Tag Archives: knitting

Progress.

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This week, I’ve been reading a lot about Progress (with a capital P) and modernization in the 19th century. Something about all the language of improvement, advancement, expansion, etc. made me pick up my toe up sock project again (despite the fact that I think I most enjoyed reading things that explored the uneasiness with ideas of modernity that existed alongside the narrative of Progress).

toe-up-first-sock

Strange light in my house this morning — these socks have a lot more green in them than you can see in this photo. The lights and darks are definitely pooling, and there is a big weird dark splotch near the top (a function of the calf shaping I’m adding rather sporadically), but I actually love the big chunks of light/dark that make stripes.

After several false starts, this sock is flying. This expansion of my sock-knitting skill set would not be possible without this tutorial over at knitting by bicycle. The heel does not involve wrapping, and for that, I am extremely grateful. I’m so excited about being able to knit tall socks without worrying about how much yarn I’m using, and I’m thinking that this is going to turn into an almost knee-sock! (Yay.)

eggs-and-bread

I took this picture last week: fried eggs, homemade bread, good coffee, and at least ten minutes with the New Yorker = a good day.

Back to work — hoping to reward myself with finishing this sock today!

FO: ribbed baby sweater.

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oscar21

oscar1

Hooray! The seaming is finished. And it wasn’t even that bad. (Note to self: Remember this the next time I let a sweater languish because it needs to be seamed.) Baby sweater seams go super quickly.

Details:

Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, 3.5 (?) balls. (might have been 4.5)

US 7 needles

3-6 mo size.

I would definitely make this again.

The goal was to have this finished in time for my weekly independent study with my advisor — which isn’t for another two hours. Victory!

Time to get back to the book we’re discussing…

“feeling” productive.

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The keyword there is “feeling,” folks. Yesterday was such a day: only a few hours of academic work was completed, but I managed to go grocery shopping, make all sorts of deliciousness in the kitchen, teach someone to knit, and attend reading group.

smashed-chickpea-salad

Smashed chickpea salad, adapted from Smitten Kitchen. (Shocking, I know.) My version lacked olives and bread, to make it a sandwich, but this was even better than I expected.

bread-and-brownies

More applesauce bread (I’ve been making at least a loaf a week lately) and Mark Bittman’s basic brownies — I know I’ve posted these before, but it has been several months since the last time I baked them. These were for a friend’s birthday. and they were every bit as good as I remembered them to be. And so easy! Why aren’t you making them already?

snowing

Yesterday afternoon, after several days of green grass and muddy walks with Boh, the snow began to fall again, in huge, wet flakes. Yay!

oscar-blocking

Progress on the baby sweater. At last. The ribbed baby jacket is blocking, and is almost dry. This afternoon, I will sew the seams together and weave in the ends. I ended up making a buttonhole in case I go that route, and after looking at snaps yesterday, I think I’d prefer a bright button. If I can’t make it to the yarn shop, I may swipe the blue button from my gathered cardi. We’ll see…

Time for coffee and actual productivity, instead of just feelings of productivity!

first handspun FO.

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handspuncowl1

handspuncowl2

I wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out, as my first plied handspun is definitely a thick-thin yarn. After perusing a bunch of cowl patterns on Ravelry, I settled on something similar to the malabrigo cowl I made a few months ago. I was aiming for a drapey fabric, and figured I’d knit til I ran out of yarn.

I cast on 75 stitches, worked a purl row at some point to counter the roll over, and then knit, knit, knit while catching up with a friend on the other side of the world, listening to This American Life, and even last week’s CraftLit episode. I increased by 9 stitches at a few different points in the middle, worked a decrease row (also 9 st) somewhere, another purl bump row, an increase row, and then at about 14 inches, a purl row close to the bind off. I was worried about getting it over my head, initially, but those fears were totally unfounded. I LOVE this cowl — and not just because it represents my first foray into the spinning side of things. I stayed up an extra hour last night in order to finish this — here’s the token “hold the camera up to the mirror” picture marking my victory:

handspuncowl3

It’s a good thing you can’t actually see how bleary-eyed I was at this moment — but we all know how certain projects induce a kind of “must…finish…” zombie-like state.

