This Gal Bakes: Donuts

Apparently I’ve been bitten by the baking bug. And up until a couple months ago, I didn’t even know I liked baking. Ever since, I’ve had one major thing on my baking bucket list, donuts. A couple of weeks ago I did make up a batch of cake donuts, which were AMAZING. But I really wanted to try my hand at raised donuts, which involved yeast, and that terrified me. Turns out there was nothing to worry about.

It just so happens, I put my fears aside just in time to celebrate National Donut Day, which apparently has a rich history. The holiday was created in 1938 by the Salvation Army to honor their World War I women volunteers. During the War, volunteers known as the ‘Dough Girls’, would take donuts overseas to boost soldier morale. The tradition was picked up again during the second World War by the Red Cross. Pretty interesting, right?

I also made the chocolate glaze from scratch. It’s surprising how easy it was. Melt some butter and chocolate together, add a bunch of powdered sugar, then slowly add some milk until you get a consistency you’re happy with and that’s it. The exact recipe is from good ol’ Betty Crocker circa 1980. I haven't been able to find a recipe like it online.

I love the look of a sprinkled donut, but I’m not a fan of eating them. So, I sprinkled a couple anyway for photo purposes only to realize the sprinkles I found in the cupboard were a little bit less than fresh... Luckily, I only sprinkled a few.

As for the donuts themselves, they were insanely easy, too. Yeast and all. I don’t know why I decided to do this, but I followed a cinnamon roll recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction for the dough then sort of just winged it from there. After mixing the dough, I just did everything I did for my cake donuts. Rolled out the dough to 3/8 of and inch, cut the donuts. Then I went back to the cinnamon roll recipe for rising times, about 90 minutes. After they had risen, I fried them in a large pot of oil, as per cake donut recipe. And I'm really happy with the results.

The only complaint I have about these are they're a little dense. After a little bit of research I learned, it’s either because I didn’t let them rise enough, or I added too much flour. Probably a combination of the two. Either way, it was a good learning process and the results are still totally edible.

Recipes Used
Dough: Easy Cinnamon Rolls (from scratch) by Sally's Baking Addiction
Glaze: Chocolate Glaze by Betty Crocker (1980)
Frying Instructions: Cake and Raised Donuts by Betty Crocker (1980)

I’m still new to baking, but I’m thinking this new hobby is another one that’s going to stick. Either way, if you want to follow my journey follow me on Instagram and see all the things I’m making that don’t make it to the blog.

This Gal's Top 3 (Free) Sweater Knitting Resources

I'm sure you've heard it before, “if you can knit a tube and do increases and decreases you can knit a sweater. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Once a knitter wants to move onto knitting a sweater that's the first thing seasoned knitters tell them. The thing with that advice is, most things that worry knitters about their first sweaters isn't the actual knitting part. Their thoughts usually are, “I'm about to spend who knows how long on this sweater, what if it doesn't fit.” It's probably the first time most people are working with gauge, multiple measurements and modifying a pattern to work best for them. A lot of times, it's the first time a knitter is even working with gauge. There's a lot of uncharted waters for a new sweater knitter. Luckily, there are tons of free resources around on the Internet to help us along the way. Here are three of my favorites.

Nina’s Design Your Own Sweater Class on KnitPicks.com - I love this resource because each lesson comes with a PDF fill in the blank worksheet. Whenever I plan out a sweater I feel like I'm forgetting something important and I'll run into roadblocks later down the road. With the print outs, there’s less room for error when I’m planning the numbers needed for my sweater. I'm not going to say there's no room for error, because believe me, sometimes I can overlook things that are right in front of me like I'm getting paid to do it. Lets just say, it's harder to overlook a certain measurement or math formula, since everything is right there and there's less things that I have to remember off hand.



Thinking Beyond the Pattern: Knit Smarter not faster on Knitty.com - Thinking Beyond the Pattern by Jenna Wilson, is an entire series on understanding the knitting pattern and grading any given sweater design. Most of the series is geared towards aspiring designers, but it all can be applied for the casual knitter, too. The article I seem to be reading the most is, 'Knit Smarter Not Faster'. I love it because it puts that advice you always get about reading through the pattern into context. It takes you through what to look for when reading a pattern and even talks about how to use schematics to your advantage. And Jenna gives you helpful tips on what to do if your pattern doesn't have a schematic. I do recommend looking at the entire series, it’s incredibly thorough and has tons of information. The only thing is, for me, it can get pretty heavy and after awhile it becomes information overload. So, I suggest to take it in small chunks.

