Working with lace

I finally made the plunge and decide to try out some lace weight yarn. And I have to say, while the process of knitting an complete FO with such thin yarn is very time consuming, I love the end results

Earlier this summer, I worked on the fountain pen shawl by Susan Lawrence. This shawl is going to be a gift for my mom, who has a milestone birthday coming up in September. I used Tess' laceweight superwash merino. The pattern was fun, but the rows got really long toward the end. I only managed to complete 10 of the 11 suggested repeats before calling it quits and jumping into the edging chart. And the edging chart was so fun! I think it was my favorite part to knit and is my favorite part to look at. As for the yarn, it was okay. I'm a little disappointed that it didn't really soften up after washing. Also, my left finger was constantly black from the dye bleeding while I knit. That was a big deal, just a little annoying.

Next up was the whiper cardigan by Hannah Fettig. I was dubious to knit this cardi because I couldn't quite wrap my head around the construction and if I could make it fit me. I would not be pleased to frog and re-knit a laceweight sweater! But after 3 people I know made whisper, I decided to give it go, taking into account the lessons they learned from knitting it. I made somewhere between a M/L size. That is, I cast on the right number of stitches for an M and knit the appropriate number of inches for an L. This made it a little tricky to decide how many stitches to pick up for the collar. Nothing that I little counting and a calculator couldn't solve, though! I also made one mod to the lower back: increases every 4th row rather than every other row.

Oh and the yarn! I absolutely love this yarn! I bought this skein of Malabrigo merinocash in the "smoke" color way during my trip to San Francisco in May. ImagiKnit was (is?) carrying merinocash as a test product. It is so soft to knit with and the color is fantastic. Hopefully it will be more readily available in the future!

Cocoa Cup and Enablers Meet-Up

I finished my cocoa cup! This is a pattern by Heidi Kirrmaier called Buttercup. I made the small, but probably should have gone with the extra-small because of the plunging neckline. In fact, the only mods I made were on the neckline. The neckline was way too low for me so I ended up redoing it 3 times until I found a relatively comfortable fit without scrunching the top too much. Instead of picking up the neckline per the instructions, I picked up every other stitch along the neck, every stitch along the sleeve, and 3 of every 4 stitches across the back.

The tee took me 5.5 skeins (841.5 yards) of Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy. It's interesting knitting this yarn up at 22 stitches per 4 inches instead of 24 stitches per 4 inches (as in the Arbor I made last year). The fabric has a lot of drape!

Here's me with a couple of my fellow "enablers," all in our buttercups...

But even better than 3 buttercups are 12 enablers! Check out the picture from our Enablers Anonymous Meet-Up! Our host Kate made some delicious treats for brunch. We managed to take a break from some serious knitting, chatting, and eating to take this picture outside. Even though it was in the 80s, we were adorned with FOs -- lots of shawls and summer tops!

Little senses of accomplishment

I've been doing a little of this and that today. The nice thing is that I finished several projects today, which makes me happy!

First, I put the buttons on the BSJ that I finished for a baby shower I will be attending next weekend. I think the buttons are two mice in a boat fishing. But it could be some other animal too. In any case, they are very cute! I used Shalimar Sock Yarn and size 4 needles. I still have about 85 yards of this yarn left, which means the sweater took about 320 yards. For a more polished look, I picked up and knit stitches around neckline. After the pick up and knit row, I knit one row additional and then bound off in knit.

I blocked my first Clapotis. For this project, I used size 3 needles with a Peruvian tweed alpaca yarn. It's dark grey and brown , and I simply love the warmth of the color combined with the actual warmth and softness of the yarn. This was a MD Sheep and Wool purchase from last year. I have now officially used all of the yarn I bought last year!! Since I only had 600 yards of this yarn, I knit one fewer set of increases. This means that I had about 80ish stitches on the needles instead of 100ish for the straight rows. (I don't have the pattern in front of me right now for the exact number of stitches... and I'm too lazy to go look on knitty and do the math right now.)





I played in the kitchen today too. I had a craving for quiche, so I improvised this recipe from one of my cookbooks. The key ingredients are milk, broccoli, eggs, cornmeal, Dijon mustard, and onions. I made them in individual serving sizes so they are easier to take for lunches. Also, I skipped the crust, since I didn't have any and didn't feel like making any. Some cooking spray kept the mixture from sticking to the dishes.




Finally, I baked some oatmeal apple cinnamon muffins. I love this recipe! The only adjustments: added cardamom for some zing and didn't put in flaxmeal (didn't have any). And in the time it took me to write this blog, I have already eaten two of them!

Ah, the Pacific Northwest

Last summer the mister and I traveled to the Pacific Northwest (western Washington and Oregon, and also Victoria, BC to be more specific) with a couple of very close friends. We deemed our trip "Beervana," as our goal was to sample as many fine brews as the Pac NW would offer us, while still remaining coherent enough to see the beautiful sites this region has to offer. Or actually in the reverse order: sites first, beer later. Right, so that was pretty much the trip: walking city streets or hiking paths/trails during the day with a breaks for meals at a local brewpub.

