Here you can see one finished and the other well on its way
And here they are! A pair of hand knit socks. I was surprised at how simple socks are, things like short rows, turning the heel, picking up stitches for the gusset... all sounded so scary but were relatively simple. Not to say these two are without flaw though, I will have to get much better about my measuring, but for a first pair of socks I'd say they're perfect.
Sauteed mussels with fresh cilantro
My take on Bananas foster
Best Indian dish ever: Chana Masala
Baked salmon with sauteed kale and twice baked potatoes with feta.
First, as you can see above, I did my initial foray into needle felting. While he may be the fattest bee you've ever seen, and I haven't put his little bead eyes on yet, I think he's pretty charming. Plus, I have not yet accidentally stabbed my fingers with the INCREDIBLY sharp needle felting needles, so that's a real bonus. The instructions for this little guy came from Wool Pets where there are also many other adorable creatures I will be trying soon.
I recently finished a good deal of hats to be sent to a children's hospital in Maine. I mailed them to my sister who brought them to the yarn store that was running the collection. When my sister came to visit me she said that they liked them and that she had a surprise for me. The surprise was three cones of yarn and a request to knit afghans for Afghans. This in and of itself would not be a dilemma but I didn't have any instructions before I started and begin knitting up an easy feather and wave pattern from Seven Day Afghans which I was pretty happy with. After spending two whole days on this I finally read the instructions on the website where they state that afghans should not have lace patterns as these will not insulate properly. While I had been concerned about this initially seeing it in print made me realize that as much as I loved the results this blanket was not going to keep someone warm enough, and that's kinda the whole point. So, alas and alack, I took the whole thing apart and started again but with a mock fisherman cable pattern from the same book. Two repeats of the pattern in and it started to look too lacy too!! So I rewrote the pattern and will be showing the results as I get a little farther into it.
While the afghan is slow going I've at least had some success lately. This little ipod sock came from a great pattern on Smariek Knits and is an easy and fast project. I believe these and other adaptations of ipod socks will be making a strong showing as Christmas presents next year along with other knit goodies!
Apple Crumble!! I've been in love with a recipe from How to Eat where you simmer the apples in some rum before you bake them, but because we've been enjoying that recipe so much we were out of rum!! So I had to do some improvisation and created this apple crumble with muscavado sugar which was super delicious!
Pizza night! It was a late dinner because I didn't start the dough until 6:30 pm but it was worth the wait. Feta and garlic pizza and a pesto with spicy Italian chicken sausage and mozzarella (only my side had peppers). Yum! I through the left over dough into the fridge in plastic baggies and the next night I made calzones (which can be made ahead and cooked later, or once cooked travel pretty well so they make a great treat for a lunch). 
The birthday boy with his cake. When asked what kind he wanted I believe the answer was "vanilla with a lot of frosting" so that's what he got and we were both happy with the final result!
Obviously I have a knitting addiction. Now that that's out of the way, look at my newest baby!
Lace Leaf knit hat, WEEEE!!
My first successful lace knit project and I could not be happier or prouder.
The first of my "knitting for myself" projects, this hat calls for a coronet style cable band joined to the rest of the hat, it's supposed to be rolled up as a brim but I found that to be a little chunky, so instead i flipped it inside out and left the band down. My friend Marti pointed out that the shape of it now resembles a hat from the 20's or 30's and I like to think that's all part of its charm.
Which means I have been involved in "Hat Knitting Frenzy Part II." During the first part I knit 10 hats in 14 days for a children's hospital in Maine. Then I took a brief hiatus to make my Mom's birthday present (shown in bottom picture).
Once my Mom's birthday presents were done (the matching hat, scarf and mittens you see below) I decided it was time to make a hat that would go on my own head!
I've been obsessing over Ravelry and Knitty.com, great knitting inspiration and the sources of all the patterns you see here, and I printed out a couple different hats that I was dying to make for myself. Although admittedly some of them will be for 30 years from now when I'm able to handle the complexity some of the patterns call for. 
When I said curling up in bed with my knitting I wasn't kidding. This was when I had the flu that's been going around, and since being vertical wasn't feasible I spent most of my sick time in bed with my knitting watching seasons of Friends. 
My Mom's finished hat!
Before anyone starts to worry about the hat extravaganza, or how many heads I may have that I would need this many hats, let me explain that I've been knitting for kids in a hospital in Maine. My sister let me know that there was a knitting collective so the kids could go out and play with hats on their heads rather than towels. This turned out to be the perfect project for me, since I love to knit hats but have run out of heads to knit them for, so ta-da, a whole new crop of heads needing hand knit hats!