By Gum By Golly Fit & Knit a 40s Pullover Series - Although this tutorial series is geared towards knitting a specific sweater pattern all the information there can be applied to any sweater pattern, modern or vintage. This is probably my most used online resource when I’m planning to knit a sweater. I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about having someone else walk you through their process that's so helpful. Being able to see an actual sweater in progress as opposed to a schematic helped me grasp some of the concepts that I just couldn't get a handle on. Tasha’s writing is also super easy to follow and isn’t weighed down with too much technical jargon that makes me lose interest.

Those are some of my favorites. What are yours? I'm currently working on a sweater resource masterlist, so let me know in the comments below so we can build a comprehensive list.

If you want to keep up on my sweater progress follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Fresh Off the Needles: Cinnamon Muffin Sweater

Of course I'd finish this sweater right when it's warming up outside. Admittedly, I've already worn the hell out it already.  And I'm not going to complain too much about the warm weather. I'm sure temperatures will inevitably drop and it'll make an appearance or two throughout Spring.

I'm proud of myself for two things regarding this sweater. The first, I swatched not once but three times, four times if you count the cable pattern I had originally wanted to do.

And the second thing is that I finished this in exactly a month. My first two sweaters took me well over three months each to knit. I think this has to do with the fact that I took time to swatch, measure a sweatshirt that I wanted to mimic the size of and then planned out every step. That way, when I got to the armhole and shoulder shaping I didn't have to stop and do calculations. Or what happened in the past, I didn't get to the shaping and put off doing the calculations for months. It was just smooth sailing.

Like I said before, I originally wanted a super intense cabled sweater from a vintage pattern, but after swatching the cable pattern, I decided it was just more than I wanted to take on right now. Even though I've knit two other not so simple sweaters, I'm still not overly familiar with sweater construction. And although the cable pattern was fairly easy to follow, I knew I'd abandon the sweater once it came time for the shaping.

Now, I have a sweater that I love, and a ton more confidence in my sweater knitting. For the sweater I followed instructions for the gauge 5, 32 inch bust in The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns by Ann Budd. It's a great book and I made very few changes to the original instructions. Mostly, I just knit the body a bit longer, put some length in the armholes and added a bit more shaping to the sleeves.

Instead of knitting the sleeves flat, then setting them in I followed the tutorial on By Gum By Golly for set in sleeves from the top down. They were super, super easy the only thing I did different was used German Short Rows instead of the Wrap and Turn shown. I do wish I had remembered to go down a needle size when I worked flat, my flat gauge is significantly different from my in the round gauge.

Overall, I'm really happy with the results. I would maybe knit the body a tad bit longer as well as the sleeves. I'd also maybe knit the bottom ribbing a little bit longer closer to two inches instead of the one inch I did. With that said, it's already proven to still be totally wearable as is though.

The yarn I used was Knit Picks City Tweed DK in the Habanero colorway. There's been quite the debate around the house about what the actual color of this yarn is. Some members of my family say it's brown and I had always thought it was orange. I've decided it's an orangey brown, so I dubbed this sweater my Cinnamon Muffin sweater. Whatever color it is I love it, but don't love that I can't figure out how to photograph it correctly or consistently. Any tips?

I'm really super pumped about having an everyday sweater to wear instead of my stranded Christmas themed ones that I wear once a year. I already have so many outfits planned for this sweater and I can't wait to wear them. How do you guys style your favorite handknits?

For more detailed information, check out my Ravelry project page. And as always follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest for work in progress pics and to see what other non-knitting things I'm working on..

This Gal's Guide to Gift Shopping for Knitters

It's that time of year, Christmas is right around the corner. If you're anything like me then you struggle when it comes time to buy gifts. Suddenly, I don’t know who the person I’m shopping for is, their likes their dislikes. Have I really known them my entire life? Has my whole life been a lie?!

