Purling Sprite

Socks for Benny and Books for Me

Good help is so hard to come by these days. You bribe them with goodies and days at the pool and the help is still not cooperating! You beg on your knees for them to stay still (okay, so I have to be on my knees for the photo-shoot, but still) you would think they would help you model the little socks you have spent countless 4 hours knitting for them. But no, they always have something more important to do--like go down the slide, or ride the bike.

And then when you finally get them to sit down, they give you exactly what you ask...."Sweety, show me the socks" and she does just that...she lifts up her feet and smacks you on the nose and your trigger-happy finger pushes down on the button and you end up with the picture on the right.

They are adorable...no, not the socks, the kids! The socks though were a super fast knit. I started them last Friday at the theater on the waiting line to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (which btw was very entertaining). I knew that I had to get to the theater early and I didn't want to wait with idle hands so I took a little yarn and my dpns and I started this pair of socks for Little Benny.

Little Benny's Sock details

Yarn: Scout's Swag in Fetching (worsted weight)

Needles: size 3 dpns (crystal palace)

Pattern: None, just made it up as I went, but it is a simple 36 stitch sock pattern. It has a 2 x 2 ribbing and then straight stockinette for the body. A flap heel done over 18 stitches and a shaped toe with decreases at each side to tapered the tube.

Satisfaction level: 10 :). I am happy with them and Little Benny seems to like them too. Next on the knitting agenda: a pair of socks for Wonderboy who needs a new pair of black socks (to wear with his suit on Sundays).

Speaking of socks...have you seen the Loksins yet? I have put them on my to-knit list...maybe these will be a pair of socks for me...or my Sockapalooza pal...or maybe for both of us :).

But don't go yet, I need some help. I recently received a gift certificate (earnings from my Amazon store) to Amazon, it is not a large amount but it is enough to buy a book or two. I have plenty of knitting books but I think I am missing some to complete my library. Which of these three books do you recommend the most? I already have all the Treasury books, so I am covered in that area. Please, help me choose, or if you know of another classic great knitting book out there, let me know.

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HandKnit for You

HandKnit Soap by Blessed Juno

 

Hurry, go and grab some of this LIMITED edition soap. I recently received a little sample of this soap and I am in love! It left my skin feeling soft and moisturized. No dryness, no icky after-shower-feeling. Laurie made this soap for the gals at the SLC Stitch & Bitch club and she is making it available to the public for a limited time. Hurry, go put your order in. I already put mine in.

Ravelry--I Love Thee...

How I wish I had nothing else to do than to sit in front of the computer and browse through it all. I have been part of it for a couple of weeks now and I am just amazed at how small my world used to be prior to Ravelry. Now, I have added a gazillion more bloggers to my bloglines and my project desires are at its maximum! And the stash...oh my...the stash just wants to keep growing and growing from all the wondrous pictures in there. I have still to add my little stash of heaven in there and some of my projects.

Ravelry just seems to bring knitters together...one place to share it all and to keep us all informed! I love it!

Update on the family: Little Benny is doing much better. Me: I went a couple of nights without much sleep...made me grumpy for a few days!

Biking update: I finally climbed on my bike today again after the almost RoadKill accident and went for 27 miles. My knee still bugs me and I can barely go up the stairs/down the stairs, but such is life. I have the Little Red Ridinghood Tour this Saturday: my first race/tour...exciting!

 

Tummy Yummies: Tinga Recipe

If you are reading this, it probably means that little Benny is still sick and that I am probably going a few nights without any sleep. I prepared this a couple of days ago in hopes that my schedule will allow me to take care of that little tutorial but the no-sleep-take-care-of-baby-routine probably has me down too.

But don't despair, here is another tutorial, this one will go under the category of Tummy Yummies. It is one of our favorite recipes. Every time I make it, it becomes the favorite dish of the day. It is fast and easy to make too.

Enjoy!

Tummy Yummies: Tinga

Ingredients

• 1 chicken breast
• 10 tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 can of La Costena Chipotle peppers (7 oz can)

The key ingredient of this recipe is that little can of Chipotle peppers. I have tried many brands and our favorite one is the Costena brand. 

Step 1: Boil the chicken breast. Be sure to salt the water. When cooked, shred it and set aside (I like to prepare this ahead of time and this makes the dish even easier).

Step 2: Chop onion and 7 tomatoes.

