One Day

Six years ago, you had one day with her. That's so unfair.

As magical as newborns are and as much as I envy you those precious hours, you couldn't possibly have imagined how incredible your daughter would become. She is sugar and spice, quick to take offense and eager to please. My dragon daughter. From the first picture I ever saw of her I sensed a brightness in her, a vividness. Everything she feels, she feels intensely. Every story she tells, she throws her whole self into portraying every aspect. I've often wondered if acting is in her future: she just seems like a natural.

I'll get to see that future, and unless a modern miracle of internet and DNA transpires, you won't. That's so unfair.

I don't know what combination of societal limitations, familial pressures, financial duress, and personal bias led you to want your daughter to be cared for by the state. I know from other parents of nevus owners that the initial reaction from uninformed doctors and medical staff can be devastating. One family's child was placed in NICU immediately and the parents were told the child probably wouldn't live out the week. She did, of course, and proved to be and continues to be happy and healthy. But it's so rare, you see. One in every 500,000 births and most doctors never see it in their whole practice. It can look so scary at first, but it isn't really, most of the time. Were you scared? Did a doctor tell you she wouldn't survive or that she would need medical care you couldn't pay for? Did you face the question that so many parents in your situation have had thrust on them: to take your child home to die or to surrender her to the state so that she can receive life-saving medical care? That's so unfair.

But medically necessary or not, she thrived, even in an institutional environment, and after bringing her home we have seen her burst into bloom. The calendar tells us that we have had her for two years, five months and seventeen days and every one of those days she has been a joy. (And often a trial as well: she has a strong will, your daughter.)

Thank you for including the note with her time of birth. I wonder, when that time came today, did you wince? Do you feel the loss of her like a limb? Do you have peace that you made the right decision for her? Did you move past the grief years ago, hopeless of ever seeing your child again? I wish I could face west and send you this message: your daughter is loved and cared for and accepted. She is yours, always yours, but also ours.

Ours forever.

We promise.

Say It Today

This last Christmas was a great Christmas for hand knitted gifts. I typically start making Christmas presents in early spring allowing me to harness my spare time throughout the year to produce hand-made gifts. I have a spreadsheet that helps me keep track.

I used mostly Paton yarn, which is a great affordable, hard-wearing, high quality yarn, and I made a lot of fun, functional things.

But after Christmas, I was wanting ... something different. Something that would really be a challenge. Something less about function, and more about form. I settled on a lace shawl. An epic lace shawl, made from laceweight wool and silk, gossamer thin.

Before you block lace, it looks scrunched.
You can sort of tell there's a pattern and purpose going on, but it's not entirely clear.

Most of the knitting I do is very forgiving. If I miss a decrease in one row, I can add it in the next without anyone ever being able to tell but me. Knitting a lace pattern is not like that. All the stitches, decreases and yarnovers are very carefully designed to form a pattern, and if you miss a single stitch, it will be glaringly obvious. Twice I made a mistake but didn't catch it for eight or ten rows and so had to pull out all that work.

Inserting the needle into the last row before my mistake.

But it was all worth it.

Interstellar Lace Shawl

I made this shawl for my friend Sarah. My friend is in good health at the moment, but as I was considering this project it occurred to me - the time for a big gesture is now. Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. This shawl, the biggest, most difficult lace pattern I'd ever attempted, was my tangible way of telling my friend how much I loved her and the time to say "I love you" is always today, not next week.

It was finished in time for her birthday and she loves surprises, so my kids and I showed up on her doorstep with a plate of cookies and a brown paper package tied up with string.

She loved it a lot.

Go say I love you. Do it with knitting, with words, however you want. Say it today. 

Love a Baby

Everybody has a baby they love, right? Even if you don't have kids or even don't want kids, you've got a niece that's precious to you, a best friend who's about to have a baby. So with that in mind, we're working on a special fundraiser.

For all donations between March 15th and April 30 that help bring our baby boy home, we'll put your name in a drawing for a very special gift: a hand-knit lace baby blanket in soft, natural wool. Perfect for a boy or a girl, a lovely heirloom and a beautiful photo prop.

Any donation up to $25 means we put your name in the drawing once, and then for every additional $25, we put your name in again.

This is a similar knit lace blanket that I made for my nephew. The Love a Baby blanket will have a diamond center pattern and a leaf border.

How can you donate? So glad you asked! 

To buy Rodan + Fields makeup and have a portion of your purchase go to support our adoption, click here! (Each item specifically lists how much goes to the adoption.) 

To donate online, click here.

To donate via check, make your check payable to Bethany Christian Services and put Fenn Family in the memo line. Send your check to: 

930 McCallie Avenue

Chattanooga, TN 37403

After you've done that, send me a message on Facebook (I'm the only Libby Mallory Fenn on there!) and let me know about your donation so that we can add you to the drawing! It sometimes takes a while for donations to process and for us to be notified. I don't want you to miss out! 

For more information about our adoption, go here. It's the page with all the links! 

The Big News

So for a while this fall I wasn't blogging anything because our adoption had stalled due to a medical issue. And then that resolved and suddenly I wasn't blogging because things were happening so fast! 

So, here's our big news. 

We have been MATCHED!!! 

