A few things I’m having to adjust to (most good, some not so much), now that we’re home —
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Tidied up some things on the blog — finally figured out how to make the buttons link directly, instead of having to list the titles and the buttons, so I’m feeling very pleased with myself!
(Still can’t get that Lace Knitting Ring button to come out the right size, though….)
I am annoyed that I cannot make the TypeLists sort in alphabetical order while ignoring the initial article. Also it sorts non-capitalized titles at the end of the alphabet. Why?? The cataloger in me wants to use the spelling or fomat the author chooses, but then I can’t stand seeing them out of order! — my apologies from a distance, therefore, to those bloggers whose titles start with "The" or "A" or who use the lower case, as I have omitted the initial articles and capitalized the titles in order to get them to sort properly. (Surely it can’t be difficult to write a program that recognizes "L" and "l" as the same letter?)
I’m also trying to use up the stuff in the cupboards, so today I made the oatmeal cookies from "Who Wants Seconds?". Truly an international affair — Australian flour and Hawaiian sugar, German baking powder, New Zealand organic eggs, in a Hong Kong kitchen, from a blog by an expat American in London.
Run over now, don’t walk, and get the recipe! they’re great, chewy with a nice bit of oomph from the oatmeal. I used dried blueberries instead of chocolate chips, since I had them — this makes it sound like a compromise, but in fact it was delicious. Healthy, too, with oatmeal and blueberries, right?! I’ll have another, then.
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Marjorie invited me to her home and the August get-together with Siow Chin, Joy, and Eva, with Vivian and her sister. I got to pore over a huge stash of new magazines and books (this one, too) as well as knit and admire everyone else’s projects. (Got to get me some of that Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud ….) Thank you all — mm-goi saai!
It had stopped raining when I got home, and was a surprisingly quiet afternoon, grey and still. Julia had actually gone to bed for a nap on her own, and Laura was watching cartoons with the babysitter, so I made myself a cup of tea and read for a while.
Well — I’ve recently joined two knit-alongs, one with a finite completetion date, so I’d better get cracking,
and the other, blissfully open-ended,
I have at least one, possibly two, baby projects in the planning stages — am thinking of a certain wrap-style jacket from an old Knitter’s magazine. I have some Rowan cotton in a pretty girly purple from a completely stalled Debbie Bliss project (which would be better in a yarn that actually worked up to the right gauge, eh?), so I’ll start swatching when we get home.
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Kind of hard to get excited about a blanket, that just goes on and gets only longer instead of different. But — I am now on the fifth ball of yarn, and it looks like it will be a nice size. No bets on the final measurements, of course, but this time I’m getting almost exactly 3 1/4 inches per ball, and it’s about 45 inches wide, without blocking. I have to say, I love this pattern. The "plume" part with its scalloped edges, and the little cable-esque detail — really nice.
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Marjorie tagged me for this, so at the risk of sounding overly meme-ish, here’s another one!
Marjorie’s answers are here, and I will in turn tag a handful of my favorite bloggers, off-list, in case they have already done it (I’ll check first, but sometimes things get past the old 20-400s, you know), they really are too busy, or they are, as The Farmette Report puts it, allergic to memes.
If you want to participate here’s what to do: remove the blog at #1 from the following list and move everyone up a spot, then add your blog’s name and link in the #5 spot. Check to make sure the links are still attached if you cut-and-paste.
1. nepenthe’s misadventures
2. dynamiteknits
3. purly brites
4. HKknitter
5. A Bluestocking KnitsFive Things I Miss From Childhood
Pineapple upside-down cake. My grandma (on my dad’s side) was not terribly maternal, not like my other grandma, who was famous for her cooking and sewing and doting. But Grandma S. made the pineapple upside-down cake of the gods. Rectangular, in a 9×13 pan, no maraschino cherries ever, canned pineapple, just a basic upside-down cake that somehow became one of the most exquisite things I have ever tasted. Always with corners, because during baking the butter and brown sugar would collect at the edges, thus especially in the deep corners, and come out of the pan with a chewy, caramelly richness that contrasted wonderfully with the moist whiteness of the cake. I have made lots of pineapple upside-down cakes in my time, and they are delicious, and still in my Top Five Cakes, but they are never the same as Grandma’s, somehow.
