Monthly Archives: February 2012

1:27 pm - February 28, 2012 - AngelaH

Fake Spring Scarf

An outtake from our previous photo shoot.

Well, it seems like the end of February is the perfect time to write it up. Technically, I suppose, I knit this up at the beginning of January, when I decided I needed a better wool scarf (the first two I knit – back when I was just learning to knit – were both cowls, the first way too long and the second too short to wrap twice but two long to just wrap once). Anyway, I decided I wanted to start the New Year by knitting something easy, but still pretty.

I have accumulated a lot of Cascade Eco+ (it is gorgeous to knit with) so I picked three colours and set to work thinking about how best to knit them up.

Main colour – in real life, it's much more green.

Contrasting colour 1.

Contrasting colour 2.

I wanted something quick, so colour work was out, but I also wanted the scarf to have a main colour (and some symmetry), so any stripes would need to be fairly far apart, but not so far that the scarf with hang out the bottom of my coat (I hate that). And thus, the Fake Spring Scarf was born.

Right side – showing off the reversed middle stripes.

Comparing the right side to the wrong side.

I’m not always the biggest fan of straight-up garter stitch and I worried a lot that the colours would be too garish to wear with my bright red winter coat. Luckily, I ignored my initial misgivings, because this scarf is both warm and soft, and has garnered me many a compliment. I actually quite like that this looks”homemade” because, of course, it is. There’s something a little rustic about it, and although the wool is both thick and a little hairy, it is surprisingly soft around your neck while still feeling sturdy.

I kind of like knitting that has a right and a wrong side (it looks cleaner somehow), so I made sure to start all my stripes on the same side. That also means all the weaving is in the same area, which makes things a little tidier.

So stripy.

Fake Spring Scarf – so named because a) It’s in bright, springtimey colours, and b) It’s a nice quick knit, so when you’re hit with March snow you’ll have time to knit it up before it all blows out for the season.
Pattern: by me!
Needles: 6 mm
Yarn: Cascade Eco+ in colourways 2452 (green), 9454 (purple), and 9451 (blue-green)
Finished length: 61 inches
Gauge: 14 sts/24 rows = 3 inches in garter stitch

Cast on 30 stitches in main colour and knit in garter stitch for 7 inches.
Switch to cc1 and knit four rows.
Knit 2 rows in mc.
Knit 4 rows in cc2.
Knit 2 rows in mc.
Knit 4 rows in cc1.
Repeat five times, but on third rep, switch the order of the contrasting colours. Finish with 7 inches in mc.
For the stripes, I cut the contrasting colours between stripes (leaving about a four-inch tail to weave in), but wove the main colour along the top. It’s a bit neater this way.
And voila! A lovely scarf that will keep you warm and is still fun and colourful enough to make the transition to lighter jackets when real spring rolls around.

Update: Now also on Ravelry

Categories: Knitting, Patterns Tags: Cascade Eco+, my designs, scarf, seasonal knits, stripes

3:07 pm - February 27, 2012 - AngelaH

Fake Spring Weather/Real Spring Cleaning (and cooking!)

It is a gorgeous day in Toronto – about 7C and sunny – and L and I just went for a lovely walk around the neighbourhood (we brought a disc instead of a camera, though, because he wanted to toss a bit in the park). I am so ready for winter to be over that, in my mind, it already is. This weather just proves it, right? L, who doesn’t want me to be disappointed when the March storms inevitably roll in, was more tempered in his enthusiasm, but still, even Fake Spring feels pretty nice.

And, whether the season is fake or real, the cleaning it inspired over the weekend is unquestionable.

The nicest it's ever looked.

Look at how tidy my work space is! I didn’t take a before shot because, frankly, it was too embarrassing. There were half-unpacked boxes stacked there, with bags and shoes piled around in front, and it was so bad that my rolling chair was reduced to basically a swivel. But, on Saturday L got a new dresser, which meant his old one could be used for organization (can you believe a grown man used a dresser that small?). The top two drawers have been designated for our hats, mitts/gloves, and scarves, but I claimed the bottom drawer for knitting-related items, and have also gained an office surface on top. The basket is currently holding needles, notions, and other odds and sods, while my pattern books are stacked beside it and, on the shelf above those, my to-be-read pile (you can see my knitting – Almondine sock number 2, of which more later – on the desk at the edge of the photo). It may never look this neat again, but I’m very pleased with it.