When I finally calm down, I start to remember their hobbies and the things they enjoy to do. Then I hit another roadblock, I know very little about their hobbies, and what would or wouldn’t be useful to them. I know they say, 'it's the thought that counts' but when I buy gifts I want the recipient to actually enjoy it and find it useful. That's why I decided to create this list, for anyone stuck on what to get that special knitter in their life.

I just want to mention quickly, that along with links to Amazon and Etsy shops, I suggest local yarn stores or craft shows. If you’re unsure of where a yarn store is near you, you can look it up on knit map. The staff will be very helpful if you’re not quite sure about what you’re looking for. They'll probably have even more suggestions than what I have here.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links when you make a purchase through those links I make a small commission. I would never link to something I haven't or don't plan to buy and try myself.

Stitch Markers

Most if not all knitters use some form of stitch marker. They’re easy to use and even easier to lose, so we’re always in need of new ones, even though somewhere in the house we have dozens upon dozens of them. They come in so many shapes, colors and styles.

1. Soft rings
2. Locking markers
3. Novelty/charms - Just add a jump ring to any charm and you have an instant stitch marker. I personally love the charms from Sucre Sucre Miniatures or The Nome Knitter.
4. Local yarn stores carry commercial markers and may also carry locally made novelty ones.
5. If you're DIY minded go ahead and make you're own beaded charms.

Project/Notion Bags

Project and notion bags are great for those on the go knitters who always, no matter where they are, seem to be knitting. Notion bags help us stay organized when we have a whole bunch of WIPs going at once. They’re also great at keeping our small projects protected in our purses or bags when we’re out and about. Notions bags are great for, theoretically, keeping all our notions in one place and preventing them from getting lost at the bottom of our knitting bags.

1. Too Daughters
2. Ewe Sew An Sew
3. Lavender Hill Knits
4. Mama Made Waffles
5. Local yarn store or craft shows
6. If you know your way around a sewing machine, making a small zipper bag is a great option.

Yarn bowls

Many knitters love yarn bowls. When yarn is traditionally wound the ball will bounce and dance all over the place. Yarn bowls prevent that and keep yarn in one place and free of any dust, hair or dirt that may be on the ground where ever we're knitting.

1. New Moon Studio
2. Heidi's Shoppe
3. Local yarn store or craft shows

Ravelry Patterns

If you’re willing to sign up for a free Ravelry account, you’ll be able to buy and send patterns to other users. You can search for your knitter by name and then filter by location. Then you can go through their favorites and find a paid for pattern that they like and send it as a gift to them. It’s something nice, that will make them feel like you went the extra mile. My best friend since high school did this for me recently, and it was a really nice surprise.

Gift Cards

It may seem impersonal to buy someone gift cards, but they're great for those of you who want to gift yarn, but don’t know where to even start. Yarn buying can be a very personal thing for a knitter and while we always enjoy getting yarn, we all have our preferences and sometimes would rather buy our own yarn. So, a gift card is sometimes the best option. You could even go to the store with the gift card recipient and make a day of it to add a more personal touch to this gift.

KnitPicks, Webs, Jimmy Beans Wool and Etsy are all great places to get gift cards for knitters. I’d also check out your local yarn store to see what they offer in terms of gift cards as well. Maybe I'm a control freak, but I love getting gift cards. They help expand my knitting budget and get something I might not be able to afford on my own. 

Entertainment

A lot of us knitters, like having some sort of entertainment while we’re knitting. I, for one, like to either watch TV or listen to podcasts or music. Others might like to listen to an audiobook, or even read a book.

1. Netflix and Hulu gift cards (Can be found at most retail stores)
2. Favorite movies
3. iTunes gift card (Can be found at most retail stores)
4. Audiobooks
5. Spotify gift card (Can be found at most retail stores)
6. Favorite books
7. A book or tablet stand for reading while knitting

I hope this takes away some of the stress of holiday and gift shopping. Now if anyone wants to make a list of gift ideas for carpenters, I’m all ears. And if any of my fellow knitters have any more suggestions, let us all know in the comments.

One last thing. Follow my shiny new Instagram account where I'll be highlighting some of these gift ideas with pretty pictures. And if you're a knitter, join in on #KnittersGiftList on both Instagram and Twitter and tell me what's on your list this year.

WIPs and Worries

I'm not really one to worry about much of anything... Unless it's driving, or a job I hate, or life in general... Okay, fine, lets just say, I'm not one to worry about my knitting too much. Sure, I'll have a little apprehension when trying something new, but nothing that I'll lose sleep over. But some of my current WIPs have me all kinds of frazzled.