On Jan 29th, we got a call from our adoption agency. They had a file that they would like us to consider. It was a sixteen month old boy, with the same condition as our daughter, congenital giant nevus, otherwise healthy and with the cutest, fattest cheeks. We said yes. The boys are completely thrilled; Mei-Mei was sour for a bit that it wasn't a girl, but has since gotten fully on board Team Baby Brother and is full of plans. She has instructed me that when we go to China I should take M&Ms, in case baby brother cries while I'm giving him a bath, like she did. I love seeing her little heart soften. 

Right now we can't share pictures online so you will just have to take my word for it that he's completely adorable. We'll be able to share once we've signed our Letter of Agreement, which is a few steps down the road. Right now I'm busy working on our current step, the dossier (doss-ee-ay). We are hopeful that we will have all our dossier ducks lined up and notarized by the end of the month, after which we get them county sealed and state sealed. It's exactly as much fun as it sounds, but now we have the best motivation in the world: our little boy waiting for us! 

So. Many. Documents.

If you would like to be added to our adoption newsletter for more information about the process and how you can pray for us, email me at derkiheeATgmailDOTcom with "add me" in the subject line. 

If you would like to donate to our adoption (thank you SO much!) all of our links and information are here.  

All Our Adoption Links

We're adopting!!!

(I think I might never lose the urge to put 3 exclamation marks after that sentence.)

I wanted to put all our links in one place so that when people want to know about our adoption and how they can help, I can direct them to one page instead of several different ones. As we have other news I'll link it back to this page so this page always (oh dear what a promise, here's hoping) has the most updated information.

For general information about why we are adopting, click here.
For details on who we are adopting, click here.
For information on our Love a Baby campaign and how you could win a hand-knit lace blanket, click here. 
If you'd like to purchase Rodan + Fields makeup and skin care supplies and have a portion of your purchase go to our adoption, click here. 

If you would like to be part of our prayer team, email derkiheeATgmailDOTcom with "ADD ME" in the subject line and I will add you to our email newsletter.

In August, we did a T-shirt fundraiser. If you are interested in us holding another sale, email me at derkiheeATgmailDOTcom with "I'd buy a T shirt" in the subject line. If we have at least 5 people interested, we will have another T shirt sale and I will email you the link as well as post it again here.
Here is what our T shirts look like:

"Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created."

To donate online, click here. This site takes out $0.30 per donation and 2.9% of the donation. This allows them to maintain their website and, particularly important, to maintain the online security measures that all you to donate your money safely. Please feel free to share this link on Facebook.

To donate by check, send a check made out to Bethany Christian Services, with "Fenn family" in the memo line to this address:

Bethany Christian Services
930 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga, TN 37403

Thank you for your interest in our adoption! Check back periodically to see how things are going!

Knitting Through the Year - March

"Its shape is the simplest (straight tube for body; tapered tubes for sleeves, which are cast off straight and sewed into straight cut armholes) and the pattern is much simpler than it looks." ~ Knitter's Almanac, by Elizabeth Zimmermann

Sometimes, I knit like an idiot. Sometimes, I continue to knit like an idiot for a very long time. This is very frustrating when I discover it.

See that? I cast on the same number for both sweaters. I knit the hem, and then began the color work section. This (apparently) was a lot tighter than the hem and I just continued on for inches and inches, blindly believing that it was only a little bit small and that it would easily block out to the same size. If you look at the above picture, these are obviously two different sizes. There is no amount of blocking that is going to change that.

And somehow I had to knit that far before I figured it out. And this sweater combines cables and color work so it was a slower knit than usual. But still I didn't notice until I had knit half the body.

So I unraveled it. It was painful but I discovered something interesting.

Isn't that cool? Wouldn't it make a pretty lacy sweater? It would take a long time to knit, but unraveling the base color would be very thrilling.

Anyway, I unraveled it back to the hem, knit a round increasing by 20%, and then picked up the white and started again. Once I got to the chest, I added a few extra stitches on each side for steeks and continued knitting a color work tube. I sewed the sleeves to the tube and then turned the sleeves inside out to get to the steek stitches. I crocheted double line of stitches through the steek stitches and then cut down middle, creating the armhole.

Does this picture make things any clearer? No? Sorry.

This is a classic method for multi-color Scandinavian sweaters, because it is much easier to knit color work patterns in a tube, where you are always looking at the right side, than back and forth, when you are constantly switching from the right side to the wrong side. So just knit a couple extra stitches where you want the armholes and cut them later!

After the armholes were cut, I knit facings for them to cover up the raw edges inside the sweater. This is partly for security (my sweater is knit of alpaca and wool and alpaca doesn't stick to itself like wool does, increasing the risk of things unraveling) and partly for aesthetics. It was a long slow knit and I wanted it to be finished nicely inside and out. If I were selling my knitting (which I'm not*), this would be a particularly high-end sweater.

I'm very happy with how it turned out. It is a beautiful little 2T sweater, and the alpaca makes it sooo soft and the color work pattern on the body makes it extra warm.

When I first started knitting it, I found the slow pace of the color work + cable stitches to be frustrating. It's not hard, particularly if you have done cables before, but it is slow. But now I really love the bold effect of the white cables against the green-blue-lavender. It makes me want to attempt a Celtic knot pattern, maybe on mittens. Wouldn't that be lovely?

*If there are any people reading this blog who value quality hand knits and would be interested in $500 children's sweaters, I would absolutely be interested in selling my knitting! But those are the kind of prices you have to charge to make it work. 

