and the winner is...

Last week I put a hand knit blanket up for adoption. Twenty-five people ended up asking to be in the drawing, so apparently I misunderestimated the appeal of the offer. I decided it would be appropriate to draw the winning name from a hand knit hat:


And the winner is...


Paul Skoglund! Paul is someone I've known since dinosaurs walked the earth, which was when I was in high school. Just ask Sarah Palin if you think I'm making this up.

Knitted goods lotteries may become a regular feature here, because lord knows I make more than I can use. I end up employing the stuff as home decor, for chrissake:


(Wow, that monitor looks so wee and quaint now that it's been replaced by an iMac bigger than Godzilla's head). Anyway, so stay tuned if you're into scarves or whatever. In other crafty news, I made a cute dress yesterday.





This one's not up for adoption; I've got four or five little cuties in my social circle who are wearing this size nowadays, so they have dibs.

home dec la la la

Whoohoo, I painted one of my living room walls dark red and I love it. So much better than a big room that's all the same color as a cubicle. And I brought my poppy rug back out to the main living area and got rid of the cream-colored-dust-bunny-from-hell generator also known as my wool shag rug. The shag was more suited to the furninture, but for now this will have to do. Maybe someday when I am making 100% of my salary again I will be able to buy a non-shedding shag rug.

Here's the old version of that wall:


Snooze.

land of the (gluten) free

It turns out that if you are willing to stock up on a few unusual ingredients (tapioca flour, xanthan gum, brown rice flour, etc.), it's not hard to make delicious wheat-free baked goods. Here, for example, is some damned tasty lemon blueberry pound cake:



I highly recommend this gluten free baking book to anyone who needs to avoid wheat or who cooks for someone who does.

free to good home

This blanket is up for adoption. I had fun making it, but I don't need it. And it's kind of wacky, so I don't want to just present it to someone without knowing if they would really like it.

So if you are interested in owning approximately 200,000 hand-knit stitches of sock yarn in patchwork blanket form, send me an email or a Facebook message by September 25th (a week from today). If more than one person is interested, I'll draw a name. If you don't live near me, I will mail it to you. (If you neither know my email address nor are my Facebook friend, then I probably don't know you well enough to give you a blanket that took something like 130 hours to make. I'm just sayin'.)

The photos show the blanket on a queen bed; it's a good size to use as a couch throw (I think it's something like 45" x 53"). Click on the photos to see it more up close and personal. Also, one caveat--although most of these yarns are machine washable, there are a couple mixed in that aren't. That means you'll have to hand wash or dry clean it if you dump your chocolate ice cream on it. But you can be more careful than that, right?

mmmmm cake

Last night Amanda, Alex, Matt, and Other Karen B. came over for dinner. I made another chocolate nut cake and this one actually came out MORE delicious than the previous one. Plus I used a different stencil. I'm sure that made a difference.

can't talk; eating

Gluten-free lemon blueberry muffins. Dudes, these are so yummy. I would not lie to you.



Here's some gluten free quinoa spinach stuff. It is also super duper yummy. It's based on this recipe from the Karina's Kitchen blog. I added feta cheese.



Everything's better with good wine.



Tomorrow there will be guacamole and black bean/sweet potato enchiladas.