Category: Knitting

Baby Helen, and Baby Zoe

It’s a real finished project! One of my coworkers had her baby very early a couple of weeks ago, at 25 weeks. (Baby Helen and mama are both doing OK.) I didn’t have anything hand knit ready for her, but fortunately preemie baby sweaters don’t take long to knit.

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Project Details:

Pattern: Design D Cardigan; that’s a really catchy name

Yarn:Dale Baby Ull in hot pink

Needles: 3.25 mm (2.75 for the edging)

Started: 12/23/15

Finished: 12/27/15

For: Baby Helen

Modifications: The neckband as written in the pattern is just plain fidgety. It calls for casting on a few extra stitches along the front bands, knitting a long strip to reach the center back, repeat on the other side, then sew it down and graft together. For a freaking baby sweater that might get worn a handful of times before she grows out of it, that seems like major overkill. I just finished the neck decreases, changed to the smaller needles, did a few rows of garter stitch to match the bottom edge, then did a yarn over /knit 2 together eyelet row, knit another row, then bound off.

What I Learned:: Baby sweaters don’t take long, especially in preemie sizes. This pattern was a mess. It worked, but the instructions for the raglan decreases were written out in a fashion that made them nearly incomprehensible.

I just realized while doing this that I never did a finished project post for John’s Toboggan hat. I will remedy that soon.

In other news, I finally splurged and bought myself a late Christmas present of a really nice wooden swift and ball winder. The rickety plastic ones that I have are just not a lot of fun to use, especially for finer yarns. I’ve had to rewind more balls of yarn by hand to fix total screwups than I can count. Here they are.

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I bought them both on Amazon. The winder is the Heavy Duty Ball Winder by Nancy’s Knitknacks, the swift is a large size Swedish Glimakra. They are lovely. And it inspired me to clear off this wooden shelf to make room for them.

Last but certainly not least, we are 99.9% certain of bringing home a new family member. Those of you who follow me on Facebook have already heard this story. Last Saturday evening we had a knock on our door. Our neighbors had a black kitty show up at their door, they thought it was Willie and brought him down to our house. It wasn’t Will, but a little lost girl kitty. Nobody in our neighborhood has a black cat (except us), so we kept her over the weekend. Monday we took her in to our vet clinic where they checked her over and found she was microchipped. They contacted the owners, who apparently live a few miles from here. They didn’t sound very enthusiastic, but promised to pick her up and take her home on Monday.

Of course by this time we’d fallen totally in love with her. She is adorable, very silky fur, about 8 months old, and as sweet as she can be.

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Five days later, today, and three phone calls from our vet to the so-called owners, and they still haven’t come to get her, and are not answering calls. The vet has to keep her and give them ten days to claim her, though it’s almost certain at this point that they have no interest. We strongly suspect that she was dumped in our driveway. It was a very cold night, and she hadn’t been outside for very long when she came to us. I just wish they would step up and say they don’t want her so we can bring her home. Though everybody at our vet clinic has fallen in love with her as well, she is getting a lot of love there too.

Here are a few more photos from today, we went to the vet to see her.

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Her new name is Zoe! In 5 more days we will be her people!

Solstice 2015

And another Solstice is in the history books.

I don't have a lot of photos of the actual event, John has a few on his “real” camera, but we tend to not take a lot of photos once the actual party starts. This year's dinner was a six course sit down meal for ten of our friends, most of whom are also neighbors. I consider myself a lucky woman to have that many people to cook and enjoy a fine meal for/with, and the fact that they are neighbors as well is a lovely bonus. I know a lot of people who don't even know their neighbors, much less like them enough to invite them to dinner.

Here's Lewey at the groomer getting ready.

