We've Slowed Down

Not much crafting getting done around here. The tree is up but I haven't remembered to put the crocheted decorations on it. It looks like there won't be 12 of them either!

A's Knitting
This knitting has come to a halt. As soon as he admitted to the person he was knitting them for that they wouldn't be ready for Christmas, he stopped knitting them. He cast on and started the ribbing but I'm not going to ask or remind him anymore about them.

My knitting
Well as you can see the hat is back down to before the decreases. I'm a bit stuck with the twisted purl stitches because I'll have to redo the ones on this last row and I'm not sure how to do that. If I undo this last row to redo then the twisted knit stitches will be mixed up. Sigh. I won't show my fair isle attempt. I'm thinking of undoing it and trying knitting inside out to see if it will help with the tension.

Honorable Mention
See this picture? Well you can also see it over at The Panopticon. Franklin was having a look-alike contest for his cartoon (sorry Dolores) sheep and I entered this at the last minute. And it got an honorable mention.

Food
First we have Julie's Peanut Butter Brownies. They were quite good and I'll make them again. Then we have A's meal for the weekend. It's the Sweet Potato Gratin on the left side of the plate from Adventures in Vegetarian Living. Fortunately I suggested that A didn't put the amount of rosemary that was called for. He just put a sprinkle and I think if he or I make it again it should be left out. And cut way back on the amount of orange juice. It was more like a soup. But it was a nice change.

Burnt Brownies

A's Knitting
It seems that switching to the yarn that he will be using for the mittens did the trick. He's doing a few purl rows now and then I'll have him do a few rows of stockinette stitch so we can see his gauge before he'll try the ribbing.



My Knitting
I tried to get away with the largest dpns I had to make but they weren't big enough. So I've been knitting it on circular needle which is going OK but a bit awkward. I've knit the first set of repeats and trying to decide whether I should undo it and add some more stitches. If it shrinks I won't get it on my head!

N's socks are finished. I think that my kitchener toe turned out quite well.






Food
Yes Mrs. Worthington, she did burn the brownies. A and I have decided to try baking on the weekends that he is home. We're thinking of alternating cookies and cake/brownies/squares/loaves. I usually use, what I refer to as, Mrs. Worthington's Brownie recipe. She was my home ec teacher in high school and so that makes the recipe more than cough, cough, cough 30 years old. The only change I've made is to use cocoa powder instead of chocolate because I usually have cocoa powder. We kinda decided that we would try less sugar next time because they were rather sweet.

Oh yeah. About burning the brownies. I turned the oven on and didn't look at what temperature. I put them in the oven when it was ready and still didn't look at the temperature. After half the cooking time had gone I wondered why they smelt like they were burning. Then I checked the temp. Way too high. I turned it down and left them in for a bit because I wanted to make sure that the eggs were done. They were rather gooey but we ate them anyway.

Blue Christmas Trio

Crochet
Yikes I'd better spead up. My plan of doing one decoration a month has fallen behind. I don't even have any ideas for any more.




My Knitting
This hat just has to have the yarn pulled through the last stitches but I'm leaning towards undoing the whole thing and starting over. There are an odd number of cables and so it means that two of the cables are decreased beside each other instead of alternating. Also the top is looking funny. I'd have to undo what I just did to make one set of cables shorter because the place where I've decreased them makes them look longer than the rest in the column. Confusing?

I bought some Isoveli to make Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's The Unoriginal Hat. I'll have to double the yarn up. My next step is to learn how to make a ball on a paper towel roll. I just found knit's with balls' post on how to make a center pull ball.

'A''s knitting
See previous post. He's still aiming to have them done early enough to have them sent off for Christmas!

Food
I saw a recipe for Zucchini Carpaccio but not having some of the ingredients (leeks, ricotta cheese, mint or any of the herbs except dill) I just made it with what I had and I liked it enough that I've made it several times since. I suppose it could be made with cottage cheese or feta too.

New Blog Home

I moved my blog over to a new name and then I didn't like it after all! It was much harder to come up with a name that many others didn't already have. I'm hoping that I googled this well enough that no one else has it.

