Back in action

I've started a Debbie Bliss sweater for my oldest niece, who received the teddy bear Henrietta. I'm almost done with knitting the back, but not quite as close as I thought I was. I nearly started binding off stitches for the shoulders 3 inches too soon, because I started looking at the instructions for the smallest size, instead of the size for 4 year olds.

A quick, random interjection: I'm takinga class on hand set type, and so I've started noticing things about letters that I never noticed before. I mention this because I'm very impressed that the default font for Blogger uses ranging numbers.

My house has a weekly meeting of the Molly Weasley society, in which Harry Potter books are read out loud and handicrafts are knit or crocheted or cut and pasted or, in one case, math proofs are proved. I've never gone before because they are a Sunday evening affair, but now that I have a rehearsal from 8 until 10 pm every week my homework should be done early enough that I can go.

Scarf completed

Done and done. I haven't blocked it yet, but I'll get around to it soon. I won't have any pictures until September, though, unless I buy a camera. Hmm. Perhaps.

Bread!

Another loaf! I made it a few days ago, so we've actually eaten all of it already.

It's strange being able to see exactly how much yarn is left before the scarf is done by folding it at the join.

I think my next project will be a sweater. A strong contender is Sesame at Magknits. I also may have found a pattern for the cabled sweater I'd like to do. Jenna Adorno, who has had designs published by Knitty, has a photo on her website of the Close Cable Cardigan by Vogue.

Halfway point for scarf

Halfway with the scarf! I can now wrap it all the way around my neck, and still leave some dangling on one side. Somehow I zoned out, and I only reentered the world when my skein disappeared. As I used up the yarn it reminded me of the melting witches in The Wizard of Oz:
The only problem with not paying attention is that now I have two patches where I didn't stick exactly the the pattern. Here they are in all their glory:
Each time I forgot to continue knitting to the end of the row when the right side was facing me and I was on the last four stitches. I'm not terribly bothered by it though, especially since I discovered the mistakes far past the point of ripping out to correct them.

I've successfully wound the second skein, which was pleasently knot-free, and attached the new strand. For some reason I had a difficult time making a slip knot while holding both pieces of yarn, but I figured it out in the end.

In other exciting news, Mo won sock yarn from I Heart Knitting, which there might be a picture of here if I'm doing this right.

Catch up on the baby socks

This is one of Mo's socks on top of the garish version of the scarf. Below are the socks just before being sent off.
I wrote Z. a short note, which told her that Henrietta had never met real cats before, but she is a brave teddy bear and should be introduced to Castor and Pollux, their two Siamese cats.

Baklava

The baking holiday is over. All ovens are now open for business.

When Mo and I eat out, we are most likely to end up at the local Moroccan restaurant. We especially love their mint tea and sweet nut-based desserts. A while ago we brought my parents and Mo's sister to the restaurant for tea. Tea eventually led to two rounds of dessert, and my father proclaiming, "These people really know their nuts. You know? They really know their nuts."

It's true. They do know their nuts. I don't know why I though baklava was supposed to be made with pistachios, but the walnut baklava at Amanouz has completely won me over. The last few times we ate there, though, they've been out of baklava. In addition to sampling some of the other desserts, we decided to fill the void by trying to make our own. The recipe we followed says we have to leave it out for 24 hours, and so far we've done a pretty good job of keeping it intact. One thing I like about phyllo dough is that no one can tell if you sneak a layer off the top.

Now that I've worked with phyllo dough, I'm less intimidated by the idea of making hojaldres. My grandmother has made them a few times and I cannot convey to you how delicious spinach becomes when encased in phyllo dough with sesame seeds. I think I'll see if we can set up a cooking date while I'm at home.

Scarf update

The scarf is clearly past the stage where it could be mistaken for a dishrag. Unfortunately, I nearly gave myself carpal tunnel getting to this length. My problem is that I hold my needles with far to much pressure, especially with the last two fingers of my right hand. However, this present incident of a cramped hand may be a blessing in disguise, because I am finally trying to address this problem. I've found it helpful to remember something I first heard during high school, in a completely different context: Just enough pressure to hold a potato chip.

A significant portion of the cross country team was running with clenched fists, and carrying their arms high and close to their bodies. It's no surprise that this takes extra energy, so the coach gave us a visualization to help relax. We had to pretend there was a potato chip between the first finger and thumb of each hand, and we had to keep our hands loose enough that the chip wouldn't break. I'm reminding myself of those potato chips as I knit, and I'm also cutting back on how long I knit in one sitting. The scarf won't have any more growth spurts, but as the weather reminded me yesterday (and the day before, and the day before that...) I have quite some time before I need a wool scarf.

