Careless Whisper

Sometimes you fall in love with a color, and then you have to find the project that will make it shine. That’s what happened to me when I saw the Tuareg colorway by Malabrigo. Many many many years ago I read a Young Adult series that took place among the Tuareg. I don’t remember much about the book, but I do remember how vividly the author described the Tuareg and their lives. She described their nomadic treks and their ceremonial drinking of green tea. She talked about their blue garments and their silver jewelry. So the color Tuareg really resonated with me.

Now, I had two skeins of Malabrigo lace in Tuareg. I love Malabrigo. The colors just shine. The only thing is, it tends to felt. I already had problems with felting – both on a cowl, one for my Mom, and one for my goddaughter. It just doesn’t seem that the yarn is resilient for heavy duty use. I’m tempted to us Malabrigo worsted for a sweater, but I’m scared of sweater fuzz and sweater felting. There are other yarn bases like Malabrigo Twist and Malabrigo Rasta that I haven’t yet knit with. And Malabrigo Rios is apparently machine washable! Whoa Nelly, t to try that out.

I had the Whisper cardigan pattern in my queue for a while – it looked like such a lovely and light little cardigan. Perfect for summer, over a dress or a top. The construction is interesting, too. You start at one sleeve, work across the back, and then finish up with sleeve two. You pick up stitches for the ribbing around the edge, and you continue knitting the bottom part until it’s long enough. Fun!

When I wound the yarn before casting on, I got the first hint that the yarn may easily felt. But I still persevered Now, the lace is pretty darn thin, so neither magic loop nor dpns worked for the first sleeve. I tried, but I got laddering, and that just really didn’t look in the lace. I ended up investing in a 12” Hiya Hiya needle, and that made the difference. The first part, sleeve to sleeve worked up pretty quickly. The ribbing took a little longer, but then, then came the back part. Oy. Endless, and I truly mean endless, endless, endless stockingette. Can I just tell you, if you’re knitting stockingette in lace weight, it really takes a long time?

But when it was done, it totally was worth it. The finished cardigan is light and whispery. And I used every little bit of yarn. That bind-off had me sweating – I was hoping I didn’t have to tink back. I literally had a few inches left. Phew.

Mom had fallen in love with the cardigan along the way, and since I still needed a birthday gift for her, the Whisper cardigan became hers. Ok, I finished it up way after her birthday, but she loves it all the same. And the color looks really good on her. The Tuareg blue was a really good choice. I’m pretty sure I’ll be knitting with that colorway again.

Starry

So. Lace. A lace shawl. If you’ve never knit one, it’s seriously intimidating. I looked at a chart and was confused, and a bit scared. I mean, how would that all make sense? How on earth were those instructions going to turn into something light and lacy?

I’d been knitting for, oh, nine months when I decided to challenge myself, and knit a lace shawl. I had already knit an Ysolda Teague pattern – an Urchin hat – and when she put up previews of her Whimsical Little Knits collection, I signed up. The booklet included a pattern for a lacy shawl, Ishbel. It consists of a stockingette section, followed by a lace edge. I figured I could tackle that – that would be easier than a completely lacy shawl.

Ishbel shawl knit in Dream in Color Starry, colorway In Vino Veritas

And, that’s when I discovered something that no one tells you beforehand: You’re going to purl a lot when knitting lace. For more ‘simple’ shawls you’ll purl the entire back of the lace, unless a pattern is charted on the backside, or unless it’s a garter stitch shawl. Sigh. Still, the result is gorgeous. Ultimately, lace is not as scary as you think. I’m fine with both written and charted directions, but I do highlight my rows. Lifelines really help – basically, you run a thread through a pattern row, or at the end of a section. That way, it’s easy to frog back if you’ve made errors, or dropped a stitch, without undoing the entire thing. I find it really really difficult to pick up dropped stitches in lace.

The yarn is Dream in Color Starry, which contains 2% silver fibers. That’s what gives the yarn that sparkly effect. It looks gorgeous in the finished object, and it dresses up the shawl. I think it’ll be great with more formal clothing, too. Love it! The colorway is In Vino Veritas, and I think the subtle colorshifts really look inspired by the colors of wine. It really is a great gift for my sister.

