Category: 365

  • giving thanks

    Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. I’m grateful that I have so many nice readers and that this is somewhere that I can share my thoughts! Today I had a day off from the store for Thanksgiving, and I spent it doing lots of crafty stuff (in addition to the cooking that I didn’t photograph!).

    Big finishing day/weekend, actually – I finally finished up some socks that I had lingering around on the needles, out of Jojoland Melody superwash.

    73.365 - finally!

    These were an experiment – I tend to knit quite loosely, and although I usually do my socks on 2mm needles, I don’t get a really satisfactory gauge. I mean, it’s okay, but not as tight as I’d like sometimes. So for this pair, I used a 1.5mm/US000 addi turbo needle and did magic loop on 72 stitches (I usually do 64). You know what? After lingering for so long and working on them off and on for months….they’re a little small. Sigh. Oh well, I’ll probably wear them anyway. Probably shouldn’t put them in the dryer, though…

    I also finally cast off the first of my stripey knee socks, knit out of Indigo Moon sock yarn.

    casting off

    Here’s hoping the second one goes a little faster! This sock was actually really not too bad to knit, but I kept putting it down in favour of other projects. So I’m thinking that the second sock will be my Rhinebeck car project.

    I also managed to do a little handsewing (my machine’s a bit buried, so needle and thread it was) to finish off the elastic waist of my roundabout hemp skirt.

    handsewing

    Pattern’s forthcoming, even as we head into the cooler months. I think the skirt would be great knit out of a nice sturdy wool.

    And a little more weaving in of ends and blocking…and more brown/pink.

    we have thumbs!

    I finally knit the thumbs of these koigu mittens this weekend, and now they’re all done. In this photo the mitten on the right is blocked, the one on the left isn’t. There’s a really big difference in person, as per usual with blocking! Now they’ve both had a dunk, and I spent the evening working on the pattern – so as soon as I get some photo taken, the pattern for these will be going up. I’m hoping for before Rhinebeck.

    Speaking of which, are you going? I’m super excited!

  • giveaway time!

    Apologies for the lack of blog posting! I’ve been working and otherwise a little busy this week:

    that's a lotta tomatoes!

    Yesterday I (with some help) canned two bushel boxes of roma tomatoes from the grocery store – getting to the last of the season, they were only $10 each! I’m so tempted to go back and get another one to make sauce. The tomatoes that didn’t make the canning cut went into a vat of sauce to be frozen, and the good ones became 29 L jars of halved or diced tomatoes plus 18 500-ml jars of diced tomatoes.

    I can’t wait to crack some open a little further along in the winter! Mmmm.

    Another random food-related little note – I’ve been working on following a hypoallergenic and anti-candida diet these days (except for at my launch party, that was a special occasion!) and today I made the most awesome snacky food!

    brown rice oven chips

    I found brown rice tortillas in the frozen section of the grocery store where I bought the tomatoes – they have quite an extensive health food-type selection. I had ripe avocados today, so it was time for the guacamole and chips! I cut a couple tortillas into wedges, sprayed them with a little olive oil (I’ve got a little pump bottle that you can fill with whatever you want), sprinkled them with a little salt and garlic powder, and then baked them in the toaster oven for a couple minutes at 400 F. They were super crispy and tasty, just what I wanted. I’ll definitely be making these again. I think they’re go great with all the soups I’ve been making.

    In other news, I had my book launch party at lettuce knit last Wednesday and it was great! Unfortunately I suffered a bout of camnesia and didn’t take photos at all. People dropped by, yummy food was had (thanks megan!), I signed books and even managed to knit a little bit.

    And now to celebrate, how about I send some more books out into the world?

    53.365 - good mail day

    I’ve got THREE (3) copies of my book, Teach Yourself Visually Sock Knitting, to send away to three blog readers! All you need to do is leave me a comment to this post pointing me to something that you think is cool, interesting, funny, delicious (and vegetarian), or otherwise entertaining!

    Comments will close Friday, October 3 at 11:59 PM EDT (can you believe it’s almost October already?). Winners will be chosen at random.

  • the yarn…and a first!

    I bought a lot of yarn while I was away. A lot. I only bought one piece of clothing (an expensive but amazing, made-in-France skirt) and the one pair of shoes (which, by the way, are Doc Martens for anyone who asked), but I bought a hell of a lot of yarn. I hadn’t really intended to, but whatever. Yarn makes a great souvenir!

    I got some at k1 in Edinburgh, some at Le Bon Marche in Paris, but most of it came from iknit day.

    yarn from iknit (and fabric from liberty)

    In the top left, there’s cashmere from Devon Fine Fibres, some for presents and some for me – they raise their own flock, and have a very limited supply of yarn, but it’s sooo beautiful. And inexpensive, for sure.

    Top right is organic merino from ColdHarbour Mill, a working mill and textile museum! They had 100g skeins of the undyed organic merino on for 5 pounds, and I bought a sweater’s worth of the 4ply plus some others for gifts.

    Bottom left is two skeins of Bowmont wool from Devon Fine Fibres, a new rare cross breed. It’s a mix of merino and shetland, and is really soft in a still-wooly way! They didn’t have much left when we got there (I blame erqsome, she bought a sweater’s worth of the grey) so I just got the two skeins. Now, what to make?

    And in the bottom right, not yarn of course, it’s fabric from Liberty. Expensive, but sooo pretty. I’m going to have to make a few more practice skirts before I commit to cutting this up!

    And the first?

    48.365 - my first signed book!

    Last night I held my book for the first time – a box came into the store just when I was starting to work last night. And I sold my first book, to my friend Jeff (I’m sure books have sold so far, but this was the first one *I* sold!). And I signed my first book.

    Whew.