Swatch Watch

When I get in a baking mood, watch out.  In the past 10 days or so, I've made a tart...

A pie...

 

Mini cheesecake...

 

MORE sandwich cookies...

 

...and oyster crackers.

I've also been knitting up a storm.  A local friend just had a baby, and I knitted a colorful pair of booties.

I like their tidy tops...

...and little straps.

The original pattern (free on Ravelry. com, called Saartje's Booties) calls for the booties to be knitted flat, or back and forth on two needles. 

Once done, you seam the two ends together and pick up and knit the straps.  However, when I did this, I felt the seam was a little messy.  It's no secret that I despise sewing together knitted pieces and avoid it when I can.

Since they're such a quick little project, and I had plenty of yarn, I knitted another pair.  This time, though, I used Judy's Magic Cast On to put my stitches on two needles, side by side.  I then knitted along those stitches, adding stitches, and put them all on 4 needles.  Yes, it's initially very fiddly...

...but as you knit, you add more and more stitches...

It becomes easy to handle, and the bootie grows out of these stitches nicely.

No seaming to do...it's already in one piece!  I think it's much, much tidier.  This is the method I use, too, for toe-up socks.

After finishing this project, I thought I might knit a stranded shawl.  I wanted to use yarn that I already had at the house, but I wasn't sure what colors to use.  I'm terrible at visualizing, so sometimes I knit a little color strip to help myself out.

White and maroon?  Tan and white?  Which color should be dominant, and which the background color?  I decided on white and maroon, white dominant, but frogged the project after only a few rows.  I was in the mood to make...more socks.

In my "yarn heyday", when I worked full time and had a totally disposable income, I made a lot of impulsive yarn buys.  This ghastly neon green, tan, blue, and maroon yarn is a perfect example.  Just a small knitted swatch shows how the neon dominates.

A friend had given me several skeins of dark blue yarn, though, that was the exact color of the blue in this skein.

I've read that a trick to dealing with unattractive variegated yarn is alternating it with a solid yarn, and I had a sock pattern that was perfect.  All stockinette.  One stitch solid, one stitch variegated, and repeat.  A solid cuff, toe, and heel.

The end result looked almost thrummed, a look I really love.

The finished socks were snug, warm, and colorful.  The annoying neon, when spaced out, blends in nicely.  I only used one skein of the blue and a half skein of the variegated, so technically I have enough to make another pair! 

Here's to continued productive free time!

Snow Day

Most of the country has been clutched in Winter's icy grip for months now.  They've had ice, sleet, snow...repeat.  South Carolina is not known for its snowy winters, however.  We usually experience something in the relatively balmy 40 - 55 degree range, with lots of sun.  Last week, though, something happened.  The temperatures dropped, the wind shifted, and...we got snow.

Not a heavy wet snow, but a light, powdery mix.

Still, it was enough for me to dig out my snow boots and head outside.

It was so strange to see our "tropical" plants covered in snow.  Our palmetto...

...and our japonica both looked so strange with their white dusting.

I love taking photos of the snowflakes.  Each one is individual, or so they say, since my macro lens doesn't magnify the flakes enough to make this determination for myself.

I brought Bosewichte, my intrepid explorer, with me.  He loves being outside in the snow.

I can't say the same for these Canadian geese, who quickly landed in our pond when the snow started and huddled together by the banks until the worst of it was over.

We can go about a quarter mile into the woods by our house before being cut off by a ravine, but it's a nice short walk in this sort of weather.

The snow melted after one day, but we'll always have the memory of South Carolina's version of a real winter storm!

Moving on to a different sort of "ice"...I've been reading about Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream for a while now.  As an ice cream aficionado, I've wanted to sample it to see if it was really worth $10 per pint.  It's gotten rave reviews, but the price seems awfully steep.  Todd and I had to make a run into Greenville recently, and lo and behold, a Whole Foods there carried the elusive pints.

I settled on Brambleberry Crisp, which was a honey vanilla bean base swirled with real fruit jam and oatmeal crisp pieces.  So what did I think? 

It was really rich, with complex flavors.  Lots of oatmeal crisp pieces, but I felt like most of the jam was on the bottom of my pint, which meant that only the last bowl was really perfect.  Fortunately, it only took a day or so to get to that "last bowl".  Good ice cream, but I'm afraid my tastes are a little more juvenile.  As you can see in the photo above, I prefer to keep a little cookie dough ice cream on hand, or maybe some cookies and cream.  I'm just not sophisticated enough for most of Jeni's flavors, and I'm certainly too cheap to spend $10 for a pint of ice cream.  It was nice for a treat, though!

By the way, I bought these little flower-shaped bowls specifically for ice cream.  They're small, so that a single serving of ice cream (about a half cup) fills them completely.  That way, I *feel* like I'm getting more ice cream than I actually am.

Finally, on to a knitting project that I completed in a timely manner, just as the snow was starting to come down...a pair of socks!  I mainly knit for others, but this year I've decided to knit a few things for myself.  I started with this Cherry Tree Hill wool in the Apricot colorway.

I have a tendency to buy yarn and store it away because "it's almost too nice to use."  No more!  I've had this yarn for at least 5 years, and I'm happy to say that I used the entire skein.  I chose a vintage pattern from 1898, which was originally a french sock pattern for a child, but has been re-sized and updated for an adult woman.  Now, some people in the knitting community might say that knitting fancy socks is like the nuns in Castle Anthrax making 'exciting underwear' that will never be seen (for those of you who are Monty Python fans), but I enjoy making socks.  It's a nice small space to try out new stitches.

These socks have little wheat sheaf-like patterns all around, with three lines of "scales" at regular intervals.

They were a perfect fit!

Now, I'm usually a fan of using solid-color yarn for socks, because I think variegated yarn detracts from the pattern, especially if it's complicated.  But I don't mind it so much here.

These warm socks, with a little bowl of ice cream, are perfect for these cold weather days.

Have a great week!