Vacation photos & FO's!

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long absence. I only just got back the other day from my lovely week in Montana and I have lots to share! It was an absolutely beautiful trip and you can see all my best pictures from it here. Here are previews of some of my very favorite ones:

In every picture of me in that album, I am wearing something I knit! That's partly because I stayed up very late the night before my flight seaming the right sleeve on my green cropped cardigan so I'd be able to wear it during my trip. Here I am wearing it (and my Calorimetry!) on the first evening:




And here are some closer views:




I didn't have time to make a button loop or sew a button on before my flight, but now I've gotten so used to wearing it open like a shrug that I'm not sure I'll bother. I did buy a beautiful bone button for it at a bead shop in Missoula, though:




The cardigan got a lot of wear & many compliments during my stay, but I definitely needed something to keep the chill off my neck, so I cast on for a little neck-warmer during my layover in Denver. A few days later I had this:



Here's a closer shot, enthusiastically modeled by my poor cat Bob:


And one last close-up with the button:


I love the way the stitch pattern works with the subtle variations in the yarn! The pattern is here but I skipped the buttonholes because I couldn't settle on where to place them. Instead, I've just been shoving the one button through one of the naturally occurring holes in the stitch pattern. It works well enough like that. The only thing I dislike at all about this is how horribly it rolls. I knew it would but I was definitely in denial -- if I make this again, you bet there'll be a garter stitch border. As for this one, I'm hoping blocking or maybe crocheting the edges will help.

Of course I also bought yarn & started a souvenir scarf in Missoula, but I'll tell you all about that once I've finished it &/or taken some good pictures. For now I'm trying to catch up on all the blog posts I missed and I'll definitely be making some cookies later in the day. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Twin Calorimetries & Cookie #5.

Hi everyone! Sorry for being so quiet lately. It's been an insanely busy week. I was battling a sinus infection, helping out at my aunt's flower shop, and doing lots of school work. Now I'm feeling better, done with the flower shop until Mother's Day, and wishing I could spend the weekend kicking back & relaxing with some good knitting. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. I have midterms next week & therefore tons of reading/studying/writing/etc. to do, plus I'm leaving for Montana Thursday (yay!) so there are things I want to get out of the way before then. Blah.

I've barely knit at all since completing that hat, though I did take a trip to an LYS just the other day, in search of yarn for a nice neck-warmer. I left with a nice big skein of Araucania Nature Wool. It's very pretty but it's also much thinner than I'd realized at the time, almost more of a heavy DK than a light worsted, and I'd wanted a heavy worsted. Oops. So I don't know what I'm going to do about that. I did find a pattern I liked written for 2 strands of DK held together, so I might use that. I might also just go buy different yarn over the weekend, we'll see.

The cardigan is moving slowly. Well, really it's not moving at all, because I STILL haven't started the second sleeve. I don't know why, but I always convince myself that picking up stitches is some horrible ordeal that I just don't want to deal with yet. In reality it's an easy & quick thing to do, but I put it off anyway. I promise I'm starting that sleeve tonight, though!

I can finally show you the two Calorimetries I made last week, though, since my friend Kenna received hers the other day & seems to like it! :) Here's a picture of her wearing it:


I was so happy when she sent me that! It just feels really good to see something you made being used by the recipient. I'm sure you all know what I mean. Here are some other shots I took of it before sending it off:


The orange was my favorite color in there and I'm thrilled that I had a button that worked with it so well. Also this yarn makes me want to take back every mean thing I've ever said about multi-colored yarns because it's so damn beautiful, especially with this pattern!

As you know, as soon as I finished that one for Kenna I cast on this one for myself:


The lighting is all weird/cool because I took these as the evening sunlight was streaming in through my favorite window. I've been wearing it nearly every day & loving how warm it keeps my ears.

