Sylvia

A Note on roomie nicknames: The OC has declared she will not abide by that nickname and wants to be Strawberry Shortcake. And Mike just wants to be called Mike.

The Berkeley public library is our favored source of entertainment, providing LP with hours of 24 watching-bliss, The West Wing marathons (all seasons, no particular order), LP & SS's "thesis" centering on Lindsay Lohan and teeny movies, and some serious, delicious movies. We haven't found time for it all week, and the other night SS and I finally sat down to watch "Sylvia". (Gwenyth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath).

It was a great movie. So sad and so beautifully shot.

There is also a section where she is wearing wonderful clothes- the whole part of the movie when she is living in Devon looks like it was wardrobed out of an Anthropologie cataloge. (Her kids are also incredibly cute- knit onesies, cardigans, skirts, the whole works).

There's one sweater in particular that I think I can recreate- it looks fairly simple. A funnel neck raglan with cuffs at the wrists and waist. Pretty small needles to get a good drape. I'm thinking of adding two cables running down the front from the shoulders, just for added interest (visually and while knitting).



Also, what great hair. I don't think I can pull this off without looking like Heidi, but it's nice to dream. I bet SS would look great- she's got the bangs and all.

Back to Baking!

Yesterday, Roomie (I've got two, and for the sake of the internet, both are getting sly nicknames. There's Other Cupcake [the OC] and LP. No points if you guess which is which and you actually know us. Also the Boy needs a nickname, too... we're debating between Little Drummer Boy, Snake, and The Music Man. I don't really like any of them...)

Anyway, so yesterday The OC and I were at work (we work together at a collectively owned bakery), baking up a batch of cupcakes for Valentine's Day. We spent three hours making delicious vegan chocolate cupcakes and pink frosting (we just had to dye some white cream cheese frosting), and decorating the cookies. There was some CRAZY dancing and giggling happening throughout.

The final result: (note the gay cupcakes and the slyly captioned... Eat me, Kiss me, Je t'aime!)



Also, I ran across some Margarita Cupcakes on another knitting blog. That's some crazy shit.

Ugly Yarn and High Fashion Sweaters

Yesterday, I spent the whole day at home with one of my roommates, listening to This American Life and knitting. I was working on the buttony sweater (the brown one below) and she wanted to knit something too. So she picked up this ball of variegated yarn she had and started knitting away. There are some parts of the yarn that are quite lovely, but overall, we decited it wins the award for "Ugliest Yarn Ever". Decide for yourself.



Spending all day knitting really gets a lot done! I'm doing the bottom ribbing, and have about two more inches to go until the body is done. Unfortunately, I am also almost done with my last ball of Dazzleaire Mocha. I bought all the yarn at a thrift shop in Sonoma County in September when I was playng housewife, and couldn't find a sweater pattern to use it on. So I knit a scarf and some mittens to bide my time with the yarn.. and now I don't have enough!! I gave the scarf as a gift for Christmas, so I can't even take out any projects to get more yarn! Dazzleaire is some old-school, cheap acrylic-nylon blend, discontinued type of yarn, so there'e no hope of getting the right dye lot, and very little hope of getting any more yarn at all! I did, however, find one person on ebay selling 3 skeins of Dazzleaire Mocha. Hopefully I will win the auction and be able to finish my sweater, sleeves and all!

However, no sweater knit in Dazzleaire could ever hope to acheive high fashion status. No, I am referring in fact to a sweater I have just added to the dream list.



Over the summer, in anticipation of my time to be spent playing housewife, I offered to make the pattern for and knit a beautiful sweater/coat for one of my friends, that she found in some high fashion New York magazine. she was going to pay me and I was going to have a great project. However, none of that deal ever materialized and she ended up buying an acceptable alternative.

Then, the other day I found someone else's pattern for a very similar, high fashion sweater, and I think I might knit it for myself. (Pattern and photos from Miss Twiss)

Baby Time

I wish more of my friends were having babies! I see all these cute baby patterns for hats and sweaters and booties... and I only know one couple with a baby. And they live in Hawaii, and hence have no use for sweaters. Maybe they can find a use for this, though...



There are a LOT of cute babies in Berkeley. Many of them come into the bakery and press their little faces up against the glass of the counter, staring at the cookies. None of them bother with the croissants or danish or brownies- no, just the cookies. And I'm not talking about the small, drop cookies, or the oatmeal raisin or sunflower sesame cookies their parents point out to them. No, these children demand the Tollhouse, which is often bigger than their head.

It's been suggested that we should make an adult-version of the Tollhouse in relation to children. That is, a Tollhouse cookie that would be larger than an adult's head. Can you imagine eating that? I can't.

UPDATE: I'm still figuring out this whole Blogger thing. The first time I labelled this post, I labelled it "Baking babies" instead of "Baking" and "Babies". Woops!

Knit City!

Welcome to my new blog! I had an old one (lizolovesyou.livejournal.com), but I was seduced my the smooth stylings of Blogger. I haven't been a very frequent poster on my former blog, but I do knit a lot, so perhaps there will be more posting on here!

I also work at a bakery and love all things baked. I love to bake bread, but cupcakes also hold a special place in my heart.

I'll begin with the last post from my former blog, and we'll get to know each other from there!

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I have a strange addiction. Knitting blogs! I spend so much time reading knitting blogs, I don't have time to knit or read real things (like political blogs. Or, you know... books.)

But, inspired by several things I saw on blogs, here is what I'm knitting now!


Yes, it's a cupcake! Yes, I work at a bakery. And yes, we might be selling these at the bakery. Best Valentine ever.


My roommate loves squirrels. So I knew I had to knit her these when I first saw the pattern. Also, my favorite project bag.

And something for me- with yarn bought for 50 cents a skein at a Goodwill. A pair of mittens and a cute side-button top-down raglan sweater. The pattern came from here.

Instead of having a stash of yarn stockpiled in a closet or dresser, I have dozens and dozens of bookmarked patterns. Some of them are leftover from formerly intentioned projects and now I have no interest in knitting from them (kind of like some people's stashes!)... however, some of the patterns are amazing and I definitely plan on making them. When my low-wage job allows.