Zoom Zoom
I have just a few weeks to knit for the little man who will be born next month, as always, time just zoomed by! So today I rummage trough my yarn, I was looking for the baby wool and cotton I knew was there somewhere. And, I started a sweater:
I had a few skeins of each: yellow, green and off white in Stork (Dalegarn) cotton. I haven’t knit with cotton for forever it seems but this particular yarn is nice to knit with and the colors so sweet, perfect for a teeny tiny baby sweater.
Looking through Ravelry for patterns I of course found a truckload of cute ones……most baby clothes are adorable to begin with…….but my god, the combination of cute baby patterns (and babies modeling them) and soft, sweet colored yarn………..just too much for me!
I managed to pick a sweater out, but then came the problem of deciding how to arrange the colors together………I was so indecisive it was ridiculous and ended up wasting time I could have used to knit………since I only have a few weeks to get this knitting done I did the only logical thing, had Othinn decide for me…:)
The pattern is called Latte Baby Sweater and can be found on a Danish blog, it is only in Danish, those who don’t read it can at least enjoy the cute pictures:)
Every time I start a baby knit I wonder: why don’t I knit more of these tiny things! It goes so fast, instant gratification on needles! I am already up to the armholes, only spent a few min here and there knitting to day………LOVE IT!
Double digits!
This past Thursday was my little man’s birthday, the big 10. I cannot believe it, time went so fast!
Watching my kids grow up has been such a pleasure, not at all as hard as I thought it would be, you know, to see them become more independent and need me (and want me) less. I’m actually enjoying this part of the journey immensely. That’s not to say that I don’t miss the moments as they pass but I do my best to enjoy them to the fullest because they will never come back and because I want to create positive memories for both me and my kids.
I am extremely proud of this guy, he is the most decisive person I have ever met, always knows what he wants without a doubt………a quality I wish I had. He is smart beyond his years and has a curious mind, I love it when he shares his ideas and thoughts with me.
He is going through that “don’t hug and kiss me in public mom” phase, so I make sure I get my fill when we are at home, one day he will move on and out and I better use every opportunity I have before they all pass.
For his birthday this year I wanted to make him a Mjolnir (Thor’s hammer) cake, it didn’t turn out as polished as I had pictured it.
I wanted the hammer to look like it had been pounded into the ground, cracking the surface of the concrete. Both the hammer and the bottom layer are covered with fondant. I haven’t covered many square cakes with fondant and had a hard time getting the corners looking neat. For the handle I used a cake dowel and wrapped thin strips of fondant to create the look of a leather handle.
Thor thought the cake looked great and that always encourages me to continue to make their cakes and practice:)
His brother wanted to help me out, but that wouldn’t have been so very helpful so I gave him his own cake to ice and decorate. When I gave him a bowl of icing he looked at it, tasted it and then went: “do I have to put it on the cake?”
He would then dip his spoon in and go: ” this one goes in my mouth, this one goes on the cake”. He really loved that icing and had his fill.
He then painted the cake with some apricot syrup and rolled out his own fondant. We decided that his cake should have the birthday candles on it:
He did a great job and his cake tasted delicious!
Easter came and went
Easter was quite over here, the Easter Bunny came by with baskets full of candy for the kids. My sister sent us all traditional Icelandic Easter chocolate eggs……that was the top of the day for me, nothing beats Nói Siríus chocolate!
I had an idea for a cake that I really wanted to make as well. I found these tiny m&m eggs a couple of weeks ago and pictured them on top of a cake that looked like a basket. One of the reasons I wanted to make this cake was to practice piping the icing, I don’t do that much and am there for not very good at it, but practice makes perfect………or at least better, right?!
Jasmín (my daughter) invited her friends over on Easter Monday for lunch. Instead of making the cake for Sunday when we were already eating too much sweets I used the opportunity Monday.
I have been looking for a good tasting yellow cake to bake for my boys birthdays, neither of them wants a chocolate cake this year. I found one in a new Martha Stewart magazine and figured I’d try it for this cake to see if it was any good before baking their b-day cakes.
