Happy New Year!

The stash diet officially starts today.  In addition to the project objectives I defined using the Stash and Burn challenges, I've also decided on a Knotty Girls challenge.  This one is a challenge to use up partial balls to "stripe it up".  I'm going to make a hat that I've planned to start for a few months but hadn't managed to get to yet.  It is called the 76-stitches hat and is from Interweave fall 2004.  So two objectives met:  stash reduction and using a pattern in my collection.  Perfect.  And the next mail-in deadline for Warm Hands is January 31 so I'll be motivated to finish and get it in the mailing for this month.

I finished this hat yesterday.  It is a free pattern called Barley from Tin Can knits and I really like it.  A quick knit but with a little bit of design that makes it more interesting than a basic hat.

I also realized that I hadn't inventoried my sock yarn collection so I did that today.  I have so much yarn it is frightening.

Beginning the stash reduction project

So here we go.  I've joined a couple of threads on the Stash and Burn group on Ravelry.  They are posting stash burning challenges which I will follow to the extent that my stash fits.  So far so good.  The January challenge is to use recent stash or a precious yarn.  While I can probably name quite a few precious yarns (aren't they all), I chose a Manos Maxima yarn, bought too long ago at Spun Fibre Arts.  I haven't made anything with it yet partly because one forgets stash yarns but also because it is so soft and I felt it needed just the right project.  I've decided that the project is nyx from Norah Gaughan collection, Volume 9, seen here.  It is a cabled cowl in worsted weight yarn.  I think the Manos should work as a nice substitute.

The second challenge is for the first quarter and is to complete a sweater.  I am choosing my in-progress kaide that I blogged about when taking inventory of in progress projects a couple of months ago.  I've made some good progress on it in the last couple of days to the point that I'm now about halfway up the back.  I've been knitting with so much fingering weight yarn of late that I'd forgotten how quick a bulkier yarn knits up.  

Only one small problem that I'd also forgotten.  My formerly recurring wrist pain which doesn't seem to bother me as much when I'm doing small projects with lightweight yarn has cropped up again.  I can keep going on the project, I just need to pace myself a bit better.  Several hours constantly on a car trip might have been over doing it.

Now it is sort of organized but there is far too much of it

I spent a weekend or two a little while ago organizing my yarn stash and taking inventory on Ravelry.  There was a great deal of satisfaction in getting that done but also a realization that I have a problem.  And it isn't limited to yarn.  I have collected fabric with about as much abandon as I have collected yarn.  I also have collected cookbooks in about the same way.  What to do about this.  Well, it just happens to be New Years resolution time and here is what I have decided (gulp!).  Apologies to yarn and fabric stores who will see a dip in their sales if I'm successful.  Here goes …

1.  I am not going to buy any yarn or fabric in 2014 unless:

• I need it to finish a project (narrowly defined as batting or backing fabric for a quilt).  
• I completely deplete my stash (hah!) - then I can shop for project specific items.  
• I am on a trip to somewhere foreign and see yarn to bring back as a souvenir.  Since I generally try to pack very light these days, the amount of yarn I can bring back is pretty limited so this shouldn't be too bad.  There are no trips currently in the plans so this probably won't come in to play but I needed it in the rules just in case.
• I have already signed up for the Sweet Georgia yarn club and will have some incoming yarn for three months - this has already been done so I'm stuck with it (rats!)

2.  I am not going to buy any craft books in 2014:

• I will use the books that I have on my shelves, the patterns I have snipped from magazine articles (which I will continue to get because I've already paid for them) and patterns I own on Ravelry. I guess free patterns would be fine too but technically I don't want to expand my pattern universe so think I need to stop collecting these as well.
• An exception here - if I can't find something to make with my existing resources, I can buy a pattern on Ravelry  (or at a store but it might be best to avoid going to one at all).  But I must cast on the pattern immediately and start knitting.  
• If I really, really want a book, I'm going to add it to my 2014 Christmas list.

3.  I am not going to buy any cookbooks in 2014.

• If I see one I can't live without, I'm going to add it to my 2014 Christmas list.  At the same time, I'll also examine why I want that particular cookbook and see if I can't find a recipe in one of the hundreds I already own.  The local library seems to order most books that hit my radar screen so I can peruse to my heart's content to answer the above question.  

4.  I will erase games from my iPad that I spend too much time on and use the time to exercise, work on projects, read, continue to organize my life.  Tetris Blitz, your days are numbered.

5.  I am going to read all of those half-finished books on my shelves:  the Knitters Life List, the Omnivores dilemma, the Happiness Project and others that don't come to mind at the moment.  Not to mention the cookbooks that contain good technique or ingredient information.

6.  I'm going to blog about this experiment.

They look messy but these might be the ones

A few unrelated thoughts in this post:

1.  I love the Chocolate Aroma cookies at my local coffee shop, Aroma.  They are chocolate, with icing sugar and are almost perfect.  And the best thing, when you feel like a small sweet with your coffee, they are a small sweet.  They aren't the as-big-as-your-head cookies that Starbucks sells which provide a meal in a cookie and don't actually taste very good.

