Wednesday, Wednesday

The book I’m currently reading is not so much my reading but my nephew’s reading – it’s his good night story. You might have recognized Curious George from the bookcover – and the book itself is called ‘Curious George Storybook Collection.’ This version is very much so based on the TV series, with the same kind of graphics, and really big pictures. It’s quite cute but just doesn’t have the charm of the original stories. I wish they’d stayed consistent with the beginning of the original stories, you know, where it says: “George was a good monkey but always very curious.” Oh, and btw, have you ever wondered what the man with the yellow hat does for a living? Well, I wonder – and given that many of George’s adventures result in big, expensive messes, I wonder if he’s on an unlimited budget. For example, the donut delivery story in this Storybook Collection volume. George buys 100 dozen donuts instead of one dozen donuts. One dozen Krispy Kreme donuts is approximately $6 (dependent on your location), that would mean, that George bought $600 worth of groceries. And the man with the yellow hat accepts that without blinking an eye. Sheesh.

And in the meanwhile, I’ve made some progress, over the past week, and the end is in sight on my Indian Red scarf. Very exciting. It’ll still take me a while to finish it, but I can see how this pattern design is going to work out. I’m concerned that the scarf will be to small, so I’ll probably have to steam block it aggressively, or wet block it. The problem with wet blocking is that it is hard to find a space where I can leave something to dry. Plus, wet blocking doesn’t have that instant gratification effect that you get from steam blocking. I’m going to double check my gauge, and maybe I can add a bit more length in section H… Time to check out the modifications people have made to the scarf. I really really love Ravelry – it makes it so much easier to find that kind of information.
And now, since I’m probably responsible for getting the “Monday, Monday” song stuck in your head, here’s a video of the original song:

That’s it for this Wednesday. I’m participating in this week’s Yarn Along – there are links to other great Yarn Along posts there, with information on how to participate yourself. You can also find a link to this post through Tami’s Amis, through Ambassador Crochet’s Wip Wednesday and Frontier Dreams’ Keep Calm and Craft on (KCCO) series.

Hoppity Hop

You might have noticed that I’ve added a few new pages to the blog. They all revolve around blog hops, link parties and whatever else they’re called (it’s a work in progress). There are so many of them, I thought it might be nice to accumulate and organize them, so you can find whatever blog hop you’d like to. I’ve put up a separate page of the blog hops that I actually manage to visit regularly. I’m hoping to get better at visiting more of these…

When I started blogging, I thought I’d use it as a way to keep track of my knitting, as an extension to Ravelry. I like the Ravelry project pages, but you only have so many possibilities to share images and your notes with others. And I wanted to find out more about other people’s experiences. Then I came across the 2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week shortly after I started blogging. It was a nice way to challenge me to go beyond writing a few paragraphs and occasionally throwing in a few photographs. Plus it gave me the opportunity to think and plan more as to what topics I’d like to tackle.

T-Shirt via Threadless

Then I started to blog on other topics – mostly on food, but also a bit on photography as I was improving my skill set. A bit of commentary here and there, little insights into my everyday life, posts on other crafting projects, and all those funny things that popped into my head, like Monty Python, and you have the basic building blocks of my blog.

I won’t bore you with the evolution of my blogging year, but needless to say, I learned a lot – mostly through my own blogging, but also through randomly visiting other blogs. I wrote a bit about my blogging motivation the other day, but since I’ve been poking around other blogs so much, I’m going to make an additional short little list:

• Have something to say. It doesn’t have to be a high-flying theoretical or academic post, or a hilarious little joke. It’s about what interests you. If you like it, chances are that someone else will like it too.
• Even if you’re just saying things to yourself, you still have an audience – at least of one.
• Don’t write long, run-on posts. It’s like in school when you were writing papers. Don’t write looooong paragraphs – they make it hard to read, plus, you tend to skip over long posts. Remember tl;dr.

