A Mile of Fair Isle (Help! I'm Stranded!)

I love frost.

I love how it gives a silvery outline to plant leaves.

I love how it accentuates and complements their natural colors.

I love how it lightly speckles the insides of leaves.

We've gotten an occasional snowy day with no real accumulation and a few frosty ones. While the cold reigns outside, I'm working inside on a project that's eluded me for the past year: learning fair isle, or stranded, knitting. My two biggest problems are obtaining even tension and having the dominant color show through the work when I carry floats.

Working laboriously through YouTube videos, I taught myself to carry a different yarn color in each hand. I decided on a thicker, more forgiving yarn, and light colors. My first project this way was a simple pair of mittens. Unblocked, they don't look like a success. They're bulky and the tension seems off. But apply water and some light stretching...

...and everything smooths out. See the difference between the blocked (left) mitten and the unblocked (right) mitten?

They fit perfectly and I'm absolutely thrilled with them!

The pattern is very forgiving, with no "floats". When you knit a stretch of at least 5 stitches in one color, you need to strand (or "float") the other color along with you so the strands inside your project remain small and tight, rather than loopy. You'd create quite a loop here if you knit 15 stitches in blue and then pulled your white across the back of your work to knit the next few stitches. You'd catch your fingers on it, and it can wreak havoc with your tension. Thankfully, no color went for more than 5 or 6 stitches here, I didn't have to worry about catching any floats.

Here is another example. My next project was a pair of stranded toddler socks in thick yarn. Inside out, you can see that none of the white stitches stretch for more than a few stitches. You can imagine the big loops if I tried to carry them much farther. This way, everything is tacked down nicely.

I learned something else with this project: afterthought heels. Basically, I knitted a tube that began with 1 x 1 ribbing and ended with a series of decreases that became the toe. Halfway through, where I wanted the heel to go, I dropped my green and white yarns strands and knit several stitches with some throwaway tan yarn. After knitting them, therefore placing them on my right needle, I slipped the stitches back onto my left needle and knit on as the pattern dictated with my green and white yarn. It's really easy and doesn't require any special skills.

Here you can see the tan line that designates the placement of the heel.

When I was ready to start the heel, I took a needle and ran it through the left "leg" of each stitch that held the top part of the tan stitches. Stockinette stitches have left and right "legs" and either is fine to use. I did this on the top and on the bottom of the row of tan stitches.

Then, I snipped away the tan stitches. I'd already captured the stitch legs with my needles, so no stitches are dropped.

Next, I slipped half of the top stitches and half of the bottom stitches on new needles and started to knit in the round with my green yarn.

I did a simple series of decreases, just like with the toe. In no time at all...a heel.

I'm really pleased with how they turned out, too!

I tried to tackle my next weakness, the floats that show through knitting. I started on a pair of white gloves...

...but even though I'm sure that I'm doing the technique correctly, the stranded blue yarn still showed through the white yarn.

Being the perfectionist that I am, I may have to frog these and try another project!

Cranberries were on sale at the grocery store last week. I don't like cranberries, but Todd does. I'd found a tasty-sounding recipe on the Smitten Kitchen website and decided to try it. The resulting muffins were so good that I was eating as many as Todd and loving the cranberries!

Cranberry Vanilla Coffee Cake (or Muffins)
Smitten Kitchen
Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients
One teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 cups fresh cranberries
2 cups + 1 tablespoon flour, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick + 1 tablespoon butter, softened and divided
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk

Directions
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease your muffin tins. In a bowl, mix vanilla extract and sugar together until well-blended. Take 1/2 cup of this mixture and your cranberries and pulse in your blender or food processor until finely chopped.

In a separate bowl, mix together 2 cups of flour, salt, and baking powder. In another bowl, beat together 1 stick of butter and 1 cup of vanilla sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. With your mixer on low, add half of the flour mixture, then half of the milk, and repeat. Mix until just combined.

Spoon batter in muffin tins, only filling halfway. Place a dollop of the cranberry mixture in each tin, and then cover with the remaining batter.

To make a crumble topping, mix the remaining 1/4 cup of vanilla sugar with the remaining tablespoons of butter and flour and crumble over the muffin tops. I skipped this step and didn't miss it a bit!

Bake for 1bout 18 minutes, until golden brown.

Oh my goodness...these were amazing. Sweet, tart, and flavorful.

I hope you make some this week. Enjoy!

