Knitting Tuesdays: How To Spot A Bargain

My obsession with yarn has really grown the more I learn about the world of knitting and crocheting. Everywhere I look I see inspiration and I find myself wondering how I could go about knitting/crocheting it. Lately the obsession has been cowls. In the colder weather they are chunky and squishy, in the warmer weather they are light and airy just adding a touch of class to whatever you are wearing.

With all these designs in mind I have to find the right yarn. Now I know I can't always go to my local yarn shop. The hours are sometimes incompatible with my work schedule or the prices are sometimes just too much. I am a bargain shopper wherever I go. I went scouring for some online sources. It meant I could shop any time any where and let's face it, who doesn't love getting packages in the mail?

Well, from what I have seen, here are a few sources I have found helpful! :D

1. +Etsy  - That place is a plethora of ides, gadgets and supplies. The important thing to remember with Etsy though is that the prices on there may not be such a bargain after factoring in shipping costs, especially to Canada. I love handpainted yarn and sometimes I lose track of how much I might be spending so I always dial it back and calculate in all the factors which includes prices of the yarn, price of shipping and how much it would cost me to get it locally. It's hard sometimes. The other thing I do scour for on Etsy is destash. Destash yarn is from people who realize their yarn collection is too big or that they really have no use for a particular yarn they have in their inventory. It is usually sold at a discounted price. Just again beware of the shipping costs.

2. DBNY - So many good bargains here! Many local yarn shops that go out of business will sell their entire stock to this website and they in turn sell it at a ridiculously low price. I have seen everything from Noro to Bernat in there. The only catch is once it's gone it's gone. I sign up for their newsletter so I know when new stock comes in and I can browse for it. The important thing to remember with this site though is that sometimes they sell vintage yarns and that requires a bit of look up on Ravelry. Also this company does calculate their shipping by the weight so watch out for that. Always get the system to calculate the shipping before you order because sometimes the shipping is more than what you are actually paying for the yarn itself!

3.Eat Sleep Knit - This is an amazing site full of delicious premium yarns. The possibilities are endless here! They don't have many sale items or bargain yarns but the reason I included this site is because they have something called the "Yarnathon". This program gives you rewards for the amount of yarn you end up buying. This can come in the form of accessories or gift certificates or discounts on your purchase. Some yarns have "power ups" which means the total yardage that you buy of that particular yarn is either counted towards the program by another half, double and sometimes even triple to get you to the next level quicker. I love that they offer this type or promotion for their customers because not many yarn sites offer any type of loyalty program at all.

4. Your Local Yarn Shop Website - I have visited many local yarn shops and after leaving decided that I needed more of what they have in there. It never hurts to call or ask the staff if they do shipping. The other day I was at Wool Is Not Enough and the proprietor told me she does flat rate shipping for $10. Cheaper than most sites out there by far! The Purple Purl in Toronto does a similar thing as well and they even carry my favourite hand dye artist Indigo Dragonfly.

Do you have any sites that you would recommend? I am always looking for new ones!

Knitting Tuesday: Crocheted Baby Blanket

Sorry for the late post! I really wanted to finish this project for my Tuesday post and ended up  finishing it late last night. But better late than never! It was still in my opinion a quick project. Took about a week and a half and the results were awesome!

Now I always believe that every baby needs a baby blanket. The reason is most kids still hold on to that very blanket like a favourite toy as time passes. They are and comforting at the same time. They are soft and warm. The love you put into a baby blanket for someone show through in the work and detail. Parents can never have enough baby blankets for the new little one especially here in Canada :D

Now I know that it says Knitting Tuesday but I recently learned to crochet and found this a quick and easy way to do up a baby blanket. I usually reach for chunkier yarns as well. This particular one is by Bernat Yarns a pretty inexpensive and easy to find brand of yarn. It is called Baby Blanket. Easily found at your local walmart or joann's. Now no one knows if the baby is a boy or girl so I went with a yellow base. The border is a colour by the name of "pitter patter". I love it because the colours remind me of cotton candy. I know the base does include bits of pink but should still be a gender neutral balanced out with everything else.


2 balls of bernat baby blanket in two different colors
8mm crochet hook
Scissors


Chain off 35 stitches
HDC 10 rows
Switch to second colour
HDC 4 rows
Switch back to original colour
HDC 10 rows
Bind off
Using your crochet hook pick uo stitches off the side of the blanket and begin to crochet the border. Crochet border for 4 round and bind off.

