8 Repeats!

Before I get to the knitting, let me show you one of the things I cooked this week. I love fall for cooking, all the turnips and beets, and pumpkins! They’re not just for jack-o-lanterns anymore! I’ve had a couple of small sugar pumpkins in the pantry, waiting for the right moment (get the pie pumpkins, not the field pumpkins grown for gigantic size). We made pumpkin curry with it. Here’s the details and photos. This isn’t a recipe as such, but if you know how to put together a stew, you can figure this one out.

First, whack up the pumpkin, the hardest part. I generally get it cut up into big sections, then about two-inch squares, then cut the rind off. It’s pretty hard to peel the thing whole. I keep the pieces rather large, since they tend to melt into the curry when fully cooked.

Once you get that part done, you’re home free. Slice some onions and garlic, and saute, then add your curry blend.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I buy curry spices whole and grind them. I’ve made my own blends before, but now I just buy them locally here. They’ll ship, too. This particular blend was the Sri Lankan curry blend. I don’t think we’ve ever tried this before, and it was very good. Here’s everything cut up and ready to go. This process makes all the world of difference in a dish with lots of parts. If you get everything chopped before you start cooking, it’s a piece of cake. Mise en place, the French call it.

After I added the spices, I tossed in some chicken stock, a bit of white wine, part of a can of chopped tomatoes, 2 cans of garbanzo beans (rinsed), and the pumpkin, then cooked it till the pumpkin was done. This really doesn’t take long, and if it’s overcooked it turns to mush, so watch it. At the end, I threw in a bunch of baby spinach we had lingering around. Oh, I also added one chopped hot pepper in at the same time as the garlic, it was a yellow pepper that looked like a serrano and had some heat. And salt to taste.

Serve over rice, and dinner is ready.

On the knitting front, I have 8 repeats of that True Blood Faery band done. I thought I had royally screwed up my gauge, but it turns out I was wrong. The bottom cable chart is 40 rows, and the pattern calls for knitting 20 repeats of chart A. I finished what I thought were 4 repeats, meaning 160 rows, measured, and was horrified to find that the piece was twice as long as it was supposed to be. After I calmed down, I searched Ravelry, read the pattern (now there’s a novel thought), and discovered that each chart repeat is two pattern repeats. It measures out perfectly. Whew.

True Blood

No, not the books or the TV show of the same name. I’m talking about the newest WIP, that Red Faery sweater. I have started the thing, and here’s where I am. Click to super-size it so you can see the beauty of the cable!

I’ve been calling this color “lipstick red”, but in reality, it’s blood red. So, True Blood Red Faery it will be. The color on my monitor is pretty danged close to the real thing.

The construction of this sweater is different than anything I’ve knit before. It’s a hooded long cardigan, with a bottom cable that is knit from side to side; i.e. center front around in a long strip. You then pick up a gazillion stitches along one long edge, knit some, then hem it, then pick up another gazillion stitches along the other edge, and knit upwards for the body of the sweater. Ingenious! That photo up there is two repeats of the bottom cable. Only 18 more!

If you’re on Ravelry, here are the project pages. Note that there are two separate pattern pages for different size ranges, just in case any of you want to join us in the KAL.

And don’t forget to go vote if you haven’t already. John and I always vote by absentee ballot so we have time to carefully read through the voter pamphlet, and the saved newspaper clippings. Do your civic duty!

True Blue Sweater

Finished!

I finished the knitting on that pesky collar yesterday, then decided to do a grafted tubular bind off, which I’ve never done before. That was more fun than a barrel of monkeys, once I figured it out. Here are the details, followed by some photos of the bind off process.

Project Details:

Yarn: Beaverslide Dry Goods worsted weight wool, color Lake Josephine.

Pattern: Jerry-rigged sweater pattern, mostly from Sweater Wizard.

Needles: Knitpicks Options wood needles, size 5 & 6.

