Only thing missing is the frilly apron

Last night for supper, I made meatloaf for supper. And peach cobbler. And then the 1960's called, wanting their stereotype back.

But damn, do the kids love the meatloaf. Actually, it was meat muffins, and they each ate two. I could only finish one. Then they begged for the lefties in their lunch.

I was going to go on a rave about how the Complete Canadian Living cookbook (my second most-used reference, after Lucy's Kitchen; my copy is even autographed by Elizabeth Baird!) has these awesome charts that show how you can vary the flavourings of basic recipes like meatloaf or muffins or fruit crisps (eg: last time I made lasagna meatloaf; this time it was chili meatloaf)... but that would veer dangerously toward "boring domestic mommy blog" territory and nobody really wants to go there, do they?

So I'll change the subject. I started back at the knitting yesterday. (I'm not straying far from the 60's with that one, am I? Ah well...) I started a scarf for McPie last October... it's not far from finished, but I hadn't touched it since maybe last March. I picked it up yesterday and knit while listening to Afghanada. It felt good to be back at it. I figure I'll allow myself to start a new project (something quick and easily gratifying - probably knit on enormous sticks) only when I've finished this one. Last night I picked it up again, and noticed that where I started back to it yesterday, the gauge was totally different for the rows I'd knit that day. Everything I'd done yesterday was noticeably looser than the part of the scarf that I had knit last winter.

I'm thinking this is concrete evidence that I'm feeling a little more relaxed these days!

Sch-knit-zel

I've started knitting again! Yay!

Slowly to start - to rebuild the habit. McPie picked out some soft heathered brown yarn at Michael's on the weekend, and I've started knitting it into a new scarf for him. It took me a few tries to remember how to cast on! I restarted a few times, because I kept changing my mind about a stitch pattern. It's decided, and I knit the whole way through Reptile Boy last night. :-)

The Green Goblin has not been forgotten. I last worked on it in, um, August? And I'm actually pretty close:

I'll try to finish it before spring. :-)

On a totally different topic: we've discovered the wonder of schnitzel. Pork schnitzel, actually. So easy, so delicious, arguably healthy (a topic for another post), and loved by children and grown-ups alike through the ages. I encourage you to make it -- you can find recipes everywhere. (Trixie, replace the pork with eggplant!). Don't forget the squirt of lemon!

Can't write, busy knitting

Which cliché shall I invoke? Practice makes perfect? Third time's a charm? If at first you don't succeed...?

I won't post a picture because it looks the same as the previous iterations. I've now restarted the Green Gable three times (now affectionately called the Green Goblin. Thanks G. Get your own blog!), although I've cast on about six times. I'd gotten as far as joining the body under the arms and tried it on. It fit. Yay! But the flaws were glaring. Boo! So I channeled my Guru, and gave it the yank.

Then, I spent the entire afternoon of my birthday sitting on the couch with Constance, knitting and watching The Return of the King. Oh, relaxing bliss! Now, I'm well into lacy goodness, and it's going well.

On the truffle front, I didn't get any until today, but they were HOMEMADE (with the ganache leftover from my beautiful chocolate birthday cake). Yum.



(It took a lot of effort just then to refrain from raving about the McPie's kitchen prowess. That's right, he fixes stuff, he gives foot massages, and he MAKES TRUFFLES.)

(Oops.)

I shall not be bested

I'm gaining on the Green Gable. The tale so far is an epic one, but zenfully devoid (so far) of fist shaking, teeth-gnashing, or tears. I'm not sure how I've managed that, given the pits I've fallen into headfirst so far.

The beginning: I started yesterday afternoon. Because I wasn't getting gauge (too many stitches, to the inch - the opposite of Trixie's problem) combined with the weird issues on GG sizing, I spent a good hour on the math before even casting on.

At last, I determined the number I needed to cast on, how many increases I would need, etc. Happily, the backward loop cast-on is super quick (I didn't even need to learn it, since it was my rookie method back in the day)... It's pretty tricky to knit from, so the first row takes a long time.

(Skip to after supper - the troops have been deployed, I have the house to myself.) After at least an hour and a half later, I've got a good 10 rounds in (take a long time when you've started with 114 stitches and are adding 8 every other round!) and the lace part and shoulder seams are looking really good. As in, it seems like I'm doing it right. BUT, I'm started to think that this thing is gonna be huge. Because it looks like I'm getting 5 stitches to the inch - which is correct gauge. I pause to think. I consider calling Trixie. Instead, I check to see if she's posted on her blog. Sure enough, she's also having GG issues. I call, we hash.

Long story truncated: I decided to keep going despite knowing that my GG is flawed - I can try it on eventually and then determine exactly WHAT the problem is.

