Month: May 2013

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Chocolate

Yes, there will be knitting today. But probably nothing photo worthy. Instead I’ll bring you chocolate today, another one of my obsessions.

I love my chocolate sweet, but resist the temptation most times and just add a little milk or white chocolate here and there. Staying mostly with dark or very dark. The project for today is some chocolate bark for my FIL’s birthday brunch.

We start out with an 11 pound slab of Callebaut dark. And right there you’ll notice that there is no way we can go wrong. We don’t even have to worry about using up all that chocolate because we have at least 5 more slabs like this. But, we will not be using it all, though FIL turns 85, there will not be that many people to feed chocolate to.

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Take some organic dried cherries and chop them up, while melting the chocolate in a double boiler contraption. Most of the time I will melt my chocolate in the microwave, especially if I’m making chocolate truffles.

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The microwave method goes like this. I break down a certain amount of chocolate with a hammer. Keep chocolate in a plastic bag for that. Put chocolate into a bowl and at 50% in microwave for 2.34 minutes. Yes, that number might be my little ocd thing, but who is a knitter and not a bit ocd? I mean we can do the same stitch over, and over, and over, right? If this did not melt your chocolate, go for another 2.34 minutes. But remember, to put the micro at 50% again! Learned that one fast.

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But back to the double boiler method. Once chocolate is melted, I have a big decision to make. Alcohol or no alcohol? There will be kids at the event, but this is just a tiny amount of alcohol, so I went for it. Added the chopped cherries and then some Callebaut white chocolate chips, not letting them melt all the way. Poured everything on a parchment lined plate and off into the fridge to set.

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You are probably wondering why I’m showing you slabs of chocolate. What sane person without a business buys chocolate in these quantities? Btw, I found that Costco actually carries this chocolate on their online store. Trader Joe’s actually has some pretty darn good chocolate to play with. The one pound slabs in milk, dark, and very dark. I did a taste test and am convinced that the chocolate comes from Callebaut.

To get caught up here I’ll show you a little red riding hood cape I made for a friend’s daughter who had a baby girl. It’s blocking right now and I hope will go in the mail tomorrow. It got a bit boring to knit, but is cute. Parents are theatre type people and this seemed the perfect gift, for their daughter’s first role.

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Excuse me while I go make some more chocolate (almond bark) and knit.

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Weather

The seasons are confusing me this year. Did I miss spring? Somehow summer seemed to follow winter in my neck of the woods. Then, big surprise for me, as I had given in to missing spring and had planted tomatoes et al., someone noticed and slapped some spring on us. Now, I’m not sure, but looks like summer again. I like a rhythm in my weather and watering. Back to watering and summer it is. But stop confusing me!

Last night I heard a snippet of news and that 60% of U.S. citizens don’t think that climate change will have any effect on them. Ha, keep on dreaming.

Since I’m still in stealth knitting mode I have nothing to show for my efforts. I did manage to blow it last night though. I ordered a pattern via mail: Elizabeth Zimmermann’s baby surprise jacket. Apparently it is a mandatory project if I want to keep my knitting credentials. I have the book with the pattern in it. But the book is from long ago and the pattern had me confused. The pattern I ordered is new and rewritten to make a modern and simple person like me understand it. But, I was going to cast on and knit the first 6 rows in garter stitch to get ahead and be ready when the pattern arrived. Casting on 160 stitches is not for the weak, and 6 rows of that, well, you do the math of how many stitches I did. First off I cast on with too short a tail and had to start over. I counted several times and was content that I had 160 stitches. But just incase, I started counting along as I knit the first row. But then got distracted. That’s OK I thought, I’ll count with the second row. Again, some confusion, I did not get 160, but 162. How can that be? OK, count with the third row. Yup, 162 it is. Now what? Well, instead of starting over I could just knit two together at each end or, decrease in the back. Keep on knitting I though, this can be worked out.

Then at row 6 I’m starting to have knitter’s doubt. Better look at the pattern again. Perhaps I can even knit a little further. I read and reread and there was no denying it, there were no 6 rows in garter stitch. The project immediately starts with decreases, a very important design point. Where did I get the 6 rows from? Probably casting on too much lately and some other project had these directions. Darn, there goes my good idea. I will wait for the pattern at this point. 160 stitches are a lot of time to waste.

To give you a picture today, I’ll post a finished project from a few weeks ago. I liked it so much, I went out and bought two more skeins of yarn to make two more. I knew my lys (local yarn store) had two discounted skeins just right for the project.