A Bloom Boon

This is one of my favorite times of year...when everything is just starting to pop in the garden. My amaryllis plant is experiencing unprecedented growth...six beautiful, long-lasting blooms so far this year.

My tiger lilies are doing well, too. I bought one limp lily clearanced to .99 several years ago and planted it. The second year, a few small lilies came up, but each year, they grow and spread nicely.

The ditch lilies are up, too! Ditch lilies, or Hemerocallis fulva, are great for poor-soil areas. You may have seen great patches of them along the highway, hence their nickname. They thrive without attention in dry soil and full sun, so are perfect for areas of your yard that other things won't grow in. Be cautious, though. They don't play well with others and will quickly choke out competing plants in their vicinity.

My yellow yarrow had its first blush of color recently.

My favorite, though, is the hot pink. Each year the patches grow and spread. I can't imagine my garden without these colorful plants.

The feverfew bush is blooming...

...and I've gotten the first bloom on my "Endless Summer" hydrangea.

I love seeing all the individual petals unfurling.

The small dill patch from last year came back and spread with a vengeance. Dill seeds insinuated themselves into the cracks in our concrete driveway and grew rapidly. They smell delicious when you back over them! :) Thankfully, we have dill all along the fence line, too.

The first zinnia bud has appeared...

...as has the first cosmos bud.

My mallows have grown nicely and are just starting to go to seed. I planted cosmos around the mallows to provide a nice leafy 'cover' for the ground, and so that I'd patches of tall orange flowers to cover up the stalks when they go to seed.

Like every year...a surprise! I've got 6 or 7 larkspur plants growing in various parts of the garden. How did they get there? I don't know, but I'm really enjoying them while they last! An interesting fact: giving someone a specific type of flower denotes a particular meaning...i.e., a carnation means friendship, etc. Be careful who you give a larkspur to, though...larkspurs signify fickleness!

Insects have had quite a time with my flowers this year. I don't recall it ever being so bad before. The leaves on most of my zinnias have been eaten down.

My oriental lilies have fallen prey to another invasive insect, which has swarmed all over the leaves and buds, causing them to shrivel.

I don't use pesticides on my plants. Thankfully - I think - I've got more praying mantises than ever before. Another ootheca has hatched recently. These tiny mantis nymphs are still swarming all over the area near where they hatched from. They'll eat many, many garden pests.

In another part of the garden, this young praying mantis, from a different ootheca, looks alert on a leaf.

A lightning bug rests up for his nighttime performance. I've always loved lightning bugs and miss seeing them...there are so few of them in the city, compared to what I am used to in the country. I've read that lightning bugs are fast disappearing. Human encroachment on their habitats - woods and meadows - have decreased their numbers, but they also suffer from something called 'light pollution'. Lightning bugs communicate with each other with the flashing light of their abdomens. They can get confused with all the lights they see - headlights, lights from houses, street lights - and become unable to signal properly for a mate. That's why I love having big, messy gardens with pesticide-free insect control like (shudder) praying mantises...not only it is beautiful to me, but it can provide a safe haven for all types of insects.

Spiders are another great form of insect control. I found a large funnel web spider web behind my phlox. I know that like praying mantises, spiders are good to have in a garden. I'm still a little afraid of them, though, especially aggressive ground spiders like wolf spiders.

I seem to be obsessed with hover flies lately. I've bee photographing them on the yarrow...

...the feverfew...

...and on random leaves and stems. I can't help it...I think they're quite beautiful, with their tidy proportions, nicely lined wings, and evenly patterned abdomens.

Being on vacation recently gave me a chance to start a new knitting project. I wanted to make a slouchy hat in one of my favorite colors, mustard. This hat was designed by a Scottish woman who was born in the Shetland Islands and who recently released a book of patterns inspired by her life there. This particular hat uses a traditional lace pattern called 'cat's paw'. It didn't look like much after I finished it, but therein lies the magic of blocking.

One supper plate later...

...and voila! It's a perfect fit, and comfortably slouchy. I can see grabbing this hat in the fall, just before a long, brisk walk.

Another knitter sent me a surprise package this week, of vintage buttons. I love buttons of all kind, and these were beauties...pearly pinks, silvery bell-like circles, faux diamonds, some that looked like burnished steel, deep reds, pale greens, and calming blues...and a whole hodgepodge of whites, creams, browns, blacks, and bronzes.

I was glad to have a little surprise, because I needed a pick-me-up. Todd is out of town again, and I absolutely feel miserable when he's gone. He'll be home soon, though, and meanwhile I have lots to keep me busy...

Enjoy your week!