Everyone’s a critic

• Structure what you’re writing. You dont need headers – you can also use visual interest, like photographs, sketches, videos, whatever you’d like.
• Make sure your links work.
• Watch your typos.
• Have a regular blogging rhythm, whatever it may be – once a month, once a week and so on. If readers know how often they’ll find new content, then they’ll also stop by. If there’s no content for, oh, forever, and then content for a few days in a row, it might not get seen.
• Respond to comments. I first thought that it might be obnoxious if posts with comments had a response after each one of them, but I think people appreciate answers. I apologize to all early blog commenters who didn’t get a reply.
• Make sure it’s easy to read your blog. Crazy colors, blinking links, annoying pop-ups or text that’s hard to read – if I can’t even get to the content, I won’t be back. Don’t link to crappy or dangerous-to-my-computer websites.
• Bazillion of images and ads and so on in the sidebars (especially when you’re using both sidebars). This is a pet peeve of mine. I know there are a great blogs out there, but some of them are so hard to figure out. If there are so many sponsors that I can’t figure out what’s your content and their content, well, that’s pretty darn annoying.
• I like categories and tags, and archives – all of these make it easier to find content. I’ve been looking at a lot of blog hops, trying to figure out what and when and so on, and so many times, posts don’t have categories. And no tags. Too many tags are annoying, but use these methods to help your audience – and yourself

What the ???

• It takes patience to build a blog, and an audience. Your writing will improve as you blog regularly. The post scheduling function is your friend.
• Chose what you want to keep private and what not, then stay consistent. If you want to publish your name and other personal information, and link up to your personal Facebook page, and so on, good for you. But be conscious regarding your choices.
• Oh, and if you don’t want to share where you are and what you’re doing, make sure to turn of the geotagging function on your camera, or that information will also be out there once you’re uploading your images, especially through a service like Flickr.
• If you’re using content that will load slowly, make sure you add titles and descriptions to you images so people will know what you’re talking about even if the links don’t load or work.
• It takes time to grow a blog.  There are lots of posts out there on building your blog, let me know. if you’d like to provide some links. WordPress for example has a good post on how to get more visitors.

• Comment. Be consistent. Be interesting – or more particularly, if you’re commenting, don’t comment spam people. If you post a standard, irrelevant post with a link to your post everywhere, it’ll just annoy people and actually keep them from visiting your blog. Plus, you might end up in people’s spam filters.
• If you’re blog hopping, include links to the blog hop in the specific post and not just somewhere on your blog or on a link page – it has something to do with back linking. Also, it is apparently really important to also put in a text link – it has a lot to do with Search Engine Optimization.

this is not the meaning of old school

Whoa, this is a long list! I didn’t think I’d have this much to say. I hope it was interesting and not too much of an infodump. Oh, that’s another thing to add: – Avoid infodumping – keep your audience in mind.

On a side note, the post title was inspired by the little bunny FooFoo rhyme. I had no idea that there really is a thing named Hoppity Hop. I just called it a bouncy ball, just one with handles. I have good childhood memories of hopping along on one of those in Kindergarten. It’s one of those childhood things. I always liked  the ones with a ring better than the ones with the individual handles – somehow the looked like weird cow udders. Or long nipples. In fact, I remember a gym teacher calling them nipples. Oh well, they were easier to grasp.

I bet you won’t get that image out of your head now that I’ve said that. *snicker* Well, I guess that sometimes happens when you reexamine your childhood from an adult’s viewpoint. But at least I can try to erase that image by providing you with images of other retro Hoppity Hops out there:

via Retroland

{this moment}

via Soulemama

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Sometimes you just want a classic

crack that w(h)ip

Well hello! It’s Wednesday wip time. And, as Devo said, it’s time to “Whip it! Whip it good.” Oh 80s, sometimes I miss you. Not the fashion, for the most part, more the music. Remember that hair? The perms? The scrunchies. Yikes. Unless you’re out to have extra fun with it – like with an 80s tribute band. Meet the Legwarmers, who are exactly that. I went to their New Year’s Show, and another time for my birthday. Definitely one of the best parties I’ve been to. Just check out their promo video below, and there are more images on their website. It’s a pretty much a requirement to dress up for the concert, so you almost get an 80s overdose there I think it’s the best fun you can have with the 80s without actually bringing the 80s back. Imagine if people dressed like that all the time…

So, let’s look at my knitting (and reading). Well, would you look at that! I’ve actually managed to make some progress on my Erin Go Bragh shawl! I’m almost done with the last part of my Color Affection shawl. It has lingered and lingered around here. Which is kind of weird since it’s a fun project. By now the project has taken on dimensions that make it difficult to take it along. It’s no longer a “on-the-go” project. And I have other projects going on that have been getting knitting time, both my Indian Red and my steel sings scarves. But I’ve been trying to finish up my Color Affection, and I’m almost there!

