A purple hat and some tasty bread

In my order from KnitPicks that I received last week, there were three balls of their worsted weight pima cotton/merino blend (75%/25%), Main Line. I've been wanting to swatch this stuff ever since they came out with it last year. Since my knitting moments are all too often precious and few, what better way to redeem the time than by turning my swatch into a hat? (I will post the pattern later on today or tomorrow.)


This took exactly one ball of Dusty Lavender, with extra in Natural for the pom-pom.

I had embroidered bubbles on it, but then when I tried it on Daisy's head, the hat was a little too big, and has to be folded up for now. The bubbles got lost in the folded brim, so I'll have to save that idea for a later date.

Here is the hat, unfolded.

I love the fact that the cotton makes it just a little cooler, which is perfect for early fall and spring, and the Merino adds just enough bounce to make this easy to work with. My stitches were crisp and even, but the yarn felt soft and didn't abrade my hands the way 100% cottons often do.

I will probably order more to knit a little cardi to match, because I have a feeling that this will wear well.

My only complaints about this yarn is that they come in slightly skimpy 82 yard balls. At $3.29 per ball, that brings the price for an average, medium sized woman's cardi up to $49.35. Not exactly the bargain basement prices that I expect when I think of KnitPicks brand.

A few days ago, I found this recipe for Potato Parmesan Bread over at food blog, Baking Bites. I've always loved potato bread, and had to give it a try.

Starch from mashed potato feeds the yeast, giving it an extra boost for a nice airy loaf.

I made a few changes by adding Vital Wheat Gluten and some extra butter, substituted Romano for the Parmesan, bread flour for the all-purpose, used two red boiling potatoes instead of the one russet, used the cooking water from the potatoes, and heated the milk. I divided it unto two loaves instead of one, which allowed me to cut the baking time. I set the loaves on parchment covered baking sheets to rise, which I then slid onto a preheated baking stone to bake. All changes are reflected in my adapted recipe, below.

Happily, the bread rose high and lofty, with a moist interior. The cheese adds a surprisingly subtle note and lingers just a bit on the aftertaste, and the bread is equally good plain, or with butter and jam.

I would like to experiment with substituting cheddar, and adding some whole wheat to make this a little hardier. Bulgar wheat would also add a nice crunch -- I might try that as well.



Romano Potato Bread

2 red boiling potatoes (or enough potato to equal 1 cup when mashed. Potato flakes = OK)
4 tbsp butter (1/2 stick)
1 cup milk, heated to about 110-115 deg. (low fat is fine)
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1/2 cup potato water (reserved from water drained from cooking potatoes. Add extra water if needed)
1 Tbsp Vital Wheat Gluten
4-5 cups bread flour
1 cup Romano cheese, grated
1 egg + 2 tbsp water (for egg wash)

Peel potato and cut into small, even chunks. Boil potato pieces in a small saucepan until tender. Drain and reserve cooking liquid and completely mash potato (a ricer works well here, or you can force through a fine strainer) until smooth. Transfer potato to a large mixing bowl and stir in butter and milk, mixing until well combined. Mixture should be between 110 and 115 degrees, or the yeast will not activate properly.

Stir active dry yeast and sugar into the potato mixture. Let stand for 5-10 minutes, until mixture is slightly foamy. Add in salt, water, Vital Wheat Gluten and 3 cups of flour. Mix until smooth, either stirring with a wooden spoon or using the dough hook attachment on an electric stand mixer. Stir in Romano cheese and gradually add in additional flour in 1/4 cup increments until dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl. If using an electric mixer, continue to knead at medium speed for about 5 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. If mixing by hand, turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5-7 minutes, until dough is smooth and elastic.

Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with waxed paper or damp towel and let rise for 45-60 minutes, or until doubled in size.