In conclusion: hooray for handspun! (And I will finish that baby sweater by Friday. Really.)

sweater on dog.

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sweaterondog1

sweaterondog2

I realize that the title of this post may inadvertently direct those looking for actual pictures of sweaters on dogs to my blog, and for that, I apologize. As you can see from Boh’s reaction, this is as close as we’re ever going to get to “sweater on dog”. I would, actually, consider knitting him something if (a) he seemed cold and (b) he didn’t LOVE destruction of knitted things. Surprisingly, he seems to understand the difference between WIP and FO. I can leave this on the couch for hours:

sweateralmost-done

And he will sleep next to it. But if it were finished, and somewhere even the least bit accessible, it might become Boh’s next victim. (Psst. See how close to done I am with this ribbed baby jacket? I really like how it is turning out. My wrist has been a little sore from all of the work I’ve been doing on it, so I think I need to take another week to knit the rest of the ribbing and sew up the side seams — oh, and decide on a closure. What do you think? Button? No button? Snap?)

More classic Boh:

sillydog-couch

Boh laid like this for hours yesterday. Thinking hard? Needs a lot of blood flow to the brain?

bohreading

And this. Such a tease. He didn’t actually read any of that book.

Coffee’s ready! Happy Thursday, all.

birthday weekend.

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I have a whole slew of unrelated (or maybe loosely connected) photos: knits in action, kitchen adventures, knitting mistakes… Hmmm. I promise NOT to name this post something about the letter K.

Friday:

bolero-in-action1

Bolero Jacket in action. I feel like I read a lot from folks about how sometimes knitting is not super wearable, and my blog gets lots of visitors who are looking for advice on wearing things like legwarmers, so I’ve been a bit more mindful of snapping photos when I am actually wearing things I’ve made (not that I consider myself remotely fashionable). This sweater gets a lot of wear around the house, and steps into real life when the weather is variable enough to warrant a heavy sweater but not a winter coat — this works best for me with a big puffy vest. I wear this when I need to bring a bit of comfort with me — in this case, the discussion of a tough book.

fork-for-scale

Friday night, we made pizza and lemon tart (from deb at smitten kitchen, of course). No pictures of the pizza. Note the fork for scale in this picture. I also discovered some serious errors with my increasing on the BSJ I’ve been working on — I literally had 6 ridges left to knit when I realized that my increases (for the fronts of the sweater) were uneven. I don’t even have the heart to photograph the problem, nor could I stomach ripping back. I just put it aside, dug through the stash, and cast on for a baby version of the bolero jacket.

Saturday:

biscuits1

moroccan-stew

Moroccan Stew (from deb) and biscuits (a la Mark Bittman). Also, a new spindle arrived:

newspindle

I LOVE this spindle. I spun the sample fiber it came with immediately, and may need to dig through my fiber stash to start something new so that I can put it to work. The spindle is from Spinsanity, and it spins wonderfully. Hooray for birthday presents to myself.

Sunday (actually anniversary of my birth):

birthday-cake

Homemade birthday cake, not baked by me. Honey-Rosemary Cake with Lemon Frosting, from Apples for Jam. This is incredibly delicious, the kind of cake you can eat several pieces of during the day and not feel like you’re overdosing on sugar. I intend to have some for breakfast after I post this.

replacement-sweater

And since this purports to be a knitting blog, here’s the progress I’ve made on my replacement baby sweater. Just about halfway done already — what a difference worsted weight yarn makes. I’ve had enough distance from my BSJ to take a look, and I imagine I’ll rip back and keep going — it may go to this baby, or to the next. Lots of folks in my life are adding to their families this year!

