Cooking Day

I haven't been grocery shopping in 5 almost 6 weeks so I made up my list and went after work last night. That means today was a cooking day. A very productive and very very tiring day.

I made:

Cream of Pea Soup

Spicy African Stew and ho-boy did it turn out spicy. That was one spicy jalapeno.

Black-eyed Peas with Tomatoes and Herbs over rice, this is my favorite of the day.

Savory Pumpkin Stew, this one I didn't measure the mustard and I put in too much. I countered by adding honey. Good, but it would be better to go easy on the mustard next time.

Cream of Spinach, my favorite of the day.

Harvest Stew, where they get calling this a stew I don't know. I had to add 4 cups of broth to get it thin enough to be a sauce over rice which is what I did. This is my favorite of the day.

Roasted a turkey, not for meals but to cook with next weekend.

Quinoa With Toasted Almonds & Dried Cranberries, my favorite of the day and good enough to take photos of. I'm too tired to get the photos off of the camera but I'll post about it when I do.

I now have 67 meals in the freezer and I still have the ingredients to make 10 more recipes. When I'll cook them I don't know. I have to work tomorrow. I didn't think that part out so well.

Not bad for $131.71.

Ten Dollar a Day Habit

Cabled Rangoli Hat, what a great pattern. Look at the cool flower drawn out in cables.

It's knit out of an even greater yarn, Rowan Pure Wool Dk. There is a reason I don't knit with Rowan. I love it too much. This yarn is so smooshy, so springy, and it's plies don't split. It's a nice plain wool that is so much better than other plain wool yarns. It flows through the hands and clings to the points of the needles just right. The spring and rebound and memory of this yarn it's hard to believe it's spun out of wool and not the softest of elastic. Cables look chiseled with no blurring of the edges and plain stockinette is so pretty.

I love it so much I knit the first ball worth of this hat in a short afternoon and part of the second ball that evening. I could easily knit just this yarn I just can't support a $10 a day habit. I did stretch the knitting of second ball out over the next 3 days.

Tams and other floppy hats are supposed to be blocked over a plate. I wanted this hat to be bigger than the pattern as written and I succeeded. This hat dwarfs my dinner plate.

I had 2 balls of Pure Wool DK in my stash and this hat was a race to the finish. Would the yarn run out before the knitting ? I was sweating it but I ended up with a nice little ball left over. In making my linkity-links I noticed that this yarn is superwash so I think I'll hunt down some more colors to use with my leftovers for a baby sweater.Joey pleads with me to let him retire from the floppy hat molding. He doesn't like it one bit. I do, and I finally have a winter hat that looks good with my winter coat.

As Big As Feathers

Snow started falling from the sky. I have never seen such huge flakes. They are as big as goose down feathers. Bigger.
Snow this big must be played in, ran through, with lots of jumping and twirling. It must.
See the huge flakes?
They melt instantly in warm hands
but stick for a moment on the hood of the car.

A blast from the past. I finished this little number up right before Iron Knitter and only now have photos.

Joey in a hood and hat combination. He looks cozy. The yarn is Lush and I love it. It's so soft with lots of drape and the angora halo is so cuddly and warm. It mats and felts lightly with just a little handling which holds the angora in so no real shedding. The cowl pattern is Cabled Feather Cowl and the hat is For Joana I modified both for fit since Lush has no relationship to the yarn in either pattern. I have a good bit left from my 3rd ball and will be knitting that up soon. It's too pretty not too.

Wipe Out

Iron Knitter moved onto round 3 without me. While I'm sad not to be sill be competing it is nice to knit on whatever I want at night. The complicated lace pattern was my downfall.
It's 37 stitches wide and 36 rows tall. Because I couldn't memorize it and I had to watch each stitch on the pattern grid. 10 rows a night was all I wanted to handle after getting home from work all bleary and tired.

They remind me of the Zonki socks I just finished. A nice pattern but one that I want to stretch out over a year instead of cramming into a week or two. Of course the pattern for Iron Knitter round 3 is a cute little stranded knitting pattern. Stranded knitting patterns just fly off my needles.

My Knit Picks order came with 2 new sets of size 0 needles and some nice Stroll Tweed sock yarn. I do love tweed yarn.

Loving VD

My secret pal sent me a very nice valentine box. The VD swap this year is extra nice.

Even Sumi-e rushes to see what is inside. We all love a good SP box.Some Lime & Violet superwash/bamboo yarn. The way I know about Lime & Violet is that my favorite pod cast Stash and Burn gush, just gush, about them and their pod cast. As soon as I make it through the Stash and Burn archives I'm headed over there for a listen. The yarn is fantastic, a pretty spring time blend of peach, pink, and white. I can't wait to knit it into socks. And getting some Lime & Violet yarn makes me feel like I'm touching celebrity.

Along with that there was 3 balls of Knit Picks Andean Silk which was just right to knit the slouchy hat pattern that my SP had sent me earlier in the week. It's possible that I cast on before the box was empty.

