AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

Saturday in the complaints department

I just got back from a fairly nice 7.3 mile run that the Nike+ recorded as 2.45 miles.  Now, I don't mind the Nike+ being a little off even after calibration (and recalibration... I don't want to think about the number of times I've calibrated this sensor).  Heck, my run on Wednesday was 4.7 miles according to the sensor and was 4.5 the previous week for the same run.  Not that either of those distances are accurate, but having the Nike+ effectively record only half of my steps and making it look like I can't run even 2.5 miles in almost 1.5 hours (god there are a lot of numbers in running) is fairly ridiculous.

So, I'm grumpy.  I'm going to walk to the grocery store (and the coffee shop) and get the heavy cream and some white chocolate for the macaron filling and a nice really decadent drink at the coffee shop, take a shower, and knit or read or play the latest Puzzle Quest game in between cooking things this afternoon.  And not in that order.  I'm grumpy and gross, so a shower is definitely a necessity.

I think I heard him say...

That on a rainy day to pass the time away on her he'd call

Tonight's rehearsal is for the Act 1 Finale, which is the most gloriously long G&S Finale at over 60 pages of music.  The fairies don't come in for quite a bit, so I'm not sure how busy the reherasal will be for us.  I was going to use that time to work on the last tiny piece for the baby trinity, but I forgot to pack the next skein of yarn in my bag and ran out when I was knitting over lunch.  Whoopsie!

Because of my current schedule (run, gym, work, rehearse), I am carrying a ton of stuff.  No room for a second project.  I'm seriously considering swapping in my cross-stitch project that has been languishing for months just to have something to do with my hands if we don't get to sing for 20-30 minutes (seriously, the finale is really long!).  Yup, that's what I'll do.  It's better than trying to read a book, because I don't want to be too distracted from the rehearsal.

What do you leave lying around as emergency projects?

national ホットケーキ day

A gentle reminder is all it took to have me making pancakes for dinner tonight.  I love breakfast food pretty much all day long, so National Pancake Day is a wonderful excuse to indulge in pancake goodness.

I'm making Ari's pumpkin spiced pancakes, because there is plenty of pumpkin puree in the fridge to use up.  Pancakes are a relatively quick dinner (I was going to go running before starting, but it will be cold by the time I get home), so I should be able to get a fair amount of knitting in tonight.  I have only one sleeve and the collar to go in the baby gift department, so soon I'll be weaving in ends and finishing (and have a different project to carry with me on the train).

So, I need to decide what to do next. 

1. Go back to Henry as my commuting project.
2. Finally block my swatch for the Cobblestone Pullover and start knitting that.
3. Pull out the yarn for either Tubey or the Little Blue Pullover. 

I really should do 1 or 2, but the lure of no more garter stitch has me thinking about either of the two remaining projects.  Conveniently, all of these projects are from yarn already purchased, so I will hopefully be able to save my pennies for a couple of months.  I am hoping at the very least to be good about purchases other than Puzzle Quest Galactrix (and one race fee) for the next month or two.

a little gliding and some body bar

I've mostly spent this week being a gym bunny, walking everywhere, singing and knitting (I also worked, but you don't need to know anything particular about that).

I took my second gliding class this week, and it is still making my butt hurt.  It's not really a surprise, but my upper rib cage (pushups?) and butt and abs hurt from the 3 gym classes I took that focused on core.  This is probably a sign that I should be doing more pushups and core work rather than just running around.

This week is also supposed to be my first 19+ mile week.  I have 2 more runs planned for Saturday and Sunday, which will be all the exercise I need this weekend.  I love feeling like I'm already making good progress for the half marathon in May.  Now if I can just keep it up through the end of May.

I moved from working on strips last week for the baby blanket to starting the baby jacket this week.  I wouldn't say it is going great guns, but it is moving along.  I have finished the back and I'm about halfway through the left front.  I'm pretty sure that the shower is Sunday, but as these aren't gifts for the shower I'm not worried even if I'd still like the knitting portion of this project finished by then.  I will be happy to work on something else even though I have to admit that the project isn't quite as bad as I thought it was initially.  Scratch that.  I haven't done any of the finishing yet, so the knitting portion isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  At least garter stitch is very commute friendly.

making progress

It's hard for me to become truly excited about my garter stitch project, which I'm sure people are tired of hearing about (especially my husband, who gets to hear my complaints of boredom in the evenings).  I am finally on the final piece, and if I have a good time with the knitting portion I might finish all of the knitting this weekend. 