TIP > If you live in a low-humidity environment, have dry heat in the house, or just want to aid rising process: heat oven on very low and then turn off. Place dough in a heat proof bowl and put in center rack of oven, covered by waxed paper or towel. Place a pan or bowl of boiling hot water in bottom of oven. Steam + gentle heat speeds the growth of the yeast.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently deflate. Cut in two. Shape into two long, oval loaves and place on a parchment-lined (or generously sprinkled with cornmeal) baking sheet. Cover with a clean dish towel, and let rise for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375F, with large baking stone inside, if using.

Stir together egg and water with a fork and lightly brush mixture over the risen loaves.
If using parchment paper, slide onto hot stone in center of oven. Bake for about 30 minutes, until bread is a dark golden brown and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. An internal read thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf will read 195-200F.

Transfer loaf to a wire rack to cool.
Cool completely before slicing. (Or don't, but it won't slice as neatly.)

Makes 2 medium sized loaves.

Needles and socks

Thank you so much for all of your supportive and encouraging comments on my last post. Being a mother is a challenging, difficult job, and I won't pretend that I love every minute. However, I will choose to enjoy the precious moments that I have with my children. Time is a tricky thing. It's here now, gone tomorrow. I love my three littles so much, and hope that I am the best mom that they could possibly have.

Moving on to knitterly things. Everyone's heard about Harmony Wooden Needles, the newest additions to the Knit Picks Options line? Well, if not, click here. I'll wait. Anyway, as soon as I saw them, I saw a need. So I bought a few.

Of course my purchase had to be at least $45, so I bought a few other things as well.

I haven't used the needles yet, but just from touching them I can tell you that these are very special. They are gorgeous, smooth, hard and pointy. Sounds nice, yes? (Get your minds out of the gutter, my goodness!) Anyway, I'll report as soon as I give them a try. I'll be swatching for my next project soon.

Speaking of projects, here is the official finished object pictures of my Green Gables Socks.

I ran out of yarn at the toe of the second sock. I didn't have any roving left to spin any more...but as it turns out, I'd knit the first a tiny bit too long anyway. After a little bit of frantic un-knitting and re-knitting, I finally had a matched pair. And they both have toes!

There were a million ends to weave in, but it was worth not having to figure out a way to conjure yarn out of thin air.

PROJECT SPECS
Pattern: Diagonal Rib by Ann Budd
Needles: Susan Bates aluminum DPNs, size 1 (for cuff) and 0 (for foot)
Yarn: My own handspun, 3-ply fingering weight. Approx 300 yards. Roving was handpainted by Amy of Spunky Eclectic. This was the April Fiber Club for 2006.
Began spinning for this project: Last week of April, 2007.
Completed knitting project: Last week of August, 2007

Do you ever have the feeling that a project is taking advantage of you? I started a pair of toe-up socks. I'm using the happy fun 70's - esque rainbow self-striping yarn that I bought a while back. Suddenly, I was half-way done. These were supposed to be my boring movie knit, but I kept Until-The-Next-Striping until I'd gotten this far:

I'll knit these until I run out of yarn, so they might end up being knee-highs. (Yes, my husband just gave Max and Sparky haircuts. Yes, it was a surprise on both counts.)

I actually do want to work on some other things, so I've put these away for now. After all, I can't spend all of my time on the boring movie knit! What will I do then when I actually have a movie to watch?

Daisy is 5 months old now. Here she is, helping my friend Jillian with the laundry.

She's almost strong enough to start thinking about sitting up on her own now.

Working up a sweater

I've noticed something about my projects. I enjoy the idea of knitting a sock more than I actually enjoy wearing them. I enjoy the idea of wearing a sweater more than I actually enjoy knitting them. So I knit socks, and dream of sweaters. Now, I do, of course, wear my socks with pride and all, but there's just so much of a fashion statement that can be made with them -- they do generally reside inside of a shoe.