The project bugging me the most is my first shawl, Uphill by Cailtin ffrench. The whole time I've been knitting on it, I've been worried about my yarn choice. It's a really fuzzy, single ply yarn, it's Knit Picks Preciosa and I'm afraid it won't wear well and just get fuzzier through time. On top of that, the pattern calls for DK weight yarn, but I'm using a worsted and knitting the pattern as written. So, I'm worried the whole shawl is going to turn out too big.

My annual Christmas sweater is another project that has me all worried. I know there's still A LOT of time until Christmas, but I don't feel like I'm really where I want to be right now. I know once I get into the color work it'll be a breeze. But I was at least hoping I'd have the waist shaping done by now. I just can't seem to stay focused through the boring all white stockinette section.

The last really worrisome project is my Gummy Bear socks. I've been having trouble with the fit of my hand knit socks. And after finishing the first of this pair of socks, I'm still concerned about the fit. I thought my problem was that I wasn't allowing enough negative ease in the length of the foot, and figured shortening the foot would solve my problem. That was a no go, I feel like I'm either going to have to either go down a needle size, or decrease my stitch count. The thing is, I'm not sure what to do now though. Should I keep re-knitting the same sock until I get the right fit, or should I keep knitting new socks, making changes until I know what works for me?

All these projects have me a bit frazzled, and to be honest, I am losing sleep over them... That's not all that weird for me though. I tend to stay up too many nights thinking about my knitting projects even when things are going along fine... That's normal for a knitter right?

How do you guys battle your knitting worries? Do you find yourself losing sleep over your knitting? Let me know in the comment section.

As always, if you want to keep tabs on all these WIPs follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Fresh off the Needles: Walden on a Boat Socks

I'm not even sure why it happened, who can ever know why anything happens with me. But when I saw the picture below of Bobby Darin I decided I NEEDED a pair of socks loosely based off of that picture. And since his given name is Walden, I decided to call them Walden On a Boat Socks. Honestly, not even I can ever be sure where I'll draw inspiration from.

For awhile now, I've wanted to knit something using a color scheme based off of a picture, but I was hung up on knitting a stranded sweater and just haven't had it in me to design one. And then it finally occurred to me that a pair of socks with contrast heels would work just fine. I even have some more ideas floating around in my little head for more socks.

I'll be honest though, I was expecting to be more inspired by a beautiful photo of a landscape like the ones my mom is always taking. Not a picture of a guy, who reminds me of a cartoon bird, wearing a tiny yellow swimsuit, denim jacket and some ridiculous hat. But again, I'm unpredictable.

As for everything else about the socks they're pretty standard. Just a plain ole toe-up vanilla sock using German Short Row toes and heels, and a simple 3x1 rib for the legs. I used the same pattern I used for my Sick Socks as a base. I was also constantly rewatching the videos from Very Pink. I'll get all of these techniques down and not have to refer back to those videos one of these days, I swear. Until then, I'm sure Staci from Very Pink won't mind the page views I'm giving her.

With these socks, I did decide that I wanted to do a few more short rows so that I had a narrower toe. In the original pattern you knit the toe the same as the heel. Due to my child sized feet, the toe was just too big and loose for me. So, a few more short rows and that fixed the problem. Although, I'm not crazy with the way the toes look. If you want more details about my construction, you can check out my Ravelry project page.

They were knit with some Cascade Heritage solid in the Marine (haha fitting right?) colorway for the blue and the Lemon colorway for the yellow. I enjoyed working with the yarn, and I love it because it's really hard, at least for me, to find a sock yarn in a variety of solid colors.

Originally, I had wanted to have some sort of nautical stitch pattern, like a lace stitch that looked like a lifesaver, but couldn't find anything quick enough. I wanted them ASAP!! But I do have enough yarn leftover for another pair. So, if I find an appropriate stitch pattern I'll definitely be making another pair.

German Short Rows close up. Plus you can see how much too big they are!

