The main body of the blanket will be composed of this square:

The accent squares will look like this:

And they will go together in this pattern:

I’ve finished the second row of squares and started on the third, but just recently my hands have been being difficult when it comes to crochet so I’m probably going to give it a time out for a while.

I also owe Myria a shawl and have been mulling over yarns, colors and patterns.  Color isn’t a tough one - she wants pink,  Quel surprise :)  I had thought that I would use Knitpick’s Palette (fingering weight) for this as they have a lovely, very pale pink but have decided that their Gloss (70% merino, 30% silk) would be much nicer.  Only problem with that is I will have to get the Bare version and dye it and the only problem with that is that I won’t be able to dye all of the yarn needed in one batch.  I also need to figure out how to get a very light pink - like one step away from white - without overdoing it.

As for the pattern, my eye and mind keep zooming in on the Multnomah which has been hugely popular this last year. 

I keep looking at it and thinking that border could be any lace pattern - you’d just have to adjust the number of stitches in the garter section above it.  And if the lace were knitted out a lot further than the original shawl (probably the garter section should be bigger too, to balance things) you could wind up with something seriously luxurious.

The planning process continues :)

I found the recipe here and you should hop on over to see what the original looks like as I have rung my own changes on things.  That’s one of the beauties of this sauce (as though it didn’t have enough already) - it’s infinitely adaptable to occasion, need and taste.

You’ll need:

1 28-35 oz. can of whole, peeled tomatoes
1 medium yellow onion
1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
5 tbls butter (real butter, not butter-like spread)

Here’s the cast of characters:

That’s it - nothing more complicated than that.

Open the can of tomatoes and pour into a saucepan.

I used a 28 oz can of tomatoes which only, barely made enough sauce for a pound of pasta.  Next time I’ll get a bigger can; the 35 oz. jobbie should do the trick!

Peel the onion and cut it in half.

The onion I used in the sauce is not the same one in the ingredients picture.  When I cut that one in half, I found it had gone quietly south, so I tossed it and used another.  As the new onion was very substantial, I cut it in quarters.

Peel and chop the garlic.

I used one clove this time, but will probably use two next time for a little more emphasis :)

Toss the onion and garlic into your saucepan of tomatoes and add (you can cut it up if you like) the butter.

Bring everything to a gentle simmer and lower the heat to keep it just at that point.  You really want this to be gentle because tomato sauce tends to be very…erm…athletic?  It can jump all over your stove top :)  Besides you want the flavors to meld and marry, not collide and crash.  Simmer, stirring occasionally (mash the tomatoes against the side of the pan with your spoon, to help break them down) for 45 minutes to an hour.

A little while before your sauce is done, put on a big pot of water for your pasta.

I love this shape for sauce.  It’s like a short, fat fusilli which I can’t seem to find in my local markets.  That’s probably just as well because me dealing with spaghetti-length curls covered with sauce is a recipe (heh) for much mess and stainage.

Okay, your pasta is ready and your sauce is done…well, except for one thing.  Remove the onion from your sauce.  The original recipe tells you to discard this, but I couldn’t bring myself to just throw it away, so I set it aside for later.

Drain your pasta, put it back in the pot, add the sauce and stir things around so everybody gets acquainted.  You can serve this with Parmesan cheese (which is heavenly!) but believe me, the sauce stand up very well all by its lone self.

One of my problems with sauce in jars is that it’s invariably too sweet for me.  I don’t want my tomato sauce to be a practical substitute for frosting or hot fudge.  I do realize that when tomatoes are very acidy, a little sugar can make a huge difference but we’re talking about a little sugar (for a can of tomatoes of the above size, if you thought they were too tart, I’d use no more than 1/2 tsp to correct the issue) not 1/2 a cup!  So making this sauce with no sugar suits me right down to the ground.  The taste is rich and fresh - not sweet.