Here is the menu:

That's mostly correct. The pork roast recipe came from the December/January issue of Fine Cooking, I did the roast per the recipe, but just ended up making up the sauce. The dried morels were hideously expensive, so I used part morels and part cremini mushrooms, and it was white wine and cream instead of red wine. I sauteed the sliced crimini mushrooms in butter, added white wine and the morel soaking sauce and cooked that down some, then added cream and cooked it more to thicken it. I added the morels at the very end so they didn't fall apart. The sauce in the recipe called for using the pan drippings, but I just made it ahead so I didn't have that last minute thing to do.

The appetizers were Jacques Pepin's salmon rillettes, from his new cookbook and PBS series. This was a huge hit, and can be made well ahead. I have two of these little pots of rillettes left. I'm thinking football game day food. This was served with crackers, though it would be good on baguette slices as well.

The other two appetizers were from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table cookbook. Seriously, go buy this. Most of the recipes are not fidgety, they can be prepared with readily available ingredients, and work well for parties (or just-the-two-of-us meals). The herbed olives are just that, olives in a herb blend that really kick up a plain olive mix. The tomato tarts as she does them are for more of a larger sit down course, I made them as individual tarts. They use puff pastry that you can bake ahead, then top with tapenade (I used store bought), a slice of tomato and mozzarella. Pop them under the broiler for a few minutes, then add salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil and good balsamic vinegar and basil.

The ceviche was also from her cookbook.

No photo of the soup, also Dorie's recipe. I made this on pure faith, pretty convinced that it would be weird. It uses pears, leeks, onion, celery, and vacuum packed chestnuts, all cooked together in stock ( I used turkey stock since I have a surplus in the freezer). When it was done I ran it through my food mill. You can made this ahead, it doesn't have any cream/dairy so it keeps for a few days. I stirred a bit of creme fraiche into it before serving. It was actually very good.

The salad was mixed greens: romaine, radicchio, escarole, frisee, tossed with a basic vinaigrette, and topped with chopped pecans.

The pork couldn't have been easier. I've never done one of these, but you just season it with the herb blend the day before and let it sit uncovered in the refrigerator, then roast when you need it. Ask your butcher for a bone-in pork rib roast, frenched. Count on one rib per person for a generous serving. I served this with the mushroom/white wine cream sauce. Did I mention there was a lot of cream in this menu?

The same issue of Fine Cooking has two recipes for a potato gratin, I did the “fancier” version but left out the chestnuts since I thought that might be chestnut overkill. Next time I might add them. It's a fairly standard gratin recipe, but with a layer of sauteed prosciutto added before the gruyere cheese. It was divine. It had a lot of cream, bacon, and a ton of really good gruyere cheese.
And roasted beets, for some reason beets have become a Solstice tradition. I usually serve them in one form or another. I just toss these in olive oil, season with salt and pepper, toss in some rosemary sprigs and roast. There are some shallots in there as well.
And trifle. I haven't made a trifle in quite a while. See my last post for the recipe and photos. There was fortunately some left, we had it for breakfast this morning.

One of the things I've discovered over the years of doing big dinners like this is to minimize the number of last minute fidgety things that need to be done. We served from the kitchen in courses, so while a guest or two are helping clear the previous course, I have time to plate the next one. Plenty of wine helps as well to keep people occupied during course changes.

The other important thing is planning. I plan the menu well ahead, get all the shopping done based on the menu, then have lists and more lists. I have a detailed game plan of what gets done when, which helps me identify stuff that can be done ahead. It also helps identify when I've planned a menu with too many last minute fidgety things. John periodically reminds me of THAT ONE year when I didn't plan so well, and there was a lot of chaos at dinner time. Planning ahead also helps cut down duplication, for example, if I have multiple items with chopped or sliced onions, a detailed plan lets me know that so I can do them all at once.

There you go. I think it was a successful event, if the number of wine glasses are any indication.

And here is my pretty table before dinner:

And cleaned up, ready for the next meal!

 

Changing Colors

I promised a mini-tutorial on how I'm doing the color changes for my crazy many-stripes Toboggan hat. I'm changing colors every four rows, and the thought of weaving in all those ends was enough to make ME crazy.

Here's how I did it.