Last year, I blogged about some of my favorite beers from the region. Here are some of my favorite non-city sites.

Multnomah Falls, OR.


Sunset over Puget Sound.


Falls at Mount Rainer National Park.


Mount Rainer.



Crescent Lake, WA.


Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park... who doesn't love snowmen in July?


Mount Hood, OR, as seen from a vineyard in WA just on the other side of the Hood River.


The Gorge Games in Hood River, OR.


A scenic overlook on the Pacific Coast Highway. Look at the weather front! Sunny on the left, stormy on the right. Amazing!



A view of WA from the ferry between Victoria and Port Angeles, WA.


So, why the trip down memory lane? Well, I just finished knitting up the yarn I bought from a small shop in Cannon Beach, OR. STR (socks that rock) is actually local in Oregon: that's where the stuff is made! What a great way to purchase my first skein!

I spent a long time deciding what to do with this yarn. It's 380 yards of medium weight superwash 4-ply merino in the colorway "Montley Hue." Very appropriate as the sky was pretty much this shade of bluish grey on the day I made the purchase. The tanish flecks remind me of the sand on Cannon Beach. Perfect. Anyway, I decide to make the Shetland Triangle by Evelyn Clark. I did my research on Ravelry and saw that other knitters that used STR for this project knit with size 6 needles. So I decided to do the same. No swatching for me!! As a result, I ended up only having enough yarn for 7 of the 8 body repeats. I should have known better and gone down a needle size from everyone else because I am a loose knitter. The shawl blocked out to 27 inches in length and a 55 inch “wing-span,” (which is larger than what the pattern called for). So, as you can imagine, my "leaves" are pretty big. But I'm happy with it. I can't wait to wear it to a wedding we're attending in March!

Two great accomplishments this week

I made a fantastic soup this Monday. The recipe is amazingly simply... inspired by a pumpkin soup I had a La Tavola a few weeks ago during Baltimore's restaurant week.

Here we go:

step 1: cut up 4 sweet potatoes (leave skins on) and one head of cauliflower.
step 2: steam veggies in large pot with 1/4 inch water and 2 tablespoons canola oil for about 20 minutes
step 3: while the veggies are steaming, boil pearl barley for 15 minutes.
step 4: puree veggies in food processor for several minutes. add water to achieve desired consistency.
step 5: put barley in bowl, pour veggie puree on top. drizzle with balsamic vinegar. add fresh ground pepper if desired.

enjoy!

I presume you could substitute the veggies with others, particularly roots (turnips, for example) or a fall or winter squash.




(also pictured above: sourdough bread rising... used unbleached organic white flour and rye flour in a 2:1 ratio.)


I made a feather and fan cowl from Curious Creek Fibers Etosha (110 yards). I love the name of the colorway: plum thunder. My first knit from the purple color family. It fuzzy and fun to wear! Here's what I did:

- cast on 90 stitches, placing markers every 18 stitches
- rounds 1 and 2: knit
- round 3: begin feather and fan (k2tog 3 times; yo, k1 5 times, ssk 3 times). repeat 4 times to the end of the round (5 repeats total)
- round 4: knit
- repeat last 4 rounds, ending on round 4, until almost out of yarn.
- bind off loosely in knit

And so it goes with a week of creativity. I also have one other FO from this week: my first shawl and my first project using STR (same project). I had fun with both! More on that once I take the pins out and get some pictures.

FO: end paper mitts

I'm making an educated guess that in the in the time it took me to knit up these 187.5 yards of yarn, I could have had a brilliant sweater. But I have: improved my throwing skills, successfully completed by first colorwork project, improved my tubular cast on, and learned the tubular bind off.

Pattern: End Paper Mitts by Eunny Jang
Size: medium
Needles: US 0s and 2s. Per the instructions, size 2 needles would yield the mitts in "small" but since I am a loose knitter, I successfully got a pair of "mediums" by using the 2s.
Yarn: Valley Yarns Huntington (111.2 yards in chocolate and 76.3 yards in cream)

A few issues:

I experienced some tension issues with my throwing color (cream) on the second mitt. I probably got over confident and stop concentrating as much. The tension issues are not very noticeable when I have the mitts on, but definitely noticeable when I have them off.

I used more of the chocolate yarn than I should have: I had to redo one of the thumbs after realizing the middle off the bind off that I forgot the two set-up rows of the tubular bind off. The yarn was cut, so that was that: off to the scrap pile!

The tubular bind off is not very stretchy. I thought this was because my kitchener stitch was too tight, but after further examination, I realized it was the two step up rows that were the problem: my slipped stitches here should have been looser.

Overall, I'm glad the project is finished! I learned a lot, but I am ready to take a break from colorwork for a little while!