One blindingly white mouse

Remember how I learned to knit for a mouse pattern? Well... it dawned on me the other day that I knew everything I needed to know to make the pattern!

Because I'm stubborn I made some changes.  I wanted to make six of them in Christmas colors to make them Jingle mice (and even put bells in them).  So I needed to learn how to stitch in a pattern... or, the easier way, just stitch in the letters.  Once again, YouTube gave me two different videos - one doesn't have audio and the other is out of focus.  Siiiiigh.

However, these things take too long to make six of them.  Also, I'm not a fan of how large they are.  Maybe these will be ornaments with family member's first intials on them?

Side view.  Very stiff little guy.

This shows how large it is and the nice J I stitched on.

As always, Domino isn't impressed. Although, she does want to play with the yarn.

Thoughts?

UPDATE: I've decided to make them all to spell JINGLE. The 'i' came out fat because I was watching Netflix while knitting and got distracted. Whoops. 

Also, I switched the colors to make it more festive when I finish them all. 

UPDATE #2: I finally finished them all! See what it spells? =) I'm proud...

The 'e' isn't the best... but the others are pretty good lookin'!

Coffee Cake Experiment

I made an awesome coffee cake from this blog last week.  I didn't use nuts because of potential food allergies, but it was really, really tasty.  We have a cooking/baking rule in our house: always make it true to the recipe the first time around.  It is very common for us to make a recipe exactly like it's written and then we modify it based on our palettes for the next time around (or, in the case of many recipes, we go "THIS ISN'T SALVAGEABLE" and throw the recipe out).

Something that I did right away with the original recipe was beating the egg whites into stiff peaks.  I waited until my mixer was busy last time and ended up nearing destroying my arm/shoulder doing it by hand.

 I really, really love my mixer.

With that being said, we thought the coffee cake recipe was missing something.  So, we decided to tweak it.  But how? The hubby and I had three different ideas on how to make it tastier.... thus.... A BAKE OFF!  First, we made the batter then split it into three batches to create each different version and make them into cup cake sizes for faster baking/easier to taste test, etc.

Three batters in three bowls... glad I have so many bowls.

The first batch I added vanilla extract because why not (my idea - curiosity).

The second batch we added two shots of espresso for a stronger coffee flavor (my idea).

The third batch we added the espresso grounds since they're finer than coffee but would still give that oh-so-coffeey taste (his idea).

We still put the brown sugar butter crumbs on top because they were delicious and didn't need tweaking.

I should have put more on some of them.  In the espresso ones, it sunk into the middle for a surprise when we bit into it. Pretty good.

However, I forgot that in the original recipe she warned about the batter rising and potentially dirtying the oven.  Sigh. The first batch were a little on the heavy side, so I just poured only half in for the second round.

The one in the back right hated me.

Also, notice how the vanilla ones were rising higher? I think it's because I put too much espresso in the other batter, thinning it too much. Ah well - this was an experiment anyhow. =)  The first batch were in the oven for 18 minutes before the vanilla ones finally weren't jiggling anymore (and the toothpick test worked as well).  However, the espresso ones weren't done baking so I had to pop them back in for another 5-7 minutes.  I think I could have put more brown sugar topping on them to help weigh the rising down as well.  As for the espresso grounds and remainder of espresso cakes, I found the same problem - the batter that was thinner with the espresso baked slower than the thicker batter with grounds.  Argh.

This is the espresso grounds one.  Very, very dark.  The hubby suggested removing the brown sugar on this one and icing it with dark chocolate.  I don't think he's wrong and will have to try it.

I'm not good at making pretty cupcakes. 

We decided to have them with a nice glass of whole milk.  Oh man, was that a good choice.

But how do they taste? Well, the vanilla ones are amazing.  The originaly recipe is delicious, so when adding in vanilla it's a win-win situation.  The second batch with the two shots of espresso in it are OK... but they aren't anything exciting.  Sort of bleah.  And the third batch with the espresso grounds are too strong, according to the hubster.  I think they're yummy... but I like strong espresso.  He's also got a good idea about icing them with chocolate.  Might be doing that for another day.  All in all, we found two good ways of altering the recipe and one eh way (meaning it won't happen again).

All my knit critters wanted to try some. =)  Suggestions welcome!

Knitten Kitten!

I recently bought a pair of US 3 double pointed needles off Amazon for a couple different patterns I bought off Esty.  The main reason I bought them was because one pattern in particular needed 5 needles... which none of the stores around me seemed to have. Sigh. So I caved and bought these beauts... for $10 (ouch).

Anyway, the pattern that I wanted to knit was from Etsy called Telepathic Kitten by Cheezombie.  I forget how much it costs, but it's so creepy/cute looking.  It called for funky yarn which I happened to have a bunch of from a yard sale.  I thought "OH CUTE, FUNKY YARN" - when I should have thought, "OH CRAP, FUNKY YARN. THIS WILL BE HARD TO KNIT." Silly Laura.