Knit to the spot where you want your color to change. My new color will be the first stitch on the needle to the left.

Put a safety pin in the yarn coming from the last stitch you just knit. Snug it right up to the finished stitch.

Now unknit the last three stitches. Your safety pin will be in the working yarn right at the point of the third stitch (now unknit).

Take your new color, and crossing the two yarns, make interlocking loops as in the photo below. Make sure your “tail” end of the new yarn will be enough to knit three stitches and a little bit. You want the point of crossing right where the safety pin is in the first yarn.

Now, get your fingers tight right where the two yarns meet, take the safety pin out, and arrange your yarn so you can reknit those three stitches, this time with both strands of the first yarn color. Keep a good grip on the point where the yarns cross until you have at least one stitch knit to lock it in place.

Ready to knit the first stitch. Once you've knit the first stitch, you can let go of the death grip on the point where the yarns cross.
Two stitches knit, ready to knit the last white stitch.
Now knit the first stitch with the new color (mine happens to be on the next double point needle).

Three stitches knit with the new color. If you put your safety pin in the right spot, and didn't let the yarns slip, the color should change with the first stitch.

And there you go. Color change right where you want it.

The yarns should be overlapped enough that you won't need to weave them in further, especially if it's a nice wooly yarn. I suppose if I were doing this with something very slippery, I'd leave a longer tail and weave it, but with the Peace Fleece, I'm just trimming it to about 3/4 inch. It's on the inside of a hat, so it won't show.

Of course, on your next row/round, you'll need to remember to knit those two-strand stitches as one stitch.

Here's my project bag for the hat. The shawl I bought in Ecuador came with this bag.

 

Toboggan Hat (And Ecuador!)

We're back from Ecuador as of late yesterday. This was a contender for one of the best vacations we've ever done. I've got the first load of laundry in the washer, but other than unpacking haven't gotten much productive done, such as download photos from the camera. So another major Ecuador post will have to wait. John is planning on doing posts on his blog One Eclectic Guy, so I might just leave it to him. I do have some fiber tourist photos though.

I found yarn shops in both Quito and Cuenca, but nothing was inspiring enough to take up suitcase space for the ride home. Most of it was fairly brightly colored yarn in big unlabeled skeins, so it was tough to even identify fiber composition. Here are a couple of photos. The one with all the yarn was in the back of a clothing shop.

The one souvenir I did buy was a woven shawl from a tiny little weaving shop we stopped at on a day trip out of Cuenca. It is a family run operation, they dye the yarn with natural dyes (those photos are on John's camera), then weave it and make shawls with hand tied fringe. Here are a couple photos.

The blue shawl I'm wearing in that photo is the one I bought.

That yarn was in a big basket in the shop. It wasn't for sale.

I am sort of discombulated today after a long travel day home. We left our hotel in Cuenca about 6:30 PM Thursday night, and got home from the airport aroung 2 PM yesterday. I have gotten some knitting done this morning on my Peace Fleece Toboggan hat though. I am making good progress on this. I took some photos of the technique for changing colors, but I'll save those for another post. Here's the hat.

I have lots more mini skeins in many colors to choose from for stripes!

 

Project Roundup

I haven’t done one of these posts in awhile. There’s a reason I had all my projects out on the floor of my office, which I’ll get to later. First here’s what’s up in my knitting world.

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The sock in progress. Slow progress, but I do have one finished and the second one started.

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Douglas Fir Hap for Harriet Lorette shawl. I finished the increase section and now just knit straight on until I have a about a third of the yarn left then decrease again. I was struggling with this until I decided to change needles. I started this on Knitter’s Pride straight needles, and I have to say, I really wasn’t enjoying knitting with them. It didn’t help that the needle body is made out of some kind of black carbon fiber composite, and made it almost impossible to see what I was doing unless I was in bright light. I switched to my Chiaogoo circulars and am having much more fun with this.