Besides cleaning and organizing, this weekend involved lots of cooking, which I love. On Saturday we had friends over for dinner and I made some Georgian food, inspired by my parents’ Grub Club (monthly dinner club they’ve have going with friends for over a decade). I made Bostneulis Kharcho (tomato soup with walnuts and vermicelli) and Khachapuri (bread baked with cheese inside.

This soup looked much better in person.

The lighting in my kitchen is a little iffy, but you get the idea. Both recipes were incredibly simple, but had rather impressive results, and I would highly recommend them – both are from The Georgian Feast by Darra Goldstein.

Khachapuri – all puffed up and fresh out of the oven.

L, Carmen and Sam playing boardgames after dinner.

Boardgames!

Yes, this is just the sort of Saturday night I like.

Category: Cooking Tags: adventure cooking, bread, organization, soup

11:56 am - February 24, 2012 - AngelaH

Swatches, Socks, and Skeins – oh my!

I’m sure there will be many a multi-barreled Friday post in my future, and I suppose that makes great sense since Friday is the day you sort out the week so you don’t have to carry it into the weekend. I mean, it’s not just me who does that, right?

First up, my first lace work. About a month ago I decided to focus on socks for a little while because they are both practical and a great way (in my mind) to learn some new skills that I can apply to larger projects in the future. So, L and I went all over the city looking for The Knitter’s Book of Socks by Clara Parkes, which had been recommended. Sadly, I couldn’t find it; however, I did pick up Sock Knitting Master Class by Ann Budd, and it has been excellent. Since finishing my mum’s socks, I have been knitting Almondine (rav link) and I am quite pleased with how they’re turning out.

Almondine socks in progress.

I’m just finishing up the foot of the first sock (they’re knit top-down, clearly) and once I’ve got it all finished I’ll write about what I’ve learned/what little pattern changes I’ve made, etc. I will say, though, that for someone new to lace but not to socks, this is a very satisfying knit: the pattern is clear and has enough repetition to become natural without becoming boring, and seeing the lovely little almond shapes come together is never-ending excitement. It was also great trip knitting (I started it in the airport lounge last week).

Sock knitting is not quite all-consuming, though, so I’ve been puttering around and doing other things as well. First, I’ve been trying to clean up my stash a little bit. For a relatively new knitting, I have certainly accumulated a lot of wool, and I’m not complaining, but with a yarn-happy cat around, I do need to keep things somewhat orderly.

Ganymede loves to chase knitting.

So, I took an hour or so this week (while watching some silly TV) to wind up some of my ends. I like to knit from the middle out – as opposed to from the outside in – which means that if I don’t entirely finish a cake, it ends up flat and floppy and libel to get very tangled indeed. The solution (for me) is little balls, and now that I’ve gotten the hang of making them even, I quite like them.

From left to right, these are two colourways of Abuelita Mysterious Blend Bulky ( 95% merino-corridale, 5% silk – so soft and gorgeous to knit with), used to knit L a hat, and my leftover Tanis Fiber Arts DK weight 100% Merino. What will I do with this ends? I’m not sure yet, but at least when I get to them they will be easy to knit with.

Finally, I realized I have never done anything with the wool I bought in Switzerland in December. I picked it up from a market stall in Bern and, because I don’t speak German and the man selling it didn’t really speak much English or French, all I can say is that it s indeed Swiss wool, but what breed of sheep it comes from and where it was spun remains a mystery.

Swiss skeins

One skein is a sort of grey-green and the other is a grey-blue (which you can’t tell in this photo), and they’re both quite wooly and finely spun, which is nice.

The market gentleman was only equipped to sell skeins, which means it still needs to be wound somehow. I’d like to know just how much I have, but ho-hum, I suppose I can add that to its mysterious characteristics. But oh, what to do with them?

