Studio Marlowe

I’ve always meant to get some tags to attach to gift knitting but it hasn’t ever happened.  Instead I wind up waiting until after the recipient has opened their knitting and then being all “Oh, handwash only!”  Which of course allows them to forget and then felt their beautiful handknit _____.  Well, problem (somewhat) solved:

I recently received these awesome care tags.  Aren’t they nice?  So now recipients will also have to lose a piece of cardstock as well in order to abuse their gifts.

 I was busy and did not much knitting.  But I did find time to finish off these:

Pretty nice, no?  I’m working up the pattern and hoping to have it out soon.  I may also try making a pair in just two colors–four color mitts are maybe a bit extreme (but so pretty!)

I know it’s been ages since I’ve updated. This quarter has been crazy for me with teaching and I just have. not. had. time. I’ve barely even had time to knit! But I have made a few things and I’ll be back posting photos soon. I’m hoping to have a new pattern up this month also.

In the meantime, here’s a cupcake I baked back at Halloween, when I still had some leisure time:

Licorice! If you don’t like licorice, these cupcakes are probably not for you. If you do like licorice, you would probably enjoy them, but I think they are still best suited to occasions like Halloween where food is expected to be a little weird–licorice in cake form is definitely something of an acquired taste. The basic recipe I used for these was Golden Vanilla Cupcakes (from VCTOTW). However, I heated the soymilk and steeped four Licorice Spice (I use the Stash brand) teabags in it for ~10 minutes before adding it to the batter. I also added some orange zest and extract, a tiny dash of cloves, and a little bit of anise extract that Maura left with me before she moved up North this past summer. Then the icing has some anise and orange extract for flavoring also. And then I topped it off with chopped licorice to warn people about the flavor in case they were licorice haters.