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Hawk Affection. The Seahawks finally won this week, so I guess this won’t have to get burned in the back yard after all. That’s a good thing, this yarn is Hazel Knits Divine, and it really is divine. It would be a shame to burn it.

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Rogue! I’m having a blast with this one. The pattern is as much fun as the first time, and of course I love Peace Fleece. If you can’t figure out what’s going on in that photo, the sweater is knit in the round to the underarm shaping. You start with ribbing, then purl a turning row, then knit more stitches, then turn up the hem and stitch in place. Then you knit a few rounds and put the main body on a holder while you knit the pocket. The cables at the sides are more fun than a barrel of monkeys. And this time I get to knit this using Knit Companion, which is a whole lot easier. This pattern is well written, but it is a bit on the wordy side, with about eleventy billion pages. Knit Companion lets me just see the parts I really need.

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And a new project! This is a hat. A Toboggan hat, to be precise. The original pattern was written with 2 color wide stripes and a rolled brim. I hate rolled hems on anything, so I did ribbing. I then got the bright idea to buy a million little mini skeins of Peace Fleece in many colors and do mini stripes. It will be a stocking cap with a long tapered end and a braided tassel. And I’ll probably have enough leftover mini skein-lets to make more of these! Or, I know, a sweater! I have a whole sweater’s worth of that grey that I did the ribbing in, I could do a sweater with one row stripes of many colors!

When I get a minute I’ll show you the neat trick I learned to change colors exactly where you want it to change, while weaving in the ends at the same time. Remind me if I forget.

Last but not least, this one is in time out.

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This is the Ruby Slippers Cathedral Stole. It’s a fine pattern, with gorgeous yarn. I just had too many lace things on the needles. Once I finish the Hap shawl, this one is next in line.

So, back to the original question of why all my knitting projects were out of bags and on the floor of my office. The exciting news is that it’s time for our big fall vacation extravaganza. This one is John’s trip, he is having one of those big birthdays this week (sssshhhh, he turns 70 on Friday), so he got to pick the trip. We are going on a cruise, but not just any cruise. Wednesday we fly to Ecuador, spend a few days there, then fly to the Galapagos Islands where we hop on the Silversea Silver Galapagos for a week. We will spend a few days back in Ecuador then home.

I do have the knitting projects packed. I’m taking the first three projects in that line up. Because I’m delusional an eternal optimist, I have a spare ball of sock yarn packed as well. I also, uncharacteristically, have everything else packed as well except the last minute stuff. I get to work Monday and Tuesday, and we leave for the airport Tuesday right after work, so I need to be ready. I’m sure I’ll pack and repack a few times before then. Who knows what the internet situation will be once we get there, but if we are wired, you will hear from me along the way.

I’m off to find what else needs to go in my suitcase!

 

The New Shiny

I need a new sweater. And it's October, so it needs to be wool. I've got a cardigan in progress, but I'm just not inspired by it. It's a top down thing in a lightweight yarn, and I'm just not loving the pattern. It's one of those patterns that has you go through all sorts of contortions while knitting just so you don't have to sew a few simple seams at the end. So it's been in time out, and I finally realized why I'm not working on it. Perhaps the time out will be permanent.

Instead, I started this.

As usual, the color isn't quite right in that photo. This is Peace Fleece, the color is Amaranth. In real life it is a deep garnet colored red, with tiny flecks of an almost blue-black. It is going to make a gorgeous sweater. Here is a photo lifted from the Peace Fleece website that shows the color better. Go buy some, so I don't feel so guilty about having enough Peace Fleece to make six or seven sweaters.

This, my friends, is the beginning of a new Rogue for me. I knitted one of these back in 2005. Those of you who have been hanging around with me for a long time might remember a little escapade involving a wine glass and three months off work that delayed the completion of my first Rogue.

Here's what the first one looked like.

My old one is starting to look a bit bedraggled, though still wearable. This pattern is so much fun, it almost knits itself. This time I have no plans to try to cut my hand to pieces with a wine glass stem though, so maybe it won't take all year to finish.