Also! I completely forgot, but you remember that nice Maritime wool I bought when I was at home? Well I’ve been swatching it (ostensibly for mittens) and I must say, it is even lovelier to knit with than I first imagined. There’s just enough lanolin to make it soft and almost buttery in your hands, but not so much that it smells or sticks. It also has just the hint of a hallow and although I haven’t quite settled on what I’m going to do with it yet, I am getting very excited to do something with it.

Here’s my swatch (knit on 3.75 mm dpn, which gave me 7 stitches and 9 rows to an inch), including a little section of colourwork, just to see how it went.

Category: Knitting Tags: Fridays, Ganymede, lace work, socks, stash, swatches, wool

12:01 pm - February 22, 2012 - AngelaH

Pancake Tuesday

I love pancakes. Love them. When I was at home my mum and I made pancakes for breakfast on Sunday (my grandparents were visiting, so we dressed up breakfast a little), but even though I had eaten pancakes recently, when I realized it was Shrove Tuesday yesterday, I knew I would have to whip up some more.

We had spent the rather overcast and rainy day in the Junction (one of our favourite neighbourhoods) making use of our Coffee Passports. Actually, as an aside, if you happen to live in Toronto, I definitely recommend The Good Neighbour, a café at Annette St. and Quebec Ave. – it had great decor, a delicious selection of drinks and pastries, and was a productive place to get a little work done.

Indie Coffee Passport

Where Quebec Ave. meets Annette St. – the view from The Good Neighbour

Anyway, from there we went to a pub to watch some soccer (I knit, he watched) and then headed home. Long story short: In our ramblings I had only managed to eat a muffin (albeit a delicious muffin) since breakfast, so when I got home around 5 I was starving and immediately set about making myself a grilled cheese. I realized an hour later that it was pancake Tuesday.

Pancakes!

Luckily, L had a late frisbee game, so I had a feeling he’d want a bite to eat when he got home, which meant I could make late-night pancakes without worrying they wouldn’t get eaten. The real bonus, though, was that neither of us were hungry enough to eat more than two each, so we got to have leftover pancakes for breakfast this morning. There’s something about cold pancakes with jam that I just can’t get enough of, so Pancake Tuesday turned out to be a success all around!

Leftover pancakes, dressed up with marmalade (right) and my mum's homemade strawberry jam

Fool-proof Fluffy Pancakes

1 1/3 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
3 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tbsp salad oil

1. Mix dry ingredients in a big bowl.
2. In a small bowl, combine wet ingredients and mix well.
3. Add liquid to dry and beat until smooth (if you let it sit, you will probably need some more milk to thin it out – the baking powder makes for fluffy pancakes, but it starts working quickly).
4. Use 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake. Greasing griddle/frying pan for first round only.

Makes 8-10 pancakes.

Categories: Cooking, Recipes Tags: food holidays, grilled cheese, pancakes, photos, Toronto

3:24 pm - February 20, 2012 - AngelaH

Maritime Wool

Last weekend I escaped the city for the lovely Nova Scotia countryside where I grew up. I hadn’t been home home in over a year, so I was really excited already, but when my mum told me about a local wool producer, I’ll admit that added to my excitement. We went on Friday and then, because I didn’t fully consider my purchases, we went back on Saturday so I could pick up some more wool.

A camera shy Cotswold

Gaspereau Valley Fibres raises their own Cotswold Sheep, which were once one of the most popular wool sources, but had since been reduced to a rare breed. Cotswold wool is recommended for outerwear, and Gaspereau Valley Fibres offers complimentary patterns with each skein, which come in both natural colours and hand-dyed.

Natural skeins of Cotswold wool.

The shop is gorgeous – it’s in a converted barn, but has retained all its original post and beam construction, and is headed by a wood stove – and carries a huge selection of fibre. In addition to their own wool, the also carry skeins of 100% Maritime Wool made from 60% New Brunswick alpaca and 40% Nova Scotia Corriedale wool. It is gorgeous and soft enjoyably squooshy and I bought three 250-yard skeins, although I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with it yet. It’s also sold in natural colours, which are what I tend to gravitate toward anyhow.