Knitting Through the Year - February

If there is one fact on which all grandmothers agree, it is that no daughter-in-law knows how to wash wool. This may be true, but it is no reason for the grandmas to stop knitting. Do they expect their handmade offerings to be carefully preserved in layers of tissue paper and never worn? They have perhaps forgotten how often baby things have to be washed. The baby surely doesn't mind if they do become a little shrunken and yellowed. Let the grandmas keep up the supply of soft woolies and avert their mind's eye from the ultimate fate of their knitting - at least it is being used. ~ Knitter's Almanac, by Elizabeth Zimmermann

Knitting for babies is delightful even when you don't have a baby to knit for, which I currently don't. When I find a pattern I like I just knit away and stash it for future use. I generally try to knit at least a 12 month size, if not larger, which insures that my sweater will probably be worn more than once.

In true EZ fashion, I set aside her very good instructions and attempted to make the arms and chest at the same time, with extra stitches to make into steeks later on. (Steeks are where you take scissors to your knitting, cut it into pieces and then sew it back up again. It's crazytown, but a very useful technique.)

My reasons were very good. The yarn I was using (Crazy Yarn left over from the kids' Baby Surprise Sweaters) has uneven stripes, and it would be very difficult to make the stripes the same on the sleeves and the body because there are different numbers of stitches in each.

I used the crochet method of securing the steek edges, which was very easy if you are already familiar with crochet. You can also use a sewing machine if you prefer.

I think that somewhere in the process I misplaced some stitches or ignored something crucial because the sleeves are a lot skinnier than I was intending. Knitting stretches, which is good, but this might be recast as a full length infant sweater instead of a waist-length toddler sweater.

Ah well, I'll be more careful next time.

We're Adopting Again!!!

Yay for siblings! If you are new to this site, these are our three kids, aged 5, 4, and 6, respectively.
We are excited to add a fourth! (Picture by Rachael Kulick.)

WHO: A boy or girl who is younger than our youngest (at the moment 4 and a half), born in China with the same special need as our daughter, Congenital Melanocytic Nevus. We feel very comfortable with this special need and have a good relationship with a wonderful pediatric dermatologist at Emory. And it's not just about comfort level and familiarity: objectively speaking, we will be considered a good match for a child with this special need, because of our experience, which (we hope) will lead to a fast(er) match.

WHAT: Um, this seems obvious. Unless you missed the title. ADOPTION! Yay!

WHEN: Not soon enough. The process will probably take at least a year from now until we are bringing our child home, maybe longer. There are two different paths with a Chinese adoption:

1) after a family has finished their paperwork they wait to be matched with a newly listed child whose file matches their openness. (This is not a mandatory match: the parents can pray over the file and consult with doctors if desired before making a decision.)

2) at any time during the paperwork process the family can ask to be matched with a child who is on the Waiting Child List. Children on the waiting list are kids who were not matched with families when they were first listed with the adoption agency, either because they have special needs that no families were specifically open to, or because they are older (four years old is considered "old!"), or because they are a boy and the families at that time specifically requested a girl. (Side note: There are SO MANY boys in China who need families!)

It is my personal hope that we would be able to race through our paperwork (ha, ha ...) and as soon as we are done, the child that we are meant to adopt would be newly listed with our agency and we would be matched to them. This hopeful scenario would mean the shortest wait time for everyone. When we were adopting Mei-Mei, we saw her picture on the Waiting Child List, asked to be matched with her, and then we had a year's worth of paperwork and waiting before we could go get her. This time around, if we get all our paperwork done first, then our child has the shortest possible wait after they are listed, although the timing is about the same or a little longer for us. (Clear as mud? All of this is pretty confusing.)

WHERE: China. Our first experience with Bethany Christian Services' China team was stellar, and the Chinese language, culture and food are wound into our hearts and our family life.

WHY: Because children need families. Let me repeat that. Children. Need. Families. This is not about my husband and I wanting more kids. (Although, to be clear, we do!) This is not about a fun cultural experience. (Although we have been enriched by the addition of Chinese culture to our family!) This is about kids, growing up in foster care or an orphanage, never having anyone who is committed to them for forever. Sometimes never having anyone who will tell them: "You have value. You are loved."

That is why we are doing this big, crazy, time-consuming, expensive thing.

HOW MUCH: $31,000. *Gulp* Let me break this down a bit.

Agency fees (Home study, Adoption fees, Post-Placement Reports) $13,950

Foreign Country Program Expenses $2,810

Translation and Document Expenses $3,685

Program Development $1500

Immigration fees $985

Travel and Accommodation in China* $8,575

Total: $31,505

*This number is the most flexible, as it will be affected by the tourist season, strength of the US dollar, and the specific province in China that we are traveling to.

We will also be giving our child's orphanage a gift of either money or supplies, both as a culturally significant gesture of gratitude, and also to improve the lives of other children in the orphanage. In previous years this was a required part of the adoption fees, adding approximately $6000 to the cost of Chinese adoption. Praise God that the adoption officials in China have made it this much easier for children to be adopted!

HOW CAN YOU HELP: 

If you would like to know about our continued prayer needs and financial progress, sign up for our (probably monthly) newsletter by emailing me at derkihee@gmail.com with "Add Me" or something else self-explanatory in the subject line.

If you would like to contribute directly to Bethany, send a check made out to Bethany Christian Services with "Fenn Family Adoption" in the memo line to this address:

Bethany Christian Services
930 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403

If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, send a check made out to Highlands with "Fenn Family Adoption" in the memo line to this address:

Highlands Presbyterian Church
1211 North Main Street
LaFayette GA 30728

If now is not a great time for you to contribute, but you'd like to at some point, keep an eye out for future updates! We will be doing a T-shirt fundraiser in a few months.

