WIP Wednesday: Training for runs and rows

My upcoming marathon is not the only big sporting event to look forward to, there's also this little gathering of athletes happening in Sochi.  And like it's warm season counterpart, there will once again be a corresponding event for crafters who will be watching the Games and challenging themselves in their own way between torch lighting and torch extinguishing.

Some people will be knitting entire sweaters in this relatively short timespan.  I'm not that bold, but I am going to be attempting something totally new and exciting for me: socks!

Technically these aren't a work in progress because I can't officially cast on until the opening ceremonies, but as these are my first pair of socks ever, I wanted to make sure to do them right.  I would hate to put all of that effort into turning a heel only to find that I've ended up with socks that are so tight I can't put them on or so loose that they end up in a puddle around my ankles.  And so, I have swatched:

Look, a thumb cosy!  No, just the first of three swatches I knit before reaching the gauge specified in the pattern.  I'm calling the project Sochi Socki and using a pattern from the wonderful Alicia from Woolen Diversions.  My Hot Cocoa Cowl was a test knit for her and I really like her thorough pattern writing, so I feel like I'm in good hands.  Or should that be feet?  And the yarn is Heavenly Fiber, a dyer I love both for her yarn and herself.  This yarn was always destined to be socks.  I'm so excited to hopefully get these done and be able to wear them the next time I see her at the same fiber festival where I bought the yarn last year.

Until I can actually cast on the socks, I still have my standby WIP that was almost an FO and then became decidedly a WIP again, the Fruit Loopy Shawl.  Here it is last Friday, during what is becoming a weekly frozen yogurt and knitting fest at Chill Out:

Still a bit of a ways to go, but it's pretty mindless knitting.  I'll probably bring it to a meeting tomorrow and hopefully get another 'wedge' of short rows done.

For more WIP Wednesday posts for this week, go to Tami's Amis.

Key Lime Pot de Creme

New Year's Eve is an interesting holiday, food-wise.  Thanksgiving has turkey and cranberry and pumpkin, Christmas has candy canes and potato salad (at least in my family).  But New Year's Eve has kind of a random flavor profile, if you will.  There's champagne, of course.  And…black eyed peas?  Hmm, no thanks.

So when our knitting group had an all-day get-together, aside from being complete with potluck spread of veggies, chips, dip, and fruit, it was entirely up to us what we wanted to eat.  There were no real traditional norms to guide us.  Ultimately, we decided that we fancied baked potatoes.  Because they are delicious.

Also delicious: lime.  Winter doesn't strike me as the time of year for citrus necessarily, although the last time I was in Central Market they seemed to be kicking off a citrus extravaganza, so maybe my mom just didn't realize how on-trend she was when she suggested a lime dessert.  Apparently her sister would always make her something called lemon posset, and that got her thinking about a lime pot de creme.

Essentially, a pot de creme is a custard.  Creme brûlée is a pot de creme that's been torched to have that fancy sugar shell.  Leaving out the brûlée part and adding in some tart citrus flavor makes for a super-simple dessert that tastes delicious.  And what makes it even more simple in the recipe I found was that it uses sweetened condensed milk, so you don't have to dissolve any sugar or anything.  Just mix, pour, bake, and chill.  And then, of course, enjoy.  That's the easiest part.

Key Lime Pot de Creme
Recipe from Bakin' Bit: Key Lime Pot de Creme

My Notes:

• Didn't use any key limes, just the regular, less pesky ones
• Added a little more zest, about a Tablespoon
• The recipe doesn't give a volume, but my mixture filled five 1/2-cup ramekins perfectly
• Tip: For water baths, to reduce the risk of splashing water into the ramekins when transferring into the oven, I don't put water into the pan until I'm putting it into the oven.  So just as you are setting it on the rack, carefully pour in the hot water.  It was helpful to have a second person around for this, but it can be done alone.  
• Served with freshly whipped cream and fruit

Inspiration Saturday: Mosaic knitting

In the past month or so I've been straying away from the knit-related inspirations.  I guess it's the influence of having my long runs on Saturdays that has lead me to a couple posts about running, and one sort of about ice cream.  Because nothing refuels you after a few hard miles like ice cream, right?

But this week, there's a technique I want to highlight.  I didn't realize until I was writing this post that it's called mosaic knitting.  I was just calling it 'slipping stitches'.  As Knitty says:

Using a simple slip-stitch technique, you can create bands and borders in pattern, or even a whole sweater, and you won't ever have to carry a second yarn along! ... 

