Frosted foggy flaky morning

I woke up to the ferry horns calling out through the fog. I love fog, especially in the mornings. It makes waking up so much more gentler when you only have to be aware of what’s right in front of you. The rest of the world is cloaked in an ephemeral white of amnesia and your only world is what’s right before you eyes. Makes it lighter work for my brain to pretend that the rest of the world doesn’t exist and the only thing I have to figure out is how much coffee to put into my French press.

Behind all that fog is a sunny, brilliant day. I’m just not quite ready for it yet. My brain is a tad fried from this weekend. We drove down the Rusty Coast to celebrate DH’s brother’s recent nuptials. The newly-minted married couple tied the knot in Vegas over the Christmas holidays and we were gathering together for an reception at DH's parents place. It was so great to see all the family and meet our new in-laws. We even had the latest addition to the family make his premiere appearance.

I managed to get the MIL sweater steeked, seamed and finished by the time we drove up to my in-law’s house Saturday afternoon. I was cutting it close, literally and figuratively. I didn’t get to steeking it until Friday afternoon. For those that aren’t knitgeeks, steeking means binding off and cutting into a knitted piece. In this case, I had to steek armholes into the body of the sweater. I chose to use a crochet steek since the Noro Silk Garden is a pretty ‘sticky’ yarn and would felt and hold together on its own.

Here it is in pieces, pre-steeking:

(the sleeves)

I measured, re-measured, and measured a few more times. I had a cup of tea. Wished I had something stronger like a gin & tonic. Realized that if I had a gin & tonic that I would really be in trouble. Finished up my tea and returned to the butchering of the MIL sweater. Can you tell that I was nervous about steeking? Actually, I can steek anything without batting an eye if it’s for me. It’s the fact that I’m steeking a sweater for my lovely MIL that had me a bit nervous. A sweater made of gorgeous Noro Silk Garden yarn. Yarn that I only have half a ball left of and probably is completely sold out on this island so if I do make a horrible mess of it, I’m don’t have a stash to dip into.

Here it goes:

snip snip snip

Yes, I should be using smaller scissors but all I had were these large general purpose scissors. Talk about living dangerously ;)

(The steeked edge of an armhole)

Phew! The hard part is done. NOT!

I seamed the first sleeve in and I don’t know what I did wrong, maybe I picked up the wrong stitches or something but the sleeve fell short of the opening by 2 inches!!!

I ripped the seam out, took a deep breath and prayed to the knitting gods to please find it in their hearts to not completely screw me over. I compared the sleeves to the sleeve opening and they matched. I allowed myself a half a sigh of relief and tried seaming the sleeve on again.

I managed to get both sleeves seamed on without much more drama. I decided to leave the shoulder seams and the turtleneck for the next morning. By this time it was a quarter to 9 and I hadn’t even thought about dinner. My stomach was too busy clenching and doing flips for the last few hours and wasn’t really in the mood for food. DH, however, was making hungry puppy sounds, so I whipped up a bison chili. Nothing fancy, just some ground bison meat from Island Bison, local mushrooms, carrots and onions all browned up. I used the leftover pizza sauce and a batch of frozen tomatoes and a couple glugs of leftover Philip’s Double Chocolate Porter for the base. With a big pinch of ancho chili and chipolte chili powder and a not so bit pinch of cayenne powder, I stirred it up and let it simmer for 15 minutes. By the time the chili perfumed the house, I was hungry.

Saturday morning I bounced out of bed, set on finishing the sweater before we headed down to see the in-laws. Due to my sleep-sticky brain and parade of unexpected friends knocking on our door and phone calls, I only managed to get the shoulders seamed up and had to do up the turtleneck during the drive down. I’m not a car knitter. Partly because I’m much too uptight about having sharp pointy things flying around the car. Partly because the knitting gods always choose for the most critical and complicated part of the pattern to throw a huge pothole, suicidal raccoon or erratic driver in front of the car, causing the driver to swerve and me to drop several important stitches. It’s fine to car knit if all you’re doing is stockinette or garter but heaven help you if you pull out a cabling hook. Mostly I don’t car knit because I get car sick really easily. As long as I have my eyes on the road, I’m fine. Luckily, the turtleneck was a simple 2x’s rib and I could do it without looking at my hands. I managed to get the turtleneck done by the time we hit the Malahat and arrived at his folks place with every loose end woven in and no more car sick than usual :o

Here’s my lovely MIL in her new sweater:

I'm so glad that she likes it!

BTW, here’s what I wore to the reception. My favorite shawl with my grey wool skirl and jersey knit shirt 'uniform' (gotta love those grey wool skirts).

