bento salad

i think this bento turned out rather pretty. but, unfortunately, apparently, not very filling. a little bit closer now. in the top box we've got a classic applebee's style asian salad. iceberg lettuce, mandarin orange slices, water chestnuts, topped with sesame seeds and carrot flowers. nestled around the sides are some steamed snow peas. the bottom box is lined with nori. on the right is sushi rice topped with furikake and carrot flowers. on the left are some baked chicken nuggets. i put some barbeque sauce for the nuggets in a plastic pig. this was a mistake. apparently those are only for non-viscous liquids like soy sauce and vinegar. also lettuce is not very filling. was it socrates or alanis morissette who said, "you live, you learn".

better bento

so after a bit of a break i decided to start making more bento boxes. this was largely spurred on by some new toys. and here is the result: this one went over pretty well. enhance. on top we have a california roll, and in the grass is some wasabi and pickled ginger. The bottom bucket has an assortment of flower shaped carrots and pickled daikon over stem shaped(?) cucumbers. the dip in the cup is peanut butter, tahini, soy sauce, and sriracha sprinkled with sesame seeds. between the two are nestled a few edamame. filling and healthy.

intimates

not so long ago a friend of mine sent an email that some might consider odd. he had purchased an awesome sweater. this sweater.



look at that detailing!



clearly this was machine made. the request in this email was to make a matching pair of panties for a lady friend of his. clearly i accepted the challenge. shortly thereafter someone was selling an appropriate book at a stoop sale for my building. i purchased it and the excitement began.

to find the appropriate yarn, i went to the fairly new lion brand yarn studio. i usually don't go in for acrylics, but they have some really nice stuff there. and it is an excellent place to match colors. i wound up using vanna's choice for the purple, and some thicker wool for the green. in the end, this is how things turned out.



the pattern had some lace embellishments and the same color for the crocheted seams, but that wasn't the direction i wanted to go in for this. also the pattern for the cherries was copied from the sweater.



now, i am never one to do things by halves, so clearly there must be an accompanying top.



what a happy pair they make.



and then with the sweater....



now for the ratings:

DIFFICULTY:
AWESOMENESS:

bento day 3

after the supercuteness of day 2 i slacked off a bit on day 3. here is a terrible picture of an unappetizing bento.

oops. only one pic today. on top the brownish mass is some golden curry, with rice on the sides and decorative (?) nori shoved in on the sides. the green swirls are wasabi. on the bottom we have sushi rolls of roasted beets with honey goat cheese. you will notice that the top three are gigantic. these were my first sushi rolls. the bottom there were a bit better. shoved between these rolls is some pickled ginger. snap peas on the side, and for some reason i put in a few baked chicken nuggets on the upper right.

for those who may think a bento box could not possibly fit a reasonably sized lunch, au contraire! this was too much food.

bento day 2

my new hobby goes apace. or rather, went apace for three days and then i got distracted by some shiny object. regardless, here is the bento of day 2.



let's get a little closer, shall we?



on the top here we have four mini spring rolls nestled amongst some edamame. in the cup is a barbeque-like dipping sauce. on the bottom we have some sushi rice topped with furikake and a few clovers made from nori with this fancy device. to the left of the nori dividing strip are a few baked chicken nuggets.

delicious.

new hobby

hello blogosphere. it has been a while. how are you doing? have you lost weight? i've been busy doing i have no idea what and apologize for my absence. however i have much to tell you! i have a new hobby. and it is bento.

this is a new hobby that may or may not last, but is super fun. a friend of mine defected from the states and is on a whirlwind tour of asia. during her travels she sent me a present by mail. after only 7 weeks of transit i received this:


it is a bento box. a tiny multi-layered plastic lunch box. little did i know there is an entire culture behind the creation of bento boxes. and i wanted in.

so, humble readers, i present to you, my very first bento box:


i admit that it is less fancy than some others, but you have to start somewhere. and this is what i had on hand. let's take a closer look.


enhance.


