We're hanging out in IA with Brett's folks for a few days before Thanksgiving. Brett ran the Living History Farms road race yesterday with Chris, his childhood buddy. Tradition has that this race is cold, wet, and absurdly muddy. I'd only seen pictures of the happy finishers until this year, and having seen it in person I can vouch that it is completely disgusting. The only reason Brett wasn't totally covered in mud was during one of the 8 creek crossings, a log someone ahead of him jostled tripped him up and he went face down in the frigid water. He was soaked.
Brett's folks and I had staked out a place along the run to watch them. (We also had to ford a creek to get to the prime locale, but no one fell in.) As soon as the first racer came past us I turned on the camera and waited. Every time it shut itself off, I turned it back on. I had it held up in front of me so that when we saw them coming down the trail, all I had to do was click the shutter and we'd have beautifully framed photos of our runners emerging from the mist.
Well, as you can imagine with a pack of 7500, it was a while before Brett and Chris appeared. Like, an hour. Eventually, the little low battery warning light came on, and I thought it was probably better to shut off the camera and save some for their grand entrance.
It's hard to pay close attention to thousands of runners for a whole hour. My only possible defense is that I was too diligent too early, expecting that they would be closer to the front of the herd.
Anyway, when they did run past us, we didn't even notice them until they were nearly past. I tried to turn on the camera quickly, but it was too late.
Well, I was determined not to miss a picture of them crossing the finish line, so I told the folks I'd meet up with them at the finish line and sprinted back across the creek and up the hill to beat the boys to the finish. I found a good spot, settled in, went to turn the camera on, and was horribly disappointed to find that there wasn't even enough battery to turn the stupid thing ON!
So there are no pictures of the guys running the race. I am shamed. Next time I go to a Brett race, I will be bringing my non-battery-powered, easy to use, SLR camera that Grandpa got me. I don't use it more often, because developing the film takes a while and is more costly than digital. But I do think it's worth it to get the shots I want.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Relaxing Weekend
Today is the last weekend day of my long weekend. Then I go back to work for a few days and then jump in the car to head out to the Midwest for the holiday.
I've been spending good chunks of each of my days this weekend making progress on both cleaning and holiday knitting. The goal is to have everything neat and tidy so that when we come back from vacation, we don't feel immediately oppressed by mess. I doubt it'll look as spotless as our respective parental houses, but it would be good to feel the house was calming and relaxing instead of stress producing clutter. I will say it looks a lot better. There are still boxes from the move, almost all stuff that no one's missing while it's boxed up, but I'd feel so much better if there were no cardboard containers left to clutter the house at all.
I have made good progress on knit projects, too. I finally darned Mom's sock, and blocked Brett's Mom's shawl so at least we won't be returning to the Midwest empty handed. My Priority One Christmas Knit is also making good progress. I'm not going to put too much info up here, but it is a technique I've never done before, so I'm experiencing a pretty big learning curve.
Spoiler A. I am using some combination in some proportion of the following yarns:
I didn't get to cook at home Saturday night because we went out to dinner with friends, but last night I cooked a pretty yummy shepherd's pie and one of the best loaves of bread I've made since leaving the farm. I want to do Knittle Bread rolls for Thanksgiving dinner, but I know I'm out of practice, so I did a little trial run. While I was looking for my recipe (a year ago I had it memorized!) I came across my Great grandmother's baked goods notebook. There's plenty of very old fashioned cookie and cake recipes in there, and I think it's time I pulled some of them back out.
So for dessert I made her molasses cookie recipe. Luckily it was one one with pretty good directions about how to execute the cookies. Lots of Greatgrandma's notes are just ingredients, some as wonderfully specific as "enough flour." She probably made those cookies all the time and knew just how the dough should look and feel, whether to roll and cut them or drop them, and how long and hot to bake them. I wonder how old some of the recipes are though; they often call for lard or to "bake in a quick oven". Those were things I was used to seeing in turn of the century cook books back on the farm, so it's neat to have some family recipes that may go back that far.