Maybe.

 

Evenstar

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Project Details:

Pattern: Evenstar, by Susan Pandorf

Yarn: Colourmart Cashmere/Silk 2/28 NM lace weight, 1500 yards

Needles: 2.75 mm

Started: February 12, 2010

Finished: September 18, 2015

For: Me!

Modifications: None

What I Learned: Oh boy. I learned that slow and steady gets you there eventually. This is easily the most complex thing I’ve ever knitted. The pattern itself isn’t that difficult. The yarn I chose is just a hair heavier than thread, and has absolutely no memory, and it’s a bit on the slippery side. So this wasn’t mindless knitting by any means. And the border is endless. You knit the whole thing in big concentric rings, then knit the edging on perpendicularly to the shawl. The edging is a mindless 20 row repeat, but in thread and with beads so it took forever. There were a couple of complex stitches in there but mostly it’s just following a series of charts.

The pattern is well written, this is the first of hers that I’ve done, but it was clear and mostly without errors (there is a link to errata on the Ravelry page). The lace is charted and written, though why anybody would want to knit lace from written text is beyond me. I started this before I was using Knit Companion, but used it for the last couple sections after I pulled this out of the UFO pile to finish.

Lora asked in the comments on a previous post about the blocking process. I soaked the shawl in slightly soapy water (Kookaburra wool wash), then rinsed in cool water. Silk and cashmere aren’t as durable as wool when wet, so you really need to support the wet lace when pulling it out of the bath. Then I blotted most of the water out with a bath towel, and pinned it out on my blocking mats, which are foam play mats that you can get in carpet shops or places like Costco. I have a ton of them so I can block almost anything.

Before I tossed it in the water, I ran a cotton thread through all the points, then pinned the thread and not the actual shawl. I forgot to take a photo before I had all the pins out this morning, but here’s a mini-recreation to illustrate.

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Lora, I start by stretching it out gently by hand into as close to a circle as I can get it, then start pinning the running thread between the points to stretch. It takes a few times around, pulling a little more each time, and smoothing out from the center to get it as even as possible. I probably could have blocked this a bit larger, but I wanted to retain just a bit of the texture of some of those stitch patterns. I use a yard stick to measure in places to see if I have it even, but mostly I just eyeball it.

I love this one! It’s by no means a practical warm shawl, but I can see wearing it for special occasions. In fact, we have symphony tickets tonight, so I’ll wear it there. I’ll probably leave the tiara at home though.

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Edited with one more photo. John wanted me to add a photo of just the edging. Here you go.

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Bath Time

Blocking Day at last!

The first step was to run a fine cotton thread through all the edging points to make pinning easier later. Then it's into the bath for a soak. I use Kookaburra wool wash and cool water, and at least a 15-20 minute soak to make sure everything is saturated. This has also been hauled all over the place for 6 years, so it likely needs a good wash anyway.

Update to follow!

 

Antidote

This past work week was a bit hectic. To compensate, I've done nothing but just what I wanted to do all weekend. There is no better antidote to a crappy week than a Saturday and Sunday spent knitting, reading, playing flute, and cooking with my husband.

The cooking was scallops and grits. Here is the finished project.

Scallops with red pepper, green onion, a little jalapeno, garlic, parsley, and white wine, served over cheese grits. Yum.

Here's the knitting.

I've finally gotten to the last ball of the handspun yarn. I wet spliced it together this morning.

This is a pretty simple shawl pattern, the only challenge will be to guess how much yarn I need for the 12 row garter border. Since this is handspun and hand dyed, I want to use every bit of it that I can.

Out came the trusty drug dealer's scale. The last row I did took 2.6 grams of yarn. I have 126 grams left. Of course the rows get longer as I go, so I'll have to keep weighing as I knit, but I should be able to get several 12 row repeats done still. This should be a nice big cozy warm shawl when it's done.

We're off to the market for provisions, then back to knitting!