60% alpaca, 40% wool, 100% Maritime

Winding

All in all it was a great haul from a gorgeous shop. If you find yourself in Nova Scotia, I would definitely recommend stopping by.

A flock of Cotswolds, plus one alpaca, all very curious about what I'm up to.

My haul.

Category: Knitting Tags: Nova Scotia, photos, shopping, wool

1:06 pm - February 15, 2012 - AngelaH

A Trio of Socks

From left to right, three pairs of hand-knitted socks, in chronological order. These are all based on the same pattern, with a few variations. (The pair on the right looks skinny because of the rib, but I assure you it stretches out nicely).

The grey and purple pair (knit with Berroco Vintage) were the first pair of socks I ever knit. They took me almost six months to knit – well, two weeks for the first sock, and then I got distracted and then summer came – but they came out pretty well all things considered.

The middle pair, knit on Tanis Fiber Arts Yellow Label DK weight 100% superwash merino, which, let me just say, is a gorgeous yarn to knit with. I used olive and sand and got that pair finished in a week over the Christmas holidays. They turned out much better than my first pair (go figure) and are both warm and light-weight. The pattern is pretty basic, but look at how nicely it shows off the hand-painted yarn. Gorgeous.

Tanis Fiber Arts in Olive

The third pair are for my mom. They’re also knit with the other half of my Tanis Fibre Arts yarn, but with a 2×1 rib down the leg, because my mom found the leg on the green pair a little too tight. I went back and forth about knitting the heels in olive as well, but was worried I wouldn’t have enough; as it turns out, though, I certainly would have, so that’s something to keep in mind if you plan to knit these socks.

Tanis Fiber Arts in Sand

So, here are the basic details:

Boot Sock
(This assumes you have some knowledge of sock knitting, if that is not the case, e-mail me for a more detailed pattern)

These were knit on 3.75 mm needles, using worsted weight yarn. For the grey pair I cast on 40 stitches, for the olive pair 46 and for the sand pair 48. The cuff is 8 rows of 1×1 rib, after which I just knit until the leg was 7-inches long. Divide, knit 17 rows, and turn the heel as follows (written out for 40-stitch cast on, thus 20-stitch heel):

Row 1 – sl 1, k 10, ssk, k 1, turn
Row 2 – sl 1, p 3, p2tog, p 1, turn
Row 3 – sl 1, k 4, ssk, k1, turn
Row 4 – sl 1, p 5, p2tog, p 1, turn
Row 5 – sl 1, k 6, ssk, k 1, turn
Row 6 – sl 1, p7, p2tog, p 1, turn
Row 7 – sl 1, k 8, ssk, k1, turn
Row 8 – sl 1, p 9, p2tog, p2tog, turn

Pick up 12 stitches along both sides of the heel flap and work the following decrease rounds until you’re back to your original number of stitches:

Round 1:
Needle 1 – k to within 3 sts of the end of the needle, k2tog, k 1
Needle 2 – knit
Needle 3 – k 1, ssk, knit to the end of the needle
Round 2: Knit

The middle of your round is now in the middle of the heel.Knit up foot until you’re 3 inches from the total length (to measure gauge length, measure your foot on a piece of paper and then add 1/4 inch). Decrease for toe as follows:

Round 1:
Needle 1 – k to within 3 sts of the end of the needle, k2tog, k 1
Needle 2 – k1, ssk, k to within 3 sts from end of needle, k2tog, k1
Needle 3 – k 1, ssk, knit to the end of the needle
Round 2: Knit
Knit these two rounds until you’ve decreased half the stitches (that is, there are 20 remaining). Now work only round 1 until a total of 8 stitches are left. Break yarn and, using a darning needle, thread tail through remaining stitches and pull tight. Weave in ends.