This blanket was so soft making it my puppy did not want to let it go! :D 

Any projects you like to do for the arrival of someone's baby? What is your favourite gift to give?

Recipe Sundays: French Toast Bread Pudding

Sundays and food have always gone hand in hand for me. Growing up, Sunday was church day. After service Sunday meant tons and tons of good food! Everyone always ate together after church. Several families including mine would all go out for lunch at one chinese restaurant or another. Some Sundays everyone would stay at the church and have a huge pot luck lunch. Kids would play, teenagers would look bored and gossip while scarfing down platefuls of food, parents would chatter and chase after their kids and the seniors would get a chance to catch up with each other. After lunch, the moms would all go to one family's home and prepare a huge meal for everyone with everyone chipping in for groceries. So big meals and big flavours were always huge for me on Sundays. 

Now that I am older and no longer living in that type of a community, I still try to incorporate cooking into this day every week if I am home to do it. Usually it's my big meal day. Lately at our house it has been chicken. It is also the one day out of the week I cook breakfast instead of just downing a bowl of cereal or eating a quick sandwich. 

While working for various restaurants, I have had the pleasure of making many a different bread puddings, everything from a sticky toffee caramel conncotion to a mexican chocolate version. The method is quite simple, it always involved eggs, milk and of course bread. The flavourings after that is completely up to the baker. It can be anything from savoury to sweet. One day I was making french toast for dessert and thought to myself, it is not that far off from a bread pudding! And voila! Recipe born!

Serves 4-6

8 slices of bread (hint I use bread ends that I froze from sandwiches great way to use it up)

4 large eggs 

2 cups milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 brown sugar

Preheat oven to 375F

Cube bread into 1" cubes and place into a greased casserole dish

In a bowl, whisk together egg and brown sugar, slowly pour in milk, vanilla and cinnamon.

Pour mixture over the bread and gently toss to make sure it is coated.

Place in oven and bake for 45 minutes or until top is golden brown. It should be super puffy as well kind of like a souffle.

While still hot, drizzle with syrup and scatter 3 tbsp of cubed cold butter on top. 

My trick is to always use a butter knife and try to poke some holes in the casserole so that every bite gets some syrup and butter.

Let rest until butter is melted and sprinkle with a dusting of powdered sugar.

Now I know all my dieting friends are probably going, ugh why?!?! This recipe can easily be done without the butter and try agave syrup instead of the regular syrup and powdered sugar for a lighter version of this. This dish is super rich so that's why it made so infrequently. Great Mother's Day or Christmas morning treat. When do you serve rich breakfasts? 

Valentine's Day: Easy Dinner for Two

As a cook, I work on days like this. Valentine's Day is the one night every restaurant expects to be busy. I don't think I remember the last Valentine's Day I had off was. We don't really celebrate Valentine's Day either. I go with the motto, you should show who you love that you love them no matter when.

Despite not celebrating it I did want my boyfriend to know I love him today so I decided to make his favourite meal, shepherd's pie. There's usually just the two of us for dinner so we always make sure there's enough for him for lunch the next day. This is my recipe for Shepherd's Pie for two!

Ingredients

1lb ground beef
1 medium onion diced
4 strips of bacon diced
1/2 pkg onion soup mix

3 medium sized potatoes (we like yellow fleshed because it's so buttery and sweet)
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste.

Quarter potatoes cover with cold water and set to boil until tender.

In a separate pan sauteed onions and bacon until onions are opaque.
Add ground beef to onion/bacon mixture. Cook until beef is browned. Add onion soup mix and toss.
Place into a small casserole dish.

Once potatoes are tender, add butter and sour cream. Whip until mashed with an electric hand blender (yup my little secret for fluffy potatoes. Season to taste.
Spread potatoes onto meat let set for 10 minutes and serve!

Super easy and always delicious! You can always switch it up and add more veggies or another favourite mashed potatoes  combo of mine is roasted garlic and a touch of goat cheese. How do you like your shepherd's pie?

What did you make or had made for you this Valentines? Happy Valentines Day!

Miso Crafty Knits: ISLAND // Review & Giveaway!!