Thank you for walking with us on this journey! We're very excited to be on this path and excited that you want to travel with us on it!

(Picture by Rachael Kulick.)

Knitting Through the Year - January

"It is a cold and snowy January. The holidays are done with, and Twelfth Night will be any day now: what better time to embark on a long and lovely project?" ~ Knitter's Almanac, Elizabeth Zimmermann

EZ, dwelling in the cold and snowy north, suggests an Aran sweater as the perfect January project: all-white and decorated with cables and knit-purl stitch patterns. However I, who have never seen a white winter, but only the very occasional white weekend or white couple of days, chose a more colorful winter project.

The fact that I had intended to finish this project for Christmas and failed to do so may have also been a factor. Knitters beware: five year old boys take very poorly to a promise and a bagful of yarn as a Christmas present.

Mei-Mei, Twinkle and Munchkin, all with varying levels of enthusiasm.
The green in Twinkle's sweater is more prominent than this picture shows. 

This pattern is also an Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern, the Baby Surprise Sweater. It is one of the more iconic knitting patterns out there. (To the non-knitters: Yes! Famous knitting patterns! Whoda thunk?) It has only two seams, which means that you kit a shapeless blob that looks nothing like a sweater, just blindly chugging along making increases and decreases as directed. And then you cast off and sew along the tops of the sleeves and suddenly you have the cutest little garter-stitch cardigan.

This yarn is called Crazy Yarn and it is made from the leftovers from spinning solid colors. Crazy Yarn and Baby Surprise Sweater is my favorite yarn/pattern combination. I have made it two other times before this little trio, once as a 12 month size and once as a 3T, and I can probably say that this won't be my last time with this combo. There's just no version of this sweater and yarn that's not awesome.

The sweaters were finished in January, but photographed later, hence the green grass.

I love it - and them - to bits.

Knitting Through the Year - December

Christmas projects!

I love them. I dive into them with joy and abandon, only to realize, mid-way, that my project to-do list really isn't reasonable or particularly possible, not if the young ones continue to demand to be fed on a thrice-daily basis and the husband continues to hope after a non-destroyed house and an underwear and sock drawer with at least a few clean items in it.

EZ knows the dangers of ambition and vision at Christmas time:

Embarking on a sweater at this late date smacks of madness, but it can be done, and done without using up too much f your precious December-time. The main thing is to make it very thick. The thicker the knitting, the fewer the stitches; the fewer the stitches, the sooner finished, right? Not finished as soon as mathematics would tell you - the fingers are not quite as agile with thick wool as with thin - but still, finished with surprising speed. ~ Elizabeth Zimmermann, The Knitter's Almanac

And so it was. Finished with surprising speed, that is. One week of knitting in the evenings and during the occasional naptime and it was done. Just like that.

I know.

Crazy town.

I had to resist the urge to cast on additional sweaters for my father, husband and brother. (You get a sweater! And you get a sweater! And yes, you there in the back! You get a sweater, too!) As soon as I expressed this urge, fortunately, the madness of it penetrated, and I backed away from the ledge. Close call, though.

The secret of this sweater is the simple, stylish shaping and the large gauge. This sweater is knit at 2 1/2 stitches to the inch, with extra bulky yarn. This was a little hard to find. My brother-in-law, the recipient, lives in North Carolina, where winters are certainly cold, but don't warrant 1/2" thick, 100% wool sweaters. That amount of wool would be very warm indeed. Also, my sister put in her bid for a sweater that couldn't be accidentally shrunk in the wash. My initial goal was a bulky superwash wool, which is a wool-acrylic blend that can be gently machine washed without tragedy. However, this proved very difficult to find. Eventually, I ended up with Lion Brand Hometown USA, which is an all-acrylic yarn, in charcoal. I used just under 10 skeins, to make a men's size medium/large.

Done like dinner.

Knitting Through the Year - November

"Plans for this chapter have been scrapped in favor of describing the project on which I am currently and most actively engaged. I can think of little else. 
"The item, hot from the griddle, which I now unveil is the Moccasin Sock, the Breakthrough Sock, the Not-To-Be-Ground-Down Sock; The Eventually Totally Re-footable Sock. Call it what you will; all the above tentative titles apply." - Elizabeth Zimmermann, The Knitter's Almanac

This enthusiasm may bewilder. I will endeavor to explain.

This month's project, the Moccasin Sock, has a very unique design. Here it is, modeled by my lovely husband (who will happily comply with all manner of photographic nonsense if it gets him closer to a new pair of hand-knit socks):

Mustard and Light Gray Heather

Do you see the brilliance? No? How about this one:

See that gray sole? (Practically) every sock ever knit before now has been knit in the round, which convenient because human feet are 3 dimensional, requiring a tube-shaped sock to cover them and humans generally dislike trodding on seams. Thus, knitting in the round, whether you did it with 4 or more double-pointed needles or with two circular needles or with magic loop, was deemed to be necessary.

This Moccasin sock, however, is knit another way entirely: the leg and the top of the foot are knit back and forth, and then using gray, the knitter picks up stitches all around the edge of the foot and knits in the round on a circular or their preferred method, knitting towards the center of the foot, decreasing where necessary so that everything will lie flat, and then, when the sole is big enough, the stitches are sewn together with Kitchener stitch, which makes everything flat and smooth. The back of the leg stitches are likewise sewn together.

