I really ought to do this cooking thing more often

Two posts in one day? And this one not even about knitting, but I wanted to remember the food that I ate.


1. Lightly roast some random amount (a handful? I think it was less than a cup) of pine nuts. Set aside
2. Roast Israeli couscous in pine nut oil, then set to simmer with the liquid as per directions.
3. Saute 1 red pepper, 1 yellow pepper, and 1 yellow squash. When squash is translucent (and everything's mostly done), add in one small can of chickpeas, just so they get warmed up.
4. Combine everything along with some feta, some green onion, and a healthy couple dashes of balsamic vinegar.

Seriously. If I hadn't burnt the couscous (I don't want to talk about it), this would actually be exactly what I had hoped it would be. Weird since I'm not really used to cooking successes, but satisfying.

Boreale

My most recent project (and the one that I'm the most excited to work on) is the Whisper Cables Pullover by Veronik Avery. I'd been wanting to knit most of her patterns for quite some time now, and Loopy is now carrying both yarns in her yarn line, St-Denis. In theory, I'll talk about the pattern when I'm done with it (hopefully it fits? It's always touch and go with me), but first I want to talk about the yarn that I'm working with, Boreale.

Like her first yarn Nordique, Boreale is 100% wool, made in the US, and comes in a wide range of colors. I know when Veronik was at Loopy, she talked about the way it's spun, but I don't remember the details, except that the structure of the spin might be different than most machine spun, commercially available wool. It's plied so it doesn't seem that it will pill. I woudn't go so far as to call this yarn amazing soft, but it's also not scratchy. I could see using this for any project, be it cables, lace, or just simple stockinette. It's reasonably priced for the yardage and the colors, and seems to me that it'd make a fabric that could be worn for years.

I do have some reservations about this yarn; when soaking, it seems to bleed a little. I don't know if this is just the magenta or if it will happen with all colors, but my water definitely ended up pink. This didn't make a noticeable difference in the final color though, and I do not know if it will continue to bleed. I'm also onto my 4th ball, and have encountered three knots and a little bit of vegetable matter. It does spit splice amazingly so this wasn't a huge deal breaker for me, but because I otherwise have such a huge knitting-crush on Veronik, it was a little disappointing.

So, there you have it. In general, I think this is a good all purpose yarn when you're looking for fingering weight that will stand up to a lot and need a variety of really rich colors.

Red Lentil Soup

Made this soup tonight with just a few modifications. Whoa man is it good.

• Doubled the onion, celery, and carrots. Left out the tomatoes, and used four cloves of garlic.
  
• Two cubes of chicken bouillon in two cups of water, and then five cups of water.
• About 1.75 cups of red lentils.

It's super simple, and something that I'd eat again.

Daaang

I should update.

I'm knitting a whole lot lately, but feel like I don't have too much to show for it. I'm not really sure why... maybe it's because I've been sample knitting? Sample knitting is fun and has been a great way to try out new things-- patterns, yarns, techniques-- that I otherwise wouldn't have even looked twice at, but it does mean that my hard work goes out the door. Seeing as I live in a fairly small apartment, and already have too many sweaters and hand knits, that is probably a good thing, but still leaves me feeling like I have nothing to show for my work. And, you know, if I remembered to take pictures of the things before I gave them to the store, or whoever else they should be going to, I'd probably not really feel that way.

In other news, I finally finished my Fireside! It's beautiful, and I've been wearing it once a week since I seamed it. It does still need buttons, but I kind of like it open. It's probably the warmest thing that I've ever made, which is good for me.

Another FO!

And I have finished seaming another project. It is beautiful if I do say so myself, and something that I'm going to be very excited to knit for real.

The yarn was Lush, a lovely angora and merino blend from Classic Elite. I can't get over how lovely and soft it is. I expected it to shed much much more than it did, but really the only time I had some issues with fuzzies was when I was seaming it. While I was knitting, it held itself together in the yarn incredibly well.

The sweater, Autumn Pullover, was just a simple boatneck pattern with seed stitch edges. It calls for the yarn that I used (shocker!), I got gauge just about, and it fits like a dream.

This was the first time that I've ever seamed a big project, and it was much easier than I expected. It just took some patience, and a lot of watching internet videos and looking at different diagrams. Once I figured out how it worked, it seemed to turn out nicely. And the seams along the sleeve were incredible and fast.

So fiddly, yet so good

Since I was worried about running out of yarn, I decided to go ahead and do the applied icord finishing on the shoulders and neck of this sweater.

My mind, she is blown.



It's kind of a pain, since you end up knitting four stitches for each stitch, and I had to pick up a lot, but the finished product is amazing. It just adds something that polishes the sweater so very much. I was concerned because some of it was curling, but the applied icord just made it so much more substantial. I am in love, and am considering adding it to another sweater that I've been working on.I'm just about to my waist on the sweater, and I think I will keep going until I am out of yarn. I might need to buy another skein, but a four skeined vest for the price of one? I can definitely handle that.

Vest of Frustration

This vest has been started and stopped a few times. A friend gave me some delightful malabrigo with the one caveat that I actually use it, and not just let it wither away in my stash. Since she gifted me with three skeins, I figured I'd try it as a vest. However, I wasn't happy with most of the vest patterns that I could find. I wanted a deep scoop or v-neck in a worsted weight yarn. (Crisp was very close to what I was looking for, but in sport weight. And while I do love Wendy's patterns and advice, there is no way that I was going to pay for a pattern and then basically have to rewrite it.) I cast on for something of my own, but quickly realized I wasn't talented enough/was too lazy to do the math to make the neck look incredible.

