Thing-a-day.com

Tonight my boyfriend and I made dinner, and invited a friend over.  I was in charge of the salad and an appetizer.

On the left is spinach with feta, dried dragonfruit, and toasted almonds.  I was really proud of this salad because I came up with it all on my own.

On the right is fried plantain chips with lime and salt.  I bought plantains on a whim at the store and found this idea in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.   These were quite excellent and very easy!  I’ll be buying plantains much more often

Tonight I printed, cut and wound thread onto these awesome (and free) embroidery thread cards.

There are two designs to choose from over at Craft Chi.

I finally started the “Truthiness” cross stitch kit I bought from Subversive Cross Stitch a few weeks ago.

Didn’t get all that far…but it’s a start.

And if Stephen Colbert homages weren’t enough, today I found a blog dedicated to rendering old video games in cross stitch.

Tonight, I cooked something.

I needed to use up some carrots in the fridge, so I cooked them with garlic and glazed them with balsamic vinegar.  I served it over ginger quinoa.  This was my first time glazing much of anything…fun!

I spent the better part of Sunday evening winding one of my skeins of Snow Leopard Trust Handspun Camel yarn into this:

Normally this process wouldn’t take so long, but as gorgeous as these skeins are, they’re also a mess.  It takes the utmost patience not to end up with a tangled knot (and even more if you do).

Then I started knitting this:

It will be a fabulous comfort shawl very soon.

I got behind. Let’s just forget about Friday. I knitted, that’s all that matters.
Here’s Saturday:

A photograph I took while waiting for James at the BART station. I can’t resist bright lights in the dark, and this one actually came out. I like how the line gets all broken up toward the right after looking so smooth on the left.

I’ve officially been a day behind for at least 3 days now.  Oh well.  I’m posting daily, which is quite a feat!

Yesterday, I printed out one of those Chinese New Year paper box templates from HP.  My printer doesn’t print magenta/red anymore, so I decided to color in the red.  It was going well, but I got tired and didn’t finish.  So, my thing for Day 7 is only half complete.  Finishing it will be another thing!

After a long day at work and my weekly wine class, about all I had the brainpower for was some relatively simple knitting.  Got this yarn dyed by Pigeonroof Studios recently and I couldn’t wait to cast on for something.  The garter rib pattern is from Sensational Knitted Socks and I love it.

Last night I finished the second-to-last chart of Mystery Stole 3. After languishing since last summer, I have recently regained the motivation to work on it. Now I have just one chart left, which should go pretty quick. Then I will have a nice lacy shawl for the spring…and I can get started on my next one!

I wrote up a tutorial on how to knit and felt a bowl, and got it published on one of my favorite design blogs, More Ways to Waste Time. Even if you’re a beginning knitter, there are links to a great video site to help you get started. And felting covers up a myriad of mistakes!

Today I bought a fancy coffee grinder from some dude on craigslist. Now I can finally get the full potential out of the espresso machine I got for xmas. That requires experimenting and keeping track of things (like grind level and shot timing). It’s an art AND science.

Whipped this up in a few minutes. I’ve always loved origami but I don’t do it nearly enough. Hopefully I can pick up some nice paper and awesome books when I go to Japan in April.

Started a swatch for James’ crazy Fair Isle hat. These are mushrooms…there will also be snails and squirrels.

As a serious yarn-addict, I tend to knit, crochet, or spin at least a little everyday. My goal for thing-a-day is to broaden my horizons. Taking more digital photos, cooking new things (something I’ve been trying to do anyway), or sketching. Also this will get me blogging more often…despite my creative activities, I tend to be pretty bad at documenting it. I’m really excited to see what everyone else makes!