Come to think of it, I miss grandmas. I don’t have either one, any more. Just thinking this brings tears to my eyes. They both became rather human, as I grew up, but that doesn’t make my childhood memories any less idyllic.
Pure, unadulterated, all-consuming reading. In my grade school days, I used to go through phases when I’d read the same thing over and over again — or at least it seemed that way — when the sign-out card at the public library was filled with my loopy, childish signature all the way down the list. I could read all the time, whenever I wanted, not like now when not only do I not have the time to call my own, but I don’t really have the patience or even the concentration to sit and read all day. There was the summer of Laura Ingalls Wilder, when I did nothing but read the Little House books, the whole summer, I think. My favorite was "Little Town on the Prairie", but that may have been because the library had only one or two copies, so it was kind of rare and special. I wrote to the Museum in Mansfield, and a very nice lady put up with all my questions, graciously and patiently. I think I had half an idea that she really was Laura. I had a Trapp Family phase, brought on by, if I remember correctly, the first movie I ever saw in a theatre, "The Sound of Music" — one look at those glorious Austrian mountainsides on the wide screen, and I was hooked. I read the play, the original book, wore out the soundtrack (my record had a skip near the beginning of "Do Re Mi" so that Maria said "do re mi fa so la ti — [click] easier," and I still can’t help hearing it that way). There was also a phase when I read, probably alternately, "The Lost Queen of Egypt" and "The Egypt Game" — the first starting a lifelong passion for Ancient Egypt. This particular phase was the occasion of my first foray into the adult side of the library, a tremendous and momentous day in my memory — the first check-out was probably Howard Carter’s "The Discovery of the Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen". A later phase was Tolkien and Narnia — I can’t remember which I read first, now. I was given a copy of "The Hobbit" for Christmas in 1975 (ack), and I tried to read it but just couldn’t get past the first page — what was he talking about? — put it away, then picked it up some time later, high school I think, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I’ve read the whole cycle, and Lewis’ Narnia series, umpteen times since then. So, the age of this kind of reading is long past, and while I appreciate that the books available to me are much more varied, both in selection and subject matter, I miss that head-in-the-clouds obsessiveness of childhood reading.
(My mind is boggling at these links. "Oh, look, the Museum still has those sunbonnets! Lots more stuff now, though, patterns! will have to check that out…" "Hmm, Agathe’s written a memoir, maybe I’ll get that from the library. I haven’t thought about them for yonks. Johannes is running the lodge in Stowe!" (Can’t seem to get my head around the fact that Johannes is probably in his seventies by now.) "What about that movie?"
Our cabin in the San Gabriel Mountains. It was a little stone cabin, one main room with a lean-to kitchen at the back. There was no automobile access, except for the forestry-service rangers, so we hiked in the two miles on foot, packing our supplies — well, Dad carried them, of course. We had no electricity or running water, and only an outhouse which was full of spiders and possibly snakes as well. Much of the time was taken up with maintenance, as there were strict fire regulations about the closeness of brush and leaves to the cabins and such, but there was also playing in the creek only steps from our front door, tiger lilies, exploring with our beloved German Shepherd, clambering over granite boulders, the everpresent smell of bay, card games by lamplight at night. I remember a ranger coming by once, on a bay horse, and I was utterly enchanted — I must have been very small, because the horse was huge, with gloriously long black legs and a shiny auburn coat, and the ranger, from the toes of his boots to the distinctive silhouette of his hat against the sky, was like a giant or a prince from a fairy tale. I love bays to this day, and I confess to a soft spot for rangers as well. (I wouldn’t be surprised if my fondness for the Dúnedain relates directly to this memory.) My parents eventually found the upkeep of the cabin too much for them, and sold it for $1,000 cash. The cabin was still there, remodeled a bit but still recognizable, a few years ago when I hiked in with some friends….
