FO: First and Third in the Round

You remember that I showed you the other day that I’d managed to do some knitting in the round, on DPNs?  Well that little test was just that, a little test that was never going to be something but it gave the confidence to try a something, a proper knitting pattern.  Now the most obvious application for DPN knitting is socks, a something that I never even dreamt that I’d be able to conquer some day.

Knitting socks terrifies me.  It’s not just knitting in the round, it’s all the sizing and shaping that really scares me.  How do I work out the perfect number of stitches to go around my calf?  And then does it have to go in and out with the highly unfashionable shaping of my calf?  And how do you get a handknit sock to fit properly?  Drooping socks are hideous to wear. There’s a lot to worry about with socks even if you can master the appropriate knitting technique and I thought even that was beyond me.

The problem is I’ve never known anyone knit or wear homemade socks.  Well, no, I lie.  My maternal grandmother knit us a collection of handknit bedsocks which endured our entire childhood even though she died when I was very little.  Just bedsocks though and the expectations of bedsocks are entirely different of course.  You don’t have to walk in them and it doesn’t really matter if they fall down or off in the night.  Which they did.  Despite the fact that they had the most ridiculously tight cast on imaginable.  Which was another reason we hated them.  Mine were pink, my brother’s were blue.  Classic.

But blogging has introduced me to other knitters, knitters of appreciable talents, knitters who make and wear socks, for example Susan B Anderson who was the one who induced me to try knitting in the round in the first place.  It’s nice to have proof.

So once I’d made that first tube of knitting and I’d eyed up all my proofs, I decided that I should make some socks.  Now, unusually, I did apply a certain degree of common sense to this and felt that I should start with a wee pair of socks first, try out the techniques in miniature first before even starting on a me-sized sock.

Fortunately having formed this idea, a knitting magazine came out with a free baby sock kit.  I don’t buy knitting magazines very often, although I am a sucker for free bamboo needles, but this was perfect, absolutely perfect.

Unfortunately the victim I had in mind for this brand new adventure was a Boy Bump so as the supplied yarns were a bit too girly I found some other yarns that I had received free some other time and that needed using on a small-scale project and I skipped the slightly frilly edge to the cuff, I don’t reckon that most folks would have thought it very boy-ish.

The hardest bit was the mysterious and complicated w&t, an alien term and technique which although I had never encountered before in a pattern, I knew to dread.  w&t stands for wrap and turn and on the first sock I went in rather blind and ignorant which didn’t exactly help the shaping.  I had to research some videos online (I would of course credit them if I could remember which ones I used!) and the second sock went a lot better.  No holes!  I proudly texted my husband to this effect.  Who replied ‘O-K’.  Thanks, try to remember what a w&t is, dear, it is very important!  Then I had a second look and despite not having any holes in those dreaded w&ts, I had somehow ended up with one giant hole on the side of the sock!  Not so good.  I’m not sure how that happened.  If anyone has any expert advice then I’d very gratefully receive it!  Fortunately judicious darning has solved all such problems.

The first sock was finished as per the pattern with Kitchener stitch (or grafting) which is supposed to be ‘invisible’.  Hmm, maybe I need to work on that technique too!  The second I was inspired by seeing something about a three-needle cast off so I invented the two-needle cast off.  It may be well-known to other knitters but if not then I claim the credit for that one!  I’m not entirely sure which came up better.

What surprises me most is that they actually look like socks, you know, proper socks.  I’m rather impressed (if that’s not too big-headed to claim).  I love how the little heels formed, I love those magical processes in knitting which transform something so simple into something so effective.  I also love the alternating colours rows, it’s not actually that fiddly to work either.

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So my first pair of socks ever!  And why they’re the first and third project I’d worked in the round?  I have a limited attention span.  After completing the first sock I went off and worked on something else which I will share with you another day.