Started: November 9th, 2008, according to Ravelry, who never lies about these things. Good grief. Almost a freaking year to knit a plain stocking stitch sweater.

Finished: Today!

For: My sweetiepie, John! Doesn’t he look dashing in blue? He wouldn’t even let me have it back long enough to block those seams.

What I learned: Basic is best. Stockinette socks, stockinette sweaters, I never tire of them. I also learned how to do a tubular bind off. Here’s proof.

You can do this with 1×1 ribbing. After you do your last row, separate the stitches on 2 needles (circulars here, as it was the collar). Knit stitches go on the front needle, purls on the back. Make sure you line them up correctly when you start this. In this case I started and ripped this thing twice before I figured that out.

Then you just graft the front stitches with the back stitches using kitchener stitch, just like you would do with a sock toe. It is exactly the same process. Here’s what you end up with.

Pretty, eh? I did this using Nancie Wiseman’s instructions in the Knitter’s Book of Finishing Techniques. After I finished it, I googled “tubular bind off” and found a couple of places that describe this, but with the addition of four prep rows before you graft. I think it would be even prettier that way, but I’m not redoing it. Next time, I’ll do it that way, and show the difference. Don’t hold your breath, though. You know how long it takes me to knit a sweater.

Here’s my latest gadget for you all, since I know you count on me to find the best gadgets.

And inside?

Cute, huh. Go here to get yours while they last. They make great gifts.

And now that that’s finished, I’ve started on the Red Faery. I did a real gauge swatch, got gauge with size 7 needles, and I’ve done the first row of the bottom cable. More on that next post!

Red Faery Time!

Well, tomorrow, anyway. It’s finally here! Jennifer, AKA Major Knitter, and I are starting the big Faery Ring KAL November 1st! Of course, in true Knitting Doctor fashion, I’m not even close to ready. She’s been over there, madly finishing up WIP’s, and I think she’s even done a swatch. Me, not so much.

I did get all the sewing done on John’s True Blue sweater. I’ve picked up the neckband stitches, and plan on finishing that hopefully tonight. Does anybody else hate knitting neckbands as much as I do? I can do mattress stitch seams till the cows come home, but if I could pay somebody to finish the neck for me, I’d be there.

John says “thanks!” for the birthday wishes, by the way. We went out to celebrate last night. Our local performing arts company is trying something new this year, and is showing a series of old movies. They chose three Cary Grant screwball comedies for this coming season, and last night was Arsenic and Old Lace. I’ve seen it on the small screen, but it was truly hilarious on the big screen in a theater full of people. We went out for a nice steak dinner afterwards. It was a nice way to celebrate the big day!

Here’s the yarn, with the first hank all wound up and ready to go. It really is that red!

I’m off to finish that neckband.

They Say It’s…

Your Birthday?

No wait, I did that already. But it’s my sweetie’s birthday today. It’s sort of a special one, and there’s a You Tube video at the end of the post just for him. First, here’s where I am on True Blue, the plain blue sweater I’ve been knitting for him for decades*.

OK, never mind. My camera is being recalcitrant, and won’t upload the photos. Just imagine it, OK. I’ll try to post it later.

Updated. Here are the photos:

And Lewey, supervising the sewing.

I’ve finished all the knitting except for the neck band, and have the sleeves attached. I’m sewing up the first side. I’m hoping to have this finished by Sunday, since that’s November 1st, when the big Faery Ring Knit-a-long starts!

And here’s the video. Note that there is knitting content in the song.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

*OK, it only seems like decades. Whatever, it’s almost done.

Project Update

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so here goes with where I am with the knitting and spinning. I dragged everything out this morning to take photos of it.

