Take It further: June

I wasn't able to do anything for Sharon B's Take It further challenge for a couple of months, but June looks interesting. Her reasoning is quite different, but does make one think.

I actually like the colors that her color palette maker came up with -- I might just do some calm quilted squares. We are still in "limbo" about our plans for the fall, and strange as it sounds, "no news" in this case is more stressful than getting on with the "rest of the story."

The men in my husband's family are very fond of this palette, and here are some items from Vilnius, Lithuania: linen pot holders and a brushed cotton pillow cover.

Latvian Mitten KAL: one mitten done

where has the month gone? One mitten in a month? Geesh!

Onward this weekend!!

A NEW textile site! from Sharon B

I realized about mid-April that I wouldn't be able to keep up with Sharon B's "Take it Further" monthly challenges, and went back to knitting which I can pick up and put down without too much thought -- as time allows. Luckily I love knitting, love Ravelry and don't mind picking up and putting down projects mid-stitch.

I have also been totally remiss in checking on Sharon's blog, but to my delight today I see that she has set up a new textile site for all of us interested in textile related delights such as felting, crazy quilting, art quilting, beading, embroidery, redwork, weaving and more. It will also a place to congregate for challenges and find tutorials.

The site is called Stitchin fingers, and I look forward to taking a look at all it offers! It will also give us another place to keep an eye on Sharon's many talents that she shares with us.

A Taste of home

sometimes you just want that "crunch" in the morning


(we won't talk about the carbon footprint to bring this stuff here, although do note the Nestle's box for the Russian market)

And also thanks to ShopRite there is also the never-to-be-seen-in-this-part-of-the-world Monterey Jack cheese and cheddar cheese!

Weighty matters

Magazines weigh a ton when piled up over the (ahem) years. I've gone through my cooking magazines periodically, but now is the time to cull completely. I spent the entire day yesterday on the couch reading, ripping, and stapling what I saved.

We'll keep all the Cook's Illustrated, but all the Gourmets, Saveurs, and Bon Appetits will end up gone through one last time.

It's definitely like saving goodbye to old friends. We've used a lot of the recipes over the last 7 years for entertaining. And we'll never forget one household staff member who had an innate sense of cooking and could prepare desserts from the covers of Gourmet magazine .... and make them look like the cover, too!

One of the "fun" recipes I found yesterday was for "ranch" style salad dressing, so I promptly made some for our dinner salad. Green Goddess (sans anchovies) comes next. Amazing what fun you have with simple things!

What did we do before Ravelry? but Clapotis still going strong!

I can't knit much today -- dinner guests, PT for the shoulder (and therefore discomfort) but boy is Ravelry busy! I belong to a lot of groups -- mainly for the information as I often forget what a group is "called."

I'm also trying to think of summer travel plan knitting, so I'm looking at shawls. And GASP -- the Clapotis. Amazing, I've never done one, but what a great shawl for my shoulder issues. I have some Classic Elite Provence cotton that might just do the trick.


And of course there are groups for the Clapotis (Second Wave, no less!) on Blogger.

But when you poke around wonderful things always turn up. If you belong to Ravelry, take a look at the beautiful sock a group is doing:
the zum dirndl test/create-along Yarnissima pattern. Now that's a serious sock!

Things to do ... from piles on the office/sewing room floor

It is another Monday, with a heavy scheduled next 14 days ahead of us - so it goes.

That also means time to deal with the never-ending piles I seem to have around me, on the floor, no less:

Caprice 100% wool from Germany, imported for the Russian Vita label: to swatch for this stole/scarf (Twingings from Knitspot)

Caprice is a variegated soft wool; they also had a gorgeous light blue variation in the shop, but I restrained myself until I could swatch.

some reading

and
what I am sure will be a fascinating read and good memory of my visit to southwest China about 2 years ago

this book is by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, an American archaeologist and expert on textiles
AND
still first in the ongoing and working queue of many WIPs

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!

May Day weekend

So far we are having a lovely quiet 4 day May Day weekend. The days of mandatory local parades with red flags are long gone; people enjoy the time off and go walking about or just relax.

We've just come back from a week plus trip to Almaty. It was SO green -- made me really appreciate it. The two parks, Panfilov and Gorky, were glorious with young adults, roller bladers and skateboarders at Panfilov, and families with small children at Gorky. A trip to the mountains was also great, with a teeny hike up in the sun.
We even made it to what will probably be our last "local" Russian Orthodox midnight Easter service. We were outside for most of the time, and very glad we were, so we could at least do one "lap" around the church at midnight. There were a lot of people, but there were quite a few standing off to the edges with their kulich and eggs to be blessed, with candles blazing on top of the kulich breads. We have NEVER seen this before in the evening service, so it was delightful. This photo was Saturday afternoon, before the evening service.


We were able to drop by Saule Bapanov's to pick up a felt and silk shawl, and to admire hers' and Alibay's latest works. They were off for a long weekend trip to Bukhara where their daughter was having a couture show of her own felted clothing.

I'm still kicking myself over a left bag of felted dolls I bought at the monthly craft show across from TSum -- I just don't know what happened to the bag. I bought 6 or so of the fat girls dolls that I give as presents for pincushions, and a few other items.

I was able to give my arm a good rest by not taking my computer with me, but somehow only got a little knitting done. Last night I frogged my shawl collar project from Knitting New Scarves book -- I loved the Karabella yarn I was using but just didn't like the way it sat on my shoulders -- something about the neck area.

I'm looking forward to Schoolhouse Press' Latvian mitten KAL that is about to start, and also to read Sharon B's May TIF Challenge.. I've pretty much had to bow out of the challenge, but may drop back in from time to time. This month's color scheme would make a good Finnish looking mitten!


Yesterday I spent the day catching up/tidying up my iTunes podcast links and deciding which of the many knitting podcasts I do or do not listen to. Today, I'm making bread: still learning how to use the breadmaker and figuring out what I can do with it. It kneaded the sourdough recipe quite well, so that's rising, and then I made some cinnamon bread for my breakfasts. I'm anxious to try lots of different recipes and then just be able to do things on "auto-pilot." Bread making is so relaxing -- it just calms the clutter in your brain! And I really look forward to reading the bread book from the posting below.

The weather is cool here, but still nice, and luckily there have been no more dust storms like the one the morning I flew to Almaty. It was as if someone was standing in front of the car and just heaving mounds of dirt on the windshield! We heard later in the day the wind below the sign above the nearby Gros supermarket off and it crashed into a long row of cars.