But an hour later, pondering the notion that I actually have gauge now... I frogged and started again - this time following the pattern as written, for a size larger than I think I should take. I'll try using one less increase in the bust so it doesn't gape, and...well, that is the plan, and I'll see how it goes.

Strangely, through all this flux, I'm managing a certain calmness, a certainty that this is all part of the necessary process - that the attempts are not preventing me from knitting, but are intrinsic to the knitting. (Apparently, I'm attempting to channel the guru knitting. Also, really wanting to finish one real project in my life.)

So by midnight, I'd managed to cast on again, and knit about 5 rounds. Seems like a more normal size. But now my lace is looking a bit odd...

Green Gable: 1, Hedda: 0

I am also excited about my imminent knit-a-along with Trixie. Or, I was. Unfortunately, the Green Gable has teamed up with Life to kick my butt before I've even started.

While Mom visited on the weekend, we managed to sneak out the not-so-local yarn store (NSLYS) and pick up some yarn (Bernat Organic Cotton in Cactus - pale green). I'm less than expert at this knitting thing, and this is like the second real pattern I'm working with, so we were extra careful to find something that (supposedly) matched the gauge noted in the pattern.

Shortly thereafter, wonder of wonders, I discovered an hour alone in the living room. (Mom etc were touristing, McPie was at band practice, and the kidlets were PLAYING SILENTLY BY THEMSELVES.) I swatched with diligence, my excitement mounting.

Long story short, I'm getting too many stitches to the inch, even when I try bigger needles. (I'm not a really tight knitter: I blame the yarn and sticks entirely.) I can only upsize so far, until the knitting begins to look more like macramé. Trixie's already described the issues that come with mis-gauging, and that's combined with the strange sizing of the pattern.

My options (as I see them): A) take my yarn back and try something else, or B) do some rudimentary and probably faulty knit-math, and dive into the project with what I've got while espousing Trixie's liberal philosophy of frogging.

Thing is, I'm too busy with other stuff to do either. In addition to juggling regular house stuff, sick kids, and band performances, McPie and I are in the midst of planning and researching for our wine club. This coming Saturday, we're hosting the premier "meeting". We've picked out six wines (and bought 5 of them), have roughly planned the course of the event, a general menu, and are in the midst of putting together all the information for each wine/vineyard/region. (Yes, we are geeks.) Since we have the kidlets this week, this work goes on in the evening hours between 9 and 11. Sometimes while watching/cursing House, M.D. (It's a ridiculous show; yet we watch it every week. How does that happen?)

The jaunt to the NSLYS will take about as much time as wrestling the knit-math - hours! (Or at least 60 contiguous minutes.) I expect to cobble that time together sometime next week. Around the same time that I plan to do my taxes and get my act together enough to download pics from my camera for posting on this very site. I'm excited to tell about the new resident in our house. (A story for another day. Or week.)

Anyway, that and the next showdown with the Green Gable is going to have to wait. I'm sure you're holding your breath.

Saga of the Enormous Socks

(Edit to note: This post should really be called "The saga of posting pictures on my blog.")

Fuzzyfeet are the perfect project for a beginner knitter looking for a bit of adventure. You get to try (if you haven't already): knitting in the round on circular and double-pointed needles, turning a heel, picking up stitches, AND felting. You get to do all that using enormous needles, and it doesn't matter if you make a mistake or two, or if the gauge is wacky, because that all comes out in the wash. Literally.

For posterity, I shall record that I knit my first pair of Fuzzyfeet in Alafoss Lopi (Red Earth), which smells like animal, and even has bits of straw in it, for that authentic experience. I used 8mm double-points: I didn't realize that they'd be big enough for circs, and I didn't have any in that size, so I forged ahead while McPie looked on in awe of my mastery of the DPNs. I was skeptical about the heel instructions, but I followed along (sheeplike, you know), and it worked out. (Then I checked out the heel turn vid on knittinghelp.com, and the mystery was solved.)

Gauge-schmauge, the only size these babies needed to be was huge.

(Wine bottles are included for scale only. They do not - necessarily - indicate the effort required to knit the ENORMOUS SOCKS on double-pointed needles.)

I felted them using the bucket o' hot water and long-handled potato masher method. I have no idea whether this is an accepted method or not, but my coworker had felted her first fuzzyfeet into pint-sized gnome boots by chucking them wholesale into her washing machine, so despite the wonder of a front-loader, I was taking no chances.

I felted on Valentine's Day, while Sweetie McPie cheered me on from where he was washing the post-romantic-dinner dishes; I felted while he shouted encouragement from the basement where he did some laundry, and while he serenaded me on his drum kit... Yes, all of that, because I mashed the damned fuzzies for the better part of two hours.

But, voila! The feet fuzzed.










And also, they fit.