Hope you all had lovely weekends. Sadly, you don’t get to stop reading when it is your birthday, but I did slow down a bit. Time to have some of that cake and prep for class!

pooch for scale.

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pooch-for-scale

pooch-for-scale-2

Ta-da! My first plied yarn. By my calculations (which are often up for debate), this skein contains about 180 yards of squishy mostly worsted weight yarn, with some light worsted and light bulky here and there. I’m thinking that I *need* a new cowl, and once I finish this BSJ for the now overdue baby, maybe I will allow myself to cast on.

bsj-almost

I’m making progress, to be sure — cast off the 5 st on each side for the neckline yesterday, but there is much to do, leaving me with a dilemma: do I read for my independent study with my advisor tomorrow, or knit for him? I’ll likely do some of each, but what I cannot do — I repeat, CANNOT DO — is work on this:

fruitloops1

How did this happen? Spinning is a slippery slope, my friends. I got a new Butterfly Girl Designs spindle in the mail this month, but did not allow myself to test it out until AFTER I had finished spinning the Finn. So, while my plied skein was drying, I figured I had earned just a few minutes with this spindle and some more AVFKW fiber from the club. It seemed slightly unbalanced — likely due to how soft the gold hook is/perhaps some jostling during the shipping process, so I tried bending it slightly this way and that to make it just right — and suddenly, I had spun almost an ounce of this beautiful shetland in the Fruit Loops colorway. This is wayyy too much fun.

Alright — must stop blogging and get reading! or knitting!

purple potatoes, pickled onions and progress.

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Apologies for my kindergarten-esque approach to blogging this week. I’m going to chalk it up to the fact that my brain is tired — first “real” meeting with my committee this morning. It will be fine, but the meeting does have the word “exam” in the title, and I’m still a tad nervous.

Onward to the letter “P”.

purple-potatoes

Purple Potatoes. These are, in fact, from my friend P.’s farm! Aren’t they beautiful?

egg-and-pickled-red-onions

Pickled Onions — from  (where else) Smitten Kitchen — Deb made a pickled red onion and escarole salad last week that sounded incredible, so I made the onions, put them on a bed of spinach and fried an egg to make it dinner.

bsj-progress

Progress. This baby is going to arrive any moment now, and I really would love to be able to give this to my committee chair next week. I have a knitting date right after the meeting with my committee. Knitting friends + garter stitch = therapy.

Happy weekend.

more letter b’s.

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ginger-cookies

giant-muffins

Baking… (triple ginger cookies from 101 cookbooks, and some giant muffins from one of many Moosewood cookbooks in my collection)

bsj-aaron

Baby Surprise Jacket… (the chair of my committee is expecting a baby boy to arrive next week)

green-sheets

and Brightness, in the form of new green sheets and a comforter. I’m still looking for a pale quilt or blanket to fold on the end of the bed for Boh to lounge on. This makes a huge difference in the overall cheeriness of my room!

Must get back to reading — hoping to settle into a routine/rhythm for this semester by the end of the week.

Happy Monday!

the calzone report.

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calzone-making

calzone-detail

Despite my success with pizza dough earlier this week, it seems that I still have a thing or two to learn about calzones, and in particular, the behavior of white-whole wheat flour. I made exactly the same dough recipe, but with white-whole wheat, and it just did not rise this time, which yielded a rather dense calzone dough. These were good, but an airier, dare I say, doughier crust would have made them fantastic. Well, that and not eating an entire loaf of farmers’ market bread BEFORE putting the calzones in the oven.

sheepy-slouch-fo

slouch-side-view

I’m pretty sure I’m ready to jump back into the land of productivity, and my new sheepy slouch will certainly make it a slightly warmer leap!

Details: Le Slouch, by Wendy Bernard.US 7 needles, sheepy Romney/Corriedale blend worsted from the Merck Forest and Farmland Center. CO 74 st, knit 6.25 in before decreasing. I’m not letting Boh get this one.