Guess who was visiting when I went out to make my coffee this morning?

My cardinal came back!  He sat still long enough for me to take two crappy shots (the one above is the better one, believe it or not), enjoying a leisurely breakfast.

The feeder was mobbed most of yesterday.  I’m not sure why, but the birds were acting like food was going to be outlawed at midnight.  We even had a tufted titmouse.  I had never seen one of these guys before so I was really pleased.

I did work up swatch of the razor shell pattern in the mohair and blocked it.

It blocked beautifully, but I have to make a note to cast on with larger needles and cast off with them too, probably.  The lace just curls up a bit at the cast on edge because it isn’t loose enough to accommodate the wavy edge.

I really think I want to try this with beads now :) I did give it a shot with the water-colored beads, but they’re too irregular in size to produce a nice, neat look.  Kind of too bad, since the colors are fabulous.

However, I have a huge bead stash in the basement and I’m going to have to go downstairs and have a look.  I know there are lots of seed beads, but what I’m hoping to find are some Delicas in a compatable color.  Delicas are a Japanese type of bead/ They are tube shaped and very uniform in size.  The hole is quite large relative to the size of the bead which makes them very easy to work with.  They aren’t nearly as fragile as they look :) I shouldn’t have any problem threading them on the mohair - now let’s hope the “hair” doesn’t swallow the bead :)

I have finished my last Dulaan project (for this year).

I’ll be finding a box and getting the items shipped sometime in the next couple of days. 

And then I can start on next year’s contributions -

Happy Monday, all!

...or, the things that run through your mind when you’re trying to brush your teeth and get to bed!

The Kimono coat is coming along nicely.  The second sleeve opening has been conquered and we’re onto the right front now.  I’m trying to decide if the sleeves should be knit down in the round, or as separate pieces to be sewn in afterwards.  After that, there’s the edging, possible collar and I have to decide on a method of closure.  Depending on the state of the yarn (whether there’s enough or not!) there may be pockets as well, which will have to be lined to be useful.

I also dropped 18 stitches on the sock last night - a needle fell out.  Sigh.  I don’t yet know whether it’s reparable or not.  I was so discouraged last night, I just put it away.

I’m slightly embarrassed to tell you that I never did block my Snowdrop shawl.  The weight of the ruffles does such a nice job at pulling out the lace pattern, that I just kind of forgot about blocking it.  Which is a shame for a couple of reasons.  First, the I-cord bind off rolls.  I believe I did it loosely enough so that tension isn’t the problem.  The problem is that I-cord is round and round things...well...round things roll :) The second is that I never got to find out how well the mohair blend yarn blocks.  And this is important now because of the Lace and Agate Scarf.  It’s very simple and very lovely and would make a splendid gift in the remaining periwinkle mohair/acrylic.  I’d probably leave the agate drops off, but incorporating beads in some fashion is a fascinating idea.  So, I’ll need to swatch the pattern, abuse it in the sink, pin it out and see what happens.  I’ll keep you posted :)

An addendum to yesterday’s post.  Apparently the rice noodle don’t play well with the garbage disposal.  Who knew?  When I went to drain my noodles yesterday afternoon, my hand slipped and I would up pouring the silly things down the drain.  Bah.  So I ran the water and the garbage disposal to clear them out and made myself a turkey salad sandwich.

But when I went to brush my teeth last night, the water backed up in the bathroom sink.  Hmmm… I couldn’t imagine what the problem might have been since nothing but water and toothpaste goes down that drain.  Myria went into the kitchen to see if that sink was draining properly and turned the pig on, just in case.  When she did that, the bathroom sink started burping up little white strands - quite a few little white strands.  The rice noodles, which I had thought would just dissolve, fine and tenuous as they are, had apparently survived.

When cooking them, I had been timing their soak in boiling water to make sure they didn’t get mushy, or fall part entirely.  Evidently, they don’t do that - ever. Since rice noodles are cheap, some experimentation could be in order.  Could they, for example, be knit with when they’re soft and then left to dry out so that a more rigid form resulted?  You’d want to use your aluminum needles for that, of course.  Plus, they could be easily dyed by adding a bit of food coloring to the soaking water :) Crochet would aslo be an option.  These things wouldn’t be wearable of course, they’d be too rigid and scratchy, not to mention fragile.  They’d be more along the lines of edible objet d’art!  And, when you got tired of it, you could just dunk it in a pot of boiling water and have lunch.

