Chocolate Cherry Pistachio Bark

I decided this past weekend that I wanted chocolate pistachio bark. So I ran out to the bulk food store to get some bittersweet chocolate and pistachios to make it. I also picked up some dried cherries to throw in for extra chewyness.

This is where I should point out my little problem with the bulk food store. I know that they post the price of everything, and they also provide handy scales so that you can weigh your choices and figure out how much it is going to cost.... but really I can never estimate how much I've got. I figured I would get to the front and it would be like twenty five or thirty dollars.

No. Not even close.

Fifty four dollars and however many cents later I was standing outside the store and threw up in my mouth a little bit because I couldn't believe I had just spent that much money.

I went home and made the bark and it was delicious! Mr. Natty thinks that what made it so tasty is the special ingredient... you know.... the love.


I, however, think that what makes it so tasty is the teaspoon of orange zest I put in it. But whatever... love, orange peels, same thing.

If you want to make some yourself, here's my instructions for Natty's Super Special $54 Chocolate Cherry Pistachio Bark:

melt one big costly bag of bittersweet chocolate chips in a double boiler
add about 1/3 that amount of pistachios that you had to shell yourself because it didn't occur to you to buy already hulled ones
add the same amount of dried cherries
add 1 teaspoon of love, or orange zest
take a sheet of wax paper and spread it on a baking sheet
pour the melted chocolate mixture onto the baking sheet and refrigerate

Ribbon Box

You might be looking at this picture and asking yourself what is so exciting about a box with a ribbon on it....
Well, its pretty and looks nice on my sewing desk... but also, it's full of RIBBONS!!!

And it's totally Brilliant. I don't even have to label the box because it has a sample of the thing it contains wrapped around the outside of it.

Take that Martha Stewart!

Introducing... The Kid Cozy

Yup. So I have been trying to make my pictures look "prettier" for my blog. Which mostly means a lot of me swearing at the computer because I can't figure out how to make it do what I want it to...

But I have one picture I edited today of little BotBot that I think looks cute. She is wearing one of my experiments in knitting. Its an oversized neck warmer, which can also double as a kid cozy.

New Yarn

How do you like my new yarn? I picked it up last Saturday while I was at my local yarn store.... for a completely unrelated yarn emergency. I'm going to make a cowl with it.


I bought this one because I thought that it was a really nice shade of green.

Wait. What? No you don't need to adjust your screen. Mr. Natty has informed me that the colour of the yarn is in fact brown. He asked me if I had noticed that the colourway is called "twig". And I totally did. Leaves grow on twigs, so it's a totally acceptable name for a shade of green, right?

Whatever, I think it looks green. And I am going to knit it up into a pretty, pretty, green cowl that will be like no other!

Works in Progress

You know how you always see people knitting things, and you think "Oh, that's nice! I would love to make that for myself". Then you smile and move along. Do you ever wonder if the person doing the knitting is equally as enamored with their knitting?

Normally I don't. Unless of course it is something very hideous. Then I might wonder if the person really thinks it looks good. But not so much when I see someone knitting something beautiful. At least not until now.

I am working on this scarf. It is a linen stitch scarf. I am making it with three different kinds of merino sock yarn in what I think are quite pretty colourways. They look very nice together.




And I hate it.

I'm not sure why. Maybe I just find the *very simple* linen stitch to be too confusing for me. Or maybe I'm just not feeling very "scarfy" right now. I don't want to abandon the project. Well, because I'm stubborn and refuse to be defeated by a scarf. So I keep knitting it, even though I don't like it.

It does leave me to wonder what I am going to do when I finish it though. Maybe through shared hardship the scarf and I will start to like each other and wearing it will remind me of the rewards of perseverance (like a warm neck). Or maybe I will go and tie it to a statue somewhere. Or perhaps it might begin to remind me of someone and I will gift it to them.

It does for some reason strike me as the kind of scarf an anthropologist would have. So perhaps I will give it to an anthropologist I know.....

What I do with it afterwards doesn't matter all that much as I assume that the scarf will always have the same meaning to me. I will just have to decide if I want to keep that meaning around.

What I find very interesting about this is the fact that the things that surround us in our daily lives have meaning. That meaning is not fixed. It is determined by each person's relationship with that thing. Whatever I think of a thing that I make (an opinion generally formed during the process of manufacture) it will mean something different to someone else. Maybe that meaning will be formed by how they receive the item. I don't know.

This is probably the part of the post where a person cleverer than me would say something wise, and that made the time you all took to read this worthwhile.

I'm sorry to disappoint. I don't have anything wise to say, but will happily acknowledge the irony in the fact that the scarf I don't particularly like that I am knitting and which reminds me of something an anthropologist would wear has me thinking deep thoughts about the social meanings of material culture. And that has given me a bit of a chuckle.

Spare Change

A few weeks ago I got a nice little stack of fabrics and findings as a present from my sister. She had just been to quilt market and so had a lot of samples. Among this little pile were some change purse frames and fat eighths of A Walk in the Woods by Aneela Hoey. As soon as I saw them I had a friend in mind that I wanted to make something for.
I decided that what I would make is a small change purse. I have never made one before, and as you all know, I don't follow instructions well. So I just started... not really knowing what I was doing.

I decided to put a light fusible interfacing on the fabric to make it a bit more sturdy. Which was handy, except for when I tried to turn the exterior inside out and nest it within the lining fabric to sew them together, it just wouldn't work and got all bunchy. So I abandoned that idea.

Instead I just put the lining inside the exterior and then scratched my head about how I was going to attach it to the frame. There are little holes in the frame that can be used for stitching it to the purse, but I decided that glue would be the best option.

So I went to the craft store today to get some glue...
Seriously? Oh my gosh. I had no idea that there we so many different kinds of craft glue! I started reading the backs of all the glues and quickly realized that it was a terrible idea. It can't be good when it warns you on the box that the fumes from the glue have been linked with cancer!

I started silently freaking out because glue was really my big plan for getting the purse to stick to the frame. I decided to ask Mr. Natty which of the cancer causing glues was the least evil and he suggested a glue gun.

YES! A GLUE GUN!! I have one at home! I don't recall if the glue in my glue gun will give me cancer or not, but I already have a relationship with this glue and it has made me feel safe and comfortable using it... So, purse crisis averted.

I put the hot glue on the edges of the purse and then used a fondue fork to push the edges up into the frame.
I am a little unsure how well the glue gun glue will hold up... a cement might be better. I guess I will have to wait to find out. There are also some rough seams showing. It really would have been better if I could have sewn the interior and exterior together at the top so that all of the seams would be hidden. But whatever, now I know for next time.

I think its not bad for my first try.... but also not good enough that I am going to gift it to someone... I will just have to save my pennies to get more of this fabric to make a betterer one. And luckily, I now have a change purse to keep my saved pennies in :D

Owley Derby

More owls? Of course! They're cute, and I think that I can get away with two owl posts in a row....

I have been working on felt owls all weekend. I had a tiny production line going while I watched the Roller Derby World Cup.

I think that I have figured out how to make them super cute. Now I have quite a nice little pile of them building up.

I decided to hand sew them with doubled up thread. I think its best... in case you are thinking of making them yourselves dear readers :)

I'm going to be giving some of these owls to my roller derby team so that they can be sold in our craft show this Friday. The proceeds are going to the St. Matthew’s House Christmas Adopt-a-Family program. If you are in Hamilton this Friday night you should come down to James St. North and pick one up :)