Oh yes, about that onion?  I like to make a couple of slices of thick toast from Italian bread.  Butter them and put them on a plate.  Warm up your leftover onion in the nuker for about a minute (and if you were thinking ahead - which I wasn’t - you might have put a good spoonful of the sauce in with the onion when you set it aside), and spread over the toast.  Top with grated mozzarella or parmesan cheese, give it 30 seconds in the nuker and you’re ready to sit down and oink.  You can’t believe how delicious, succulent and sweet that onion has become for it’s hour simmering in the sauce.

No, there’s no picture of that because I was too hungry :)

Buon appetito!

I’m almost desperately glad not to have to set the alarm for an ungodly hour any more.  But to tell the truth, I will miss some people - two in particular.  The first is one of the radiation techs, a man of about Myria’s age who was a fount of information on popular music - from the ‘30s right up to the present.  Since this is a particular interest and love of mine, we had some wonderful conversations while I was on the table - everything from Tony Bennet’s version of Once Upon a Time and the soundtrack of Grease to Def Leppard and the evolution of musicians like Paul McCartney and Sting.  It’s wonderful to be able to converse about something you love with someone of a like mind.

The other was a woman who was also being treated for breast cancer.  She was a dear little thing (so small I think I could have put her in my pocket) and was there with her husband every day that I was.  They are lovely people and her prognosis is good - thank heavens.  On Friday, they gave me this…

Of course I cried and we hugged each other fiercely both of us hoping and praying for the best for each other.

I haven’t done much knitting, to tell you the truth - I just haven’t had the energy.  There has been a little though, but I’ll tell you about that and the circumstances that brought it about later.  There’s also a lace shawl in the planning stages, but later for that too :)

This past week, Myria opined that another blanket, while not by any means required, would be more than welcome.  After looking at patterns and thinking about styles, I remembered something I had worked out years ago - I mean like 25 years ago when I was a sole and devoted crocheter.  So I dragged out some “practice” yarn (ignore the colors; I’m not making this for a male golfer!) and went to work.

First there was this…

It was remembering how to put together those interlocking rings in the center that was the tricky part - but I did get it eventually.  I tell you, 25 years ago, when I had worked out how to do that, I felt like I could maybe walk on water only to discover in the very next crochet magazine I bought, that someone else had worked out very nearly the same thing :)

This is the largest block - about 8” square.  Those center rings started with a chain of 18 sts and were filled with 36 dcs.  The block isn’t bad, but the spaces (read: holes) created by the relatively large rings are just too big.

So I tried it again…

Myria and I both felt this was better.  These rings started with a chain of 12, joined and filled with 24 dcs and the block was about 6.75” square.  The holes were much smaller and I felt that the whole looked better.  Except for the colors (yucky), Myria was very pleased with it and I thought we were there.  So I packed things up and put them away - after, of course, making sufficient notes so that when I get the materials later, I’ll remember how to do things!

And then I got to thinking - always a dangerous thing.  And I dragged out the materials again and made another block, this time splitting the difference between the sizes…

I felt this was better than both of the previous two.  The spaces weren’t so big that the wind could whistle right through them, but they weren’t so small that they detracted from the interlocking feature - which I kind of felt was the problem with the smaller block.  This one is about 7.25” square and when I showed it to Myria, she agreed that it was the best of the three.

It was her suggestion, after viewing the first square, to put the lightest color in the middle and then work out to the darkest color.  I know it’s a matter of individual taste, but I think I agree with her on this.  I’m going to acquire materials this coming week and am looking forward to getting started on the project.

I hope all of you dear people had wonderful holiday seasons and that your new year is full of promise!

The first day, the nurse will lay you down on the table, work the accelerator using your x-rays and bone scan as a map to pinpoint where the tumor is so as to direct the radiation to the right place.  You have to lie very still and position is important.  Once the exact position has been established, points are drawn on your skin with a marker and out comes the needle and the bottle of India ink.  The points (three or four of them) are tattooed onto your skin.  It’s really rather ingenious - these are small, unobtrusive marks that won’t wash away and which will tell the nurse how to precisely line up the machine for your radiation treatments over the following weeks.

You are assigned a time to come in - every week day.

