I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

After consulting with my co-judge, a winner has been chosen.

Marie in Florida took the gold with her PG-rated joke involving mice and lightbulbs. Very funny, Marie. I got a good laugh out of it. I also chose a second winner at random from all the entries. So there’ll be some sock yarn headed to Libby, too. Thanks to everyone for playing along.

While you all were busy leaving happy thoughts, I was doing a lot of knitting. Yes, really! In the last week I finished two pairs of mittens, two pairs of socks, and I cast on for a scarf and a third pair of mittens. Oh, and I swatched for a sweater too. Regrettably, I have no photos of the FOs since my weekend was spent either attending or hosting Hanukkah parties.

I do have a photo of my latkes cooking.

Anyway, in lieu of FO photos and details, I thought I’d share a recipe for cookie-like scones. My kids love them. I have a hard time bringing myself to eat a whole one since, as you’ll soon see, the reason they taste so good is because they’re loaded with fat and calories. But, I guess it’s the season for such things, huh.

I can’t remember where I first saw this recipe, but I’ve tweaked it a bit over the years until it’s the way my family likes it.

Scones:

1/2 cup half-and-half
1 large egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 stick cold butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I prefer mine with dried cranberries or dried cherries cut into small pieces)
2/3 cup sugar

Heat oven to 375-400 degrees (This may be something I changed from the original recipe since I’m at a high altitude. So you may need to play around with the temperature of the oven.). Beat the half-and-half and the egg together in a small bowl and set aside. Sift the flour, baking powder, and baking soda together into the mixing bowl of a Kitchen Aid mixer. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles course meal. I’ve used the pastry blender method but I prefer using my hands to blend it together. Add the sugar and the chocolate chips and mix until everything is incorporated. Slowly pour in the egg/half-and-half mixture, and mix until it forms a dough. It will be slightly sticky.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and form it into a 9-inch circle. I use a nine-inch pie plate to gauge the correct size. Cut the circle into 12 wedges.

Place the wedges onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

I prefer mine with a light glaze made from orange extract, water (or milk), and confectioner’s sugar. Use about a cup of confectioner’s sugar, 1 teaspoon of orange extract, and about 2-3 Tablespoons milk, mixing everything together until you get a thin paste that you can drizzle over the top of the cooled scones.

Yum!

First off, I have to tell you I’m just overwhelmed with all the sweet messages and comments that I received after my last post. You all got me positively weepy. *sniff*

There were lots of fantastic contest ideas but the ones I liked best revolved around the “happy” theme. I also think it would be fun to turn the focus of the blog from me to you. So, in the spirit of this song, the contest is gonna be about you and what makes you happy.

Here’s what you need to do.

Leave me a comment by Friday evening about anything you want as long as it’s something happy! That’s easy, huh. Need ideas? How about a joke you love, or a blog post that makes you laugh every time you read it, or a knitting project gone wrong. Of course, you don’t have to share something related to knitting. This blog always makes me smile and it has nothing to do with knitting.

You’re probably wondering how I’ll pick a winner of the contest if everyone can just post whatever she wants. No worries, I have a plan.

I’ve convinced a friend whose sense of humor is frighteningly similar to mine to help me choose the vignette that makes us both smile/laugh the most. If you’re the person who leaves that comment, I’ll send you these lovely prizes:

A skein of original Opal Tiger sock yarn (not the Rainforest remake) and a hank of sKNITches sock yarn in the Harvest Time colorway.

Yum, orange yarn:

Plus, a bar of Blessed Juno soap (the Sunshine scent, of course).

Enter as many times as you want. Hell, you can leave 100 comments if you have 100 funny things to share or if you’re a Bengals fan who wants to win the Opal Tiger yarn. And, it goes without saying that you should read all the comments if you want a laugh, too.

I’ll choose a winner this weekend after I consult with my co-judge. I might even choose a second winner at random from all the entries if I’m feeling really happy.
There were several people whose comments inspired the contest idea so I used a random number generator to select blogfree Betsy as the winner of the Wooly Wonka sock kit. Congrats, Betsy.

Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate. L’Chaim!

Believe it or not, next week will mark the four-year anniversary of this blog and about one year since I moved it to this domain.

Time flies, huh.

I started the blog as a way to connect with other knitters and in that respect it’s been successful beyond my wildest dreams. Over the course of the last four years, blogging has enabled me to create and administer a 3,000-member Yahoo group; design patterns that have been published in books, by yarn companies, and in ezines; and help coordinate a knit-blogger campaign that resulted in the donation of more than $100,000 to the people affected by Hurricane Katrina. But, more importantly, the blog has facilitated my communication with hundreds of amazing knitters. I’ve even been fortunate enough to meet (in the flesh) many of the fantastic people who I met through blogging.

I rarely discuss my personal life on the blog, mainly because it’s not nearly as interesting as my knitting (which you may or may not find interesting either). For those of you who have asked over the years for some non-knitting tidbits about me, I’m a 40-something lawyer, married with 2 teenagers, and now living in Utah. I spent my childhood in Massachusetts then lived briefly in New York and even more fleetingly in Texas.
See, not very exciting.
I posted a 100 Things About Me list back in 2004 when it was all the rage. If you’re still curious, you can read it here. It’s pretty much still all true.

I readily confess to being an exceedingly pragmatic (and, some might say, dour) person. The blogiversary and recent events in my personal life got me thinking seriously about things like family, friends, memory, commitment, and opportunity lost but happily found again. That introspective generated a mental list of many practical reasons why I should walk away from the blog and call it good. Things like the nasty, snarky emails I get from readers on a weekly basis (don’t believe me? ask Margene), or the difficulty of trying to fit the blogging into all the other activities and commitments competing for my time. While I receive many wonderful comments on my posts, I regret that there aren’t enough hours in my day to enable me to personally respond to every one. So, as the blog became more popular, it also became a bit of a Catch-22. I love the opportunity to connect with more knitters but the more knitters with whom I connect, the less time I have to knit and blog. *sigh*

But, after dwelling for a while on all the negatives, I turned my focus to all the unbelievably wonderful things that naturally flow from maintaining the blog. The sense of community and the overwhelmingly positive tone of the messages and comments I receive from readers. I truly adore getting emails telling me that something I posted was helpful to someone.

On balance, I’ve decided the positive far outweighs the negative. So, you’re not getting rid of me yet but I have decided that I’ll be posting less often, probably no more than once a week and maybe less than that.

But enough sentiment, let’s get back to the event that inspired this post in the first place–the blogiversary.

And what’s a blogiversay without a contest?

I think the best way to celebrate the last four years is by having not one contest, but two!

Here’s the skinny on the first:
Leave me a comment between now and Sunday night, suggesting a theme for the contest I intend to hold next week to celebrate the blogiversay. If I use your idea, you win this:

A Ceilidh Lace Socks Kit (yarn and pattern) from Wooly Wonka Fibers in the colorway of your choice (it’s shown here in the Nantucket colorway but you can choose from the other colorways on the website).

C’mon, help me out here. After four years, I’m outta ideas.