Life Cycle of a Sock

It's been raining, raining, raining for the past week, and I haven't had much of a chance to use my new, fancy lens.  But even with dim light and threatening storms, I've pulled it out a few times.  I'm pretty excited to see what I'll be able to find when the sun comes out! 

Speaking of wild animals, our cats have been enjoying their new cat tree.

I have to use a catnip bribe to get our older cat, Bosewichte, onto it.  But Tabitha...she's in kitten love.

Besides work and taking gratuitous cat photos, I've been spending a lot of time knitting.  I'm still weak from last week's flu, and this seemed like an opportune time for finishing an ongoing project.

I am very pleased with them.  They're super comfortable and fit perfectly (the pattern, German Stockings by Cookie A, offers 40 different sizing combinations!).  I love the details.  There's a little purl seam going up the entire back of the sock, and the cables are wandering on top and down the side of the foot.  The only thing I'm not crazy about it the moss stitch center (between the cables).  If I knit them again, I'll do a different stitch.  Overall, though, I think these are going to see a lot of wear!  Now I am happily knitting myself a sweater with some very soft wool/silk yarn from KnitPicks.  It's knitted in four pieces and then seamed together.  It's a pretty easy knit, but I'm a little unsure about the sizing.  Fingers crossed that it will fit!

I've also been baking, a little too much, this week.  I compiled a list of single-serving dessert recipes for my personal cookbook, and did some sampling.  I think the chocolate brownie recipe is my favorite.  It, along with a list of twenty-nine other single-serving recipes, is located here.  Be forewarned, though...'just one brownie' sounds innocent, but that single brownie has quite a bit of butter and sugar in it!  Especially if you, ahem, decide to double the recipe and then top it off with cream cheese frosting...two days in a row (it's half of a stick of butter in the doubled brownies, not counting the frosting...sigh). 

(raw)

(microwaved)

(sampled)

(finished off)

I also tried the single serving chocolate chip cookie recipe (doubled) and it's pretty tasty.  I was definitely feeling the pain at the gym this morning, though, so no more sweets (and a lot more sweat!) for me this week.

Hope you're enjoying the new year!