Food
I've finally done it after thinking about it for awhile. I seldom work on my food blog but I would like to. Part of the problem has been that I don't make foods that I can blog about. I'm hoping that this will change. This was today's dinner mashed potatoes and spinach slop (too much liquid) and frozen cod in a homemade dill sauce.

Knitting ('A')
I'm teaching 'A' to knit. It isn't as easy as I thought it would be! I would have preferred to teach him the continental style because that is what is knit here, but when I tried to do it myself it felt like I was forcing myself to do something the wrong way. I watched several videos but they didn't help. I could understand what to do but I think I'm too right-handed. 'A' is hoping to knit a pair of mitts for a Christmas present.

Knitting (S)
I never thought I'd do it but I bought some stash. I was a yarn/material store looking for knitting needles and material and saw some interesting coloured yarn. I don't even know if Novita makes Jussi anymore. I bought these needles too. They weren't in a package but wrapped as in the picture and it wasn't until I got home that I noticed that two of the needles were pointy and three were dull. So I had to go back the next day to check the other bundle of 5 to see if it was a mixed bunch too, and it was. I wanted the pointy ones.

It was during this second visit that I noticed these. I wouldn't have thought that there would yarn other than Novita in our town. Even though it was more expensive than what I'm used to spending, I wanted to try it. Now I just have to find a pattern to use.

Trust Your Instinct

I've been listening to Grandma's Sewing Cabinet podcast (hurry on over there if you want to listen to it because she's taking them away at the beginning of November) and in one of the episodes she said that you should trust your instincts. I should have when I was knitting the top of the hat. I knew that it didn't seem that by following the instructions I would end up with a smooth hat like the picture had, but I just went on, and ended up with this blob on the top. I'm going to undo it down some and try to figure out a new end to the pattern. I wonder if they had this bit pinned out of sight?

Lost But Found

'A' went to check out the lost and found for the bus that he had taken the day he lost his gloves and fortunately they were there. Now we have to think what to do about winter gloves. Do I make a bigger pair to fit on top of these or try knitting with two colours to make thicker ones? I don't know if I would enjoy knitting with two yarns because of the twisting.

I bought a different green for my design attempt. The other green is spoken for – a pair of socks for M's son. I haven't got very far on my hat. I was almost finished but then ripped it back to the lifeline before the decreases started so that I could add a bit more height. I think it will now be too long (but maybe it will shrink). I can't undo anymore of it.

Thanksgiving Meal

I'm thinking of combining a few of my blogs and moving it to a new home. It will be basically my craft blog but I think I'll add my food stuff too.

Here we have our Thanksgiving meal. I made twiced baked potatoes for the first time and we really liked them and I hope to make them again soon. I basically used a recipe like Ultimate Twice Baked Potatoes but I left out the bacon, salt and onions and halved everything but the number of potatoes. The potatoes took so long to bake and were still a bit hard in the middle but once I mashed them they seemed to be OK. I baked them in the morning with the 'Pumpkin' Pie and then made the filling, filled them and put them in the fridge to wait to be baked with the nut loaf. The nut loaf (top left corner) was a combination of recipes but I added some sage and it spoiled it. We aren't used to it and so was a bit too strong. The texture was good though. I'll try it again but without sage.

I didn't even bother to look for pumpkin this year. I made the pie using carrots and it was really good. I think it is the spices that make the taste!

Holey Jeans

A's been wearing his jeans with huge large holes in the back. I was saying that his underwear was quite noticeable but it didn't bother him. (No he doesn't wear this colour underwear but I wanted something that would show the holes clearly.) But then one day he said that maybe the holes were a bit big.

So I suggested that I could try to repair them. I took his jeans to the charity store and tried to match up the colour even though I was hoping that it wouldn't show through. I put some paper behind the holes and poked a needle through to get the outline, drew around the outline and then used it as a template.

I think that they turned out OK and he put them on this morning to go to school, so I suppose he was satisfied.