The recipe for the molasses cookies calls for melted shortening, and I recall Mom using margarine when she made cookie reciepes that called for that. Since my other shortening options were lard and Crisco, I went with Smart Balance, to get a buttery flavor I thought would be more appropriate in a cookie than that yummy lard flavor. I also thought, "this is plenty soft at room temp to cream together with the sugar, I don't think I need to melt it." Probably a mistake. The cookies, while totally delicious, were soft to the point of being goo when I took them out of the oven. I let them cool flat on parchment paper and they did firm up a bit and get kind of wafery crisp around the edges, but I'm blaming my substitution for their weirdness. I will use a more traditional shortening next time, and go ahead and melt it. But they did taste heavenly with a nice cuppa tea. The next recipe I'm trying from her notebook are the Phiffer Nusse.
Molasses Cookies
¾ cup shortening melted
1 cup sugar
¼ cup dark molasses
1 egg
2 tsp baking soda
2 cups sifted flour
½ tsp cloves
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
Mix in order
Chill 2 hr. roll in balls roll in sugar bake on greased cooky sheets 375 degree oven 8 to 10 min take off pan when hot
I've been spending good chunks of each of my days this weekend making progress on both cleaning and holiday knitting. The goal is to have everything neat and tidy so that when we come back from vacation, we don't feel immediately oppressed by mess. I doubt it'll look as spotless as our respective parental houses, but it would be good to feel the house was calming and relaxing instead of stress producing clutter. I will say it looks a lot better. There are still boxes from the move, almost all stuff that no one's missing while it's boxed up, but I'd feel so much better if there were no cardboard containers left to clutter the house at all.
I have made good progress on knit projects, too. I finally darned Mom's sock, and blocked Brett's Mom's shawl so at least we won't be returning to the Midwest empty handed. My Priority One Christmas Knit is also making good progress. I'm not going to put too much info up here, but it is a technique I've never done before, so I'm experiencing a pretty big learning curve.
Spoiler A. I am using some combination in some proportion of the following yarns:
I didn't get to cook at home Saturday night because we went out to dinner with friends, but last night I cooked a pretty yummy shepherd's pie and one of the best loaves of bread I've made since leaving the farm. I want to do Knittle Bread rolls for Thanksgiving dinner, but I know I'm out of practice, so I did a little trial run. While I was looking for my recipe (a year ago I had it memorized!) I came across my Great grandmother's baked goods notebook. There's plenty of very old fashioned cookie and cake recipes in there, and I think it's time I pulled some of them back out.
So for dessert I made her molasses cookie recipe. Luckily it was one one with pretty good directions about how to execute the cookies. Lots of Greatgrandma's notes are just ingredients, some as wonderfully specific as "enough flour." She probably made those cookies all the time and knew just how the dough should look and feel, whether to roll and cut them or drop them, and how long and hot to bake them. I wonder how old some of the recipes are though; they often call for lard or to "bake in a quick oven". Those were things I was used to seeing in turn of the century cook books back on the farm, so it's neat to have some family recipes that may go back that far.
The recipe for the molasses cookies calls for melted shortening, and I recall Mom using margarine when she made cookie reciepes that called for that. Since my other shortening options were lard and Crisco, I went with Smart Balance, to get a buttery flavor I thought would be more appropriate in a cookie than that yummy lard flavor. I also thought, "this is plenty soft at room temp to cream together with the sugar, I don't think I need to melt it." Probably a mistake. The cookies, while totally delicious, were soft to the point of being goo when I took them out of the oven. I let them cool flat on parchment paper and they did firm up a bit and get kind of wafery crisp around the edges, but I'm blaming my substitution for their weirdness. I will use a more traditional shortening next time, and go ahead and melt it. But they did taste heavenly with a nice cuppa tea. The next recipe I'm trying from her notebook are the Phiffer Nusse.
Molasses Cookies
¾ cup shortening melted
1 cup sugar
¼ cup dark molasses
1 egg
2 tsp baking soda
2 cups sifted flour
½ tsp cloves
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
Mix in order
Chill 2 hr. roll in balls roll in sugar bake on greased cooky sheets 375 degree oven 8 to 10 min take off pan when hot
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Darn it!
Last time I was in Illinois, Mom informed me that the socks I had knit her for Mother's Day one year had a pretty nasty hole in the bottom. I inspected the damage and, confident, able knitter that I am, I said, "Oh I can darn those, no problem!"
Judging by the placement of the hole, I'm blaming the damage on a wood floor mishap, rather than regular wear. It wasn't a bad hole, really. Sure, it had gotten a little out of hand with some dropped stitches, but the problem seemed to be a snagged thread on just one row.