Mosaic knitting simply involves slipping the stitches in a row that should be the "other" color. If you are knitting the dark color, you slip the light; if you are knitting the light color, you slip the dark.

I can slip stitches!  I can also carry two yarns at a time, sort of, but it's scarier.  Slipping stitches seems much safer.  So here are a few slipping patterns I'm digging:

Blue Jean Cowl by RMW Knits

Photo credit: RMW Knits

I have a friend that just finished this cowl, and it looks really cute.

Ballband Dishcloth by Pisgah Yarn & Dyeing Co., Inc.

Photo credit: Me ; )

And hey, I've already done this myself with my dishcloths for the Yarnorama holiday party last year.  The party ended up being postponed, hopefully we'll have it soon so I can show these off.  And I think I want to make a cowl using this pattern as a base, I really like the subway tile effect of it.

INSULATE! Hat by Amy van de Laar

Photo credit: Amy van de Laar

How awesome is this?  You have to love a Dalek knit.  And apparently it uses "a combination of solid-colour rounds with occasional slipped stitches, and stranded-colourwork rounds."  Neat!  I like that it gives you a still-impressive colorwork project, but with a little simplification where possible.

Mosaic Diamonds Dishcloth by Carol Schoenfelder

Photo credit: My mom ; )

Back to dishcloths, this is one from the pair my mom made for the same Yarnorama party swap.  You'll notice that we pooled together our yarns.  She really loved this technique, she kept saying how amazing it would be as a sweater.  And it would be fantastic.

So if you want to explore color in your knitting and maybe after Color Affection you want something other than stripes, you can always try a little slipping.  Unlike in running, in knitting it's a very good thing.

For a different kind of color inspiration (dyeing), head over to Woolen Diversions.

WIP Wednesday: Looks like it's back to Norman...

After at least one 'morning' when I didn't get out of bed until after noon, I can't say that I was happy to hear my alarm ringing bright and early on Monday morning.  But it's not a vacation unless it ends and you go back to work.  And I know I'm not the only one feeling the 'shock' as my dad calls it of returning.  Everyone has that same wistful tone in their voice as they answer the requisite question of the week: How was your break?

So it's back to the hustle and bustle of the work week.  But it's not all evil alarms forcing me out of bed and disturbing the cat in her continued slumber.  Wednesday holds some good routines, like the weekly coffee klatch, which brought another successful recipe I'll be sharing soon.  It also gave me enough crafting time to do a few more rows of my shawl, slowly making my way back to where I was before I discovered its fatal asynchrony.  Other than that, I've been doing some non-knitting crafting for my Jane Austen swap.  One project involves committing a cardinal sin and deconstructing a book, while the other involved a lot of blanket stitching, but was not, in fact, a blanket.  Tantalizing hints, I hope, to keep you in suspense for the big reveal sometime in February, when packages go out.

I was also kind of looking forward to running on the treadmill again.  While at home, I was either on the road or on the elliptical, and I kind of missed the compromise that is the treadmill.  It was a little annoying, though, to finally reach the standard time limit of 100 minutes and have to restart my workout in order to reach my designated 9 miles.  Oh well, at least I maintained my skill at reading magazines while running over the break.  I'm tempted to try knitting and running, but, um, how about after the marathon?  Yeah, definitely after.

Another relatively recent edition to the work routine has been dinner with Dad on Wednesdays after my workout.  This became a habit in the past few months, and it's nice to count on a little face-to-face time no matter what else the week may hold.  Today we again went to Tarka, as the two of us are the only ones who seem to like Indian food.  Mmm…I won't say that Channa Masala has completely replaced my beloved Kerbey Lane pancakes, but it's perhaps slightly less incongruous with the very healthy way I spend the hour or two before dinner to eat a curried mix of veggies than to have a stack of banana bacon pancakes with peanut butter sauce pancakes.  (Proof: despite not going to Kerbey Lane Cafe, I did check their Facebook page to find out that these Elvis pancakes are the pancake of the week.)

I hope those of you who are also returning to your regular working lives are not in too much shock and that there are some good things to return to as well as the mundane minutiae of office life.  For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

Inspiration Saturday: Marathon knitting

So this is kind of a news story from October, but I just found out about it on New Year's Eve and I wanted to share it with you.  There's not a lot of overlap between the world of running and the world of knitting.  But there are a few pioneers who cross the borders in exciting and somewhat crazy ways.

