Knitting Time With Grandma

I'm at my Mom's this week, and the awesome thing about Mom and Dad's apartment is that it is directly upstairs from my Grandparents apartment.  Lots of family fun in this building, that is for sure!

Grandma is knitting herself a sweater right now with a pattern she has from the '80s.  There is an amazing photo in the pattern booklet that is just too amazing not to share.

Taken from Patons All in the Family pattern booklet (#609) from 1988, this photo has it all.  The sweater design and colours, the leather skirt, the giant belt(!!), and especially the wicked walkman with those rocking headphones! (Note: this is definitely not the sweater Grandma is working on).

Being around Grandma when she's knitting is great because I'm always able to pick up something new from her.  Spending time with her yesterday, Grandma showed me how to test a pattern's gauge. Ensuring a proper gauge isn't something I've ever done before; partly because I knit simple patterns, and partly because I never learned how! I didn't realize that testing gauge was something you did before you started your project, I thought you incorporated into your project somehow. And because I haven't knit something where gauge really mattered, I never bothered to learn more about it.  But thanks to Grandma, now I know all about knitting a swatch before starting a project. Thanks, Grandma!  I also found an instructional video from Red Heart Yarn (featured below) in case you want to learn more about testing gauge too (I actually have the tool featured in the video, I've just never used it!)

Fridge Surprise!

I'm at my Mom's for a few days and look what's in the fridge!!!

It's a fricken Turkey!!!  Wahoo!!

Awesome of the Week - 01/31/11

It is my friend Bryan's birthday today, so I thought I would showcase his awesome, award winning, short film The Invisible Car.  If you want to see more fun videos, check out VideoYEAH.com.  Enjoy!!

Lazy Sunday Baking Blog

When I want something sweet but I'm not in the mood to do too much baking, I fall back onto Cake Mix Cookies. Say what you will about cake mixes, but I love them! They were on sale for $0.99 before Christmas so I picked up five boxes, knowing full well that half of them would be cookies and not cakes.  There are tonnes of recipes online for all sorts of cookies, bars, and fancier cakes - all made with a cake mix as the base. I enjoy the recipes from Duncan Hines, but you'll also find recipes at Betty Crocker and on allrecipes.com (my Mom even has two cookbooks, Cake Mix Magic and Cake Mix Magic 2).

Today's recipe comes from Duncan Hines, and it is for Snicker Doodles.

Ingredients:

1 pkg Golden Cake Mix
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tbs sugar

Preheat oven to 375°F and grease or line baking sheets.

Step 1.  Mix cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl.      Set aside.

Step 2. Mix together cake mix, eggs, and oil.

Once mixed a dough should form.

Step 3. Roll dough into 1 inch balls.

Step 4. Roll the dough balls in cinnamon + sugar mixture so they are completely covered.

Step 5. Place sugar covered dough balls onto greased (or parchment paper lined) cookie sheet.  Flatten with the bottom of a drinking glass.

Step 6. Bake in 375°F oven for 9 minutes.

Step 7. Remove from oven and let sit one minute before transferring to wire rack to cool.  My batch made 27 cookies.  Enjoy!

Serving Suggestion: Snicker Doodles and your favourite tea.

Surfing Saturday - 01/29/11

Surfing Saturday: a weekly round up of some of my favourite links on the interwebs.

Human Interest

Remember this blog about the kid who dressed as Scooby Doo's Daphne for Halloween?  Well his mom is still writing and is having a giveaway of some of the cool stuff she's received since her post went viral.  She's accepting comments on her blog as entries in the giveaway until Jan 31, and the last time I checked there were less than 100 comments - so those are some good odds!!  The Daphne blog and it's discussion led me to find My Princess Boy, which is a "nonfiction picture book about acceptance".  I love that there is so much attention being given to real people who are allowing their kids to just be kids!  More power to these mothers!

An amazing blog that started this month, Born This Way, is too adorable for words.  Cute photos from LGBT youth coupled with heartwarming stories about when the pictures were taken.  I get lost in this blog, and some of my favourite stories so far are Renee, LaMar, Ken, Joshua, and Dustin. They keep adding more daily, so there are many stories to choose from!


Arts and Crafts

For any playwrights out there, the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto is having an Emerging Playwrights' Competition.  It is open to Canadians, and be sure to read all the eligibility requirements to see if you are eligible to participate.  Submissions are due April 29, 2011.

My craft blog addiction this week is Craftgossip, which is constantly updated with all types of crafty/DIY things to do, sourced from tonnes of different bloggers.  Some of the hundreds of posts that have caught my eye are: Cinnamon Trolls (eek!), DIY mini-notebooks, and Printable Valentines.  There are tonnes of posts to choose from at Craftgossip - and it is updated frequently, so my new addiction is being fed constantly!


Deals

Finding a deal on gas nowadays is all but a pipe dream, but OntarioGasPrices.com makes finding the lowest price a little easier.  Here are the links for the Barrie, Elmvale, and Midland gas stations.  The prices are usually best in Elmvale, but I like to check all my options, just in case someone is selling it for less than $1/Litre.  I know - pipe dream, right?

On Fridays or Saturdays over at Smart Canucks, some amazing people go through your weekly grocery flyers and post their Hot Coupon Flyer Deals of the Week!  I used their superior deal-round-up skills last week to get TWO 1.77L jugs of Tide liquid laundry detergent for only $4.96+tax.  Each jug was $2.47!!  Smart Canucks rocks!  They also have Baby Deals for all the Mom's out there, and I love that they call it 'Baby Deals', because it makes me think they are selling babies...for cheap!!