The Sweatshop of Lovers Blog

Goldfish? On My Toilet

After putting this project on a mini hold for about a week and a half, I was reminded that Part One of the Goldfish Toilet Lid Cover Class is next week! So I buckled down and finished it and isn’t it hilarious?! It makes me entire bathroom happy.

The cover part is an easy knit. There are some short rows in there towards the bottom, but for the most part it knit up quickly and wasn’t boring.

The Goldfish Toilet Lid Cover pattern (a free knitpicks.com download) calls for dk weight yarn and size 6 needles. I thought knitting a toilet seat cover with dk weight yarn was completely ridiculous, so I rewrote the pattern as I was knitting it to use worsted weight yarn and size 4 needles. It’s a little snug on my seat, but I think size 5s would be perfect.

Fish? Kinda?

When I first looked at the pattern I just assumed that the fish would be intarsia-ed on. I hadn’t ever heard of duplicate stitching, much less done it before. I even googled it.

Duplicate stitching is just like cross stich! You just follow the stitches that already exist, and sew over them. It was easy!

The problem, however, is that when you use orange yarn instead of blue, and when you use whatever yarn scrapes are laying around instead of fish colors, the fish doesn’t end up looking like a fish. I thought when I started the pattern that it looked like Wilson from Cast Away, and PT thought it looked like Pikachu. The consensus now is that it’s a dog-like Pokemon. So I have a dog-like Pokemon toilet lid cover. I’m ok with it.

There is still room in the class! Interested? Sign up! Email me.

Fruity Lunch

There Are Oats in There Somewhere

I’ve been talking a lot about all the vegetables in my house, but I’ve got a lot of fruit, too. PT and I got half a bushel of apples, 1/4 a bushel of peaches, grapes and pears while we were in Michigan!

I had the most amazing oat bowl for lunch today, with peaches and grapes and apples, my mom’s granola, extra raisins, and a piece of the pumpernickle bread I made with crunchy peanut butter.

Those peaches are out of control.

Peach Pancakes and Potatoes

I made peach pancakes the other night. Peaches baked into the pancakes, with peaches sauteed in butter and brown sugar on top. Peaches can go in anything. And thank god because I’ve got a million of them!

Back from a long weekend in Michigan and I’m feeling big/tired/groggy/just totally out of it.

I don’t sleep much when I’m at my mom’s house. I stay up late watching TV and hanging with my mom (I blame the Tivo – it’s just too amazing to stop watching at a reasonable hour), and I get up early so I don’t miss anything. My mom is an early riser, so by 7, or 6 central time, I’m up and at ‘em! And then it’s go go go all day long.

Cropped Jacket at Biggby

And I ate very poorly. Lots of sweets and pizza and cheesy potatoes. My body is so mad at me. I’m sore with no reason for it! It’s not like I got any exercise at all.

And I didn’t do a very good job of taking pictures, either! I pulled the camera out at Biggby because I was wearing the Vogue Cropped Jacket I worked so hard on while I was home and working away on at Biggby every day a few weeks ago.

Notice how my buttons are a little floppy? I need to reinforce them with some more yarn in the backs of them. Otherwise, I love this sweater! I wore it at least a little bit every day I was home.

PT Loves Biggby!

While PT checked his email (and celebrated the delicious Biggby coffee!)…

Early Stocking

… I worked on my stocking. I started it Saturday because I couldn’t work on anything else, with my mom being around all the time, and PT’s present would be a no go.

Moving Right Along!

Aren’t they coming out so well? That light green was exactly what I was looking for. The contrast between that light green and the red is perfect! Christmas-y, but not hit you in the face Christmas-y.

Oat Bowl!

Tomato Sandwich and Cheesy Potato Leftovers

In Michigan PT and I shopped like people going into hiding for the winter. I’m pretty sure we won’t have to go grocery shopping for months! The combination of Michigan prices, fresh Michigan produce, and having a car are just too much for us to handle.