AH! (exclamation of pain not joy)

A lost his gloves yesterday! I can't believe it. He's going to check the bus' lost and found but we have no idea where he might have left them. I'm not looking forward to knitting another pair of black (he doesn't want any other colour), though I have the pattern all written down, so it would be easier than the first pair. But still. Sigh.

I haven't been able to knit very much because my wrist, forearm and elbow have been aching. I've put my gloves aside because there won't be enough to make the left glove so I need to decide what size needles to reknit them in and I'm procrastinating. I did start this hat for myself. It called for size 6 mm circular needles which I didn't have, so I borrowed size 7 mm from someone, thinking that with my tight knitting they would be better. Now I'm down to size 4 mm because, though I have a large head, two heads could have fit into it. I'm thinking that I need to go a little bit bigger but I can't decide whether or not to buy 4.5 mm or 5.

I'm attempting to design my own pattern. I thought that this colour would fit the theme of the item well, but unfortunately the design gets lost. I'll have to buy some other colour and try again. I have no idea what to do with this though.

I'm Addicted

I signed up for Ravelry and I can't stop checking where I am in line and when there will be less than 19 000 people ahead of me (there are 19 072 at the moment). I should have signed up when I first heard of it. Live and learn.

I found this at the charity store and I'm looking forward to browsing through it. I've thought of a glove idea and I'm hoping to try it out. That is once I've finished my gloves and a hat that I borrowed the needles for.



I'm still on the first glove. I'm going to have to try to learn how to get the colour more accurate.

New Gloves

I've started a pair of gloves for myself. I'm not sure if I'll have enough yarn! It weighed more than what I used for A's gloves but though I'm using less stitches, I'm using smaller needles. I might have to rip the whole thing.

The Black Gloves Are Finished

After wondering about it for a few years I asked at the charity store (thrift store? flea market?) if they ever get any yarn, knitting needles, crochet hooks, etc. and they told me that they do but they usually just send them onto the places in Estonia where they send things because they don't think anyone here would want them! Not long after a bag came in and it was full of yarn and 2 unfinished projects. This is one of them. I've undone it down to the orange and taken that off and washed it. I don't have the camera so I can't show the other yarn.

A's gloves are finally finished just in time for a predicted heat wave. I'm planning to knit myself a pair of gloves once I've washed the orange yarn from above. I spent quite a time searching the net for a woman's glove pattern but I didn't find what I was looking for. I'm going to use one from a Patons booklet called ''Gloves & Mitts'' (why don't they put the year on these things?).

Almost Done

Well I didn't quite finish the second glove in time for the end of the Tour de France KAL but it should be ready for fall.





M said that her daughter's socks should have a wider toe so for the second sock I tried a different one and I'll undo the other one and make it the same. I did the kitchener stitch for the first time. I expected it to be difficult but it wasn't. The only problem I had was trying to get the last two stitches to look good and not a big bump.

Seond Glove Syndrome

The first glove for my Tour de France KAL is almost done, and would have been finished if we hadn't decided that we prefer rounded tips rather than pointed ones. I've had to add more yarn to the tips because of this and I hope it won't make them too bulky. I've never had second sock syndrome and so I've never understood it. But I've been hit by second glove syndrome! I'm already trying to plan what colour and pattern I want for myself. If only I didn't have this other black one to make! LOL

Tour de France, Parte 3

I had to make the thumb gusset longer and according to the pattern you should also continue the increases but once I had done a few rows on the palm we realized that the thumb hole was too big. So I undid some of the gusset and continued on without the increases before doing the palm. The pinky needed more stitches. I'm now on the ring finger and I had to pick up 5 stitches from the side of the pinky finger instead of 3 or there would have been a gapping hole. The ring finger is a bit big but I'm going to reduce two stitches after the knuckle and see if that helps.

Refashioning

I've had these two well worn 100% cotton tops in the cupboard and when I came across them a few weeks ago I wondered if I could combine them into a sleeveless dress that I could wear around the house this summer. I started by choosing the purple as the skirt part because an underarm was ripped. I just cut across below the tear and sewed it onto the bottom of the green top. Then I took the sleeves off the green and just doubled folded the edge before sewing them.

