Hooray for Candy Clay!

My house will be invaded by characters from the Street next week.  Specifically, they'll be on a cake.  I have worked a lot with fondant, but it can get quite expensive and I've gotten feedback that it doesn't taste so great.  So to sculpt all the critters that will be on the cake, I decided to try candy clay.  You can find the recipe here.  It's recommended that you make it a day ahead and harden overnight; I did all the melting and stirring yesterday.

Looking at the hardened piles of chocolate, I wasn't sure they'd behave the way I need them to.  You can see the white chunk in the center and the chocolate pile on the far left.  This afternoon I cut a chunk off the dark chocolate circle and sure enough, the heat from my hand made it start to squish.  It seemed a little dry, but still rolled nicely into the tree trunk on the left.  I used a butterknife to carve in some lines to make it look like bark.

The white behaved much better, I think because I put a couple of drops of strawberry flavored oil in the melted chocolate before I added the corn syrup.  It kneaded to a pliable consistency much quicker, and had a pretty shine to it.  I made all the colors in the picture using Wilton Candy Colors except the blue.  I didn't realize it until I dumped all the jars onto the table, but I got shafted when I bought the Primary Color Set from the store.  Someone swapped a red for the blue, so I have no blue candy coloring.  Fortunately you can still color candy clay with icing color, and so I used Wilton Royal Blue for the last chunk.  The black took a lot of color, but I started with a piece of chocolate clay so I got a nice black.

I tried to start the grouch, but the clay quickly got too warm to work with.  Instead, I decided to make all the colors I would need and let them sit for a few hours.  I think you can also put them in the fridge to set back up.  Anyhow, this is my project for the week.  Whenever free time allows, I'll be attempting to make small furry creatures out of candy.  And hope hope hope I get them done by Friday night.

To Hell With Socks

I have been accused by some people of being good at everything.  To them I say, I am sorry I have not been taking photos of my sock attempts.  They have been absolutely awful.

The basic pattern I'm working from (The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knitting Projects Illustrated) calls for several inches of ribbed stitch on three double needles.  Not a problem.  It's just like a hat, only tiny.  I will say working on tiny double needles in a tiny circle makes me feel like I'm all thumbs.  There must be some organized way to hold the needles so they don't stick out in all directions, but I haven't discovered it yet.  Anyhow, since I'm only making a sample sock, I'm not making the full length the pattern calls for.  I'm only doing an inch or two just to get down to the heel which is where I have no clue what's going on and need practice.

Attempt #1 was the worst by far.  I so wish I took a picture of it before I ripped it out in a huff.  I got all turned around turning the heel and had slipped stitches on the outside where they don't belong in all sorts of places.  I did it again two or three times down the heel flap and had all sorts of silly ridges in it.  It finally occurred to me that it didn't look right and I finally realized which pattern of stitches goes with which side of the sock.  Didn't even realize that was important.  I also realized somewhere along the line I came up with several extra stitches I wasn't supposed to have.

Attempt #2 had an even shorter leg, but I got the heel flap correct.  All the needles have the appropriate number of stitches.  Time to try "working the heel."  I had to review what "slip slip knit" meant, but all the other instructions made sense.  Until I ran out of loops on one needle and I still had three stitches left to make.  This can't be right.

Attempt #3 - I know how to make a sock leg, I know (now) how to make a heel flap, I don't want to do it again.  So I rip back just into the end of the heel flap before all the weird "working the heel" rows and try it again.  Same result, not enough stitches on one side.  I begin to think there is an error in the pattern.

Attempt #4 - Again I rip back just into the heel flap, and try altering the first couple of numbers in the pattern.  I think it looked sort of like what it was supposed to, but it was still too far to one side.  I am now very suspicious of the pattern and begin to look through the others in the book for confirmation. But I just don't know enough how the pattern is supposed to work to determine if it's wrong.  Am frustrated to the point that I rip out the entire sock.

Attempt #5 - New pattern. Faceted Rib Socks from The Little Box of Socks.  (I bought this a couple of years ago at the craft store because it was on clearance, though I had NO idea what it entailed.  Just looked cool.  It's not a book, but a box full of cute little cards, each with an adorable sock pattern.)  The pattern card says it's "perfect for a new sock knitter" - that's definitely me.  I fight through learning the special cast on it calls for, only to discover it's so similar to the one I already do that I give up trying to figure out how they're different and just do mine.  Uh oh, this one also calls for a slip slip knit but has an instruction card.  Based on what it says I'VE BEEN DOING IT WRONG THE WHOLE TIME. *facepalm* 

Which is probably why I kept running out of stitches earlier.

So, now I have to go back and try the Idiot pattern again, because apparently I AM an idiot.