I’ve deemed it the “Flight of Fuschia” from series of bird inspired shawls I did last year. I gave most of them away as gifts but this one I made especially for moi. I wanted a dramatic piece I could throw over myself for special events. I find that most big shawls swallowed me up and made me look short and stubby. That’s fine if you’re a beer bottle, not so good if you’re wanting to be chic maven. I wanted something light and airy that would deliver a punch of colour. So, I decided to knit a wing. It has the drama of a larger shawl but it’s asymmetrical shape wouldn’t cut me in half. I also made it a closed shawl so I wouldn’t haven’t to be forever fussing with it or needing to hold it around me.

Have a great week everybody!

Jen

A drippy week

It’s been a crazy week filled with a drippy faucet, a phlegmy husband and sweaters that never end! Thanks to the plumbing prowess of a good friend, the faucet has been replaced, the husband is slowly drying out thanks to more medication (I guess my ginger tea voodoo wasn’t strong enough), and one never-ending sweater actually found an end!

Of course, with all this silliness happening, I was in a mad swirl of baking. It calms me and anyways, a happy working oven makes the chilly winter days cozy and lovely. All my goodies were made with locally milled organic Red Fife wheat flour from True Grains bakery in Cowichan Bay, organic fair trade cane sugar from Level Ground, local fruits, nuts, milk and eggs.

I started with a rhubarb-blueberry-plum jam oat bars I made with jam I canned over the summer. When you're elbow deep in canning, wondering why you're going through all this trouble in final sweltering days of summer and you're thinking to yourself, "I'm never to going to use all of this up." Middle of January seems like a long way away but it eventually does creep up and man, it's like Christmas when you start digging into these fruity jewels.

I also whipped up a batch of cranberry hazelnut muffins with local cranberries excavated from my freezer and local hazelnuts from Footes farm. It was made with my usual muffin recipe.
















Finally, I whipped up some bagels for DH who is a bagel fanatic. I used the Montreal bagel recipe in Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid 's "Homebaking: The artful mix of flour and tradition around the world". They weren't much more work than making regular bread. The bagels were so good that DH did the cutest little happy bagel dance in the middle of the kitchen. Oh, I guess I shouldn't have told you all that ;)
















Now onto other things (warning! Knitting rant ahead!)
Remember this twinkle in my eye:

Well, it’s finally done!

It took 2 months but I did manage to finish it with a few balls of yarn leftover for a small shawl or a couple pairs of mitts or socks. BTW, the next time I pick a pair of 2.75mm needles and say, ‘I think I’m going to knit a sweater with these’, just smack me upside the head. It will cause me less brain damage than all the noggin against the wall action that occurred when I was in the middle of umpteeth day of working the second sleeve. The torso looks long but it shrinks up when I put it on. I’ll have DH take a photo of me in it as soon as he wakes up from his mucous-lined sleep.

As mentioned before, the construction was inspired by this simple design for Knitty.com.

Of course, I took one look at that wonderfully, simple and elegant design and said, ‘Oh, that doesn’t look stressful enough. No, let’s throw in a cabled back panel and I must use absurdly, thin yarn with a very loose ply. Let' s have the sleeves narrow off smoothly and end in a leaf point that sits exactly over the top of my wrist. Yes and I’ll wait until the very end to decide on how I’m going to finish it all off so I can have the masochistic pleasure of frogging and reknitting through the same 3 inches seven times before I decide to finish off with the simplest and most obvious edge for the bottom of the sweater. Yes, that ought to drive me sufficiently batty for a few months.”

That said, I love it. I absolutely, positively love it! It's much warmer than I though it would be. I dubbed it the "Midsummer Night's Dream" sweater. Ironically, summer would probably be the only season I won't be able to wear it because it's so snuggly warm. Oh well, I will wear it during the rest of the year and have a puckish forest wrapped around me.

That’s one never-ending sweater done. I’m now feverishly working to finish up my MIL’s sweater. I even brought it with me on our Winter Adventure trip. Here’s a pic of me working on it. It was taken inside a picnic shelter turned winter cabin at Waterton Lake National Park. It was quite luxurious compared to our usual winter climbing accommodations. It even had a wood fired stove. I was feeling very Little House on the Prairie working my knitting by the light of a gas lantern with the winds howling about outside and a wood fire smoking us out inside.

Here’s how the wonderful winter world looked the next day:

Here's DH and I on my Happy Birthday climb!















That's it for now.

Happy Eating!

Jen

A weekend of birthdays and an unexpected Santa

I had originally planned a quiet knitting and cooking weekend with a friend, capped off with a get-together on Sunday evening. A mellow weekend filled with pots of hot tea and coccooning. However, the universe had other plans.

On Friday afternoon I got a call from DH who was in Vancouver to join him there. His plans had changed and he had to stay there longer. Sometimes you get that internal kick to go down the rabbit hole and you know something is going to happen, something extraordinary or at least something memorable.