Then it will be the sewing up, and for once I won't put off that part thinking that I'll do it some other day.  This is not a project I want lurking around until I have to do it or explain to my mother-in-law that I haven't managed to finish the three pieces even though the knitting was finished in February.

I was distressed last night when I started the back of the baby jacket that the instructions used row counts.  I mean, it is garter stitch.  Just tell me if I am knitting 9 inches of the back or 10 before binding off (or whatever is reasonable for a 12 month old baby).  Counting the rows disturbs the flow of the knitting, making it harder for me to get into that happily mindless groove I can manage in a project like this. 

Working on a project like this, especially as I am nearing the end, makes me fantasize about my next project.  Of course, I've got the swatch for the Cobblestone pullover for my husband, and a pair of gloves for myself and a scarf for my father-in-law all waiting for me, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about other things to work on.  I'm going to relish the fiddliness of the cables in my gloves and the herringbone stitch that I'd been formerly complaining about in the scarf, and I will even love the garter stitch side panels if it means I can have a bit of stockinette too.  I can taste the need for one of these projects on my tongue, so I will spend this evening knitting up a storm and knit instead of read on the train on the way home from work.  Quick meals and quicker desserts until it is done, done, done.  Because like the 10-ball scarf that was 5 balls too long, I'm am so done with this project.

a little service announcement... and food!

Always, always use the safety guard on the Mandolin-type items.  I had a bit of an accident when my brain went out the window last night (and I'm going to spare you graphic details and what not).  Suffice to say that dinner was delayed and I didn't knit last night.

Let me show you what I did before the accident.

I made my first pate de fruit.  Ever since I started reading Aran's blog, I've been interested in trying out her recipes.  They're written usually with grams, but that is not a problem.  I picked up a digital kitchen scale ages ago (and use it not just to double check how much yarn I have left).  I mentioned my idea for pumpkin pate de fruit a month or so ago, and since then we've been on the search for pectin.  I just wasn't willing to buy a lot of pectin for something that we might not like and might never make again.

Unfortunately, pectin is no longer something that is easy to find in a grocery store.  Eventually I found some on Saturday when I was browsing Whole Foods for last night's dinner ingredients.  One very small box with a bit under an ounce of pectin (and about 5-10 grams of a calcium compound). 

I used the only silicone baking sheets I had, but in the future might try something else.  This definitely came out well enough for me to try again.

Pumpkin pate de fruit (adapted from Aran's recipe)

100 grams pumpkin puree
20+ grams apple cider
cinnamon and nutmeg to taste
3 grams pectin
15 grams sugar
150 grams sugar
1 large tablespoon glucose^*
4 grams lemon juice

Mix 15 grams sugar with the pectin.

I mixed the pumpkin puree and the apple cider and spices in a small pot.  Heat on medium (this is where I added about a quarter cup more apple cider, because it didn't look like the mixture was going to be wet at all).  Once it comes to a boil, whisk in the pectin mixture.  Let come back to a boil and then mix in the sugar.  When it comes back to a boil, add the glucose and let heat until the mixture comes to about the soft ball stage^*.  Take off the heat and stir in lemon juice.  Pour into molds and let sit for a couple of hours. 

Pop out of molds and roll in sugar.

*I didn't weigh the glucose, because it is a sticky mess.  My glucose is from Michael's and can be found in the Wilton's cake decorating section.  It really does last just about forever.
*My mixture never quite got to the soft ball stage, but Aran's instructions said to bring the mixture to 106°C.  Adding the extra cider meant that this entire cooking process took a bit longer than her instructions said, but I cooked it about 10-15 minutes total with about 8-10 minutes of that time being the heating after the glucose addition. 

I would recommend removing it from the heat when the mixture takes a bit of time to settle after you run a spoon through it.  Mine was also the color of nice rich toffee when I pulled it off the stove.

