the problem with non-wool

Tags

art fibers, clapoktus, dnmy, fo, fwip, handmaiden, honey cowl, sea silk, wip

First order of business, I finished something!

It’s lovely and I really enjoyed knitting it. I expect to make another one some day.

I also cast on for a Clapo-Ktus. It’s a combination of the Clapotis (of which I have knit 5 or so) and Baktus, which I have not knit but I know lots of people have. I kind of love that someone combined those two patterns and gave it that name. Knitters rock.

The yarn is Handmaiden Sea Silk, which I think is just beautiful. I have a month to finish it. Woot, deadline knitting.

Okay, but really what I came here to post about is fingering weight yarn. There has been a trend in recent years towards using sock yarn for nonsock projects. First there were shawls and now there are sweaters. I am 100% behind the trend towards smaller gauge sweaters but it leaves me with a dilemma. I really want to knit one, in particular: Afterlight. The dilemma comes from the lack of yarns at that weight without wool that won’t break the bank. You can find lots of really lovely fingering weight silk yarns if you don’t mind paying $300 for a sweater. I do mind that though.

If anyone out there in knitting land knows about a good fingering weight nonwool yarn that I could use for sweaters, please tell me!

Stitches 2013!

Tags

artfibers, dnmy, fo, redfish, signature needles, silk floss, stitches west, yarn

It’s that time again, the time when a knitter’s heart turns to thoughts of yarn. Okay, a knitter’s heart never strays far from thoughts of yarn but we’re even more obsessive when Stitches comes around. Last year I said that Stitches was going to be my only yarn purchases. It wasn’t, of course, but maybe I can stick to that this year. No promises, though.

That said, let me show you what I did get. First, I ran to the Southern Yarn booth to buy Signature Needles.

Her booth was full of nonwool yarns but none of it caught my eye. My rules for shopping were that I could only spend the cash that I brought and that I had to love what I bought. I already love these needles. I got a set of 7s two years ago and sometimes knit projects just because they can be made on those needles. They really are wonderful.

Then I visited the ArtFibers booth and discovered that they now have recycled cotton denim yarn.

This red one had to come home with me. I think I already know what to make with it and it can be made on one of my pairs of new needles, so that’s a plus.

I also succumbed to a skein of RedFish’s new sport weight Silk Floss.

This picture doesn’t really do it justice. It’s very pretty. I am looking forward to knitting with it.

I was hoping that A Verb For Keeping Warm would have Paso Dolce chocolates again. They didn’t but they did have tiny Tcho samplers.

Love Tcho chocolate. The other item pictured above is my door prize! It’s a travel pack from Bar Maids: a cuticle stick, lip balm, and lotion bar. They are yummy and lanolin-free. I am so pleased that I finally won a prize! Maybe this means it’s my year for the grand prize.

In other news, I finished a cowl. It’s the Abby cowl from KnittySpin a couple of years ago.

I love how light but still warm the silk lace yarn feels. Again, I don’t love the color. It is the other half of the hank of silk I used to make the Annis which I ended up giving to Teenuh. She has hinted that she’d take this off my hands too. First I want to take it back to Stitches and show it to owner of RedFish Dyeworks, since it is her yarn. She said she’d love to see it.

Yes, that does mean I plan to go back to Stitches. I still have some of my cash left and if I want to win the grand prize I have to be there, right?

creole beans and rice

Tags

beans and rice, crockpot, moosewood restaurant, recipes, slow cooker

I am posting this here because I was talking about the recipe on Facebook and they seem to have hidden their notes feature in a place where I can’t figure out how to write a new one. Darn Facebook. Anyway, here it is.

Creole Beans and Rice
From “New Recipes from the Moosewood Restaurant”

Serves 6

3 cups dried kidney beans (I use 4 cans black beans, rinsed and drained)
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/8 tsp ground allspice

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 cups chopped onions
6 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
3 medium celery stalks, diced
1 cup diced carrots
2 to 3 green peppers, chopped (I use red usually)
1/3 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup red wine
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

2 1/2 cups uncooked brown rice
salsa
sour cream

Cook the beans with 1/2 teaspoon cayenne and 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice. (I skip this step, I used to simmer the beans with the spices for a while but I’m not convinced that made a difference.)

Sauté the onions and garlic in oil on medium heat until the onions are translucent. Add the celery and carrots and continue to cook several minutes longer. Stir occasionally. Add the green pepper and sauté until all the vegetables are just tender. Whisk together the tomato past, red wine, vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, herbs, and spices. Add this to the sautéed vegetables. In a large pot combine the drained beans and sautéed vegetable mixture and stir them until thoroughly mixed. (If using canned beans, I just add the extra cayenne and allspice in with the tomato paste mixture and add the canned beans at this point.) Simmer covered for 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

Cook the rice. Serve beans with rice, topped with salsa and sour cream.

Changes I made for the slow cooker:

I increased the tomato paste to the whole can (which I often do anyway, just because half a can of tomato paste just goes bad in my fridge); used 1/2 cup of wine and 1/2 cup of water to increase the liquid.

I used less cayenne than it called for because I figured it would get too hot for me. This is clearly a matter of taste.

I sautéed the vegetables up to the point of adding the peppers and then I put that mixture into the slow cooker, mixed with half of tomato paste mixture. The other half of the tomato paste mixture was mixed with the beans, which I put on top of the vegetables in the cooker.

I cooked it all on low for 8 hours and it was delicious! Enjoy.