I've tried a few recipes over the last few weeks to see if I could recreate them and I think I've finally come close.  Since this recipe was passed to me as being a possibility by another cookie-loving friend, I should have tried it first.  They are called chocolate crackle cookies and are from Martha Stewart's website.  As I went over there to get the link, I notice there are several other chocolate crackle cookies that would also be worth a try.  But in the meantime, I have these.  And they are delicious.

2.  Outside today we have a blanket of ice.  Thankfully our power hasn't gone off, despite trying to a few times (touch wood).  I stuck my head out earlier to look around and could hear ice crashing down off of the trees.  It looks pretty but treacherous.  So we're hibernating today.  I baked the cookies above.  We had squash soup from the freezer for lunch with garlic bread made from some leftover baguette and a glass of Chardonnay.  Can't get much better than that.

3.  I made another hat for the Warm Hands Network.  I have discovered that I quite enjoy making hats but am less crazy about wearing them.  My already flat-as-a-pancake hair does not need the added influence of a hat.  With Warm Hands I get to enjoy the making and someone gets to enjoy the wearing. A winning solution all around.

They called this the appetizer

Usually when they call for snow in our area, we wake up in the morning, look out the window, don't see snow, turn on the TV and see that Buffalo got slammed with it instead.  Not today.  For a change the weather forecasters were correct.  The snow we shovelled this morning was called the appetizer.  Based on the continuation in snow all day, I think this was a good description.

So what did I do instead of my normal Saturday running around?  Baked cookies … Now that's what I call an appetizer.  Three new recipes. The chocolate espresso cookies and the ginger spice cookies at the front are from the latest issue of the LCBO Food & Drink magazine.  The shortbread are from In the Sweet Kitchen and I made macaroons, currently cooling in the fridge, from the Toronto Star's annual cookie advent calendar.

So to earn a taste of these cookies, it's back out for the next round of snow shovelling.

I have always liked it as a spice

Last week I was bouncing around iTunes when I discovered a new app.   It is an app that costs money but it intrigued me enough that I did a bit of research and decided to buy.  It is called Paprika and it is great.  I have recipes saved on many websites and Paprika lets me copy them into one app.  So once I copy the recipes from these various websites, I'll be able to search all of the recipes in one place and won't have to remember where I saw a recipe when I want to make it.

The copy process is dead easy and my favourite part of this was getting saved recipes out of the terrible Bon Appetit recipe box and into something much more user friendly. I have only begun to copy recipes into the app but I think I know what I'll be playing with over the Christmas holidays.

One thing I really love about the app is the shopping list feature.  I decide to make a recipe, click the shopping cart box and it makes a shopping list … sorted by section of the grocery store.  I am somewhat irrationally happy about this app.  But after years of trying to figure out how to best sort recipes cut out of magazines, trying a bunch of different methods (file folders, binders, copying into Word, saving on magazine websites), I think I've finally found just the thing.

My kind of shopping

I am not the world's biggest fan of shopping.  I generally like to go to a store for a specific reason, buy what I need and get out.  But I do love craft shows.  And I went to the biggest in the city last night, the One of a Kind Christmas show.  Every year I have to psych myself to go because before I go I think … it's so big and takes forever, do I really need to go this year … and every year I go.  And I don't regret it.  Sometimes I go with a friend and sometimes I go by myself.  Sometimes I see a million different things I want to buy and sometimes I don't.  But I always find a gift or two and my husband really likes the one of a kind Christmas tree we've built up with the ornaments I pick up every year.

Here are just a few of the things I found last night.  I bought much more but can't include photos or stories since they must be kept secret from the prying eyes of others in the household until December 25th.

So, I know.  The cat is 18 and gets fluids for a kidney problem.  But I think that is when you really need a new bowl.  And it was either this or a monster pottery cup from Julie Richard.  

Not that a monster cup would have been a bad idea.  It's just that, despite adding a boatload of extra cupboard space, our kitchen cannot support many more dishes.

Next are linens from Rain Goose Textiles.  I've bought a few things over the years from this artist.  A yoga bag, oven mitts, tea cozy…  This year I bought a new tea cozy and these placemats and hand towels.  I love her stuff.  Simple designs but just enough to make them stand out as different.

Last of the ready-to-blog items purchased are lip balm and soap from Olive Authentique.  Their lip balm is perfect.  I lost the one I carry around in my purse a few months ago and finished the one I had beside the bed around the same time and have been missing it ever since.  Truth be told, this is probably the number 1 reason I got myself to the show this year.  I knew I could order it online but that just didn't seem sporting.  I haven't tried their soaps before so picked up a couple of those too.  Just before I was going to check out, the fire alarm went off and I kept thinking, please don't make us exit the building before I do my transaction.  Clearly there wasn't any sort of real emergency because the show went on.

So all-in-all, I'm glad I went.  I would say that this was one of the better shows I've been to.  Much more in the Christmas ornament line than in some years and lots of other really great things too.

If you are in the Toronto area, try to get there.  If nothing else, you'll be inspired by all of the hard work these artisans put into their craft.