It's the Nannerpuss!

Taking a little break from making hats (since I'm up to my eyeballs in them right now) and working on some selfish projects and our SnB's traveling scarf project. I need to find a crochet stitch that matches the one scarf's K2P2 pattern... have some thoughts, but am still playing with it. Kinda frustrating, really.

While I was at Inside the Cherry Cupboard on Tuesday, I started working on Doris Chan's Fan and Petal Neck Lace using Aunt Lydia's bamboo crochet thread. I think it's going to be my Tuesday/Thursday project until it's finished. Not sure what, exactly, I'll wear it with when it's done, but I really love the way it's turning out.

Today I worked on perfecting my banana bread recipe, among other things. Try it out and tell me what you think!

Banana-Chip Bread

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup organic cane sugar
2 eggs from my friend Bea's chickens
3 overly ripe bananas, mashed
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups organic wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup Seven Stars organic whole milk yogurt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1/4 cup small cacao nibs
1/2 cup oats

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease four small loaf tins with canola oil spray.

2) In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar, and eggs. Stir in bananas and vanilla. Sift in flour and baking soda; mix well. Blend in yogurt, chocolate chips, cacao nibs, and oats. Pour batter into prepared tins.

3) Bake in preheated oven for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of loaves comes out clean. Cool on wire rack before removing from pans. Enjoy!

Tutorial love

More love from Tara at handmadeinpa.net! Click here to see. I should make a quick note here, though, that my tutorial isn't technically "wet felting," it's actually "fulling." Wet felting is a technique that uses un-crocheted/-knitted roving. Just so there's no confusion :-)

"Art of Distinction" this weekend was rather a bust; nothing sold from anyone in the Alabaster's Collective, at least not as of 3:30 on Sunday when I left my shift at the show table. If anyone knows of any upcoming craft/art shows that might be more receptive to my work, I'm all ears.

Handed off my traveling scarf at our Stitch n' Bitch meet on Sunday and was pleased to find that the knitting ladies were not truly offended by my crochet lace "meanness" (I really didn't think they would be). We're always up for a needle arts challenge!

This week I am taking another much-needed break from crochet and am instead baking my heart out and researching needle felting. Must find me some felting needles, yessiry...

Why I am mean

I am a mean, mean person. And not only that, I'm also a mean crocheter. Let me 'splain.

A bunch of the ladies from my local stitch n' bitch group thought it would be fun to do a non-traveling scarf project. If you're a member of Ravelry you might be familiar with this concept: A limited number of people sign up for the group and they each start the first few inches of a scarf. They document what needle/hook they used, what yarn, what stitch, etc. and they also write down their preferences for their personal scarf (which they were kind enough to start for everyone). It all gets zipped up in a big plastic bag and mailed on to the next person, who adds another few inches, and so on and so forth until it's gone through the entire group and comes back to you.

Or, to save on postage, we thought we'd do our own traveling scarf - except we'll just pass ours off at stitch n' bitch meets instead of entrusting them to the postal service.

So why am I mean? Well, I can't actually wear most animal fibers (unless they've been felted), so I'm asking everyone please to use natural plant fiber or very soft acrylic. That's not very mean, you say. No, it isn't.

Here's the kicker: the yarn must be lace- or fingering weight. Because the entire scarf is to be made of LACE. The ladies is my group are almost exclusively knitters. Do you know how much harder it is for knitters to do lace? And I started them out with a nice little crochet lace motif - and some poor soul is going to have to cast on to it! The thought sends me into spastic, evil giggles. he he heeee...

And now you know why I am mean.