Silver sparkles, and gorgeous subtle color shifts

My cousin rocks

Do you have family members who are just awesome? Who just randomly call you, just to say “I’ve been thinking about you and I hope you’re doing well. Is there anything I can do to help?” (Shoutout to Arul right here). Yes? No? I mean, don’t get me wrong, things can just as easily crazy, and annoying, and there may be quite a bit family drama. And then there’s the aspect of personalities. For example, I seem to always – ok, almost always – clash with one of my cousins. We just get annoyed and grumbly at each other, but that doesn’t mean that we like each other any less. I guess that’s true for just about any family – some people you like, some people you fight with, and some people you’d rather not see again. Yes, I have some those relatives too, but fortunately I’m not close to them (obviously), nor the rest of the family.

Yup, that’s our family tree – my sister’s idea, and I love how it turned out. Btw, it’s really hard to get a baby’s handprint when it wants to curl up its fingers, even when it’s sleeping

I have bazillions of relatives. That has to do with my grandma being one of 14 children, and my Dad one of 9. Then you add in other relatives with multiple children, and I end up having 19 first degree cousins. Don’t even ask me how many second degree cousins I have. I have no idea. I always have to ask “who is their parent/sibling/child” so I can somewhat figure out who they’re talking with. And there also those relatives who have the same names, making life even more complicated. Then you have relatives like my brother-in-law’s sister-in-law’s sister, who is a friend, and to whose wedding I was invited to. I have a whole bunch more relatives like that. Btw, my Gran is turning 90 this year, so you can imagine the insanity of relatives turning up there. Still, she wants everyone to come. No idea where we’ll all fit. Yes, that’s another Indian thing, at least in my extended family – people come into town and will ‘naturally’ stay with you, how distantly your related – or not – to them, no matter how little or how much space you have. It’s an expectation and it’s very difficult to convince people otherwise

You’re probably asking yourself how all this relates to knitting. Well… I haven’t knit many garments. I’m intimidated by the whole shaping and customizing thing, and figuring out the right size and negative/positive ease and so on and on. I wanted to go to the fibre space workshop “Fit to Flatter” with Amy Herzog, but it fills up so ridiculously fast, I didn’t make it into the class – again. Enter my cousin. Well, he works at a startup in the education field, at Udemy. They offer online courses, including craft courses, some free, some not. He told me about Craftsy, and gave me a course as a gift. I of course chose “Fit Your Knits” by Stefanie Japel.

I have to say, Craftsy is awesome. I haven’t spent a lot of time on the website, but I love the fact that the courses are online. You can watch – and rewatch the courses, your access doesn’t expire. The Fit Your Knits course consists of 11 lessons, on a whole bunch of different aspects of garment fitting and modification. One of the lessons is called assessing the pattern which I think will be really really helpful. I mean, how often do you look at a pattern or a finished object, and you wonder how it’ll fit and if it’ll work for your body shape. And then they also have workshops which is pretty ingenious, since it is basically a combination of a pattern with a tutorial by the designer, and the possibility to ask questions.

The best part is that not only do they have a bunch of different knitting courses, they also have other courses, on crocheting (of course!), quilting, sewing, gardening and food crafts. Really neat, I’ll definitely have to try out some other courses.

There are other great craft websites out there, I’m sure. I’ve heard of Craftfoxes, Craftser of course , DIY Network and so on. If I’ve left one out that you think I should absolutely include, let me know. I’m planning on putting up a separate page on useful craft websites, as well as a page listing craft blogs and blog hops, so let me know what you’d like to see on there. Happy crafting!

