December 2006 Archives

There's a lot of reasons to knit the Heirloom Lace Jacket by White Lies Designs.
1. I have the pattern. I bought it at the first knitting convention I attended. I had seen it on line, but in person I was smitten. I asked Joan about it, and I think she said it had taken her the better part of a year to knit it, but that it was worth it.

2. I have some beautiful yarn to knit it in. When I was in NH this fall, I stopped by Harrisville and picked up some New England Shetland in the color Bermuda. I love the color, they have such great heathers that have all these subtle colors in them. Yum!

3. My stockinette gauge is right on. Not sure yet on the lace gauge.

4. I am familiar with the lace pattern, which I used before for my "Knit for the Cure" scarf. A coincidence, but what a lucky one! I should be able to tell pretty easily if I make an error and be able to correct it.

5. I am much more confident in what I can do, and not afraid of a little challenge. I think I have mastered everything needed for this jacket, so it should be a breeze. Famous last words, I know.

6. It's lacy, and I am itching for the magic of lace.

7. I can knit from my stash. I'm not joining the great stash-along of 2007, but since I can, I might as well knit from my stash.

8. I like supporting a designer who supports me. Joan at White Lies Designs creates patterns for everyone, not just the twigs in Vogue Knitting, although she designs for them too! It takes a lot of work to scale up designs to larger sizes, because it's not a straight multiplication of all dimensions, as I have found out when trying to do it myself. And we are not talking the Lane Bryant of knitting here, she makes beautiful romantic designs that any woman would love to wear.

Reasons not to knit it?
1. Pattern calls for sports weight, but I've got a 2-ply. However, I am getting the stockinette gauge spot on, and I like the drape of the fabric in that gauge. Plus, I live in Southern California, and a lightweight sweater is all that's needed most of the year.

Oh, and please ignore that glaring error in the lace. It was late last night, I knew it was there but didn't feel like fixing it since it was just the swatch. I wanted to get it in the bath to see how the yarn would look. I'm knitting it off a cone, so the yarn's a bit rough until it's washed.

2. My lace gauge doesn't match the pattern. Now here's a problem, maybe. I finished up my swatch last night and blocked it out with pins. I blocked the lace to within an inch of it's life. After unpinning it this morning, it is still well blocked out, even in it's relaxed state, but the gauge is much closer to the stockinette gauge than what it's supposed to be, which is 30 sts/10cm.

Now, the pattern states the finished measurements "prior to blocking". And when I look at the photo on WWD, the lace isn't all spread out like I did with my shawl with enormous holes, it's a little more relaxed. So what I have decided to do is to dunk my swatch back in the bath and I have spread it out to dry without pinning - so the yarn can relax and take it's own shape. If I still can't get close to gauge, I may just knit a smaller size, or write to Joan for advice. There's also a yahoogroup out there called WLDknitalong where I might be able to get some help if I get stuck.

Hmm, the pluses far outweigh the minuses, so I'm going to do it, even if it means some more math. But hopefully it won't.

... waiting for swatch to dry ... waiting for swatch to dry ... waiting for swatch to dry ...

When we last saw our hero, she was well blocked, but still awfully floppy and with a collar that just wasn't cutting it.

When I first knit this sweater, my first ever adult human sized sweater, I didn't actually follow the pattern. First, I knitted it in the round because I didn't want to learn to do two-color stranded knitting in the flat. It's a raglan sweater, which means no shoulder seams, and I steeked it. Very floppy.

I tried to compensate, I knitted the last few rows of the body on smaller needles to get a tighter gauge, thinking this might give some stability. Not really. Another mistake I made was to knit the collar right onto the body without binding off.

The buttons were all wrong. They are really pretty, but not right for this sweater. See how they flop? The button band was at too loose a gauge to support buttons with stems. I needed a flat button instead. And more buttons.

And here she is.

The collar is long enough, and shaped nicely, and has a nice new stable band. It breaks nicely, instead of just splaying. The new buttons lie flat and straight.