Like David Babcock, who broke the existing record for the longest scarf knit while running a marathon.  I love that there was an existing record to break in the first place, but David broke it by knitting a 12-foot long scarf in under six hours running 26.2 miles.

I found David's whole set up interesting:

I have an old ugly fanny pack that has a squarish open pocket that lets a ball of yarn turn freely inside of it. The opening in the bag has just enough of a lip that the ball tends to stay inside. Once the knit scarf gets to a length where it is in danger of hitting the road, or my stepping on it, I attach the end to a carabiner on the pack. Later I take a loop of paracord and wrap it around the scarf, cinching it up, and then loop the paracord through itself and onto another carabiner. When the scarf is long enough it wraps around the back of my body and to the front again.

I will admit that I have done some knitting and walking before.  I have a pedometer and always make sure to take at least 10,000 steps a day.  Before I got deep into marathon training, I would sometimes need to take a few turns about the living room in order to earn those steps at the end of the day.  To make this look even more strange, and possibly even more Jane Austen-esque, I would slip my project bag over my wrists and knit as I went.  As long as it was just plain knitting, it was okay.  I never tried anything crazy like lacework.  I probably would have tripped over the cat.

Other interesting tidbits:

• He used 100% acrylic yarn (because this is just not a luxury fiber situation)
• The scarf is plain garter stitch, 30 stitches wide in size 15 needles (straights)
• Finished length: 12 feet, 1 3/4 inches
• Finish time: 5 hours, 48 minutes, 27 seconds (faster than I will finish)

Aside from the sheer impressiveness of the achievement, I find it funny to read the articles, because what the reporter deems to be the interesting information is determined by the direction from which they are approaching the story.  It makes sense, for example, that Runner's World cared about his pace and that they would be surprised to find out that there is such a thing as knitting experts.  I didn't see any interviews with knitting magazines or websites, but that might be a weakness in the Google search, who knows.  I imagine that their questions would have been more about the yarn, the needles, and the scarf itself.  

So there you go.  Whether I'm huffing and puffing through a training run, or maybe just struggling through a long row on a shawl, I'm going to think of David and realize that I could be making things a lot harder on myself.

Have you ever knit while walking?  Or while doing anything else unusual?  For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

Cubicle kitchen: Cranberry Swirl Citrus Cheesecake Bars

Leftover puppy chow.  Now there's something I never thought I would have.  But I guess when you make a double batch, then hoard it just a little, it can happen.  And it happened to me just after Thanksgiving, and resulted in a recipe that I didn't get a chance to share with you until now.

First, I should explain that by puppy chow I actually mean what most bloggers call Muddy Buddies, which is kind of like cake balls versus cake truffles.  It sounds nicer, and people don't do a double take when you tell them you're bringing Muddy Buddies the way they do when you say puppy chow.

Whatever you call it, it's traditionally Chex cereal combined with chocolate, peanut butter and powdered sugar for a deliciously addictive sweet snack.  In this case, I wanted to experiment with a different kind of chow, a lemony chow.  I used Lemon Tree Dwelling's recipe which essentially substitutes lemon curd for peanut butter to make a really yummy citrus version.

It was a great addition to the smorgasbord of food we had at Thanksgiving, a kind of mid-afternoon snack between lunch and the actual dessert of pies and cheesecake.  So I made a little more to bring into work.

If there's any downside to this chow, it's that it gets a little soft faster than the original version.  There's nothing wrong with it, but it loses that cereal crunch.  We all know how I feel about using leftovers, so I decided that these could be used in just the same way that cookies can to create a crust.  And I was in the mood for cheesecake, so I decided they would be cheesecake bars.  And then, to keep to the Thanksgiving leftover theme, I swirled in some of my slow cooker cranberry sauce, because I love any excuse for more cranberries.  I didn't add too much, though, because I didn't want to mess up the delicate balance and end up with unset cheesecake.  This way it was pretty in just a little bit of pink.

A great end to a year of cubicle kitchening, and another year starts tomorrow…stay tuned!