So far I have knit nine hats (my roommate decided she needed one so I knit one up as an early birthday present for her). My latest is the above pink cable knit wonder. I was lucky enough to find out that one of my friends is a knitter extraordinaire and she shared the joys of cable knitting with me, this was my first cable knit project and I'm pretty amazed at how it turned out, figuring out how to do the shaping at the top without a pattern caused me to curse a lot and get a headache, but it has no major holes and is in fact hat shaped!
Here are all the stockings I made (except for two which my roommate decorated)
All of the initial stockings for my roommates and my roommates girlfriend.
There's were the last I did and I did them a little differently, rather than putting the ribbon trim across the top I decided to embroider them and I'm pretty happy with the results. After finishing all of these I was pretty sad I didn't have any more to make, I kept thinking of snowflake designs that I haven't done yet!
Now we have the fun part... THE DECORATING!!! Along with a number of sprinkles and small gel frosting, I made two glazes, one in green and one in white. Some of the women in my program at school were kind enough to join me for the holiday festivities and it was a wonderful afternoon of cookie eating (and decorating, but also a lot of eating).
Marta and I model some of our cookies. Not to brag, but I'm kind of like an elf when it comes to Christmas (must come with the ears) so I take to cookie decorating like a penguin in the snow. Marta however struggled with her creativity at first, creating what has lovingly been called "the green monster." After a few cookies though everyone was pumping out Martha Stewart worthy masterpieces in cookie form and we were able to pay more attention to the important task of analyzing the subtext of the Christmas movies (this is what grad school is all about people). More baking to come as the season progresses!!
I threw my Second Annual Christmas Cookie Decorating Party last weekend. As with the first year, I supply the cookies, decorations, cocoa, and claymation Christmas movies, and my guests bring the creativity!
Lucy was the first casualty of the night with a face-full of flour, I think she'll recover though she may never forgive me. 
I meant to prep the dough in advance but the night before the party I fell asleep and then woke up in a panic at midnight saying "I MUST MAKE COOKIES!!" Rick as a dutiful boyfriend helped me whip out a couple batches worth of my signature cookies. 
I've been feeling the Christmas (and crafty) spirit pretty hard as my semester winds to a close. So I started on a slightly ridiculous project. First I wanted to make Rick a Christmas stocking, then I decided we had to have matching ones, but then I figured what was the point of that if everyone in my apartment didn't have one so that they could all hang up together. And here we see the end result. Four hand-stitched and embroidered Christmas stockings. All were made while either participating in Christmas decorating or watching Christmas movies and it was pretty fun!
Just some red, green, and white felt, silver, gold and white embroidery thread, ribbon, and seed pearls, for something I'm pretty darn proud of. It took a while for my hand stitching skills to come back, but luckily even though Rick's was first it still looks okay.
Lucy was surprisingly not terribly unhelpful, after a few times chasing my embroidery thread (and who can really blame her) she decided to nap on my supplies to keep them from running away.
The seed pearl work on the tree got to be pretty tedious at the end, but it's all the details that make it special, which is what I told myself every time I dropped a bead or stabbed my finger (after cursing silently).
Rick's (like mine) is stuffed. I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture but I filled the parts with scrap felt so he's a puffy little snowman! This project can be made more kid friendly if you use glue instead of sewing, after fixing the pieces on just let them sit till the glue fully dries (or if you're nervous about your stitching you can use glue to reinforce it). 
So in the spirit of the holiday season, and in keeping with my goal to work more on documenting my many adventures in the kitchen at home, I bring you Gingerbread Houses! A seasonal favorite, we take the making of gingerbread houses very seriously in my family. For a good hour there was very little discussion as everyone bowed their head over their given task. Working 
Next we see my sister's grocery store... a very cheeky grocery store. Also note that she is the only one who thought outside the box and did a house that did not follow the prescribed formula. Hooray Ali for being an individual while the rest of us were sheep.
The inside of the grocery store. I feel like using the candy to represent fruit and vegetables is somehow related to the fact that the Cookie Monster is now the produce monster and sings "cookie is a sometimes food." What is our nation coming to?
Of course, as a Library Science student, I made sure that our confectionery village was supplied with books. No one likes an illiterate gingerbread man.
The whole little village. Now we'll just have to sprinkle powdered sugar for snow and create some paths and ice rinks, also make some trees.