Been Poorly

OK, you’re going to get a break from the knitting reports but instead you’re going to get a whinge from me!  I’ve just had the sore throat of the century, you know the really wretched kind where you can’t swallow because of the brick in your throat but all you can compulsively do is swallow?  Yeah, that one.  But worse.  I didn’t really worry about it at first because a sore throat is always a warning symptom of Tiredness and I have been busy.  So I duly doused myself with a glass of salt-water strong enough to make my toes curl and hoped for the best.  That normally cures the early twinges of either Tiredness-warning-throat or a cold.

It wasn’t to be.  Instead it stayed and got worse and I ended up having a very rough long night with a fever (I never throw a temperature) and with increasing aches from my head to my back so it looks like that I’m going to have to blame Lurgi instead.  What is a very Bad Sign is that I ended up skipping three meals.  I know, unheard of!  It obviously was a very bad type of Lurgi.  (At one point, my kitchen floor felt like a very steep hill!)

Now finally I’m feeling a little bit better, you know as if I’d been gardening for two days and then been beaten with a stick.  To celebrate feeling better, I returned to my prefer medicine, food.  It isn’t exactly the perfect weather for it but despite still not feeling hungry (I know, even more shock, horror) I felt that I need something.

This is the little something restorative that I concocted:

Porridge!  (You may remember a previous post on this subject).  With just a few dried cranberries, flaked almonds and chocolate chips to help me feel even better whilst the honey is of course medicinal.  (Yes, of course I dosed myself with a couple of other teaspoonfuls at various points).

(Disclaimer:  I know that the focus could be in a better point but hey, read the above post).

FO: It Grew!

I finished the crocodile, oh, at least a month ago but what with having to process photos and get my head in the right frame of mind for writing coherently, it just hasn’t been written up yet!  The bad news is that I’ve got a few other FOs to share with you over the next week or so, please be patient if knitting isn’t your thing!

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So what can I say about the crocodile that I haven’t said before?  Other than it’s now finished and has been lovingly received and christened Razor?  (I think crocodiles obviously get too much bad press to warrant a name like that!).  The patterns from the Knitted Wild Animal book tend to follow a similar format but of course the crocodile is naturally a very different shape to the others which is both a good thing and a bad thing.  It’s nice to have a new shape and challenge to work on but I sometimes felt that the pattern hadn’t quite the attention it deserved.

I did eventually notice that the finished size measurement was supplied, 48 cm head to tail, although I had somehow convinced myself that it was only going to be about 20 cm.  However, a slightly big however though, I ended up with a 70 cm crocodile.  I’m not quite sure but an earlier blog post does rather suggest that I could have gone wrong somewhere.  If anyone else has made it him to the correct proportions then I’d love to know how you did it!

The other big challenge was understanding the instructions for the feet.  (For some reason, crocodiles don’t have ‘paws’, perhaps it’s something to do with that earlier comment about bad press).  I got several experienced knitters to have a go at them but to no avail.  One kindly dreamt up a simplified version for me, I’d terrified myself into thinking that I’d have to do all kinds of magical shaping and had gotten brain freeze.  Basically it’s just a garter strip of eighteen stitches worked for six rows (if I remember rightly) then each set of six stitches are worked individually for a further six rows to give the three ‘toes’.  A lot of the shaping came from the making up and I ran a couple of stitches between each toes for definition too.  Again, if anyone has successfully made up the feet according to the book I’d love to hear from you!

The making up wasn’t too bad, it’s just a huge project, and I embroidered all the features myself (I hate making up and really don’t trust my sewing skills).  I love his toothy grin, although I didn’t do it in the recommended chain stitch, far too complicated!  And his knitted eyes, despite following the same instructions for both, came out completely differently each time, giving him a slightly skewiff appearance.  Sadly.  Plus the finished eyelid didn’t fit over very easily.

Overall, favourite bits were the moss stitch (or seed?  When I work out the difference, I’ll let you know!)  over his back and legs to give him the appropriate texture, the legs which started out looking like a map of Australia but suddenly morphed into those chunky, stocky legs and his toothy grin.  But I don’t know if I’ll be in a hurry to come back to this pattern just yet!

Oh, and the yarn I used?  Research on Ravelry showed that a variegated yarn worked best and my husband found this one in our local department store.  Considering that it’s still only a 100% acrylic, I felt that it was a little expensive but it works well, having both variegated and self-striping effects built-in.  In place the shifts of colour between stripes feel a little too big and harsh, over pronounced, but generally I like it.  (You know me for worrying anyway!).  Again considering the price, I don’t think it was of the best quality either, the ply had a tendency to unravel and not just on the thumb cast on where it always does.  Bonuses were that the yarn was supplied with a free scarf pattern in three languages!  Just in case.

Muffin Love

Do you remember me mentioning that I’d baked a whole heap of muffins?  Well me being both busy and scatty of late, I just haven’t got around to showing you my efforts so here you are:

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I don’t see myself as a good cook, I’d lose too many marks on presentation and sometimes that seems to be most important thing especially when you think of fashionable trends like American-style cupcakes and macarons.  I don’t make those kind of things, I like simple and filling and satisfying (which isn’t always a very photogenic version of food either).  Brownies and muffins and falafel are on my list.  And pasta of course, plenty of pasta.  I don’t cook to impress, I cook and bake because I enjoy it and because I enjoy sharing that (first) enjoyment with other people.  Food is a good way to show your love.

So as I’ve found some amazing people who’ve been helping me out of all kind of difficulties, I decided to repay the favour and what better way is there than by whipping up six dozen muffins?!

It sounds a lot but I have a lot of favours on my conscience and once you discover more than one mixing bowl in your cupboard it gets a whole load easier.  You just need a system.  (I think I need to apply that theory to more than just one other area of my life unfortunately).  So plenty of mixing bowls and spoons and a good idea of what you’re doing and how you’d like to get there.

Four flavours, two double batches and two single batches.  Chocolate chip, chocolate and dried berries, fruit (I use one of those inexpensive frozen berry mixes straight from the freezer) and then the sticky toffee with the dulce de leche surprise (yep, I’m always surprised by what I find lurking in my cupboards and fridge too).  Mmm.

I don’t have a lot of space in my kitchen so first of all I needed to clear the work surfaces and then throw in some creativity, you’d be surprised how much I can stack and tier things when baking!  We don’t have a dining table so as the muffins started coming out of the oven I realised that I needed some extra space to cool them.  Fortunately we’d just been given a full-sized ironing board as a present, et voilà!  Muffin cooling space.

I always add at least vanilla extract to my baking as it gives it a bit more flavour, bland cakes get so boring, but I also combine it with either almond or lemon too if there’s not a lot of punchy flavour in the mix.  I think I’m also going to inveigle my way to an extra muffin tray as I’ve only the one and therefore had to use some bun trays with the muffin papers balanced precariously in the slots.

There were no disasters to report other than the fact that I forget to put enough egg in the first double batch, it’s a maths thing again despite the fact that I’d even got my husband to write the correct amounts on a post-it note for me!  Fortunately they passed a taste test (cook’s perk) so I seemed to have got away with it.

The only downside to baking this many muffins is the amount of washing up that you get left with!

The recipes were all taken or adapted from this book

Background and inspiration for recipe cards taken from here.

Rising Hemlines

I was reading a post on another blog recently with some sage advice for skirt length.  Apparently only dowdy country bumpkins insist on wearing short skirts, more practical in the countryside naturally, whilst the modistes of the city stick to the correct and fashionable longer length, a length which of course requires you to demurely lift your skirt with at least one hand to be able to get about.  The article was written in 1902.  (Although not posted online until this year of course!)

I wear long skirts.  I just do.  They’re comfortable (especially if you do not permanently need your ‘left hand entirely occupied with the skirts’ as of 1902, trailing skirts are hazardous) and are generally cut so as not to be quite so stingy around my unfashionably built backside and hips.  (I know, shocking that such things exist).  In a long skirt, you don’t have to worry so much about how you sit and what you do.  I’m one of those increasingly uncommon girls/women/ladies (I’m not quite sure which class I fall into because last weekend I found out that I’m no longer one of the young ones, regretfully) who are more than happy and comfortable wearing a skirt in everyday life and in fact, quite often prefers to.  Odd perhaps.  I love jeans though.  But a skirt is never an impairment to me,  I climb hills, playground apparatus and ladders as freely as anyone, paddle, hike and sit as easily as I do in jeans.

