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One last pie and a wrap-up I got one last pie baked this year – a sort of tropical take on a mincemeat pie (no meat involved at all). For the dried fruit I used a mix of raisins, cherries, apricots, mango, and pineapple. I soaked all that in brandy and spices for around a week, then made the pie using packaged crust. Mainly because it was Christmas and I had plenty of stuff to do without making crust. I forgot to add a stick of butter cut into small dice that the recipe called for, which might be why it is very crumbly? Or possibly I needed to cook it briefly before putting it in the crust? As you can see, it did not stick together very well, but it tasted pretty good. Much lighter than the traditional fruit mix, I think. So this is the last item in my year of learning to be a better pie and cake baker. I aimed for 1 pie and 1 cake each month. In terms of timing, it didn’t fall out quite like that. However, I did make 12 cakes and 13 pies, so good enough. All in all, I think it w...

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanzaa to all that celebrate!

Today is my Mom’s birthday! She requested chocolate cake, but not just any chocolate cake. There was an old family favorite recipe that has a cup of hot coffee as an ingredient. The problem was, neither of us had a copy of that recipe somehow. However, the internet yielded this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction. I made it as given, and it turned out really moist and rich! You don’t really taste the coffee, or the espresso powder, but I think it does add a depth of flavor that is very nice. This recipe from All Recipes is what I used for the frosting. It is a nice mix of salty and lightly sweet that we really enjoyed. I am not great at frosting a cake in a way that looks good, but it tasted great anyway! I do have one last baking experiment planned for this year – a sort of updated mincemeat pie that I plan to make on Christmas. And then I need to decide what, if anything, I’m going to do next year. My DH is voting for a new kind of pizza each month, and Mom is voting for cook...

Boy, these last few weeks have just flown by! I keep meaning to post on other topics, and time just slips by. But in any case, I am making some progress on my Powdermill cardigan. First sleeve and collar – done! Second sleeve started, and stitches picked up to do the first button band. I’ve got about two weeks left in the year. Can I finish it? Your guess is as good as mine. Are you rushing to finish gifts or, like me, meet some other self-imposed deadline? Do tell!

I cannot believe a whole week has gone by! It’s been busy, but looking back I can’t really say what I was busy with. I can say I was partially busy with knitting. Still on the first sleeve of my Powdermill, but making progress! Also I started a smaller second project, the Cetraria Islandica cowl . Helene Magnusson ( The Icelandic Knitter ) is doing a KAL of patterns from past yarn club. I thought I would take this opportunity to use one of the many, many kits I have bought from her over the years. I’m about 1/3 of the way done at this point. It’s coming along pretty well, and it’s nice to have this very different project and yarn to work on. I’m hoping to have both of these projects done by the end of the year, as I have big plans for the new year! What are you working on these days, and how is it going?

Current progress on Powdermill ! Traveling along on Sleeve Island pretty well! I am changing the sleeves a bit. In the pattern, they are straight and then balloon at the cuffs. I don’t love that style, so I am doing a very gradual decrease as I go until it gets to a reasonable width, then I’ll go straight from there. Occasionally I take a break from knitting to work on felting the other steeks so I’ll be ready to cut them when the time comes. But otherwise, just plugging along on this cardigan. Just one WIP going right now, though that may change. Working on just one project is a little boring, and also my hands don’t like it when I don’t change up needle sizes periodically. What are you working on now, and how is it going?

Something I have struggled with over time that I think is common to many crafters is stash management. Once your crafting supplies exceeds a certain amount, you kind of need a way to organize them and know how to get to what you have. For a long time I used Ravelry’s stash feature. It is a pretty handy tool. You can reference your stash when you are looking at patterns, so you can see what you already have that would work. Ravelry’s yarn database is pretty good as well, so by entering your stash, you have all the info on that yarn. And you can sort and filter several different ways. Nifty! However, I’m not entirely comfortable keeping all the documentation somewhere I don’t really have any control over, so I decided to figure something out for myself. I tried a couple of different things, but settled on a spreadsheet. The way I have it organized now, I have different tabs for kits, miniskeins, and just regular skeins. While it’s not quite as nifty as Ravelry’s stash function, it c...