Veganized Molasses Cookies

Although I am about to make Chuck a birthday cake this week, we still have these cookies he randomly made over the weekend. We actually happened to have all the ingredients on hand, including the spices. Yay! They are incredibly hard to resist. It's a simple veganized adaptation of a googled recipe. The link & notes about our substitutions are below. I especially like how the large grain sucanat adds a sparkly decorative element. I'm a sucker for sparkles!

The original recipe is here.

Ingredients substitutions:
3/4 cup margarine, melted 3/4 cup Earth Balance Spread

• 1 cup white sugar 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 egg Ener-G Egg Replacer equivalent to one egg plus 1/2 tsp
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 cup white sugar  1/2 cup Sucanat

Finished Knit: Date Night Sweater

 

Pattern: Date Night by Nikol Lohr on Knitty

Yarn: Louisa Harding Merletto in Coral from CloseKnit on Alberta

Although I finished this last week, the majority of the work for on this project had been finished for something like two months. It hung out in around our apartment in various looking like the picture on the right during that time. The only thing left to do was weave in the ends and re-do the bind-off edges. But through the holidays I had Crafty Wonderland & holiday travel keeping me from wrapping this up. Finally last week I found the time to make the last efforts required on this project!

It's a top-down seamless knit, which is such a great project type. You can try it on as you go & don't have as much finishing work to worry about at the end. I was good on this project. I stashed 5 balls of the yarn because it was on sale (and because it's shiny!), knit up a swatch and then looked through raverly for patterns that would work for the amount of yarn and the gauge I had with my swatch. I'm getting better at being responsible about gauge...at least for some of the bigger projects.

So I'm happy with how this turned out & the lace pattern was a fun one, just repetitive enough but not too boring. I especially like the collar. I don't know if you can see it all that well in my pictures, but the lace makes for a scalloped edge. I still love how shiny this yarn is, although it did have a tendancy to be a little too splitty and fuzz up while I was working on it...but hopefully now that I am done that won't be as much of an issue. Of course I plan on hand-washing it just in case! And also probably wearing it on Valentine's day, since it seem appropriate. 

Chicago Visit: Museum of Contemporary Art

 

While I was in Chicago I had the chance to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art. One of the main reasons I wanted to visit was to see Andrew Bird and Ian Schneller's Sonic Arboretum, on display during December. Tickets for the actual performance I'm sure were sold out long before I even knew about this exhibit, but I'm glad I got to see the hall of "specimen horn speakers." They filled the atrium space on three long plinths, and played violins & whistles.  It was neat how hard it was to identify where specific sounds were coming from, it had a kind of choral effect. Well, there was one time we co identify the source, when I posed for this picture it happened to be very noisy...but that was the exception.

 

The other major exhibit was The Language of Less (Then and Now) which is still on display in its entirety until March 25th. It's a really great collection of work from major minimalist artists, like Richard Serra, Donald Judd, Christo and Gordon Matta Clark, and new works from contemporary artists. One of my favorites from the "Then" portion of the exhibit is pictured above on the left, a carefully arranged collection of core samples from around Chicago by Alan Sonfist. My favorite from the "Now" section of the is above on the right, works by Carol Bove. Much of the work in that room was a bit difficult to photograph, like the beaded curtain here. If you look closely at the picture in that link you can make out the triangles which were much more visible in person.

We managed to get through the rest of the museum, but it was at a quicker pace. I've already posted a favorite image from the Ron Terada Exhibit (which ended yesterday) in my new years' eve post. Another favorite work was the colorful light box by Spencer Finch, with the title "Shade (on the grave of Walt Whitman October 19, 2006 10:15am)" Great title for a piece I would've liked anyway, but the title makes it even better. 

Chicago Visit: The Rookery

It was pretty ridiculous that I lived in Chicago for two years and never made it over to The Rookery. It wasn't even that far from where we lived! (Chuck did get to see it once without me however.) I don't know why I never made it there but I was determined to make up for that this year on one of my holiday trips back to Chicago. I'm glad I did it at the holidays too because the space was so nicely decorated for Christmas:

 

It's a notable work of architecture designed initially by Burnham & Root, later remodeled by Frank Lloyd Wright. It's got several obviously Wright designed additions, his large urns and the light fixtures to name a few, but I was surprised by all the marble with golden patterning throughout the space. Even the underside of those urns were covered with gold! Some of that actually covers the original wrought iron, which is itself elaborately decorated.   It's hard to imagine the original appearance of the space pre-Wright, but it seems like it would be equally impressive. The stairs, and one exposed column start to give you an idea: 

 

Shortly after I moved away from from Chicago the FLW Preservation Trust, who I used to volunteer with giving tour of the Robie House, started offering tours and opened a gift shop in the light court. Unfortunately we manage to just miss the tour for the day I was there, but next visit I think I plan on making the longer tour Wednesdays at noon.

I think my favorite part of the space was the filigreed structure in the ceiling of the light court: