Finding the Weaving Groove

Those of you who have been reading a while may remember my table loom, Miss Bennet. For the last year and a half, she's been sitting folded up and unused (because I didn't have anywhere to set her up) but today I finally dusted her off and opened her up. This morning I wound a warp for a green wool scarf, and dressed the loom for weaving. I did a bit of sampling for practice, and once I'd found my rhythm, I started weaving the scarf. It's pretty wide at the moment (nearly twelve inches) but I'm sure that between draw-in (the tension of weaving that pulls in at the sides of the cloth) and fulling it after I take it off the loom, it will be somewhat narrower after.


You can see it's a simple pattern, bands of plain weave surrounding bands of basketweave. A simple design to thread and weave, to help me find that groove of weaving, after a year off. Still, I have to admit that I find even this simple design pretty exciting. Hopefully it will turn out to be a nice scarf when I'm done.

Chicken, Cheesecake, Octopus

I have definitely gotten back into my cooking groove, lately. It may have been sparked by the great Thanksgiving meal my HLM and I made last week (with not only pumpkin pie, but also accompanied by my favourite delicious banana bread.) My groove was certainly helped along with some excellent garlic-marinated barbequed pork chops with some homemade porcini mushroom sauce, a few nights ago. Sorry, no photos -- that food is all long gone, now.


Autumn appears to be in full swing, here, so tonight I decided I wanted some comfort food to warm myself up. I saw a recipe somewhere today for a chicken pot pie with leeks and mushrooms, and decided that I didn't really need a recipe to make it, so I came home and improvised this one. It didn't take that long, and I think it's going to be something I revisit again and again this winter.

I did wuss out and use a frozen pie crust. Don't judge me -- I made one from scratch for the pumpkin pie last week, I promise.


It looks a bit messier on the plate, but it still tasted pretty great. Just a hint of thyme and sage really fill out the flavours. Yum.

Then, last week I got a craving for cheesecake, so I pulled out a recipe for Vanilla Bean Cheesecake, taken from Junior's Deli in NYC. I have wanted to go there and eat their cheesecake ever since I learned of them in Tom Robbins' Still Life With Woodpecker:

Who knows how to make love stay?

1. Tell love you are going to Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
2. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.

But I digress. The main difference with a Junior's cheesecake is the crust -- you will find no graham wafers, here (and good riddance!) Junior's makes a very thin sponge cake for the crust, and then loads a bunch of delicious fluffy cheesecake on top. I have to admit that I was skeptical at every stage of this cheesecake. I wasn't sure that the crust turned out right, and then I wasn't sure that the cheesecake batter baked properly, and basically I just made it and crossed my fingers and stored it in the fridge overnight. The next day I cut myself a slice, and as the knife went through, I could tell it was going to be fluffy and perfect. I wish you could taste it. I am definitely a convert to the Junior's way of doing things.


Lastly, in knitting news, I have made an octopus. Okay, not quite -- only five arms, I know. I have finished knitting the main part of Girlie Friday, and have sewn the sleeve seams already (and tried it on, I will admit. I didn't want to take it off; the sleeves alone were so warm and cozy.) Tonight I will sew the side seams and then wet block it. Tomorrow I will pick up the stitches for the collar/front bands and see how that goes. On the home stretch!

To Frog or Not to Frog

A week or so ago, I got it into my head that I needed to knit some new mittens. I found a cute design on Ravelry and dug out some stash Cascade 220 in some cool contrasting colours, and decided to jump in.

In the past, the mittens I have knit have always had a snug little ribbed cuff that clings to the wrist. These mittens are of the style where there is no shaping between arm and wrist and hand, but have a little thumb gore that you make on the side and then pick up thumb stitches when you're done the hand.


Here's the thing: It fits a bit snug in the arm, where the knitted braids sit, and a bit loose in the hand, which is okay, too. The wrist -- the wrist is where the problem lies. Since it's the same size as the hand and arm, it's really floppy there, and I don't really like it. I don't like it to the point that I'm not sure if I'll wear the mittens.

I am hoping that blocking might help -- it'll make the hand and arm fit better, I'm sure, and while I can't do much about making the wrist fit better, at least the fabric will be even and flat and lovely, there, with better drape. Maybe that will make enough of a difference.

Certainly it can't be argued that they are cute mittens with adorable robots on them, and that the double-layer of worsted weight wool will make them super warm. The only question is: should I carry on and finish knitting them and block them in the hopes that I will learn to love them or should I call it a day and frog them and make a different pair?

There is something that I dislike about frogging a project -- is it about admitting defeat, or about feeling like I'm somehow letting the project down by not finishing it? I suppose I'm just being neurotic, either way.

What do you think? To frog or not to frog?

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

The weather today was sorta cool, sorta warm, sorta cloudy, sorta rainy. In other words, a perfect day for some roast chicken. Having recently watched a great video for a recipe on skillet-cooked chicken with a lovely herb sauce, I decided that today was the day to try it out.

Verdict: easy & delicious.

That Sort of Sunday

Have you ever had the sort of Sunday where you make bread pudding for supper? (Please take a moment to admire those browned crusty bits poking out the top, which somehow soaked up the sweet eggy mixture and then caramelized in the oven into something truly heavenly.)