For both of these I cast on 96 stitches & only did 5 repeats of row 5. To get 2 out of just one skein, I had to cheat a little on mine & knit to 8 stitches past the marker on a couple of the last rows. I was nervous about that but it worked out fine.
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I really need to finally blog Cookie #5, since it's been at least a week since I made it!

Recipe: Chai Snickerdoodles

Modifications: I don't think I made any other than halving the recipe because having that many cookies around didn't seem particularly wise.

Review: I was so excited when I saw this recipe! I love snickerdoodles & I love chai, so combining the two seemed brilliant. Basically it's a traditional snickerdoodle recipe, but instead of rolling the dough in a simple cinnamon-sugar mixture, you add cardamom, ginger, & allspice, too! I love those spices & had fun mixing them up & making the cookies, but the end result tasted almost exactly like a basic snickerdoodle to me. I'm not complaining, since there is nothing bad at all about a basic snickerdoodle, but I was mildly disappointed that the chai flavor wasn't very pronounced. There's a good chance I'll try these again & just use much more cardamom, ginger, & allspice -- if I do, I'll let you know how it goes!

Right now I've got a loaf of this in the oven and if it tastes half as good as it looks & smells right now I'll be in heaven. I keep making breads & not blogging them! Basically that oatmeal bread I gushed about a couple weeks ago is on its way to becoming a weekly staple. Everyone likes it and the few scraps that are left over at the end of the week become the most delicious croutons the world has ever known. I also tried making English muffins for the first time a while back, following this recipe. I was amazed by how good they were for a first attempt, but they still weren't perfect. They were bland and I also didn't roll the dough out thin enough at all. My family still liked them but I hope to do better next time. If nothing else it was satisfying to know that I made them out of a few simple ingredients while the ones from the store have an ingredient list that's about two inches long and filled with unpronounceable words.

Ok, that's all for now, have a great weekend everyone!

A disappointing day with some good knitting.

I was so excited to go meet up with my fellow knitters at Caribou tonight but it did not work out. I had a paper I needed to finish first and I definitely thought it would be done by the early afternoon but every time I read back over it I noticed contradictions and flaws, and basically it's 11:30ish now and the thing is STILL not done. Ugh. I've never struggled so much with a paper. Pretty soon I'm going to just save what I have and resolve to turn it in whether I think it's perfect or not, but I thought I'd take a break & post before going over it for the gazillionth (and hopefully LAST) time.

I've been taking lots of breaks, really, to try to clear my head & be able to return to the paper with a fresh perspective. Usually that helps. Today it didn't but I still did some cool stuff with my breaks. For one thing, I finished a second Calorimetry as a gift for my wonderful friend Kenna. I can't show you a picture of it before I give it to her, but I can show you the yarn:


Filatura di Crosa 127 print in colorway 50, "Forest"

Isn't it gorgeous? It's the first variegated yarn I've really liked and I truly love the way it knit up! I'll show you guys when I can.

I also finished seaming the first sleeve on my cropped cardigan, so you finally get a picture:

Isn't it cute? Eventually it'll close with a cool button, and don't mind all that white yarn -- it's just a lifeline. I took much longer to knit the sleeve than to knit the body, and longer still to seam the damn sleeve. I think this just goes to show how much I hate doing boring things. :)

Ok, ok, back to work!

A flower & an FO.

After all those boring pictureless posts, I bring you something pretty:

That's the amaryllis plant my family got for Christmas from my wonderful Aunt Andrea. At the time it didn't even look like a plant, just like something weird & ugly & spherical, but since then it's grown at crazy speed and that's one of its blossoms just the other day! I need to take some more pictures soon, since almost all the flowers are in bloom now and it's absolutely stunning.

I don't have any pictures of that cardigan but I've been working away at it. I finished the body in just a day but the sleeves are taking longer, primarily because they're boring. Also I really hate size 15 needles!