The next day, you’ll probably find the waiting room has several people in it.  Most of them are older and some are fairly frail.  You may discover (even though you really did know it) that you are not the only woman without hair and that at least one woman is considerably less shy and more courageous that you are about showing her noggin.  And you might feel a little silly because you were just thinking how hot and inconvenient your hat was and wishing you had the nerve to dispense with it - at least around people who are up the same creek!

A curious intimacy happens in the radiation oncology waiting room.  As treatment progresses and the days go by, you get to know some of these people who wait with you every morning.  You will learn what brought them there and sometimes the specifics of their treatment,  You might find out that Mr. T likes broccoli but hates gingerbread and that Ms C. has beautiful grandchildren and funny-looking cats.  Mr. S. is feeling hopeful because, between chemotherapy and radiation, the tumor in his throat has all but disappeared.  For some though, this is a more or less palliative thing; they have been here before and, if they’re lucky, may be here again in the future.

Over all, there is a very comradely feeling.  Whatever your backgrounds are, however diverse your origins, colors and beliefs, you are all here for the same reason.  Despite differing levels of education or success, for a little while every day, you are brothers and sisters of experience.  You come in every morning, and most sincerely wish each other well before you go to spend your few minutes on the table.

Eventually, the treatment reaches its end.  You have had as much radiation to the affected part as is needed (or as your body can tolerate).  You don’t have to get up early in the morning any more to rush to the hospital before you can do anything else with your day.

That last day is hard.  Your companions in the waiting room already know because you all count down each other’s days as a matter of course.  There will be hugs, maybe a few tears, and most heartfelt wishes for each other’s ongoing well being.  Being the time of year it is, there will probably be some holiday wishes sprinkled in there too.

And then you will go home and likely never see each other again.

But in your heart, there’s a room where you hang a picture of each of them.  And every so often, you go and look at the pictures and say prayers.

It came with a case, but she didn’t like it and so she asked me to knit a little pouch for it.  So, since it hadn’t arrived yet, I looked up the measurements on-line and then went to work.  I had more than enough yarn left over from her mitts and that seemed appropriate since the new little gadget was also pink :)

The overall pattern of the mitts was way too big for a Zune sock, so I modified it.  Instead of flowers and leaves, I just made leaves.  It doesn’t match exactly, but it coordinates very well.

She is thrilled with it and it doesn’t seem to matter to her that it was simple as can be.  It’s really, really nice when someone likes a thing you’ve made for them :)

It’s not going to last long; the temperatures are still too warm for that.  And I know I’ll be heartily sick of snow if we get a lot of it this season.

But just now, right this moment, it’s pretty and I love it :)

Besides, while I was out with Captain Cranky yesterday afternoon…

...Myria put up the Christmas lights.  They were a very pretty and festive sight to come home to!  It just makes the heart happy :)

I don’t often have cooked chicken on hand.  Yesterday, we had planned on having chicken and couscous for supper, so the chicken was all thawed and ready for the grill but we decided to eat out instead - steak subs, hard stuff to resist. But the chicken still had to be cooked, so Myria did that little thing.  When it had cooled a mite, it got sealed into a plastic bag and was remanded to the fridge.

Then came the avocado:

Again, not something I usually have available.  They had been on sale and were beautiful and perfect, so I got two.  It’s an interesting thing when you feel thoroughly spoiled because you’ve treated yourself to an avocado :)

The mushrooms came next…

I have always been a huge mushroom fan and have always included the little darlings in my salads.  However, until a little while ago, I always used the fresh article.  They’re good and I won’t stop using them but I discovered recently that canned or bottled mushrooms have a different flavor.  Not better - but different.  So I’ve been playing with those to see if they go better with some things than the fresh ones.

Then the tomatoes…

These are grape tomatoes that I picked up for a song.  Apparently a couple of packages had broken and the produce manager just combined the results and marked them down to less than half price.  There wasn’t a bad tomato in the whole box - and they’re so delicious:)

...the cheese…

This was the remainder of a small chunk of Colby (a very mellow cheddar) which had begun to grow green whiskers in the fridge.  I just trimmed that part off and cut up the rest for the salad.  Seriously folks, you don’t need to toss cheese that’s begun to go moldy.  Just trim off the mold; the rest of the hunk is just fine.  After all, what did you think the veins in the blue cheese were?  Heheh…

...the cashews…

I love these things and it seemed like the salad could use a little crunch factor.  It worked out wonderfully!