Cranberry Swirl Citrus Cheesecake
Adapted from Kraft Philadelphia: 3-Step Lemon Cheesecake Bars

Makes one 8 x 8 inch pan

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups leftover Lemon Bar Muddy Buddies, crushed
• 2 Tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
• 2 8-ounce packages of Neufchatel cream cheese
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon orange zest
• 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup, plus 1 Tablespoon prepared cranberry sauce

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Mix crushed cereal crumbs with butter and press into pan lined with parchment paper.
3. In a bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, zest, extract, and Tablespoon of cranberry sauce.  Beat until fully combined, then beat in eggs one at a time.
4. Pour cheesecake mixture over crust.  Spoon remaining cranberry sauce into mixture and swirl lightly for a marbled effect.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the center is almost set.  Allow to cool before placing in the fridge to chill completely.

WIP Wednesday: Practically perfect in…some ways

Happy 2014 everyone!  Did you pop champagne bottles?  Set off fireworks?  Watch Carson Daly and think, 'Wow, I'm old, and I wish this was TRL'?

I celebrated the new year with some friends in an all-day knitting, eating, and chatting session.  It was good times.  We had fruit, veggies, chips, dip, and for dinner we did baked potatoes with all of the fixings.  And, of course, I baked something for dessert.  Stay tuned for that recipe coming soon.

It's always nice to be able to spend some quality time with fellow crafters.  Especially when you're facing some frustrations with your WIPs.  Because as sympathetic as non-knitters may be, they just don't understand what it's like to be a few rows away from finishing a shawl, only to discover that you need to rip it back to the halfway point.

Ouch.

Yes, unfortunately my Fruit Loopy Shawl has suffered a setback.  I was finishing up the final section, all of the gussets behind me, when I decided to check and make sure that the end was shaping up symmetrically to the beginning.  It wasn't.  After doing some digging in others' project pages and the comments, I discovered that the Coquille Shawl pattern has an erratum.  Well, it's an erratum if you were expecting it to come out symmetrically, which I was.  Basically, the shawl is constructed with short row 'gussets' that turn out kind of like ruffles (here's a picture from when I first started):

For the first half of the shawl, you are also added stitches on the rows between the gussets.  Then for the second half, you are decreasing at the same rate.  The problem is that the pattern has you including these increases for the center gusset section.  When you do that, you end up with four more stitches then you should have.  So your second half ends up being a fatter wedge than the first, and when you are working the final section to get back down to three stitches to cast off, you have to work several additional rows, resulting in a longer length from final gusset to tip than you have from cast on to first gusset.

Would the shawl still have been fully-functional and 'fine' had I just accepted this asymmetry?  Yes.  But it would have irked me, and taken away from the happy feelings I wanted to have every time I looked at this colorful shawl.  It didn't need to be perfect, but this was too much.  So I bit the bullet and ripped back to the halfway point so that I could reknit the center gusset sans increases.

What adds insult to injury is the sneaking suspicion I have that if it weren't for the extra four stitches across the entire second half of the shawl, I might not have needed to buy extra yarn, and this shawl could have been done not just in 2013 but at least a month ago.  Grr.  But I'm taking deep breaths and letting it pass.  This way, I know I have plenty of yarn, and I've gone ahead and done the two gussets on either side of the center that I eliminated the first time around in order to try and conserve yardage.

Just so you don't think I'm a crazy perfectionist, I have another project that I'm nearly done with which had it's own unexpected results.  And this time I didn't respond to it by redoing the whole thing.  It's for the Jane Austen swap, so I can't give you too many details.  But suffice to say, it involved some colorwork and for some reason my gauge between a swatch of just plain knitting and the actual knitting with the colorwork was different.  The image I was aiming for in the colorwork is fine, but the item itself is a bit larger than I was hoping.

Thankfully, I have my mother, who has a lot of experience with knitting fixes.  She picked up the stitches on the shawl for me, and she's helping me reconcile the dimension issues for this project.  Then I just have to quell the voices in my head that start to pipe up anytime something turns out even mildly disappointing.  I know that in the end it's still going to be amazing, and that my spoilee will love it.  At least I hope she will.  I think it's a good sign that I'm still really excited to be able to show it to you all.

So my 2014 crafting didn't necessarily start off on the best foot, but I think the bright side is that I faced them all with relative calm and without any tears of frustration.  After all, it's not about the problems you face, you can't control those.  It's about how you face them.

Before I turn into a Hallmark card, I'll send you on to Tami's Amis for more WIP Wednesday posts.