Textile Designs: Holiday & Others

Here are some of my new textile designs:



You can check out more of them here on Spoonflower.

Trellis Poster

Here's Trellis and Trellis_Alt! You can check them out in depth here.

Trellis a novelty font!

Just welcoming my new font, "Trellis" into the blogosphere...

Quick Gifts 1: Ponytail Beanie

Ponytail Beanie Pattern
Quick Gift by: Adri H.

It's tough when you have long hair to find a hat or something that will warm your ears while allowing your hair to easily go through it. Here's a quick pattern to knit a beanie that has a hole large enough to fit your ponytail through it...

What you need:

• ~40 grams to 50 grams of worsted, aran, or slightly bulky weight yarn (I used Caron Simply Soft and Wollmeise Molly)
• 5mm dpns or short length 5mm circs

Gauge/Tension: 15 stitches and 14 rows = 2 inches in K2P2 rib

Instructions:

1. Cast on 80 stitches using Cable Cast-on for elasticity... Note: for a larger size CO 84 sts or 88sts, etc... since the pattern is really flexible, just add or decrease in groups of 4 sts to adjust for size.
2. Join for working in the round. Work in K2 P2 ribbing until piece measures 5" to 7" depending on how much of your ears/head you want covered.
   
3. Bind off using elastic bind-off.

It's that simple.
Shown here in two lengths: the fuchsia measures 5" and the black measures 7"

How To Make a Rustic (Country-style) Pumpkin Pie

Well, let me begin with the fact that I now live in Munich, and sugar pumpkins aren't really on the market. So, the ideal would be a sugar pumpkin or a pie pumpkin, but what we have here isn't really that far off the mark... a Hokkaido pumpkin! Yay!

Ingredients for this not-too-sweet pie base:
2.5 cups of pumpkin (pre-baked and chunky-style)
1 can of evaporated milk or 1.5 cups of cream*
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp vanilla sugar (optional)
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 pinch of salt
3 eggs (4 eggs for a custardy fluffy finish)

*can also be substituted for Coconut Milk for a lighter taste (not sweetened coconut cream unless you want an extremely sweet pie).

1 9" pie plate and pie crust ready to go...

Really the recipe is quite flexible... so here's how to do the first part... the pumpkin prep














Wash pumpkin exterior. With a serrated blade, quarter the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds.














Place the hollowed pieces face down onto baking dish or cookie sheet lightly oiled and aluminum-lined.














Bake at 170 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes or until tender (fork can easily pierce the fleshy innards, some pumpkins cook faster than others, so check halfway through).















Scoop out pumpkin goodness (avoid scooping skin). Each Hokkaido pumpkin yields a different amount, but it should be around 2 to 3 cups of pumpkin. Let this cool a bit and then mash it. For a more country-style pie, leave the pumpkin mash a bit chunky.

Assemble your dry ingredients, and pre-heat your oven to 230 degrees Celsius. In a bowl with your pumpkin mash inside, add in the milk and honey. Then, add the dry ingredients (sugar and spices) and lastly, the eggs. Make sure they are well combined.

Have your pie plate ready with it's crust already in it... then pour the mixture in.














Bake at 230 degrees C for 10 minutes and then lower the temperature to 180 and bake for another 40 to 50 minutes.














My oven has a nice air-flow so it actually only takes about 35 minutes. Check to make sure it's ready by sticking a clean knife in it and if it comes out clean, it's most likely ready. Let it cool and set.

We ate the pie before I remembered to take a photo. :P

Update: Here's a photo of a slice made with coconut milk and a graham cracker crust after it set.

Fish fry

Textile Design for Spoonflower's latest competition. The theme was "fish" and the limited palette is seen in different percentages, but no blends. :)
Reminiscent of a print I made back in 2002 or so. Lots of fun.