But why would you do this, when the traditional method of socks (knit in the round until you come to the heel, make a heel, knit in the round until you come to the toe, decrease for toe, sew closed) is so much simpler?

Here is why:

1. If you are intimidated by or simply dislike knitting using double-pointed needles.

2. If you don't have more than one circular knitting needle, or your circular needle is short. (It has to be long to use the magic loop method.)

3. If you prefer knitting back and forth to knitting in the round. Note that you will have to do a bit of in the round, but it's much less than if you were to use the traditional method. (This can be done with a circular needle if desired.)

4. If you want to use a different yarn for the sole and the top. This was, in fact, EZ's inspiration for designing this pattern: she wanted to use reinforced yarn for the sole of the foot but not the top, where it would be wasted.

5. If you only have one skein of special yarn and you still want to make a pair of socks.

Let me elaborate on that last one. If you are using sock yarn*, an adult-sized pair of socks requires at least 400 yards of yarn. Sock yarn is often sold in approx. 200 yard skeins. This yarn, Valley Yarns Huntington, a merino wool blend, was both lovely and economical but these descriptors are not often paired. If your heart is set on a yarn too expensive to buy two skeins, or if you simply have found an odd ball that you'd like to use up without making mismatched socks, this method will let you do that. You don't see the sole of the foot at all when wearing shoes, so it could be a cheaper color that coordinates, a color you want to use up, or even a series of scraps.

These are approximately men's size 10 socks, in a short crew style, and the yellow part used up nearly every bit of the 218 yards in the skein. As a side note, I would like to congratulate myself on finding such a cheery color that my husband will consent to wear. It's a great color, and almost perfectly matches a ginkgo tree in autumn.

Very difficult to get three children to look at the camera at once, particularly when you are on the way to get ice cream.

*Using sock yarn, or "fingering weight" yarn will produce socks that are "normal" thickness, suitable for wearing under dress shoes. Using worsted weight yarn will produce chunkier socks, more suitable for wearing under thick boots or as house slippers. The thicker the yarn, the fewer yards you will need.

 In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that the reason that there is only one sock in the photograph is that there was only one sock finished in November, as I was much consumed with a Nanowrimo project, Thanksgiving, and a sinus infection. However, I did finish the other sock before Christmas which was their actual deadline. I intended to photograph both of them today, using my own feet, but 'Stache wore them to work.  

Let's Talk About Cake

My go-to conversation starter when I need to occupy a young child is, "Let's talk about cake." Whatever differences there may be between me and 3 year old (and there are many), we can at least agree on this much: Cake Is Awesome. It is amazing in so many different ways and flavors and there is always so much to discuss. Favorite color of cake? Favorite flavor of cake? Favorite size of cake? (ALWAYS big) Should there be layers of cake? Should the frosting and the cake be the same, or different? What are the best flavor combinations?

Today, let's talk about cake. Let's talk about Victoria sponge cake. Let's talk about Vic sponge with ganache (guh-NOSH) frosting. Let's talk about Vic sponge with ganache frosting in the shape of a HEDGEHOG, which may now be my very favorite shape of cake ever.

I made this cake and it was adorable and tasted wonderful and none of that was my doing because I was just following recipes, so let me give you the recipes so that you can do it too.

This video showed me how to make the 3-D shape, which is super simple. I couldn't find any appropriate candies for the spikes, so I just did the textured effect with a fork, which worked fine. I did the eyes and nose with a bit of melted white chocolate in a Ziploc bag with the tip cut off.

The cake is Mary Berry's Victoria sponge cake, but that recipe has the measurements by weight, which can be troublesome, so here it is in "American."

1 cup butter, softened
4 eggs
2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 round cake pans with foil or parchment paper. Spray with cooking spray/oil. Mix all the ingredients together and divide between the two cake pans, smoothing the tops so that they are flat. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool before lifting out of the pan and peeling off the foil or paper.

The ganache recipe was actually a combo of this one and that one, so let me tell you what I did.

2 cups heavy cream
24 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
24 oz milk chocolate chips

Heat cream until hot but not boiling. Stir in chocolate chips until chocolatey and smooth and wonderful. (Right up until it looks amazing, mixture will look manky and weird and worriesome. If it's looking chocolatey but still has lumps, your cream may have gotten a little too cool to melt the chocolate enough. Heat it a little more and keep stirring.) Put in the fridge until cool. Using a mixer, whip for 3 minutes.

This was exactly enough ganache frosting to frost this cake, however due to an error it has LOADS of frosting. When I was shaping the hedgehog I didn't carve the back of it to be rounded, so I just added ganache to make it the shape I wanted when I got to that point. Which is a completely valid solution, but this cake already had a very thick layer of frosting in order to get the textured effect, so the pieces in the back had a truly breathtaking amount of ganache. Maybe 2 and a half inches of frosting, on a 3 layers tall piece of cake. It was something like eating a triple portion of chocolate fudge with a side of cake.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Ahem.

Knitting Through the Year - October

It is ironic that this month, I finished the month's knitting project very early, yet am posting it very late. It was finished on the 7th, because the young gentleman it was knit for was turning two, but having finished and even having taken pictures of the project, I delayed and procrastinated and put off. Due to the magic of scheduled posting, the internet will record this post in October, but the faithful reader will know that it did not appear until almost a week later. Ah well. There are worse things than procrastination, and I would much rather procrastinate on the reporting of knitting than the knitting itself.

