Mint chocolate cupcake goodness. These are from VCTOTW, with the minor changes of orange-colored buttercreme (mint flavored!) instead of green, because Caroline wanted it that way, and tiny chocolate chips instead of the chocolate-y icing layer of the recipe. Which I think was for the best, because the mint icing was so good.

Yeah, they’re kind of Halloween-ish.

I wish I had brought the extras home with me.

This post is Alex approved.

Alex does not, however, approve of the fact that there have been no pictures taken of what little progress has been made on the Laminaria. I blame the fact that I managed to screw up in a very noticeable (to me) way. I decided to just put it down for a while, since I was going to CA for a bit, but now that I’m back… while I’ve managed to get through the tedious task of ripping back far enough, I haven’t had the motivation to start working on it again.

Oh well.

A big-ish tree fell down in the cemetery, taking its roots with it and knocking down more than a few headstones. I would guess that the roots were about 7 feet across.

branches and headstones everywhere.

as this is a knitting blog, at least in theory, maybe I should talk about knitting sometimes. I cast on for Laminaria, and am slogging my way through the entirely tedious if not particularly hard star chart (okay, it’s probably mostly tedious because I knit too tightly). I’m using Knit Picks Shadow in basalt heather, a color I picked for no particular reason, but which is quickly winning me over with its subtlety.

next on the needles will be the Woodland Shawl, but I am waiting until this weekend to cast on, since I’m planning this as plane knitting for when I go out to CA next Tuesday.

I learned an important thing: in a bowl full of bagel toppings, poppy seeds will fall to the bottom, so that the first half of your bagels will have mostly sesame seeds and the second half will have mostly poppy seeds. Oh well.

Cookies and cream cupcakes from VCTOTW. Mmmhmm.

The littlest of sisters, attempting valiantly to frost one of the birthday cupcakes. Unfortunately, the frosting was too thick for the pastry bag, so we really just made a mess.

The only cupcake we managed to frost with the pastry bag method.

The other cupcakes were pretty, though, ’cause they looked like they had a scoop of ice cream on them.

She did like the hat, and she promised to wear it. Yay!

…which Carl was more than eager to provide.

A private memorial service will be held next week, after I finish picking up all the pieces of dark green fabric from my dark green carpet.

In other news:

Roasted sweet potato and pear, baked orange tofu, steamed broccoli and jasmine rice. The tofu was surprisingly sour, but still good, and made good leftovers. The sweet potato and pear was delicious. (Both recipes from Veganomicon.)

There will be more knitting soon… just need to figure out what would make for some good airport/airplane knitting (…and then what to do with the other yarns I ordered from Knit Picks yesterday…).

First up: sweet potato saag.

This is basically the pumpkin saag recipe from Veganomicon. It’s so, so good. I only made half the recipe, which sufficed for a dinner and a lunch, and I really wish there were more.

Next: bagels. Again, I know. This time using molasses in place of sugar, which turned the bagels an interesting yellow. These are half-sized, some topped with sea salt, some with sesame seeds, some are plain.

And: the hat. FOR REALZ.

Pink and white stripes, as you can see. I opted for the beads instead of trying to find some way to have “dangly down” parts, which she better appreciate because that’s the last time I ever put tiny beads on anything unless I can glue them on. 

I should probably go do something useful. Or maybe just waste time until I think it is not too early to start cooking dinner (roasted sweet potato and pear, and baked orange tofu).

Can you see?

You’ll probably just have to trust me that it’s much more apparent in real life.

the hemlock ring is finally off the needles and blocking… ehhn. it’s 52″ across, but doesn’t lay precisely flat, but I’m hoping that won’t bug me once it’s unpinned. I also somehow lost a stitch. repeatedly. at one point, I had 11 stitches fewer than I should have, so I unknitted forever, added in the missing 11 stitches, reknitted, somehow was still down a stitch, added one in, and yet, when I bound off (using the Longest Bind-Off Ever(tm)) I was still down a stitch. but, whatever, it’s done. right? right.

in other news:

bagels! waiting to go in the oven. I tried to take a post-oven picture, but it’s too dark in the kitchen now.

I should spend the rest of the weekend working on the Birthday Hat, but I’m just not in a knitting mood… I think the hemlock ring bind-off has kind of killed my knitting desire just a little bit. My plan for the Birthday Hat is to follow the general idea of the coronet hat from knitty, which, incidentally, was the first functional hat I ever made. Instead of a cabled band, though, I’m just going to do stripes.

Lemon cake, based on the lemon gem cupcake recipe from VWaV with the minor revision of lemon extract in place of vanilla extract, since I didn’t have a lemon to zest. This is half the recipe, baked in a 9″ cake round. Too lazy to make frosting, so powdered sugar wins.

And experimental chocolate peanut butter cups, straight from How it All Vegan (except using a mini muffin tin instead of a regular one). They were good,  but I have a few ideas for making these better – I think I’ll make the next batch with cashew butter, and construct them differently so they have a chocolate bottom.

There’s no knitting to report on, since I’ve knit, unknit, knit, and unknit again the same four rounds of the hemlock ring recently because I keep having counting issues.  Ehhhn.

Hopefully there will be FO goodness soon, and more bagels, since I didn’t take a picture of the first batch.

My voice of reason, who listens to my obsessive worrying and tells me to listen to my heart instead of the panic in my head. My little friend, who folds paper into sheep and makes the most delicious cupcakes. Happy birthday, Stef.

You’re as old as I am now. Sucks to be ::mumble mumble:: years old, doesn’t it?