Temporary Baking Deferment

As the weather is expected to be Wicked Hot for a while, I have declared a Baking Holiday. The oven will remain closed and no dough will be withdrawn from a heated oven until temperatures return to normal. Fortunately for you, gentle reader, I forgot to post a picture of this semolina loaf which I made last week. It was delicious. It was so delicious, in fact, that we got carried away while eating, and I didn't get a picture of the first loaf. But this is the second:

Irish Hiking Scarf, day 1

Ah, the magic of natural light. That is actually somewhat close to the real color. I was going to provide a close up as well, but then I realized the section I focused on has the one big mistake that I left in. I am usually pretty good about taking them out, but this time I had no idea what had gone wrong, so you can forget about trying to fix it. I was just starting to think I had cables figured out, too. I guess I should change my definition of "having a stitch figured out" to include being able to understand what happened when something goes wrong. And what is this? Doth mine eyes deceive me? A ball of yarn which pulls from the center?
Indeed. And so far there has only been one knot, which wasn't too tricky to untangle. I haven't ever wound a ball of yarn from a skein before, so I'm really glad this worked. The yarn is by Cascade Yarns, in the Heather collection, color 2445. It's listed on the knitalong page (the company, not the color specifically), but the list is nearly a mile long, so that's no surprise. I was poking around and I saw some of the finished scarves, and they look fantastic. I'm very glad I chose this pattern to try out cables.

Irish Hiking Scarf

This is part of my long term project to make The Ideal Sweater. Since at this point my fantasy involves cables, I figured it would be a good idea to see how cables work. After looking around for free cabled scarf patterns, I picked this Irish Hiking Scarf from Hello Yarn. I don't plan to continue knitting in this fantastically garish pink color, but Mo graciously let me use the yarn to practice. I looked in at the knitalong, and I've decided I want a yarn that will showcase the cables. I'm going to look for a light grey or grey-blue wool, and I'll consider using tweed.

Knitting in Public

Today I felt like a rebellious knitter. Mo and I went to hear Mary Cowhey read from her book Black Ants and Buddhists at the Cup and Top Cafe. Mary Cowhey is a progressive teacher of first and second grade in Northampton. From her background as an activist and organizer she has an amazing ability to draw on the resources offered by people in the community. She described using primary sources to teach about the cruelty inflicted by the conquistadors, and making signs to encourage voting in order to teach handwriting.

So where does the rebelliousness come in to play? We showed up early to get lunch, and knit while we waited for our food. After we ate, we nursed our drinks, and kept knitting. As empty space became scarce, we relocated to the steps of the hardware store, and continued to knit while we loitered (I should mention that the hardware store was actually closed). Then, most daring of all, we went back to hear Mary Cowhey's reading, and knit through the whole thing.

Even though I'd heard something about World Wide Knit In Public Day before it happened this June, I didn't really understand what it was about. It isn't that I'm a secretive knitter; I've knit in the library, and in the math forum, and I've certainly walked around campus with a ball of yarn stuffed in my coat pocket. But it felt somehow different yesterday. It could have been the difference between knitting in a library and knitting as part of a gathering. No matter how interesting you find someone's knitting, you can't have an enthusiastic discussion in a library about when you made your first baby sock or how you learned to knit from your mother. But I think the largest difference was because Mo and I were both knitting. Seeing one person knitting is interesting, and perhaps unusual enough to ask a question. Seeing two people knitting makes it into a group activity and an invitation to join in. I may have missed WWKIP day this year, but join me and mark your calendar: June 10th, 2007.

Accepted at Threadless!

As you can see in the sidebar, my design was accepted at Threadless for voting. I'm very excited. While I was waiting I kept worrying that something had gone wrong, because the small picture of my design with a big "PENDING" written across it disappeared from my profile. I'll put another button here just for fun.

Please go leave feedback and vote!

Scrap apron plan

This is my plan for an apron with an inset scrap border. My other idea was to make a Chinese Coin quilt, which is the smaller doodle on the lower right hand side. QuiltBus has a huge selection of quilt block patterns online, including the Chinese Coin pattern here, which might give you a better idea of what it would have looked like. After sewing everything together I realized I wouldn't have had enough to make a quilt anyway. My plan is to make a small size that I can quilt by hand, but I'd want it to be only a little shorter than this length, and with two stripes:
This is the border resting on some grape leaves on the porch. I don't know if I'll work on this more before going home, because I'd like to have a rotary cutter to even out the top and bottom edges. Either way, I'm glad I've done something with the scraps, because seeing them lying around made me feel neglectful.

