idlewood; or, crazy for cowlneck, day 1.

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I’d initially intended for my next post to be about blocking the hemlock ring. But that will have to wait until tomorrow. Why, you ask? Because last night I fell hard. For a sweater.

Have you seen this absolutely swoonworthy new design by Cecily Glowik MacDonald? I am in love. I immediately started looking through my stash for appropriate yarns and yardages. Beaverslide? Nope, not tweedy enough. Peace Fleece? Not drapey enough. And then I remembered this deliciously soft natural grey cormo from the Elsa Wool Company in Colorado. I purchased six squishy skeins in the fall of 2007 at the Taos Wool Festival, and I’ve been saving it for the right project. I think this is it. I checked the (handwritten) label, and found that the weight and yardage matched the yarn in the pattern.

So I swatched as I sipped my morning coffee, and began daydreaming of a cozy grey big-cowled tunic-y sweater. And suddenly the fact that the semester starts tomorrow didn’t seem quite so bad. I mean, this is the perfect sweater to be a hip-yet-studious grad student. Right? This sweater will actually help me with my preparation for my comprehensive exams. Right?

My swatch was close enough to the called for gauge, so I washed it, set it out to dry, and then cast on for the cowl neck. This pattern calls for using larger needles than you’d think would be appropriate for the yarn, and because of this, the drape is fabulous.

Boh is not impressed.

So here I am, twenty-four hours after I first laid eyes on Idlewood: an inch or so into the cowl neck, and a tiny bit more relaxed about the craziness that begins tomorrow.

hemlock blob, boh, buttons.

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A podcast, an episode of Project Runway, and two mugs of coffee later, I present to you my hemlock ring, in blob form, and I love it. Now, where am I going to block this thing?

Boh has no idea.

Yesterday afternoon,  I quickly added a fourth (red) button to my Shalom, and then swapped out the less matchy orange button (second from the top) in order to make this wearable, and quick. See, yesterday was cold and rainy, and, let’s face it, rather unproductive. A coffee shop work plan took shape, and I decided that I needed to be able to wear Shalom. I think I will eventually swap out the orange buttons for red ones, but this worked wonderfully for yesterday’s coffee shop work date (followed by a french-fries-with-delicious-dipping-sauces-reward-for-reading date). Here are a few more Shalom pictures! (Tough to take good photos in artificial light. The blurry ones are my favorites.)

Back to the pile of reading!

perfect.

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This arrived in the mail on Wednesday accompanied by a note that said, “When I saw the logo on the mug, I immediately thought, Rooster needs to have this!” This dear, dear friend (and non-knitter) knows me well. And apparently has been visiting MD S&W with his family for years. (Thanks, Champ.)

No new knitting or spinning progress to report. I was out of town again this weekend for some super productive meetings, and I am scrambling to feel ready for the semester, which begins on Wednesday. I have, however, been queuing and ogling patterns and projects on ravelry, which is something I do when I feel like I don’t have time to actually knit and spin. Hoping to make time on this rainy Sunday for something woolly.

I made another batch of granola this morning — something I do almost weekly — and thought to snap a picture. Also, last week’s sunflower is starting to droop.

I still think she’s lovely. And that’s what I’ve got for you today. More soon!

beginning the bind-off.

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This is going to take awhile, but boy, is it ever pretty! The knitted bind-off option for the hemlock ring involves a repeat that includes turning your work, and then knitting and purling into one stitch several times to create that lovely loop. Then you turn back and bind off those stitches, and continue on to the next grouping. Slow, but worth it, I think.

Also, last night we had a super easy, super delicious meal, completely inspired by this tomato tart over at inoakpark. I followed the recipe that K. links to, though I used slightly less butter in my crust, and didn’t need the additional tbsp of water. Also, I only slathered whole grain spicy mustard on half of the dough, as the boy is not a huge fan. I used mozzarella instead of goat cheese, fresh flat-leaf parsley for the herbs, and tucked a few stray rounds of zucchini into the gaps left by my tomato slices. The dough took less than ten minutes to make, and requires no resting time. Thirty minutes after that, this deliciousness came out of the oven. I’m not ashamed to say we polished off the entire tart. I will be making this again.

yesterday, produce. today, productivity.

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And that’s just what was left on the counter when I thought to grab my camera. The first raspberries and blackberries have ripened, so we were able to pick 1 pint yesterday. I also brought home a handful of deep sweet red peppers, a baby eggplant, cucumbers, zucchini, orange and yellow carrots, pink and orange beets, rosemary, parsley, and spring onions. (I chose to load up on the heartier stuff this week rather than go the lettuce/cabbage/salad mix route, but all of that deliciousness was available as well!)

I tried out a recipe for onion biscuits from a favorite cookbook of mine (Recipes from America’s Small Farms), but these were only okay. (I still highly recommend this cookbook.) Part of my frustration stems from the fact that I didn’t watch these carefully and they turned out a bit too golden. (Multitasking while baking a new-to-me recipe is clearly not a good idea.) But beyond that, these were too harsh and onion-y, and I cut back on the onion in the recipe. I think these need some cheese, or even something sweeter, like a touch of honey, to counter the super strong onion-y taste. (And I love onions.) I was going for a kind of summery biscuit dinner, so I made a very light tomato sauce with zucchini, squash, fennel, onion, and basil to pour over these. The sauce was delicious, but not an awesome match for these biscuits. You win some, you lose some, right?