Step 3: Place the remaining 3 tomatoes, garlic clove, and half of the Costena Chipotle peppers in the blender. Add about 1/2 a cup of the chicken broth and blend.

Step 4: In saucepan, add about two tablespoons of oil. When oil is heated, add the onions, saute for one minute. Add the chopped tomatoes. Saute the onions and tomatoes for about 5 minutes. Stir in the chicken.

Step 5: Add the mixture from the blender to the chicken mix. Mix well and bring it to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Serving Suggestions:

As a side dish: we like to eat it with refried beans and Mexican style rice.

As a main dish: Layer it on a tostada. First place a layer of refried beans, then a layer of the Tinga, then add some Cotija cheese, and last a spoonful of Mexican Crema.

Pocket knitter tutorial a little behind

Just a quick note to let you know that the Pocket Knitter Tutorial is running a little late. We have a sick little one: very high fevers. I'll post the tutorial as soon as I get a little down time. In the mean time, I'll go and cuddle with the little one while we watch Cinderella III.

Pearly Satchel

A little whimsy for a night out. I started working on this last week when I found a bag of pearl beads in my stash. I didn't know what to do with it and then I opened a drawer and found a lonely skein of Patons Brilliant.

The little satchel uses less than 1/2 skein of yarn and it looms up quite fast. I was able to knit it all in a few hours. It took longer deciding how many beads to put and where to place them.

The satchel is big enough to put a lipstick, keys, and a credit card (or some cash). While I was knitting it, I kept thinking back to my prom night and how something of the kind would have been so handy and a lot nicer than the purse I took. 

I used white color beads and the White Twinkle Brilliant yarn (which adds some bling, bling to the bag),  but you can match any dress/skirt by changing the color of the beads and/or yarn.

The baggy is small, at only 3.5" x 3" it is small enough to wear around the wrist too.

The pattern is in PDF format. Enjoy!

Click here to download Pearly Satchel

Coming tomorrow or Saturday, a quick tutorial on using the Pocket Knitter (my stats show a huge googling for this item).

Seven Things....about me & contest!

*Edited*Scroll down to find out about the contest.

KnittyOtter tagged me for this interesting Meme where I get to tell you 7 random things about me. The tag came at a really great time as I have lots of knitting done but none that I can show....not just yet anyways. So here we go, 7 randomly things about the Purling Sprite.

 

1. The first thing I do when I get in the shower is shave my underarms. I shave my legs every day too--even during winter. I can't stand the little stubs! If I ever go anywhere and I forget a razor, I must stop at a grocery store and buy one. When we went to NY, I lost my razor (maid threw it out!) at one of the hotels and I had to buy an entire bag so I could have extras.

2. If my yarn gets tangled too much, I prefer to throw it out rather than to sit there for hours unkinking it! It drives me nuts.

3. My favorite movies are usually comics come to the big screen. Have been playing with the idea to subscribe to different comic books :).

4. I like to read the last page of a book first (crazy habit!)

5. I have suffered from vertigo since I was little--hate it! It is worse when I am going to bed and the entire room just goes around in circles around me.

6. When I was a child, I ran away from home three times. Once at age 5, once at age 6, and once at age 15.

7. I got my first real kiss at age 12...he was twice my age.

Pictures: Mystery projects I have currently going.

Now...c'mon tell me at least one (1)  random juicy tidbit about yourself. :).

*I just realized that I am really close to hitting 3600 comments. So as a result of this and to celebrate that I survived a really close call on my bike (I'll tell you about it on another day, promise), let's have a contest. Tell me one (1) juicy tidbit about yourself (just leave a comment) and I will enter you into a contest. You have from now until May 31st to leave me a comment on this post, with one (1) juicy tidbit about you. It will be fun :) and I'll have a way to get to know you.

What will the prize be: 1 skein of STR--yep, you can win 1 skein of Socks that Rock!

Bounce!

A weekend project is hard to come by around here, but lookie, I have a finished project! I present you Bounce by Wendy from Knit and Tonic. She released the pattern Thursday night and my fingers quickly pushed the mouse and I was set for the weekend. A quick trip to the stash room and I came up with 2 skeins of Katia Jamaica in number 4010.

I would have finished this cute thing by Friday night if it hadn't been for my lack of attention while watching the movie Deja Vu. I realized about two inches into the work that I twisted my stitches when joining in the round...instead of a nice circular skirt, I was knitting a mobious skirt! Not much damage was done to the yarn, just my ego...and I did get to watch a second movie so I was able to recoup the lost time (still, you would think that after knitting so many circular things that I would have paid more attention, but I had my eyes riveted on the movie-happenings).

