Trudy's House

In the summer we adopted a ten year old cat named Trudy from an elderly relative who had to go into a home and then later passed away. Trudy had a bit of shock moving here (a new environment, other cats, new people), but it's been over six months now and she is really thriving here. Trudy is an adorably grumpy cat who'd prefer it if she were the only cat who lived here. Funnily enough, our other two cats feel the same way about themselves!

Some family were clearing out her old house in the fall and brought over her "cat house." I have never known a cat who had a house before, and this is proof of how spoiled she was (and, to be fair, how spoiled she continues to be...). She doesn't sleep in this very often, but it is a great hiding spot for her when she wants it.

New Toys, Cupcake

I have been collecting Wilton decorating tips over the past few years, buying them one at a time as I need them/want to play with them. I am building my collection slowly (I currently only have six decorating tips) but the ones I have are ones I use often/look forward to using more often.

These are the most recent additions to my collection and some photos of the fun I've had with them.

1A tip (Large Round).
I bought this one so I could make some hi-hat cupcakes. I definitely want to try the peanut butter ones from this blog, as they look decadent and insane (more icing than cupcake!) but I haven't found an opportunity to make them yet.

Just fooling around with some Marshmallow buttercream, I practiced making some 1A swirls.

2D tip (Drop Flower).

This one is similar to my 1M tip, which is my go to tip for decorating cupcakes. I did some practicing with this one that involved playing with colour as well. I put a few lines of colour on the inside of a piping bag with a toothpick, which gave the edges of the frosting a simple but fancy look.

#233 (Grass tip).

There are a number of different projects I want to try with this tip, from a hobbit hole cake to monsters (Elmo or Cookie). When baseball season comes around again, I'd also love to make a batch of these baseball cupcakes. This was my first go at making grass - I was very happy with it!

My current collection:

Back Row:  1M,   1A,   2D

Front Row:  #21,   #233,   #3

Red Lobster Lunch #FoodPicFriday

Going out for lunch with my Mom is one of my favourite things. We have our sure-bet locations (Red Lobster, Applebee's, Moose Winooski's, and Mandarin). Sometimes we try new things, but mostly we stick to what we know. Periodically Red Lobster puts out "$3 off lunch" coupons, and we head over there for some good talks and good food.

For this visit I ordered Shrimp Tacos. They were really good and had the perfect amount of cilantro. I'm pretty sure I'd eat anything if it had the perfect amount of cilantro. I love that stuff.  Mom ordered some shrimp and scallops, of which I probably snuck a few. Sharing is caring!

Pink Baby Blanket - Work in Progress

I have a feeling 2015 is going to involve a lot of knitting. My grandma recently gave me about thirty balls of yarn from her stash, and my friend Bryan's Mom just sent over a knitting pattern book and a bag of yarn to go with it. Fun!

The pattern book Norma sent over is called 'Knitted Toy Tales' by Laura Long. Most of the patterns are for small/medium sized toys that are knitted flat, so I can easily dive into this book and make some cute things. I am pretty excited about it.

She also sent over a bag of yarn that included some pretty pink sparkle baby yarn, and it immediately caught my eye. There were five 50g balls in the bag, and I spent some time searching Ravelry to see how I could use them up.

A baby blanket seemed like the obvious choice, and since many of my friends are having babies, a blanket could become a nice gift for a newborn. I looked through some patterns and found one that used circular knitting needles to complete the blanket. I had the right size and length (32" long!), as the blanket is pretty wide and would not fit on strait needles. This is my first try at knitting with circular needles, and I'm knitting strait on them, so I'm getting used to them pretty easily.

The thing I'm realizing about this pattern is that it will not be a quick knit. I'm still getting used to the way circulars work (and how certain stitches slide from the wire to the needle a little less easily than others). The pattern also has a complicated row that helps to form a Feather and Fan pattern, which involves me doing a lot of counting. Also each row has 154 stitches, so a knit row takes me over ten minutes to complete, a complex row takes over fifteen. The final length of the blanket will be 204 rows, so it is going to take me some time to get there. It's also not the kind of pattern that I can zone out to TV or an audiobook, so it will be a small doses kind of project. Even though it'll be months before this turns into a blanket, I think it will be a very satisfying knit once complete.

The first 12 of 204 rows.

Everything is a Photo Opportunity #33

William over at Ottawa Daily Photo got me thinking about the big ice storm from 1998 after he posted some photos about it. Even 17 years later I still remember the storm and the impact it had. We lived on a farm north of Barrie, Ontario at the time, and our power/water was out for three days, the school buses were cancelled, and some trees were damaged. The storm caused tremendous damage and massive power outages in eastern Ontario and Quebec.

With school cancelled, I remember walking around outside with Dad taking photos (he was the photographer, I was his little buddy). We got some great photos, and shown below is one of a fence covered in icicles. The trees behind it are also covered in a thick layer of ice. Dad says the ice stayed on the trees like that for nine days. It was one hell of a storm.