Monday, March 26, 2012

More baking than knitting

There was likely more baking than knitting this last weekend, although some of the latter did happen.

A bit of a celebration of sorts forced me in to the kitchen.  While I try really hard not to bake sweet stuff because I eat too much of it, I really had no choice.

Found a recipe from my favorite baking book for whole wheat cinnamon rolls.  Who knew, before Judith Fertig taught me, that yeast dough would rise in the fridge??  What about all that " put in a warm place to let the dough rise" business??



Anyway, while the recipe says to grind one's own flour from wheatberries, I didn't, but I swear I'll do that once I retire.  I swear.  Rather,   I used King Arthur white wheat, which is my go to...  I didn't forget to use Grandma Helen's ancient rolling pin, which adds a dash of those  je ne sai quoi old wood fragments, the matrilineal rolling pin version of sour dough??  (Its handle fell off about 5 years ago, still works great...).



There's a reason that I knit rather than, say, sculpt;  it's that I don't create matching 3 dimensional free form shapes well  (I'm very bad with  the Lucia bun S shape...)



However, the result looks pretty fine, on a tea saucer also inherited from Grandma Helen. It also tasted pretty good, the cream cheese drizzle on top used a WHOLE BOX of confectioner's sugar, which sort of mitigated the taste of the tannins in the whole wheat.  A particular teenager wasn't unhappy with the lack of white flour


And then...at yes, I confess, Walmart, I found the cutest little mold for gingerbread men cookies, which was convenient as I had some frozen gingerbread dough left over from Christmas (these pictured are unbaked).

Really cute although really the wrong time of year...

On the knitting front, I have had some gauge-related frustration with a pair of socks that I've been working on and put aside last month, waiting for patience to return. I  got back to them this week, figured out which needles I needed, and steamed ahead


They are for that nice man, done in Poems sock yarn.  Do love the slow color gradation.  I'm on a size zero.  Just heard on a podcast today that the smaller the gauge, the better they wear.  That's good news, I'm at about 9 stitches per inch here...

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Handwash? Must she?

Someone I know is having a  baby.  I am a firm advocate of machine washable yarns for baby, but I would like to use some stash stuff, and there isn't much machine-washable-suitable-for-baby in there. (I  tend to buy baby yarn for individual projects with someone in mind, rather than stash it).  This time, I would also like to use something more natural.  To that end, I dug out some Cotton Comfort from Green Mountain Spinnery for an experiment.



Pattern-wise, while EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket is always fun, I've done many and I really like a yoke down pattern.  I have  also done Carole Bareny's Seamless Yoked Baby Sweater many times, it's been on the internet for years and I really like it. Here's one  I did some years ago for a coworker's baby, ironically also in Cotton Comfort.



Carole now has a website with cute free  baby patterns and while perusing there I discovered another sweater similar in construction called the Eyelet Yoke Cardigan.  That is my choice.

I am happy to report that my Cotton Comfort sample made it thru the washer and dryer unchanged in size!  (This yarn is an 20-80 cotton and wool blend). I consider this to be a bit of a coup. It also softened up very nicely during this process. I don't know of any other natural minimally treated yarns that will tolerate washer and dryer.  Perhaps 100% cotton? 


Knitting time has  been precious little this week.  I'm working to optimize it this weekend!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

7 year old project finished!

I finished my kilim shawl.  I wrote a little about it here.

The fun part was that it knit up in a cone, getting larger and larger.  It involves a steak and confidence with involves trusting a sewing machine.  I thought the fringe was gonna take a long time, but it didn't!

DONE!


It's a big afghan of a shawl




OK, there is Spanish moss where I live.  So, check this out (sorry about the commercial).



Might be a good summer project for me...wonder if I need a dedicated spinning wheel just for moss?  Looks messy...let me know if you'd like me to send you some!!!