Yes, I’m joking...I think…

I recently discovered rice noodles and have been having great fun with them.  I wanted to share what is becoming a standard meal for me - nutritious because it’s made with fresh vegetables and balanced because it contains a starch, vegetables and a protein.

Rice noodles a la maison du loupe et tortue

3 oz rice noodles - the very thin ("vermicelli") kind.
1/2 c sliced mushrooms
2 or 3 scallions, chopped - use everything but the very bottom of the bulb
1 c bean sprouts - mung bean sprouts, these are awesome
3 oz cooked meat (chicken, beef, pork, turkey, ham) - chopped or shredded
Olive oil
Soy or Hoisin Sauce
Sesame oil
Ginger
Garlic
Boiling water

Place the rice noodles in a heat-proof bowl.  These noodles come in a 17 oz package (in my market), just wrapped in cellophane and they look as though a looooooooooooong stretch of noodles has just been folded back and forth.  Just break off one or two of the folded sections.  Twist in your hands (as though you were wringing out a washcloth) to break in half and place in your serving bowl.  This stuff does “shed” a little because it is fairly brittle but if you’re careful you can keep the mess to a minimum and it’s easy to sweep up anyway :) Set the noodles aside for now.

Turn on your water (to bring it to the boil).

In a second bowl, combine your meat and vegetables.  The stuff pictured above is simply what I have on hand.  You can - and should - use anything that strikes your fancy :)





Okay, add a tablespoon or so (again, use whatever amount makes you happy) of soy sauce or a couple tablespoons of Hoisin sauce, a few splashes of sesame oil and about a tablespoon of olive oil to your vegetable/meat mixture.  Add garlic and ginger (fresh if you have it, powdered if you don’t) to taste. Finally, grind the pepper mill over it a few times.  Put it in the microwave, cover with a paper towel and nuke it for two minutes.  Stir things around and nuke for another minute.





When the water boils, pour it over the noodles.  Cover the bowl gently, that is you don’t want an air-tight seal here :).  The bowl I used has a lid as it was part of a storage set originally and I just lay that over the top.  Let sit for a couple of minutes - this doesn’t take much time.  Then drain the noodles and return to your bowl.

Pour your vegetables and their accumulated broth over the noodles.

And there you go :) Including vegetable prep, it takes only about 10 minutes.  I make no bones about the lack of any authenticity at all regarding this recipe :) It’s just something that works for me, that’s inexpensive, easy and slightly exotic and I wanted to share.

Enjoy!

Oh wait!  The Moody Blues did “Tuesday Afternoon”...never mind :)

The temperature has dropped dramatically - oh baby!  It’s only about 60ºF outside and despite the fact that it’s damp and rainy, I’m practically giddy :)

Those of you who follow the KnitList are probably aware that Lionbrand has discontinued their Cotton Ease line of yarn and that the yarn has been picked up by a discount chain called Tuesday Morning.  I had never even heard of these guys before and, honestly, don’t have much interest in Cotton Ease.  But I thought the store might be interesting to check out, so I looked it up (have I mentioned how much I love the web?).  And what do you know?  There’s a Tuesday Morning just a 15 minute drive from me :)

So off we went and it turned out to be worth the trip.  Myria found an electronic chess game at about half the price she’s seen it listed for elsewhere.  I found a Calphalon loaf pan at a very good price - and since Myria recently found me semolina flour, I have been anxious to try making bread again!  As it happened, the shop had Cotton Ease but only a few skeins.  However, they also had Woolease sport weight in a couple of intriguing colors at $7.99 for a bag of three balls.  So this came home with me too:

The darker one is called Strawberry Twist and the lighter is Rose Heather.  Lovely colors and I can make excellent use of them.  For me, this was a real find!

Onwards :)

I’ve been playing with the Paradiso and worked up a bit of a sampler so I could see what things looked like.

I worked this up on US size 6 needles - a much more appropriate size than the 8s I’d tried at first.  And you know, despite the lace having two strikes against it from the git-go (the thick and thin nature of the yarn and the variegated color) I don’t think any of the patterns look too shabby!  They all come from the 365 Knitting Stitches a Year calendar.

