Happy Thursday to you

I don't have much to post here, but I have a few minutes to waste, so here I am. Not much knitting progress lately. I've been working exclusively on the entrelac afghan project. It's slow going, though. I'm most of the way through the next row of it, but then the kids both got sick (and have been trying to take me down with them), and every time I sit down it's more to snuggle than to knit. I'm not complaining, though. They are only little kids for a very short time and I am increasingly aware of how fast time flies.

I'm hosting a craft night at our church tonight. I hope it goes well. If there are a lot of people there, we'll need to meet in the Parish Hall, where the light isn't bright. If we are a smaller group, we can meet in a different room with better light. I hope it catches on. A few knitters (and a crocheter) have been meeting on Wednesday mornings for over a year now and we have a great time. But those people who work during the day cannot come. Also, scrapbookers and jewelry makers and woodworkers cannot really work at a coffee shop. *fingers crossed*

I'll post a progress pic of the afghan tomorrow, and maybe I'll frog another failed WIP, too, just for good measure. I'm really wanting to get all the unfinished business cleared up so I can start on some new stuff. I've got a hankering to knit another pair of socks.

And it's already Friday again

I'm not sure how that happened. It was just the 23rd, but now it is nearly February, and I'm due to finish something, as it's


But, nothing is finished yet. I have decided, however, to work on the afghan I started a long time ago. I had just learned entrelac and thought the idea of an entrelac afghan was fabulous. I still think it is fabulous. However, in execution, knitting an entrelac blanket large enough to cuddle in is just plain silly.

"I only have to count to 8" I said, "that makes it mindless knitting."
"It's good practice picking up stitches," I thought.
"It's just little blocks of stockinette, easy peasy" I quipped.

Dude. Entrelac, while lovely, is tedious once the magic of it is gone. When the "how in hell did I just manage to make yarn do that?!?" is gone, it's just plain knitting with a bunch of decreases and picked-up stitches thrown in for giggles.

Mind-numbingly tedious or not, I still like the idea of it, so it shall continue to grow. I do reserve the right to change my mind, stop knitting at some yet-to-be-determined point and call it a mere "throw" or a shawl even.



I also finished a pair of fingerless mitts this week. They are loosely based on a WWII Red Cross mitts pattern that was in Piecework Magazine last month, but there's really very little resemblance when it's all said and done. Please don't click to enlarge the picture, as then you could see both my lack of blocking the mitts and moisturizing the hands. I really ought to go get a manicure.

It's done

I feel a little like a hit man. I finally pulled the trigger and frogged a stole that I started last March, It had the potential to be gorgeous, but alas, it was accursed. I'm sad to see it go, but honestly, I'd never love it with the mistakes in it. Life is too short to finish reading bad books, and likewise too short to wear half-assed shawls.

RIP, Eye of Partridge Shawl.


But I now have two balls of Trekking XXL that I can use for other things.

It's Finishing Friday.

I've actually finished something, too! I started these socks for the Ravelympics, but I got sidetracked and they got stuffed in a bag and hung on a doorknob. I got them back out in November, intent on putting them in my daughter's Christmas stocking. Umm, fail.

But thanks to the genius of Majorknitter, who dubbed 2009 the Year of Decisions: a year during which all the WIPs become finished objects, or are undone and returned to the yarn stash. I decided that it would be good to start with something easy, so I pulled out the socks and finished them up. Nora loves them and wore them to school today, in spite of the fact that I screwed up and made one about three-quarters of an inch shorter than the other.



If I can manage to finish some housework in time, I just might frog something today, too. Stay tuned!

I am a bad yarn mom

Yesterday I decided to clean my office. I can manage to keep most of the house moderately respectable, but it is usually the office that gets all the overflow when people are coming over, and it's the place where most of the bills and mail come, so that's a constant struggle. But the worst part of my office shame comes from the yarn that lives here. You, my faithful reader, might recall my yarn stash finding a new home a little over a year ago. I was so proud, it looked so nice.

But over that last year there have been projects started and finished, also a fair number of projects started and abandoned. There were swatches knit, new yarn acquired, and searches conducted. Some random skeins were pulled from their home and plopped unceremoniously on this desk, to end up tangled in computer cords. Other yarns were hastily rewound and shoved back in or atop the armoire, to become tangled with other yarns and needles that had been treated equally as poorly. I knew it was a mess, but until I pulled out every poor, mistreated bit of string in my house and put them all on the table, I didn't know the magnitude of my transgressions.

Meanwhile, I had already decided to join in the fun with a bunch of others dedicated to Finishing or Frogging all those WIPs in the closet. As part of that endeavor, I decided to also get really honest with myself about how many projects sit in the cabinet and in bags on doorknobs, languishing on their needles, that need to be finished or completely undone.