I think I’ll finish this one today since I’m participating in Cheryl Marie’s Knitting Marathon. That’s 26.2 hours of knitting, May 23-24. I won’t be able to only knit in that time. Obviously I have to sleep. And then there’ll be lots of other things going on like eating, blogging, household stuff and so on. (I love that blogging comes second – although I’m scheduling my Wednesday and Thursday posts). But I should definitely make some inroads with my knitting. I think my Erin Go Bragh will be finished, and I’m hoping that I’ll maybe even finish my Indian Red scarf. Want to join in too? Shall we see how much knitting we can get done? I’m sure you can start later and then correspondingly finish later.

And the read, that’s a comfort read of mine. I read Tamora Pierce‘s Alanna series as a teen, and I loved it. A girl that wants to become a knight, and despite all the challenges, having to hide that she’s a girl from almost everyone, and so on, she succeeds and forges her own path. Who hasn’t dreamt of being a knight? I loved that series, and I still have my books. This series is a set in the same universe as the Alanna quartet and tells you the story of Keladry of Mindelan, the second girl to try for knighthood. She does it publicly, without having to hide her gender like Alanna, and the book talks about the different set of challenges she faces, the prejudices, but also her successes. I’m currently on book 4 in the quartet, Lady Knight, and I still have aways to go. I like rereading books – good books, that is – you know what is coming but you don’t remember all the details, and it’s like saying hello to an old friend.

Now for the blog hop part: I’m linking up with this week’s Yarn Along, this week’s Tami’s Amis WIP Wednesday, through Ambassador Crochet’s Wip Wednesday and Frontier Dreams’ Keep Calm and Craft on (KCCO) blog-a-long. Check out some of the other awesome wip posts.

A brief meditation over sal -

Sal – ad
Sal – sa
Sal-oon
Sal – on
Sal – t

Ok, salt still does apply, but as an ingredient. Yes, today’s post is about the first two “Sal”s. How do you decide which one to make – salad or salsa? What’s the defining line between the two? I’m sure Dictionary.com and those other websites will come up with all kinds of definitions that explain the difference. But when you’re throwing things together, when is it a salsa and does it become a salad? And lets ignore the other S word that I keep typing accidentally – Slaw. Another favorite of mine.

Yes, I know that the word salsa means sauce. Yes, you use a sauce to accompany something. It’s an accessory. But then there are the salsas (is that the correct plural?). A bunch of them include ‘color names,’ letting you know more about their ingredients, such as salsa roja, salsa verde, salsa negra and so on. I guess the kind of salsa I’m thinking about goes more in the direction of a salsa fresco, or also known as pico de gallo. (Btw, there are versions of salsa throughout many cultures, not just the Mexican version that most of us know).

Le salad

Salsa or salad, I was planning to make something fresh, to match this lovely warm weather. We had fresh mangos so I thought I’d go with a classic: mango black bean salsa. And I had feta, and I’d seen recipes for mango black bean feta salsa, so that was the plan. I also came across a quinoa black bean mango salad which sounded delicious. It included a red bell pepper which a) I couldn’t quite figure out how it would fit in there and b) I didn’t have anyway, so the point was moot. By now I’m all set on my menu.

But then. Then I realized I had a pomegranate that really needed to be used up. So hey, I could just toss in a pomegranate too – pomegranate and mango should go well together, right? Some quick googling showed more pomegranate mango body soaps and lotions rather than salads and slaws, but I’m always up for an experiment. So first I added the black beans, the pomegranate, and then I started prepping my mango. Darn. My mango was too soft. It would get all mushy when tossing.

Ridiculously awesome dressing

Ok, alternate plan. I’d seen a recipe for a zucchini, mint and pomegranate salad. This one used feta, which I did have, and zucchini which I didn’t have. Another salad recipe combined pomegranate and feta, plus spinach, red onion and walnuts. By now I was grumbling at myself for not planning out my menu more carefully. Then there was this quinoa herb & pomegranate salad. This one also used mint, so mint was the way to go.

Back to my black bean and pomegranate mixture. The pomegranate arils added crunch which contrasted nicely with the creaminess of the black beans. The color contrast was ok – the dark red and the dark brown weren’t that visually interesting. Time to add the mint, and then the feta. Now it looked better, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I still wanted to add something interesting. And then, then I found two pomegranate salad recipes that used (mandarin) oranges – a cauliflower pomegranate orange salad, and this really awesome arugula, fennel, apple, mandarin orange and pomegranate salad from Bon Appétit. My orange was meant to go into this Cannoli Crepe Cake (oooh, alliteration!), so that was a no go. Instead I used a small can of mandarin oranges.