I bound off the collar stitches, then picked them up on both sides and knitted three rows of 1x1 ribbing. Then, using the three-needle bind off, but not actually binding off, I merged the two sides of stitches into one. Then I began the 2x2 rib that would become the collar, increasing at the edges and at the back to cause the collar to roll outwards. I made it longer than before, so that it had somewhere to go. The bound off stitches and the 1x1 rib stand gives stability to the collar.

I increased from seven to eight buttons. Which meant I needed to re-knit the button band as well. Then, taking off the old buttons left some holes in the other button band, so I re-knit that also.

All in all, I think she came out so much nicer that she's been for the past 2 years. A new lease on life - nicely blocked and clean and ready to be added back to my wardrobe and worn with pride.

All this ripping and re-knitting started on Tuesday night. I got a good bit of the collar finished on Wednesday night at Stitch n' Bitch and then finished up Thursday morning while my husband drove us in the carpool lane. (I get the passenger seat in the morning, when there is light, then drive home in the afternoon when I would have trouble seeing what I'm doing anyway.) When I got home Thursday night, I pulled out the buttonhole band and re-knit the buttonholes in their new positions. Then I made a mess while removing the buttons, so re-knit that side also. Thank the great maker that I had saved those balls of yarn leftover from the original project.

I finished up on Thursday night, just in time for the earth to tip the other way, starting a new season, and giving a new life to my old sweater.

I have a few sweaters now that I have made for myself, but have been avoiding wearing because I haven't washed them and they are in need of a wash.
I have been wanting to make a wooly board for a while, but kept putting it off. After the great success of the blocking board and my shawl, I decided it was time to do it.
I didn't have a pattern, so I used Google Images and searched on both "Wooly Board" and "Wooly Horse", and then used those images, along with a pattern found here to make my own.

Here are the parts, all laid out.

On one end of the sleeve poles, I put straight ends, for sweaters with square sleeves, like my kimono sweater.

For the rest, angled ends, so the sleeves are more arm shaped.

If I were to make another, I would create a jig to make all the holes line up properly. Some of them are a little wonky, but it seems to work ok. I've only run into one problem so far, the smaller dowels I used for the pegs is a little soft, and I've already broken a few of them. Luckily, I could see that coming and made a few extras. It's a pain drilling out the holes from the pole ends. When I can find some harder wood, I'll replace them all. I didn't use any wood glue to hold those pegs in, so I will be able to pull out the non-broken ones.

So today, I want to block my first sweater.

This was the first one I ever made for myself, and I never blocked it or washed it. I've been wearing it since May or June of 2004 when I finished it. It's made with Cascade 220, and it's also a little pilly, so blocking it out will give me a chance to clear off the pills.

Here it is stretched out on the wooly board. I soaked it in soapy water, rinsed carefully, and sent it for a spin in the washer to mostly dry it out, then placed it on the board and adjusted to the dimensions I need. I had marked the inches on the board so I would know where to put the upright pegs to stretch it to the right width.

And here with the button band sewn up to keep the buttons from pulling.
While it was stretched out, I discovered that there is a hole in the back!! Ack.

But lucky for me, I still have some yarn left from when I made the sweater. The original pattern called for a Fun Fur collar. Anyone who knows me knows that I could never stand to have that stuff near my face, so I just made a small ribbed collar, but I have always hated it.

So much so, that I took a class last year at Stitches West called Collar Obedience Training. I had always planned to re-knit the collar and button bands, and this was an excellent class to teach me all I need to know to make the collar look right.

I keep the handout in my knitting notebook, along with other class handouts, articles printed fro Interweave Knits (Beyond the Basics and other technique articles) and patterns that I want to try one day.

I'll post after I replace the collar, which I plan to do before starting the still undecided lace project.

I finished the fingerless gloves for the huz, and am just adding the cuffs to the Ernie sweater and I will post that after Christmas, once it's been sent off to the recipient.

What a week I've had. I had to go for a medical procedure on Wednesday, but then they moved the appointment to Friday so I had a whole two extra days to worry about it. Then I went yesterday, they did their thing, and now I have to wait for the results. Ugh!