Miso Crafty Knits: ISLAND // Review & Giveaway!!: It's absolutely no secret that I'm a huge fan of both Jane Richmond and of her work .  If you've ever had the chance to meet her or to ...

Hey everyone! Check out my friend's review and giveaway for the stunning book, Island. Jane Richmond has outdone herself with this exquisite coffee table style pattern book that you would be proud to have lying around! The patterns are easy to follow and bears amazing results! Enter to win!

Knitting Tuesday: The Knitted Bag

I love love bags. They are easily one of my favourite accessories and I cannot get enough of them. I love anything from a cute clutch to a huge carry all bag. I love reusable grocery bags and I love everything in between. There are not many things in life I would limit myself to buying. I am sure you all have yours and please tell me you do because then I don't feel like I am the only one. But bags, yup that's one thing I really try to limit myself from buying.

Now that I have started knitting however, I always find myself looking for "project bags". I try to use old purses but they don't fit into what I want to use that day so I leave those to my bigger projects. I go to my reusable bag stash but then I realize I need it for groceries and I didn't want to dump everything out. So then I thought to myself, what if I made my own bag. So off  I went to scour Ravelry. So many options but I decided on doing a variation of the Ilene Bag. So here's how I did it! :D

Materials:

1 skein of Cascade Ultra Pima
1 4 mm 16 inch circular
4 stitch markers
1 cable needle or stitch holder
2 4 mm double pointed needles

CO 40 stitches and work back and forth for 25 lines.
BO on rectangle.
Once bound off, use needles and pick up 25 stitches on the short side PM 40 on the long side PM pick up 25 stitches from short side PM then 40 stitches on long side PM. Be sure to keep it in the round.

A great video I found on youtube by +Knit Picks
Picking up stitches

Row 1- knit 25 PM knit 40 PM knit 25 PM knit 40 PM
Row 2- yo/k2tog until it makes 25 stitches PM yo/k2tog until it makes 40 PM yo/k2tog until it makes 25 stitches PM yo/k2tog until it makes 40 PM

Repeat until row 43

Row 44-50 Knit/purl

Row 51 BO 39 stitches. Place 26 stitches onto cable needled BO 39 stitches. Knit 26. Continue to knit 26 stitches back and forth into stockinette stitch. Make sure to have enough for 3 needle bind off.

3 needle bind off with the 26 stitches in the stitch holder.

3 Needle Bind Off

My end result?

It makes a great little project bag! Will have to experiment with more yarn and see if I can make it bigger!

If you were to make this bag, what would you use it for?

Knitting Tuesdays : The Batgloves

Hey Everyone!

I thought it would be fun to start knitting tuesdays! I find that I always end up completing projects around now and let's face it, I love having something to look forward to after mondays! So welcome to Knitting Tuesdays! :D How was everyone's Monday? Any great projects started up over the weekend that you can't seem to put down?

A while back, a guildie of mine in World of Warcraft posed a great challenge to her friends on facebook. She said the first 5 people to respond to her post gets a present from her. It can be any time in the year but something in the mail. The only catch? You had to repost the ad on your wall and offer the same deal to 7 other people. A great idea for pay it forward. I always love surprising my friends with gifts anyways so I jumped at the chance to do it. Got 5 people who agreed to the challenge and away I went in search of the perfect little gifts.

First up, my college best friend, Stacie. Her and I have been friends since first year college and are still close like sisters. I knew she would be up for the challenge! The two things I do know about her for sure is a- she loves to game and b- she loves Batman. Girl even has the symbol tatooed on her arm! For Christmas I got her Arkham City. I had to give her a gift to match this. I thought to myself, how many times when I'm gaming late into the night does my hands get cold from holding the controller? Or when I'm out and about do I hate clumsily trying to text with my gloves on? So I decided on BATGLOVES!

The premise was simple, a fingerless glove with tons of mobility. Now I am still just a beginner knitter so I have yet to try my hands at DPNs. This is a simple pattern that knits up on straight needles and then is sewn together, eliminating the need for DPNs. Genius!