so this is what we've got. top box: lined with shredded carrot, ball of leftover rice coated in sesame seeds, five homemade tofu vegetable dumplings i had in the freezer, steamed and wrapped in bok choy leaves to prevent sticking. bottom box: sliced grilled chicken apple sausage over lettuce, bok choy sauteed in ginger, and carrots wrapped around capers on creepy face picks.

it is truly amazing how much fits into such a little box. i am awaiting news on whether this was an appropriately filling and/or delicious lunch.

amigurumi and friends

a friend of mine was SO ESSITED by the prospect of creating an adorable creature out of yarn that she requested lessons. this knittenninja, of course, was willing to help out with such a thing. provided, of course, that there was a bottle of wine and a really bad movie. in this case, step up 2.

i have no idea what happened in the movie. NONE. however at the end of several hours of mind numbing music and entanglement in yarn, we came up with these little guys.

apparently they were inspired by the movie and got a litte rough. first my friend's pig stepped up.



then my one armed tree swung into action.



the movie was probably more exciting, but i had more fun with the yarn.

Afghan

i've always irrationally disliked the word afghan. there is no particular reason for this, other than the fact that it refers to something that is clearly a blanket.



i found myself overcoming this prejudice because of some awesome yarn that i found at a dollar store. so i bought all i could carry and brought it home to figure out a pattern.

i wound up using:

row 1: k all
row 2: p all
row 3: * k2tog 3 times, * k1 yo six times, * k2tog 3 times, repeat to end of row
row 4: k all



essentially, this pattern involves one row of effort out of every four. and in that row, you make everything smaller 6 times, make it wider 6 times, later, rinse, and repeat until you run out of room. i would HIGHLY recomment using stitch markers to keep your sanity. my blanket involved casting on 144 stitches. so i placed a marker every 24 stitches, or every 4 groups of 6. this helps to catch mistakes early on.

it was super easy to do, but took forever. i left all the supplies at someone else's place and made it whenever we watched a movie together. a great long term project for when you're looking for something to keep your hands busy that you are in no rush to finish. now ok one last closeup.



now. . . for the ratings:

DIFFICULTY:
AWESOMENESS:

amigurumi

so recently i was playing around on etsy and came across some adorable little crocheted bunnies. apparently there is a whole japanese art dedicated to the craft of crocheting adorable little creatures. so i took it upon myself to give it a shot.



like it?

more fishes

remember the fish blanket i was making for a friend's yet to be born child? the child is here! and so, shortly after, is the blanket.



this blanket was SO MUCH FUN. the fish themselves took some attention. i tend not to be one for overly complicated (read: change every row) sort of patterns, but this one was totally worth it. mainly because it reminded me of that escher picture.







so the fish themselves weren't so bad. i mean, they took a while, but once you knew what they were supposed to look like following the pattern wasn't so hard. what was a challenge was stitching them together.



for some reason i have been irrationally against crochet. knitting, i convinced myself, is a man's art. but crochet is for sissies. i suppose it was something about using one needle instead of two.
anyways, i managed to overcome my fear of crochet for this blanket, because it was just that awesome.



and now. . . for the ratings:

DIFFICULTY:
AWESOMENESS:

sweater

so as a christmas gift i was supposed to make a sweater. as these things tend to go, i didn't finish it in time.

trying to find a simple sweater pattern for a guy is really hard. they all have crazy cables or are weirdly shaped. it was tough. but after diligent searching i came across this online sweater pattern generator. there are a couple of different styles. i was most intrigued by the top-down NO SEAMS version.

i used knitpicks wool of the andes with size 8 needles. in general i followed the pattern, but made a few changes. the collar i knit straight, which gave it a roll neck. the waist was done the same way. also on the sleeves i stopped decreasing about 2/3 of the way down to leave a little bit more give. the waist flairs a little bit more than i would like. next time i might throw in a few ribs or make some darts via decreases to try to keep that a bit tighter. i suppose now i understand that this is why sweaters tend to be gathered at a ribbed waist, but i still do not love the look.



i particularly like how the raglan sleeves are made. they are done with four pairs of increases that do not physically connect two pieces of fabric, but make it look as if they do.