Thor iced the first layer with home-made chocolate butter cream icing. He loves to help out in the kitchen, with the fun stuff that is…….not the cleaning up part……but who likes that anyway 
For the basket weave I used vanilla Wilton icing, I was afraid I wouldn’t get the right consistency if I made it myself.
The cake tasted really good so I’m going to use it for the boys cakes this year. I definitely need to practice more with the piping. They make it look so easy in the books, but of course there are techniques that will take time to ”master”, and hopefully I’ll get there one day! Thor thought I did a great job with the piping, he’s my cheerleader when it comes to decorating cakes 
Jasmín also baked a cake, she made the Lovely Lemon Loaf from the The Back In The Day Bakery Cookbook. I happened to see the book a few weeks ago and I just had to buy it. Everything looked so yummy and the book is so well put together.
So far I baked Chocolate Heaven and hummingbird Cake, those two and the lemon loaf were absolutely delicious.
On the knitting front, I finished one more hat and am working on the fourth one. I will post pictures when I have them both done.
the Versatile Blogger Award
The other day Kniterly let me know she had nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. I have been following her blog for a while, her posts are always very interesting and I get the impression that she is a very sweet person.
I want to thank her for thinking of me, as she says on her blog: “The best recognition is the kind you get from your peers”. I so agree with that.
So here goes:
If you have been nominated, nominate 15 fellow bloggers that you love and who are relatively (fair warning, I am taking “relatively” and running with it) new to blogging. Let them know that you have nominated them. Share 7 random facts about yourself. Thank the blogger who has nominated you. Then add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your post.
I only have one problem, I cannot access my computer where I have all the links to the blogs I have been following in the past, and I don’t know that I will ever be able to again………..there are many blogs I have lost because of this…. So I won’t be able to nominate 15.
So, 7 random facts:
1. I haven’t had a hair cut for almost 8 months……yes, looking good! ;O)
2. In America I am called a blonde, in Iceland a brunette…..it was weird at first.
3. I have a hard time knitting when I feel sad, happy to say that doesn’t happen often.
4. I love candles that have a sweet fragrance, lemon loaf or cupcake or something that makes my house smell like I just finished baking.
5. I cannot keep any plants alive in the house, I have even killed a cactus.
6. Music feeds my sole.
7. I really want to sew me some easter curtains for the downstairs windows, preferably with yellow chicks fabric.
And the blogs I would like to nominate are:
http://www.kh-handcrafts.blogspot.com/
http://andresueknits.wordpress.com/
O Brother!
Finally I stop by after weeks of unintentionally ignoring my home in outer space. Actually I have stayed away from th the www for the most part, haven’t even checked my emails!
Things have been extremely busy around here and the little bit of time I have had I have spent getting a bit of knitting done and hanging out with my kids.
Thor, my older son, asked me to knit him something, maybe a hat. What for I said, will you ever wear it?? Sure, just not to school he replied, that’s not how we roll.
Well pardon me, but I didn’t know that 9 year olds roll!!
The idea for the hat came to me right away, something very simple and none fuss like, cause that’s the kinda guy he is. Years ago I bought 2 identical machine knit hats for a $ each with the intention of ripping them up and using the visors for hand knit hats. And now was the time to find them and tear them up!
At first he wanted his hat blue, but I had this grey yarn that I was itching to knit with so I made my littlest man one first. Thor loved the color so much that he wanted his in the same one instead of the blue.
Knowing that there would be a problem of who was wearing what hat I put a little O (for Othinn, my littlest guy) on the inside of one of them. And that will also eliminate any problems if one of them goes missing…….not an unlikely scenario :O)
We walked to the playground and I meant to take a few photos of them wearing the hats before we got to playing. But Thor got so into the whole thing, he had to put the hat on backwards too, keep his coat on and off and try the two different backgrounds. It was fun seeing him so enthusiastic. He really wanted to take the pictures of his brother, so I let him.
