theknittyvritti

last of the year

 

We hate to go out on New Year's, but we love the time off for projects that don't fit into everyday life. I have been hankering to try to make french macarons, which are reputed to be quite tricky. Here you see two of the six or so that came out looking anything like they should. I did manage to make a workable meringue, and I got the fabled pied, or foot on them...that's the kind of ruffly bottom part. All I can say is that I think it will go better next time. Just have to cook them a bit longer and all will be well. But I am tres fatiguee from the effort, and will not be making the strawberry and chocolate ones I had planned for a neopolitan (remember that kind of ice cream?) effect.

 
Operations Man took on croissants this week, after promising them to Hightest for weeks. Of the two of us, I think he won the cook-off this week.

 

 At fifteen, the Yarn Eater has survived another year. This is pretty much what he looks like most of the time now. If there were a soundtrack you'd be hearing some very impressive snoring.

 

Like the dog, I like to look forward, so no retrospectives of knitting or anything else. I've spent way too much time living in alternate time frames, past or future, and am practicing as much as I can living in the present. Oddly, this is getting easier with age, even though I have more past to mull over, and no fewer concerns about the future.

 

A toast to you, dear reader.  Have a wonderful night, and a wonderful year.

 

 

let us eat cake

We had a big weekend for birthdays this past weekend. I am trying to become a better cake baker, and while this malted milk ball cake was absolutely delicious, it doesn't look so great. Recipe from the "Baked" cookbook, the recipe book of a local bakery in Red Hook, Brooklyn. 

More esthetically pleasing is this "watermelon cake" invented by my sister in law for those who were not indulging in cream, butter and sugar concoctions.  As you can see, we had a newly 10, 20, 60 and eighty year old as our honorees.

a little work, a little play

Yes, it's been 100 degrees, but the animals still have to earn their keep.

 

The dog helped out with the latest construction project before it got too hot.

 

Then she moved inside for a little secretarial work.

 

The Yarn Eater stood sentry most of the morning.

After their shifts were done, there was still time

 

for a little rest

 

and relaxation.
 

 

origami

 

This weekend, our cousins picked up their daughter and a friend from camp, and spent the weekend with us. Having the girls in the house was so evocative. I went to camp for years, and while I sometimes remember the astonishing cruelty of young girls, and the challenges of getting along in a group, this weekend I remembered the sweet pleasures of camp. The songs, the secrets, the freedom and exhilaration of being in a group of my peers.

I learned to make a paper crane in camp.  I have never quite gotten over my amazement at turning an ordinary square of paper into a beautiful bird.

 

Truth be told, I have been known to make tiny birds, one after another, while working. (One of the problems with a job where they call you "doctor" is that very few people seem comfortable asking "what the hell are you doing?", so in a story for another day, I have quite a few bad habits that I engage in while sitting in my chair. Not, alas, knitting, which I have deemed too self-indulgent).

Paper Crane by Kirsten Johnstone, must have been inspired by origami. You knit a shape like this:

 

and turn it into the body of a cardigan, as evidenced in the photo below.

Johnstone made hers in a Habu linen lace, which is lovely, and perfect for summer. But I had my own agenda. I wanted to make a sweater out of Malabrigo lace.

I had a few skeins of this yarn in the colorway "polar morn", and I like the idea of a really lightweight cardi for early fall. I've seen a lot of Whisper cardis made in Mal, but I don't really like the shape of the sweater (described by one Raveller as "boob enhancing"), so I haven't wanted to get on the Whisper train. I decided to see if Paper Crane would be well suited for wool. It turns out to be very well suited for this yarn, producing a lightweight garment that still hangs well, and is surprisingly warm. All that was needed in the way of mods was to lengthen it a bit (personal preference), and to reduce the number of rows for the armhole decreases to adjust for the slightly different gauge of the yarn

 

My answer is "yes". I like this sweater so much that I just couldn't wait to show it off. Please ignore the not-so-classy safety pin standing in for the beautiful button I will get just as soon as I can get to the store. I think this one has the potential to be just as much of an instant Malabrigo lace classic as Featherweight is. What do you think?

contraband

 

All week long, I anticipated a blog post entitled "I am knitting a cloud". I was visited by song lyrics, like "Get off of my cloud", and especially "Heaven is a place where nothing really happens", the latter because aside from a few torturous calculations to adapt the Paper Crane pattern to Malabrigo lace, nothing much does happen on this project, other than rows and rows of stockinette. Soothing, but not much drama.