After I took the collar off I was left with a folded stripe of material sewn around the edge. I put the project away for awhile because I couldn't decide whether to leave it there and just sew the edges together because then all of the raw edges would be contained inside or take it off and double fold the edge and just sew it.

In the end I decided to leave it on and see how it feels that way. I can always take it off later. I haven't decided either about taking the button strip off or not. Of course now the weather has gotten cooler and I'm back to wearing shorts and a top but it's ready for warmer days!


My Tour de France project is coming along well. It's more of a stop, try on, knit, repeat kind of a piece but hopefully I won't have to undo it. I had my son try the glove on last night just before he went to sleep so I could knit in the morning before he woke up. Then I had to ask him to wait before leaving to his friend's so I could get to the first row after the gusset stitches were put on a piece of yarn. It seems to be long enough but I guess we won't know until the first two fingers are done and it will sit in its proper place.

Tour de France, Parte 1

I joined the Tour de France Knit a long. Partly because I thought it would be fun and partly because I thought that it would be a good reason to not put off starting my son's gloves. I know how I'll procrastinate because I can't just follow a pattern for this. I'll have to keep having him try the first one on so that it will fit properly. Once he gets home today from being away for the weekend, he can try the ribbing on and see if it is OK. It's not worth assuming that it will fit.

Resurfacing

I really have no other reason why I haven't been crafting other than I haven't felt like it / been in the mood / gotten around to it. I was brave and contacted someone whom I'd never met but I've read her blog. She lives in the same city as I do and I asked if she was going to knit in public on June 9. She was going to be doing something else at the local market but knitting outside anyway. So I joined her and stayed for a while.

I've almost finished N's first sock. Her mother thinks the toe shape won't be suitable for her daughter's foot, so I think I'm going to attempt a kitchener toe. Ha. Well, I will when the other sock needs a toe too. Then I'll put it off for awhile as I don't think it will snow yet. Then I'll have to find out how to do the toe. I think she wants to give them as a Christmas present, so they should be done by then.

My sister D sent me a pants/shorts pattern so I bought a piece of orange material from the charity store to make a pair of summer pj bottoms and try out the pattern. I think they turned out fine. OK I know that the white thread is a bit obvious, but who cares?


These are sleeves from a housedress I'm going to attempt to refashion into a summer dress. I've taken the sleeves off and sewed them together to make a knitting sock bag for the sofa. I didn't undo the underarm seam but I just swung the other sleeve around and sewed the two sleeve caps together. Then I undid one of the and sewed it closed. The shape's a bit strange but it serves its purpose.

Blue Christmas Poinsettia Snowflake

Late again. I found this pattern in Crochet World's Christmas Annual from 1985. It didn't turn out flat like the picture. When I pinned it to see what it would look like if I stiffened it, it still wasn't flat and it probably is acrylic, so it won't stretch. I like the look of curled edges but I don't know if they will stay.

I found a few more colours for my granny squares. Now I have to decide what size hook to use and how many rows for each square. A was nice and went and got the beige from the second store I had looked in. I hadn't planned on using it but that was before I found out how few colours were around.

Baby Tube Socks

Here's the next little sock I knit. I answered the woman who got my name in the The Knitterly Letter Swap and she's let me know that she received my letter. So now I can show the sock I sent her. I had Barbie model it for me, but it's a bit big on her. I wanted to try a smaller sock this time. Maybe I'll go even smaller...

I finished the baby tube socks. I decided not to make them wider. I don't even know if the baby will ever wear them, so if they fit or not doesn't matter to me at this point. They are done and ready in plenty of time for next winter.



I bought these two balls of cotton yesterday because I want to make some granny squares. I would have preferred black, pink and white but at 1 € a ball I couldn't resist. I'll have to look in other stores to see if they have other colours. I would have liked thicker cotton but I haven't found any.