This is the result:
Yarns that need to be re-wound and re-homed. They also need a good solid apology for my mistreatment. It was like woolen Gitmo in there. Poor things.


And projects that need to be resolved one way or the other (By the way, Penny thinks I am a very good kitty mom, for providing her such a soft and lovely sunny spot for her afternoon siesta):


As you can see, I need to get busy.

Pattern: "Nora", a child's winter headband

This is a simple headband with a 3-st seed stitch border on each side, then a cable up the middle. It's super easy once you get the rhythm of it. It's really only wide enough to cover a child's ears as I've written it, but if you used a wider border or bulkier yarn, it would be great for a grown-up, too. :)

Ravelry Link to the pattern. :)

From Drop Box

I've never written a pattern before, so if there are any parts that aren't clear, please let me know and I can fix them.

Worsted weight yarn
US7 (4.5 mm) needles

Here it is:
CO 14 stitches (use provisional if you choose, or you can just pick up stitches on the CO edge later)
knit one row across

Set-up rows:
Rows 1&3 (rs): k1, p1, k1, p2, k4, p2, k1, p1, k1
Rows 2&4 (ws): k1, p1, k1, k2, p4, k2, k1, p1, k1

Begin cable pattern:
Row 1: k1, p1, k1, p2, slip 2 st onto a cable needle to the front, k2, knit the st from the cable needle, p2, k1, p1, k1
Rows 2, 4, 6: k1, p1, k1, k2, p4, k2, k1, p1, k1
Rows 3 & 5: k1, p1, k1, p2, k4, p2, k1, p1, k1
Repeat cable pattern until desired length*, ending on row 5 of cable pattern

Begin decreases for the tie:
Knit one row across (ws)
Row 1: k5, s1,k1,PSSO, k2tog, k5
WS rows: knit across
Row 2: k4, s1,k1,PSSO, k2tog, k4
continue on, decreasing the center stitches until you have 4 stitches left.
Knit i-cord with those 4 stitches until you have about 3"
Tie off i-cord, break yarn.
At CO edge, pick up 14 stitches, and work exactly as you did the decreases for the the other end.
weave in ends.
take a picture and show it to me.

*"desired length for us was enough to cover from one ear lobe across the top of her head, to the other ear lobe. All kids head will be different. :)

A new FO

I have no fancy name for this, but I made a headband for my daughter. It's way too cold for it today, though. It is currently -16 degrees outside-- that's not windchill, that's the actual temp! But on the winter days when it isn't too cold, I still want her to keep her ears warm. She's getting to that age when she doesn't want to go messing up her hairdo willy nilly. (I am very not ready for this grown-up kids thing.)

So anyway, here it is. It's knit out of a pinky-purpley vintage yarn that's a little fuzzy like mohair, but otherwise a decent yarn.

From Drop Box

Yarn: Pingouin Mousse
Needles: 4.5 mm (US7)
Eventually I'll write out the pattern and name it. I think I'll make a few more of these for gifts.

Busy busy busy!

I've been actually getting some stuff done lately. I'm as amazed as anyone, really. Since there's a lot of stuff to share, I'll get right to it.

First, on December 30, I decided to turn an old t-shirt into yarn. It's really easy (Thanks, Alwen!) and I love not having to throw out all that perfectly good cotton. I'm such a packrat. Anyway, the resultant yarn is a little thicker than I'd like, but never having done it before, I didn't know what I was doing exactly, I didn't cut the strips thin enough. I'll do that next time, said Jack. I knit up a swatch, and will definitely try it again. This is about 3/4 of the yardage from the one shirt (men's sz medium) and is a 6" square. I used my trusty 9mm bamboo needles for this.

From ravelry

Next up is a Panta headband. I used about 70 yards of leftover Patons Classic Merino for this. I was so anxious to get started on this, I didn't even bother to wind the yarn into a ball first. I just looped the hank over my neck. That's true slacker knitting for you, right there.

From ravelry

It took no time at all, and I really am happy with it. It keeps my ears warm, and doesn't do funky things to my hair. That's all anyone really can ask of a wool head band, no?

From ravelry

I also have been baking lately, but I'll save that for another post. I have dough in the kitchen that won't turn into a loaf without me. ;)

Thanks to yesterday's comments

I'm now faced with a real hankering for blueberries. I even woke in the middle of the night and thought about where I could put a couple of blueberry bushes. It didn't help that it was 46 and sunny yesterday, so I was outside feeling like spring is around the corner. Last night the temperature dropped 30 degrees and it is winter again. Blargh.