I was thinking about all of this, because... well, does anyone remember that I was working on Sahara a while a while ago? It's been almost three months exactly. Initially this project excited me, but then a bunch of other projects got queued up in front of it, and it kind of got left in the bottom of the knitting bag. Stockinette....endlessly, it seemed. Nevermind that I'm knitting a size small short sleeved version -- it was so intimidating to me for some reason! Over my visit back to NY, I finished up almost everything else that was on the needles, so I had to find a way to work on this without feeling like I wanted to stab my eye out. As it turns out, it's completely painless as a movie knit! Speed through round after round without even looking, and suddenly -- progress!

I know, not terribly impressive. But this has gone from a rectangle of fabric to something that actually has armholes and such, so I can't help but be pleased. I'm just used to having something immediately pretty and interesting on the needles...

So I cast on for this:

Mmmm... the satisfaction of sweet lace in a small project. Oh lovely sock, how I enjoy thee.

Speaking of lace, I think that a blocking session is in order...

Maybe tomorrow.

In other news, I'm blond again.

There have been a lot of days lately where I doubt who I am, and hate the fact that I am stuck in motherhood, but I've got to tell you: I adore these little people. I really do.

Thank you Sock Pal!

At long last, here are pictures of my socks from Sockaplaooza Pal, Cat (of Domesticrafts).

They are fabulous, and fit me perfectly! The red is a little more of a burgundy, but it was hard to capture in the bright sunlight this afternoon.

One of my favorite features of the Twisted Flower Sock is the way that the pattern travels al the way down the heel.

I love them, and have already worn them a few times.

Cat also sent me these:

Thank you so much! Lorna's Laces is one of my very favorite types of sock yarn, and I can't get Burt's Bees stuff over here (sadly!), so I was very excited about that part of it as well.

Check out what came in the mail yesterday?


I found this online from a store that was selling it used for one of it's customers. I almost felt like I was stealing, scoring it for $100 less than the listed price. My husband is a complete babe, because he agreed to buy this for me without a moment of hesitation when I told him about it.

The moment I unpacked it from the box, I carded up a little bit of the fleece that I had washed the other day. The batt came off the carder huge and voluminous, so I had to sit right down at the wheel to see what it would do.

Is spun up so finely and easily! I'm going to spin up one little sample skein of laceweight two ply, and then another of a chubby worsted/bulky to see what works best with this wool. I wish that I knew what type of wool it is. It's so much fun to play with; there's tons of body, it's strong, but not rough at all.

I'm also working on a worsted weight two ply...

But that's all I'm going to show you about that project right now.

Another collage from my time in the States:

This was a visit to the Tuckerton Museum/fisherman's village. I don't think that it was supposed to be as interactive as we made it, but we did have a lot of fun, and we didn't break anything, so it was a successful day, I think.

Click for details and gallery if that floats your boat. =)

Jetlagged, but here nonetheless!

Adjusting to a new timezone is already challenging all by my lonesome, but with my little crew? It's been a week, and we're just getting back to our normal routine.

Out on my porch, drying in the afternoon sun:


This armful of raw fleece was given to me by a lady named Regina, whom I met when I was back in the states. I actually met several ladies on two different occasions, some of them sheep farmers, all of them spinners and knitters/crocheters/weavers. It was so much fun. Here's some photos from one of those days:

Click to get to the photoset for more details if you wish.

The green socks in the top left are indeed the Green Gables handspun socks that I've been working on since Daisy was born. I finished them on my way home from the New Jersey shore. Also completed is the Forest Canopy Shawl. It's just waiting to be blocked out, and it'll be ready for it's photoshoot. I'll take another proper "finished object" pic of the socks, perhaps this week. I also still have to photograph the gorgeous pair of socks that I got from Sockapalooza!

The socks that I knit for my pal are finally complete, and I'll be sending them out tomorrow. Here they are!

(These are size 6-1/2, so my 9-year-old sister is modeling them for me)

I love the way the stockinette portion waves back and forth opposite the twisted stitch patterning.

