Totally Worth It

The shawl is off the needles, after a hand-cramping evening of casting off. Of course it took many hours to do so, and I was starting to panic about running out of yarn on the skein I was using (not that I didn't have another skein left over, but it was unwound, and I didn't relish the idea of winding a new ball just to finish the cast off row.) After all my worry, I had just enough to finish. It looks great; the ruffle itself is super ruffly and awesome, totally worth the time and effort, in the end. It seems smallish, but once I block it, it will grow substantially. After all, I always take Elizabeth Zimmermann's advice to "block shawls severely." Photos will follow.

For now, I'm going to have a relaxing bath and catch up on some reading.

The Monster

Though I am nearing the end of the Red Ruffle shawl, it is pretty slow-going, now. The lace portion is completed, and I am working on the ruffle, which requires several intense increase rows to start it. Having finished the increases, I'm left with slightly over 2200 stitches per row. Yikes. And it isn't even mindless stockingette at this point, but more like a K15-P15 ribbing, which requires some attention to keep from screwing it up. Enough attention that I can't drag it to the pub for Knit Night. My progress has been steady, but slow, since each row takes something just short of two hours. And I have many more rows to go.


I haven't been posting much progress on other projects, since I have been concentrating on getting the shawl off the needles, but rest assured that I have other things on the go. I have cut out a cottony springtime skirt that I've been meaning to make for ages, and I cut out all the triangles for another hexagon quilt (but we'll talk about that later), and I've even measured out a couple of warps for my next stashbusting weaving project. Things are happening behind the scenes at Chez Crafty, and patience will be rewarded.

Carrot Cake, Baby

When I brought home a jar of baby food, it elicited a raised eyebrow from my HLM. Nothing to fear, it was only because the current issue of Cook's Country magazine has a recipe for carrot cake that uses strained carrots in place of some of the oil, to make it a bit healthier, but retain the desired light and cakey texture and carrot flavour. I looked up a few other similar carrot cake recipes online, but was dismayed to see that most of them use the carrot baby food to eliminate using any shredded carrot. While I will admit that grating carrots is the most tedious part of making a carrot cake, I really hate to think of giving up that textural aspect of the cake.

This afternoon I threw this little baby together,
and it's totally living up to expectations: light and carroty and spicy... I made my usual cream cheese icing (from the Company's Coming Cakes book) because the one from Cook's Country uses marshmallow cream, and that's not exactly something I keep around the house. (Huge blocks of cream cheese, on the other hand...)

In the meantime, I have been making slow and steady progress both on the quilt and on the shawl (Clapotis is being saved for Pub Knitting, at the moment.)
I am into the fourth chart of the shawl -- it's hard to estimate a percentage complete on this one, not only because it is growing in a triangle shape, but also because the ruffle will have a disproportionate number of stitches compared to the shawl. Suffice to say that I have used maybe half of a 500 yard ball of yarn, and the pattern calls for nearly 2000 yards. Fortunately I am enjoying it a lot -- it's reminding me of all the other lace projects I have in my queue.