A finished teddy bear

I would like to introduce Henrietta. She likes to wear dresses and climb trees:
I was playing with Henrietta and I thought something seemed familiar about her:
I've decided that the snapping noises were responsible for the cracks in the crust which appeared later. What made the noises so surprising was that they were so loud but didn't seem to be having a physical effect on the bread. I think with steam it would have had a softer/thinner crust and the cracks wouldn't have happened, but I can't be sure. The interior was okay but I am not a fan of the thick crust. Overall, the potluck can be summed up as a very successful trade of vegetables for carbs.

The loudest loaf

I have never been aware of this before, but when I took this loaf out of the oven it sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies. I've never read anything about this happening, and I certainly don't remember another loaf sounding like that. The noises have stopped (for now!) but I'm still curious about what was going on. I like how the slashes turned out. I'm curious about how it would have looked if I had steamed the oven.

I made this following the recipe for Pain Ordinaire, except I substituted in a half cup of semolina flour. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen today; I also mixed up a starter a semolina recipe, and "old dough" for a sourdough. The semolina is next on my list of breads, so the faux-old dough is in the freezer. I'm not exactly sure from the recipe, but I think the sourdough needs a starter in addition to the dough pieces, so I should mix that up as we eat through the semolina. This crackling beauty should be gone fairly soon, as Mo and I are bringing it to a potluck.

Sandcastle cake

This weekend a friend of ours had a birthday party. I was visiting my brother up at camp in the Adirondacks, but I helped Mo make a sandcastle cake to take to the party. Don't be fooled by the clean table top in the background, the entire kitchen was absolutely covered in graham cracker crumbs. And yes, that chocolate teddy bear is about to be eaten by a shark.

French toast

A fitting end for a fine loaf. The bizarre looking black things are local black rasberries. I guess from the picture they look like blackberries, but up close they look like discolored rasberries. We tried them plain and they didn't have much flavor, but I liked the subtle hint of berry they added with the french toast and syrup. I could taste the berry a lot more than the cinnamon and vanilla in the french toast, although Mo assures me that the taste was there.

Sandwich Bread, round 2

Two weeks ago Mo and I made a command performance for Gaby's son E. and his friends from summer daycare. They walked and got pulled in a buggy over to one of the gardens where the interns work, and after E. gave rowdy introductions we took a quick tour around the formal garden before settling down for lunch. A few of the kids were very young, but for the most part they were about three years old. One of the older kids, N., has apparently been tricking his friends into believing that he doesn't like to eat his sandwiches. (I say friends instead of teachers because everyone is refered to as a friend. It is adorable and makes them sound like Quakers.) N. admitted that sometimes he likes to pretend, and this time he managed to eat everything but the crust of his sandwich. So was there a difference between this sandwich and every sandwich he'd gotten before? Earlier that morning his mother had specifically reminded him that he'd been given a special mushy sandwich.

I made another loaf of sandwich bread last night, and N. would be pleased. It's the perfect loaf for a mushy sandwich like peanut butter and jelly, with a thin crust and a moist interior, but it holds up well to toasting. After having a slice with cream cheese and jam, I toasted a piece and melted some Gruyère on top. Delicious, and accompanied perfectly by cherry tomatoes.

It doesn't look as pretty as the last loaf, but I think it's closer to what the recipe intended.


This time it actually only baked for the requisite 35 minutes (Mo was an absolute sweetheart and took care of the baking end of things), but I handled it more than I would have liked while getting it into the bread pan, and it had to wait longer than specified during its second rise. By the time it got in the oven it had poofed over the top, which is why it has a collapsed section near the middle. Unlike the last loaf, it wasn't that I forgot about the bread as much as I was unwilling to stand in front of a hot oven while cooking dinner. No sandwiches for lunch today, as we have last night's dinner to finish off, but when we get home I will definitely make another piece of toast with cheese.

Bread update

Dry. Very dry. And only 26 hours after being taken out of the oven, so clearly that extra half hour of baking had some effect. We stored it cut side down, and it can't get much more humid, so it was definitely the baking time. Fortunately some cream cheese and rasberry jam took care of the dryness, and now there's only one piece left. Such a cute sized loaf! I haven't baked bread in a pan for a long time. It might have been a Victorian Milk Bread from Ultimate Bread by Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno, although I'm not altogether sure.

Threadless

Nervous nervous! I just submitted this design to Threadless, and I'll hear back in 4-8 days about whether they will put it up for voting. Then the voting public can tear apart my baby. If Threadless does they like it I'll still keep some rights, which is nice. I'd still be able to put it in my header, for example, although I'm not sure yet how to do such a thing.