Squash Soup and Toe Up Socks

I made a delicious of of my very easy very yummy squash soup the other day, and I thought I would share the recipe with you fine people.


I start out by chopping up a large Spanish onion, and a few stalks of celery. I then saute the onion and the celery in a tablespoon or two of olive oil with a dash of salt and pepper until they are softened and glistening. Meanwhile I cube a medium sized butternut squash.

I then add the butternut squash and a tablespoon or so (more or less according to taste) or Red Thai Curry Paste to the onion and celery.


After they have softened up a little I add a couple cups of water or chicken stock (depending on what I have) to the mixture and allow it to soften some more. When the squash is cooked I pour the mixture into a food processor and blend it. After it is all smooth and blended I add 1 can of coconut milk, stir it in, and serve. It is very tasty, especially with some nice crusty bread :)



Finally here at my first pair of toe up socks, knit with Confetti superwash cotton/wool blend. I am very happy with the socks, except that the cuff is quite tight. I blame the cotton's non stretchyness, as I cast off twice and worked REALLY hard at keeping it loose. Thanks Steph for showing me how to start the toe!

My friend Judie's baby shower is today (it was suppose to be last week but was postponed due to Noel) so I have a sheldon and a baby bolero (from One Skein) all wrapped up and ready to go. The baby bolero is organic cotton and sheldon is made from Shine, so both items are nice and machine washable. She's ready to go in about a month, so I am pretty excited.



Don't they look pretty on their tissue all ready to be wrapped up? I should photograph more items on plain tissue instead of my parkay floors.

So as anyone living in Halifax or Nova Scotia knows, last night was just plain gross. It snowed and not the nice pretty fluffy lets go play in it type of snow either. Not to be detered we trekked our way down to the Oasis for wing night and beer. I was very grateful for my red felted cloche as I think it is the world's warmest hat. It is a good time of year to be a knitter :)

I finished my embossed leaves socks, and I am really happy with them. The only thing I don't like is that they are not terribly stretchy, I like socks with more of a ribbing feel so that they hug my feet. Also because my gauge is so loose they are a little big. I think they will shrink a little in the wash though and be perfect. I am happy that I decided to keep them for myself, we had our first snow today and goodness knows I will be needing some nice wool socks.

I watched the Pride and Prejudice BBC mini series today and yesterday (6 hours total of dreamy Mr. Darcy) and managed to get this started:



It's Juno from the Knitty surprise. I found the lace a little tricky at first, but once I got used to it it was fine. Now I have the fun of repeating two rows over and over again for the rest of my life! Well maybe it will go quickly....

I had a productive day today. I managed to mostly finish one of my three major term papers. yay me :) I still had better get crackin though because the other two are due next week. Eep!! People were not joking when they told me Grad School was more work than undergrad.

I have managed to get some knitting done though :) I finished 1 sock of my pair of embossed leaves and I am on to the second. It's odd, I had a bit of first sock syndrome this pair, and so far I am finding the second sock much more pleasurable. I think I will keep them for myself, after some internal debate I have decided that I have not made anything for myself in a while, and I deserve a little something.

Anyone else loving this lovely crisp fall weather? I love this time of year, when mittens, hats and scarves are more like fun accessories than things you need to live. I always feel the most inspired to knit during the fall. Unfortunately though I do tend to get a bit of knitters block in the winter...

So my blogging habits have not gotten much better lately, and I am sorry to say probably won't for the next little while. I am just ridiculously swamped with school work so I have not had the time or energy to do much extra typing!


I have gotten some knitting done though. Twist is finished! Here is Mike proudly wearing his new vest. It looks really great on him. Sorry the picture is kind of crappy, the flash was too bright and made it look like there is holes in, but there isn't! I am very proud of myself and best of all I think he will actually wear it. He proudly wore it to work yesterday and said that he got a lot of comments. Yay!

So for anyone wondering, the pattern is Twist from No Sheep for You, I don't own the book, it was in Interview Knits. I used Knitpicks Wool of Andes in coal and 3.25mm needles. I am not nuts about the yarn, there was quite a few errors in the spin and some icky hard bits, but it is quite soft and has a nice stretch.

Anyone remember the Sheldon I knit a while ago? Well a friend of mine is having a baby shower so he finally found a home. Good for Sheldon :) I used black yarn (from Mike's sweater) to make the eyes so he is baby safe.

Lastly, because I am a follower and not a leader I have jumped on the embossed leaves bandwagon. I have to say though it is a really fun and addictive pattern :)