Until Saturday. We got tickets to the Bob Dylan and Friends concert at Bethel Woods, the outdoor music venue on the site of the Woodstock music festival. My sister-in-law (age 62) is having a second adolescence....she has been kinda following Dylan around this year, and this was an opportunity for the whole family to share in her obsession. And, I thought, a great venue for knitting. Family, friends, music, knitting, the great outdoors, sign me up.

Little did I guess that my project is not a cloud. No, it is contraband.

 

I am accustomed to that moment of suspense at the airport when I don't know whether my needles will make it onto the plane. I realized a long time ago that the long plastic tube of my circular needles might make a fine garotte. But airline security has been unphased, maybe because I don't seem like the strangling sort of person.

Not so the nice young man who looked through my bag, or maybe Dylan's "people". It's apparently the performer's perogative to ban anything they want from the concert. So cameras and "sewing materials" as he said, are on Dylan's list. Even weirder was the conversation I had with the somewhat aggressive (yes, she was matching me in emotional intensity) woman who confirmed the ban. She actually offered to hold my needles, and when I was ready to leave, she said, I could call her on my cell phone and she'd get them back to me. Yeah, that sounds helpful. Me and her trying to connect at the end of an outdoor gathering of ten thousand people. I passed on her generousity and trudged back to the car to deposit my knitting.

As you can imagine this put a damper on the day. Not only did I have to relinguish my project, but my cell phone camera didn't work, so I couldn't have my little revenge. After all, trying to ban cameras is ridiculous, as the crowd were taking pictures and movies all night with their cell phones, not to mention an occasional large camera that had been smuggled in somehow.

And we're not even gonna talk about the plastic beer bottles flying (really) and the contact high from the drugs that were smuggled in in (unsearched) pockets.

Last summer, Operations Man and his sister saw Dylan in Prospect Park. Here is a quick look at the man himself, taken with OM's phone last summer. I guess it's legal, after all, they said "no cameras" not "no pictures". Or maybe me and Bob are both outlaws......he just gets to make more rules than I do.

 

Perplexed, I asked Dr. Knittyvritti what the big deal with the needles might be. She suggested that some performers are so narcissistic that they can't stand the idea that someone would be multi-tasking at their concerts.

retirement planning

High Test and I have been planning our retirement since we started working. It has always involved lots of chocolate and reminiscing about things we will be incapable of doing any more, and now it involves a lot of yarn. We took a test run this weekend.

 

The plane ride was auspicious. No problem getting our needles and hooks onto the plane, and the snacks were plentiful.

Although it was cold, the view was lovely

   

and much progress was made by all. In fact, this weekend kind of nailed the February NaKniSweMoDo project, since the entire back of cable-licious two was completed. This morning? Back to the real world of snowstorms, work and knitting snuck in between.

the yarn eater takes a vacation

 

Yes, that's the Yarn Eater, or at least what's showing of him, in his favorite spot this vacation. When he wasn't doing this, he was hiding behind a bed, thinking it was time to get in the car and go home.

The dog had a couple of favorite spots, too.

 

And we had our favorite spot. If you've wondered whether I ever knit socks, this should be proof that I do not. No sock knitter could pass up a perfect sock shot like this.

And in between all this resting, there as a little industry. Tumbling Blocks is finished!! It will be delivered to B., and photographed, tomorrow. I hope to post it this weekend, before we leave for the another week of doing nothing in Mexico. Who planned this? Oh yes, me.......

road trip

We're off this week, and eager to get upstate. We tried to get on the road yesterday morning before the huge snowstorm that was predicted got going. Unfortunately, we were a little late, and the storm was a little early. So our drive looked something like this:

And as we got closer, it started to look like this:

 

Some of the cars (mostly SUV's with four wheel drive-go figure) were spinning off the road, really holding up traffic. Fortunately, we didn't see any really nasty accidents, just a lot of little ones that were ruining plenty of people's day. And all of them on the other side of the road.

Operations Man has done plenty of this kind of driving, and our trusty old car really knows how to hold the road. So our trip was a little long, but uneventful, and reminiscent of many other snowy drives each of us have taken over the years. 

We arrived just as Ralph was coming to plow the driveway, piled into the house, gave the Yarn Eater his reward extra can of food for braving the car drive, which he hates, ate, watched a movie (The Happening, not too interesting), and woke up to this:

 

and this:

   

I think it's going to be a good week. Happy holidays, everyone.