Once the above-mentioned cuffs are done, I am itching to start something new. I've got the lace bug, and bought some Trendsetter Kid Seta in a nice red to make the stole from the cover of Victorian Lace. I think, unless I do something completely different, like take the pattern from Myrna Stahman that is inShawls and Scarves: The Best of Knitter's Magazine (Best of Knitter's Magazine series, The) and swap out the lace pattern she used with one of my own.

Then I snooped around on the web and found a lovely example here of the shawl knitted up as written. Maybe I just didn't like the white and grey examples in the book? Maybe I'll just buy her book:Stahman's Shawls and Scarves: Lace Faroese-Shaped Shaws from the Neck Down & Seamen's Scarves.

I've got some linen that I was going to use for the shawl in Big Girl Knits, but now I am thinking Faroese style. I love the shawl I've already made, and want more more more!

I started up a bit of a food blog over here.

It's not much yet, but I plan to add all of my favorite recipes as time goes on.
I have a lot of them already typed up, but they need to be formatted in a way that's readable on the web.

I keep my recipes on my Palm T|X. I have a category on my Task list called Menu, and when I find a good recipe, I either type it in to my Palm or copy it off the web and paste into my Task list.

On the weekend, I ask my husband if he has any special requests. When he does, I change the due date on the recipe to Sunday, which is the day we go grocery shopping. After he picks his favorites, I pick a few more, so we don't end up having a weeks worth of chicken dishes in a row or something.

Then I go back and forth between the Task list and Handyshopper and check off any ingredients I may need to pick up. I try to keep a well stocked pantry so I only need to buy fresh foods each week. I keep skinless, boneless chicken breasts in the freezer, and buy more every couple months at Costco.

I change the date of the Tasks on my Palm to the day of the week that I'll make the recipe. During the week, as I make each recipe, I set the date back to No Date, so the recipe falls back from the top of the Task list. Now that I have quite a list of recipes, I don't worry about keeping track of how often I make the same recipe. Sometimes we want the same thing for three weeks in a row, and sometimes I forget about an old favorite unless my husband mentions it.

This is one of the first recipes I made for my husband, when we were still dating, and it's been a favorite for a long time. It's one of those that can be whipped up quickly on a weeknight as long as I have defrosted the chicken ahead of time. I adapted it from a recipe in a book I bought from a guy who came to my suite at work one day selling books. It was called Healing Foods from the Editors of Prevention Magazine.

The original recipe has you pound the chicken breasts flat and marinate for 30 minutes. I usually cut the chicken into bite-size pieces and marinate for about 10 minutes.

The other thing I do is I make the marinade before I even open the chicken package, and taste it. If the lemons or limes are particularly tart, I might add some more soy sauce to the marinade, or I might deglaze the pan with a little chicken broth before throwing the reserved marinade in at the last step. It's still flavorful, but less sharp to the taste.

On a weekend, I'll make a large batch of brown rice, but Trader Joe's now sells pre-cooked brown rice in bags of about 3 servings per bag. On a weeknight, it's too much to make brown rice, but this stuff isn't so bad if you doctor it a bit. I usually crunch up the package to break up the rice, then empty it into a Corning-ware dish with some chicken broth, and steam for a few minutes in the microwave. It's not great, but it works well for trying to eat some whole grains instead of more processed foods.

Chicken with Thai Flavors

1 lb. chicken breasts, boneless, skinless
2 scallions, minced

--- Marinade ---
1/4 cup minced parsley
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tsp. Soy sauce
1 tsp. Red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. peeled grated ginger root
3 cloves garlic

Combine marinade ingredients in a medium sized bowl.

Cut chicken breasts into bite-size pieces and add to marinade.

Marinate 10 min.

Drain chicken, reserving marinade. This will allow the chicken to brown instead of boil in the marinade.

Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add 1 tsp canola oil and cook the chicken in 2-3 batches, depending on the size of the pan.

Remove chicken to platter and cook next batches.