Then, along came Bramblewood.

I love cables, and the scoop was just the right depth. I started the 33" on size 6s, and then realized that it was not going to work out for me. The gauge was making my hand hurt on 6s, so I moved up to 7s, but the size I was making was not going to be big enough for me in the shoulders. I also wasn't crazy about the way the cable pattern kind of blended into the rest of the stockinette. (If you look, when the cables are the furthest out, it makes it smooth between the rest of the stockinette body.) As I needed the needles for something out, I put the project in time out for about a month and moved on.

Lately, I've been kind of a knitting fiend. I seem to be happiest when I have a sweater-ish project and a sock project on the needles, so I decided to restart this (on size 7s, knitting the 36" size) on Wednesday. I did add an extra purl stitch to the cable pattern to keep it from flowing into the stockinette, and I'm really pleased with how it's looking. Once I joined in the round, I did find that the yarn has a slight tendency to pool, so I'm alternating skeins, and I am loving the striping effect that I'm getting. It is coming along quite nicely, and I'll hopefully have enough yarn to finish this either this weekend or early next week. The good news is that there's minimal finishing, so I won't have any reason not to have a smart fall vest soon.

Fixed Gretel

Fixed Gretel
Originally uploaded by sarasneeze

Please disregard the mess on the floor around me.

As you can see, I finished a Gretel. The first time I made this, it ended up much too floppy. I felt like the pink mushroom from Mariokart (don't act like you don't know which one I mean). I could pull it down all the way over my face and have it act as a kind of mask. Three months later, I went back and ripped the offending extra repeat, and now I have what might be the perfect hat. I have no idea what gauge I got (I am too lazy to measure), but the fabric is dense and soft and smooshy.

Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Damask Rose

Pattern: Gretel by Ysolda Teague

Mods: added an extra twist after the crown. I liked the way that having three and then two made the pattern flow a little differently and seemed to give it a slightly different form on my head before tapering off. Otherwise, I just followed the instructions as written for the medium size.

Notes: Love this pattern! The increases after the ribbed part and the decreases within the cables are just perfect. It's no surprise that I love most things Ysolda does, but the combination of my favorite yarn and a really well-written pattern made it a delight to knit. It does take longer than another beret would because you are cabling every other stitch on every other row, but it'd also be a good pattern on which to learn cabling without a cable needle.

Here is what it looks like with too many repeats, and here is what it looks like what it's done. Much better, no?

I'm back?

It would appear that I fell off the face of the earth a little bit there. I'm not so good at remembering to blog frequently, and I'm pretty terrible at taking pictures of things in a timely manner. However, I'd like to change that. So, I'm going to start updating again! I can put more information on here than I do on Ravelry, and have a little ego boost if I notice that people are looking here.

(I'd also like to write better, and rumor has it the best way to do that is just to practice. So here goes!)

For my summer cardigan, I have learned how to cable without a cabling needle. (At least, I think I have. This might not work out for a project with real, traveling up the whole sweater, aran type cables, but since it's working for me now, I'm counting it as a learned skill.) I have to say, I love it. It seems like it's such a daredevil feat... when you come to the part that needs to be cabled, you move the stitches off of the needles, work a little bit more, and then pick those free floating little loops back up and carry on. It's like parachuting, but for knitting. Every other time that I'm working, one of my worst fears is the stitches falling off of the needles, since that would cause damage that, to me still, is irreparable. (I'm still scared of crochet hooks, so ladders are my enemy). But when I'm cabling, that definitely changes. I like the ballsy, gutsy way I feel about my stitches now, as though they'll do what I tell them to, no matter their needle status.

In other news, short sleeves take much, much longer than they should.

Grrr

Working on my summer cardigan, a lovely pattern (it's called Cherry, and is titled "Summer Cardi" on my ravelry projects page), with a lovely cotton yarn (Rowan Cotton Glace to be precise). I cast on for Ravelympics, finished the back in record time, and then got hung up on the front. I got really excited, and thought I was almost done with the front left side! And then realized that, in a complete move of utter genius-ness, I had forgotten to do the neck decreases.

D'oh.

The good news is that, since the closing ceremonies have already happened in Beijing, it's already late. So I won't feel like I'm really losing anything by making it perfect. It's just still frustrating.

(This is also the yarn that was used for the back and the first side of another teeny tiny cardigan, before I realized that I hadn't modified the pattern correctly, and it was never going to fit. So if I've ripped that far already, then what's the big deal?)

Once I install my camera onto my new computer, I will upload some FOs. One of these days....

New Project!

The Rowan sale at Loopy finally got the better of me. I managed to splurge in moderation though, and now I'm starting on my Inga hat, in Rowan Felted Tweed, colors Clover and Straw. I'm still swatching right now, but I got such glee when purchasing them. Where's the logic in that? It's 85 degrees outside, and I'm positively dancing in place about working with wool. ::sigh:: Oh well. A hat will be a nice and easy project to take to the beach tomorrow, without getting too sweaty.

People

I just (well, an hour ago) got home from spending a few hours knitting in a lovely little yarn store, where I met some very fun people! Battlestar Galactica definitely came up in conversation, as did some other nerdy things, and the fact that we all definitely like knitting (hello, spending hours on a Friday evening sitting around with people we barely know) makes for a pretty easy ice breaker. Yay for ravelry as a way to connect to people!

Whoop

This is my attempt to get into knitting blogging.... I once had a personal blog, and then decided that the only people I really wanted reading about my life (like, my friends), were the people who were actually a part of it, so I stopped. However, now that I've discovered my love for knitting, I'd like to share that with the world (and also hopefully get some helpful comments along the way.)