Let the detox begin! It was so nice to have an oat bowl this morning with fresh Michigan peaches and grapes!

My lunch today was a tomato sandwich with my mom’s tomato, romaine, a little miracle whip and a pickle, with a side of leftover cheesy potatoes.

I’ve got so many veggies in my fridge my brain is exploding trying to think of what to make for dinner! Best problem ever.

On, and Perfect!

Cute Thumb!

Done!

This weekend I finished the Two-Textured Mittens I’ve been working on this week. I think they turned out really well! I’m especially proud of the thumb, which was picked up after the body of the mitten was finished, and then shaped. I didn’t want one of those floppy thumbs on beginner mittens, and I thought working the thumb with different needles and different yarn while working the body would be too much. I can’t even picture how that would work.

But this way is simple and fun and cute and I’m really happy with this mitten. And hopefully I’ve got four months until I need it.

Fuzzy Yarn Balled

I balled up the huge mass of fuzzy yarn. I still don’t know what it is, but it was impossible to figure out what was going on with it; I was knitting from the outside of the ball which I hate doing. Yarn winder to the rescue! It wound up so nice! It is tight and feels really secure. I’m pretty sure I have enough yarn for 27 more mittens.

Oats and Banana Toast

Grilled Cheese, Zucchini, and Carrot Sandwich

Sultan's Market Falafel Sandwich and Spinach Pie

I had some pretty solid meals this weekend, starting with an abundance of oat bowls. I have so much fruit in the house, all over the kitchen, that every time I go in there I hear the voice of a little oat bowl, ‘Allyson, look at us! We are lovely blueberries and we would go VERY well in a bowl with oats, milk, cinnamon toast crunch, a little apple, a little coconut, and some raisins!’ Then the banana chimes in, ‘Don’t forget about me! My best friend is crunchy peanut butter on toast!’ So I eat that. A lot.

After the mini sandwiches from earlier in the week, I had that Dubliner cheese, zucchini combo in my head and had to repeat, with some carrot. Awesome! I love this sandwich.

And a falafel craving lead to a trip to Sultan’s Market. Though, that falafel is sitting pretty heavy in my tummy right now.

Ooh Velma

What is a Sunday without a cat in a box? Velma likes to sleep in very small spaces. Sometimes I wish I could fit in a box and just chill there until I have a reason to leave. I feel you, Velma.

Newleaf Natural Grocery delivered the second produce box yesterday and it was full of fun things!

Pudge is Happy

Greens, blueberries, a pineapple, cilantro, apricots, garlic, baby carrots, and, again, bananas! I was happy to see this babies.

Pudge Rodriguez was happy to see the greens. The cat loves greens. And bread. And liquid of any kind. And the blueberries she attacked after I quick put the greens away. She just basically loves people food. Whenever I’m in the kitchen she is in there with me, sniffing out what I’m making, trying to steal nibbles of whatever I’ve got out. She is growing into her name, and I’m not talking about the catcher. (FAT! SHE IS GOING TO BE FAT!)

Banananana

I promptly made myself a big bowl of blueberry and banana oats with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a handfull of Scooters, with a slice of crunchy peanut butter and banana toast.

1/3ish cup of milk, 1/2 cup oats, half a banana, a sprinkle of blueberries, cinnamon and Scooters. These blueberries are out of control and I can’t wait to make some pancakes! Muffins? Just stick my face right in the carton? There are many possibilities.

PT's Pasta Dinner

My Lunch

PT must have also been very excited about the produce box; I found this picture of his dinner from last night on the camera. Looks like chard and lots of olives and onions. I cooked up this swiss, cucumber, mustard, and lettuce sandwich on homemade bread. It was lovely. I love having so much produce around. I feel like I never need to go grocery shopping! I need to figure out what to do with all those greens, though. Lettuce wraps? No one can eat all that in salad form.

Stupid Bag

I also finished this stupid bag. I hate it. The side seams are stupid. Why would you crochet this closed? I have half a mind to pull it out and knit the whole thing again in the round but I don’t care enough. It’s a biking bag, after all. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I just get irritated when I see how lumpy the seams are.