PROJECT SPECS
Pattern: Marina Piccola by Kate GilbertNeedles: KnitPicks Options size 0
Yarn: Socks That Rock Silkie, colorway Beryl
Modifications: None
Notes: I love this pattern. It's a little fussy, and I had to pay attention to it, but after a while I was able to knit without the chart, which made it way easier. (I say "after a while", but that really means that by the end of the second sock I had it memorized. Perhaps I'm a bit slow.) I love the fact that it can be adapted to any gauge, and knit to any size. This makes it endlessly useful for any yarn you might be using.

The pattern was a Godsend. The yarn was pooling terribly with everything else that I tried until I chose this one. Hurrah for Kate!

We're back! And someone just turned four...

We're home! We arrived back in Germany at 6:30 last night, and finally got to our house at around 10:30 or so. It was a long trip back, and I'm just glad that it's done. We had a wonderful visit back in the states with friends and family, and I've got tons of pictures that I've been uploading to my Flickr account, but I'll blog about all of that in chunks. There's way too much to catch up on for one post.

I feel like this was one of the best visits that I've ever had with my younger siblings, especially. Between cherry pipes shared with Christopher and Joel, cuddling out on the porch on a chilly evening with Grace and Joy, interesting talks with Caleb, visiting the biker bar Hannah works at, cooking with my mom, hanging out with my dad, and doing a little shopping with Rachel, I feel like there was a lot of life that happened, packed into those four weeks. I even got to hang out with Grandma Claire a few times -- she has the shopping stamina of 10 women! We also got to see some of my dad's side of the family in NJ, and had a lovely time.

But for today, first things first -- it's Sparky's 4th birthday!

We are so glad to be back home with Mr. FiberFlash. We've all missed him so much. Even Daisy has been watching him like she knows who he is with smiles and gurgles and such.

Instead of a cake, I got some big chocolate-dipped cookies from the bakery down the street, and piled some whipped cream next to it. Since Max is two and would have been mad otherwise, I put a candle in both of their cookies to blow out.

Happy birthday Sparky!

The kids are in bed now, so it's time for some Mojitos, etc. *wink*

A Cool Rain Surprise

Finally, I can show you something else that I was working on just before coming to the States.

Remember the Cool Rain that I spun up a while ago? This is what happened to it:



I gave this to my friend Sarah for her baby, VJ, earlier this week.

Daisy turned 4 months old and got her ears pierced.

My beautiful girl!

I got my sockapalooza socks and they're fabulous! Can't take a picture at the moment, but they're beautiful and fit me perfectly. They were knit by the lovely Domesticat!

I'll post more details about the above sweater and the socks later this week. For now, it's off to the beach for a few days!

Meds and some handspun

(So yesterday, I finally decided I'd had enough of being sick. Normally, my body fights sickness just fine, and nothing lasts more than a few days, but this was just getting way too frustrating. A full week of fever is just not normal. My mom took me to the Dr, and she prescribed some Amoxicillan (sp?!), which is safe for use while nursing a baby, and I started the meds last night. I still feel like I got run over by a truck, but at least I'm not as stuffy. I just keep hoping that when I wake up from one of my many naps, I'm going to suddenly feel all awesome and ready to take on the world. Still waiting, I'll keep you posted on that one.

In other more fun and fibery news, I can finally blog about something that I was working on in the last week or two that I was in Germany. When Mouse won first place in the Find Me A Shoe contest, I knew that I wanted to send her some really special handspun. We both happen to like purple, and I didn't have any on hand that I was willing to give up. I had a bunch of pewter Merino roving in my stash, so with the help of Kool-Aid, I overdyed to make this:


I wanted it to match her blog, and it actually almost does.

I then spun some pretty fine singles for the end result of this two-ply:

If I remember correctly, there's over 400 yards of fingering weight-ish Purple Popsicle Twist.

During the wet-finishing it I roughed it up a little so that the fibers would bloom and felt ever so slightly, making a tougher and bouncier yarn. It should be a little more resistant to pilling than it might otherwise be.

