Finished Foliage
Originally uploaded by plainsight

I actually finished this hat in the evening after Thanksgiving. It was a quick knit, made quicker by the fact that I omitted the last lace repeat and just lengthened the ribbing a little because it looked like it would have been too long.

On Friday, we had the perfect cold and sunny day to test it out, we went to downtown DC, had lunch at the Museum of the American Indian which has the coolest cafeteria ever with different stations featuring native dishes from all over the country–I had a wild rice pilaf, mushroom corn pone and blueberry fritters from the Northwest coast. Selma had a squash soup from the Central Plains. The current exhibit is a historical look at women’s native dresses. I didn’t get to see it on Friday, but my parents did, and loved it. I’ll have to go back.

at the Smithsonian

While my parents were exploring that exhibit, James and I took the kids to the Freer gallery where there was an “origami open house.” Staff members were on hand to teach different folding techniques and there were instruction sheets and tons of pretty origami paper. Selma loved making a cat and a fish, we got stuck on a snail, but finished it with help. The picture shows our friends Lisa and Allen with their kids who had coincidentally arrived just before us to the origami event.

Origami Open House

Later that evening, we had early cupcakes for Jay’s birthday (which was yesterday), because my parents were in town.

Happy Birthday to Jay

Yesterday, I made two batches of cupcakes–one for his school: the kids frosted them with marshmallow fluff and decorated them with sprinkles; and one for home: a recipe for Agave Vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The cupcakes were delicious and had a perfect spongy, moist texture.

IMG_5274

I’d most definitely make them again, but I failed at my attempt to make the recommended frosting, (an agave chocolate frosting, which ended up tasting too much like soy milk powder, one of the ingredients), so I chucked that, and made my old standby, a vegan chocolate buttercream. Mmmm…. Not suprisingly, we have no leftover cupcakes.

Finished Foliage, catching up…