Speaking of yesterday, I spent the afternoon doing cleanup work. It was lovely. It's funny how something that is so objectionable in July is an absolute joy in December. I picked up all the limbs that had fallen during the ice storm of a couple of weeks ago, raked the pile of leftover leaves to where the garden will be in the spring (I plan to choke out the grass with them, newspaper, and a healthy layer of compost. Don't laugh! I read right here on the internet that it totally works!), swept the garage, and I climbed out on the roof and cleaned the gutters. The gutter cleaning was cut short, though, because the metal roof on the garage was a little slippery. Not to mention that I wasn't wearing waterproof gloves and my fingers were getting cold.

Anyway, the dose of vitamin D I got out there was much needed. I hope it's enough to get me through the next few weeks, until the next sunny and "warm" day.

And one of that, and three of those, and a couple of these..

You know how you go to a church potluck, and everything looks so good that you have to have a bite of each, and by the time you head back to your table the plate is heaped with a 5" mountain of food, with no reasonable ability to consume all of it?

That's how I felt yesterday while looking through the first 2009 seed catalog that came in yesterday's mail. I was picking out carrots and peas and new tomatoes and beans and even trying to figure out how to find enough sunny spots in the yard for a few blueberry bushes. I won't even get started on my desire to grow those sunflowers that grow to 12 feet tall. And then I looked at the groundcover section and dreamed of getting rid of those overgrown yews along the side of the house. I was practically drooling by the end.

But like the potluck, there's no way I could do all of that here. I have too much shade, not enough time, and a paltry budget. I should note that I have plenty of motivation right now, but know that although we've had plenty of cold and snow already there's lots of time to go before I get to start playing with seeds. My motivation levels experience precipitous drop each year as soon as the humidity and temperatures hit 85 degrees. By mid-July, I usually regret all the work I made for myself and want to hide in the air conditioning until fall.

Today, though, I dream of lush gardens and warm soil.

Woot!

I made bread yesterday that does not suck. That would not normally warrant a "woot!" like this post's title, but you might have read in the last weeks of my slump. I've had breads fail at an astonishing rate (nearing 100%) in the last 3 months, so any success is momentous, indeed.

Last week, King Arthur Flour company had free shipping on orders placed that day. I jumped at the chance to buy some proper sourdough starter and some really cute snowflake-shaped cookies sprinkles. After 3 days of feeding and growing my starter, I set out to make a real loaf of real sourdough (I've been through the sourdough deal before, and it didn't go well). Of course, being me, I decided to do it the hard way; the rustic, super-sour, no-added-yeast recipe.

This loaf took time. You feed the starter, wait 4 hours, then put it in the refrigerator for 12 hours. Take it out, add make the bread dough, then let it do its thing for 5-6 hours, then shape the loaves and let them rise for another 2-3 hours before baking. I got nervous after the overnight rest because of the lack of bubbles, so when I added the rest of the flour, I kneaded in about 3/4 teaspoon of instant yeast. I don't know how much that did, but it made me feel better.

Yadda yadda yadda, At 6pm last night, I had fresh-baked sourdough. It's not nearly as sour as the recipe acted like it would be, but I have to take into account that the last sourdough I tasted was brought back from San Francisco. Nothing tastes quite like San Fran sourdough. Anyway, it's good, and I cannot wait to make toast out of it this morning.


In other slump news, I've made two scarves and half a hat with the 9.0mm needles, and I think I'm now ready to stop working with tree branches and go back to normal knitting. I have the toe of a sock to finish, a shawl to work on, and some alpaca that still is calling to me. Time to get back to work.

Slump

I've attempted to bake bread about 4 times this month, and it has gone poorly each time, for different reasons. I used to be good at it. I've tried two different yeast recipes (one is my old standby) and banana bread (again, an old standby recipe). Mr. Deplume thinks I've hit a slump. He swears that all the greats do, and that I'll get over it soon. I hope so. In the meantime, I made chocolate chip banana muffins. I did not screw those up. They are so good, in fact, that I ate about 8 of them in 2 days. oops.

Speaking of slumps, I am still battling my winter knitting funk. To combat this, I picked up some US13 (that's 9 millimeters thick!) needles and have made a couple of garter stitch neck warmers out of *gasp* novelty yarn. It's almost embarrassing. I like to think of myself as an appreciator of the finer side of the craft, but dang if these aren't fast! I don't even know what I want to do with them yet. I just want to have completed projects under my belt.

If I get a minutes later on, I'll take pictures. But I probably won't post them on Ravelry, you know, due to the shame. ;)

erm, a 90 percent chance?

The weather report shows a 90% chance of snow this morning. Somehow,looking at the current radar, i think that number might be a little low.

And we're almost out of cheese and bread. oops. I guess I'll be baking today.

Sweater drying- you're doing it wrong

I washed the two sweaters I bought at the thrift store last month. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with one of them, but it needed to be clean regardless. The reason it took a month is that I don't have a lot of good places to dry my woolens. If it were summer, I would take them outside, but it's cold here, so the dining room table has to do. As it turns out, my cat Penny likes sleeping on sweaters even when they are completely wet and cold from the basement. who knew.