These came out a little bit softer than a normal gum drop, but they are still tasty and the amount of ingredients needed it fairly small.  A quick little thing to make in the afternoon.

Happy Valentines!

First some pie. It's been busy, and I have a fair amount of pictures.  I've been holding on to them all week and then some.  The tiny picture is the Shaker Lemon Pie with our first two slices taken out.  So delicious, but with a double crust with 20 tablespoons of fat (shortening and butter) it is like a heart attack or a Buddha belly just waiting to happen.  Since mathing out the probable calories our slices have gotten quite a bit smaller, though the pie is still tasty.  We're just being judicious.

I am back from the three day, mostly non-posting days at the chocolate shop.  Au Chocolat was fairly busy Wednesday-Friday this week with the common refrain being (when people commented about coming in when it wasn't quite so crazy) that we had heard that there was some holiday coming up this weekend.  It was a wonderful change of pace from my desk job, though I will be happy to go back to it after the three day weekend.  Not standing on my feet all day is always more appreciated after my stint there.

One of my friends last week had given everyone boxes of Sweet Tarts (or conversation hearts, I should double check these things) with a cute little valentine on top.  It almost made me think of grade school again, where you hoped that you didn't end up being the one that everyone forgot because you were a bit wall flower.  Never happened to you?  Lucky dog!

I made cookies.  I got Cookie Craft a little over a week ago, and have been learning the techniques in the book.  Not having cookie slats (and having been a little too lazy to buy the materials to make my own), the main uphill battle has been in learning to roll my cookie dough less thin.  Usually for pie and other similar items, you want to make your dough a little thinner and while I have the rubber things that go on the rolling pin, they never seem to result in me making evenly rolled dough.  On the other hand, many of the tips are just really good to know.

Things that I learned: 

• Separate your dough and shape into disks for faster chilling time in the fridge.  To speed that along even more, I would roll dough between two sheets of wax paper and then fold the ends over the wax paper/dough and put in the fridge.  Then it was only about 10-15 minutes in the fridge to have a nice stiff dough.
• If you have a pet and you need a place to hide your iced cookies while they dry, put them in your cold oven and shut the door.  My oven had enough air flow that the icing got appropriately dry without me worrying that my kitty was going to jump on the counter while I was asleep and investigate the cookies.
• When the instructions say not to use the royal icing after a certain amount of time, my experience tells me that the older icing will taste fine but will be a bit foamier and have a certain bit of bubbly texture rather than drying to that perfect finish.
• Applying the pearly powder, dip the brush in and make sure it is almost completely 'dry' before decorating your cookies.  Excessive liquid will dissolve down parts of your cookie creation before your eyes.  Still tasty but no longer beautiful.
• The assembly line method really works!  Pipe all of your outlines and then they will be starting to get a little dry and stiff when you start the flow.  I need a #2 tip, because my #1 was too thin to stop the flow from spreading off the cookies and causing a bit of a freakout at the end of a long day and my #5 was a relatively thick piping.  Also note, the #5 worked better for the colored piping (mine was slightly thinner because of the food coloring/gel coloring added) than it did for white.

The cookies were wrapped in cellophane bags and tied with ribbons from Au Chocolat, which really saved my veggie bacon.  I just didn't have time to go to Michael's and pick up cellobags and ribbons to decorate them all up. 

The cookie-ing I did in stages over the week, but in planning on doing it again I think I would try to make it closer to a single day project.  I would make the dough the night before and plan what I wanted the cookies to look like.  Then I would bake the cookies in the early or mid-morning so I would have some time for multiple rounds of decorating and drying.  While it works to do it over a day or two, it is a lot more enjoyable to not have the project looming over you all week long.

I did the cookies with their names on them and people seemed really happy to get a little bit of personalized Valentine's love last night.  I have a second batch of cookie dough (I store my cookie dough wrapped in plastic and then in a freezer bag in the fridge.  No getting all dried out and nasty for me!) waiting for me to make cookies over the weekend.  I might get a different color of the pearl powder, because I got the shiny white and it understandably didn't show up that well on the white icing.  Even more pretty decorated cookies are in my future!