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It’s a cowl. A very quick knit. And fun to do.

Excuse me while I go water and knit.

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Hard Times

This has been one hell of a difficult week. It started out with back ache on one side last Sunday. Monday I had to go in to see the dentist for another phase of my tooth implant. With back pain. The two hours flew by as if I was having fun. OK, could have been the nitrous oxide. But the week kept on plodding along slowly with a continuous back ache. tried heat, pain meds, from strong to weaker to in between, but nothing helped. I could sit for a little, stand up for a little, and be in bed for longer periods of time. Got nothing done! Just felt sorry for myself.

Today came the break through. And of course I probably overdid it immediately. When I don’t want to tackle my mess, I throw myself in to Stephen’s affairs. I flung papers and photos and cassette tapes (yes, he saves cassette tapes, don’t ask, it’s a long story), CDs, dust bunnies and dust buffalos, and after a few hours and repeated complaints by Stephen that he did not sign up for this, his room looked much better.

Yes, and so I did kind of, with less vigor, attack my room and all my stuff strewn around the house. To be honest, I only managed to kind of organize my yarn/sewing/craft room. There is a clear path to the table and the sewing machine. And I carried my computer downstairs into our bedroom where I keep a desk that I use as I do all flat spaces in the house, to store stuff on I don’t know what to do with.

Actually I cleared the desk top pretty well, but please don’t look behind the curtain of the closet where piles are awaiting me for sorting.

I’m hoping I did no further damage to my back because I am ready to knit.

Knitting did play a role during the week, if only to finish projects and do very little ones.

Let me introduce you to my new hobby: making dishcloths. So far I only have a picture of the first one I made. While watching the Champions League soccer match yesterday (Germany against Germany, I could not go wrong), I started and finished another dishcloth.

ImageVery unimaginative, your basic dishcloth. Here is the link to ravelry and the pattern.

A friend recently gave me a generous amount of yarn. And I have been dipping into this stash. First I used the sari silk yarn. It is a rather heavy yarn, so what to make? I decided on a skinny scarf for our daughter Liana. It was not easy to knit with this yarn, it did not move along the needles easily, but it turned out well.Image

This box of gift yarn has really inspired me. And with that I present a hat for Liana:Image

This hat pattern is here. As you can see I made a little change by adding a band at the bottom. This was a suggestion by the yarnharlot. The button was an easy find at our local Ben Franklin.

And last, but never least: socks. A while ago I finished the non-wool socks for my friend and a pair for Stephen. I’m so blessed that Stephen is willing to wear about any sock in any color I make. Image

I’ve ordered some fleece artist sock yarn recently and fell in love. By accident I ordered a color twice (tiger) and at first was disappointed. But once I knit with it I realized it was a very happy mistake. I did finish the pair of socks, but I’m having a hard time letting go of them. Eventually, perhaps when I knit a second pair, I might be able to pass them on.Image

With that, I’m somewhat caught up with my knitting adventures. There is still a backlog of pictures and projects to show you. For now, excuse me while I go and knit.

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Weirdness

Yes, I haven’t been here in a while, and yes, that could be considered weird. But it’s not.

What has been weird in the knitting world to me is knitted washcloths. That’s why I always questioned my first knitting project, foisted upon me by my knitting teacher at school. Yes, it was a washcloth. Yellow with a green border, cotton, thin cotton. It was a washcloth you put your hand into, can’t remember what they are called.

My first attempt was so crooked it would be considered art nowadays. Somehow I could not control tension and probably gave up knitting for a few years for that reason.

In my grown up knitting career I knew a washcloth is something I would NEVER knit. Never is capitalized here for a reason, I really mean it. But here is the weird part, I recently knit a dishcloth. How is that any different?

I had some hesitation, remembering how I scoffed at the idea and how this is going overboard with the back to basics/land kind of idea popular today. But I kept an open mind and there is some pretty cool cotton around, and cheap at that. Resistance being futile when it comes to yarns and ideas, the first chance I got to buy cotton, I did. Next thing I knew, there was a dishcloth. The best looking dishcloth I had ever seen.

The problem of course is that I do my dishes with a sponge, but Stephen, our main dish washer here loves a dishcloth. That solved another problem for me. How could I get something I knit get dirty on purpose? Crazy and weird, but Stephen had way less hesitation than me. And before I could take a picture, it was in use. This morning I rescued it from the sink to get an appropriate picture for you. So far I have not transferred the picture to the computer and you might have to wait until tomorrow.

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