Roasted Asparagus

Can asparagus be roasted? Yes, it can.

I suppose that the answer to the question should have been obvious. I mean what would stop asparagus from being roasted? (Are there any vegetables that you can't roast?) But then I never cooked it this way until recently.

Roasted Asparagus

• Asparagus
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• Olive oil to coat
• salt & pepper to taste
• balsamic vinegar

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
   
2. Prepare the asparagus (break off the tough ends).
3. Toss with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.
4. Place in a shallow baking dish.
5. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until desired tenderness.
6. Sprinkle with a small amount of balsamic vinegar if desired.

Knitting mistakes

Continuing with my hat obsession, I also worked on knitting one. I'm not sure what possessed me to try knitting in a round on DPNs when I can barely knit, but I tried anyhow. I would like to state for the record that working in a round in knitting is a bit of a pain, and all those needles get in the way of your hands.

Anyhow, sitting on the Kirby plushy is the hat that I made. Why is it on a Kirby plushy you ask? Well I made a mistake and the hat was too small. Either I measured my gauge wrong, or I measured my head wrong. In the end, I'm not sure which, but the results are the same; the hat ended up a tad too snug for my head. At least Kirby can go out in style now.

Hooked on hats

After my initial foray into crocheting, I wanted to start on a wearable small project. So that's where hats came in. I figured that crocheting a hat had to be something akin to knitting a scarf. So off I went to find out how. So I started with instructions from threadbanger for a hat that was rather similar to the amigurumi that I was previously making. It was simply single crochets in a spiral. Then I added a little crochet flower for embellishment. The flower I originally made was this loopy flower but it just didn't fit that hat so I took what I learned from there and made my own simpler flower.

After my first hat was completed I started onto a second one. Since I had already done so much single crocheting, I wanted to do some double crochet stitches. So I made a hat consisting mostly of double crochet in rounds (I read about working in rounds and I think I figured it out now, but I can't be certain). And then I threw in some rows of puff stitches at the end. Of course since I didn't use a pattern and I made it up as I went along it ended up in a funny shape. So it was a bit of a failed hat :(

This did not dissuade me from making yet another hat, and throwing in yet another complication. Bored with the monochrome creations, I wanted to work with more than one colour! So after studying a few patterns on how to shape a hat to ones head (and constantly testing what I was making on my own head) I was at it again. To the left is the hat that I made up to fit my head(the pink and brown one).