But first, a few housekeeping chores. I’ve been getting hit with a lot of spam on some older posts and photos since I moved the blog. I’ve installed an anti-spam plugin, and we’ll see how that goes. I may close comments on posts past a certain vintage if it keeps up. I really don’t want to go to moderated comments, as it won’t fix the problem. WordPress marks the vast majority of them as spam so they don’t hit my email inbox, but I still have to go through them to make sure they are real spam, and not a real knitter who happened to fall into the net. As a hint, if you use the name of a prescription drug in your comment, or if you talk about certain male physiological processes, it will be likely marked as spam. I do scan through them to catch the real comments, but I might miss some. If you’ve commented and it doesn’t show up, don’t take it personally. Come back and try again, or email me directly (link over in the sidebar).

I haven’t given a recent progress report on the state of moving the blog. I’m still happy with that choice, despite the spam. For those of you thinking of making a switch, I’d highly recommend WordPress. I have about half of the older posts updated with the new photo locations, as well as tidying up the few individual posts that didn’t transfer over correctly. I’m fixing most of the internal links back to my own blog posts, but leaving everything else as it was. On a few posts, not all of the comments made it over, but I can live with that.

Here’s a photo that I found in my email yesterday.

Apparently John took this with his cell phone one night last week after dinner. Monday was my last day in my old job, and it was another of those fabulous eighty hour weeks that I’m so fond of. This is mostly what I look like at the end of the day, whether I’ve had wine or not. Sleep, eat, work, that’s pretty much it for the week. I have no idea how long I was like that, he finally woke me up and told me to go to bed.

I start my new practice in November, so I do have a couple of weeks to regroup in between now and then. I’ll be at the same hospital, which is a good thing, but also will be able to do a little outpatient work as well. I was in private practice as an internist for about a dozen years before I left that to be a hospitalist, and I’ve done hospitalist work for over a dozen years, so this should be interesting going back to the office. The internists in the new practice do primarily consultative internal medicine for the other doctors in the group, rather than carrying a panel of their own primary care patients, so that I know how to do. About a third of my time will be in the office. Yes, I’m a bit nervous about that, since I haven’t done it in awhile. The real upside will be that I’ll be working generally a forty hour week. I won’t get the big blocks of time off that I’ve had in the last several years, but I also won’t have those work marathons that turn me into such a sparkling dinnertime conversationalist.

On to the projects. You thought I’d gotten sidetracked and forgotten, hadn’t you?

First up, True Blue. This is the sweater that I’m making for John. It’s a plain crew neck pullover, and this is the second sleeve. I have all the other parts done, and am just a few rows from the armhole decreases. I have to finish this soon, as I need to have needles at the ready to start the Faery Ring KAL that Jennifer and I are doing starting November 1st.

I’m knitting this in Beaverslide Dry Goods yarn; the color is Lake Josephine.

Next up is lace. I haven’t shown this in awhile, because I hadn’t worked on it in awhile. I set this aside to finish knitting the big baby blanket, but recently pulled it out and figured out where I am. This is the Froot Loops wrap, actually Morning Glory, by Anne Hansen.

As usual, photos of unblocked lace look like crap. Have faith. This will turn into a beautiful swan someday.

Last but not least are socks. I have two pairs on the needles, both plain-vanilla socks, in anything but plain-vanilla colors.

That’s Shalimar Zoe Sock yarn, in Peony. I’ve finished one sock and am partway to the heel on the second.

And that’s Wollmeise sock yarn, in Lowenzahn. I started those on my beloved Ivore needles so I would have an airplane-appropriate project for the recent trip. While the Signature double points are lovely, I am pretty sure they wouldn’t make it past airport security. These will be in a holding pattern until I finish the Peony socks.

And that’s it. I’m saving the spinning updates for another day.

Free Yarn, Part Two

Or,

The Winner! (see below)

Or,

The Slacker (me)

OK. I know I said the contest ended on Thursday, that would be two days ago. I’ve gotten sucked into work again for a week, and things got away from me. More on that later.

I was highly entertained by all your comments on my “Free Yarn” post. Thanks to you all, we now have about thirty years of vacation spots lined up, and we’ll likely never get to all of them. (Just like I’ll never get to knitting stuff from all the yarn in the stash…when did that ever stop me from trying?)

