AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

intarwebs!

A few weeks ago my hubby and I moved (mostly him) our computers into another room, and re-set up the network.  I've spent most of the intervening time bemoaning my spotty internet access, because I had to use his computer to log on and do anything. 

This morning I changed a single setting on my comptuer and I am back in business! 

Now I just need to stop playing with chocobos and do more knitting, so there will be real content (though my fatty foot problem is nearly gone so I should be able to take pictures of my latest pair of socks soon)!

too hot to bake

Saturday was baking day.  Friends were going to Houghton's Pond for barbeque goodness and I was bringing pasta salad and dessert.  Last year, I brought vegan cupcakes (some spicy with habanero!) and an ice cream-like dessert that died in the cooler.

I've wanted to make Bakerella's cupcake balls since I saw them months ago, so I bought a bread mix (because I only wanted to follow the idea of the recipe) and some lemon marmalade and made two batches of cupcake balls.

The ones coated in dark chocolate were made with a white cake mix and about half a jar of lemon marmalade.  I coated them in a mixture of bittersweet and semisweet chocolate (though by the end it was mostly semisweet).  The result was a moist, slightly dense sweet with just a hint of lemon flavor.

The graham cracker coated ones were made with a pumpkin bread mix and a can of the new(er?) whipped cream cheese frosting.  I probably could have gone lighter on the frosting.  I doctored the bread mix with extra cloves, nutmeg and black pepper.  My favorite pumpkin pie recipe uses black pepper to give the mix a little heat, and it worked fine here too.  Though I think I could have added a little scotch bonnet to this as well.

Of course, this isn't a baking blog, and I did do some knitting this weekend.  On Friday, I finished my latest pair of socks (though I wove in the ends on Sunday) and I started another pair.  I decided I wanted to try my hand at a pair of picot socks, so I made a picot hem.  Probably not the best option for socks, but I figured that if I thought it looked bad that I could undo the knitting from the top down and use the yarn to make a different look on top.  I'm using the picot hem method a la Claudia, though I didn't realize it at the time.  I think I just expected a picot hem for a sock to be different from a picot hem for a sweater.  Go figure!  But there will be more pictures later in the week to go with the fact that there is actual knitting happening over here (and that I sprained my ankle so it is video games and knitting for me instead of running in the mornings).

new etsy store

not mine, because I still haven't put anything in it (even though it has been up since December).  It's pumpkinmama's! 

And this (despite not really being able to spin my way out of a wet paper bag) will be mine!

danger!

I'm back to the cuff on the Little Shells socks, and still enjoying the process (I finished the heel on the train this morning, making the disabled train on the Longfellow Bridge useful for at least one person).  Because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for the project, my mind has turned to new projects.  Not terribly useful, because I have not new projects to work on too.  I want to try something akin to the jar dying a la maryse or dip dying.  Theoretically I want to take my Kimono Shawl (ravelry link), which I made for my wedding and dip dye it.  It's a lovely little stole, but I'm just not likely to use it in its white configuration.  But I need a test run.

I was going to knit something nice and plain, but about the same size, for a test run.  I'm pretty sure, however, that I packed that yarn when we were shoving things willy nilly into boxes for the Pod.  Of course, I'm going to check when I get home (or if I am smart after I finish the socks) and see if I kept it out.  It's possible, after all, because I love the lace yarn! 

If I've packed it, then I'll probably go stash diving.  I packed a ton of yarn, but I still have a bit of stash available for a project or two.  Has anyone tried dying something that has beads on it?  That could be interesting too!

i was going to be done already

I was on the heel at lunch on Friday.  I finished the heel Friday while hanging out with friends.  Twice.

Then I ripped the entire sock out and started over.  I'm now back at the heel, and hopefully will do whatever I did wrong (twice) correct (once) tonight.  I love the sock and all, but I'm not loving doing and redoing the sock.

(also, I've been looking at cupcake pr0n today).

wanna cook something

I'm whiling away the time looking at food blogs and information on molecular gastronomy.  I blame L'Epicerie and the Green Matcha Sweets for reviving some of my interest in the kitchen (I lose interest when the kitchen is a mess).  Well, L'Epicerie and Julie's Kitchen.

Barring knowing what to cook and having the ingredients to make what is in my head, I'll have to settle tonight for going to Falafel King!

Falafel King is still the best, well, falafel I've had in Boston, and they are definitely better than mine.  So, I'll trundle down the street, pick up falafel (how many times can I use that word in one post?) and something to drink and make my way to my friends' apartment where I will knit until our Friday plans go underway (it's a role playing game, so our plans range from saving the world to trying to make sure to survive... lately it has been a lot more survive than save).