And tucked into the corner of that photo is a nice big bag of coffee beans. I pulled out my grinder and brewed a fresh and fantastic cup. But that's not all.Two fancy chocolate bars so big and so rich that even now, almost 3 days later, they aren't all gone.
A blank book for my knitting notes. Note the yarn spelling out the word stitches.
Pretty nail files for my knitting bags. Nothing worse than when a rough nail starts getting caught in yarn. The yarn just isn't the same after a snag. They are also handy for filing the cord of circular needles after a cat chews on them. Someone is very lucky he wasn't turned into a pair of fur mittens.
And if all that wasn't enough, clear at the bottom of the box is a book on Shetland Lace.
What a great book with so many nice projects. Thank you Christina what a fantastic, thoughtful, incredibly generous gift.Remember the slouchy hat that I may have cast on while opening the chocolate? Here it is. Summer Rose knit in Andean Silk the color is Barn Red. It took every bit of 2 balls. Since I had the 3rd ball left I used the cables from that pattern to knit a matching cowl.The only thing harder than getting a cat to pose in a cowl for a photo shoot is to tell him the light isn't good and we have to do it over in a new location.A close up of how the silk glows in the cables and the alpaca makes it the warmest winter set ever. Thank you Christina!

Tardis and Tardy Knitting

KCPT sometimes plays Dr Who on Saturday nights. It starts sometime between 10:15 and 10:45 depending on how long the classic movie runs. I make a point of looking for it and have caught is about 10 times. Of those 10 times I've seen maybe 5 episodes, one of them 3 times. Tonight is true to form and a rerun that I've seen. That's how I feel knitting my sock, another rerun. That, and I could use a time machine about now.

Out of Gas

I try not to complain and I think too much has been seeping out lately, but I will say that I am completely drained from work everyday when I get home. I think I cover that well in public but I just am. I tried casting on again last night and it just didn't work out. I've finished my chores for the day and will try again. Or I'll go to bed. Or, and this is the most likely, I'll sit on the couch and stare at the ceiling thinking about casting on or going to bed.

The snow this morning looked like magic. Big furry flakes covered the ground in just seconds and made great big heaps on my car between the time I first walked Joey and left for work, about 45 min. Then I had to drive to work in white out conditions. That wasn't so fun and involved my sliding onto the shoulder as I made the turn onto the ramp off of an overpass. Nothing very scary but a nice reminder of how very light my car is.

And that's a reminder of something that was very scary. Last Friday it snowed all day too. On the way home from work, in not quite the white out conditions of this morning, a car on my right applied their brakes and instead of stopping started to slide right into me. I gently applied my breaks and while I didn't slide I didn't slow down either. I made a quick and controlled merge to the left but without being able to look. The traffic was rather heavy so at that point I just knew that this was the beginning of a 40 car pile up. Thankfully, miraculously, in this very heavy traffic there happened to be plenty of room for my car right that second. Once I was safely over the traffic surged in around me again and once again I was boxed in. But when it mattered I wasn't.

It wasn't for another 8 miles that the traffic thinned enough that people started to slow down to a crawl. I'm still not sure why the heaver the traffic on bad roads the faster it flows. I suppose it's because the sane people are swept along with the crazies.

Proof that there was some sun between the snow storms.

Day 2

Last night I knit my first picot cuff ever. It turned out very well, if I do say so myself. And instead of sewing it together at the end or making the provisional cast on and ripping it out to K2tog the two edges together I did the EZ method of picking up stitches from the cast on and knitting them with the live stitches. It's slow but I love it. I love how the joining is completely invisible.
However, the sock is turning out huge. I have gauge too. And it's not just a little loose but huge. I was easily able to pull it on up past my knee. I know that it should tighten as more length is knit but I'm not going to risk it. We are able to tweak the pattern for fit. I'm tweaking out 12 stitches from the cast on number. Yes, that's a lot but I think it's necessary.

So it's all pulled out and I'm casting on again tomorrow.

Oh, and don't say anything, ok? I have a hard time calling 12 stitches tweaking.

Round 2

Today at noon the new Iron Knitter pattern was released. I'm just getting to start it now because of work. I love the look of the new pattern, such delicate lace. No more time to chat must get to knitting.

Retail Therapy?

Another pair of socks started and finished in 2010. This is, what? my 3rd project? I like the instant gratification of small projects. Pattern is from my head and the yarn is another blast from the past, Jawoll Cotton. Why is it so hard to find jawoll these days? I love how each ball has a spool of reinforcing thread in the center for the heels and toes.

I held the yarn double so I could have a nice thick sock while still getting the fantastic wash ability that I think is lacking in thicker superwash yarn. I cast on 40 stitches to make a very narrow woman's sock. I could wear it but 44 stitches would be better for me.

I now have a little sock knitting crisis. I rolled over one of my Knit Pick sock needles at work (I do get a very nice office chair) and broke it. I now only have 3 left out of the 10? 12? of the two packs I started with. I'm making do by using a bamboo needle in a size larger. I just might have to make an order today, it's like I'm being forced to, right? Right?

If Everone Had to Work Customer Service...

...the world would be a nicer place.

