beach, etc. - scituate, ma

I am at my Aunt's beach house for a few days, and I wanted to share some pictures. Here are my 5 beach house essentials via my Aunt Joanne's Scituate, MA house.

1. American flag.

2. Painted doorstops.

3. Flowing curtains.

Classic ball fringe curtains from Country Curtains. 

4. Starfish motif. 

Scarf from The Glass Onion on Block Island, RI. Earrings from Details in Providence, RI. 

5. Pastels.

~ Thanks to my Aunt Joanne for letting me take pictures all over her house! ~

anna knits - union jack tea cosy update 2

So I finished the first panel of the Union Jack tea cosy I started yesterday. I had a lot of time to knit today, and it actually is going faster than I anticipated. You can see my progress via my last post here.

Here is how the back looks after I sewed in the many, MANY loose ends. 

I am a little late on the Jubilee celebrations, but I'll hopefully be done by the Olympics! With London in the news so much this summer, there are some great items for sale that incorporate the British flag. I particularly love this Union Jack Lips Mug by MUGGIN' Mugs on Etsy. 

 

Only three more panels + a pom pom to go! Wish me luck.

anna knits - union jack tea cosy update 1

Inspired by the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, I finally started my Union Jack tea cosy. Despite the challenging intarsia, I think it is going well so far. I first saw this pattern, which is available as a free Ravelry download, on the knitting blog one sheepish girl, which has some adorable pictures of her Union Jack tea cosy process. Let's hope mine comes out as nice!

I am using Cascade Cotton Rich DK Yarn in Rococco Red (3646),  Navy (2625), and White (8001), which I bought from Jimmy Beans Wool.

I am not used to knitting with cotton yarn, but I like the clean lines it's producing.

Here is how the back looks:

* I used this video from Melissa of the blog Life gets in the way of my Knitting! to help with learning garter stitch intarsia. (Very helpful!)

* I used this video to learn to make pretty bobbins. 

Speaking of British things, check out this great slideshow of Queen Elizabeth's life from Time Magazine:

  PRESS ASSOCIATION / AP

anna knits - spiral top tea cosy

Done with another spiral top tea cosy! I mentioned in an earlier post that I was working on a neon yellow tea cosy for my Etsy store. Between then and now, a buyer asked for it specifically, so this neon yellow cosy is not for purchase. There is still another super cute, spiral top tea cosy available though. Get it while you can!

You can also download the pattern for this spiral top tea cosy for FREE here.

Here is how the neon yellow cosy turned out:

I wrap my tea cosies for gifting in a little tissue paper and yarn, and attach one of my business cards with a personalized note on the back. I made my business cards with Avery business cards from CVS.

All the pictures are taken with my iPhone using Instagram, and the collages are made using the iPhone app Pic Collage.

See my Ravelry entry on this tea cosy here. 

anna cooks - dessert

Last night my friend Alyssa had my roommate and I over for dinner and an episode of Downton Abbey. I offered to bring dessert, and ended up making a twist on Ina Garten's Peach and Blueberry Crumble. I love this recipe, because you can swap the fruit depending on what is in season. For this crumble, I decided to use peaches, strawberries, and rhubarb. The result was a cute pink dessert that was perfect for our girls' night.

Peach, Strawberry, Rhubarb Crumble - A Photo Recipe.

The exact ingredients and measurements can be found here.

Step 1: Mix the fruit with lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, and flour.

Step 2: Mix the dry ingredients until the butter is the size of peas. 

Step 3: Put the fruit mixture into ramekins and top with the crumble -- add more crumble than you think you need, because it fall down into the ramekin during baking. 

Step 4: Bake with a lined baking sheet under the ramekins at 350F for 45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.  

Step 5: Top with heavy cream and enjoy!

anna runs

I am running my first race this Sunday. It is the Halfway 5K in Canton, MA. I am not much of a runner, but I thought it would be a fun goal for the spring... Let's hope I make it out alive!

As part of my preparation, I decided to make an anna knits, etc. T-shirt to wear on race day. I was inspired by a post on the blog Oh Happy Day for family reunion Ts.

Here's how I did it:

Step 1: Assemble T-shirt (I used a GapFit pima cotton tank), T-shirt transfer paper, and Iron.
Step 2: Print out your design backwards, on the transfer paper.
Step 3: Cut out the design.
Step 4: Iron on the design with the iron on its highest temperature, and no steam. Iron longer than you think you should.
Step 5: Peel back the paper to reveal the design -- if the paper is sticking go back and iron more!
Step 6: Show it off.

You can download the pattern I used to make this anna knits, etc. shirt here!

hearts, etc.

I saw a cute sweater with an embossed heart design while shopping at the Cambridge, MA boutique Mint Julep. 

The sweater is by the Danish clothes brand, nümph.

I love the way the knit stitches outline the purl stitches. Seeing this design made me do a search for other heart patterns online. Here are some of my favorites from Ravelry. Click on the picture for the pattern.

photo © 2009 Katie Chameleon

pattern by Hannah Fettig

photo by GmaX4

I haven't found a pattern to achieve the bordered pattern seen in the nümph sweater, but here is a simple heart pattern from the blog craft passion in case you want to try out your own embossed heart.