Life's a Stitch

Twin Bunny Beanies

Pattern: Bunny Beanie by Noe Knit It's a free pattern.

Yarn: Red Heart Soft Touch, by far my favourite baby yarn. It's soft, has great stitch definition, comes in tasteful colours and best of all, is machine washable.

Needles: Two sets of circular US six 8's. Knit on one until the third decrease round, then divided stitches between the two sets.

Modifications: There's always the "M" word when I knit. First, forget knitting the picot cast on for the brim, it rolls and doesn't show, so why go through the effort? I cast on 64 stitches for a newborn size. Finally, I tacked the two ears together at the bottom to get more of a stand up effect.

Thoughts: The ears make it a bit top heavy, but for a newborn it will work just fine. I'm adding this pattern to my list for baby gifts. 

 

What's wrong with this picture?

I keep a stash of baby hats for shower gifts. My favourite one:

Can't tell you how many of those I've churned out. But my daughter had a point. There's a new crop of springtime babies developing, all awaiting gifts, and this hat seems a bit autumnal. Time to refocus.

Introducing the bunny hat in progress, with two sets of ears on standby in anticipation, one dusty rose, one aqua. It's very cute once the ears are sewn on. 

Creature of habit

The first boss of my career pegged me a creature of habit. It wasn't a bad thing, he was referring to my daily breakfast ritual. My shift at the public health clinic was 7:00a.m to 5:00p.m., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesdays were an entirely different day of ritual that included the $1 matinee at the mall. 

About that breakfast. Back then it was a time when even the monstrous food chains could go beyond the policy book for the sake of customer service. Not one for traditional brekkie, I'd walk in at 6:30 on my way to work and they'd have my cheeseburger and coffee ready for me, with another coffee to go at 6:55. Couldn't do that today. 

Now I've added a lunchtime ritual to my habit. On days that I don't cover Gracee's lunchtime "out," my routine includes a walk to a nearby park along Vancouver's working waterfront. 

Twenty minutes to walk there, twenty to eat, knit and/or read, and twenty minutes back. Yes, I am a creature of habit. On this particular day I happened to have my camera. About two minutes into the knitting I heard the snort of a harbour seal. Grabbed the camera, shot in the general direction of the bowling ball head, and look what I found:

Two bowling balls, ten pin and five pin, mom and babe. I wonder what thier routine involves? Catching fish? Swimming by the beach to watch humans?

My diet starts today

I walked into the kitchen at work. A co-worker from Iran offered me a treat. No thank you, I say, it's not on my diet. He seemed surprised, not sure why. I have a fair bit of middle age gathering around my waist, the equivalent of about ten pounds per child since my wedding day nearly thirty years ago. Then reality punched me square in my pudgy tummy. I looked at him and honestly replied, I have been on a diet for most of the past 42 years. 

Sad as that sounds, when I put my mind to it, I am most successful dieting when avoiding anything white that's not protein. I could've made a billion had I realized I was making up South Beach at age 18. 

What brought this on though, is the straw that broke the camel's back, one Fudge Cake with Coconut, albeit healthified. But how healthy can a cake that tall be, containing a half pound of cream cheese? It was light cream cheese. And I substituted half whole wheat flour. C thought it was so healthy that he had to buy ice cream to go with it.

Enough. If you have occasion to break a diet or want to leave your bad habits behind with a bang, this is the way to go:

Fudge Cake with Coconut

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a bundt pan.

Make the filling: 1/3 C sugar, 1t vanilla, 1 8 oz package of softened cream cheese, 1 egg, 1/2 C shredded coconut. Beat all until creamy.

Beat at high speed for one minute: 1 1/2 C sugar,1 C oil, 3 eggs

Add the following and beat for three minutes at medium speed: 3C flour, 3/4 C cocoa, 2t baking soda, 2t baking powder,1.5t salt, 1C hot coffee, 1C buttermilk, 1t vanilla.

Pour half of batter into bundt pan. Spoon filling on top, add the remaining batter. Bake for one hour. Cool in pan for 15 minutes before removing. 

Unbelievably delicious.