Categories: Knitting, Patterns Tags: gift knits, merino wool, socks, Tanis Fiber Arts

11:10 am - February 13, 2012 - AngelaH

Wintry Weekend

Toronto has had a pretty pathetic winter so far, with temperatures ping-ponging above and below freezing and more rain than snow. So, when we woke up Saturday morning and it was snowing (and had clearly snowed most of the night), we decided to take advantage of it.

It was early enough that most of the snow was still untouched, although all along the streets in our neighbourhood people were out shovelling their driveways and the sidewalks in front of their houses. We saw a lot of little kids excited for an excuse to wear their snowsuits.

Speaking of which (although only sort of): I knit this scarf in early January when I was still gearing up for the cold and snowy winter that seemed imminent.

I may get around to writing a proper post about it (with a more representative photo), but in the meantime, the easy details are that it’s knit with Cascade Eco+ on 6 mm needles. It is cosy and warm and goes surprisingly well with my bright read coat. Also knit with Cascade Eco+ are my Diamond-Backed mitts (pattern, and less blurry photo, forthcoming).

We had a lovely walk and a busy rest of the day, so on Sunday we decided to be homebodies. We’ve been watching the new season of BBC’s Sherlock, and oh, it is excellent. I knit through the first episode and then we decided it was time to make some lunch. What could be more perfect for a cold and lazy day than pizza? The recipe for the dough and sauce are below; toppings-wise we used Buffalo mozzarella, roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes, and capers one the first and all those things plus red onion on the second. Yum yum.

Yeast-free dough:

1.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup water

2 tbsp olive oil

1 med. potato, mashed

1. Combine dry ingredients. Add mashed potato and olive oil. Mix together while slowly adding water.

2. Turn onto lightly-floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about 5-7 minutes). Shape and layer with toppings.

3. Bake at 450F for 15-25 minutes (depending on thickness of toppings, desired crispiness, etc.)

(Makes dough for one pizza).

For tomato sauce, I use one can of Marzano tomatoes (remove about 1/2 cup of the liquid), gently mash the tomatoes with a spoon and season with salt and pepper (if you want it a little bit spicy, add some chili flakes). Freeze whatever you don’t use for later.

Categories: Cooking, Knitting, Recipes Tags: mittens, photos, pizza, scarf, snow

2:38 pm - February 10, 2012 - AngelaH

Heels are annoying

Okay. To be fair, that isn’t entirely true. I don’t mind knitting heels most of the time, but they do require more direct attention than most of the rest of a sock. This heel was turned nicely (if I do say so myself) and I picked up all my gusset stitches without any trouble. Perfect. Lovely. Then I proceeded to decrease as if I was at the toe, meaning that instead of decreasing two stitches per decrease round, I nixed four. I didn’t realize this until I was six rounds in. Rrrriiiipppp.

I tore it back all the way to pre-gusset, re-picked up my stitches, started again, and wouldn’t you know it, I was halfway through the instep on my first decrease when I realized I hadn’t decreased at all. Tink tink tink, back to the appropriate point, make the decrease, knit back. Oy. Things seem to be back under control now, but really, what the heck? Clearly I need to pay just a little more attention to where I am in a sock before I go at it willy-nilly.

Edited to add: I will put up full details about these socks once they’re finished. This is the second and I have a deadline that is fast approaching, so I should have wool and pattern details up shortly.

Category: Knitting Tags: beginner's luck, heels, photos, socks

6:22 pm - February 8, 2012 - AngelaH

A knitting blog?

Well, not quite. I mean, yes. This will be a knitting blog. But it will also be about cooking and recipes, and interesting household-y things I find.

Why? Well, I learned to knit just over a year ago and have been ramping up my productivity lately and thought it would be fun to have an online outlet. I already blog about books, so the idea of blogging is familiar and has proven a good motivator in the past. As for the cooking aspect, well, I work nights so I don’t get many chances to cook and I miss it. I thought this might motivate to do more cooking, and make more interesting dishes, when I get the chance.

I will update weekly – likely on Mondays – and maybe more, so check back and let me know how I’m doing, whether there are other things I should be focusing on, and what your favourite sites of this sort are.

Categories: Cooking, Knitting Tags: hello