Posts filed under ‘Cool Things’
Hedgehog frittata (made with mushrooms not the mammal!)Mushroom Hunting
Spent the day mushroom hunting.
A sure sign that I was not having any luck, I started taking photos, mostly of the gazillions of mushrooms that I didn’t want.
Quick, took a picture of the sunshine, if I hadn’t looked in that direction at that moment, I might have missed it.
On down the road, tried a new spot and had better luck.
Boletes on the left, hedgehogs on the right,
and a truffle.
Don’t know what kind of truffle it is, not gonna eat it, but it was fun to find one.
on the inside
Love hedgehogs, they might be my favorite mushroom.
They taste great and they have these weird spikes on the bottom that make them very easy to identify (and inspired their name).
I’m not the only one who loves hedgehogs.
Oh right, “knitting” blog, I am swatching for Catherine Lowe Simple Couture 4.01 Hat and Cowl with CL IV alpaca silk yarn:
one big ball of yarn for both the hat & cowl
custom wound for my order!
Yakima!
We go to Yakima every year to pick and buy produce
tomatoes
made into sauce
tomatillos
roasted and made into verde
eggplants sliced and browned
added to tomato sauce, onions, beef, and spices and made into
khoresht-e bademjan (Persian eggplant stew)
two boxes of ripe peaches eaten and shared with friends and family and baked into several peach pies!
Knitting? Oh, right, knitting, I was knitting a sock in the car on long drives to and from Yakima
Blue Moon STR lightweight in Raven Clan colorway Rook-y
(darker, more black in real life)
RESIST FAIL!
Blast that Portland with their “No Sales Tax”!
I was not planning to buy yarn.
Of course I wasn’t.
I wasn’t even planning to go to the yarn stores.
I ended up with some time to kill in Portland
and the next thing I knew,
I was looking at yarn on sale
and yarn that I had admired online
and No Sales Tax
and dh said “this is good color for socks”
and and and
I was shopping with knit1frog2 which is always dangerous, somehow it always seems like a good idea to ‘go ahead and get it’, even if she is only there by txt! (some of that stuff is hers!)
Garden
Knitting production has not been impressive lately; slogging along on the Poetry In Stitches Leaf Sweater and a pair of STR socks…
More interesting and productive is DH’s garden; we enjoy dinners including garden fresh something everyday.
basil, yummmm, we are wallowing in basil decadence lately
cardoons, these are past eating, but awfully photogenic
they look like some sort of medieval torture vegetable
or the something you’d make bad children eat
it’s actually the stalks we eat early in the season,
but Mr. Bumblebee was thoroughly enjoying the bloom
wall of scarlet runner beans,
we’ll enjoy these all winter in fantastic cassoulet DH creates
there are peas in among the beans,
I enjoy eating these right off the vine
the backside of the bean wall is all cilantro
corn
brussel sprouts
there they are, tiny brussel sprouts
blueberries, lots of blueberries, handfuls on cereal every morning 🙂
volunteer tomatillas, they planted themselves out of the compost!
some sort of squash
I love these violets, they pop up all over our yard, including in the vegetable garden and we take care not to step on them
artichokes as pretty as tasty
volunteer chamomile
handy chives
more violets coming through the cracks in the patio,
along with some oregano, which also
pops up all over our yard!
There’s lots more, tomatoes, lettuce, leeks, cucumber, peppers, strawberries, carrots, pumpkins, and the occasional stray potato.
Catherine Lowe Design & Fit Workshop
knit1frog2 (see her post) and I took Catherine Lowe’s Design & Fit Workshop together. This is the second workshop I have taken with Catherine Lowe; I am amazed and delighted again.
And INSPIRED!
I learned much about:
fit
style
fit
sweaters
fit
shoulders
fit
sleeves
fit
fit
fit
There seemed to be a lot of emphasis on “fit”.
A good fit makes all the difference, as does a bad fit for that matter!
We learned what a good fit means and ways to get a good fit.
We all brought in our own sweaters that:
we love
we hate
we can’t figure out what is wrong with.
We modeled and critiqued.
OUCH!
That was illuminating and will influence my designing, knitting, and buying choices.
I am inspired to knit sweaters with great fit, that look great and make me look great.
We each created our own personal sloper.
That’s me!
A useful tool to have! It was great to be measured by a professional and get those measurements onto paper in a way that I can use to design, alter, and modify sweater patterns.
I purchased this sweater back in the 80s; I love the collar and can use my sloper to design one like it and a sweater to fit.
I have been working on Poetry In Stitches – Leaf Stripe Cardigan with Velvet Trim (page 166)
I had pretty much given up on it being anything other than a drop-shouldered-frumpy-fair-isle with a gorgeous color pattern. I was just knitting it per the instructions, though I had hoped to give it a little shaping, I was resigned to only giving it a bit of shoulder shaping.
No longer! After Catherine’s workshop, I have a better understanding of how fit works. I am incorporating a few alterations that will improve the fit of this sweater and how it looks on me (or any body).
I have reshaped the sleeves, trimming out 2 inches of bulk from the armpit (armpit bulk even sounds bad):
sleeve per the pattern
sleeve altered to improve fit
I will reshape the square neckline to suit my face shape. I modeled the sweater below with a similar square neckline for the workshop. Catherine showed us that this wide square neckline doesn’t flatter my wide square jaw. I can wear a square neckline, but it needs to be the right width – which I can pull off my sloper!
traditional square neckline makes my jaw look wider
square neckline with better personalized shape
flatters my jawline
Finally, I will add shoulder shaping, because like everyone, I have a slope to my shoulders. Without shoulder shaping, there is extra fabric that ends up in bulky folds in the armpits.
Again, armpit bulk = BAD.
I am excited!
Trying Something New
I purchased and intend to read A Romance Novel.
Here is my knitting posed with Rachael Herron’s book at Barnes & Noble in Tukwila on the ‘New Arrivals’ table:
Uuuuuuuuummm.
I think it looks better up here:
😀
Madrona Fiber Arts Retreat 2010
I didn’t sign up for classes this year.
So, knit1frog2 and I made of day of visiting the Madrona Marketplace and going out for lunch.
We hit the Blue Moon booth, it’s great to see the colors in person and an extra treat to check out the Rare Gems (one off colorways) and Mill Ends.
Socks That Rock
two lightweight Rare Gems and
one heavyweight Mill End in ? Denim?
habu textiles had a booth, it was exciting to see so many habu yarns in so many colors.
I ordered yarn for my next project:
Catherine Lowe Simple Couture 4.01 Hat and Cowl
I ordered alpaca silk in black violet.
I took Catherine Lowe’s class at Madrona last year and have been pondering what I learned ever since. She is an excellent teacher and a delightful person.
It worked out perfectly that I hadn’t signed up for Madrona classes; a Catherine Lowe Design & Fit workshop is being offered locally in May and I was able to sign up for that!
Lucky for knit1frog2 and me, walking to lunch took us past
hello cupcake and we wrapped up our day with yummy cupcakes.
And who is this fun looking bunch?
Nine Pound Cabbage
from the Mom Says Don’t Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head files:
The guys at the farmer’s market were excited to hear this beaut was bound for sauerkraut:
Cabbage + Salt + Time
=
Sauerkraut
But not everyone was happy about it
Knitting In Mind 