 

Dear mother, please do not felt the knitting

You know, sometimes it’s just not a good idea to be overzealous when trying to keep your knitting clean. Sigh. I mean, really, Mom. I know you mean well. It’s just that you might want to stick to the instructions when washing your knitting. You might also ask what kind of fiber it is, is it superwash or not, and so on. I know that some washing machines have a wool washing cycle but if you want to go the extra mile, you could just handwash it in cold water. That also applies when blocking – is this material that can be wetblocked, can you steamblock it, or would it all be in vain…

But yeah, my Mom felted a project. A gift I knit for her that she really loved. It’s a Herringbone Cowl – a pretty and dense cowl. She prefers cowls that aren’t too ‘airy’ so they can protect her neck against the wind. It really is a great design although I wouldn’t recommend using a highly variegated yarn – you’ll lose the herringbone effect. But the pattern will really show off more subtle yarn shifts. The yarn I used was Malabrigo Silky Merino in the colorway Amoroso. Very luscious yarn, and a combination of silk and merino. Yes, there’s enough merino in there to felt the yarn.

You can see the subtle colorshifts from red to pink and back

I unfortunately didn’t catch Mom before she stuck the cowls in the washing machine. Yes. She felted another cowl while she was at it. You should have seen my expression when I saw the shrunken cowls.

Pre-felting…

The yarn is TLS silky merino worsted by Pigeonroof Studios. Beautiful yarn, soft and yummy, a mix of merino and silk. Once again, another yarn with 50% merino, 50% silk. Krista from Pigeonroof Studios dyes lovely yarns, and beautiful roving.

Well, the cowls shrunk after washing, as felted items do. Yup, Mom couldn’t fit them over her head, despite all of her attempts. They now linger in her cold weather accessories basket. Hmm, I have to see if the cowls fit over my goddaughters’ heads. That way they’ll be useful once again. And now Mom knows to ask me before washing handknit items.

Mom, I love you. I really really really love you (I even made a stop motion video for you). But please don’t felt handknit things again, ok?

Felted necklace by Vacide Erda Zimic, can be found here. You’ll find amazing items there, and all of them are focused on sustainability as well.

Mother’s Day deliciousness

(Yes, these are petit fours. No, I didn’t make them. But they were so ridiculously cute, so Mom got them for breakfast. Ok, we split them. I think a petit four per person is plenty. I didn’t have time to make a big breakfast anyway since we went to an Indian dance performance on Sunday morning. I will make my own petit fours one of these days, I promise).

Sometimes you’re fortunate enough to be in town so you can actually prepare a meal for your mom for Mothers Day. I already mentioned the salad that I made, but I also made a cake. Yum. I have a huuuuuge sweet tooth. I love cake, especially homemade cakes. You know that someone put in a time and effort to create something that you think and hope the recipient will like.

We have a few standards around here – nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you feel like branching out. And sometimes a recipe lands in your inbox that you just HAVE to make. That was the case this time around. I got an email from Sassy Radish with the recipe for an awesome cannoli cake. Cannoli. Cake. And Crepes. (I love the alliteration). Just repeat these words. You it has to be good. Add orange puree and you have a homerun.

And yet – I just had to tinker around with the recipe. No great modifications, but something to suit my tastes, and the ingredients I had handy. For example, I had a few overripe mangoes that were just too mushy to use in a salad. Ergo – mango puree mixed with the orange puree. I modified the crepe recipe to get thinner crepes. I used orange and lime zest. I used less sugar – most recipes can stand a reduction of sugar, and still taste just as great.

This was my first time to make my own ricotta. It turned out beautifully and I think I’ll try to use as much homemade ricotta as possible. I couldn’t find any cheesecloth for the life of me so I just used an organic baby diaper cloth made of muslin. With that fabric it took 6 hours til I got the right consistency of ricotta. I got about 2 1/2 cups of ricotta out of the recipe. The 2 cups of ricotta filling weren’t enough for me, so I stretched the filling by using that last 1/2 cup with lime zest, and approximately 1 1/2 powdered sugar. I also used less powdered sugar in that first batch of ricotta filling.

The crepes: The first crepe was thicker which was perfect for the bottom layer. But I didn’t like that thickness for the remaining crepes, plus I would only end up with a few layers. I stretched the crepe batter by adding a bit of milk and some water – probably 1/4 cup of milk, and 1/2 cup of water. I used less than a 1/4 scoop of batter – however much I needed to just coat the bottom of the pan, resulting in perfect thin crepes. They also didn’t cook as long, max 1 minute on the first side and about 20 seconds on the other side. I had an awesome non-stick pan where I barely needed any butter to cook the crepes.