 

Coreopsis

I was about to catalogue that lovely Coreopsis dyed yarn and get it into the stash, and then decided that this is just ridiculous. It's not every day you make your own yarn. I handspun this on my Watson wheel (100% BFL fiber), then dyed it myself using flowers we grew in the back yard. It deserves better than to disappear into the stash forever.

So I hunted around for an appropriate pattern, and came up with Stephen West's Boneyard Shawl. I didn't want something complex and lacy, since this is roughly worsted weight and a bit on the rustic side. I also already have 3 lacy complex shawls on the needles. This pattern is one of those that you could knit with almost any weight yarn, and is adaptable to variable yardage. These are fine qualities when one is knitting with handspun that isn't entirely even, and when one isn't 100% certain of the yardage. An extra bonus is that it's a free pattern. I can see making more than one of these.

Here's where I am.

This is pretty much dead simple. It's mostly stockinette, with a garter row thrown in every so often, and increases along each side of the center spine and at each end. You knit until it's big enough, then knit on several rows of garter stitch and bind off. Bob's your uncle.

And yes, those are little Buddha stitch markers. I made those myself, too, with little Buddha beads I found a long time ago.

Have a happy weekend!

 

Give Us This Day–

The Daily Bread!

Here's the finished bread from Friday;

It was lovely. “Was” is the key word in that sentence. So I made some more:

This one was baked in a bread pan in the oven. I made it partly in the bread machine, but hit the “quick” rise button by mistake so I finished kneading it by hand. This is buttermilk/wheat/oatmeal bread. Here are the ingredients. I made this partly by weight instead of measuring cup, just as an experiment.

2.6 oz rolled oats

1 1/2 cups water

12 oz white bread flour

4 oz whole wheat flour

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 Tablespoon honey

2 1/4 tablespoon avocado oil

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 teaspoon yeast

1/2 tablespoon vital wheat gluten

Mix the oats in the water and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Add the wet ingredients to the bread machine pan, then the soaked oats, then the dry ingredients. Process on the dough setting. Shape into whatever loaf you want and bake. My baking times tend to be a bit free form. This was baked at 425 for about 35 minutes, but I turned the temperature down about half way through. The milk in the dough makes it brown faster.

And here is some of the last of Friday's bread, toasted and with some peanut butter for my lunch today.

 

In other news, there might be a finished knitting project around here. Here's a preview:

It needs a light blocking but it is done. This is one of those patterns where you just knit till your yarn runs out, but you need to bind off after a pattern repeat. I wanted to use as much of that Pink & Sparkly as possible, so out came the trusty drug dealer's scale.

6.7 grams left–not enough to do another pattern repeat with! Full project details to follow when it's blocked.

Still Working On It

This is the never-ending knitting project, but I am nearing the end of this monstrosity.

I have “only” nine repeats of the edging chart to go. Each repeat has 20 rows, 370 stitches, and 50 beads.

Sigh.

In other news, yesterday was a momentous day. It was my last day of working full time. On Monday I start working just 4 days a week. Of course, in a blast of karma from the universe, I developed a case of food poisoning from a “free” lunch on Thursday, and ended up calling in sick yesterday. All is well today though, and I am certainly going to enjoy this tiny first step towards retirement.

Maybe with that extra day each week, I can begin to make a dent in the 211 MILES of yarn in my stash.

 

Pink & Orange!

One pair of socks done, another pair started. I tossed the stash, and this is what came up next.

 

The yarn is Trekking, fairly vintage. The color is imaginatively named “1000”.

I just love knitting little picot sock tops. They are sort of a pain in the arse to get started*, but they are so freaking cute once they get to this point.

I know, I know. I am a sock nerd. This will be the same damn pattern, with picot tops instead of ribbing. I live on the edge.

*Cast on, knit seven rows plain, then do one row of yo, k2tog around, then another 7 rows plain. Then turn up the hem and knit the next row with the cast on row to make a little picket fence top. Ingenious. I didn't make this up, I learned it from Claudia.