Luckily, she's the tidy kitty, and left very little fur behind. If Yoda had plopped her ample butt on there I would have had to re-wash. She's a big ball of ungroomed fur and dandruff.

What movie is our Christmas most like?

For once, one of these silly quizzes has me accurately pegged.
Fa ra ra ra ra,
ra ra.
ra.
ra.

Your Christmas is Most Like: A Christmas Story

Loving, fun, and totally crazy. Don't shoot your eye out!

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

Random Christmas Memories

When I was a kid, our artificial tree’s stand was mounted on a 2’ x 2’ piece of plywood to steady the base, then there were eye hooks mounted on the window casing about 4 feet from the ground (these remained there year round, obscured by the curtains). Once the tree was assembled, a length of twine was wrapped around the tree's trunk and secured to the hooks. Apparently, between the kids and the cats, they had had some problems, and my dad decided to put an end to tree toppling forever.

Next time I see him, I should ask about the incident that prompted him to break out the saw, drill and twine. Fun memories.

Mah new two-day hat

Winter has arrived here in Illinois. I have very short hair, so my poor ears are just out there in the elements, at the mercy of the cold prairie wind. I try to walk outside some every day, regardless of weather, so this hats are a big must-have for me. Back in July I knit the star crossed slouchy beret, thinking it a nice combination of style and warmth. I still really like the look of the hat, but after its initial winter wearing, I deem it a failure in the "keeping earlobe frostbite at bay" department: just too loose a gauge for my needs.

So I set out on Sunday to find a new pattern for a hat, one that would keep my ears warm and not make me look like a chemo patient. When I did a search on Ravelry, there were 90 pages of free patterns from which to choose. And yet none looked just right.

A while back, I knit the Architect's Hat from the Knitter's Book of Yarn, as a commission. I liked the hat a lot, but it had to go live with its rightful owner after I finished it. I decided to make it again, this time for me. But my copy of the pattern (the book is owned by the hat's commissioner) has turned up missing. So I did what any moderately masochistic person would do-- attempt to knit the hat from memory and pictures.

You know what? It turned out just fine. And in a day and a half, as well. Yay for me! I kinda wish the two yarns I used were closer in tone and I still need to block it, but I wore it out this afternoon when I walked to pick my daughter up from school, and it kept my head warm. Bonus. :)


Maybe this marks the end of my knitting funk. But this could also be a fluke. one just never knows.

I tried a new bread recipe

A while back, on a whim, I checked out Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from the library. I love fresh bread, but I hate the 3 hours of needing to be home to make it (there's no hard labor with bread when you own a good stand mixer, but it is still time consuming). I skimmed it that night, and thought the book seemed like it was sent from heaven, but I didn't have the tools needed: Namely, a baking stone and a large container for storing the dough. Our old pizza stone cracked a couple of years ago, and we just never bought another. I returned the book, hoping that some day I'd get around to buying a dough bucket.

I finally did that last week. I bought some 4-quart Rubbermaid containers, and I went off in search of the recipe again. I found the basic "master recipe" from the book on the internet and tried it out. This bread in its most basic form makes enough for four round, rustic loaves. My first attempt yielded basically a lump of bread. It was ugly. Very ugly. And heavy. Made good toast, though.

Second attempt was to make pizza dough. This went very well. I will definitely use this method in the future.

Third attempt this morning went much better than the first. [pictures coming, but the batteries on the camera died before I could upload]It is still a little too heavy (I think the original mixture was a little drier than optimal), and I had a devil of a time getting it smooth. But it made for a very good sandwich at lunch (ham and sharp cheddar, with a little brown mustard, if you were curious). And it really does only take about five minutes of actual work, plus some time for proofing and of course baking. I'm going to get the book back out of the library and try again very soon. I also will be buying a stone in the very near future. Who knows, this book might end up a "must buy".

The front room is nearly done!

Before (this is the day we moved in):

From front room

After:

From front room

Obviously I need to recover those chairs to make them match, and I also need more furniture for the other end of the room (it's a really big room), not to mention art for the walls, but it's basically done. I cannot believe that we finally tackled it. Three years of hating that 300 square feet of house, and now I just plain like it.
Pictures of the rest of the progress are here.

Update on Blogstalking #3

It has been brought to my attention that I omitted my first true finished knitted object. I cannot believe that I forgot it, but my mother was there to remember for me: My first true knitting project was a beer cozy. Looking back, I shared it on an online knitting message board on November 13, 2006. I've officially been knitting more than two years now. How time flies when you're accumulating stash.


There's a 4th assignment from blogstalking, and I'll get that put up this weekend. But first I need to finish the front room. The walls are basically done, there are now curtains in the windows and everything! I'm getting so excited!