Trousers have become much more common, de rigueur in fact for women, even in my lifetime.  The slacks that came in with the Land Girls, the cropped trousers and jeans of the 1950s rebellious teen movement and the bell bottoms and ubiquitous jeans of the 1970s still had made few inroads into life when I was a child, especially for formal situations.  I’m serious.  Can you remember that well-known female political figure of the 1980s wearing a trouser suit or the popular princess of the same period?  The junior school that I attended didn’t have a school uniform, we wore what we wanted.  Which basically equated to skirts or dresses for girls.  All of them.  Except one who insisted on wearing those hideously hideous shellsuits.  Remember those?!   You just didn’t wear trousers to school.  I didn’t even really wear them at home.  You look back at the old photos and there I am always in a dress, whatever I’m up to.

That’s all changed.  Skirts are unusual, it can even be hard to find them in the shops and there’s been an increasing trend in the last year or so for parents to put their daughters into leggings under pretty dresses, seemingly to protect their modesty.  Something which I don’t entirely understand.  Trousers are a standard part of uniforms, often the only option given for women.

So perhaps I am biased.

I really don’t get the need to wear a skirt short enough that you have to cinch your way along the pavement with your hands clasped to the bottom of skirt, permanently tugging in a battle with Murphy’s Law that says that clothes always head in the opposite direction than that which modesty and comfort would prefer or even more flatteringly, wiping down the proverbial in a desperate bid to stop some floating fabric wafting up with the slightest movement or breath.  Ridiculous, I say.  If you clearly feel uncomfortable and uncovered by such nonexistent skirts then don’t wear them.  You look a complete idiot stooping along grasping your clothing tighter and more wretchedly than a child to its mother’s apron strings.  What’s the point?  I’m old-fashioned, I think clothes are meant to cover you, maybe I got that wrong.  It’s also a good idea that if you want to wear short, short skirt that you choose a length that is longer than it is wide, the other ratio is really not a good look in my humble opinion and also if you have ridiculously long legs (to make us all jealous with) then, especially, in more formal situations, you have to watch the length in proportion to your legs, for some reason skirts appear shorter and people do raise eyebrows.

I have a friend who wears short skirts, sometimes a little too short, cue embarrassing moments when bending down.  She proudly told me one day as we were going into somewhere that today she had on a ‘long’ skirt.  I looked at her.  Bemused.  Yes, her knees were now covered.  Clearly this was the point that she was trying to make.  But then I looked at my own skirt.  Yes, my ankles were covered.  (I hate that mid-calf cut which does seem particularly frumpy).  Long it seems is obviously open to interpretation, as much as it was in 1902.

Trousers are not immune to my views on length either.  I loathe it when women, and men, wear trousers that struggle down to their ankle bones.  Like schoolboys who’ve suddenly shot up, too tall suddenly and waiting for a new pair.  My father used to say that they should put jam on their shoes and invite their trousers down for tea.  He had a background in tailoring.  It seems women, particularly, insist on trying trousers on in their stockinged feet and not in the shoes that they’re planning on wearing the trousers on.  This is especially an issue when it comes to office wear.  It’s a classy look when you add fancy four-inch heels and the expensive trousers abruptly short at ankle height, a good distance from the ground, unfinished, unpolished.  (Yes, I know, this is only a humble opinion not a Law).

But I am not an old-fashioned Headmistress patrolling with a tape measure and I won’t make you kneel on the ground either, I respect your decision but I reserve the right to think that you look like a numpty in either of the above circumstances.  Just as you probably think that I’m dowdy in my skirts.  To each, their own.

Some Sunshine

When the day dawns bright and sunny, your soul warms and your spirit soars.  I have hope and optimism again, I want to do so much inspired by the sunshine and also motivated to make the most of whatever passing rays come my way.  But sometimes the mind is bright and active whilst the body is still struggling with fatigue.  Whatever the combination, I love the sunshine.