So, then, to the report. The October project is an "open collared pullover," more commonly known as a polo shirt. It is a classic design and deceptively simple in its appearance, for EZ warns on a few occasions that one must keep one's wits about one when knitting this sweater. And that even if one does not understand immediately, if one blindly follows the directions, all will become clear.

In describing the edging of the front, which combines a garter stitch edge with an i-cord edge, she writes:

"This is a mind-boggling operation, hard to describe, but, I hope, easy to follow blindly until you get the hang of it. You will be performing it right up to the the neckline, so get the hang of it you must, and fast, because the shoulder shaping is now going to start." - Elizabeth Zimmerman, Knitter's Almanac 

(One of my favorite things about Elizabeth Zimmerman is that she writes of knitting as if she is narrating a baseball game. The knitting experience is rife with urgency, curve balls, and opportunities for valor, and EZ makes you feel every moment of drama.)

Although this is one of the more complicated patterns in the almanac, the pattern is clear and easy to follow. The garter stitch/i-cord edging is an elegant solution. Garter stitch naturally lies flat and is typically viewed as rather informal. Stockinette, which is what i-cord is essentially made of, is smooth and looks polished, but the edge are terribly inclined to curl. This combination unites the best features of both. EZ gives instructions for both vertical border, which is knit along side the body stitches, knitting back and forth, and a horizontal border, which is knit perpendicularly to the sleeve stitches.

The young gentleman's birthday was lovely. It was a brunch (All birthday parties should be brunches, I think. Breakfast food is nearly universally popular, and particularly when it is a party of young children, everyone is fresher and in a better mood in the morning than the afternoon) with cake afterwards. The boy's mother's family has a tradition of decorating the cake with a present, and I think the result is charming.

Knitting Through the Year - September (Free Pattern!)

September is the logical beginning of the year. Summer heat is nearly past, the weather begins to brisken up, schools open their doors to siphon our beloved young out of the house for longer or shorter periods, adult activity begins to stir, and Mother forms good resolutions and makes lists. 
Top your list with a resolution to initiate all children, M and F, into the mysteries and fascinations of knitting - Elizabeth Zimmermann, Knitter's Almanac 

EZ gives very good suggestions for your child's first knitting project (a garter-stitch potholder) and then suggests that while your young knitter is working away that you knit him or her a pair of "longies" as a reward. These can be fitted to be as tight as leggings, or they can be looser, like lounge pants. Either way, they will be deliciously warm. They are knit in the round, which EZ considers a crucial point for both comfort and durability. Seams "pop inconveniently, especially in a garment which has to have feet constantly thrust into it."

That face!

These leggings were designed to fit my daughter, who is 43" tall and wears a size 5. Her waist measurement is 21.5" and it is 25" from the floor to her belly button. She is long-waisted and slender. If those descriptors don't match the child you wish to knit leggings for, get out your calculator and and measuring tape and figure out the size difference between my child's measurements and yours, and then add or subtract stitches or rows from my pattern to get a custom fit. Or, of course, you could buy Knitter's Almanac, where EZ gives a full explanation of how to knit "longies" for any size, infant to adult. My pattern is informed by hers but not exactly the same.

(This has not been test-knit and may contain errors.)

Cozy Cozy

US 8 DPN (for the waist you will either need a 5th DPN, or a US 8 circular needle)

Worsted weight yarn, less than 660 yards. I bought 3 skeins of yarn because I wanted to do stripes and I have a good bit left from each color. I probably used around 500 yards. 

CO 44 st

Knit 14 rounds in 2x2 ribbing.

Knit 48 rounds in stockinette.

*K2 inc1, knit to end of the round, inc1.

Knit 5 rounds in stockinette. Repeat from * 10 times, increasing by 22 st.

Knit 4 rounds in stockinette.

Repeat for the other leg.

Sew together 18 stitches from each leg using Kitchener stitch.

Knit 1 round, picking up and knitting 4 stitches over each end of the crotch. (104 st)

*K26 past the middle of the back, wrap and turn.

Slip first st, P51, wrap and turn.

Slip first st, K49, wrap and turn.

Slip first st, P47, wrap and turn.

Slip first st, knit 1 round, knitting the wrapped stitches like this. (See note)

Knit 2 rounds.

K23 past the middle of the back, wrap and turn.

Slip first st, purl 45 st, wrap and turn.

Slip first st, knit 43 st, wrap and turn.

Slip first st, purl 41 st, wrap and turn.

Slip first st, knit 1 round, knitting wrapped st as before.

Knit 2 rounds. *

Repeat from * to *.

Knit 43 rounds in stockinette. 

Knit 16 rounds in 2x2 ribbing.

Cast off loosely in pattern. Weave in all ends.

If desired, use a sewing machine to sew elastic to the inside of the waistband. 

Note: This is not a vital element, but the final result is smoother than if you simply knit the wrapped stitches. 

Name: Cozy Cozy 

Design: mine-ish, with the helpful advice of Elizabeth Zimmermann

Materials: Berroco Vintage Storm, Berroco Vintage Cast Iron and what is probably Cascade 220 Christmas Red

Finished: Sept 12, 2017

Fancy that! Finished with September before the month is even half over! These were a fairly quick knit; less knitting than a sweater. I think I may collect my worsted scraps for a while and make a pair of crazy striped pants for Munchkin or Twinkle.

