Damn You Food Network!!!

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching Judge Judy on TV and happily knitting. JJ was a rerun so I started flipping through the channels and stopped for a moment on the Food Channel. That was my first mistake.

You may think that watching the food channel is an innocent enough pastime but I'm warning you that it is a dangerous spiral that I may never recover from.

I watched a show on exotic ingredients in everyday cooking. The specific show was on water chestnuts. I have used water chestnuts for many years but always opened a can to get them. I now had a mission; to find fresh water chestnuts and to see how they were different from the canned variety.

Two weeks later and many stores later, I have my fresh water chestnuts. And it only took me another hour to find the recipe on-line that started the whole quest in the first place*.

All of this cooking and going to specialty stores is taking far too much time away from my knitting.

On a positive note, we had a wicked Roasted Garlic and Tomato Pasta last night and the Pesto Stuffed Chicken wrapped in Prosciutto was pretty good too.

Now if Judy Judy would quit showing reruns, I could get back to more important things.


*I'll be making "Endive Water Chestnut Salad" just as soon as I find the endive.

I've been here before....

dé·jà vu
Pronunciation: \ˌdā-ˌzhä-ˈvü, -ˈvue\
Function: noun
Etymology: French, adjective, literally, already seen
Date: 1903
1 a: the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time b: a feeling that one has seen or heard something before
2: something overly or unpleasantly familiar

I'm knitting a Superman sweater. I've knit this pattern before.

I'm using "Baycrest Sayelle". I've knit with yarn before. This was my yarn of choice for many sweaters I knit when my kids were little and the nieces and nephews were little.



I'm using my straight needles....size 8....old size 8. I'm using Aero needles out of my collection. These were my favorite needles. I was a needle snob. I wouldn't spend my time knitting with poor quality plastic needles.

I've been here before.

Finished Projects and a decision

In this heart, the baby's name will be embroidered.....if she is the kind of baby that likes pink blankets. If he doesn't like pink, this blanket will be put on the shelf to wait.



This blanket was so much fun to knit. The pattern was written on four pages and I had to flip back and forth to keep the heart looking like a heart. The bamboo has a nice weight and I think it will be perfect for those OK evenings.



When I saw this skein of hand-dyed bamboo in New York, I knew that it was the perfect yarn for this sweater. Unfortunately, just not quite enough yarn for the size I decided to knit.



I used a garter stitch hem instead of the picot hem and eliminated ten rows. I wanted to use an I-cord for the ties instead of the garter stich cord the pattern called for.

So now that I've done some Grandma knitting, I can knit a sweater for me! I'm torn between "Hey Teach" from Knitty in a silk yarn that is in my stash, or some new Cashmerino Aran. Maybe I should knit "Hermia" also from Knitty. I have some Cotton Cashmere in my yarn drawer or there is some lovely green cotton at Make 1 that has been calling my name. I started "Loppem" by Norah Gaughan but I'm not feeling the love for it and I will be ripping out the ten row that I have knit.

I have a new STR kit with heavenly blue yarn and beads that my fingers are itching to start.

Or, I could just work on some old UFOs. They aren't nearly as exciting, but it will feel great to cross some more of those off the list.

File under "If you're not going to knit a swatch..."

...you have to be prepared to rip out your project.



Who would have thought that .25mm would make a difference?

Weekend knitting.

I had planned to work on UFO's this weekend but the call of the new projects was too loud.

All these pictures are in the wrong order but the only thing I didn't try was making a separate post for each picture. Read the post backwards if you really must see them in chronological order.



I finished these socks late Sunday evening. They were started in ~2002. For some strange reason, I decided to ignore the suggested needle size for the yarn and knit the 6-ply yarn with 2.5 needles. They almost stand up by themselves but they are never going to wear out.



I cast on for this Blanket on Saturday evening. I am using Baby Bamboo. The pattern is from Sirdar's "The Baby Blanket Book" It's a great pattern to knit with lots of change in the patterns.



This was cast on Saturday morning. It's "Helena" from Knitty and the yarn is hand dyed bamboo that I bought in New York for this sweater.

I'm not hinting by knitting "pink". We still don't know if the new baby is a boy or a girl. I'm just tired of the yellow, green and white knitting.



Finally, or first of all, depending on how you are reading this, I cast on for these fingerless mitts on Friday. They are "Can Cans" and the yarn is SpinKnit's* hand dyed. Now that Balzac Billy saw his shadow and we are going to have six more weeks of winter, I may even get these finished and be able to wear them.

This was I weekend in which I planned to do nothing but watch TV and knit. Cooking meals, laundry, cleaning were all NOT on the planned list of activities. Leaving the house or even getting dressed was going to be optional. My plans changed on Saturday morning when I remembered that I had signed up for a one day retreat with my Stitching Guild**.

I might have knit more if I had stayed home but it was a great day with friends who share an interest...no, passion for all things fibre. When Mary told us she was looking for towels in DMC 223, we immediately could visualise the colour she was looking for. When Ann asked for our advice on the project that was going to run off the fabric, we could all put in our two cents worth since we had all run into similar problems and all had different solutions.

*spinknitthefiberqueen.blogspot.com
**Calgary Guild of Needle and Fibre Arts.