I truly love these socks. Since they did turn our too big I'd either cast on less stitches, right now I'm at 56 stitches. Or use a smaller needle size, I used a US1 (2.25mm). Possibly both. I'm also curious if this would fix my wide toe problem. Hmm... There will be plenty more themed socks in my future, so I'll have plenty of opportunity to experiment. If you want to follow along with my sock knitting adventure follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Now, my question for you guys is where do you draw your sock knitting inspiration from? Let me know in the comments.

This Gal's Monthly Guitar Progress report: A note on positivity

Quite some time ago, I wrote about my first guitar practice and how well it went and how much I loved it. Not long after that post I realized the guitar I had was unplayable. I eventually got a new one at a very deep discount. So, for the past year I've been practicing off and on. More off than on, if I'm being totally honest with ya'll. I don't think I ever went more than two days in a row of practicing. About two months ago, I decided that I wanted to get serious about learning.

My old guitar that was unplayable because the bridge was coming off!

In my efforts of being more consistent with my practicing, I started a guitar journal. Immediately after practicing, I do a quick free write about how I feel about that particular session.

Honestly, the month of August has been pretty disappointing on the guitar practice front. I just haven't been practicing, and I have no real excuse. It highly contrasts the month of July when I was highly motivated and inspired. Honestly, I think I just became discouraged because I'm not great, I'm not even good at playing. I'm not even to the point that you'd call playing. (It's ridiculous, I know. Just keep reading.)

In hopes of finding that motivation I started rereading some of my old journal entries. I found one that basically just put my ridiculousness into perspective. Hopefully, it will keep me grounded to finish off August strong and keep plugging away through September. Below is the journal entry that helped me.

Disclaimer: I took this directly from my guitar journal. I just wrote out my feelings with very little thought to cohesiveness and structure. So, it'll be repetitive, rambley, unrefined and a grammatical mess. So, you've been warned. 

My guitar journal

July 8, 2015

I didn't feel like I made as much progress today as I did yesterday but they say that's to be expected. I'm guessing my hand just got tired quicker. Which will only get better with time and practice. I'm trying to practice a solid 20 minutes everyday.

Things I worked on: I just worked on changing from D to G and vice versa with a little bit of A to E and vice versa. I'm sure there's a better way to practice this. But this is what's working for me now. I'm going to try to do a little practice schedule. But I'm really not sure what to look for. Everything I find is still super advanced for me at this point.

Things to remember: I'm kind of bummed out about not getting the G chord to ring out clearly. But I just have to remember I've done it before. I mostly just think it's that my hand is getting tired more quickly because I've practiced multiple days in a row. It doesn't seem like that would make sense but it's got to be like exercising/working out. You work out for the first time in a long while one day and it's hard but you can get it done. Then the next day, when you're doing that same work out it's harder to finish because your body and muscles are sore. 

I'm assuming it's the same basic principle with guitar. And this is probably the point where a lot of people give up. Or why I personally give up practicing for weeks, sometimes months on end. This is why I think it's oh-so-important for me to practice tomorrow.

I'm thinking about a reward system for myself somehow. Like, maybe after every 30 days of daily practice I get myself something. A new tuner, 20 or 30 dollars toward a new guitar. I don't know. I'll figure something out. 

A mess, I know, but I'm glad I wrote it. It doesn't explicitly say that I've been being ridiculous in the past, but I think that's what I was getting at.

I've had these idiotic ideas that I'm going to see how to do a certain thing and just magically be able to do it. Like, watch a video on how to play the G chord and then go and play it perfectly the first time I try it. That's ridiculous. Sitting back and thinking critically about this is helping me check my preconceived notions at the door and has allowed me to just figure out what I need to figure out.

The thing I have to remember is that if I can consistently keep this mindset, I WILL see progress. If I were being honest with myself, I'd say that I HAVE seen progress. It's just really easy to forget after 20 minutes of feeling like nothing is going right. So, I'm here today to declare that I won't let myself get discouraged so easily. I'm going to channel the July version of myself and just power through.

My new guitar, Guitarri.

Apart from my journal, I'm going to start posting monthly progress reports here on This Gal Knows. I hope it'll be one more thing to keep me motivated to practice and improve. Until then you can always track my progress on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. I think I might even do daily updates, sort of like proof of practice, on either Tumblr or Twitter. Maybe even both.

What do you guys think? Anyone use a journal to track your progress when learning guitar (or anything else new to you)? Did you find that it's helped? Let me know in the comment section.

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