I used Mary's Merry Wristlers with a few modifications to it. First of all I used Cascade 220. If you have never used this yarn, it is AMAZING! So many colours, so easy to work it! Best go to yarn in my books so far! I knitted in worsted so it was a little thicker for cold Ontario bus waits. I switched it up to 4mm needle to compensate for the change in yarn weight and casted off at 28 instead. I was careful to make sure the number was divisible by 4 so it would make the perfect 2x2 ribbing. These gloves have tons of stretch for the 2x2 ribbing so I wasn't afraid of my need to round down the stitches.

Once it was all sewn up it looked like this!

Pretty bat- cool right? :D I love contrasting colours it gives the project so much oomf! What colours would you pick to do this in? What could you do with fingerless gloves?

A Holey Surprise

I decided that I've mastered the rib stitch with my momentary love to knit fingerless gloves so I wanted to move onto a simple "lace pattern" Now when I say lace I am not neccessarily talking about the super intricate frilly things. No, those I have yet to attempt. I figure in time I will. I mean the simplest of lace knitting, the yarn over/knit together patterns. It's a simplistic pattern that requires more attention but bascially you make a line of yarn over and knit togethers which creates deliberate holes and then knit a row to seal the holes. Simple but requires counting.

So I started off with my very first handpainted yarn the Indigodragonfly 100% Merino Sock Wool. I really wanted a pattern that would show off all the awesome colourway of this gorgeous yarn.

Yea, I splurged on getting this yarn. I was at the Purple Purl in Toronto with my friend who lucky duck lived down the street from this fantastic little gem of a store. He said he saw it in passing and I begged to go. He needed my help in there to pick out a gift and after that I couldn't resist and had to buy myself something. That's how this little ball of yarn came to be in my possession.

So to find the perfect pattern. I scoured Ravelry for it. Finally I found it. Something simplistic but would showcase the colourway!

So I settled on the great Colosseo Scarf Pattern. Talk about a great knit! Took 3 weeks but it was worth it!

Then came the blocking. Granted this is my first go at it, but I think I did a pretty good job!

Now tons of websites out there on blocking. There's tons of tools to block with. But, right now I just didn't have the time or the funds to go out and buy blocking wires, wool soaks, etc so I settled for push pins and dish detergent. I made a luke warm soak with my mild dish detergent and soaked the scarf for about 30 minutes. As that was happening, I piled my extra throws on the ground. I stretched it out and pinned it to the size I wanted.

It was a very exciting process. I just absolutely hating to have to wait over night for me to pick it up and put it on!

I woke up the next morning and I rushed into the spare room to see my results. It was like Christmas morning! Boy did Santa leave me a gift! It turned out fanastic! Had to put it on right away and yup, it was what I wanted!

So happy with my first advanced beginner project!

My Knitting Obsession

So lately, I have been knitting like crazy! Whenever I find something I enjoy, I geek right out.

 Back in August, I "rediscovered" knitting. Now the reason I put that into quotations is because back when I was about 10 years old my grandma taught us that wonderful little thing called a garter stitch. At 10, it's hard to sit still and do this so after getting excited and doing this for a month or so I quickly dropped it in favour of piano lessons.

Lately, there has been a surge in the yarn craft industry. Everyone is wearing knitted/crocheted wear. I also have a friend, +Melissa Kwan  who loves to knit and seeing her creations online made me rethink the idea of knitting. I had a friend from work who was also interested in learning to knit so away we went. She learned her knitted stitch on Youtube and I remembered it from when I was a kid so away we went to Guelph's local yarn shop which my boyfriend to this day will say was probably the biggest mistake ever because it hooked us.

We bought our first skein of Cascade 220 and we were done for. We had both been knitting with yarn we bought on sale at Zellers when it was closing out or from Walmart. This stuff was so different! It was springy and soft and so much easier to knit with. Yup done for.

I was determined to get better so I started youtubing EVERYTHING. Soon I went from just knitting straight knitted stitch scarves to hats.

I started on cowls for christmas. They were so much fun!

And finally I went ahead with trying my first "lace pattern" scarf. Given, this is a super easy one but the yarn. Oh the yarn! It was a gorgeous handpainted fingering yarn from a local artist in Toronto. My friend was right, once you use the good stuff, it's hard to go back!

The results were stunning! After trying my first time at blocking on Friday, this is the gorgeous result!

So that's it! Right now I am working on a new project and it can only get better with time! Wish me luck! :D

Cheers!

The Domestic Geek Girl