My pin looks good on it, though! This is the first thing I’ve put that pin on that I’ve actually knitted. I have one on all my purses and bags and jackets etc etc, but I feel good that I’m finally using it for it’s purpose.

… though I don’t really want people to know I knit that since it looks like shit. Shit. I really need to hire someone to do this marketing thing for me. I seriously suck at it.

I’ve taken a couple anti-technology days this week. It is nice out, I’ve had this eye strain related head ache for a few days, and some boy issues. I added all that up and it equalled outdoor trash reading. I finished I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti by Giulia Melucci in three days, which helped. It was silly and all about how retarded boys are, with recipes, which helped. But now I’m back and I’ve got a plethora of food pictures.

So we are going to do this quick and dirty:

Homemade Personal Pizza

Earlier in the week PT and I made homemade pizzas. We haven’t done that in a really long time and I have no idea why. We should be eating pizza every day, these pizzas are so good.

Seriously? Seriously.

Mine was pineapple, caramelized onion, and roasted red pepper with fresh parmesan. PT’s was the same, plus olives, of course.

Pumpkin Cookies

I’ve been craving cookies but didn’t feel like making any, so I made cake cookies and mini cupcakes using a pumpkin cake mix. I spiced them up a little and baked them up, but I  need some big chocolate chip cookies something fierce. I’ll have to take care of that, and soon.

Grapefruit, Shrimp, and Avocado Salad

We have been looking for ways to eat everything in our produce box, so PT found a recipe that used the greens and grapefruit in this amazing salad. It had a light citrus/mustard vinaigrette on top! Very good. And the grapefruit was outstanding.

The Diakon

And speaking of the produce box, I tackled the diakon Friday. It looks a lot like a huge white carrot and tastes really peppery, slightly milder than a regular red radish, but, obviously, much larger.

Potato Stir Fry

I thought I would potato stir fry it up, with potatoes, carrots, and onions.

Outdoor Stir Fry

I finished it with broccoli, snap peas (from the produce box), and corn. Throw a little ketchup on that and eat it outside? The perfect summer meal.

Drool

And then there was the banana. I knew exactly what to do with this beauty. But not before I peeled it slowly, smelling it, caressing it. Loving it like my own child I was about to eat.

Oats and Toast, Banana Style

The exaggeration thing I do is going to get in the way again from expressing how I actually feel, but this was the best breakfast I’ve had in a really, really long time. I chopped up half that banana and put it in my oats with a nectarine from the produce box. Also in the mix? Honey nut Scooters (Malt-O-Meal Cheerios), raisins, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. The rest of that banana went with peanut butter on my toast.

If for some reason I wanted my final meal to be nutritional (I always answer that question with a very particular brownie sundae I’ll most likely describe to you in full someday), it would be this meal. Banana? Let me count the ways.

French Toast with Raspberries

This morning I cooked up some french toast, and sprinkled some raspberries on top. Simple and delicious and the perfect Sunday morning breakfast.

So, technology, thanks for the break. I appreciated it. Now to get to my inbox.

Body Finished!

Between all the pie and traveling this weekend, I got a ton done on my sweater! I just kept it in my bag the whole time and pulled it out whenever I had a spare minute. Once I got past the shaping it was just knitting for many many inches, and that we can all do in our sleep.

I was feeling good about it, and knitting away, and in Sweater Club Sunday I picked up the sleeve stitches and was knitting away, and finished one sleeve! Then I picked up stitches on the second sleeve and was knitting away, knitting away, la la de da!

When I ran out of yarn.

Within 12 rounds of finishing the sleeve. I was so close I was looking at how much yarn was left hanging off the sweater at color changes. I was so close I knit myself right up to the end of the skein in disbelief. If I would have knit two fewer rounds of total sweater I would have had enough yarn to finish.

Can You Believe It?