It’s hard to think of a fifth one, hard to decide, anyway, as the others bring bring in a rush of related memories — driving towards the canyon on almost completely unpopulated freeways, going to a similarly uncrowded Disneyland (you could do all the rides in one day, easy!), walking to places like the library by myself from as early as what, seven or eight years old, phone numbers that started with letters like EDgewood or ATlantic. But I’ll say — this just came to mind — a fireplace. The house I grew up in had a fireplace in the living room, and even though we lived in southern California, we often lit a fire in the cooler weather, simply for the enjoyment of watching the flames dance. In January or February, it was often cold enough to appreciate the warmth, too. None of the houses I’ve lived in since then has had a fireplace, and when David and I bought our first house together, we were delighted to see the fireplace at one end of the living room but were so nervous and distracted by all the details and the momentousness that we didn’t notice that there was no chimney. It’s fake, gas-only, no chimney. Maybe we’ll take some of that $100,000,000 and put in a real one.
Um, Marjorie? Are you still awake?
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Ten Years Ago — August 1995, I was getting ready to go back to college, after some years’ hiatus, feeling more than a little nervous because I had decided to live on campus. Turned out that I had a great time, and despite the little annoyances of dorm life, it was a year that I will cherish in my memory. I was also, ten years ago, planning my wedding, to take place the following June.
Five Years Ago — August 2000, I was adjusting to life with a then-eight-month-old baby, our first child, the lovely Laura. She was crawling by then, getting close to walking (which she would do at ten months) and talking.
One year ago — August 2004, I was feeling the utter relief of not being a temporarily-single-parent anymore, as David had just come back from his first long trip to Hong Kong, four weeks. Since this was pre-Bluestocking, I was also doing rather a lot of genealogy, and working on my Bloomsbury Shell cushion.
Yesterday — Trying, not terribly successfully, to get over the effects of an inexplicably sleepless night. I can say with complete certainty that I don’t function very well on two hours’ sleep.
Today — Getting ready for the relocation survey tomorrow morning; i.e. deciding how much we can carry in our luggage and what we will ship (i.e. do without for 6 to 8 weeks). Swimming in the afternoon.
Tomorrow — Relocation survey. Change our library books or more swimming in the afternoon?
Five Snacks I Enjoy — Pepperidge Farms Orange Milanos, scones, cashews, and I will be a bit sanctimonious here and say Granny Smith apples, although obviously my snacks tend to be more in the sweetie line. Häagen-Dazs Tiramisu….
Five Bands/Singers Whose Songs I Know Most of the Words To — Dan Zanes, The Beatles, Split Enz, Norah Jones, The Boston Camerata (okay, not most of their lyrics, but I think rather a lot). I must point out that this list does not include all of my favorite bands/singers — I could probably never learn all of the words to Cecilia Bartoli‘s songs, for instance, and I’ve actually owned only one Beach Boys album, to my surprise….)
Five Things I Would Do With $100,000,000 —
Buy one of these (with change left over!),
or one of these,
or better yet, this,
or start one of these,
and be sure to give at least half of that sum to charity.
Five Locations I’d Like to Run Away To — England. Sweden and/or Norway. England. Italy. England.
Oh, alright, England, Sweden and/or Norway, Italy, Vancouver, or Northern California, the last being probably the only one that might really be in my future.
Five Bad Habits I Have — Not finishing things I’ve started (that novel, for instance). Putting off doing the dishes until the next day, in fact "not starting things I should be doing" might be more accurate. Laziness. Being sarcastic when I’ve lost my temper. "Forgetting" things I didn’t really want to remember.
Five Things I Like Doing — Reading, knitting, cooking, gardening. Mothering.
Five Things I Would Never Wear — Stiletto heels, fake fingernails, a thong, miniskirts, this,
Five TV Shows I Like — I don’t actually watch much television, so this is tricky; we don’t have cable, and then got out of the habit of watching network TV when the girls were little. I must confess, though, that Laura and I were quite fond of "Supermarket Sweep" on PAX for a while. I liked "Star Trek: Voyager" and the other new Star Trek series ("Voyager" was probably the one I managed to watch most often). I loved the old "Masterpiece Theatre" and "Mystery!" series. Maybe "Providence" was the last show I remembered to watch regularly.