Look at what the sunshine made me do this morning:

We love waffles but it takes a particular kind of mood for Mr Waffle Maker to be persuaded to wield his magic with the handblender, a batter bowl and a waffle machine.  Sunshine has some very powerful effects!

We added vanilla and almond extract to our batter and then decided to add in some ground almond because we loved the almond-y smell so much.  That and my jar of ground almond doesn’t get too much exercise at the moment!  We used 100g ground almond to 400g plain flour and although they came out beautifully light and airy, they didn’t have a very strong almond flavour though so I might have to experiment another time with a different ratio.  I gently warmed some frozen fruit with a splash of rum * and threw on some runny yoghurt (Greek style would have better shape for food styling purposes!) then the fruit and some ground almonds.  Perfect!  (Husband prefers to lather his with a patented more chocolate spread than waffle ratio then complains that it’s rather rich, why put fruit on them?!)

As an aside, I love the rich colour of berry juice.  That is until I get it on something that I shouldn’t have.  The rich reddy-purply-pinky colour is one of my favourites and stains the waffles beautifully.

I didn’t have the energy for the spring cleaning projects that I keep envisaging but I’ve got a few things done today and there’s a bowl of leftover waffle batter to tempt me for the rest of the week!

* What do you mean, I can’t use alcohol in my breakfast cooking?!  I’d have thought that it would have all burnt off anyhow.

Subtle Differences to Shake Your Confidence

I have this ‘thing’ on my home page which comes up with wacky little sentences in French that I admittedly don’t pay a lot of attention too.  This one caught my eye.  Now don’t worry, I’m not presuming upon your language skills, you’ll see what I mean straightaway:

La tour Eiffel était le bâtiment le plus haut du monde jusqu’en 1949, quand l’Empire State Building a été construit.
The Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world until 1930, when the Empire State Building was constructed.

Spotted it, yeah?  It’s kind of a parallel universe-thing I’m sure.  And then that online encyclopaedia claims that it was 1931.  Sigh.

Fog

There’s been a lot of fog here of late but whether I’m talking metaphysically or not is for you to decide!  Days that don’t even dawn, just a lightening of the grey swirling cloud that has descended to roam our streets, chilling our bones and refusing to let any washing dry.  Fog which eats away into your bones, nibbles into your soul and leaves you damp and wretched.  Fog which is palpable and wafts drifting mizzle across the hillsides.  Fog which closes down every horizon, enveloping every building and creature in its damp, clinging and inescapable embrace.

I don’t like fog.

Fog is November days, where the glory days of autumn slide away into the dank decay of early winter.  Fog is a pessimism that leaves you empty and hopeless.  Fog is not spring.  According to my calendar it is spring.  Apparently.

For two weeks we have slumbered and shivered under this pervasive cloud, it has felt like the beginning of winter all over again.

Admittedly on a few days by afternoon the sun has won through, penetrating the gloom and ushering in glorious afternoons which on a few occasions have felt deceptively summer-like.  Then the fog descends again.

I don’t like fog.

The weather’s moods reflect in my own, it is harder to be cheerful and upbeat (especially when it doesn’t come naturally to my chemicals) when the seasons revert five months and you wake each day to fog.  Then there have been other challenges to my mood, I’ve had to be busy with various things and there’s been a lovely bundle of stresses to deal with.  These all combine and load me down, I just want to hibernate but there has been little rest, little respite.  Busy, busy.  Stress, stress.

I don’t like fog.

My head is weary and overloaded, at the moment I really struggle to concentrate on and to co-ordinate more than one thing at a time so this month has really been pushing it.  I snatch moments of rest at odd times but my mind never switches off, a week of insomnia adds to the burdens and the increasing fatigue.  I get confused and overwhelmed, things are at best neglected or worst, forgotten, and I feel the control slipping from me again.  Did I ever have it?  It all requires so much focus and drive and concentration, I don’t have these things for so many reasons.

I don’t like fog.

Some Musings

I have been dealing with, no that might sound a little too positive and proactive and successful, I have been attempting to survive fog so here are just a few musings that have popped into my head of late.