It is ridiculously infuriating! I need like 4 yards! Gah! I looked all over my house for a leftover ball of it and of course found nothing. So, this afternoon I made my way over to Joann.

Stupid Skein

I know these Carron Simply Softs are only like $3, but it is the principle of the thing. I know I’ll use it, I use this yarn all the time.

Yeah, ok, I should stop complaining.

Velma is obviously not worried about it.

I’m still kind of irritated with it, though! I haven’t even finished the sweater yet. It will take me 10 minutes at most, I know it will. But I’ve got my sock in my lap (for picture uploading time). It can wait. It can wait until I’m not angry with it anymore.

Sock #1 Done

I finished sock one somewhere this weekend, too. I ended up cutting it off mid-calf, as you can see, and I’m happy with it. I want to start knitting socks with my new stripping yarn! I’m over this yarn.

Detox: Asparagus Pasta

After this weekend I’ve needed to chill in the eating department. I’ve been trying to stick to veggies, fruit, and wheat. Like this beautiful asparagus pasta with carrots and my tomato sauce.

Detox: Caramelized Onion Quesadillas

And these caramelized onion quesadillas with pepper jack cheese, tomatoes, and romaine.

Detox: Lots of Oats

And, of course, lots of oat bowls. This one has raspberries, apples, nutties, milk and cinnamon. With peanut butter toast. The tummy is slowly recovering.

A Little Bonus Shopping

So I’m almost finished with my sweater pattern, I’m on my second sock, and I’ve really had nothing else lined up! I recently had this tote pattern, the Elisa Nest Tote, sent to me, and since I have never knit a market bag, and since I’ve been complaining that I don’t have a summer shoulder bag good for biking, I thought, what the heck? I picked up this ball of Lion Brand cotton yarn with a 40% off coupon. The pattern says it should only take one ball, and in that case this is one economical project. And it’s cute, right?

I’ll keep you posted.

I had horses growing up, and this is a real thing. If you get kicked off a horse you have to jump back on and tell that horse what is up. YOU are what is up. Not that horse. That horse did you wrong! That horse tried to tell you that you suck. You do not suck!

I do not suck! I can cook, you stupid horse.

Buckwheat Noodles They Are Not

I still had failure on the brain yesterday when I fished out these rice noodles. I smelled them. I pinched them. I read the ingredients and instructions. I glared at the buckwheat noodles still parked next to these in the pantry. They looked safe, being rice noodles, but I was still worried. Was there something I was overlooking? Could the gross culprit be something else?

I chopped the veggies, I cooked the noodles (still smelling normal I started to feel better), I stir fried the veggies, I mixed up the dressing, I threw it all together and put it in the fridge. I crossed my fingers.

That is Right, Horse. Suck It.

Success! I can cook! And those buckwheat noodles are going in the trash.

Zombies with Lunch

For lunch today I cooked up a doozie. My mom tipped me off to this trick, which she got from HungryGirl. While damage controlling some family business (Matthew, my youngest brother, has decided to move out of my mom’s house with no job/money. Boys.), I poured 1/2 a cup of milk in my bowl and mixed in a little sugar free/fat free pudding mix. I let it sit while I chopped an apple, defrosted my raspberries and, cleaned my blueberries. I dumped in 1/2 a cup of oats, my three fruits, and sprinkled some nutty cereal and raisins on top. What did I get? An amazingly nutritious lunch mascaraing as a pudding treat! I put in about half a tablespoon of the pudding mix and it thickened up that milk so much! This was a pudding parfait.

Interestingly, there had been very little brain eating in the whole 130 pages I had read of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies up until I was eating a meal with a brain-like consistency. Didn’t remotely bother me, though. I love this book so much I could literally be eating brains while reading it and still be happy. That is love.

PT and I were feeling pretty Asian-centric this weekend, what with all the cold Asian noodles we were eating (shit I seriously almost wrote DEVOURING! Damn you, Sex and Bacon!) and the… ok so the noodles were the only Asian part of our weekend, but as you know food plays a huge roll in our lives so I guess Asian felt bigger.