And the orange puree. I had 3 mangoes which were going to into that puree. I had one orange – and no zest. My zest had been used up in the ricotta filling, and smarty pants that I am, I didn’t read the recipe closely enough and realize that I’d need two oranges. So, no orange zest, and no simple syrup. The mangoes were sweet enough to make any added sugar unnecessary. The resulting sauce is still ridiculously delicious – I had it for breakfast, for example on my porridge. Mmmm.

The finished cake. Don’t you want to try some, too?

Since I had so much orange-mango puree I used about 1 1/2 tbsp fruit puree between the layers. And since I wanted the finished cake to look extra pretty, I added a final layer of fruit puree on top. It almost looked like a fruit glaze. So good. I refrigerated the cake before serving it made it easier to cut lovely wedges that wouldn’t slide apart during serving. I served the cake with extra fruit puree and a slight dusting of powdered sugar. I let the photos speak for themselves:

Come sail away, Mom! (Oh Mother, Where Art Though?)

Hey guys! You know how life sometimes interferes? That saying about best-laid plans [...] of go awry? Well, that was me yesterday. I had all those ideas about a great meal (hey, when you’re in town you’re obligated to cook for your Mom), and a really inventive gift. I was going to post about it as well as my other long-distance gift ideas – and then stuff happened. Nothing bad, just that lots of things were going on and some stuff just didn’t get done. I didn’t manage to finish yesterday’s post before the scheduled publishing time. And once it was out, I didn’t want to unpublish it until Monday. So, I’ll put up a post about my long-distance gifting ideas another day.

But! My mother’s Day gift is done! I ‘gave’ it to her more towards the end of the day since I spent so much time tinkering around on it, but I did still give it to her on Mother’s Day. I hope you’ll enjoy as well.

Oh Mother, Where Art Thou?

As you get older it gets hard and harder to spend Mother’s Day with your mother. Much less than that, it gets even harder to spend the day with your grandmother. And then there are all the other mothers in your family or among your friends who deserve appreciation. But even if you can’t spend the day with them, you can still make the day special for the mothers in your life. There is always the classical option of ordering flowers for them. In fact, you can order all kinds of things online. You can order gift certificates for some pampering – spa and other options like that are popular. And of course there are all kinds of other gift certificate options as well. There’s the jewelry option. You can offer to take them out for dinner when you’re in town the next time. Oh, and everybody says that household appliances aren’t a good idea. But my sister loved the KitchenAid she got which she’d been wishing for (a bunch of us chipped in).

But the gifts my family appreciates most are the handmade kind. I know Mom treasures every handmade card that we made for her as kids. I’m pretty sure she’s kept them all. (Same with Christmas and birthday gifts.) So, what to give to my Mom? Last year I was in town so I made a special meal for  last year I made handmade gnocchi with pesto and then homemade scones with strawberries two ways, one of them being a lemony strawberry “pan-jam.” (Let me know if you want the recipe). Even if you’re not in the same town as your Mom, you could always make her a care package. It’s not a new idea, but I was reminded when Giade de Laurentiis and Ina Garten featured care packages on their show.Careful with shipping food from abroad – I don’t think you’re allowed to mail those kinds of things. And as you know you’re always asked if you’re mailing food or perishable items, so choose a delivery method where you can make sure that your package arrives in a timely way. Nothing worse than getting a package of spoiled food a month after the fact.

What did I give my Mom this year? Well, you’ll have to visit back tomorrow – I need to show it to her first. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!

Btw, if you run an image search on the term Mother’s Day you’ll find all kinds of cheesy and overly cutesy images. And so much pink! Good golly Miss Molly.

Ghostly whisper

It’s time for another blast from the past. Ok, it’s not that old, but here’s a finished object from 2011. Meet my Ghostly Whisper. It’s a lovely cowl, knit in laceweight yarn. This was my first time knitting with Rowan Kidsilk Haze. I liked it, but boy, the finished cowl fuzzed all over my shirt. Is fuzzed an actual word? Anyway, I feel like you need to take a lint roller along if you wear this cowl. But the yarn is very soft, and very very light. It could just fly away in a light breeze. In fact, I tried to take some ‘floating’ pictures, with me throwing the cowl in the air, but the lighting wasn’t good enough, and as you can imagine, the mechanics were more than a bit challenging. It reminded me of my photography project where we had to ‘photograph’ movement.

