Today I am being a good girl and working on my owl pattern. I had a few false starts when somehow I picked color schemes that were so heinous I couldn’t stand to look at them. But I got my stitch count pretty much right while working on the ones that went in the trash and now I’m making a more photogenic owl that I hope will be the final version.
Socks. I want to get good at knitting socks. For a few reasons; I need projects that will fit in my purse or else I get twitchy when my husband is driving us around, turning the heel is fun, handmade socks are more comfortable and sock yarn is pretty 
I’ve made just a few pairs in the past and they are OK. But I feel like they could be much better. One the ladies from my LYS opening knitting makes socks all of the time. I mean ALL of the time. I don’t think she owns any commercial socks and she give pairs to her friends too. So I asked her advice and she told me to buy this book.
It’s awesome. I read the whole thing on Saturday. I get the impression that Ann Budd, the author, is pretty much a traditionalist and that’s OK with me. I’m happy with knitting one at a time, top-down with heel flaps. I figure, it’s worked for centuries so I’ll go with it. However, I am knitting on two circular needles instead of double points. They fit in my purse better and I don’t have to wait to finish an entire needle before I put my knitting down. Plus the stitches are less likely to fall of the needles this way. I had been using Knit Picks nickle plated. Which I truly love. But there are slight imperfections in the join between the cable and the needle tip. Normally this doesn’t bother me at all, I figure a tiny bit of snag is to be expected. But it was really getting to me. I think because the yarn is so fine and the needle so small that it sort of magnified the problem. So I splurged on a couple of Addi Turbos. My first pair is going to be knit with the “Happy Valley” colorway from Lorna’s Laces. Shepherd Sock. After checking gauge a few times, deciding what size to make and then realizing that I needed to go down by an inch, screwing when I joined in the round and trying to figure out how to stop the yarn from pooling, I think I cast on a total of at least eight times. But we are off to the races now. I’ve got 1 1/2″ of ribbing and a tiny bit of stockinette done and they should pretty much fly from there. On a slightly ridiculous note…I figured out how much these socks have cost me. Between the different needles I tried, the book and the yarn, they come to a grand total of $65. They had better be good!
So, last night I took my third dose of Neurontin, a new med I am trying as a migraine preventive. And I feel like I have been run over by a truck. I mean, struggling to wake up when my alarm clock went off this morning was like trying to swim to upwards to the surface of a very deep pool of jello. God, I hope this one works and that I get over the side effects soon.
Poops! I had another seizure again yesterday.
I’ve also been relaxing by spending time in the kitchen. Tonight will be the 16th straight night of eating in. Which, for us, is no small accomplishment. And I’ve been baking bread. I am really proud of the sandwich loaves I made this week, especially since I came up with my own recipe. It’s fairly light and fluffy but holds up to filling well. For those of you who would like to try it, here it is:
Makes one 8″ loaf
1 lb White Flour (this comes out to about 3 non-sifted cups)
2 tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp Instant Yeast (This isn’t much, but since the loaf has dry milk and potato flakes it would rise too quickly if you used more)
1/4 cup Dry Milk
1/2 cup Potato Flakes (Like Hungry Jack)
1 1/2 tbs White Sugar
2 1/2 tbs Unsalted Butter, melted and cooled
1 1/4 cup Water, hot from the tap (Plus more if the dough gets too dry)
To make (with a stand mixer like a KitchenAid):
Grease an 8″ bread pan with cooking spray.
Fit mixer with the dough hook. Put first 6 ingredients in the bowl of the mixer and stir together with a fork. With the mixer running on the lowest speed, slowly add the butter and water.
After the dough comes together increase speed to about 2nd gear and let it go for about 7-10 minutes. Or until the dough is a smooth ball. It should be a little bit sticky, so add more water while it is kneading if it seems a bit dry.
Turn dough out in to a lightly floured counter and knead a little bit by hand just to make sure that is a cohesive ball.
Grease a medium sized bowl with cooking spray. Place the dough in the bowl and lightly spray the top. Put plastic wrap over the bowl and cover it with a kitchen towel.
Let the dough nap until it doubles in size. Depending on the temperature of your kitchen and the small amount of yeast used, this could take up to 1 1/2 hours.
Gently deflate dough by pushing out all of the air bubbles. Let it rest for about 15 mins.
Shape into a loaf by following the instructions and illustrations on this page. The only difference is that you are only making 1 loaf, so don’t divide the dough in half.
Place loaf in the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and towel. Leave it to rise 1″ above the top of the pan. This should take somewhere between 45 min to 1 hour. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350.
After the dough is risen, I like to slash the top. This helps stop the bread exploding out of the sides while it is in the oven.
Put in oven and bake until the loaf sounds hollow when you take it out of the pan and knock on bottom. Or until it is about 195 inside using an instant read thermometer. This should take about 45 min to 1 hour.
Turn the baked loaf on to a cooling rack and allow it to cool completely, about 2 hours. Don’t be tempted to slice it before or else you will deflate and smoosh the bread.