Add marinade to the pan and boil for at least 30 seconds. (I usually do at least a minute!)

Pour marinade over chicken, and sprinkle with 2 minced scallions.

I hope you will give it a try, and let me know what you think!

It's been cold for the past week, like 37F, and 42F in the morning. Cold enough to close the windows, which we haven't done much since it was too hot and we put the air on.
Thursday night I slept with two shirts on and my shawl wrapped around my head and shoulders.

Last week, when it was still 90F, I had called for an estimate to get our heater replaced. It's quite old and we knew we would need to turn it on soon, but didn't realize how soon we would need it. We have had two very different estimates, but the much more expensive one seems a lot more thorough, so we may decide to go with it. The same night the second estimator came was Thursday, and before he arrived, we tried to turn on the heat and no go. It was frakking cold in the house.

I almost think that the windows we just replaced are so efficient that they are keeping out the heat that the old windows used to let in! That, coupled with the complete lack of insulation in this house are just killing me.

At the same time, my husband, thank the Great Maker , has a new hobby that is finally up to a point where he can play with all his toys, but since his office/ham shack is at the back of our garage (which is a separate building from the house) he is freezing out there in this cold. The only other items he has ever asked me to knit for him are as skull cap and some of those Fiber Trends clogs which he loves, so much that he's on his third pair.

So I started a pair of finger-tip-less gloves for him, in black Knit Picks wool, which is just what he wants. I started out with size 4mm DPN and 60 stitches, in a 3k2p rib, and increased for the thumb and as I was getting to the point where I wanted to close off the thumb, I consulted the book that I find I use the most of all of my books - Mary Thomas's Knitting Book.

Mary Thomas's Knitting Book is such a great book, and at under 10 USD, how can you go wrong? In the book, she has several mitten/glove patterns. She mentions using smaller needles on the fingers, which made so much sense after I read it, because that's what I always had a problem with when making half-finger gloves. I always felt like the fingers were too fat in worsted weight. So I used 2.5mm glove needles to make the thumb and fingers, and had him try on the first glove at each milestone to check the length of the fingers. He wants to be able to use the dials and buttons on his radios, so if the fingers are too long, that would make him cranky ;/.
I hope to finish the second one this weekend.

Today though, we got up to go to an appointment and it was again freezing in the house. We sluggishly dressed and headed out the door, only to find that it was beautiful and warm out in the sun, it was at least in the 70sF at 9 AM. We came back from our appointment and went back inside to change into play-clothes, and headed down to the beach to take advantage of what might be the last warm weekend for a while.

We got down to the beach and it was beautiful. The water was so blue, reflecting the clear sky (well, except for the brown smudge) and the wind was slight but very comfortable in a t-shirt. We walked for about 30 min., and I caught up on some half-listened podcasts. Thank you so much majordojo for mentioning the Galactica Watercooler podcast, I'm loving it after listening to all the whining and nitpicking on CIC.

While we were walking, the wind started to pick up. Since it's been so dry the past week, the sand isn't moist enough to stay on the ground and starts dancing on the pathway, and starts to form a fine dust cloud about 4-5 ft high. The sand started singing too.
We decided to turn around, which made it worse because now we were walking into the wind. We ended up on the sidewalk instead of the path, otherwise we would have probably ended up blind from the fine dust. I wish I had my camera while the sand was dancing, it was quite mesmerizing.

It must have been in the high 80sF today, as I ended up beaking a sweat on our walk, and had a little sunburn (or maybe it was a wind burn?).

And another random thought, have you seen Green Wing? It shows up on BBCAmerica once in a while, and is completely over-the-top hilarious. I just received the season 2 box set and it is even more over-the-top than last season. We have a region-free DVD player so my husband can watch stuff from France that you can't get over here, so I bought the Green Wing DVDs from the UK. They are broadcast as 30 min episodes here, but they are actually 50 min long! They are so severely censored that sometimes they don't make sense. Anyway, if you get a chance to see them in full, take it. It's like Scrubs without the patients, but way more funny.