• Did the same genius name both Greenland and Iceland and did he get a little confused maybe?
• Where do the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet under South America?  Is there an arbitrary line and how can you tell when you pass from one to the other?
• If you have all the time in the world, how much time is that?
• If there is a Midwest and a Far West, where’s the beginning of West?

There have been others but things haven’t exactly been staying in my head of late.  I will be back however.

The Cure

Ladies and gentlemen, may I proudly present the Cure?  Perfect for those Grey Days and for banishing the blues!

I had a miserable day yesterday, the kind of day where you just feel numb and paralysed the whole time but not properly Blue or Ill or anything, just not right.  I think it was partly the come down from the previous evening’s panic attack (yeah, they’re back), the change in the weather and drop in temperature, how I felt, various stresses … so yep, the day just didn’t happen.

In the end I came up with a brilliant idea, somewhere in the evening, so I toddled off into the kitchen to make myself a hot chocolate.  I haven’t had one for ages, it hasn’t been a particularly cold winter I guess and I haven’t really been out that much either, it’s when you’re all cold through that you come home really wanting a hot chocolate.

I got out my special hot chocolate mug, it’s rather cavernous and is rather like a tankard rather than a mug, with nice curves to wrap your hands around and generously sized for maximum warming effect.  I also decided that since I had to boil the kettle to make this little treat that I might as well fill a comforting hot water bottle too.  I haven’t been too keen on hot water since then and hot water bottles are always rather tricky to fill especially as I’ve been struggling to hold things lately.  So I was very brave to play with boiling water again, well I felt so anyway!

I investigated the deepest corners of the fridge and discovered a can of squirty cream.  Yes, this is an essential requirement on a grown up hot chocolate, you must have squirty cream otherwise it isn’t proper.  Being a rather prudent type when it comes to discoveries in the back of the fridge, I did some sample squirts into the sink before risking my entire drink.  Mmm, squirty cream.  Such fun.

I have now also realised that I can add cold water to my hot drinks.  I’m not a huge fan of hot drinks (other than hot chocolate, I only have the occasional green tea for nausea and fortunately I don’t enjoy the bitter taste of coffee which is just as well because you don’t give me caffeinated products, for everyone’s sake!) and have been known to forget about my hot chocolate having left it on the side to cool, having scalded my tongue twice too many times.  I made it up half and half last night, which means then that I had to drink it rather promptly than I was expecting to!  Having whisked up my chocolate powder, it was slightly lumpy so I wonder if it’s got damp at some stage, I looked into the swirling chocolatey-ness and had a stroke of inspiration.  It was going to be a very grown up hot chocolate after all.

I decided that a touch of, ahem, Irish ‘sweetener’ would just be perfect and raided my husband’s bottle of Irish Cream.  Mmm, just a dribble but enough to taste and to give a very yummy flavour to my hot chocolate.

Next came the mountain of squirty cream.  It always forms into a rather unfortunate shape but I’m not going to comment further, what would you think of my mind then?!

Then I went on another raid, this time on a tin of little extras that I keep for hot chocolate.  Oh yes, bring on the mini marshmallows!  You have to have marshmallows.  Like squirty cream.  The Law says.  I also have jazzies in my tin, I haven’t yet made up my mind whether I actually like them because they’re made of that slightly stale-tasting chocolate but they’re fun at least.  These were the end of the packet so I tried to shake out the rest of the loose 100s and 1000s from the bag because I hate waste but then I stopped because I realised that I hate picking up 100s and 1000s of sprinkles from all over the kitchen more.

I took a photo to share with you.  I was already feeling a lot better just contemplating this creation, it might not be on some neutral background in a perfect white mug like you see on all the foody blogs, high key perfection, but that’s not me or my photography or my hot chocolate.

Having faffed around getting my photo, I then realised that I had to attempt to drink the thing which was going to be rather difficult what with gravity and the confectionery mountain adorning the mug.  So I fished out two straws, you know it’s got to be two, and yes of course there are straws in my cutlery drawer, and started sipping.  I even did a little dance and broke into a bad attempt of a song.

This is the Cure.  Apply liberally.