Charley

Yes, your eyes do not fool you, the "Charley Sweater" from Rowan 37 is done! I didn't think I would finish either, I am the queen of procrastination. I especially love the way the cables are lined up on the arms. I used circular needles for the neck, I hate sewing up, so this was a no brainer. I noticed that the neck band pattern didn't match the photo, so mine is (WS):P3 *K2, P3, rep * to end. Since I was using circular needles, I pretty much repeated this row until it hit 6 cm. I also didn't start as P3, because I wanted the 3 purl stitches in the body (WS) to match up with the ones in the neck. A little anal, but it worked well. I really love it, it just doesn't look Gap cookie-cutter, and it has such interesting details. Hubby is wearing it to watch Furinkazan right now. This project didn't make me big fan of Rowan All Seasons Cotton Yarn though, and I usually love Rowan yarns. The yarn came apart too easily.

Ham and pickle sandwiches (for jean) and Sabodet with Mâcon wine, vegetables and dried mushrooms

I have been lusting after the Pork & Sons cookbook forever. I don't know if it was the pig doodles inside (I have a thing for pigs) or the large photos of rustic dishes, but I understood what Anthony Bourdain meant when he said he looked at people roasting pigs, like other people watch porn. A little TMI, I know.

Last weekend, we went shopping at Chelsea Market for the ingredients for the "Ham and pickle sandwiches (for jean)" and the "Sabodet with Mâcon wine, vegetables and dried mushrooms." We substituted the prosciutto for the ham and italian parsley for the chives in the sandwich. It was pretty yummy, the italian parsley gave it a clean lemon flavor.

I couldn't find the sabodet sausage for the recipe, so I used regular Italian pork & leek sausages. It was definitely turnip-y, but I'm not sure I tasted much else. Unless I find the real deal, I won't be making this recipe again any time soon.

Half-Pint

Me rocking my size 5 Tibetan moon boots, scored from Nordstrom.com

I'm a small person. I'm 5'1", so I always have trouble finding pants, dresses, let's face it anything that fits well, unless I find a petites section (yeah, good luck there). Sometimes even with a petite section, they assume I must be stick thin, cuz' I'm short...no those things don't necessarily go together. Many stores also don't carry shoes in my size, a 5. Shopping is always a headache and if I dare to complain, some woman will always put me in my place, "Yeah, poor you and your small feet, I wish I were a size 5." So, apparently I should rejoice that I have to spend hours scouring for 1 item that others can buy in a nearby store.

Today, I am searching for gym clothes, my 1 pair of petite gym pants shrunk in the dryer. No, I don't recycle pants (eeeew!), everything else is shorts, they fit. Don't even begin to tell me to go buy capris, I have capris, they don't fit right, because they aren't shaped for short people. And nothing good is ever on sale in my size, nope, I need to snap it up before some other small woman comes along, because they only made 2 of them. Wheew, thanks for listening to that rant.

Now, if you need to shop for petite workout gear (and be prepared being small is not cheap):

• Athleta.com
• Lucy.com
  

Size 5 Shoes, browse these sites:

• Nordstrom.com (they even have size 4 here)
• NineWest.com
• Bluefly.com
  

Sites I regularly score decent petite clothes from:

• jcrew.com
• BananaRepublic.com
• AnnTaylor.com
  

Who said being short, means you have to dress like a 12 year old, thank goodness for the Internet. :)

Happy New Year!

A belated Happy New Year! We celebrated by having hot pot with my sister and my brother-in-law at our apt, which is a tradition. If you have never had hot pot, you are missing out, it's a fun group meal/activity. It's very much like shabu-shabu. In fact we used a shabu-shabu electric pot my sister gifted us when she got an extra from her registry. We gave them our extra bread machine, from our wedding.

I got my haircut in midtown today, so we decided to walk to the new multi-level Kinokuniya bookstore across from Bryant park. I bought 2 books, Ondori's Men's Knit Design in Japanese and Cute Dolls by Aranzi and Aronzo, amazingly in English. I find there are few men's patterns in American knitting books that I feel compelled to make, and they are hard to find. I figure I'll make a sweater for my good ol' dad, because he worries about me and constantly buys too much groceries for me to fit in my fridge. I bought Cute Dolls, because I have an unhealthy obsession with all things cute. I can make believe that I will be making a stuffed animal for a friend's kid. Hey it can happen! 1 for them, 5 for me!

Ondori's Men's Knit Design

Cute Dolls by Aranzi Aronzo

My hands are always cold, I blame bad circulation. As a kid my fingers and toes would turn quickly to blue-purple, and this would be indoors with the heat on. So, I decided to knit up the "Hand/Wrist Warmers" from the Last-Minute Knitted Gifts book. I used Blue Sky Alpacas Sportweight yarn in blue-grey doubled throughout. These two balls were reserved for an elephant for a friend's child, but I errr... didn't get to it. They knit up real fast, I skipped the last 10+ rows, because my hands are very small. They are so soft and I like the zig-zag fake cable pattern, it looks really neat. My hands are very happy.