Seascape

I finished Seascape a while ago, but I hadn’t had a chance to take any pictures.  I finally found some time, and some sunshine.

The finished dimensions came in at 10.5″ x 88″, leading to a pretty respectable scarf.  The edges seem to curl in a little bit, even after blocking, but I rather like the effect that it creates.

Before blocking:

During blocking (I really need to get some blocking wires if I’m going to continue lace knitting!):

And a few more shots of the finished scarf:

This is going to be the perfect scarf in the fall.  It is really soft, but pretty thin so it won’t be too warm.

Garden 2009

While I wasn’t blogging, the garden grew!  I thought that a big update of what we have growing was in order.  Saturday it didn’t rain, so I got a chance to take some pictures.

Here is the garden as a whole (please don’t judge our shaggy lawn, it’s been rainy everytime there is time to mow it!).

The garden is divided into three sections with little stone walkways in between.  I’ll take you from left to right in pictures!

All the way on the left we have the tomato plants.

They are just starting to flower.

Next up are some beans.  I planted a row of yellow and a row of green beans, but only the yellow ones really took off.   Which is fine by me, because they are my favorite!

The beans are also starting to flower.

The next section starts off with some pepper plants.  There are both sweet and hot varieties.  In the front are a few brussel sprout plants.

There are tiny peppers on a few of the plants.

Next up are some vidalia onions.  These look a little sad, all falling over.  I weeded them, and I think that the weeds were helping to hold the stalks up.  They should be okay though (I hope).

And next to the onions, finishing off the middle section are some carrots and a second crop of radishes that are just coming up in the front.  Our first crop was starting to get woody, so we pulled them all and re-seeded the section.  (I gave up trying to weed the carrots, it was just a lost cause.)

In the final section, we have some green onions!

Also, there are some melons, which are doing very well, which you can see in this picture of our lettuce.

Fresh lettuce may be my favorite thing in the whole world.

In between the lettuce and the green onions, we had planted some spinach.  Unfortunately, it succumbed to aphids and all of the leaves curled under.  We were forced to pull it all up, but on the upside, we just planted more lettuce!  Hopefully we can keep the aphids at bay.

At the back of the garden, along the fence we have some climbing plants, like snap peas, which are flowering and producing like crazy.

And some cucumbers, which got a late start but are coming along nicely now.

Oh look, I have a blog!

The other day my sister complained to me that I hadn’t blogged in ages – and she was right!  And I don’t even have a good excuse for the last month!  I finally defended and started my new job, oh and moved – so there has been a lot going on, but it’s starting to quiet down now.

So, I’m back.  I have a lot of things backlogged to blog about; I’m going to try to get to them all in a week or two.  But right now, I am excited about this:

This just came in the mail today!  It’s 13 skeins of Briggs & Little Atlantic.  13!  That’s a lot of yarn.  But I’ll need it all – because I am making sylvi.  I am so excited!   Sylvi was my motivation during the last push to write my thesis.  I promised myself that once I was done that I could make it.  Well, try at least.  The pattern looks a little intimidating, but I love a challenge!

In case you’re wondering why I’m knitting a heavy wool sweater in the middle of summer – I want to wear this as my fall coat, so I have to get a jump on it!  Luckily Atlantic is a bulky weight yarn, so it won’t go too painfully slow.  And, it will be a nice break after the laceweight from the Seascape.  Which I did finish, I swear.  I’m just waiting for a day with some sunlight to take some decent pictures – it just has to stop raining!

Off to swatch!

I Can Hear My Knitting Laughing at Me

Loudly, in fact.

I’ve been annoyed at knitting lately, and I was trying to hold on to a project that wasn’t really working.  First, recall this awesome swatch that I knit ages ago (March 3rd, actually).  I made that swatch in preparation for some awesome fingerless gloves that I had envisioned in my head.  Enter problem number 1 – a designer of anything more complex than scarves I am not.