This has always been one of my favorites and so, naturally, was one I wanted to try.  I was surprised at how nice this looks after blocking.





I like this pattern too; I did two repeats of it with a single purl between them.  I think this one is my favorite of the three.  I have also knit this pattern substituting an M1s for the YOs and the design stands up very well even without the eyelets.





This pattern was also given as a panel and I did two repeats with four stockinette stitches between them and at the edges.  I’m surprised that the lace effect shows at all but it’s the least effective of the three patterns.  It’s also the smallest and I think that’s the key.  It’s a nice pattern and easy to work, but I think it needs a solid color yarn (I don’t think the thick and thin stuff is really a problem) to set it off properly.

I’m wavering between the shrug I mentioned in Monday’s post and a T-shirt kind of thing.  I think the Fir cone pattern would work best for the shrug and the Fish scale for the T.

Oh, such delicious decisions :)

I worked on the coat and the sock this weekend - but not much, I’m afraid.  The heat and humidity here aren’t conducive to much more than sweaty fatigue.

I though hard about this, but not too long because it was apparent soon after the festivities had commenced that I wasn’t going to have enough of the dusty plum to make the entire garment.  I could have gone out and gotten more yarn I guess, but I really wanted to use the plum and it’s a discontinued color :( And, I also really wanted to make this garment so that meant shuffling through the stash to see what else I might have a goodly quantity of.  I found the green (the label refers to it as “teal” I think, but this seems more like a “spruce” to me).  It’s certainly brighter than the plum, but with the variegated linking the two, I think it works. 

Yes, there will be one green and one plum sleeve as well.  I hope it doesn’t look too clownish because I’m going to do it anyway.  And it’s not as if I’m making the kimono in orange and lime :)

This is about the 20th swatch I made with the new yarn (by the way, it frogs and reworks nicely).  Actually, it looks better in the picture than it does in real life (and just how does that work?).  That’s two repeats of a fish scale lace pattern with a 3 stitch rib in the middle.

I had the idea that I’d like to make a kind of extended shrug somewhat along the lines of this Fluffy Pink Shrug.  While the page is attached to a crochet forum, the instructions are really a schematic or a description of the concept rather than a line-by-line sort of thing.  It would be very simple to adapt this to knitting and that’s what I’d like to do.  It reminds me of (page down to the picture of the author’s daughter) this which I have admired for some time.

So I swatched and frogged several times looking for a stitch pattern that wasn’t utterly defeated by the thick and thin nature of the cotton.  I haven’t found one and so am considering doing this in plain stockinette and probably on considerably smaller needles than I was swatching with.  The ones in the picture are size 8 US but the yarn really isn’t much more than a DK weight.  A size 6 or even a five might be a better way to go.

I hope your weekends were fine and restful and that your crafting was fun and successful!

All of today’s pictures are courtesy of Myria’s magical mystical camera and Myria’s own not inconsiderable talent.

The Seraphina Shawl is finished and despite my reservations about the yarn, turned out very nicely indeed.  While I probably wouldn’t use this yarn again, I expect I will indeed make this shawl again as it has a lovely, graceful shape that, in addition to being aesthetically pleasing, stays on the shoulders without having to be held there.  Very convenient, that :)

I only used one ball of yarn and the shawl is actually bigger than I had thought it would be.  The ruffled Snowdrop is larger, but this is more than adequate - especially for around the house wear which is probably how it will be used.  Now I have to give some serious thought to what to use for the next version :) I’m thinking pinks...maybe…





Spring has indeed arrived - or maybe I missed spring and woke up having gone straight into summer...shrug.  Anyway, it seemed like a fun idea to take some pictures outside today, so that’s what we did.  The yard accompanying the apartment building is small, but nicely kept.





This bush is down by the fence to the left of the back stairs.  It’s absolutely magnificent, about 7.5 feet tall and is covered with huge clusters of these pale pink blooms.  I figure it must have loved the long, cool spring because I have never seen it look this full and spectacular before.  There are a few other azaleas on the property too, fuchsia and orange, but they are just youngsters and their few blooms are already fading.





