The Sweatshop of Love Blog

I ran inside for a few minutes on this beautiful day to share with you some very exciting Sweatshop updates!

First of all, last night was the last Thursday night Sweater Club! I can’t believe two months went by that fast. And neither could my students!

Brijeet's Sweater

Brijeet is  so close to being done with the body of her sweater! She is just finishing up the collar. It is looking amazing, as you can see. All she has to do is pick up a few stitches for the sleeves and she will have a great sweater to wear over her stripped long sleeve tshirt (we’ve been planning it for a while!)

Lori's HUGE Sweater

Lori picked a huge sweater; to the floor, hooded, cabled. She is still working on the first piece, but the thing is enormous! She is going to be working on it for a while still, and will probably be seeing cranberry in her sleep for as long as she lives, but that sweater is going to be beautiful when she is done!

Laura's Sweater

Laura is knitting a really cute short sleeve tunic sweater and is so close to being finished! Just a couple more tiny pieces and then putting it all together! I can’t wait to see this when it is done, either.

More sweater updates to come! Sunday’s class has a couple more weeks left.

Speaking of sweater updates, I wore my sweater dress to class last night! I had PT snap some pictures.

Fits Like A Glove!

I love the cowl neck on this! It is perfect. And I’m glad I didn’t get too anxious and stop the skirt length early. It is just long enough so I can bike in it!

Top

You can see in this one that the sleeves are a little big, but I’m not going to nit pick. I love the yoke design, too! The little holes along the seems. Sigh. Love.

Finished Sock!

I also finished my first toe up sock yesterday, but really, it pails in comparison to the sweater dress. I might have peeked as a knitter, now that I’m thinking about it. Will I even knit anything as great as that sweater? I’m glazing at it now, hung over the back of my chair, and I really think it is all downhill from here.

Yesterday I worked on patching up my mom’s quilt, though someone made that a little difficult.

Pudge Rodriguez, Terror Kitty

She sat right there anytime I set the quilt to sew. It was cute right up until I wanted to kill her. And still, cute enough for me to take a picture of her being bad. She also likes to pull the pins out and play with them, so there are pins all over the floor. I keep yelling at her, ‘you are going to kill yourself!’, but she doesn’t seem to care. I started yelling, ‘I’m going to step on one of those and kill you myself!’, but she doesn’t care about that, either.

Tonight PT and I are making mushroom burgers, carrot fries, and brussel sprouts for the games. That is baseball food, right? We had a trial brussel sprout run the other day with our special tuna helper.

PT's Sprouts and My Tuna Special

They were so good! Baked in the oven and crispy and salty! I’ve only ever had them soaked in butter, so this was a nice change. I’m anxious for PT to get over here so we can get started on dinner!

There are also a couple new additions to the Allyson household…

More Babies!

I finally got a chance to get another shelf for more plants! This one is in the bedroom so we will see how much light it gets in there. I planted some basil, dill, parsley, and cilantro. They all call for direct sunlight so who knows? But I surely like playing. And I put the shelf up all by myself!

Ok I’ve got to get back outside before it turns cold again!

I’ve been talking a big game about finishing my sweater dress by tonight’s Sweater Club, and I probably could have done it if not for the prep I had to do for Saturday’s Entrelac Workshop.

Entrelac Workshop Swatch

Saturday we will be doing this! I had to write the pattern and actually knit this swatch. But I’m so close!

TWO More Inches!

Between this morning and this afternoon I totally could have finished it! But I am excited about the Entrelac Workshop on Saturday so that will have to be my consolation prize. And no, I’m not going to try to wear the entrelac swatch to class tonight. If I were walking, maybe, but I’m biking and that would just be too pornographic for a Thursday night.

The weather is perfect for a stroll in a swatch! It is also perfect for my baby plants.

Hidden Garden

I’ve got pots of little babies! The tiny pots are all pansies, there is an avocado pit there from my mom that STILL hasn’t done anything and I think it is dead. At this point, though, I’m pot committed to this stupid pit so it isn’t going anywhere, no matter how dead it probably is.

The big pot on the right is the catnip and that is doing very well. Next over is the spearmint which really just has that one huge stem. Next over is the chamomile that is all stalled at about half an inch stems. In the jar are tomato plants for my Topsy Turvy! I can’t believe they are doing so well in an old olive jar. Not pictured is a pot that is supposed to be peppermint but is  actually a pot of dirt that I’m about to give up on. Stupid peppermint.

Terror Kitty Proof

This is how I save my plants from Pudge and Velma, who would instantly eat/dig up every pot. I installed this shelf across the window! I want 5 more.

Hidden Garden Part 2

As it is I have to put the overflow on the top shelf of a nearby bookcase chocked full of my inventory. That is more tomatoes, another avocado pit, and some cosmos that were doing amazing before I drown them.

