Camels and tigers and bears ... just camels

ablueskye from Ravelry and I went yarn shopping last week -- among other things, she found some camel blend yarn. I've heard she's also just about finished with the sweater -- must be quite warm!


I went back today and got 4 skeins -- 2 in a light chocolate brown and 2 in a "dirt brown". Turns out this yarn is manufactured in Russia east of the Urals near the Kazakhstan border, is 50% camel hair and 50% acrylic, and is sold in the US under the taigayarns.com label. With the lofty name of Baron, no less! The local stuff does NOT have the camel on the label though. Too bad.

Ann M in Norway -- two of these have your name on them. They'll make warm (big) socks. I'll eventually get them to you!

"Tezhelyy" Monday

There is a saying in Russian that Monday's are always hard/difficult, as in getting back to work from a nice weekend and more.

It's a hard word to spell properly -- it is basically pronounced te zho li (hard).

Anyway, that's my day so far! Wanted to knit, but couldn't find my iPod. Which means it was time to start cleaning up most of the many piles of paper everywhere in the study. Then there was the normal Monday cleaning up going on around me, so knitting in a calm atmosphere with no noise wasn't working either.

So I decided to start photographing my stash so while/after we move later this year I'll know what I have.


The internet is VERY slow right now. So that makes photos hard to download. So, I'm just having a cappuccino!

And I did find the iPod.

Latvian mitten KAL: how to get a few gray hairs

I thought my first attempts at color choices were too "blendy", so I frogged (gnashing my teeth the whole time) back to the braid and added red-orange to the green. TOO bright: in real life it is REALLY orangy.

Then I added a row of blue, thinking it would off-set the red-orange some.

Not.

I'm dumping this, and probably even the black background. The "black" is too precious to waste, and I really don't want to knit something I don't like.




Off to a picnic, then will come back to look at the stash and see what else I might do. I don't think I have enough of that bright blue anyway. Good that I am stepping away from this for a few hours.

It's definitely a learning experience with how the colors sit on top of each other.

Thurs: Ravelry in Kz Fri: detour from mitten

Ravelry in Kazakhstan: Who knew? (but of course we didn't think about taking a picture of ourselves -- next time!)

I went with a fellow Raveler (yay, even here in Kz!) to a yarn store on Thursday -- she got some camel yarn and I got some various balls of different kinds of alpaca to try. (I'm definitely going back to get some of that camel!)

So yesterday I swatched with this:
with the pattern Alhambra from Knitspot


This worked out VERY nicely and I hope to go back next week to load up for shawls. It's not too thin, had a soft feel and although looks fuzzy, isn't really. I downloaded two things from Knitspot so I can get to those eventually this summer, and all the other shawls I'd like to do. I really need to see all these other alpacas that others are using for the "famous" (swallowtail, Icarus, etc) shawls before I buy them. But this local stuff will be fine.

Med Pinner found a Scandinavian company with a similar logo ... hmm!!!


mitten progress:

Black on black: Latvian mitten

shows you how silly things can be when you are in a hurry:

black wool fringe doesn't exactly show up on top of my black exercise pants.


Hope to spend at least 1/2 day tomorrow working on this and maybe even get another set of needles today to do the second cuff.

Latvian mitten - braid/cuff started

I redid the whole thing over the last couple of days but only got to round one of the cuff yesterday. Have a crazy schedule the rest of the week so I don't think I'll get much knitting done. But the Yahoo group seems to be going well! I'll try and take a photo later today!

Latvian mitten KAL: end of day one

It's been one of "those" days where I just should have stopped knitting. I got through round one of the braid, didn't like something, and drew out all the needles to start over.

And spent the rest of the day starting over. My count would be wrong, or a group got twisted, or the rest of the day was a frustrating coming "undone" of one or two of the fringe stitches at the edges of a needle. So, back to the beginning tomorrow. Can't quite figure out how it was "fine" the first time I did it and then all the rest of the times something came "loose."

For Francesca: the fringe is knitted on right away -- wrapping 3 loops around your index finger, and then pulling top part of the group through as you knit, leaving loops behind you. It's a little "messy" the first couple of times, and then in my case, something kept coming undone.

I'll think about it tomorrow, says Scarlett.

Latvian mitten KAL: day one

I'm going to try and post my progress to see that I "make" progress.

I wish I had another set of these needles, as then I would immediately cast on for the second cuff, a la the work of Bemused. I have lots of 2.0 mm needles, but they all seem a tiny bit different. This pair is probably Inox, and I'm already bending them. Upon casting on, I immediately had to start over as the first colors I chose barely had an difference in them when combined. So, frog to black for the main background color.

Fringe

Diversions: Schoolhouse Press Latvian mitten KAL

We all have diversions in life that help us cope with the "I should be doing....." as in I should starting the "getting ready to move in early fall" sorting through things.

I keep thinking about what I am going to do with our cooking magazines, how many old clothes to get rid of, whether we should keep some of our 220v appliances like our beloved Krups espresso maker in case we do go someplace else, and ...and ...and ... these things tend to keep you up in the middle of the night as moving day eventually approaches.

But I do have some time, and all summer, so I'm going to be a "one project" girl for a while and work on a KAL knitting project of a Latvian fringed mitten that Lizbeth Upitis and Schoolhouse Press are offering. They've also set up a Yahoo group for this, and questions have already been flying about making the fringe.
There is a Ravelry thread on this under the Knit Like a Latvian group.

These mittens are among my beloved projects, but I've never done one with a fringe before. So today, before we go off to an afternoon bbq, I'll start.

Weekend bread making

I spent two and a half days making sourdough bread. It was so relaxing.

I got a VERY active starter from King Arthur Flour; perhaps this time, all the 2x daily feedings really paid off.


The first loaf I tried was from the What's Cooking America site and is a San Francisco-Style Sourdough French bread recipe that you can "start" in a bread machine. I have a newish Breadman machine, bought mostly to help me with getting things properly kneaded. I've made bread on and off for years, but tend to get tired before the kneading is really done. Our first breads were made from our still-used James Beard's Beard on Bread book.

Friday's loaf was the Sourdough French bread version I. Saturday's version II, slightly different, seemed to be better. I'll try a few more recipes, and keep reading through the Bread Baker's apprentice. I'm learning a lot through that book, and the author is very honest about the differences between home ovens and commercial ovens and what to expect. I sort of muddled through the page or more explanation of flour percentages to everything else, but for doing more than one loaf it would be really helpful to understand all the ratios (salt, water, etc).

And, as to be expected, there are totally contradictory instructions on the many internet sites about sourdough. Some authors recommend spritzing the bread, others say "don't spritz the bread, spritz the oven walls" . Most do recommend putting a pan of water in the lower part of the oven to increase humidity. I'm looking forward to getting a clay cloche, but that will have to wait as I'm not sure mail ordering would let it arrive in one piece.

I have a list of things to order from King Arthur flour, including some additives to boost breads. Sourdough has the most basic ingredients though.

While I was waiting for the long proofings on both days, I made cinnamon bread with golden raisins in the bread maker. It is my favorite type of "sweet" bread as it isn't too sweet, and makes divine toast!