Without further ado, the winner is, by way of the Random Number Generator:

Charity, author of the blog Knitting In The North. Go check out her blog. She is a wonderful knitter, and has lovely children. Her little Liam is just the cutest thing ever born. And she lives in Canada. Who doesn’t love Canada? She gets the lovely electric blue Aran weight yarn, and perhaps a couple of little extras that I’ll throw in.

As to the work week. This is my last work week at the old job. I’ve joined a new practice as an internist in the same city, same hospital, but a different group, starting in November. I have two more days in my current position, then a couple of weeks off to re-group and get oriented, then it’s off to the races in a new capacity. It should be fun and exciting, and a little more of a sane work schedule, I hope. I definitely need more time to knit and spin (and sleep!), and to travel to all of those places that you guys recommended. Wish me luck! I’ll be back with a Project Update next week!

Free Yarn!

Now that ought to get everybody’s attention! First, though, thanks to everyone who sent fine birthday wishes, and also for putting up with the endless travelogue in the past few weeks. We made it home safely, though I’m still not quite recovered from the time changes. Even the switch to and from daylight savings time messes with my head, so an eight-hour change is really doing it to me. I’ve been waking up at 4 AM, which wouldn’t be so bad, but I’m a zombie again by about 6 PM.

I just downloaded all the photos off my camera this morning (after I woke up at 4 AM in the middle of a Halloween-slasher kind of nightmare). There are over 700 of them, and all I can say is thank God for digital. John has his own camera, and I suspect an equal number of photos. He’s in charge of photo selection and album content, and once he gets them weeded down to a reasonable number, I’ll provide a link to the online version for anybody who hasn’t seen enough already. I might post one or two here and there, just because I can.

OK, here are a couple before I get down to the business you are all really interested in.

One last Guinness:

We found this building in Kinsale. Read the sign over the door. I might need to join after 16 days of Guinness, wine, and Irish whiskey. Click to make it big enough to read.

Here’s that sweater that several of you asked about. As we rounded Slea Head on the Dingle peninsula, we had to make a stop for the “facilities”, and found a nice craft shop. A lot of the “craft” shops in Ireland are full of cheap trinkets, what I like to call “rubber tomahawk” shops, but some are quite nice. They had some lovely Aran sweaters that were labelled as hand knit, and were pretty inexpensive if they really were handmade. I couldn’t resist. John thought it was pretty hilarious buying a wool sweater when I’m a knitter, but I was cold, hadn’t found any yarn as of yet, and there it was.

It’s quite warm, too. I more or less wore it for the rest of the trip.

OK, now the moment you’ve been waiting for, the free yarn. I found this in a craft shop in Leenane, which I blogged about while we were on vacation.

As the label says, it’s Aran weight tweed, 100% Donegal wool, in a lovely blue color with little tweedy speckles. There is no weight or yardage listed on the labels, but it’s all one dyelot, and each weighs 50 grams. This would be enough for a hat, and perhaps hand warmers as well. It’s labelled as “A Green Product”, and “Natural Feeling”, which I find amusing. Once again, click to embiggen and get a better view of that electric blue.

One of my lucky readers will win this yarn, along with perhaps a tiny surprise or two. This is simply shameless promotion on my part. Since I moved the blog, my RSS subscribers have dropped from over 700 to 38. The competitor in me finds this a bit demoralizing, so one of the purposes of this contest will be to get you to subscribe. Just hit that button over there that says “subscribe”, pick your blog reader, and Bob’s your uncle. Of course, I won’t really know which ones of you are subscribing, so here’s how you can get a chance to enter the contest. Leave me a comment on this post, telling me about your absolute favorite place to travel. If you don’t have one, tell me where you’d like to go, if time and money were no object. I’ll let the random number generator pick a lucky winner. The deadline will be, oh, let’s say Thursday, the 15th, at midnight my time. Good luck!