Oh, and the cookie that started it all?  My hubby's gaming buddy said this in a game ages ago before I met them all.  He wanted this quote in cookie form and this was how I chose to express it.  My next batch of cookies will probably not have random words like Iron on them, but they will probably end up as eclectic.

delicious!

Yeah, another camera free post, because I'm just super lazy.  Yesterday before leaving the house I finally rolled out my pie dough and baked the Shaker lemon pie, and we finally ate it (well, some of it) last night.  It was so good.  Rich and thick with delicious lemon flavor, and while my pie crusts always look a little wonky they are always flaky and oh so tasty. 

The pie made me much happier about working on the baby blanket.  I'm on the last strip and then I can move on to the baby jacket.  I'm not sure how much knitting I'm actually going to get done in the next 2 or 3 days, but I'm sure that the commute will be enough to finish the last strip. 

It's kind of funny in a way.  I got into the latest G&S show, but I didn't suggest that I wasn't available this week for rehearsal.  The sing through was Monday, but I have rehearsal on Thursday after working at the chocolate shop all day.  I don't really want a late night then, because I'm gunning for going to work early the next morning.  It is a busy week, but I'm happy.  There are plenty of cookies and chocolates and candies in the days ahead, and I'm loving the energy of it even if it is cutting into both my exercise and my knitting time.

Next time, I should actually have a picture of both my pie and the strips arrayed out for putting together the blanket.  Until then, happy Valentine's day!  (and happy Friday the 13th!) in the week ahead.

an elaborate chart

Yesterday I ran out of yarn (well, forgot the skein I needed at home) for the baby blanket, so I started the other project in my backpack.  The Almeada gloves are gorgeous and I'm working them up in this gorgeous dk weight semi-solid wool.  I love the color and the cast on is easy peasy, producing a nice clean edge.  I have to wonder why I haven't done it before. 

I found the instructions for going from icord cast on to in the round a bit perplexing, because I just don't have the foggiest idea when I was supposed to turn the work.  It is such a small element in the final piece that I just winged it.  As long as I had the right number of stitches, did it really matter?  Probably not.

The difficulties came as I was sitting at the gaming table and tried to work up the chart as the GM tried to get us all together.  Not the easiest project to work on in company, especially because chart is at the back of the magazine and the description of the stitches (3-LPC is like code, and I find it easiest to work with the cypher next to the code).  There was a lot of flipping back and forth.  I'll have to take the time to photocopy either the chart and tape it next to the page with the stitch definitions.  Either way, this project highly benefits from the use of a wide post-it note. 

I have to leave the house soon (showing with crossed fingers), so I have proto-pie crusts in the fridge with the macerated lemons for the Shaker lemon pie.  I will hopefully get around to making the pie tonight after I get home from the sing through (I'm in the chorus for Iolanthe!).

It's a strangely busy week, despite being officially on vacation.  I have cooking plans and three days in my favorite chocolate shop, some singing, Pokemon catching (yup, a nerd), and a trip to the MoS.  Hopefully, I will be smart and not cut out sleep in order to get everything in. 

2 strips to go

I am still working on the baby blanket for my mother in law, and as it is pretty much the only thing I've been working on in the last week or two I'm definitely getting antsy.  All garter stitch all the time is enough to drive me bonkers.  I'm on the penultimate strip, and will hopefully get it done (and its beautiful but unloved friend the last strip) this weekend. 

Today is more than a little full though.  I'm going running this afternoon, because there is a showing at 1:30 so I might as well use that as my time to run rather than going in the morning and needing to leave the house anyway.  I have a planned trip to the library and the grocery store and the bookstore.  And I want to go to Williams Sonoma.  As much as I dislike the mall, this store is closing in the next 8 days and I am hoping for a good deal.  Actually, I'm hoping for a mandoline that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.  I've got cooking plans, and I can't cut something thin to save my life. 

It's mostly a normal Saturday in my world.

I have off Monday and Tuesday before I go work in chocolate land for the three days before Valentine's.  I'm hoping for a great business week for Ed, the owner of the store, because I know that luxury goods (and fine chocolate is one of them) get hit hard when the economy gets sour.  I love working in the store, because it is a very different experience from my day job, though I know I would never want to do it full time.