FO Round-up Addendum

Tags

blanket bunny, fitted mitts, fo, katia mississippi 3 print, softball cotton, stash

When my friend Kristi read yesterday’s post she pointed out that the blanket bunny I made for her son was missing.

The photo never made it to my Flickr set. That’s what I get for forgetting to cross-check my Ravelry projects list. Another gift I knitted never made it to Flickr or here. Fitted mitts for my friend Christy’s daughter.

I intended to send them to her shortly after her daughter arrived from Colombia and only just sent them, so I was avoiding posting about them. I should have gotten Niels to model them, they are cuter on.

I didn’t look back at previous year’s fo counts yesterday either. In 2011 and 2010 there were 27, in 2009 there were 39, and in 2008 there were 51. This is a disturbing trend! So much for having more time for knitting now that my kids are older and in school all day, huh?

I thwarted the universe’s desire for me to not know how much yarn I have (by borrowing my husband’s computer) and figured out that I have
76867.2 yards of yarn or 43.7 miles. 5000 yards or 3 miles more than last year. Whoops. Maybe I won’t buy yarn this year? But really, maybe I will.

2012 FO Round-up

Tags

christmas, fo, ornaments, sewing, stash

I only finished 15 17 knitted, crocheted or sewn objects this year, and none of them sweaters!

I’m noticing that only two of them are for me (the binary cable hat and the tapestry cowl) and I can’t find one of those two (the hat). Darn. I think that’s because I knit two shawl/scarf things that ended up being for other people (lintilla and annis) even though I thought they were going to be for me. Also, I have several sweaters on the needles for myself but none of them are getting finished.

The last two items pictured never got shown off here. I made bird ornaments for my children’s teachers.

And a cute (if I must say so myself) gingerbread house ornament for a friend.

I really like they way they all turned out. I wish I had set aside more time in December for sewing ornaments. Next year! (Maybe.)

I attempted to calculate the yardage of yarn currently in my stash but my spreadsheet program and Google docs both refused to read the file that Ravelry exports. I’m going to say that’s the universe telling me that I don’t need to know. I’m actually glad because 2012 was supposed to be my year of not buying yarn except at Stitches and I know I didn’t stick to that. Also, I didn’t finish many projects and no sweaters so that means not a lot of yarn leaving. Let’s just agree that I probably have too much yarn and leave it at that.

wet leaves and new yarn

Tags

lace yarn, swiss silk, wet leaves, yarn

It has been incredibly rainy here and for about a week my back patio and front walk were covered with wet leaves. They have been following everyone into the house. Usually our townhome complex’s gardener’s take care of the leaves but I guess they didn’t come because of the rain.

I got tired of them and cleaned up the back and front of the house. Leaves: 0; Me 1. So there.

I am also making progress on the baby sweater.

Knitting a wrap cardigan means that both fronts are almost the same size. It’s still super fast, though, because it’s a baby sweater in aran weight yarn! (Also I think it’s turning out to be very cute.)

Last but not least, my friend Jill gave me a gift certificate to The Loopy Ewe. As soon as I looked at their site, I knew I wanted to use it for Hand Maiden yarn. I settled on Swiss Silk: 100% silk laceweight.

So pretty! Now, what should I make with it?

NaBloPoMo Day 30: free at last!

Tags

blue sky, rain clouds, tally

It’s the last day of November! I am so relieved. I do enjoy the NaBloPoMo exercise but the last week has been somewhat excruciating. I’m sure it has for you too.

I said in the beginning that I was going to post a photo every day. I didn’t quite make that goal but here’s one for today.

It rained pretty hard for a large portion of the day so it was a relief in the afternoon to see blue skies and dark clouds over someone else. (Sorry someone else.)

To sum up NaBloPoMo 2012, number of days I posted about…

Knitting: 14

Not knitting: 5

My kids: 11

Food: 7

Dryer lint, without actually posting about dryer lint: 1

Sorry again about that last one. I managed to post photos 23 out of 30 days (counting today). I think that trying to post a daily shot pushed me to knit some days just so I’d have my knitting progress to photograph. That helps get stuff done, I think!

Now I’m done. See you next year! (Totally kidding, I plan to keep posting on my very erratic and not-very-frequent “schedule”.)

NaBloPoMo Day 29: a picture is worth a lot of crappy words

Tags

knitting pictures, not so baby yoda sweater, super cable aran, wip

I am not going to try to say anything because I’ll just end up sounding like yesterday’s post. Instead, here are the pieces of my current baby sweater in progress.

I carried my other sweater project to knitting today but I didn’t bother to actually knit on it. Go figure.

NaBloPoMo Day 28: dryer lint

Tags

dryer lint

I shared yesterday’s post on Facebook and my friend Phoebe commented that she’s ready to post about dryer lint. Another friend mentioned that her friend bought different colored towels specifically to harvest the dryer lint for artwork which reminded me that when I was a girl scout we mixed dryer lint with wax and wrapped in wax paper to make fire starters. All of this gave me a brilliant idea to look up different uses for dryer lint and post that here.

It didn’t happen and I need sleep so it’s not going to. It’s the thought that counts, right?

NaBloPoMo Day 27: One too many fish tanks

Tags

fish tank

My husband convinced me that he should buy a bigger fish tank. Silly me, I thought it would replace the one we currently have on the kitchen counter.

(I think it will, it just hasn’t yet.)

That’s all I’ve got today.