All Good Things Must Come To An End

Here’s where we were yesterday.

Here’s where we are tonight.

We have a relatively early flight in the morning, so we’re staying near the airport tonight. It’s been a great trip, but it’s time to get home to the pups and kitties. See you on the flip side. Yarn contest in the next post!

They Say It’s My Birthday!

Well, yesterday to be exact. I was having too much fun last night to finish the post, so you get it early this morning.

We’re in Clifden, on the west coast in County Galway, and yesterday was just a glorious day. We have friends in England who warned us that this was a horrible time to visit Ireland due to the weather, but we’ve had just grand weather. (Notice how I’m starting to talk like the locals?) We had one day when it just plain rained, and we’ve had a couple of windy days, but mostly it has been sunny for at least a good part of each day. It’s been cool, but that I can live with. It gave me an excuse to buy a nice little sweater while I am here.

So how did I spend my 53rd birthday? We drove around the Sky Road west of Clifden in the morning, with glorious views of the ocean and the many (300) surrounding islands. Then we drove to Leenane, stopping at Connemara National Park for a little hike. In Leenane, I finally hit pay dirt.

I finally found yarn! There were four kinds, all of them Aran weight. My sweetie bought me enough pretty yarn to make a sweater. The prices actually were quite reasonable. Here’s what I got.

The color of that is all wrong, but I think you’ll have to wait till I get home to take an outdoor photo in natural light. I already get mighty funny looks just for knitting in public. I can’t imagine what the locals would do with me if I started taking pictures of yarn in the parking lot. There are roughly 2700 yards of that (not marked on the yarn itself, but I measured the hank, counted strands, and did the math). It’s a pretty, tweedy deep forest green. It will make a lovely sweater.

I didn’t stop there, always thinking of my readers. There’s more.

Those are both Aran weight Donegal tweed, about 200 grams of each color. One of these colors will go in a big blog contest when I get home, so stay tuned later this week.

But wait, there’s more! There was a little spinning and weaving museum attached. The lady who normally is there giving demonstrations was out, but the woman running the shop saw my dejection and let me in.

Here are just a few of the wheels that were on display.

After we left Leenane, we headed for Westport, where we walked around and then had a couple of pints in Matt Malloy’s pub. The bartender bought me a Guinness when he heard it was my birthday.

We drove through some more fabulous scenery, getting back to our hotel just in time for cocktails and dinner.

Back at the hotel, one of the owners, on discovering that it was my birthday, bought me champagne, and at the end of dinner, a birthday treat and singing.

And I got to knit! What could be better?

We’re in Clifden again tonight, then we head back towards Dublin tomorrow, then home on Thursday. We’ve been gone long enough that I actually am ready to be home, though I’ve enjoyed every minute of this trip. Well, maybe not the parts where we’ve been nearly run off the road by tour buses going 100 km an hour, but all the rest of it.

There may or may not be another post before we head home. Someone else thinks I’ve been hogging the computer, so I have to give it up. Remember, check back later this week for a contest post!

Pretty Much Random Irish Photos

We’re in Doolin, and have enjoyed a couple of nights of “good craic” in the pubs here. We met a couple of Irish women last night, Maeve and Martina, who pointed out that “good craic” in American English doesn’t mean quite the same as it does in Irish English. Here the term means good fun, in NYC, it might get you arrested. At any rate, we’re still having a great time, and here are some photos to prove that.

Fuschias were imported here some decades ago, and now grow wild. The hedgerows along many of the roads are about eight feet tall, and mostly fuschia.

There are a lot of sheep here. I still haven’t found yarn shops.

The Catholic Church is still here. There’s been a bit of a resurgence in the old faith with the economy tanking. There’s a surprise.

Megalithic tombs, standing stones, ruined castles. There are a lot of them here. If you’re lucky enough to have one in your pasture, you can charge admission.

Am I the only one who thinks that the Cliffs of Moher are really the Cliffs Of Insanity from Princess Bride?