See that little puff ball to the left? That's the kitten body. Too freakin' puffy... I've lost count of my stitches so many times. Ugh. 

Also, there was a new element in the pattern called Wrap and Turn... so I headed over to YouTube to figure it out.  I couldn't find a video that showed it in the round, only with straight needles.  Sigh. I also looked at New Stitch A Day's Wrap and Turn tutorial to help me figure it out. The more knowledge, the better, right?

I stuffed it using scraps of old yarn.  I've been knitting so much I had a bunch left over and I didn't want to waste it.

Well, it wasn't easy knitting it because of the yarn... but it also knit together in one piece which was different for me.  What I mean is I knit the body and the head together versus stitching it on later.  It worked well enough... but there was another aspect that didn't make sense to me - at round 40 it stated to use scrap yarn for k12 then removing it to pick up and make those crazy ass eyes.  So, I contacted the person who wrote it to ask her what the heck that meant. SO HELPFUL.  She was pretty awesome about answering my question and I figured it out... slowly. (Later I found this blog post which explained the concept well enough - I used the creator's advice since she did something a bit different but this is good for future reference for other knitting stuff).

You can kind of see the shape of the kitten. The white yarn is the scrap yarn for the eyes.

Can't even see it! Stupid fluffy yarn.

Using the tips Cheezombie gave me and winging it, I was able to make two eyes. Then I made the four legs. At this point, it looked like a deranged llama. 

Domino does not approve of me spending so much time knitting. Silly kitty. Also, as you can see the eyes are buggy. Very buggy.

Ta-da! The finished product.  You can see in the background on the monitor what it's supposed to look like... and it's close. But it still looks like a deranged muppet.

The tail came out well enough... used pipe cleaner like it recommended, but I couldn't find the end because of how fluffy it is.

So badly this thing wants Domino's love.

Domino isn't impressed... still. Sigh.

I think I'm going to try my hand on another one for myself.  This one is a little too... Raven's themed for me ;)

UPDATE: I made one in Eagles colors for myself and tweaked the pattern so it looked less like Beaker from muppets mated with a furby and more like a kitty. Then I made two more... And no matter what it comes out creepy! Ugh. 

 Maybe the collar would help them look more kitty like? Who knows. 

Peachy Keen Peaches 'n Cream

It's been a while since I've used my lovely KitchenAid Mixer.... well, I busted that lovely piece of equipment out tonight to try my luck with Peaches 'n Cream Cupcakes.  I googled a couple different recipes, but this is the one that seemed the most delicious.

After making someone else buy everything *cough*, I buckled down to figure this recipe out.  The fun part was that I needed to either A. Make my own Peaches and Cream to then mush up to mix in with the cupcake or B. Use Peach Jam. I opted to make my own Peaches and Cream dessert, which the blog happily links to, but I don't think I did it the correct way.  Or, rather, I think I put in more than 2 C worth of the mush (oops).  The batter looked a little.... thick.

Also, this definitely made more than 12 cupcakes... Again, probably due to my heavy handed error. But it was tasty. 

I popped it in for 23 minutes and hoped...

Ta-da! They're rather ugly shaped, but that's ok. I've got icing to cover them. 

Then I made the frosting as instructed and even saved some peaches for garnish.

Icing came out fine. Maybe needed more overall but that's ok. 

I proceeded to get out my Wilton cupcake and cake decorating kit that I got as a wedding gift.  Well, Wilton's instructions sucked, to be frank, so I enjoyed up using YouTube on how to set up the icing bag.

Some of the icing melted because 4-5 of them weren't cooled enough. Ah, live and learn!  I added a dash of cinnamon and peach slice on post like the other blog did. 

So cute!  Can't wait to eat one ;)

Scandalous Stretchy Skirt

I bought some pretty ugly (in my opinion) stretchy fabric off the "rotten rack" a while back.  Finally, I decided to try and make something out of it.  One of the reasons I held off is that the summer is my busiest time of year... and, to be completely honest, I forgot about the fabric.

Originally, I thought I had pinned something off of Pinterest that would show me how to sew properly with stretchy material, but alas, I hadn't.  I did a quick search and found this blog post show casing a skirt that seemed easy enough for me to figure out.

First thing I did was buy the correct needles.  Back in October when I made my Halloween costume I didn't bother to use a different needle and I hated life because of it. Live and learn, right?

This was SO MUCH EASIER to sew than that costume.  Seriously. It was incredibly easy to make this and stitch it together.  It's a little short for my taste, so I'll be measuring better next time I make one of these (this won't be the last one, I can promise that!).  When I first sewed it together, it looked too short for me so I tried to cut a different black fabric to add at the top.  However, it wasn't the same material, so even before I tried to sew it together it was fraying and pulling apart.  Basically, the new black fabric wasn't going to work for this project... womp womp.  But that's ok! The skirt turned out fabulous as is.  Also, it's super duper comfy. Perfect for summer!

Ignore the facial expression, I was staring into the sun. :)