Pretty Southern

Ice Storm

Window Shopping La Bien Aimee - from Portland

It's a grey Friday afternoon. It's one day before halloween, 240 ish days into Covid lockdown/work-from home, and 4 days until election day. What am I doing? If my boss asks, I am working. If I am telling the truth, I am taking a quick brain break to window shop La Bien Aimee yarn from Portland, via PowerPoint and my trusty Snipping tool.

I found this color block shawl and I am obsessed. I also need an excuse to order from La Bien Aimee. This is all their DK.

To window shop from home, I open PowerPoint and I snip photos of yarn I like with my Snipping tool and paste them into a presentation. I put all of the colors that I like on one slide, like this:

People say I am good at choosing colors that go together - I am not. I am just good at using tools and inspiration from people with actual ability to combine colors! Also, Pinterest!

I will find a picture that inspires me, and start there. This one is a sweater from LL Bean.

This one is from a Pinterest image in my Color Board that I have been curating for 10 years:

I just bought this sweater, photo from Saving Paige Boutique:

As I sit here and write this, I just got an email from La Bien Aimee, and they were having the same thoughts as me! They are releasing "yarn medleys". Genius.

Oh no, Oh no! I have a gift card to Eat Sleep Knit and I have always wanted to try The Farmer's Daughter Juicy DK:

I made an outing just to stop at a yarn shop on the other side of Portland last weekend and discovered this beautiful yarn, Chasing Rabbit Fiber Co Merinolux DK:

Homemade Oatmeal Creme Pies

Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies are an all-time favorite of mine. They remind me of summers in North Carolina when my grandparents always had them stocked. Baking is also an all-time favorite, so let's make them at home.

Recipe: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/homemade-little-debbie-oatmeal-creme-pies/

For my first attempt I used a 1.5 TBSP cookie scoop. I saw a YouTube video and they guy who was making them also used the same scoop for the filling. I found that it was perfect and perfectly used every drop of the icing and I didn't need more.

I baked the cookies for 13-15 minutes like stated in the recipe. They were GOOD, but they weren't GREAT (although everyone who ate them thought they were). I wanted to make them smaller, and I felt they were too hard / cooked too long.

I ordered a .5 TBSP and 1 TBSP cookie scoop!

I love the .5 TBSP cookies scoop the most for these (I tried all three sizes again). It made a silver dollar sized cookie.

Cooking time was 7-8 minutes for these size cookies and they came out perfectly soft. It didn't make a different if I used a Silpat or parchment - I used both.

Sock from a Crank

I bought a few skeins of La Bien Aimee Merino sock at the beginning of the year, I bought 4 50G skeins to make anklet socks and a 100G skein to make Joe socks for Christmas.

Fast forward to September. I hadn't knit Joe's socks yet, and didn't see fitting them into the schedule by Christmas along with the other Christmas socks I have promised to people in my head.

I heard about people making tubes with sock crank machines. I ordered up a tube on Etsy, sent the yarn off, and waited.

Ordered: Circular Sock Machine Knitted Sock Tube Service Sock Snake Yarn Snake

72 Stitch Option

10 grams reserve yarn

Shop: Birdwithfrenchfry

Date Ordered: Sept 16

Date sent: Sep 17

Date received tube: Oct 2

This is what I received and I am beyond impressed and excited:

My first step will be to measure the gauge and then choose which needle size with get the same gauge.

Gauge: for this yarn, a US size 0 needle met the gauge of 9 stitches per inch.

Tutorial: Craft House Magic on YouTube has a great tutorial that suited my learning style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MmCLrnITec&t=490s

A Miscarriage Memory

My friend Jenny the Long Dawg Stitcher blogged her not-so-sweet memory, so I will blog mine too.

On March 9, 2020, we went off to the fertility clinic to try to finally get pregnant, after years of no luck.

Boom. Luck. I got a positive pregnancy test on March 23rd. We were shocked. We didn't know this could actually happen. And we're gonna be parents? In November???

My preganant friend got me the Erin Condren pregnancy journal on the left, and my sweet Aunt Linda bought the dogs the lil bandanas on the right.

I got out all my yarn. I started planning blankets, all the blankets! Now, this was in the first week of Covid lockdown, no store yarn shopping for me. I have waited my whole life for that yarn store trip, whyyyy covid whyyyy???

We got all the decaf coffee. I even got decaf tea.

I tried to pretend that I wasn't fat - that I was pregnant

Joe wore his Covid mask to the first ultra sound. I had been tired, exhausted, and then I wasn't. I had symptoms, and then I didn't.

She said it, it wasn't developing. She confirmed with a blood test - let the drinking and the sadness begin!

It took another two weeks for it to actually go. I had the most terrible cramps I have ever had. Bring on the donuts, and bring on 5 lbs! I am actually writing this and thinking about how I need to be out jogging those lbs away!