Cooking/Baking Spree and My Winter Fashion Must-Haves

I have been doing a TON of research for some classic as well as new and interesting cookie recipes lately. I want to bake a plethora of cookies to give out this Holiday Season to co-workers, friends and family. I have found quite a few on the BHG website. Just warning you right now, until I find a better free recipe website and recipe storage system, I will always rave about BHG. I found some Honey-Ginger Bites, Raspberry Almond Meringues and will be making my mom's Melt In Your Mouth cookies. I also plan on making some Cranberry Apple Crush, which is pretty much cider. Tonight I will be making Minestrone soup, which I found in the (surprise!) Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. I will also be making Orange Yogurt Scones for my family on Christmas morning. I've been making this recipe since I was in middle school, it's an old one from Sunset Magazine.

In other cooking news, I have subscribed to Cook's Illustrated and should be getting a subscription to Gourmet. My brother also got Food & Wine! I just need to find the time to use all of these cooking magazines now!

As for my Winter Fashion Must-Haves... I have been hankering for some crocheted tights in a geometric pattern and for some patent leather wedges.

I did finally acquire both:


These are the shoes that I bought from Macy's. They are BCBGirls, which I absolutely adore already! I have another pair of lavender pumps from BCBGirls that are just so comfy!

Next:


Crocheted tights in a geometric print. I bought these from Joy of Socks and were quite cheap considering other crocheted tights are about $50+. These are called the Zurich Textured Tights.

I actually plan on wearing both of my Winter Must-Haves together with my Christmas dress.



I just need to add some more lining to it, as I mentioned previously, and I'm set to go!

Now I'm off to the grocery store! Then to cook, bake and sew while listening to tons of Christmas music.

Holy Bobbles Batman!

So... I just made my first bobble. It was quite the experience. I hated it to be quite frank. My fingers are really killing me now. I have to guess that it's more the fault of the yarn that I am using than the fault of the bobble being a bobble, and maybe a little because of the very cold weather we've been having. If that makes any sense at all?


See the bobble at the top? Took me about 20 minutes to figure out how to do it... In more positive news, I did learn how to cable as well. Oooh and read a chart, I think... All of this on one knit! Let's just say that I will only be making one more bobble on this baby. There are actually twelve bobbles, the yarn is just too thick for me to be able to handle all of those. In case you were wondering, this is the Chunky Everyday Cable Bag by Nguyen Le. I found the pattern via Ravelry.

The yarn I am using is what is called for in the pattern, Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick and Quick. I am making this purse in the colorway "Butterscotch" as a present for my sister. I found the Urchin beret I had originally started to be very ugly in the Homespun yarn I was using.

I plan to buy some vinyl handles for the purse and line it with some 70's looking print cotton I have.

In sewing news... Well there really isn't any. I of course bought more fabric, what's new, huh?


This beaut is from e-Quilter and I plan to make a black/grey/yellow quilt from this... eventually. I think that the free Nigella quilt from Amy Butler's website would be perfect. I would like to use this black as the large appliquéd medallion motif.


This is a very fine wale cotton/spandex corduroy from JoAnn's. I am going to use this for McCall's 5513. I will also be sure to brush up on my corduroy sewing by reading this Threads article before I start.


This next fabric is the lining for the coat and the purse. Do you think it's 70's looking? My mom agreed with me that it was... But sometimes we are both wrong. I love the wide array of colors in the print, but without the loudness. This was also bought at JoAnn's.


And last but not least in my fabric purchasing escapades... I bought this lingerie lining from Sew Sassy Fabrics for a dress that I bought from Nordstrom's. It is the cutest dress with not so cute see through-y-ness. I am going to sew this lining into the dress. It is allegedly static free which is wonderful as it is quite dry at this time of year. I hope to wear this dress on Christmas Eve or Christmas with some black crocheted tights and black patent leather wedges.

I finally baptized my KitchenAid mixer! And WOW! Does it make a difference in the production time of baking! A cookie dough took me about half an hour to make and I know that it would have normally cost me about an hour and a half! I also made a royal icing for the cookies with my mixer. Oh how exciting it was to use my mixer! The recipe that I used was from BHG (of course) and is called Lemon Cream Cheese Cutout Cookies.

Oh, and on a shopping trip to pick up some meringue powder for the icing I did acquire a cookie press, new Christmas cookie cutters and some treat wrappings. Next up on the cookie baking agenda: Spritz Cookies!

I Was Finally Invited!

I am so excited! I was invited to join Ravelry! I found my invitation in my junk mail, (good thing I check it), and immediately signed up. Let me just say that it is amazing and I find it that much more helpful than the beloved Google, which can be difficult when searching for yarn, and knitting patterns and such.

I do find it very similar to CraftMemo; which was developed with the same idea in mind but for any type of craft, whether it be beading, sewing, embroidery, knitting, crocheting, etcetera. I loved CraftMemo, but I think it was abandoned...

All in all I am completely amazed at the job that has been done at Ravelry, and I've only been a member all of 1 hour! So if you knit or crochet, I encourage you to sign up to get an invitation.