But, ignoring that fact, I went for it.  I measured and did math (problem number 2 – math is not always my strong suit).  I thought really hard about increases and decreases and how to center the cable design perfectly on the back of my hand.  Through all of this hard work, I managed to create this:

I was excited that it was spring colored, bright and happy.  I ignored the fact that it was a little too small and started to cut off the circulation to my fingers.  (If you’re counting – this would be problem number 3.  Look how red my fingers are in the picture!)  I was giddy over the fact that the cable pattern was centered so nicely that the top worked its way right up my middle finger.  (I thought maybe that I could flip people off in style).

I was so excited about it that I was going to immediately cast on the second one.  Until I lost the first page of my notes.  (Problem # 4!)  I didn’t want to start a new project because I was afraid that I would never finish this one.  So I looked and looked.  I worked on other little craft projects here and there, finished up some things – but didn’t start any new big knitting projects.  I figured my notes would turn up.  Finally, I faced the facts.  I picked a new project, and went in search of some  laceweight yarn I had leftover from making a present for my sister.

I couldn’t find it anywhere.  I looked in my yarn bag, in my craft bin, under the couch, under the bed, under the dresser.  I tore apart the stack of things on my coffee table.  I was really ready to give up.  I looked under the couch again, and then I found this:

Yup, it’s my first page of notes from the fingerless glove.  It figures, right?  But, I was over the gloves, and now I really wanted to find my leftover Cashwool.  So I checked the yarn bag again – and there it was, right on top.

I thought about going back to the fingerless gloves.  Adding more stitches, ripping out the first one, doing them right.  And then I realized that spring has almost passed and I probably wouldn’t wear them anyway.  So I started on this:

I’ve even made a little progress:

But please, don’t remind me that I don’t really wear stoles either, ok?  I’m pretending it’s just a really wide scarf.

Fajitas

It’s been a while, huh?  I’ve been too busy to blog, too busy to craft really.  34 day until my PhD defense, so not to much time for anything!

But we did make a tasty dinner last night, fajitas!

Two small steaks were rubbed with salt, pepper, and a little taco seasoning and grilled.  The peppers and onions were sliced thin and cooked in some butter with the rest of the packet of taco seasoning until they were tender.  The meat was sliced and mixed into the veggies.  So so tasty, with the added bonus that the meat isn’t overdone by cooking it pre-sliced.  Served with a little guacamole, some refried beans and plenty of cilantro, it was a pretty tasty dinner!

Sheldon is Excited for Spring!

I finally got around to finishing Sheldon.  I started on him months ago, ran out of yarn and put him down.  I finally picked up some more yarn and finished all of the pieces a little while back.  (The yarn is just Sugar n’ Cream cotton.) Then I ran into an unusual stumbling block in the attached i-cord.  Apparently this was a problem for me, it took me about four days to figure it out.  It looks really strange starting out, but it got better as I went on!

All that work on the i-cord, and I didn’t even take a good picture of it.  Ha.  Sheldon is posing on some upcoming flowers, daffodils, I think.  I can’t wait for things to start blooming!

Alien Invasion

Another little ami – this time from my imagination.  I had envisioned a green alien, but the only green yarn I had was far to splitty to be crocheted tightly.  So, white won.  But, I like the white and red combo, especially the eyes.  Each eye is made of four red seed beads from my bead stash.

I have a really strong desire to hang him from somewhere, but I have to say that he does look like quite the studious alien on my bookshelf at work.

In Celebration of Pi

For those out there less nerdy than me, Pi day was on Saturday.  (It was also Einstein’s birthday.)  To celebrate, I made meat pie!

Meat pie is something that my French-Canadian grandmother always makes on holidays.  It is very tasty – she usually has to make two to feed all of us pigs!  I’ve never made it before, and it always seemed a little tricky, according to my mom.  And then I found out why – there’s no actual recipe! It’s all stored in my grandmother’s head, and unfortunately I’m not telepathic.  I called her to ask her how long and what temperature to bake it at, and she said “until it’s done”.   Ahh, family recipes!

So, with some vague instructions, I made a meat pie.  And now I’m going to share with you how it’s done.  (I’m also sharing this with future me, so I can’t forget!)