I knit this pretty much as written in the pattern. The cowl ended up a bit longer than planned – it fit loosely over my shoulders and draped nicely. I would have liked for the cowl to be just a little bit shorter so it would be a bit more snug around the shoulders. I used the invisible cast on and cast on onto a spare Knitpicks needle. That way it was really easy to graft the ends together. You have to be really careful while grafting to avoid fabric puckering. The pattern suggests to pull the length of yarn through at the end, after the grafting. I don’t think that’s a good idea, given the nature of the Kidsilk Haze. Instead I pulled the yarn through along the way, making sure to keep enough tension, without puckering up the seam.

The cowl has since been rehomed and went to my friend Hanna as a birthday gift. Yay for handknit gifts!

9 degrees Fahrenheit/minus 13 degrees Celsius

It’s freezing. Really really freezing. At least it’s sunny, and we don’t have to deal with tons of snow too (apparently it would be even colder with snow). So this is a good time as any to put up a post about winter wear.

I made this lovely pair of gloves 2 winters ago, for my friend Ulrike. It took a bit to figure out what pattern, and what color; ultimately she decided on this lovely burgundy shade of Wollmeise called Merlot. This was the first time I was knitting gloves, and the project moved along pretty quickly until I had to do all those fingers. And yes, there were quite a few ends to weave in. Nothing like those kinds of projects to scare you away from part II. But I plugged along, since I wanted to finish the gloves while it was actually cold enough to wear them.

So, gloves finished. Yay! Enough fiddling around with fingers, and making sure everything fits. And then I made the mistake of showing the finished project to my sister. And of course the comment was “I want a pair too!” In the same colorway. Well, thanks to the generous yardage of the Wollmeise skeins, I had enough to make pair #2. My sister’s hands are smaller, so I knit the second pair with smaller needles, otherwise everything is the same.

The pattern is called Knotty Gloves, and it’s one of the bazillion glove/mitten designs by Laris Designs (ok, not bazillion, but she has 20-30 different glove designs out there). It’s a really good starting place for a newbie glove knitter – and it’s pretty easy to fit properly. The only issue is that the knotty pattern makes the gloves somewhat bunchy on top. Oh well. Ultimately, they look pretty, and keep your fingers warm.

Oh, and btw, this season makes me think of the “I’m freezing” children’s song from Music Together: Sticks. Music Together is this really lovely children’s music education series, and the songs and rhymes are really cute. Plus it’s music that’s bearable for adults too (I would not be able to listen to Barney over and over, but this, this I can do). Anyway, here’s a really cute version enacted by this little girl (no idea who she is, but she’s doing a lovely job

What to do with…?

I’ve been part of the 10 shawls in 2010 group for a while – so long that the group moved to 11 shawls in 2011 and now 12 shawls in 2012. I haven’t managed to reach the group goal in any of the past years, although I’ve given it a good try. It’s just that there are so many other things to knit up, plus requests, gifts, and so on.

So I’m trying to figure out my which projects I absolutely want to knit this year, especially since I’m participating in the 12 Wollmeise in 12 month KAL. I figure this is the perfect opportunity to match some of the yarn and yarn colors I love with patterns that have been lingering in my queue.

The problem is, what would I do with all those shawls? I’ve already distributed some of the FOs among friends and family, and there are some people that I’ll be knitting for. And I do want to gift shawls to people where I feel they’ll really appreciate them. But beyond that, really, how many shawls can I wear? I’m the kind of person to stick with one accessory for a long time. I have a favorite cowl – hello, American Apparel – that isn’t even handknit, and a favorite handbag that I use all the time. I have a few finished shawls that are lingering in their accessory box. And I’d hate for shawls to sit in a pile, unappreciated.

What do you do with all those shawls that you knit?