Ami-bot

Sometimes projects don't turn out the way I designed in my head.  I started crocheting another alien but the body simply didn't look right for an alien---it looked more like a robot in cartoons.  It doesn't take a negotiator to change my mind.  Soon, the body belonged to a robot with a big antenna on its head.

He's not wearing a scarf because he's cold.  When I finished assembling, he looked, well, very plain.

Buttons and felt didn't seem right for him.  I almost put some colorful polymer clay beads on his chest, then I changed my mind (again) when I found a yarn I bought long time ago but I didn't know how to use a yarn with exploding colors.  Actually, this yarn has 4 or 5 different textures to it, and the only part I didn't know what to do with was the polar fleece portion of the yarn.  I cut fleece parts and tied them together to knit his scarf with.  All the knots are on the back side of the scarf.

A simple but colorful scarf adds warm appearance to my baby-blue guy.

There's a pit bull (and a cat) who adopts chicks, a robot and sheep can be friends, too.

Click "Read more" for the pattern.

Hiking in Sedona, AZ

I spent last weekend in Sedona, AZ and enjoyed 3-hour hikes on both Saturday and Sunday.  I wore a brand new pair of hiking shoes I purchased 2 weeks ago.  Why didn't I buy them long time ago?  Those shoes were awaaaay more comfortable than my gym shoes!  The first set of photos are posted on my photo album blog site. 

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Baking for Thanksgiving

Each holiday reminds me how nice it is to be close to be family.  For this year's Thanksgiving dinner, I offered to bake desserts and rolls so that my brother-in-law and his wife doesn't have to prepare everything.

 I baked two kinds of rolls: sweet potato rolls (my fave for any fall occasions) and fluffy dinner rolls (pictured below). 

 For desserts, I baked apple-cranberry tartlets with filling I stored in my freezer for about two weeks.  I also wanted to please chocoholics with a rich chocolate cake to die for.  It was not easy to find the chocolate cake recipe I wanted to make, so I made up a recipe like I always do.

 To add extra moisture to the cake, the cake layers were soaked with 1/4 cup Kahlua (yum!).  There's usually some kind of alcohol in my desserts.  A rich chocolate-hazelnut filling/icing and cookies made with leftover short dough from tartlets were used to finish up the cake.

 Arizona-themed cake.  When I have to finish garnishing my cake in someone else's kitchen, I try to make it as simple (but fun) as possible.  I could have done a better job decorating the cake, but, hey, my nieces and nephews liked it.

 Scraps from the cake layers and leftover icing were upcycled into mini-cakes.  The round cookies in the picture below were filled with apple-cranberry filling cooking juice that has been cooked down to a thick paste.  Nothing gets wasted in my kitchen!

Now I can start thinking about desserts for Christmas! 

Cuddly Sheep

 
Who doesn't like soft, fluffy, squeezable crocheted animals?  A bulky gray-black yarn I found at craft store gave me an idea to make a sheep with it.  I made sheep's face as goofy as possible. 

The length of this sheep is about a foot from nose to tail.  I might crochet smaller one and large one to find out what size sheep looks the best.

Holiday Craft Market

Fall craft market is open this weekend (Fri-Sun) at Tucson Museum of Art.  I missed their spring market for a bigger craft fair on Mill Avenue in Tempe this spring so I was looking forward to visit fall market.  There were more than 100 artists and crafters with wide variety of work in pottery, fiber art, glass jewelry, recycle art, paintings, and in other forms.  I stopped at most booth to take a look, however, I was mainly searching for ceramic pieces I can use everyday.  My search was cut short when I found two small Japanese-style rice bowls at Museum's pottery studio.  There were pottery studio students' pieces for sale and it was fun to see individual styles and creativity.  The rice bowls were made by 'Saito', a fairly common Japanese family name, according to the signature on the bottom of the bowls. 

The rice bowls are pictured in the front.  The bowl in the back row has beautiful purple color outside and eggshell-white inside with rustic finish.  As soon as it jumped in my sight, I knew I wasn't leaving the store without it.  I found it at a store on 4th Avenue in Tucson and a sales person at the store told me that it was created by local artist.  I haven't decided what I want to use the purple bowl for. 

Apple-Cranberry Filling

What would be the best way to use 3 pounds of Granny Smith apples?  Many people may think of an apple pie as their first choice.  I love a slice of warm apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream---minus the crust.  The shortening-rich pie crust is not my favorite pastry dough, especially gooey bottom portion of a pie crust.

Unlike typical American-style apple pie in a large baking dish or pan, my mother used to make individual apple pie 'squares' with precooked apples.  She cooked apples in a heavy pan, but that will require occasional stirring.  I like everything simple.  Cooking unattended is definitely my style.  I decided to try baking apples in the oven.

As I have mentioned in previous postings, I don't care for excessively sweet food.  Adding cranberries to apples makes the filling sour and required a lot more sugar than I expected.  The filling was still on slightly sour side (sweet and sour) and it may not be for sugar junkies.   Since I'm not into pie dough, I wanted to use the filling in mini-tarts.  The short dough recipe was straight out of Bo Friberg's The Professional Pastry Chef (3rd edition).  Other short dough recipe would work just fine.  For garnish, I sliced apples and coated with apricot preserves and topped mini-tarts along with cinnamon sprinkle right before baking.

Apple-Cranberry Filling

Click "Read more" for the recipe.

Utamaro

My mother-in-law fell in love with my first Amineko Masamune and asked me to make another one for her.  I made body parts 3 month ago but I couldn't be in right mood for assembling parts.  As soon as I put the parts together Sora wanted their picture taken.

Utamaro, or Uta for short, is the same color as Masamune and that's the color she requested.  Uta (pronounced "ootah") was adopted by my mother-in-law on the same day.

Blue Scarf

My newest scarf I finished 5 days ago became my instant favorite.  It has some ethnic feel and it goes with many of my outfits.

I used US size 35 needles again.  Yarns were purchased at Hobby Lobby about 2 years ago and were in my closet until now.  The name of the yarns is Yarn Bee Aurora.  It has nice metallic touch without being so flashy.

This scarf is actually longer than it looks in these pictures.  When it is wrapped around my neck once, the ends drop to my waist and it is very stretchy.

Resident Alien

My husband was looking for a large flashlight and it was hiding in plain sight...under a green alien.

After finding what he was looking for, he said "It looks like you're anal probing an alien."
That's not how it looks like.

His name is Octy.  Birthplanet unknown.  He's a lot cuter than that fat gray psychotic alien in American Dad.

His big lips reminds me of batfish near Galapagos Islands that attacked my husband during one of the best night dives ever.

Pictures From Pima Canyon Trail

I decided to take advantage of beautiful weather we've been having in Tucson this fall and went to a five-hour hike on Pima Canyon Trail in Santa Catalina mountains.  I posted some pictures on my other blog.  More photos will be added over next 6 days.

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Purple Scarf

My first scarf of the season is finally completed! I purchased beautiful purple ribbon yarns on clearance a few years ago but I didn't have any project in my mind until finding USsize 35 knitting needles (19mm for rest of the world) on clearance 3 months ago.

It took about 1 1/2 yarns to knit and add fringe.  Since I have never used such fat needles before, I struggled first 2 rows.  It looks a lot nicer in person---the shiny part of the yarn is not appearing well in the pictures.

It's not the warmest scarf, however, I don't usually need insanely heavy scarf in Arizona.  It will be just right until January.

"Is this scarf for me?"