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ lb ground beef
• ¼ cup water
• 2-3 tbsp. flour
• cinnamon
• ground cloves
• ½ tsp. salt
• two pie shells
• one slightly beaten egg white

Directions:

1. Brown the beef, draining off about half of the fat when it is finished.
2. Add water, and then flour in small portions until a slight gravy is formed.
3. Add cinnamon (about 1 tsp) and cloves (about 2-3 tsp) – until it tastes good.
4. Add salt.
5. Put first pie shell into the pie dish.
6. Add meat to pie shell
7. Top with second pie shell, pinch closed and cut a few slits in the top.
8. Brush the top with the egg white.
9. Bake at 400 F for about 20-25 minutes, until the top is a nice golden brown.

Hoppity Hop Hop Hop

Please meet Barnabus Bunny!  This is a amigurumi love bunny that I made as part of a CAL in the amigurumi lover’s group on Ravelry.

He’s pink – but for some reason seemed more male than female, so Barnabus it is.  He also has a cute little tail, but I only snapped this one good picture on my way into work from the parking garage this morning.  There were a lot of people around and I felt a little weird taking pictures of a crocheted bunny!

Yarn is some mystery acrylic in from the bottom of my yarn bag – seems to be about worsted weight and I used an E hook.  His bottom half is filled with some poly pellets to give it some weight (and keep him from toppling over!) and the top half is just stuffed with polyfil.  I may make him a little friend out of some thinner weight white yarn I also found – wouldn’t want a bunny to be lonely!

Shirt #1

I’m on a mission to make some new clothes for my big kid job.  On Saturday I went to the fabric store and bought ten shirt patterns (on sale for $2 each – who wouldn’t buy the limit, really?)  I also picked up enough material to make four of them.  This weekend I finished one.

The pattern is Butterick B5283, view D.  I made the sleeves shorter because I ran out of material.  (Side note, that never seems to happen – I always have way to much when I follow the numbers on the back of the pattern, so that was… strange.)  I do love 3/4 length sleeves though, so I’m not too upset.  The twist at the top is supposed to be off center, and it was a little fiddly getting it to work out right.  Basically, it took two chemists and an electronics engineer a good fifteen minutes to figure it out.  Then we had some beer.

The fabric is just a basic stretch knit.  I rarely sew with knits, so this was a little new to me, but not terribly hard.  I just used a zig-zag stitch for most of it and away I went.  This shirt is so soft and nice, and I am in love with the color.  I don’t know why I love teal so much, but I’m going with it.

The only downside to this shirt is that I’ve promised myself I won’t wear any of these new clothes until I actually start my job.  Nothing like the motivation of new clothes to get a girl going, right?

A Weekend in Pictures

We had a great weekend!  We started off by making this really tasty dish with mashed potatoes, cabbage, onion, garlic, leek (I like leek, I’d never had it before!) and yes, of course… bacon.  (But only a tiny bit, really!)

leeks make food colorful and pretty

the finished dish, along with some steak and beer

Sunday we went to Dim Sum downtown (sadly, no pictures… we ate all of the food too fast).  We had pork buns, sticky rice, noodles with some sort of beef in them, turnip cakes and something else that I don’t know the name of, but I know that I like it.

After that, we went to the science museum to see the frog exhibit – Tim loves frogs!

some type of bullfromg

a green frog with sticky toes

can you find the frog?

poison dart frog - so pretty!

I also got a book from the library!  Charted knitting designs!

continuing to fuel my addition

I’ve already opened it up and tried out a pattern I’ve had my eye on, the ribbed spindle.  I think it looks like mitosis and that makes the science nerd in me oh-so-very happy.

not as hard as it looks, really

I also learned how to do a tubular cast on.  I would not encourage anyone to try and learn this at 1am.  Not my best idea ever, but I did eventually understand it.  And look how pretty my 1×1 rib looks as a result!

harder than I thought it would be

I have grand plans for this swatch and these new things I’m learning.  I’ve done a lot of math so far.  It hasn’t all been pretty, especially when I sometimes can’t count – but I’m excited about it all the same!