He put a lot of thought into it, where he wanted his brother to stand, how he wanted the hat positioned on his head, what background to use, he even asked me to go get the stroller out of the way because he didn’t want it showing behind his brother in some of the shots. I was pretty amazed at how he could think ahead like that and envision the photos before he even took them. When I first started taking pictures I didn’t pay much attention to any of these things, and as a result most of them turned out not so great.
He did an awesome job and I am happy to say that he asked to come along next time I have to take pictures and “help” me……..aka take the pictures for me And that’s just fine by me. He also told me that he would like a camera, just like mine, sometime soon……
Othinn had a lot of fun making his brother’s “job” a little difficult. He took his time doing what Thor asked of him, there was always something he had to do first, like dig in the dirt with his stick. I think he kinda liked the attention his brother was giving to him. And I have to say that Thor surprised me because he had so much patience for his brother and just laughed at his little antics rather than get frustrated.
When Othinn had enough of his photos being taken Thor wasn’t done shooting. He had plenty more of ideas, he laid the hat on different surfaces to see how the photos would turn out. This one was my favorite:
For these O Brother! hats I used Kambgarn, one of my go to yarns that I happen to have plenty of:) And I am currently knitting up a 3. hat in red for my littlest man and his brother wants another one in a gorgeous rustic orange…….he forgot all about the blue….
Happy Valentine’s Day!
I like Valentine’s day, we don’t go nuts buying expensive gifts but we make sure we spend time together. The kids usually make cards for us and each other and I make sure to make something sweet. Often I make a big breakfast, including heart-shaped muffins that we all indulge in. But this year I went with a cake for after dinner, a Box of Chocolates (well, strawberries) cake.
My sister sent me this tutorial by bakerella and I just had to try to make it! Hers is of course gorgeous in every way and mine, well, it’s not but, I did have fun making it and it tasted delicious!
There wasn’t enough time for me to look through recipes for chocolates to make, specially something that everybody would like. And we already had strawberries in the fridge and chocolate chips, so I put those 2 together and made “a sort of chocolate covered strawberries” to put into the box.
I used one layer of chocolate cake with chocolate butter-cream icing. Last week I ordered some red fondant online, not wanting to color a white one myself. It didn’t get her until this after noon and so I had already went out and bought some Wilton’s from a local craft store. It really did not taste good at all but I didn’t want to peel it off to then put the new one on. We just didn’t eat it when we dove into the cake, well except for my little guy, that was the only part of the cake he really ate! He thought it was delicious.
So now I have 2 pounds of red fondant, it will come in handy later though………I’m sure:)
I hope everybody had a beautiful day!
P.S. I will have something more on knitting soon, I have just been a bit sad for the past couple of weeks, and when I’m sad I cannot knit.
Arrival of a new Man
My oldest friend on the planet is expecting her second child this spring. She is having a boy this time, I am so excited for her and I can’t wait to meet him!
I of course wanted to knit something for him and I started with this little hat:
I had such a hard time getting decent pictures of the hat. It wasn’t easy, and not that fun, without a model, but I don’t know anybody who has a tiny little head anymore….
This is my own pattern, Cute as a Button. Last time I followed it was a few years ago when knitting my youngest son one of these. The pattern gives instructions for stripes but I wanted this hat in a solid color.
I love the yarn over details across the top, so simple but yet it adds a little something something to the hat. And then of course there is the little button, unbutton it and voila! You’ve got a different shaped hat with a little elf top and it magically fits a bigger head.
The button I went with is very plain, guess I could have gone a little crazy and picked something more playful, maybe a some fun design or something. But I chose a plain brown one, could be kinda boring to some, but I find it very……..trying to think of a word here…..gentleman-ly?…. that would sorta describe it I think!
I used the same yarn called for in the pattern, Kambgarn. It is lovely to work with and gives a beautiful shine to the finished product. It is not machine washable, that would be the only down side to using it for baby clothes I think. Other wise it is relatively soft and being 100% wool, very warm.
I haven’t knit any baby stuff for a long while, simply because there aren’t any babies around me. But there is something about knitting baby clothes that is so appealing to me. Maybe it’s how quick it goes, the whole instant gratification thing. And then of course they are just completely adorable!