Boh, on the other hand, won big yesterday. I picked up a trachea while restocking on Boh’s food at the natural pet supply store in town, and he spent the afternoon working his way through it. Cheap, fun for him to eat and play with, and a natural source of glucosamine. Triple win.

I spun a bit more of the brown alpaca yesterday, and I’m almost through the second three ounces. Plying soon, but probably not today.

My morning has already involved a heavy dose of this, and it is time to get back to it.

question: what’s missing?

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Answer: My hemlock ring blanket. I’ve finished the knitting, and all I need to do is knit the incredible long bind-off row. I was waiting to put up a new post because I wanted to be able to share a picture of it off the needles, but let’s face it. That might not happen for a few more days. So here’s what else has been going on at Casa Rooster:

Much pouting.

A fried egg sandwich with barbecue sauce for breakfast.

Frequent belly scratching. Boh pretty much maintained this position on the couch for much of last night.

And a little bit of spinning. I’m into the second three oz. bump of the brown alpaca. Also, lots of small but necessary campus tasks, and a fair bit of reading. There’s granola in the oven, laundry in the washer, and today is farm day.

Time to settle in with a coffee refill and today’s pile of reading. And maybe that bind-off row…

spinning alpaca.

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This morning (instead of starting the book I need to finish for a discussion on Thursday) I sat down to play with the alpaca I am spinning for a friend of mine. Boh woke me up, barking to go out, ten minutes before my alarm went off. (I don’t know about you, but I really, really enjoy the sleep I get early in the morning, just before I wake up.) So I was groggy. Hence the decision to make coffee and spin, rather than jump into the day’s work.

This stuff is much softer than what I used for my first (short-lived) attempt at spinning alpaca last summer. I don’t have any information about it, but I’m wondering if it is a blend, or perhaps baby alpaca? My friend gave me two different fibers to spin — this natural brown stuff, and some natural grey alpaca. The grey stuff feels coarser, and more like what I thought alpaca was like.

I’ve got close to 6 oz. of the dark brown alpaca, so I’m aiming for a two-ply in the light-worsted to worsted range. Some sections of the fiber spun smoothly and evenly, while others required a bit more wrestling and wrangling. I’m not sure if that has to do with the fiber being a bit compressed in places, or if it is simply the natural variation in the quality of this animal’s coat. I am quite happy with the way this is turning out — and I’m anxious to spin up the second bobbin and ply so that I can see how the fiber reacts when it is set. (Will it soften further? Plump up?) I’ll keep you posted.

This photo was pretty dark, so I clicked the “enhance” button in iPhoto, and here’s what it gave me. I like it.

t-10 rows.

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I am so close to finishing this. Which is excellent, because I very much want to block it and send it to live in LA. I’m neglecting my reading, and I even allowed myself to watch the entire final disc of Mad Men Season 3 on Saturday. (Okay, and I’m currently downloading the first few episodes of Season 4 to keep me company as I knit around and around.) I have a few rows of stockinette and one more increase section before I bind off. And then I’ll be able to keep reading…and perhaps cast on a few of the projects I’ve been daydreaming about lately!

Boh has been keeping an eye on this project. Too bad it isn’t for him…

in which i distract you with food.

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You know, so you don’t notice that I haven’t even picked up my knitting this week.

First up, zucchini brownies. The farmers at my CSA emailed a link to this recipe last week, and since I still had zucchini leftover after all kinds of zucchini casseroles and breads, I decided to give it a whirl. Super delicious, and the chocolate chips you sprinkle on top at the end make these extra rich and chocolatey, almost as if they’re frosted. Also, this recipe uses 2-3 cups of shredded zucchini, which is way more than most zucchini bread recipes call for.

And then, on the same night, no less, I made bread and butter pickles with a handful of gorgeous farm cucumbers. I followed Deb’s recipe (minus the celery seed because I didn’t have any), and now I have a jar full of pickles to snack from in the fridge. (Lucky for me, the boy is not really a pickle fan. More for me!)

As you can see from this photo, Boh is also trying to be productive. If only he’d read and take notes on my books.

I snapped this photo of one of my bookshelves this morning. I can’t wait to knit with all this handspun, but I think I had better make a bit more progress on my reading lists first. Happy Friday!

greenery.

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On Friday afternoon, I got a call from N., who happens to be one of my favorite people. (Boh likes him a whole bunch too.) N. is a friend from my life in the southwest who made a move eastward last year. He didn’t move here (that would be too good to be true) but he grew up in the next town over, so I get to see him whenever he is visiting his parents. Anyway, Friday was a long day. It was the last day before the boy returned, and I had purposefully planned some meetings and things to do in order to make the day seem, well, less long. And I finished those. And it was only mid-afternoon. And then N. called to tell me that we were going on a walk. Just what I needed.

We snacked on zucchini bread, Boh gnawed on a stick, and the sunshine and weekend-announcing breeze were enjoyed by all.

And then I made a huge pot of green beans for dinner. And waited. And he’s home now, though he probably wouldn’t call here “home,” exactly. And I am happy.

More knitting soon.