The sort of Sunday, I mean, where you drown it in warm whiskey sauce and then curl up on the sofa to eat and knit and watch the latest episode of Rubicon?

Animation

I came upon this charming little movie on the interwebs and had to share.



(edited to try to make the darn thing fit.)

Cables for a Kindle

A month or so ago, I decided I need a Kindle. I found myself poking around amazon one night, and somehow got drawn in by the little videos about their latest model, with all the upgrades and improvements. At the time, they weren't yet available; if they had been, I would probably have ordered one right then. That's how things work when I'm home alone, websurfing at night, with little willpower. I'm sure one or two of you might relate.


When my HLM got home, he reminded me that he has one of the second-generation Kindles that he got for a gift, and doesn't use it much. He offered to let me use it, and I happily took him up on it (even though I'm still secretly thinking I should get a new one -- I mean, the upgrades!)

So reading books on the Kindle has become my latest distraction while pedaling away on the stationary bike. I'm enjoying it a lot, although it's perhaps a bit too quick and easy to wirelessly download books, which might be encouraging my tendency to thoughtlessly overspend. It does mean I've been reading more lately than I have in a long time, so perhaps it's okay, anyway.


Thing is, if I want to bring the Kindle along with me (like to continue reading the book at work, for example) I have to put it in my purse, alongside keys and pens and lip balm and all manner of things that could muck it up one way or another. A more dedicated consumer would spend anywhere from $30 to $200 for a Kindle cover on amazon. As a stashbusting knitter, I immediately thought of a knitted sleeve for it. I had recently been going through my Vogue Stitchionary of cables, looking for inspiration, and decided to modify one of the asymmetrical cables to use on a Kindle sleeve. I didn't make a gauge swatch, but just started and restarted it a few times (changing needle sizes, adding stitches) until I was happy with it. I made a little chart for the cable to make the two sides mirror-images of one another, and thought I had the two sides spaced evenly, vertically, but it turns out I didn't. Then again, since the cable is asymmetrical, anyway, I suppose it doesn't hurt to have the two of them staggered asymmetrically, as well.

To sum up: I used up the last ball of Sublime Cashmere Silk Merino that I had hanging around, and our Kindle is protected from damage. Win-win.

Spot Check Socks

Despite falling off the face of blogland for a couple of weeks, I have nevertheless been crafting. I started a couple of new projects, and finished the second sock of this pair.

As I mentioned once before, I think, these are the Spot Check socks from the book Knitting Socks With Handpainted Yarn, and I made them with one wee skein of brightly coloured Koigu and a half a skein (or so) of deep dark brown Malabrigo sock, the two of which combined make them more than a little on the decadent side.


They are also super-warm, being two-stranded throughout the leg and foot. My mom is worried that my toes will get cold.

In fact, while I was knitting them, I thought it was a bit funny that the toes and heels were single-stranded, since those are so often the part of the sock that wears out first. Perhaps a smarter knitter would do the same double stranded pattern over the toe, as well, but using two ends of that same colour?


I have a few contenders for a second pair, using the other matching skein of Koigu that I have left over, but I'm not sure how crazy to take it. There are a lot of pairs of Spot Check socks on Ravelry that use two yarns that don't contrast as well, and the pattern is somewhat lost. One of the things I love most about this design is how well the variegated yarn stands out -- each little stitch is like a jewel of one pure colour. I'm not sure if I have anything in my stash (beyond black or white) that would let the pattern show up that well again.

More show and tell tomorrow.

Spot on

Yesterday afternoon, I finished the first one of the Spot Check socks. The photo includes the remaining Koigu to show two things:

1. that yarn is just as crazy as I said it was, and the sock pattern really tones down the crazy to something more reasonable.

2. the first sock used less than half a ball of the Koigu (yes, I weighed it) so I will be able to make the whole pair of socks using just one skein -- I will have another skein left to make a pair with a different background colour. I like this colourway with the brown, since it gives a bit of a 70s feel to the colour palette, but I would like it with black, too, I think (more 80s?) or maybe even something completely different.

My Heart Beets 4U Socks

As I mentioned earlier, I finished these socks a few days ago, but got completely caught up in the next pair and neglected to blog about them.

The yarn I used is the last Rockin' Sock Club shipment, called Firecracker -- a bunch of lovely reds and purples which reminded a lot of people of a harvest of beets, which is one of the reasons that this pattern was called "My Heart Beets 4U."


The other reason, of course, is because there is a big garter stitch beet on the heel of the sock, which then spirals up into faux cables like beet greens sticking out the top of it. So cute!

It was this beet on the heel which cinched for me which sock I wanted to knit from the July shipment. While the other pattern was also lovely (and I'll probably knit it another day with another yarn) the beets were calling to me. (Yeah, I really love beets.)


The rest of the sock was the same simple faux cable, composed of yarnovers and decreases set up in such a way that the stitches seemed to twist like knitted cables, but rather than making the fabric tighter because of crossed stitches, it left it stretchier because of the yarnovers. Because of this, I once again chose to knit a medium foot, although I did the heel flap a bit longer (the length specified for the Large size) which gave me a little more wiggle room in the instep.

They fit very well and are completely gaudy and unreasonable. And they make me crave some of grandma's borscht.