Aloe Drink - Looks Cooler in... Korean?

We rolled over to Joong Boo Market Sunday on Kimball to take a look around. Joong Boo Market is packed full of Asians, hipsters, and food labeled only in Asian languages. We did our best, picking out a huge bag of bean sprouts, 16 oz of button mushrooms, snap peas, two different kinds of noodles, three different oils and sauces including a bottle of sesame oil, and a bag of the same almond cookies you can get at Chinese restaurants!

We grabbed this bottle of weird aloe vera drink that I’ve tried before and really loved but have only ever seen for $4. $1.75 at Joong Boo! And just as delicious as I remember. Very refreshing on a warm day.

I was very annoyed at the end of this trip. Joong Boo is TINY and there are no baskets, you have to use a cart. All the Asians were looking in our cart and judging our choices. One woman even pointed in our cart to the mushrooms, maybe? and asked if we knew how to cook them, laughing. Back off, bitch! Can’t you just pretend we don’t exist like white people do? You can run into someone at Jewel with your cart and they still won’t make eye contact with you. America!

Kimchi

PT also picked up some kimchi (or gimchi, kimchee, or kim chee). I had the tiniest nibble because it is so pretty! But it’s seriously spicy.

All that? $20.45. I’ll be annoyed for all that savings. That would have been at least $40 at jewel, and where else can you find those almond cookies?!

Looks Can be Deceiving

Needless to say, PT and I were really excited to get home and cook up another batch of cold Asian noodles using our new sauces and veggies. We cracked open the cookies and the aloe vera while we chopped vegetables, mixed up the dressing (with the new sesame oil!), and cooked up our buckwheat noodles. Just like whole wheat noodles, right? … right?

NO. There were too many variables to pinpoint the problem, but this meal had the funkiest, mustiest smell and taste! I’m thinking it was the noodles (only like $2.50 so I’m not too upset about it), and PT thinks we got a weird kind of bean sprout, or they were bad (only $1 so I’m not too upset about that, either). You couldn’t even taste the dressing with the new oil in it! The musty taste took over everything.

PB & J on Stupid Bread

After picking out the vegetables we were still hungry, so we supplemented dinner with more almond cookies and PB & J on my stupid bread.

Simple Oat Bowl

It was a crushing blow. We were trying to remember a failure like that and couldn’t! Which I guess is a pretty amazing average, but it still hurt. Yesterday I kept it simple, a little gun shy! I had oat bowls with fresh Michigan strawberries I picked up at the Logan Square Farmers Market and stupid bread with peanut butter on it.

Huge Amazing (and Simple) Salad

I mixed up this salad last night for dinner. Snap peas, tomato, asparagus (from the farmers market!) hard boiled egg, mushrooms, romaine, and cucumber with thousand island free.

No cooking, just delicious. A place I’ll be for the next few days.

I’m chilling out, recovering from 31 cent scoop night at Baskin Robbins (PT and I toured Logan Square, hitting up both within walking distance of my apartment), the tiger’s loss (though I will say they were down 7 runs and didn’t give up, and am as happy as I can be with an 8-6 loss), and finishing The History of Love this afternoon. As far as I’m concerned this book more than made up for our Playing With the Grown-Ups debacle of last month. More than anything I’m excited about what the Knitting Book Club has to say about it. Having read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for our first month’s book, and Nicole and Jonathan being married and all, there are some obvious correlations that I’m anxious to talk about with other people who have read both books.

Extremely Loud aside, I loved The History of Love. I love how it unfolded, how the mystery was laid out before I even realized I was looking for a mystery. I loved Leo. I loved everything about him, everything he did, everything he said. I cared, which wouldn’t be a big point to make had I not just been coming off a book where I would rather have killed everyone than read another page about any character in it. I cared so much that I cried through the last 20 pages, and for 10 minutes after finishing it. And I’m sorry its over, and I’m sorry it is back at the library.