We Eat Too Much Bacon

I was just getting ready to post about the yummy dinner we had on Sunday when I realized it contained bacon.  As did the last like 5 food things I’ve posted.  You people must think we eat nothing that doesn’t contain bacon.  I swear that’s not true!  But, at least I’m not posting bacon-food everyday!

So, a little while back I found this recipe from The Pioneer Woman and immediately decided that I needed to try it.  Basics: lemon pepper chicken breast, bacon and cheese (we used pepper jack for a little kick).  It was by far the tastiest sandwich I’ve ever had – served up on a tasty fresh bun.

In the background you can see we had this with some fake poutine.  (And also some yellow wax beans – vegetables are tasty too!) I say fake because my grocery store sorely dissapointed me – for weeks they’ve been tempting me with cheese curds (which are extremely rare to find here) and when I actually went to buy them, they were no where to be found.  And of course when I asked about them, no one had any idea what the hell I was talking about.  Where’s a Canadian when you need one?  So, we substituted some provolone instead.  It was passable, but I can’t wait to get back to the great white north and get some good stuff!

Something Bloggable!

I’ve finally finished my Dublin Bay socks that I started forever ago.  I had such trouble with the second sock, I have no idea why I made so many mistakes!  A bit of ripping and re-knitting later though, these are the first pair of hand-knit socks I have ever worn.

I finished them Saturday morning and wore them right away.  I washed them yesterday and I am wearing them again today.  They made it through the wash just fine, although I was a little too nervous to put them in the dryer.  Maybe next time!

I love the lace panels down the sides of the sock.  It makes them feel a little prettier than just plain socks, without being too overwhelming.  But, even though I like them a whole lot, I think I’m changing my mind about my next project also being in fingering weight yarn – I might need a rest!

I’ve actually got a bug to do some sewing, there are a few little projects I need to get done!

Volume = 4/3∏r³

I’ve been noticing for a while now that my knitting philosophy has been changing.  I’ve been resisting it for a while.  I’d always been a product knitter – simply choosing projects that will yield me with something that I can use.  Especially when it came to gift giving.  Of course, I wanted the things I made to look good, and I took care to make sure they did, but the end product was still the goal, whether it was a little toy, a hat, or some mittens.

I never really thought about how knitting works too much until recently, it was just another craft medium in my repertoire.  And although I won’t ever give up sewing or anything else, knitting just seems so enthralling and magical lately.  (I’m sure you’ve noticed that trend here though…)

So, I have to admit to myself that I think I’m starting to become a process knitter.  I think that the picture above proves that.  It’s a short-row sphere.  I don’t need a knitted sphere.  Actually, I don’t have any place to even put a knitted sphere.  But I had a horrible need to learn short-rows.  Why?  I have no idea.  In the past, I would have not even given it a thought until I started a project that used them.  And then I would have just learned them as a went along, not minding that I made mistakes the first few times.   But, now I know, and I feel better having done it.

Then again, maybe I’m just trying to ignore the fact that I’m coming down to crunch time for this whole PhD thesis thing and I’m distracting myself with knitting like a crazy fool.

Second Verse, Same as the First

Our unbelievably awesome, resourceful and she-who-always-has-candy secretary, Deb was very enamored by my new hat of a few posts ago.  So much so, that she begged me to make her one if she bought the yarn.  Of course, since Deb is so awesome that she makes everything work here in crazy-rules-academia land that I said yes immediately.  Plus, I couldn’t wait to see Pippi worked up in another new color combo.

When I enquired as to what colors Deb might like, she said “Oh, exactly like yours, they’re just perfect!”.  I was quite flattered that I apparently picked such an awesome color combo, but I was a tiny bit let down at first.  Then I started knitting.  And then I was happy all over again.  I love faire isle.  I love that I learned to knit with one color in each hand.  I love how methodic it feels.  I love how fast it seems to go.  I love how the crocheted edging on this one looks so much better than on the last one.  I love it all so much that I was obsessed with knitting a hat completely identical to one I had just knit.

But to top it all off, I love how happy Deb looks in her new hat!