I have no idea whether these were planted or are just growing wild.  They come up all along the back fence and are just lovely - bright and sunny, even on a grey day.





This little girl is sitting on the back porch roof just outside of our kitchen window.  Mourning doves started visiting again when we put the feeder back up.  They aren’t “feeder” birds though; they scavenge the roof for seeds and nuts that have fallen (or been pushed) out of the feeder.  I love these birds with their dignified grey/beige coats and their sad calls.  Good thing too as there are tons of them in the area :)

I got a note today, asking about the pattern I had used for a scarf around Christmas time.  Remember the evergreen scarf - the yarn that kept staining my hands and my birch needles so badly?  I gave up on it and promptly forgot about it.  But the note made me go back and look at it and I realized there was nothing wrong with the pattern.  So I wrote it up this afternoon.  You’ll find it on the sidebar under Knitting Patterns.  It’s called the Tweed and Seed Scarf.

Have a great weekend folks!

I had some running around to do yesterday.  Nothing unusual there - except that the temperatures were in the 90s and the humidity was about as high as it could get without actually raining.

I know that under these kind of weather circumstances I tend to get dehydrated.  I know that I had better pay attention to my water intake or I’m going to start feeling really bad really fast.  For years, I have carried bottled water with me; there is always a bottle in the car.  Yesterday, halfway along the second leg of my errand-running I felt for the bottle which sits in a recessed holder to my right and just slightly to the rear.

No bottle…

I knew exactly what had happened to it.  Dad and I often go to lunch together on Saturdays and I always bring my water with me since dad, being dad, always drives.  And I had left my bottle in his car when I went home Saturday evening.

Well, crap…

The market was my last stop before home.  I rounded up the stuff I needed and got in the 12 items or less line.  It was, as usual, fairly long. 

While I was waiting, I watched an elderly man come in.  He came around to about where I was standing and when I realized he was trying to get to the cooler beside the register line, I shifted my carriage so he could get through.

Then there was enough room for me to step up to the conveyor and start moving my purchases from the carriage to the belt.  But just as I was about to do so, the elderly man stepped in front of me.  He waved his bottle of Dasani at me and said, “Mind if I go in front of you?  This is all I have.”

I motioned for him to go ahead.  I’d like to tell you that my thoughts were charitable, that I realized he was in the same boat I was - needing water and perhaps not feeling very well.  I’d like to be able to say that I realized at his age, it was probably quite a bit more critical for him than for me to get that fluid into his system.  I wish I could say that I knew it wasn’t going to take more than a minute (and it didn’t - he paid cash for his bottle, turned and thanked me kindly and went on his way) and so wasn’t a problem.

But I can’t .  My thoughts were all mulish and resentful.  I didn’t want to give up my place in line.  I’d had to stand and wait; he should have to stand and wait too.  I would never dream of asking someone if I could step in front of them.  He shouldn’t have asked.  Now I have to spend more time in this damned line and more time in this stupid supermarket.

Of course I could have said “No” when he made his request.  But even at the height of my over-heated peevishness I knew that was petty.  I knew all my thoughts were petty and mean.  I think I acted correctly, but my head was totally into me space which, upon later reflection, made me feel a bit ashamed.

I had to wonder, does everyone else go through things like this?  Do you find it dismaying to discover that you’re still thinking like a five-year-old sometimes?  When I was a kid, I thought that being an adult meant thinking and feeling differently about things.  But I find that I don’t always think or feel differently.  What has changed is that I usually act differently - or try to anyway.  Is being a grown-up merely the contradiction of thought by action?

I love this particular market.  It is in a very busy, somewhat shabby and extremely ethnically diverse neighborhood.  I love walking around hearing the echoes of half a dozen different languages around me and noticing styles of dress and colors that wouldn’t be found anywhere near the markets in the better parts of the city.  I also love being able to go to one store and be able to buy rice noodles, pad thai, curry and Goya’s Maria cookies to dip in my tea :)

But the thing I like best about this place is that nowhere else is it more clear that despite our superficial differences, we are all in this together.  Language, clothing style, skin color - none of it matters.  We are all looking to feed our families.  We are all trying to get the best food value for our money.

And perhaps we may all, someday, need a bottle of water badly enough to have to ask someone if they mind if we go first.