...and, finally, the dressing.

If you’re not on a medically restricted diet, do yourself a favor and use a regular rather than a light or a fat-free dressing - the difference is phenomenal.  I used blue cheese here because it’s probably my favorite of all.  A light grind of sea salt and several grinds of fresh black pepper and you’re ready to go.  I tell you, putting this thing together is almost as much fun as eating it.

Almost :)

I know, I know, there’s no lettuce.  There also isn’t any blue cheese (other than the dressing), bacon or hard-boiled egg.  I don’t have any lettuce on hand and don’t buy it very often because I always have to throw half of it away.  Besides, I sometimes feel that lettuce is just there to take up space.  I can manage it, but I’m never going to love it.  The bacon and egg would have been wonderful if I’d had them, but I didn’t and frankly, didn’t miss them.  If I happen to have them next time, in they’ll go!

I was very pleased with my experiment and just thought I’d pass it along in case someone else might enjoy it too.

Bon appetit!

It’s a Dell netbook - 10.25” wide, 7” deep and about 1” tall.  It weighs less than 2.5 lbs.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh…..

I am absolutely enchanted with this machine.  It all started when I mentioned to Myria that my reader was beginning to show some issues.  It’s a Viewsonic PPC and has been in near constant use for almost 7 years.  Mainly I have used it as a portable book-reader and an appointment keeper and I was beginning to think I should start looking for a new one.

But guess what?  There aren’t a lot of PPCs being made any more; do-everything phones have just about killed that market and what there is that’s still available is very expensive and comes with a lot of features I don’t need and would never use.

Of course my resident computer expert encouraged me to look at the netbooks - the little, tiny laptops that have been springing up everywhere.  They were small, portable, light-weight and cute as the dickens :)  I was reluctant at first because I wanted something small enough to put in my purse and because I doubted that I would be able to manage (what I thought would be) the small keyboard on a netbook.

As it happens, the keys on the Dell are actually bigger than the keys on the Logitech keyboard that I use with my main system.

We researched the possibilities - including looking at exclusive readers like Sony’s and Amazon’s Kindle and while they certainly do a good job, reading books is all they do.  I don’t need Blue Tooth or GPS, but I wanted a little more functionality than that.  Also, for a one-trick-pony, I felt they were a little expensive.  On to the netbooks.

These little things are ubiquitous - or nearly so :)  Everybody makes one (including Gateway which I thought had died the big death years ago) and some manufacturers make several versions.  But the basic package is pretty much the same no matter who you buy it from.  1 gig of RAM, 160 gig hard drive, built in wi-fi.  The cases can vary quite a lot - and you can pay a fair bit extra for a colored case (something other than black) or a “special” edition designer case.  Other extras would include things like more memory, a bigger hard-drive, etc.  After looking around, it seemed that the basic Dell machine would suit my needs well.

Frankly, it’s a better and faster unit than my main system - which is also Dell, but several years old now :)

That’s my reader software.  I was really afraid I would have trouble reading on the small screen.  But actually, the screen isn’t that small and I have no trouble reading at all.  Whee!

So Myria and my father got together an gave me a combined, early Christmas present :)  I dearly love this little machine.  I can do anything with it that I can do with my main system and I can bring it anywhere.

I have a bag I can use to put it in, but I eventually want something I can use both as a purse and a carrier.  I’ll have to look around and see what’s available but there’s a possibility of making one too :)  That might be too much fun not to try!

Finally, from the Try Anything department:

Last weekend I got an urge to make something decorative for fall as we have absolutely nothing.  Christmas decorations we have - Thanksgiving/fall - not so much.  Anyway, I hied me to the webs looking for pumpkin patterns.  Let me tell you, you could drown in all the pumpkin patterns available for free out there.  But in the midst of searching through them, I remembered a pattern for making a ball - a sphere.  It’s here - Judy’s 12 Section Yarnball.  The 12-section is for a large ball.  I used the pattern for the smaller ball towards the bottom of the page.  And I followed the pattern exactly (except for the number of sections) but I crocheted it instead of knitting it.