It was really fun to be able to send something to Mouse, because I've been reading her blog since the beginning of my blogging days, and there was a whole year where we even lived pretty close to each-other. Somehow, we've still never managed to meet in person, so Mouse, consider this our little visit, and my thank-you to you for being a good online friend who took the time to comment on my blog even when I sucked beyond all sucking at the blog-thing back in the beginning.

Completely unrelated, but there's a stash sale going on over at Yarn Ball Boogie. It's good stuff too (lots of Manos, and other!). Go run over there and buy everything before I do.

All the good mail (and I know someone you might know...)

About a week before I flew back to NY, I had one of my favorite kinds of playdates. It's the kind that combines good pizza and quality spinning time.

Do you know the spinner on the right? It's fellow blogger Rachel (of the Whisper Lace sock pattern). Pretty strange knowing a blogging friend in real life. We don't live too far from each other in Germany, so we get together twice a month or so for knitting and spinning. We also happen to have some little people who match up pretty well age-wise.

A good time was had by all.

A while back, I had mentioned some really good stuff that I'd been getting in the mail. I did take pictures like the good little blogger I am, but never got around to posting. Something about suddenly being thrust into the role of Single Mom knocked the wind right out of me. Anyway, here are some highlights:

A package from my husband's cousin Jessica, blog reader and podcast listener. It was she who won the Name That Baby contest with the entry "Daisy".

The package from her included candy for the boys, a card featuring her scarf in progress (knit from the handspun I sent her!), and most excitingly the book Braids & Bows.

She remembered from months ago when I mentioned that if my baby was a girl I'd have to buy this book for her. I used to have it when I was little, and learned to do many fantastic hairstyles in my younger sister's hair, as well as my own.

I highly recommend it for anyone wondering what to do with longer hair. I got the warm fuzzies when I sat down to flip through it. I can't wait for Daisy's hair to grow long enough!

Jessica used new kitchen towels as padding, because they were approximately the same as paper packing material, but they have the benefit of being reusable. I love it!

Next up is a little package from blog reader Faith. (I have a special place in my heart for anyone named Faith. It's not a common name, so it's always kind of a thrill to meet someone I share the name with.)

Faith won "second place" in the Find My Shoes contest, and before I could even get her package out the door, she had sent me this! I'd never felt Malabrigo in person, and I have to tell you that it's definitely all it's cracked up to be and more.

I don't think I'd ever knit a sweater out of it because of the pilling factor (it's a worsted weight singles yarn of pure Merino, so the soft fibers will eventually start to drift out), but it is fabulously suited to accessories like scarves and hats. This perfect shade of blue will probably be a nice cushy scarf for fall.

And then came the shoes!

I forgot to take a picture of the third pair, which followed these by a week, but I love them all!

The bronze ones came in their very own sock knitting bags.

I wonder if the Earth company realizes this?

And then, just because I'm sure that I didn't post enough Daisy pictures yesterday, I leave you with this one:

(Jillian couldn't resist the swimming goggles when she found them on my living room floor!)

Small-fry pics and socks in progress

Daisy is getting so big! I just realized that I haven't taken pictures in a while, so here's a little shoot that I did today. (Click for the gallery if you wish.)

(As you can see, the boys were less than pleased to pose in the bottom row there.)

Thank you for all of your well wishes. I'm still feeling pretty sick, but I'm drinking lots of water, taking vitamin C, and drinking immunity booster tea. My mom made chicken soup last night too, which has been wonderful.

I haven't managed to knit at all in the past week. I've been feeling so weak, but finally I was able to pick up the needles today and work on my Sockapalooza socks a little today. I feel so terrible that they're not done yet, but hopefully I'll be able to work on them in ernest soon; it shouldn't take too long to finish the second sock up.



I love the way the stockinette panels wave back and forth between the twisted stitch patterned parts.


Pattern: Marina Piccola by Kate Gilbert