cabled fingerless gloves 3.0

Another pair of fetchings (love this pattern -- made twice before)...

...and a stoic little sheep. I cut her out of from hunk of rubber like so, and she'll be tagging along with all my woolen gifts this year. Baaa.

ready for my cameo

I thought these silhouettes were so cute, I'm using the good gift idea for the great-grands this year.

ginger beef

Dinner last night was Elise's stir fry ginger beef. I was delighted by how the cumin and honey in the marinade made it through to flavour the final dish. Highly recommended!

green birthday dress

It's time to party. The babe is turning one next week -- and I finished her birthday dress!

As I mentioned before, it's been a bit of a slow slog of stockinette for this one. It was my first larger-than-a-sock-size project with skinny sock yarn. Beautiful results, but no doubt about it, a labour of love.

So I'm glad she'll get more than one season's use of out of it -- this year a dress, next year a sweater, and possibly a third year of a skin-tight tank top. And perhaps I'll make her drag it to school with her too.

The pattern -- the little sister's dress (free on ravelry) -- is super easy and kind of star-trekkish to me. The Zarina yarn is a super soft, rich, vibrant merino.

I love, love the result. Hopefully she does too since she'll be wearing it for a while.

baked eggs

It was a good morning. We all slept until 8am. That's 8 o'clock, people! Pretty darn great considering we have a babe in the next room that usually wakes us up by 6:30am. We were so happy, we made baked eggs.

(Oh how I wish I had natural light in my kitchen!)

This recipe calls for a few different herbs, but feel free to use what fresh herbs you have on hand. I tend to make this in the summertime when I have a variety of herbs growing, but it's equally good in the winter when I may only have one herb at the ready.

This morning I used fresh parsley and a pinch of dried thyme, but I've also made it with dill and parsley, and it's really good with just tarragon. (But we already knew that eggs and tarragon go really well together.)

baked eggs

inspired by Ina Garten's herbed baked eggs - Barefoot in Paris

serves 4

1/2 teas minced fresh thyme leaves

1/2 teas minced fresh rosemary leaves

2 Tbs minced fresh parsley

2 Tbs freshly grated parmesan cheese

8 large eggs

1/4 c cream or milk (not skim though, fat content is important)

2 Tbs unsalted butter

salt and pepper

toasted french bread, brioche, or just plain whole wheat

Preheat broiler for about 5 minutes and place the oven rack 6-10" below the element.

Combine the fresh herbs and cheese. Set aside. Carefully crack 2 eggs into each of 4 small bowls. (You won't be baking in these -- you just need to have all the eggs ready to go before you start cooking.)

Put four individual gratin dishes on a baking sheet and put 1 tablespoon of cream and 1/2 tablespoon of butter in each dish. Place under the broiler for just a few minutes, until hot and bubbly.

Quickly and carefully, pour 2 eggs into each gratin dish and then sprinkle evenly with the herb-cheese mixture. Season each with salt and pepper and then place back under the broiler for 5-7 minutes, until the whites of the eggs are just cooked. Remove from oven and allow to set for another minute or two. The eggs will continue to cook but the yolks will stay nice n' runny for dipping your toast.

on the go

There isn't near enough knitting on this blog lately.

For this space to be representative of what I spend my free moments doing, there needs to be more wool and yarn and needles, because let me tell you, I've been knitting.

There's a plum pullover that'll be the first sweater I've ever made for myself,

there's a darling little green dress that's taking forever (skinny sock yarn!) but hopefully the babe will fit it by Christmas,

and I've managed to finish a couple of toques. One fits, one didn't.

That's not all, but the rest are either gifts or I haven't taken photos of them yet. All in good time. But at least now you know where I am -- on the couch, knitting.

it's november

I've been eagerly waiting these 30 days of sewing & gifting inspiration over at Sew Mama Sew. They're giving away a lot of stuff this month too. Very cool. See you there...