I admit it was something of a whimsical experiment that happened to come out way better than expected.  The rounder pumpkin has 6 sections; the squattier version has 8 (the stems and vines were improvised).  They took very little time to make and were really quite a bit of fun.  If you want to try this, I used worsted weight yarn and a size H hook - but the pattern should work just as well for any size yarn and the appropriately sized tool to work it with.

Myria loves them! 

The Vortex Blanket you have seen before.  I reached a desirable diameter (that is, I got to a point where I felt that another trip around the circumference would render me a blithering idiot!) and decided to start the border.  You may remember me dithering about a border some time ago?  I did try a couple of things - lacy things but they didn’t work for me.  I could work them just fine but somehow they didn’t look right to me.  Then I tried a crochet edging which was even worse.  So the whole thing lay in my work basket for quite a while as I was annoyed with it - well, with myself actually :)

Then a few nights ago I thought about garter stitch, probably because one of the newer projects is in garter, and decided to give that a try.  As you can se in the above photo, it seems to be working out quite well.  My only issue (and it’s a very, minor quibble) is that I’ll need more yarn to work this all the way around the circumference of the blanket.  A lacier stitch might have been satisfied with the yarn I had on hand, but this wants more - at least that’s my belief.  So I picked up a bit more this week at Michaels where the Patons wool I’m using was on sale for about half price!

And, of course, for that kind of savings, I bought more yarn to dye and a bunch of beautiful eggplant purple that I have no idea what to do with yet.  I just couldn’t resist the color :).

The garter stitch project is this:

It’s a very basic shawl/scarf type of thing, similar to the Meanderthal Shawl.  The darker yarn is the one that was dyed here plus some radiant Spunky Eclectic sport-weight that Rob sent me some time back.  It has been ageing in the stash and when I started thinking about this project and what might be interesting to combine with the dyed stuff, this started jumping up and down and yelling “me-me-me-me-mmmME!!”

The idea is that the colors look like (to me, anyway) either sunrise or sunset - depending, I suppose, on whether you’re facing east or west.  The dark parts have stars (randomly placed beads) and even the occasional constellation (not-so-randomly placed beads).  It will end with a lacy pattern around the bottom, meant to represent the suns rays as it either rises or sets.  I have begun the lace, but you can’t see it because it’s all scrunched up on the cable :)  I’d like to think I’ll have this done soon, but Christmas is coming and I have started my holiday projects - which will take precedence for a while, I’m afraid.

Which leads me to the last project :)

...and…

This is intended to be a throw, or a lap blanket.  Of the color arrangements pictured above, I prefer the one with the variegated border.  Of course you have to do it both ways so you can see which one looks better.  I might do three more of the aran colored border square for the corners of the throw.  I haven’t decided yet - and I won’t have to decide for a little while :)  The squares are 11” on a side, so I’m thinking a 4 x 6 grid would make a reasonably sized throw. 

I’m using Red Heart SuperSaver here both for utility’s sake (washer/dryer) and because I fell in love with the colors.  I have, however, noticed a change in the yarn.  It is spun much more loosely than before and while that gives it an interesting “textured” look, I fear that it’s longevity, for any given item into which it’s made, will be impaired.  It’s also quite splitty.  Sigh…  I guess everyone’s feeling the pinch and more and more things are degrading in quality so the price point can remain stable.  Semi-stable…whatever.  This has been such a good, work-horse yarn, for so long, that I’m really saddened to see the change.

Cue hunting shark music from Jaws...DA-dum, DA-dum, DadumDadumDadum…)

And here’s the pick…

And here’s the winner!

Greta, drop me a line letting me know where you’d like me to send the yarn and needles and I’ll get them out to you, pronto :)

Thanks everyone for your sweet and kind comments.  I so wish we could all meet at a coffee shop,  sit down for a day and just knit and get to know one another.  That would be so much fun!