Now, darning is not difficult.
No.
It's not.
But, like seaming, I always have a hard time reading the fabric well enough to pick out where to put the new stitches so everything is seamless. So last night I got a nice bright light, and kept the sock very close to my face while I worked. Often times a large hole is repaired with a weaving technique. However, since there was only a break on one row, I decided to try to mend with something more like a Kitchener stitch. (Oddly enough, while I hate seaming, I do love Kitchener. I use it all the time!) I was going for a subtle mend that wouldn't be too different from the rest of the sock.
First, I picked up the dropped stitches. A tiny little crochet hook would have been just the thing, but the only hooks I have are a smidgen too bulky to get into the little stitches of the sock. So I fiddled around with the darning needle until I had things picked up on both the top and bottom of the snagged row. I really wished I had a hook by the end.
The other tool that would have been helpful is a darning egg, or mushroom to hold the sock taut while I worked on the hole. It would have helped to keep the tension even and made it easier to see the stitches I was securing together.
I did run some black sewing thread through the stitches to give a solid background to work on and to pull the hole back together a bit. Then I took some spare yarn, the closest color I had to the Koigu I used in the sock, and Kitchenered the drifting stitches together along with a few solid stitches on either end of the loose ones. That's all it really took to fix the hole.
To keep things stable though, I went back over the strong stitches a few rows above and below the snag. I know from experience that the yarn in the repair will wear about the same as the Koigu. It will soften and bloom and felt just a bit and be plenty strong.
So there you have it! About an hour's work saves a perfectly good pair of socks. Does it take some effort? Yes, of course. But far fewer hours go into a good repair than into a new pair of handknit socks.
Judging by the placement of the hole, I'm blaming the damage on a wood floor mishap, rather than regular wear. It wasn't a bad hole, really. Sure, it had gotten a little out of hand with some dropped stitches, but the problem seemed to be a snagged thread on just one row.
Now, darning is not difficult.
No.
It's not.
But, like seaming, I always have a hard time reading the fabric well enough to pick out where to put the new stitches so everything is seamless. So last night I got a nice bright light, and kept the sock very close to my face while I worked. Often times a large hole is repaired with a weaving technique. However, since there was only a break on one row, I decided to try to mend with something more like a Kitchener stitch. (Oddly enough, while I hate seaming, I do love Kitchener. I use it all the time!) I was going for a subtle mend that wouldn't be too different from the rest of the sock.
First, I picked up the dropped stitches. A tiny little crochet hook would have been just the thing, but the only hooks I have are a smidgen too bulky to get into the little stitches of the sock. So I fiddled around with the darning needle until I had things picked up on both the top and bottom of the snagged row. I really wished I had a hook by the end.
The other tool that would have been helpful is a darning egg, or mushroom to hold the sock taut while I worked on the hole. It would have helped to keep the tension even and made it easier to see the stitches I was securing together.
I did run some black sewing thread through the stitches to give a solid background to work on and to pull the hole back together a bit. Then I took some spare yarn, the closest color I had to the Koigu I used in the sock, and Kitchenered the drifting stitches together along with a few solid stitches on either end of the loose ones. That's all it really took to fix the hole.
To keep things stable though, I went back over the strong stitches a few rows above and below the snag. I know from experience that the yarn in the repair will wear about the same as the Koigu. It will soften and bloom and felt just a bit and be plenty strong.
So there you have it! About an hour's work saves a perfectly good pair of socks. Does it take some effort? Yes, of course. But far fewer hours go into a good repair than into a new pair of handknit socks.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Saturday View
And the Saturday view is awfully pretty today.
Milkweed is great food for Monarch butterfly larva, so maybe next year we'll see some butterflies in the yard. It's a beneficial plant for other plants in the garden, as it repels lots of pest bugs. It's also supposed to be a great plant for natural folk remedies, which is why Carolus Linnaeus got it's scientific name from Asclepius the Greek demigod of healing.
Milkweed is great food for Monarch butterfly larva, so maybe next year we'll see some butterflies in the yard. It's a beneficial plant for other plants in the garden, as it repels lots of pest bugs. It's also supposed to be a great plant for natural folk remedies, which is why Carolus Linnaeus got it's scientific name from Asclepius the Greek demigod of healing.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Cool!
