2012 Knitting challenge

I've decided to take on a knitting challenge for 2012. Inspired by a fb share from a grad school classmate, I'm knitting at least two rows per day on what eventually become a blanket.

At thirty stitches per row, two rows per day, and three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, it's going to be a lot of stitches (21900, to be exact. Oh! It's a leap-year, so that would be 21960).

Calendar Craft



paper source wall art calendar

I have  a growing collection of calendars from past years that I've kept for the photography or artwork. I've had intentions of "doing something" with them - frame the photos, perhaps - although I've yet to make that happen. Not for lack of ideas or time, but perhaps motivation.

Enter the Paper Source Wall Art Calendar.  The genius folk over at Paper Source sell a calendar that not only has gorgeous, colorful silk screen images, but the back side of the each month is a template for making the artwork into one of a number of projects: gift box, gift box pillow, note cards, book mark, file folder. The pages are sturdy cardstock so will hold up well to being handled. Now there's no excuse NOT to do something with the pages right away - the instructions are right on the pages! I love built-in motivation! 

Year of the Pie: In Review

Well, I didn't quite make it through the entire Pie compendium. But given the busy second half of the year I've had, I'm fairly pleased with twelve new pies in the course of eight months of 2011 - seems pretty good to me!

To review:

Christmas Cards, 2011 edition

I haven't been all that crafty or creative as of late, in part due to the craziness that is the new job and grad school. Last years family-imposed hand/home-made gifts was a huge motivation for crafting - I think I need to impose that on myself again in the future, simply to make my self do something creative on a regular basis! I really enjoyed making Christmas cards last year and decided to give it a whirl again this year.

I had already decided to do something in a tree-theme with some green origami paper and several stamps I'd bought through Paper Source - this store is one of my favorite sources of stamps, papers, funky gifts, their catalog is full of beautiful and colorful pictures. Further inspiration came as I flipped through a recent Paper Source catalog.

some trees and
some papersource catalog pictures

Year of the Pie #11 & 12: The Simplest Cranberry-Apple Crumb Pie & Maple Pumpkin Pie

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our family is fairly consistent year-to-year in what we have at Thanksgiving dinner - there's something about tradition, I suppose. We had turkey, stuffing, green beans, apple-herb rolls, kidney bean salad, homemade cranberry sauce, roasted carrots and parsnips, and sweet potato casserole. Dessert consisted of two pies and cranberry mousse.

My sister and I were assigned desserts, and everyone knows that it's not Thanksgiving without pie! Hopefully these two pies (plus a bonus dessert!) will partly make up for the baking pie-atus (get it?) I've been on as of late. We were charged with making an apple pie, a pumpkin pie, and cranberry mousse (my favorite holiday dessert - and SUPER easy to make).

cranberry-apple pie

maple pumpkin pie

Paper Elephants

Well, I found an excuse to be crafty this past weekend! My roommate's birthday was earlier this week and I decided I want to make her something.

She has an affinity for elephants (a tasteful affinity, of course), so I wanted to do something along those lines. Mostly because I've only lived with her for a few months, and I haven't got her totally figured out yet. Elephants come up enough in our random conversations that I decided it was appropriate to follow that theme.

If I'd had more time (maybe next year) I might knit her an elephant, or a hat with an elephant. But, being short on time I needed to come up with something else. Cue my bin of craftiness.

Fall is in the air

August was a bit of a busy month; I returned from grad camp in late July and had roughly two weeks to get packed and on the road to Vermont. I arrived at GMVS late on the 15th after a very rainy drive. Needless to say, most of the unpacking waited until the next day.


My apartment is cozy (read: tiny), but nice. Over the summer the wall-to-wall (ugh) carpeting was ripped up and pergo flooring put down. Zoe's not so much a fan - it's hard for her to grip, and it's most evident when she tries to get quickly from one side of the apartment to the other. There's just a little bit of slipping and sliding.

Crafting in July

I've been on a bit of a crafting hiatus (at least a pie-baking hiatus) since I was away for the start of my grad school program for three weeks, although I did manage to be a little bit crafty at grad camp (as we have affectionately dubbed it - it really did feel like camp most of the time!).

We were journaling almost every day, so I was drawing and sketching a lot.

Year of the Pie #10: The Easiest Apple Pie

Happy 4th of July!

The 4th here on the island is really incredible. There are TONS of people downstreet for most of the morning. The parking lot is closed off to cars and there a bunch of booths for PIE, the Fire Department, Friends of the Library, ICMS, the Land Trust, the Childcare, a penny raffle, the French Club, and each of the high school classes has a game booth, the Lions Club hosts a food booth (mmm. . . crab rolls), as well as countless others interspersed. The parade goes by twice, with fire trucks, ambulances, little league teams, the town band, random floats by island businesses and groups of friends, and more - all following a theme set forth by the 4th of July committee. This year the theme was "Breaking News" and the floats were fantastic. Oh, and Vinalhaven experienced its first flash mob, too.

no, really, it is easy!

Year of the Pie #9: Golden Delicious Apple Pie with Oatmeal Crumb Topping

Well, it was inspired by the above-named recipe, but ended up being a Cortland Apple and Craisin Pie with Oatmeal Crumb Topping.


The end-of-school potluck staff party was this afternoon/evening, and last week I signed up to make a pie. I knew I wouldn't have time to bake today, what with it being the last day of school and all, so I baked it on Sunday; the crust was done up in the morning, and the pie was completed (late) last night.

next time I'll try it with
the golden delicious apples

I've made tons of apple pies over the past few years. It really doesn't take much to make one - apples, some sugar, a few spices. And a pie crust, of course. But, as I mentioned when I started this little venture, I want to follow the recipes in this book, and follow them as closely as possible. Since I made the rules, though, I can also bend them as I see fit - and this time I saw fit.