And now I had the perfect salad – crunchy because of the pomegranate, creamy because of the black beans, slightly salty from the feta, minty because of the mint and orangey and slightly sweet from the mandarin oranges. The accompanying dressing totally rocked it. Btw, I make my dressing in a glass jar – I just have to shake it to create a great emulsion. Just make sure that your lid fits on tight. Plus it’s easy to save any extra dressing since your dressing is already in a jar.

Salad with awesome chicken (stay tuned!)

Now, this was a spur of the moment salad/salsa, so I used what ingredients had. If you want to cook your own black beans instead of resorting to the can, go for it! Same with the mandarin oranges – you can easily use fresh mandarins or oranges. Grapefruit or blood oranges would be great as well. I would use orange juice, fresh preferable as a substitute for the mandarin syrup. Make sure to use plenty of mint – it really really makes the salad. Also, I used a light canola oil (organic) since I didn’t have any good quality olive oil handy. Here’s the recipe for my pomegranate black bean feta mandarin mint salad:

Ingredients:

one pomegranate
15 oz low sodium black beans (one can)
150g feta
11 oz mandarin oranges in light syrup (one small can)
a handful of mint

Dressing:

2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp of olive oil
1 tbsp of lemon juice
1 tsp of honey
1/4 cup mint
syrup from the mandarin can
pinch of salt

Preparation:

Remove the arils from the pomegranate and clean properly. Remove the black beans from the can and drain properly. Cut the mint into a chiffonade. Remove the mandarin oranges from the can and halve. Mix the black beans and the pomegranate. Crumble the feta into the salad. Add the mint, and add the mandarin oranges at the end so they don’t fall apart.

Cut your mint into a chiffonade. Mix the salad dressing ingredients except for the mandarin syrup. Taste and add the mandarin syrup in small batches so the dressing doesn’t end up too sweet. The syrup is a nice balance to the acidity in the dressing. I like my dressing on the tangy side. I did make a really big batch of dressing, so I scaled the ingredients up in order to have leftovers. Toss your salad with part of the dressing, and slowly add more dressing so your salad is evenly coated without becoming too soggy. Don’t forget that the mandarin oranges fall apart easily.

This was not how I was planning to get more knitting time in…

I was having a lovely dream. I won’t bore you with the details (partly cause I don’t remember them all), but it basically encompassed the life story of this old woman, whose husband had died a few years ago. She missed him, and wanted to go visit their favorite place, on some little island, and she’d asked me to take her there. And then she wanted to leave a la Titanic (the movie) style, but suddenly she was trying to convince me to move on with her. With a big serrated bread knife that she was trying to stab me into my stomach with. Grandma had turned into a deranged little lady. Which was when my dream turned into a nightmare and things evolved into all kinds of horror scenarios with this sweet little old lady trying to use various means to kill me while ranting at me. Yeah.

I should add, I’m not the horror movie kind of girl. I have a way too active imagination. I end up freaked out with nightmares. If I end up trapped in a situation where I just can’t leave – I really hate those horror movies, no matter how well they’re done – I end up sticking my fingers into my ears, closing my eyes and mentally singing lalala. I can’t read stories with horror elements either, much less full-blown horror stories. I was translating the beginning of Stephen King’s “It” for a friend (she was reading it to improve her English), and I was so freaked out by that damned clown that I started to imagine it in all corners whenever I was walking home late. Ugh.

I know that some people love horror stories, and there are some really funny campier ones out there too, which should be totally up my alley, but no. I can’t do horror. And there was no reason for this dream either – I’d been blogging and planning recipes to try out and reading, So this came out of nowhere. But hey, thanks to the dream I woke up at 4am and didn’t fall asleep. I mean, what’s a knitter to do – there’s no reason this shouldn’t be knitting time, don’t you think?

I continued knitting on my Indian Red scarf, plugging away at sections D & E. I was all proud of myself, feeling righteous when I realized I’d made a mistake. I won’t bore you with the details, but basically, I needed to go back to section C and redo sections D & E. Grrr. So instead I thought I’d work on one of my Arts & Crafts projects, a decoupage picture frame made with paper napkins (my Father’s Day gift). I did a base coat, and after I’d finished with the various parts, I got up to wash my hands – and manage to put my foot through the glass. Yay. A huge mess of glass, and a puncture and a cut. I threw in the towel.