Five Movies I Like — Hard to narrow it down to five, but "Persuasion", "Notting Hill", "The Music Man", "The Philadelphia Story", and "Shakespeare in Love" are perennial favorites.
Five Famous People I’d Like to Meet — I will change this slightly to Five Bloggers I’d Like to Have a Knitgroup With, and say Ann and Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting (hoping they count as one, since that means I get an extra person), Siow Chin of Little Purl of the Orient (ooh, wait, I’ve met her!), Julia of Mind of Winter, Julia of Moth Heaven, and Kate of Needles on Fire. Stephanie can’t make it because she’s still on the author circuit. (Very hard to narrow this one down, too, obviously. I would like to meet all of the bloggers I read regularly. These I’ve mentioned have buttons — this is an illustrated meme, after all.)
Five Favorite Toys — My All-Clad saucepan, this laptop, our new Thomas the Tank Engine wooden train set, the indoor playground at our complex, and the air-conditioning which has made this summer bearable.
Five Biggest Joys at the Moment — Getting ready, although this expat experience has been wonderful and I’ve met some really nice people and seen really fantastic things, to go home. The sudden blooming of my three-year-old, who has always been rather overshadowed by her precocious older sister.
The adrenaline rush I get from reading really good blogs — knitting, crafts, cooking, travel, gardening, it doesn’t really matter what subject. These flowers, I don’t know what they are but their gardenia-like scent is heavenly,
And, of course, the ever-present delight in a little silliness —
Pholph’s Scrabble Generator 
My Scrabble© Score is: 21.
What is your score? Get it here. -
With the completion of "Truly Tasha" and the indefinite stalling of the Noro kimono jacket, my only work-in-progress is the Ostrich Plume blanket.
I have started over completely, making it smaller, determining to make whatever size square I can with the twenty balls of Calmer 462 that I have. This color is now discontinued — a shame, because it’s very pretty, a lovely pastel lavender — but in a way, it’s something of a release, because now I can’t simply buy more until I knit a large enough blanket.
The Calmer is really extraordinary to work with. The 25% microfiber and the unusual construction of the yarn give it a strange and wonderful spongy elasticity. It is described as an 8-ply, but this is a rather liberal way of putting it, as it is actually two braided strands twisted together, thus —
(As I knit, it feels like water running through my fingers, as if I were holding my hand under a little fall in a stream and feeling the gentle push on my skin. I can see how it might inspire one to poetry.) This doesn’t really transfer to the knitted piece as much as one might hope, but the effect is still much softer than ordinary cotton, and it has a beautiful springiness.
The book is "The Tribes of Britain" by David Miles, which I picked up impulsively at the Kelly & Walsh in Exchange Square the other day. I was interested anyway — archaeology + Britain = yes — but the author won me over on the first page of the introduction with a quote from, of all things in a scholarly-sounding tome, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". The book examines the genetic archaeology of Britain, the way that migrations, invasions, and other upheavals have influenced the make-up of the British people. (Read the Sunday Times review here.) The book’s weightiness is offset by a deft writing style, the heavier bits of science lightened by humor and the occasional distraction — "In the nineteenth century burnt layers in towns such as London or Colchester were routinely ascribed to Boudicca’s [first-century AD] rebellion as if no one else ever lit a fire" (29), for instance, and the way that archaeological discoveries often remind him of modern things, a neat way of pointing out the relevance to us of history. The Times reviewer’s criticism about the lack of cultural history is valid, but for me not as much of a sticking point as he seems to imply. To say that "who are we?" is an unanswerable question and then complain that Miles doesn’t answer it completely is a bit unfair. Miles’ focus is demographic and archeological, not cultural, and the "who are we?" question is asked in that light. Wars, plagues, and invasions are much more efficient at changing the genetics of a people than are thinkers and philosophers. What Miles does here is not only to instruct and inform — as well as entertain — but ultimately remind us, as we so often need reminding these days, that we really are all related, we are all brothers and sisters under the skin.