I finally made myself a Calorimetry! I cast on the other night so I would have something to work on at school, should the need arise, since the cardigan was getting too big to carry around & I have to do some math before I continue with the hat. Then I woke up yesterday morning and our power was out thanks to the wind. It was something like 15 degrees outside, with a wind chill closer to ten below zero, and I instantly started cursing myself for (a) having abandoned the hat I'm working on for so long and (b) giving away so many of the warm, woolen, wintry things I've made. And so I spent the morning standing in front of our gas stove, all 4 burners on, with a ball of yarn under my arm that quickly turned into this:



Ok, I really didn't finish it until after school yesterday evening, but it was still the quickest project I've ever done. I really like it, too! The yarn is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes and I'd ordered a skein just to test it out & see if it really was as good a deal as it seemed. My verdict is that it is! It's not the softest thing but it's not very itchy, either. I had no problems working with it and isn't that color (Sapphire Heather) gorgeous? The photo doesn't quite do it justice but it's the prettiest blue I've seen. And, well, at $2 for 110 yards, I can definitely see this yarn becoming a mainstay in my stash.

I'll be doing that pattern a few more times, too. I want to make some for gifts and probably more for me, too. If/when I do find a self-striping yarn I actually like, it'll be great. Actually, I think I did find one I like: Berocco Jasper. Look at those colors! People on Ravelry have made some truly gorgeous things with it, so here's hoping I see it in an LYS sometime soon!

I do have an LYS trip planned for Saturday. I'll be going back to Knit A Round with my beloved Aunt Andrea to return that last skein of Ironstone Harmony & spend the gift card my equally beloved Aunt Amy got me for Christmas. I actually want to talk yarn some more here but this has gotten long already, so I'll make that another post in the near future.

Before I go, though, I do want to make a note of just how hip my family is: my Aunt Amy now has a blog, too! It's The Alphabetical Vegetarian and there's not much there yet but I'm looking forward to reading more. Both of my aunts are witty & brilliant so of course I'm glad to see them sharing some of their genius with the world. If only we could get my mom blogging...we'd have to teach her how to use the internet first, though!

Frog City.

Major sweater setback: I reached the last skein of yarn on my Hot Lava cardigan last night and did the math and...that one last skein just wasn't going to be enough to finish it. Woe! I seriously did the calculations over & over & over but there was no way they were going to work out. I was pretty disappointed about this earlier but I quickly moved on to finding other cute patterns for the yarn and I've now started on this one. I think I just might like it better than Hot Lava, actually, and it's the fastest knit EVER! I started it this morning and literally only have a few more rows to go on the body. If things continue at this rate I'll be wearing it before the week's halfway over, which would be awesome!

Amusingly, my spit splices were undetectable while I was frogging, so I now have this gigantic ball of wool that represents roughly 2.5 skeins. Way to go saliva!

There's a lot of frogging going on around here lately. The other night I also knit about half a Calorimetry before I had to come out of denial and admit to myself that I hated the yarn I was using. It's Crystal Palace Yarns Fjord Print (colorway Black Pearls) and I got it in the spirit of branching out and trying some variegated colorways instead of solids like I usually use. I've realized that there's a reason I use solids all the time, though, and it's that I don't like the way print yarns look...or at least I don't like this one. The color changes are too rapid and the colors are too different for my taste. On the off chance that any of you click on the link & like the way that it looks, I'd be all too happy to part with my one skein (though a small portion of it is, of course, lightly used thanks to my half Calorimetry) -- email me or message me on Ravelry if you have any interest.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed the Calorimetry pattern (yeah, I realize I'm late to this bandwagon!), so I'll be making more of those in prettier yarns very soon.

I've been far more successful with cooking and baking lately than with knitting. I made my 3rd batch of cookies for the year the other night and, surprisingly, I've been making really good bread, too. Also I've just been eating well generally, cooking most of my meals at home and actually paying some attention to proper nutrition, which is something of an accomplishment for me (as well as a 2008 resolution). Anyway, details, pictures, & recipes to follow. I hope you all had a great weekend!