02 February 2011

Shawl, Cookies, and WIP Wednesday

For some time now I have been meaning to get a decent photo of this lovely shawl onto this blog.


This is the Winter Mystery Shawl 2010 from Goddess Knits, knit using Spinning Bunny's Blue Face Leicester Lace Weight Yarn. The mystery shawls from Goddess Knits are great fun. Once a week "clues" are released through Yahoo!Groups. The clues consist of charted rows to be knit before the next week's clue. The mystery is not knowing what the finished shawl will look like. It is a bit of a leap of faith, though I've never been disappointed. This pattern is obviously winter-themed, with beads (a little difficult to see here) knitted in using a crochet hook to load each bead.

The yarn was delightful to use. There was one massive skein of lace weight yarn, that when wound into a ball, didn't have a single break. That's happy dance wonderful! I chose color Merlot and enjoyed the soft and lofty feel. Being hand-dyed there was quite a bit of color bleeding onto my fingers. I had to be extra careful not to let the yarn slide across the off-white upholstery. When the shawl was complete I simply ran it through a couple rinses of vinegar and water to set the color. I'd gladly use this yarn again.

Today, being Groundhog Day, I had to break out my groundhog cookie cutter to celebrate. (I just googled "groundhog cookie cutter" and found many available.) I use a terrific sugar cookie recipe that tastes and looks like the best from a bakery. I had been given this recipe by a friend and felt that I shouldn't openly share it until I discovered last year that I had the same recipe written done on a 3x5 card from years ago.


Here's my favorite sugar cookie recipe:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Cream the butter; add sugar and vanilla; mix well. Add flour and salt; mix well.
Roll the dough to 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick and use cookie cutters.
Place cookies on ungreased baking sheet, covered in parchment paper. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the tops look dry. Do not bake until brown.
Cool.
Decorate.

I spread a thin coat of melted chocolate (6 oz. chocolate chips with 1 tsp. solid shortening melted in a double boiler) on the back of the cookie - the groundhog's shadow! There isn't any vanilla ice cream in this house, or else I'd put a scoop in a bowl, stand a groundhog in the ice cream, and then drizzle some homemade hot fudge, as more of a shadow, behind him.


Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this morning, so winter will be over soon! I wanted to take a sunny picture of these little guys, but the 4 degree afternoon chased me indoors. We'll see how accurate the Punxsutawney rodent is!

"Hey, you dang woodchucks! Quit chuckin' my wood!"

And so now onto WIP Wednesday. I've been designing a few things for Brown Sheep Yarns. This is a sneak peek at the beginning of a stole. The yarn is wonderful to use. I just love lace.


Knit through everything!

Lynn Anne

2 comments:

  1. Oh my!!! That mystery shawl is absolutely gorgeous! Beautiful design and lovely color.

    Now you have made hungry for sugar cookies. They are my favorite. I'll have to go see if I have all the ingredients in my cabinet.

    The stole looks lovely. I can't wait to see more. Good luck with the designing.

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  2. Hi, Sallie! I'm glad to hear that you have been out of the worst of the weather. OKC got much worse than we did this time!

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