Have you seen this!?
Sparkly Dream in Color sock yarn! I'm not a big one for sparkles, but the pictures I've seen of the stuff in piles at yarn shops make it look totally gorgeous. Dream in Color has really beautifully dyed yarn. (Remember the Chinatown Apple Mittens from last winter?) But I want to know how they manage to spin the silver into the yarn. If I was spinning by hand, I can only imagine it would be painful or even dangerous.
And technology has given us yarn made from seaweed and soy; corn and bamboo; along with fleecy animals, fluffy plants, and worm spit. How neat is that!
Sparkly Dream in Color sock yarn! I'm not a big one for sparkles, but the pictures I've seen of the stuff in piles at yarn shops make it look totally gorgeous. Dream in Color has really beautifully dyed yarn. (Remember the Chinatown Apple Mittens from last winter?) But I want to know how they manage to spin the silver into the yarn. If I was spinning by hand, I can only imagine it would be painful or even dangerous.
And technology has given us yarn made from seaweed and soy; corn and bamboo; along with fleecy animals, fluffy plants, and worm spit. How neat is that!
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Off the needles
I really hate the light getting shorter and shorter these days.
But today I took advantage of a day off to grab a little sunlight and take some knit pictures.
I've finished two projects lately, both gift knits. The first one was a really fast winter hat I made for Brett out of the pearly grey Seacolors I picked up at Rhinebeck from Nanney Kennedy. There's a little bit left, enough for some wrist warmers, or mitten cuffs. I wound up just winging the pattern. It's a pretty basic boy-style stockinette hat, so it wasn't a huge design challenge. Still, I think it suits Brett and I like it a lot.
I do think my design tastes are trending more to the simple. I think it's because I'm appreciating my materials more and more and when I have great wool, dyed with such beautiful colors, I like to let it speak for itself.
My other F.O. is the shawl I started for Brett's Mom way back in the spring. The expectation was that I would polish it off in a matter of weeks, but then I got hung up on the yarn not being quite what I wanted for the pattern. It's a heavier weight which turned what should have been a super lofty confection into a little more serious winter scarf sort of shawl. Brett kept bugging me about not working on it, but I was convinced it wasn't what she wanted so I was delaying to see if I could get some actual laceweight from Lynn. No luck. So I just finished it off as best I could. I hope Brett's mom likes it regardless.
Unblocked lace always looks a little ragged,
but the afternoon sunlight helps it a bit, don't you think?
But today I took advantage of a day off to grab a little sunlight and take some knit pictures.
I've finished two projects lately, both gift knits. The first one was a really fast winter hat I made for Brett out of the pearly grey Seacolors I picked up at Rhinebeck from Nanney Kennedy. There's a little bit left, enough for some wrist warmers, or mitten cuffs. I wound up just winging the pattern. It's a pretty basic boy-style stockinette hat, so it wasn't a huge design challenge. Still, I think it suits Brett and I like it a lot.
I do think my design tastes are trending more to the simple. I think it's because I'm appreciating my materials more and more and when I have great wool, dyed with such beautiful colors, I like to let it speak for itself.
My other F.O. is the shawl I started for Brett's Mom way back in the spring. The expectation was that I would polish it off in a matter of weeks, but then I got hung up on the yarn not being quite what I wanted for the pattern. It's a heavier weight which turned what should have been a super lofty confection into a little more serious winter scarf sort of shawl. Brett kept bugging me about not working on it, but I was convinced it wasn't what she wanted so I was delaying to see if I could get some actual laceweight from Lynn. No luck. So I just finished it off as best I could. I hope Brett's mom likes it regardless.
Unblocked lace always looks a little ragged,
but the afternoon sunlight helps it a bit, don't you think?
Thursday, November 05, 2009
I do still knit sometimes
Since getting back from Rhinebeck with oodles of yarn I have actually been doing some knitting.
I finished a hat for Brett, which I love and think looks very nice on him. The next time I get home early enough to still have light to take pictures, I will.
And I'm still working on the Swallowtail Shawl. Pictures of that too.
I finished a hat for Brett, which I love and think looks very nice on him. The next time I get home early enough to still have light to take pictures, I will.
And I'm still working on the Swallowtail Shawl. Pictures of that too.
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