I think I posted about this one, but I think it got trash-canned in the Great Blog Deletion of 2020. I have a bunch of leftovers from socks I’ve made, along with a bunch of sock yarn mini skeins that I bought a long time ago thinking I was going to make one of those ridiculous “hexipuff” blankets.
This is much easier.
Mitered squares! They are somewhat insanely addictive to knit. And it’s not like I don’t have sock yarn around here. And time to knit, at least while I’m not at work.
And yes, I am weaving in the ends every few squares so I don’t have a huge mess to deal with.
In troubled times, it is comforting to have an easy, yet satisfying project to knit. The only decision to make is which color I’ll pick up next.
And the blog is sort of fixed. The posts from the past 2 weeks weren’t backed up, but I think there were only one or two. I have no freaking idea how I managed to delete the blog, but I’m very glad that on a whim I added a blog backup plugin in February. I’m going to upgrade that to something more robust, since it took all freaking afternoon to get things restored, and lots of photos didn’t get reattached to the blog posts they were supposed to accompany. I’ll probably fix at least the more recent ones. We are busy “socially distancing” ourselves here, so it’s not like I don’t have time.
This morning we woke up to this:
Covid-19, Friday the 13th, a full moon (which I apparently won’t see due to the weather), the fact that I live in one of the epicenters of the US epidemic (as a front-line primary care clinician), and snow. With all the recent commotion, I might just have ditched the no yarn-buying policy and added some things to the stash. I’ll take pictures when it arrives, assuming we still have mail service.
My yarn stash is taunting me. I already have close to a dozen projects going. I have three lace shawls, two sweaters, two socks, one hitchhiker mindless garter stitch shawl, a pair of color work mittens, and a linen washcloth. And a partridge in a pear tree. Oh, and the mystery gift thing that will likely take months to complete.
I shouldn’t be rustling around in the stash boxes looking for distraction.
Yet here I am. My stash is bullying me into starting something new. That is a perfectly lovely skein of Dream In Color Smooshy fingering weight, the color is called In Vino Veritas, which is I’m sure why I bought it in the first place. This has been in the stash box for over a decade. I even have a pattern picked out.
Isn’t that pretty? It was written for this very yarn, and it’s free! Free is always good. Of course, I’ve been telling myself that I don’t need another project on the needles, but really, who’s counting? The pattern is Larch.
Since I finished the Winter Solstice shawl, I needed some lace in my hands. I am knitting a secret project that eventually will have some lace, but don’t really want to post about it until it is done and gifted. It is currently in the witness protection program. And currently it is just endless garter stitch, so not particularly interesting anyway.
I have three other lace shawls in various stages of progress. I found the oldest one and pulled it out to work on.
That is the Cathedral Stole, pattern by Birgit Freyer. I’ve renamed it Ruby Slippers, since it is a glowing ruby red.
According to Ravelry, I started this almost exactly four years ago. I remember when I bought the yarn. This is a handspun mohair lace yarn spun by women in Tajikistan.
This is lovely yarn, and the pattern is delightful. The designer has about a million lace shawl and stole patterns available, this likely won’t be my last one.
Since it is hard to imagine what the finished lace will look like, here is a photo from the designer’s pattern page.
And just like that, it is Sunday, and the last day of the festival. The theme this year was Bluegrass Beyond Borders, and we heard some wonderful bands from Brazil, Argentina, Ireland, Sweden, and Italy, among others. My vote for best of the festival goes to the band from Brazil, Trio Brasileiro. Look them up on your favorite music source, or try to hear them live. They do educational workshops in Port Townsend, so they do play regionally from time to time.
And I finished a sock. Here is the first of the pair.
And the second sock ready for the day’s festivities.
I might have accidentally managed to start the second sock at exactly the same place in the stripe sequence.
Yarn: Fyberspates Gleem Lace, 2 skeins, 1748 yards total. I used all but 14 grams. This was a gift several years ago from Jennifer AKA Major Knitter.
Needles: 2.75 mm
Started/Finished: 3/16/17-2/16/20
For: Me
Modifications: None
What I Learned: Patience. This is a huge shawl. None of it is difficult in the sense of technically challenging. There are several rows that have cables, but once I got it out of my head that cables in laceweight yarn aren’t any different than cables in heavy yarn, it was all good. I learned to fix some mistakes without tinking back multiple rows.
Pattern/Yarn rating: ***** for the pattern. It was formatted nicely, and no errors. **** for the yarn. It is gorgeous, but there is just enough variation in the color from one skein to the next to annoy me a tiny bit. In the finished shawl it almost looks a bit like a gradient. In over 1700 yards of yarn, there wasn’t a single knot or whacky bit that had to be spliced out.
I predict that I will wear this one a lot. I love the color, and I really like that it is such a generously sized shawl.
And now I get to pick one of the other four lace shawls I have in progress to focus on! I already have one chosen, since it will be a gift that has a “needs to be done” date.
I finally finished the Winter Solstice shawl today. It’s still drying on the blocking mats, but I couldn’t wait to show photos.
Well, actually, I did have to wait. I wasn’t able to log into the dashboard for my blog to get going with a post. It took me much of the afternoon, but I finally was able to fix the damned thing, which involved going into the actual wordpress file manager and renaming and deleting some things. NOT what I really planned to do with my afternoon.
Anyway.
This is pre-blocking. It got a good soak in the sink, and then blocked.
And I needn’t have worried about running out of yarn. 14 grams left.
