Can you find the birdie in the pic?

Dude.

Just kidding, I won't start that again :-B

I need to sew up Meinstein sleeve seams today. Because then I can start wearing it, yahoo!!! It will need a collar and buttons, but I can't even try it on until I sew up those seams. And I want to watch Harry Potter (I think it's on tv tonight) so that will be a good collar-knitting movie!

I have been wanting to try my hand at mosaic knitting since Hakucho blogged about this (scroll down to 10/1/07). I love that washcloth. And follow her link for a mosaic blanket, if you haven't already seen it (I am about 6 months behind visiting you, Hakucho!) And I just found a cool online tutorial for it, so I think I'll be trying that technique this week.

I started the penguin hat Friday night at the knitting group. It is a fussy granny square, but I think the final result is too cute, so I will make a few of these for my niece's hat. I'd like to give those gifts this week (the star blankie to her bro).

Man is it bitter out today. Cold, snow flurries, and a biting wind--I'll bet the wind-chill is about 10 or 15 degrees. I just about froze my fingertips and ears off walking my doggie. I couldn't find my calorimetry--I made the darn thing to wear for just this thing. Grrr.

But even though it's like winter again, look at my daffodils. :) It's so nice to have a bouquet of flowers from my garden again! I baked today too. I made my favorite cookies in the world: thumbprint cookies. These things rock.

Thumbprint Cookies

(Oven to 325 degrees.)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/8 t salt
1 c softened butter
1-1/2 c finely chopped nuts
2 eggs, separated
2 c flour
Frosting (see below)

Cream butter & sugar. Add egg yolks and mix well. Add flour and salt.

Beat egg whites with a fork. Shape dough into small balls and dip in egg whites, then into nuts to coat. Place onto parchment lined cookie sheets; press deep indentation with thumb. Bake at 325 degrees for 12-15 mins til edges are golden. Cool 1 minute; remove from sheets to rack. (I usually have to re-press an indentation in them at this point, to make a deep well for the frosting!)

Frosting: In small bowl mix the following ingredients, adding enough milk for desired consistency; blend til smooth.

2 c powdered sugar
1/8 t salt
3 T butter, softened
1/2 t vanilla extract
food color OR 2 T cocoa powder 1-2 T milk

Spoon or pipe frosting into each cookie's indentation. Yum :)
Supposedly this recipe makes 5-1/2 dozen cookies, but I've never gotten that many. I'm lucky to get 3 dozen.

I also made a coffee cake from this book:

It was okay. I'm not in much of a baked-goods-eating-mode right now. The flavor was a little bland. But the best recipe in this book is called Gooey Butter Bars. Oh, yum. My daughter bakes it every time she has a pot-luck at work! There are never any leftovers--that's the cream cheese talkin'!

We are on a super tight budget this week due to unexpected demands. I am looking at it as a challenge. We have no milk, oj, or bread in the house, but I have tons of basic ingredients in the form of cans, boxed mixes, powders, and frozen stuff, so we are making due. (The thumbprint cookies frosting was made with buttermilk!Heh.) I refuse to use my credit card for groceries. It is really kinda nice; our freezer is nearly empty for the first time since we moved here! This budget thing is requiring some creativity in the kitchen, but I dig that. Bonus: it's like a spring cleaning for the pantry!!! :D

No worries about running out of things to knit with--nah, it'll be years before I work through the stash I've built! :) And there are always the recyclable ways to get 'yarn'--unraveling existing sweaters, using plastic bags, ribbons, old t-shirts, strips of bluejeans, etc. Heck, I could probably make some kind of grass fiber to knit with from my Miscanthus Sinensis clumps in the garden! If I really had to, that is. Heh. :)

Here's something interesting I just found: front, & back:

it's from when I was learning to knit about 15 years ago! It must have been from a pattern for a sweater or afghan, but I swatched it in cheesy acrylic yarn, just to try the techniques and get some practice. Then I stuck it in my hot pad drawer. You can tell I hardly use it (it's a bit thin for that.) And it just came to my attention today when I was the mad baker....

So, that's my ramble for this weekend. I hope this day finds you all healthy, happy and cozily knitting somewhere. :)