Ring-around-the-rosie. I obviously spent a great deal of time coordinating their outfits.
P.S. Twinkle is wearing two pairs of pajama pants, per his favorite things.

Their Favorite Things

When you are 4 or 5 years old, your likes and dislikes are still capricious. Today's favorite may be tomorrow's ma'le*. So I thought that I would record what my children like. As of September 11th, 2017, 7:24 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, all of these statements are correct and truthful. An hour from now, who can say.

*This is the word that Mei-Mei says for "trash," but when I went to look up the tones, Google had no idea what I was talking about. I don't know if this is pidgin word that she made up, or if it is part of a Hebei province dialect.

All of the children love being Mama's Helper at the grocery store. Mei-Mei talks about who is going to help Mama a full week ahead of time.

Munchkin and Twinkle ask for oatmeal every morning. Cinnamon is usually desired. Brown sugar is, of course, best of all, but rarely offered. Sometimes they ask for ketchup instead of cinnamon. This makes their mother gag a little, but she gives it to them anyway.

Mei-Mei loves dippy eggs and chips. These are soft boiled eggs with baked chips made from corn tortillas and oil and salt. You can stab a piece of egg with the point of your chip and eat it that way, which means that forks are unnecessary. Dippy eggs and chips are her mama's favorite breakfast too.

Munchkin loves cuddling with "his" cats.

Twinkle loves the color green. He will always choose the green option. Except for vegetables, of course.

Mei-Mei loves using glue sticks.

Munchkin loves mashed potatoes and peas. Heavily influenced by How My Parents Learned to Eat, by Ina R. Friedman, he views these side dishes as a package deal and makes nests of mashed potatoes to put the peas in.

Twinkle loves spaghetti and meatballs.

 Mei-Mei would live in her My Little Pony nightgown 24/7 if given the choice. For a while, we even had a good-night song about her pony nightgown. As part of the song I was supposed to stroke the pony and Mei-Mei would become upset if I accidentally poked the pony in the eye.

All of the children love potstickers and homemade ramen and Uncle Pop.

Munchkin also loves sushi. The other kids will eat it, but he gobbles it!

Twinkle loves wearing crowns and hats.

Mei-Mei loves going to sleep while holding onto one of her parents. She doesn't always get to, but it is far and away her preferred method.

Munchkin loves having younger children around to take care of and explain things to. Unfortunately, his younger siblings don't count, as they are the same size as he is and thus considered equals.

Twinkle loves wearing multiple pairs of shirts and pants, even in warm weather. This completely befuddles 'Stache, who has on occasion discovered Twinkle wearing up to seven shirts. Twinkle is also an equal opportunity shirt wearer, layering t-shirts, night-shirts, and 'Stache's undershirts.

Mei-Mei loves to help cook and do little jobs. She is an excellent helper.

All of the children love watching me play Minecraft. There was once great concern and worry when I went exploring and got lost and could not find where my house was. Twinkle even prayed about it at bedtime, that God would help me find my house. When I finally found it, the children discussed the matter on and off for a week.

Munchkin loves reading the original Winnie-the-Pooh. I had never read the whole book before, only snippets and individual stories and Disney versions, which lack the charm of the original. It is Excellent and I wholeheartedly recommend it. (Knowing as I do so that this is hardly an original recommendation. However, if I, as a well-read adult and a well-read-to child, am discovering this now for the first time, perhaps my recommendation can help others who were similarly ignorant of A. A. Milne's brilliance.)

Twinkle loves saying Chinese words. We are learning Chinese as part of Munchkin's school program, and Twinkle is the keenest. Interestingly, Mei-Mei is not particularly better at Chinese than Munchkin or Twinkle. I think that, outside of the handful of words we still commonly use at home, she has forgotten her Chinese.

Mei-Mei loves baths, showers, hoses and water in most forms. She has never gotten out of a bath or shower without having to be told to do so.

All of the children love paper airplanes. This causes some degree of conflict at home, because once a piece of paper has been made into an airplane it becomes a PRICELESS TREASURE and if stolen, torn or carelessly trod upon, instigates immediate commencement of hostilities and the drawing up of battle lines.

In addition to the above, there are of course the perennial favorites such as ice cream, crayons, bicycles and hot dogs. I feel that these favorites have staying power and thus do not need to be documented as thoroughly as favorites that may come and go.

It is such a gift to be able to watch their personalities and interests develop!

Knitting Through the Year - August

The August chapter of Knitter's Almanac was written while the author and her husband were water-camping in the Canadian north woods. She describes her troubles thus:

As soon as the poor but determined creature sits itself down on a boat-cushion against a convenient rock, grabs note-book and pen ostentatiously, assumes an absorbed scowl, and writes just one sentence, gentle questions come wafting over the cool sunny air: Wouldn't you feel more comfortable with your boots off? Do you remember if we brought the soap? Where did we put the soap? Do you remember if I brought my fish-mouth-holder-opener? Shall we move on somewhere else? And of course that hardy perennial: Isn't it time for a little something to eat? - Elizabeth Zimmermann, Knitter's Almanac 

Being full, as it is, of adventures such as canoe trips, the knitting projects for August are appropriately compact and whimsical. EZ suggests that hand knit Christmas ornaments are an excellent use of the little scraps time one has on one's hands in August. She has patterns for an angel, a Christmas tree, a star and a net bag for placing a fresh orange or apple in to hang on the tree.