Enjoy. Let me know if you try the recipe. I’d love to know what sort of luck other people have with it
Hi Everyone. Well it’s been a week since my seizure and studio time has been slow. Actually, to be honest, it’s been nonexistent. I’ve mostly been doing little bits of house work and hanging around in the living room knitting while I listen to audio books. I don’t have the attention span or patience to listen to only one at a time, so here’s the current active list:
Lord on the Rings (I’m still on The Fellowship. Man is it boring. Peter Jackson is a genius! He made a ton of good plot modifications)
The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson (Which is a history about how currency developed and it’s function is the modern world. It was written after the market pooped itself, so it had some very relevant insights.)
The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters (The first in her series of Egyptian mysteries.)
And
My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (The first collective of the Jeeves and Wooster stories. It’s hilarious, in a dry British way. And it’s narrated by my favorite narrator of all time, Simon Prebble. If you liked Jim Dale’s work with the Harry Potter series check him out. I think him blows him out if the water. But maybe I am biased because he also reads Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell, which is, I think my ultimate favorite book of all time.)
As you can see, my list is very heavy on the British literature. In fact all of the authors are British. There are so many references to specific streets so I really need a map of London.
As an aside….”Beware the ides of March”….on the other hand, maybe some of our political leaders could do with a healthy dose of assassination.
Goddammit! I had another seizure on Tuesday. My first in almost 2 years. Now I have to get a bunch of blood work done and probably adjust my meds. And I won’t be able to drive for awhile. What a royal pain in the ass 
I have a confession to make. Something that I have been keeping secret and that many of you will find scandalous…. I don’t really like crochet and I never do it for pleasure outside of my studio. Don’t get me wrong, the firm fabric you can achieve, the mathematical logic of it and the way it lends itself to sculpturing make it perfect for constructing toys. But after that structure is built, I add as many other media to my toys as possible to sort of mask and distract attention away from the bumpiness. So there you go, glad to have gotten that off my chest…
But I ADORE knitting. And I am just dying to start this sweater.
I just ordered a bunch of different colors for swatching the design. I already tried a few and I wasn’t really happy with them. They looked great held next to each other on the skein, but the turquoise and raspberry are sort of awkward knitted up. So I think I’ll go with a warm palette of coral and lilac and mustard. The yarn is coming for Camilla Valley Farm in Canada, and I haven’t seen the colors in person so I’m taking a bit of a gamble. This is going to be a sort of expensive sweater especially since I bought Addi Turbos in the wrong size and they cost an arm and a leg! Oh well, I’m sure I’ll use them sometime.
I love fairisle knitting but I’ve never steeked before and I’m a bit nervous. But I never let that stop me; I sort of like learning things as I go along. And I would get really bored if I never tried new techniques.
And I may be being foolish, but I am going to make the sweater in a size small. And as you can see from this pic that I posted awhile ago, I am not small. 
But I used to be. I gained a bunch of weight after going on anti-depressants, and, frankly, everything I like doing is sedentary. So I’ve joined Weight Watchers online. And I am totally psyched! I started the week of Thanksgiving and so far I’ve lost a bit over 15 lbs. Which, considering much of the time since was over the holidays, I think that’s a good start. My next goal is to have a total loss of 30 lbs by my 30th birthday. That’s May 6th and it’s going to be tough, but I think I can do it. Then I’ll be about half way there. I’m just 5′ tall and buying clothes has gotten difficult and impossible from my favorite brands. So I am really looking forward to being able to enjoy clothes again, which I have in the past. I’m thinking of doing a bit of an image make-over when I get to my goal weight. I’m gonna go for a layered hippie look. I’ve already started growing my hair out so that it will be nice and long to go with the bell-bottoms that I plan on making for myself 
Yuck! It took me a week to get over that nasty cold. I ended up loosing my voice, too. I felt like a doberman who had her voice-box removed. And now I have post-nasal drip that makes me feel like puking. Ah well, working at home means I can spend little bits at a time in my studio, taking breaks when I need to, and still get my hours in. Which is a godsend for my headaches as well.
So what have I been working on since we talked last? My owl pattern, mostly.
The math on this one is a nightmare! I don’t know how I ever got the same results twice. So many of the stitch counts in the existing pattern were wrong and the decreases were in the wrong places. Plus the owl is crocheted in joined, turned rnds. And that always makes my brain feel like melting. I won’t be surprised if I need to make half a dozen more owls before I feel confident that the pattern is OK. So that means a couple more weeks before the pattern is ready. But not longer. I know I have been terribly poky about releasing new patterns so I have made a promise to myself to be more diligent. I know, too, that lots of you have been waiting for my fox pattern and that one is still in the works. I am just struggling with figuring out how I want to release it. I mean, the basic body type can be turned into lots of different animals. So I have been playing around with the idea of offering the basic pattern first with instructions for bear ears, which I think would be simplest. And then after that come out with “a booster pattern” that would include just the variations.
And a note to all the lovelies who are waiting on their special orders…I have not forgotten, I promise!