I’ve been boring with the food this week! I’ve been eating a lot of oat creations because they are delicious, healthy, and quick. I had to make quick lunches this week with the afternoon Tigers Sox series and my lack of wireless internet. It is dangerous to be running back and forth between burners and my computer in the bedroom.

Today, though, I made Goat Cheese, Caramelized Onion, and Spinach Quesadillas.

Quesadilla Lunch!

They look pretty close to how they are supposed to look! I used regular taco shells because that is what I had on hand. They were good! In the future I will just throw the spinach in with the onions for the last couple seconds of onion cook time, and only warm it because the spinach got a little slimy and there is nothing worse than slimy vegetables.

I better pick out something to wear to Sweater Club tonight. Sad face! Someday soon I will update this blog and the entire post will be pictures of me in my sweater dress. No words, just sweater dress. It is coming.

I can’t wait to show the girls my finished collar!

Sweater Collar? No Problem! Give Me Two Days

Sweater Club is some serious motivation. I’m hoping to motivate everyone by how much serious knitting I can get done, and everyone motivates me to be the Super Knitter.

I’m going to be really sad when Sweater Club is over! Three-ish more weeks. I hope more people sign up for Round Two! Though I don’t know how I will be able to top knitting a sweater dress for Round One. A wedding dress? A bike? Trees? It will be tricky.

I’ve been trying not to measure the skirt part of my sweater dress too much. As Lori so lovingly told me at Sweater Club a couple weeks ago, I’m just driving myself crazy. I took Lori’s advise and chilled out. My plan was to get to 18 inches before starting the second sleeve. Yesterday morning I was knitting a long and looked down and was astonished! I had knit the shit out of that skirt! I measured and was just over 19 inches! I squealed and started the collar, just to mix things up.

I Could Wear it Outside if I Were LiLo

That is a one armed dress! The collar makes it look so awesome! I even squeezed into it this morning before work and it fits! The arm is a little big, but I’m not concerned. I could beef up my arms… I might just have to. Eh, I’ll wait to worry about it. Thanks to my mlb.com premium package, meaning I get every game I could possibly want every day, I’ve got many excuses to sit in front of my computer and finish this up by the end of Sweater Club! Trying it on really motivated me to finish it and wear it every day.

My meeting Monday with Distant Village, the Treeless Paper Yarn guys, went well! They are making some balls of it for me, I’m going to have a class, going to package up some kits for etsy, going to get rolling with this fun project!

Lunch

I was emailing him so treeless paper bead ideas while I was eating my lunch burrito. Homemade lunch burrito! I love life.

I’m going to do some preliminary Spring cleaning now before the tigers game. I’ve started doing that thing where everything is in piles, and then I refer to the piles of shit as tables. That just isn’t right.

First of all, PT got an Amigurumi Lion for Valentine’s Day!

PT's Lion

Look out for him to make an appearance on the website later today! My Amigurumi Class coming up in March, Mondays 16 and 23, needs a mascot, and as everyone knows Lions make great mascots! … right?

…right?

Valentine’s Day this year felt a lot like I imagine Thanksgiving does for normal, meat eating people every year. You eat until you want to die and then eat as much dessert as you can?

Peach and Raspberry Topped Pancakes

Making pancakes isn’t remotely special for us on a Saturday morning. No picture would be able to capture the amazing flavor combo created on the top of those clove, cinnamon and nutmeg pancakes. Sauteed raspberries and peaches! With potatoes, of course.

We ran out to Target between fatty fests, at least. And by ran I mean strolled, burning no calories in preparation for this:

Pizza Fondue Picnic

We toasted french bread and sliced veggies to dip it into hot pasta sauce and melted pepper jack cheese. I had a 3 month old food baby after that pile of bread and spicy cheese.

Peanut Butter Fondue Tummy Explosion

Note the empty plate behind the scene. We baby crock potted peanut butter, soy milk, brown sugar, and a few chocolate chips to create this hot fudgey peanut butter mess to dip marshmallows, graham crackers, and pretzle rods into. I had a food baby well into its third trimester by the time this plate was clean. PT had a three hour food nap while I finished up the first season of Friday Night Lights and felt my baby kick.

I also started over my sweater jacket. It was too holey. I started it over holding two strands together and am not very far. I’ll work on it tonight and report back this week. I like it better already, though.

Leftovers

Sunday we used the leftovers for good – trying to avoid another food baby. We made very delicious french bread pizzas! Velma didn’t move all day; Valentine’s took a lot out of her, too.

We had the crock pot rocking all day yesterday! We cooked up a spicy black bean soup that is delicious, and a butternut squash lentil soup.

Butternut Squash and Lentil Soup

It certainly doesn’t look like much, but I’ll be eating this all week! So good. The carrots got a little too mushy because this cooked overnight and I let it go about 10 hours. Next time I’ll add the carrots half way though the normal 8 hour cooking time so they keep their crunch.

Sweater Club Participant #5 signed up today after the newsletter went out! Three weeks! The Sweater Club makes my schedule look like it is out of control. March is going to be busy! I can’t wait!