Although the idea of decorating a tree with fresh fruit has a charming rustic simplicity to it, I know that the moment one of my beloved bottomless pits is alone in the living room at Christmas time, hunger would strike and they would be balancing on the armrests of chairs trying to reach one of the Christmas tree apples. I decided to focus on stars.

This pattern is very simple: cast on a multiple of 5 (she suggests 55) and knit in garter stitch, decreasing 2 stitches (knit 3 together) at 5 points on each row. When you have 15 stitches cut the yarn, leaving a generous tail, pull the tail through the 15 stitches, pull tight, fasten off, and sew up the small seam necessary to make it a star. Sounds simple, yes? It is.

I think this would be a great way to use scraps of yarn that are really too small to make a small hat or mitten with but are too pretty or sentimental to get rid of or perhaps (like me) you are just too stingy to ever throw away "perfectly good yarn." Also, I am generally eager to find unbreakable Christmas ornaments, as sword fights are likely to break out in our living room at any moment. These are about as unbreakable as you get! You could also knit several and make a lovely mobile or garland for a baby's room.

Warm as Toast

I believe that cowls are naturally superior to scarves when attempting to keep a young child warm in cold weather.

Being a tube of soft knitting that fits over the head and sits around the neck, there are no long ends that can get caught or trampled on or yanked by a sibling. A mother is guaranteed, having put a cowl on a child, that their neck will stay covered as long as the cowl remains, which cannot be guaranteed with a scarf, which easily becomes untied or twisted or tightened, exposing skin to the elements. And lastly, a cowl requires less than a third of the knitting necessary to produce a scarf, making it a thrifty choice in both time and materials.

(There are very large cowls, of course, designed to be doubled or tripled around the neck, or very wide ones that produce a fashionable bunched effect that would be actually larger than a traditional scarf, but this cowl is a simple one, designed to be only one layer, imminently suitable for keeping a young child who lives in the not too arctic state of Tennessee, warm in winter.)

Mei-Mei may have a future as a knitwear model.

I designed this cowl to be very simple, suitable for beginners. It uses a type of waffle stitch, which is one of my favorite knit/purl stitches. I knit it using the back-and-forth method because I knit faster using straight needles, but the pattern is actually simpler if knit in the round, as the pattern uses an odd number of rows. I have put both here so that you can use your favorite method. This pattern uses approximately 100 yards of DK weight yarn. I recommend that you use a yarn that does not contain more than 50% acrylic or plant-based fibers. The more acrylic or plant-based fibers in a yarn, the less stretchy and less warm it will be

Warm as Toast

approx 100 yards DK weight yarn

US 5 knitting needles, either straight or circular as you prefer

a darning needle 

Back-and-forth directions

Using straights, cast on 102 st, loosely.

Rows 1-4: K

Row 5: P

Pattern:

Row 1: (Right Side) K2, (P2 K2) to the end of the row.

Row 2: P

Row 3: K2, (P2 K2) to the end of the row.

Row 4: P

Row 5: K

Row 6: P2, (K2 P2) to the end of the row.

Row 7: K

Row 8: P2, (K2 P2) to the end of the row.

Row 9: K

Row 10: P

Repeat this pattern 3 times. (40 rows)

Repeat the first 5 rows.

Knit 3 rows.

Cast off loosely, knitwise. Break the yarn, leaving a tail, and pull through.

Sew the selvage edges together using mattress stitch. 

Weave in ends. Block gently.

It can do double duty as a hat/earwarmer in a pinch.

In the round directions

Using circular knitting needles, cast on 100 st in the round.

Round 1: P

Round 2: K

Round 3: P

Rounds 4-5: K

Pattern

Round 1: K2, (P2, K2) to the end of the round.

Round 2: K

Round 3: K2 (P2, K2) to the end of the round.

Rounds 4-5: K

Repeat this pattern 8 times. (45 rounds)

Round 1: P

Round 2: K

Round 3: P

Round 4: Cast off loosely knitwise. Break the yarn, leaving a tail, and pull through.

Weave in all ends. Block gently. 

K= knit

P= purl 

This perfectly fits my daughter, who is four. However, it is a naturally stretchy stitch and the cowl fits over an adult's head also. If knitting for an adult, I would add an additional 10-20 rows of the waffle pattern, as adults' necks are longer.

Title: Warm as Toast

Design: Mine!

Materials: A lovely lavender yarn that I know includes alpaca but for which I have long lost the labels. It might be 100% alpaca or it might be a blend.

Finished: August  28, 2017

We can't wait for winter, how about you? 

Super Simple Blonde Brownies

Last week, I needed a dessert to take to a party. Unfortunately, although I had a kitchen full of ingredients, none of them added up to an existing recipe in my repertoire. So I invented one. It was very simple and pretty yummy, so I thought I'd share. I think this would be an ideal recipe to teach a young child who wants to learn how to bake things. It can be made entirely by hand, or by using a mixer.

Super Simple Blonde Brownies

10 tablespoons butter
2 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups self-rising flour
a handful of chocolate chips*

*I used half dark chocolate chips and half white chocolate chips because that is what I had on hand. You can use anything that is handy, even M&M's. You can also add chopped nuts if you wish.

Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 13x9 pan.
Melt butter in a large bowl.
Pour in brown sugar, vanilla and eggs. Stir together.
Add flour slowly and stir until completely mixed in.
Pour mixture into the pan and spread it out flat. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool before cutting.

Sweet chewy goodness!