stylus or pencil, but it's not bad for what amounts to digital fingerpainting.

I'm also spinning a few minutes before bedtime and even ::gasp:: reading fiction books (aside from comics). It turns out that a romance story appeals to me more when the protagonists are two ladies in the South who also happen to be biologists. One is an entomologist who studied moths. This is not a book I deliberately looked for. I just picked it up at our very tiny library and it happened to have a lady entomologist in it. Coincidence? I think not. I've been writing some, too, and working on theological ideas.

Between all of those things, I'm still studying on Khan Academy for the GRE on Sunday. I was going to sit here and complain about how I didn't finish all my July goals, but really I'm doing quite a lot. I've just not finished anything this week, which is fine. Some weeks are like that.

For August, I'd like to:

1. Post a new technique here on the blog
2. Make that t-shirt! Really!
3. Move the spinning queue
4. Do the carrot dye test
5. Start an embroidery project

So far, my Project Make goals seem to be all over the map. I don't really have a schedule or even an understanding of what creative projects I tend to work on when. It's partly seasonal, mostly because quilting in July is just not going to happen, but things like Tour de Fleece and the Outfit-a-long are contributing factors, too. One thing that regular blogging has taught me is that there is an ebb and flow to my creative projects, even though I'm not certain of what its whole shape of it is. Perhaps next year, I'll have a better understanding of it so that I can use that to my advantage. 

For of all virtue, I say, and I repeat it, the beginning is understanding and the fulfillment is courage; by the one it is judged what ought to be done and by the other this is carried to success
-Demosthenes, Funeral Speech 60.17