Just a pretty photo to prove that there was actually a bit of sunshine today. We’ve actually had remarkably good weather for the past two weeks, though today it was blustery, with showers and enough wind that we could hardly stand up straight to take photos up on those cliffs.

We head to County Galway tomorrow for a few days. You know the drill. If there’s internets there, you’ll see photos!

Pints

Pippin: What’s that?

Merry: This, my friend, is a pint.

Pippin: It comes in pints?! I’m getting one!

Mostly Photos

We’re now on the west coast of Ireland, in a town called Kenmare, on the road to the Ring Of Kerry, which will be today’s adventure. Here are some photos from the past few days.

I was a little nervous about touching the standing stones, but didn’t go anywhere*.

There are lots of sheep here.

And a druid. I think he wanted to knit.

And some yarn, finally. I haven’t seen one yarn shop since I’ve been here, despite seeing flocks and flocks of sheep.

We’re off for the day!

*If you’re an Outlander fan, you’ll know of what I speak.

Kilkenny & Cashel & Kinsale, Oh My!

We’re on the road, having left Dublin after a three-day stay there. In every place we’ve been, we easily could spend a whole vacation seeing the sights and enjoying the local people and customs. But onward we go. It’s impossible to see everything in one vacation, even a relatively long one (16 days total for us).

Kilkenny was our first stop after Dublin. This is a very attractive medieval town with winding narrow streets and a huge castle that dominates the landscape. We took the castle tour, wandered the streets, and had a pint or two in a local pub.

We only spent one night there, then hit the road in the morning, headed for the Rock of Cashel. Driving in Ireland, on the “wrong” side of the road, is quite entertaining. So far, John hasn’t trusted me to drive, so he drives and I’m the navigator and map-reader. All I can say is thank God for Jill, the GPS lady who came with us on the trip. We’ve finally learned to just listen when she shouts “turn! turn!”. We took the little winding back roads for this part of the trip, which was a bit hair-raising. The N roads are the wider roads, just wide enough for two cars to pass without taking off the side mirrors. The R roads are a bit narrower, and when you meet another car, you have to make a choice. You either stay where you are and lose the driver’s side mirror, or you pull over and put scratches in the finish on the passenger side.

The non-N, non-R roads are what we drove yesterday. Mostly they are big enough for one car, and you just pray that if you meet someone coming at you that they are not going the posted speed limit of 100 km/hour, and that it’s not on a blind curve. So far we still have mirrors and most of the paint on the car.

The Rock of Cashel is an old fortress/cathedral that is in ruins, and highly worth the trip.

We didn’t sleep in Cashel, but drove on to Kinsale for two nights, which is where we are now. No photos yet, but you can be certain there will be! This is a lovely little harbor town, with a lot of historical significance, so we’re off for the day to tour the village and see the ruins of the Fort. I also had no clue that the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk right off the coast here, so that was an interesting factoid.

John’s clamoring for his turn with Minnie* so I’m off for the day!

*Minnie Dell, of course. What were you thinking?

More Dublin

We found some other fun things in Dublin besides Guinness. Here I am, checking out the lunch options.

And then there was dinner:

In case you think we’ve done nothing but eat and drink, that’s not true. In between those things yesterday, we saw the National Gallery, the National History Museum, and last but not least, the Book of Kells and the Long Room Library at Trinity College. For a bibliophile, the Long Room was fabulous. We also got a nice nap in there somewhere.*

I’m posting from a tiny mini-Dell (named Minnie), with a tiny screen and somewhat sketchy internet access, so answering comments may be a bit limited while we’re here. I also have to share Minnie with John, who seems to think he gets equal computer time. Thanks for all your comments nonetheless!

We leave Dublin today, headed west. Our first stop will be Kilkenny. On to the adventure of driving on the wrong side of the road!

*Not in the Long Room. It was pointed out to me that the way I wrote that sentence made it sound like we took a nap in the Long Room.