Knitting whilst watching a movie with subtitles*, even plain garter stitch, is never a good idea. I managed to knit 8 or 9 rows, dropped a stitch somewhere, messed it up trying to fix it, ripped back 8 or 9 rows to get it all back on the needles.
I finished another couple of rows on the Endless Winter Solstice shawl. My remaining little ball of yarn is starting to look, well, little.
Out comes the trusty drug dealers scale.
After the previous row, I weighed it as well.
17 rows left, 33.4 g of yarn left
Now I have 16 rows left, and 32.3 g of yarn. So a little more than a gram of yarn per row. But remember, the rows get longer. I add another 28 stitches before the end.
I didn’t do the algebra, though it likely wouldn’t be difficult. 28 stitches isn’t going to weigh much compared to the 665 I already have on the needles.
I should be OK. But it wouldn’t be Chez Knitting Doctor without a bit of drama, would it?
And no, that isn’t salt in that shaker. I buy unscented talcum powder in bulk for my hands to use if things get sticky while knitting. This isn’t uncommon when knitting with lace weight, especially when it has silk in it. The big jar is unwieldy, so I put it in a mini salt shaker. It fits nicely in my knitting bag.
I’m finally getting close on this one. I have 19 rows left. The pattern has 344 rows, the last row has 693 stitches to bind off. The last section of lace has lace stitches (increases and decreases) on every row, not just the public side rows. So no easy purl rows to count stitches and make sure I haven’t screwed up.
Which I have, plenty of times with this one. Mostly I’ve caught them a few repeats later, and can either go back and fix them, or fix them on the return row. A few times I’ve had to go back a whole row, but at this point, I’d avoid that like the plague, given the number of stitches in each row. It’s taking me close to an hour to knit a row.
The yarn for this would cost over $60 plus shipping to replace. The pattern costs around $7. I have probably $30 worth of supplies that I’ve used with this, including needles, markers, scissors, etc. Of course those will be used again, over and over.
I have no idea how many hours I’ve put into this shawl. People ask me that all the time—“how long does it take you to make that?” Since I always have multiple things going on at once in the knitting sphere, it’s impossible to say. But I will say that if I got minimum wage for the hours to make this, the cost would be astronomical.
Sure, I can go buy a nice shawl for $70-80. But it wouldn’t ever be like this one, which will be one of a kind, made carefully by my own hands.
Someone remind me of that when I’m complaining about the 693-stitch bind off.
Which will be at least 20 knitting hours from now.
It’s time for another episode of Cooking With the Knitting Doctor. One of the things that is nice about being home is home cooking. The food was great on the cruise, but we usually eat a lot more simply at home, and eat way more plant-based meals. I had the urge to make beans and rice yesterday, and did so. They aren’t vegetarian, since I added some leftover sliced ham that was languishing in the freezer from Thanksgiving, but they were pretty loaded with other healthy things.
Generous spoon of cumin, ground (I use the whole cumin and grind it as I use it).
Pinch of cayenne.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Stock or water.
Can of diced tomatoes
I soaked the beans in water for most of the day. Drain.
Sauté the veggies in olive oil in Instant Pot container. Add everything else, then the stock or water to cover the beans by about 2 inches, more if you want it soupier.
Lock the lid, set on high pressure for 24 minutes. This really depends on the kind of beans you are using. I tend to underestimate a bit, unless I’m shooting for falling apart beans. You can always close it up again and cook for a few more minutes if they aren’t done. When the timer is done, release the steam, check the beans, make sure they are done.
This is one of those recipes that is easily modified. Leave out the ham, or add a different meat if you have leftovers to use. Change up the spices as you like. Some chopped greens would be great in this as well. If you want to use canned or already cooked beans, you could, and just do them on the stove top.
I promptly fell asleep last night after I did these, and missed dinner. My brain is still on east coast time. So we had them for breakfast today.
I took some of the beans, cooked them in a cast iron skillet with some olive oil, mashed them a bit. They were put on top of a heated corn tortilla, and topped with shredded cheese, a fried egg, chopped scallions, cilantro, and tomatoes. And a splash of hot sauce that we bought in St. Thomas.
Honest to God, these were so good that I almost cried. I think I’ve mentioned Rancho Gordo before, I joined their bean club a while back. I get a shipment of their lovely beans every quarter, and buy more in between as well. Their beans are heirloom varieties and are wonderful.
And just so you don’t think I’m kidding about being Miss Betty F-ing Crocker, here’s proof. I won the Betty Crocker Family Leader of Tomorrow award in high school. No lie.
Vacation is loads of fun. We just got off an 11 day cruise in the Eastern Caribbean. We went on Viking, which was our first (but not last) trip with them. I mostly posted on FB while we were gone. Although our shipboard wifi was included, it tended to be slow, especially once everyone was on board and using their devices, so I didn’t even try to do a blog post. The trip out and back was uneventful, and we had a great time, and a much needed sun break.
Despite the fun and sun, it’s really nice to be home. I got to sleep in my own bed last night, and had a cup of tea in my own kitchen this morning. The pets were all very happy to see us. We are fortunate to have found a lovely housesitter who takes good care of them and our home, but they missed us and we missed them.
We didn’t buy much on the trip. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a single yarn shop to be found. Most of the shops at the ports are wearyingly the same, generally overpriced junk. I did find some nice handmade silk screened place mats on St. Lucia.
Those will be lovely on our patio table in the summer.
And we had to buy a bottle of banana ketchup, and some hot sauce. The locals swear that the banana ketchup is wonderful.