Overall, the pattern was sensational! I had a blast knitting it and seeing the colors of the yarn develop. The pattern is an A+, well written, just like Wendy's other patterns. And most importanly, my little Benny loved it! She is looking forward to seeing our neighbors tomorrow to show it off!

Pattern Specs:

Pattern: Bounce by Knit&Tonic

Size: 2yr

Yarn: Katia Jamaica: 1 skein and a few yards of second skein

Pattern deviations: I didn't have any elastic, instead I crocheted a long chain and added two beads at each end. I then threaded the long crocheted chain through the ribbing area (around the 3rd row from cast on edge).

And here are some other shots of her wearing the little skirt, she tried bouncing a few times just for the camera :).

New Typepad Features

For a few months, I have been nagging Typepad to add a couple of new features to our services and yesterday, I was surprised to see that one of my requests was made a reality--it is not perfect yet, but it is getting there.

You see, I have been eyeing many of my bloggy friends WordPress blogs (some of which have recently made the jump to WordPress). They all have one thing in common: a clean homepage and all their "other" stuff on navigation links at the top of the page--just like it should be on a website.

Anyways, I nagged to typepad about the lack of this great feature and finally, we have our own Pages (of course, I know that they didn't do it just for me, but I want to trick my mind into believing that, hehehe). However, there is no capability yet to have them in little navigational buttons like on WordPress, so a little more waiting for that and probably more emails to the typepad center :).

Another feature that I would love to have is a pop-up menu for the Archives--it would clean up the page very nicely!

So, now, you will find a section on the sidebar called "My Pages" under that section, you will find the different pages that are part of this blog, such as: Tutorials (for loom knitting), My Patterns (for Loom knitting), Loomy Links (links to many places that talk about loom knitting) and more to come.

My goal is to try to clean up the homepage of the blog so it is easier to navigate and more pleasant. If any of you know any CSS and know how I can change the Archives into a drop down menu, please let me know :).

Now, if you are a Typepad user, go and type up some Pages for your blog, it is so much fun to have some new features to play with :)

Double Knit Keyhole Scarf Pattern

A loomy pattern coming your way! I found this scarf in my stash room, the only thing that was missing from being and FO was the bind off--I remember starting this scarf about a year ago, hehehe, I am a procrastinator for sure! This scarf was knitted on a knitting board with 14 pegs, using the stockinette stitch.

Quicky pattern

Materials:

Knitting board with at least 14 pegs (14 pegs on each rail). Sample was knitted on a knitting board similar to a purple knifty knitter board loom. Pattern can be done on any knitting board, or any of the Knifty Knitter Long Loom series.

Yarn: 2.4 oz of worsted weight wool. Shown in Lamb's Pride worsted weight in pink (A) and grey (B).

Gauge: 10 sts and 11 rows= 4 inches in stockinette stitch

Instructions:

With color A: Cast on 14 stitches with stockinette cast on method.

Next: (continue with color A) Work 10 rows in stockinette stitch (use the same method of wrapping as in the CO above). Break color A and join color B.

Next: With color B: Work 12 rows in stockinette stitch. Break color B. Join color A.

Next: With color A: Work 4 rows in stockinette stitch. Break color A. Join color B.

At this point, you will knit two single sided panels; first panel on the front 14 pegs, second panel on the back 14 pegs.

Join another skein of color A to the back rail of pegs.

Next: Work 12 rows in knit stitch on the front 14 pegs. Repeat with the back 14 pegs. Break yarn coming from the back rail.

At this point, you will work on the loom as a double sided loom.

Next: (continue with color A) work 4 rows in stockinette stitch. Break color A. Join color B.

Next: With color B: work 12 rows in stockinette stitch. Break color B. Join color A.

Next: With color A: work 10 rows in stockinette stitch. Break color A. Join color B.

Next: With color B: work 12 rows in stockinette stitch. Break color B. Join color A.

Next: With color A: work 10 rows in stockinette stitch. Break A.

Weave in ends. Block (optional).

To wear it: simply pass one of the ends through the gap made with the single sided panels. Enjoy!

Let me know if you make this scarf :), I would love to see pics, and if you need any assistance, drop me a note.