Maybe I'll make red bean ravioli this weekend.  I have most of the ingredients I need for that, and while I might not have super-duper 00 flour, I can make do.

creeping along the finish line

I finished the first of the Little Shells socks this morning (early this morning) and on the train wound the ball for the second sock.  No second sock syndrome for me.  I am nearly through the toe increases through the wonder of knitting on my lunch break, and will probably be most of the way through the heel by Friday.  I'm loving my week and a half pair of socks (I'm projecting, but it is really the only thing I've been working on).

No pictures, because I'm a little slow on the uptake, because I'm hoping to get pictures of all of my finished objects and show them off like a little fashion revue.  At this point I have 3 or 4 finished (or nearly finished) items, which is pretty bad. 

I think my next pair of socks are going to be basic toe-up socks with a picot edging.  I like the ones I have seen and I like my monkey socks with the picot edging (Thanks again, Ashley!), so I should get off my butt and make a pair for myself.  I like the way the Little Shells pattern starts the toe, which was one of my problems with making toe up socks before.  It just felt extra fiddly (this is still a bit fiddly, but I don't feel like I'm going to lose my needles).  So, I'll probably have a lot more toe up in the future!

proof that I knit, even if I don't photograph

Happy 4th of July!   The fireworks will be on in an hour or so, and then, hopefully, it will be the New England Revolution kicking LA's butt all over the place!  Soccer knitting is at least as much fun as movie knitting!

Today I finished making my ice cream experiment.  Initial thoughts:  could have used that pinch of salt and probably a mix of fat-free half and half and regular.  It's not really ice cream at less than 2 grams of fat per serving (more like a sherbet), and it needs to be out either at room temperature or defrosted in the microwave to make it scoopable.  I'm pretty sure that next time I'll add one more tablespoon of tequila to the mix (I think a fair amount of the alcohol was cooked out of the bananas).  Hopefully that will make a more ice cream-like concoction.

So, earlier this week I decided that I couldn't sew up Vestish while watching something, so I started a pair of socks.  I didn't get very far that first night, but I'm making decent progress!

I'm about 2 inches away from the heel, and then I'll get into the more interesting lace portion. My feet are a little longer than the 8 inches that is the small size for the pattern, but the larger one would make socks that are too wide for my feet so hopefully I'll have a happy medium and not run out of yarn before they get as long as I want them to be.

90 minutes of soccer should get me firmly into the heel turning, and plenty of commuting time should be enough to get me to the lace (and maybe finished? they feel like they're pretty fast, but probably not that fast).  Tomorrow is the Aquarium, where I will look at the fishies and the pengies and generally be happy and mentally about 5.  Or 15 if there is a huge bout of "panguin wrassling" like there was last time I went.  Yeah!

movie knitting

Yesterday, I watched March of the Penguins (again... I love this movie and I love adding silly dialog to the different penguins even if whole scenes are just penguins saying, Food?  Food?), when I sort of ran out of knitting.

Vestish is done with the main knitting portion.  I need to sew up the sides, so I can do the edging.  I didn't do it today, and I certainly wasn't doing it during the movie.  Instead, I started a new project.

I'm working on the little shells socks (I think that was what it was called, but I am way too lazy to check) from The Knitters Book of Yarn.  It's so far looking like a good fit for my last 2 skeins of Dorchester Farms sock yarn, and the start for these socks isn't very fiddly feeling for toe ups.  I'm speeding my way to the heel, and hope to get to the lace portion sometime this weekend.

I'm embarking on a new ice cream experiment.  I made tequila sautéed bananas in the slow cooker, which I'm planning on pureeing with lime zest and lime juice to make a tropical margarita ice cream.  That will be finished tomorrow.  I needed the bananas to finish cooling before I added anything to the ice cream maker.  I've made banana 'ice cream' before, so this should work at least as well as that recipe (which is pretty much take 4 ripe bananas, puree them and then toss the puree into an ice cream maker... really cheap dessert).  We'll see.  I am a little behind on my ice cream making for the summer, so maybe I'll make another one this weekend as well.  It's either that or go to Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream sometime when I'm in Boston.

Maybe I'll do both.

counting down to a 3-day weekend

While it would be nice to be expressing the fine sentiments of my country's birthday, right now I'm mostly looking forward to the 3-day weekend.  When you work a busy job (I sometimes refer to it as cramming 6 days of work in a 5 day work week) that only gets busier when the week is short, sometimes you just got to let go and hide or something.

Well, I was going to go to the gym after work tonight, but instead I'm going to hide.  I'm going to go home with Vestish, which is close to done (I'm at the last piece of the front, before side seams and edgings), plop down on the couch and eat the most glorious food I can imagine: cold pizza.

I'm not sure I'm equipped for more than that, but who knows... maybe I'll get a second wind on the way home!