It was my sister’s birthday anyways and so figured I could give her her birthday present in person instead of mailing it to her late. (How did I get knee-deep into December and not notice it?) I had made a series of creamy white merino-cashmere scarves in different lace patterns. A bit more intricate than your typical scarf to bring a touch of charm and interest to an outfit, they were made for our mild winters. I brought a few for her to choose from.

I, like most knitters, have a stash of scarves and toques for gifts. Often they’re made with patterns that I’ve designed just to see how they play out in different yarns. Sometimes they’re extended swatches to figure out my gauge. Other times they’re just practice mileage for me to work out new techniques. Many are simply the manifestation of excess kinetic energy channeled through my needles. In the end of the year, I send most of them over to a local shelter for those needing a bit of extra warmth and keep a small stash to give away myself.

Within an hour of receiving DH’s call, I was standing in line for the ferry. I love taking the ferry. It’s a great place to people watch. Riding on the water, watching one shore shrink as another appears is a great way to pass the time. It’s often the few times I get to sit down and do nothing but knit or read for an hour and half. I have met people from all over the world and have shared some wonderful conversations. Sometimes I have found myself in a hub of an impromptu knitting circle. I’ll just be working away alone in my corner and when I come up for air, I’ll realize that I’m surrounded by sister and fellow knitters, crocheters and cross-stitchers.

I grabbed a window seat and began working on my MIL’s sweater as other passengers jockeyed for seats. A fellow with two huge bulging suitcases sat down a few seats from me with a big sigh. With rumpled hair, an equally rumpled look in his eye, and wearing an inside-out t-shirt I thought to myself, 'I’m not going to get much knitting done.'

He opened up his suitcases, pulled out stacks of old, leather bound books and piled them in the seat between us. A few moments later, he leaned over and asked, “Excuse me, would you like an old book?”

As the ferry crossed the Georgia Strait, this Biblio-Santa gave away old books from centuries passed to anyone walking by and waxed poetic about the forgotten art of lithographs, steel engravings and old world bookmaking techniques. Supposedly he had a collection of 70,000 books and was simply tired of having them all. Many responded to his generosity with suspicion, others with cautious curiosity and awe and some with delight. I had a front row seat to watch this theatre of munificence. It was wonderful to see children excited about books, showing their parents the treasures to be found between the leather wings of an old book. It was a bit sad to see many adults approach with bystander curiosity but put up their defenses as soon as they were offered a free book, noses tuned only to mistrust.

Many grateful bibliophiles walked away with armfuls of books, magazines and other printed gifts, faces bathed in joy and awe. Many others left that ferry ride with at least an interesting story to tell.

I was gifted with a number of old books, including a complete collection of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a collection of Bryon and a wonderful old magazine:

Thank you Biblio-Santa for sharing your treasures with us. I hope you get some sleep.

My stay in Vancouver was one never-ending meal. The highlight was dimsum at Sun Siu Wah on Main street with my sisters, DH, and his sister and BIL. I Heart Sun Siu Wah. It’s my favorite Chinese restaurant and they have the best dan taht (egg tarts). These are two bite marvels with a beautifully light but buttery pastry shell and a just barely set flan. The haw gow (shrimp dumplings) are full of nothing but shrimp and the dumpling wrapper is thin and tender. One dish I didn’t see was lo bok gao (turnip cake). It’s the homeliest looking cake you’ve ever seen but it’s so tasty. It’s a steamed rice flour based cake filled with daikon radish, dried shrimp, bbq pork and other tasty bits. It’s cut into squares and pan-fried. Considering how crazy and hectic everyone’s life is these days, it’s a blessing to be able to get anyone out for a cup of coffee, let alone a whole meal.

Later that evening we joined family and friends to help celebrate my cousin’s birthday at Yaletown Brewery. Thank goodness I brought along those extra scarves. Happy Birthday Anita and Pat!!!!

We returned home Sunday afternoon. After a reviving cup of tea, I gussied myself up and headed over the my dear friends, Barbara and Lorne, for what turned out to be a multi-birthday party. I brought my Christmas cake to add to the already full buffet table. There was cheese, sausages and some of the finest smoked fish I’ve had in ages, all local of course. Barb had made a yummy spicy butternut squash soup that helped melt away any residual chills I had in my bones. The birthday celebration was topped off with five birthday cakes and live music. It was a lively and spirited celebration! Happy Birthday to you all!!!

Back home that night, I sat down with a glass of Cedar Creek chardonnay (a gift from my ma), my DH at my side, and wound down the weekend with some knitting. I actually managed to get some progress on my MIL’s sweater:
I love how the rich the colours are and they certainly brighten any dreary cold day. Considering how wet and windy today is, I’m hoping to get more done today. Hopefully, the universe hasn't scheduled me in for anything ;)

Enjoy!

Jen