Doggie Leg Warmers!

A few months ago (yes, I'm late to posting) I was asked by a friend to make doggie leg warmers for Mia, her Chihuahua/Min Pin Mix dog.  I didn’t have a pattern but I've made leg warmers before so I figured it wouldn't be difficult, just a lot smaller.  I kept it simple with 1×1 ribbing ( knit through the back loop 1 and purl 1) for the ends and a stockinette stitch for the body of the leg warmer.  It took about a day to complete.

Needles: 3.75mm (US 5) double pointed needles (dpns)
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in Soft Pink
Gauge: 7 stitches to an inch. Yes, I knit pretty tightly.

Mia is pretty small weighing about 12 pounds so she has skinny legs.  For her front two legs, I casted on 24 stitches, ribbed for 7 rounds, half way down the length I wanted, I decreased by knitting together 2 stitches (k2tog) twice on opposite ends of the round and then ribbed another 7 rows towards the end.  The total length was 4.5 inches. 

Then to end off, I crocheted small purple flowers for the front two leg warmers for fun. 

Here's Mia. I couldn’t get a really good picture of Mia since it was hard to keep her still so a bit of her ears are cut off in the picture.  She didn’t seem to mind having them on so I’ll take that as confirmation that she likes it. 

Drying Basil

I find that I never use all the herbs that I buy so finally I looked up how to dry basil.  I bought some at Trader Joes and it only came in a large quantity and they were the biggest basil leaves I’ve seen.

I figured that all I’d have to do is hang them up dry but just in case I Googled it.  The first couple of links led me to methods involving a dehumidifier or a dehydrator which is all well and good but I wasn’t going to buy one just for drying herbs.  I don’t do it often enough nor do I plan on doing it that often to justify a purchase.
So I finally found my air drying method confirmation on instructables.com: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-air-dry-basil/

My shortened take on how to dry them:

1. Wash basil clean
2. Discard the ‘bad’ leaves (ie. leaves with holes, discolouring etc)
3. Pat dry
4. Bunch them up by the stems & tie them at the stems.  I used yarn since I have a lot of scrap yarn from my knitting projects.
5. Hang them where it’s dry.  I’d avoid anywhere where it may come into contact with steam (ie. above where you put a rice cooker/kettle/stove) since it won’t dry properly.
6. Once fully dried, cut/scrunch/crumble them into bits and store them in a dry container/Ziplog bag. I used scissors and snipped away at the leaves.   It’s quick, easy and I can snip them directly into the container.

So this is the start...

I’ve been meaning to start a blog for awhile now since I’ve been unemployed and really had nothing else to do.  However, I found that even with “nothing else to do” there’s always something that leads me to constant procrastination.  So here it goes, the end of my procrastination to start up my blog about my adventures of being a temporarily unemployed (I finally received my US work authorization card!) and finding ways to take up my time.  I’ve mostly taken up knitting (easy & inexpensive to pick up), took a sewing class, tried growing some herbs (I only have rosemary to show for it) and on the hunt to find new recipes to try.

The ensuing posts will mostly be of my projects until I get my act together and start documenting my culinary adventures.  Let's see how long I keep this up!