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Number 39 — Spring Greens and Roasted Chicken Salad
I asked my mom to bring some cans of chunk chicken with her when she visited in June, as I haven’t been able to find it in the markets and chicken salad is always good in the hot weather. I was assuming that she’d tuck three or four cans into the corners of her suitcase, but she brought two flats from Costco! so we’ve had ample opportunity to try new recipes, and have already gotten a number of winners. Here’s one from the September 2004 Better Homes & Gardens —
Spring Greens and Roasted Chicken
Remove and discard skin from 1 2 1/4-lb. purchased roast chicken, chilled. Pull meat from bones, discarding bones. Shred meat; you should have about 3 1/2 cups (or, obviously, use 1 12-oz. can of chunk chicken).
Place greens from 1 5-oz. package mixed greens (about 8 cups) on a platter. Top with chicken; 2 cups fresh sliced strawberries, or blueberries; 4 oz. Gorgonzola or blue cheese, crumbled (about 1 cup); and 1/2 cup honey-roasted cashews. Drizzle with juice from 1 lemon and 3 tbsp. olive oil. (I had only plain roasted cashews, so I added a dash of honey to the lemon juice and olive oil, although this is probably not necessary.)
Makes 6 main-dish servings; preparation time about 20 minutes.
Laura and Julia, by the way, loved this salad, even the Gorgonzola, which I thought added a nice savory, slightly salty touch to the sweet berries, and goes really well with the chicken. It was also fun for the girls to help assemble things, each adding a handful of berries or cashews to their own salad while I did the messier Gorgonzola.
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Here is the Truly Tasha Shawl finished, an almost laughably fast piece of work.
I must say that I am rather disappointed with one aspect of the Cashsoft, that out of six full balls three of them ended with a loose six- or seven-inch piece, then a small unattached wodge in the middle. Splices in a ball I understand, knots I accept, but this is going too far. Not at all what I can accept from something with "Classic" in its name. The yarn itself is a bit apt to split, and is already tending to fuzz a little, but is wonderfully soft — the finished garter stitch has a beautiful drape and feels almost like velvet. David started caressing it the other day — said, "Ooh, what’s this?!" then checked himself gruffly.
That said, the shawl itself is very pretty, and I’m almost embarrassed about how little effort actually went into it. I compliment Nancy Bush on the design — it is completely reversible, even the lace edging, and I like the way that the yarn-overs at the sides are echoed in the edging, so that the top has a line of eyelets as well. I was delighted to see how the edging at the top incorporates the live stitches, so that no binding-off is necessary, which next to sewing up is my least favorite part of knitting. The shawl is not really large enough in the original size to tie or wrap around, so a pin may be in order at times — otherwise, the drape is enough to keep it in place over the shoulders while reading or knitting.
Tasha herself seems to solve this by wearing hers under her apron straps!
(Photo from Tasha Tudor and Family)
Regarding size, since I did not use worsted-weight wool and therefore couldn’t use the given "work until you finish the third skein" system, I worked the center piece until it was about an inch short of the given length, then added the edging, to make it a similar size to the original.
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Here is "Forbes Forest," finished and blocked —
The pattern is fairly simple for cabling, and easily memorized. It was nice to just breeze along the wrong side working "as presented" (that is, knitting the Ks and purling the Ps). I did have a little trouble keeping interested, as I’ve said before, but I’m happy with the way it turned out.
The Jaeger is very pleasant to work with, and softened even more with just the simple rinse I gave it. The scarf does still curl in at the edges a bit, just inside the garter stitch border.
The color is off a shade or so in these close-ups — it’s a pine-y loden green, deeper and more "forest-y" than the rather mossy original.
(Lady looked very pretty with her heliotrope and purple against the loden. My favorite train layouts have a lot of S-curves, as I love the motions of the trains as they wind, so this part of the cable has a special appeal to me!)