I just finished my second week of my temp job doing customer service. I get to spend my days in a loud room trying to hear what a person is saying on the phone. The whole day I live with low levels of terror that I'm going to enter some information wrong because I can't hear it, this, of course, does nothing for my speed or my accuracy.

I've pretty much given up on my not saying anything wrong. NiceDude, sorry, it turns out your account is not ok but I didn't see the tiny red type down in the very bottom of the screen until you hung up and I can't call you back. I hope your son isn't pulled over. I was trying to help.


But during the down times I can knit.

Between being sassed, yelled at, strait out lied too, hung up on, and feeling bad about making mistakes with the nice people I've done this
Three work days of knitting is one sock and a cuff, pattern from my head, yarn is schoeller stall Fortissima Colori a blast from the past Mexiko Color.

The worst thing, this is not even close to the worse job I've had. That would either be selling shoes or the summer I spent scrubbing bathrooms while dodging the maintenance men trying to grab a feel in the mop closest. I won't decide which of those two jobs was the worst since thinking about them and comparing them isn’t good for my self-esteem.

Here, look at some yarn

Random stash photo but it sort of makes it all better, doesn't it.

Iron Socks

No, make that Silver Socks... mmmmm..... silver glitter.....disco ball socks

I'm done. It feels like it took forever and that I was slow knitting them. However, I finished in the top 30% and Dude! I cast them on the 20th and today is the 24th! and I have a finished pair of socks!
The yarn is Kraemer Sterling Silk and Silver. I love Kraemer Yarns and this is no exception. It's made of 63% superwash merino, 20% silk, 15% nylon, and 2% real silver. With the silk and the nylon they should wear forever. The silver is so flashy, I can't get enough of it. I now want to knit all the Iron Knitter socks with this yarn and move to a world where glittery socks count as sexy underwear. It was a tiny bit splitty on the SSK and, as always, black is near impossible to see. I need to remember never to knit black in a contest again.

I was able to answer the quiz questions in half an hour. That first question was a tricky one. I cast on at 8:30pm Wed night. With the new job wiping me out I had only been able to knit on my lunch break and for about an hour at night before I went to bed.

That sliver is just over 2 inches long. That's where I was at 7 pm Friday night when I picked it up and started to seriously knit on the socks.

7 pm Saturday night had me at one sock finished and most of the cuff on the second.

Sunday at 2 pm I completely finished, toes kitchenered and ends tucked in and everything.

My second started and finished project of 2010.

Ppppptht

I'm giving a raspberry to this week.

First, I had/have the second worst stomach flu of my life. It doesn't beat out the bug that hit me in the mid 80s but it stomped all the ones in between.

Then while still down with the flu I drug myself to a job interview. I got the job. Small yay. It's a temp job so it's sufficiently unpleasant. It started today.

Iron Knitters that I signed up for just before Christmas starts tomorrow. Now I'll have very little time to knit and expect to get beaten out on the first round. Iron knitter is just made for the unemployed (or people taking vacation days).

And today it's been announced that instead of just being the speed knitting event that I signed up for it is now trivia and treasure hunt style.

None of this is bad news and much of it is good news, you know, like having a job again and since trivia answers have to given my working may not be a handicap to finishing in time, but I'm disgruntled and out of sorts by the whole thing. It's probably the flu.

Sumi-e is disgruntled too.

Drip drip Drip

It's January Thaw. One of my favorite times of the year. The snow bunny? Remember her? It snowed so much from that post that she was covered up. Completely disappeared without even a bump to show where she had been. Now it is all melting away.
I finished my first project of 2010! I cast these socks on New Years Eve and they are now done. The green is so much richer and prettier than shows in the photo taken inside at night. MmHmm. Here is to finishing knits in 2010 instead of just starting them. Oh, right, yarn is Jitterbug color Velvet Leaf and pattern is ribbed socks from my head.

Last night I went to my last Christmas party so it seems time to show what I gave this year.

Ice Scraper Cozies. I knit three all different but I only thought to take a photo of one.
This one has a stag horn cable running down it front and back. I've thought to write up the pattern since there isn't a pattern out there for long handled ice scraper cozies. But then again it's such a simple knit that even a new knitter could make it up. That could be why there are no patterns out there.I handed out the yearly kids sweaters too. I finished 3 of the 4. The newborn's sweater is in time out. Good thing I'm making the 12 month size. Maybe. That's why it's in time out. Of the 3 I only thought to take one photo. They will get their own post once I collect photos of the other 2.

Hippity Hop

It's a snowy winter.

So I made a snow bunny.
Everyone needs a snow bunny.

I would have made several since snow bunnies run in packs but I wasn't wearing my mittens.

Road Trip

A 3 day New Year's party takes some traveling as we march across a 1/3 of the state. A snippet of the trip from Hays.


I want to look as silly as a clown.


Do I look like a ladybug?


Take my photo!


What the...???




I'm a rock star!



What the...???


Witches have colored faces.



I'm a witch.


Dada is a vampire.


I'm bored.


Let's all be silly.


You too, Sherri.



Are we there yet?


Are we there yet?


Are we there yet?

Are we there yet? (proof of not being a vampire)