But enough! I’ve got to save some of this material for Monday.

The History of Love, and Lentil Soup

I cooked up some lentil soup when I got home from work this afternoon and ate it with a piece of homemade bread, while reading. Then I cleaned my bathroom and read more. Cleaned the kitchen and read more. Sipped tea and read more.

I did not work on my sock though! And I still haven’t finished my quilt.

Fresh Mango Oat Bowl

PT and I found mangoes 3 for $1 at this Hispanic grocery store over the weekend, so we chopped one up and threw it in our oats this morning. Delicious! Fresh mango is so versatile! Throw it in fish tacos=winner. Throw it in oats=winner. Throw it in a burrito=winner. Throw it on ice cream=winner! You just can’t lose.

Sauteed Veggie Sandwich with Rosemary Potatoes

Last night for dinner PT and I made seriously amazing rosemary potatoes. We sauteed up some onions, peppers, and carrots and threw it on some homemade bread with pepper jack cheese and, in my case, fake bacon.

But seriously I can’t look at this food right now. Despite the walking we had to do between Baskin Robins, I’m feeling a little rough right now. Apple Pie Ala Mode was the champion ice cream flavor, though, if you were wondering.

Side Note: I’m kind of obsessed with my blog stats so I check them all the time. It is fun for me to see what weirdos search in order for my blog to come up. Examples: ‘Sandra Bullock with Dildo’, ‘Using Light Sabor as Dildo’, and ‘Dildo Quilt’. I blame Brijeet.

What do you do with 70 sunny degrees and a Friday afternoon? PT and I thought Lincoln Park Zoo, and were not alone. There were maybe 4 children per person running around screaming, all holding bags of Doritos. We had no children and no Doritos, so we were feeling very left out.

Alpacas

PT and I like to joke about how some day in the future we will be farmers. We went around the zoo collecting animals for our imaginary farm. I, of course, grabbed these two pretty Alpacas. They will be not only good for yarn making, of course, but appear good for snuggling.

Flamingos

I also want Flamingos, which will serve no practical purpose, I just want them.

Very Loud Tiger

This tiger was so loud! I kept trying to make jokes about how it was hungry for some mariners, but it never worked out. He isn’t coming to the farm.

Happy, Despite Lack of Doritos

We both hadn’t been to Lincoln Park Zoo in a couple years and had a great time! We spent the whole afternoon outside, and were so happy to be able to do it.

Shrimp Pasta

We came home and made the most amazing shrimp pasta! We sauteed up some garlic in oil and butter, added the sun dried tomatoes, shrimp and broccoli and tossed all that with the whole wheat pasta and parmesan cheese. Out of control! SO good.

Saturday PT and I spent the whole day outside, walking around to local businesses and leaving Sweatshop flyers before lunching at Handlebar, one of our favorite restaurants. We ran home, made some kebabs and plantains, and biked over to a friend’s house for a bbq.

Grilled Plantains

These turned out so great! I just made a foil pouch, sliced up a couple plantains, threw in a couple globs of butter, sprinkled some salt and pepper and they turned out so well! Soft and sweet and charred in some spots. I’m going to have to buy some and bring them to Michigan when I go in May so the family can try them out. I know they will love them! We don’t see plantains around those parts.

A couple oat combo examples:

Oats, milk, cinnamon cereal, raisins, and raspberries

Oats, milk, canned pumpkin, and Kashi cereal

Today for lunch PT and I perfected the quesadillas I made for myself on Thursday of last week.

Goat Cheese, Tomato, and Spinach Quesadillas, Take Two

Much better this time! We threw in the spinach when the onions were caramelized for a few minutes, just to wilt the spinach a little. These quesadillas weren’t soggy in the least. PT even made guacamole, so we had both guacamole and salsa to dip them.

Now I’m just chilling, watching the Tigers game. It is rainy; the excuse I need to stay inside and get some work done. Must block the sweater dress! Must tidy apartment! Must knit my new sock!