So, there’s not much progress to report on. Sigh. But I will finish my Erin Go Bragh shawl before next Wednesday. I’ planning to work on my Indian Red scarf, and the blanket, well, it’ll have to take a back seat for a while. It’s just to warm to work on it. Here’s a peek at my Erin Go Bragh – I just need to finish the last few short rows, the final wedge of color and the bind-off. That’s manageable, I really should have this done by Wednesday.

Now for the blog hop part: I’m linking up with this week’s Yarn Along, this week’s Tami’s Amis WIP Wednesday, through Ambassador Crochet’s Wip Wednesday and Frontier Dreams’ Keep Calm and Craft on (KCCO) blog-a-long. See you next Wednesday!

{this moment}

via Soulemama

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Happiness. Crispy waffle, fresh straw berries and whipped cream at the Spring Fair

(Y)arrrrrrrrrn along!

Another Wednesday, another day to check in and see what I’m knitting and reading. My current read is Winnie the Pooh, which I read for my nephew over Skype. We both love Winnie the Pooh. We have a few other books in that series, but the Honey Cake mix-up is by far his favorite. It’s a really cute story – I must have read it to him a hundred times already, but he still enjoys it. I think there’s something really comforting for kids (especially the young ones) to reread a story, and to know what will happen. Oh, and for all of you Winnie the Pooh lovers, there’s a great series of YouTube videos about “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.” It’s a real treat for my nephew, even though he’s only allowed to watch a bit.  He’s kind of scared by Owl, and that funny mole, and Tigger is a bit too hyper – he’s too fast for him to understand, but he loves the songs. I have them memorized by now, too – and I keep thinking of the “Up, down” song when I’m sweating on the elliptical.

As for my knitting, well, I have finished one of my wips, the pleated scarf, I just don’t have a picture of the finished object. And the mystery KAL shawl is almost done – I’m waiting on clue#6, the last clue, and then I’ll have another FO for March. It looks really pretty so far, so I’m curious to see what the finished project will be like. And we’ll apparently need buttons – I guess for optional sleeves?

Now, why did I cast on for another project even though I already have two other wips on the needles, including last week’s project? Well, last week’s melody shawl is going to be my mindless project, the one that I work on while I’m in the car (not while I’m driving!), or waiting anywhere where I’ll likely only be able to knit just a bit at a time, and where I don’t want to worry about keeping track of where I am in the pattern. I’ve made a bit of progress, so this will probably turn into another endless project (and it easily fits into my handbag, as you can see).

The other project is for my cousin and his fiancee – the better than better than pea soup blanket. I really do need to get cracking on that one since I’m probably headed to San Francisco in May or early June, and I’d love to take it with me at the time. It would be rather inconvenient to bring it to the wedding. Plus, I really want to finish this up before it gets too warm.

Ok, so back to the topic at hand. The German Wollmeise group (on Ravelry) is hosting a knit along called 12 Wollmeise in 12 months, with the goal to knit some of your treasured skeins instead of letting them linger in your stash, unknit. You pick out the skeins beforehand, give them a number and each month one number is drawn, and that skein is to be knit up. I’ve knit up January and February’s skeins, but I was late in working on my March project since my time was sucked up by my other Wips. So I’m a bit late to the party, knitting up this beautiful skein of Campari Orange light. It matches my mother’s hat really well, and she’s pretty excited to get this scarf.

The pattern is Anne Hanson’s Fernfrost, a really pretty pattern that shows of the colors beautifully. I thought that this would be a labor of love (well, more or less) since I was all scarfed out after that darn pleated scarf. But this one is flying of the needles, it’s so much fun to knit. I have till Saturday, so I’m hoping I’ll make it. And this time I’ll cast on for my April project right after that so I won’t be under such time pressure at the end of the month. Btw, I’m making this scarf narrower with only two rather than three pattern repeats, as per request, even though I tried to convince her otherwise. And now I’m wishing I had another skein in the color, to knit up a spring-inspired Windward for myself.

Phew, this was a long post. I’m participating in this week’s Yarn Along – there are links to other great Yarn Along posts there, with information on how to participate yourself. You can also find a link to this post through Tami’s Amis, and through Ambassador Crochet’s Wip Wednesday. Oh, and then there’s Frontier Dreams’ Keep Calm and Craft on (KCCO) series too!