Springtime and June

June 30, 2019March 15, 2021

I’m working on lots of fun things at the moment. I’ve been writing more recipes that I’m excited to share soon!

I’ve been loving how beautiful all the local farmers markets have become now that it’s springtime!

All the pretty lavender plants at the local farmers market.

Nothing brings joy like stunning tulips in spring!

I’ve also been knitting swatches to try and figure out which size knitting needle gives the best result with the cream colored wool that I reclaimed from a gigantic J. Crew sweater (truly the biggest sweater that I have ever laid my eyes on) that I thrifted for a less than $2. The sweater was 100% wool and I’m so excited to make something with all that yarn! My new favorite thing to do is listen to podcasts while knitting simple swatches. It’s pure bliss…

And in honor of July 4th coming up (Happy Birthday America!) I want to take a moment to celebrate a true American hero – Claire Saffitz from the Bon Appétit test kitchen!

Claire is the coolest! I love watching her Gourmet Makes series because she manages to recreate these industrially produced snacks through some blend of creativity, alchemy, perseverance and gumption.

One of my favorite moments from this episode is at 28:26 when she comfort-wraps her homemade starbursts to cheer herself up (with melancholy piano music playing dramatically in the background) after every batch of taffy that she’s made has come out wrong. Thankfully at the end of the episode (thanks in part to the diligence of her co-worker Chris Morocco) she manages to get a decent batch of cherry flavored taffy that’s pretty darn close to an original starburst.

Claire never gives up and always keeps her sense of humor throughout each episode, and that’s pretty inspiring. Sometimes I’ll be working on a recipe that’s not coming out quite right, and I think “If Claire can make homemade Doritos, then I can figure out how to fix this recipe!” And eventually, a few tries later, I do manage to get my recipe right.

I hope that all of you have a wonderful July 4th!

Elaine

New Yarn, Endless Possibilities…

April 30, 2019May 3, 2019

There’s always a little bit of magic in each new ball of yarn. As you run your fingers over the soft wool, you think “I could make a hat, or a scarf, or maybe some gloriously warm socks for chilly mornings…”

The possibilities are endless. Then you get the excitement of looking at patterns on Ravelry, or google searching images of sweaters that you like so that you can start trying to design your own.

Buying that yarn is the first part of a new journey. You know that you’ll knit most of the stitches with love, sometimes a little frustration, and maybe a little (or a lot) of confusion. You’ll drag your project with you on the bus, to coffeeshops to knit with friends, or simply knit quietly at home reveling in the joy of making something with your own hands.

Making something by hand is never perfect, but it’s not supposed to be and that’s something worth celebrating. You will make mistakes when knitting. Maybe you miscount a stitch and purl when you should have knitted, or were kind enough to teach someone else to knit and purl on your latest project and you kept their stitches in your final work as well. There is joy and beauty in every stitch that you make, and they all help to tell a story of where you were in your life when you were making each project.

I hope that every new ball of yarn brings you that same incandescent joy and excitement. Because life is just a little more awesome when you have a new project waiting for you to begin.

Adventures in Knitting! – The Honeycomb Cable Stitch

March 31, 2019May 2, 2019

Honeycomb Cable Stitch

It’s springtime! The local cherry trees have once again donned their festive pink blossoms, and the weather has finally warmed up again.

It’s crazy to think that just 3 weeks ago there was still snow on the ground. Right now the skies are clear and blue, and temperatures are hovering in the 60’s. How amazing is it that so many changes can appear in such a short amount of time?

I’m still a knittin’. I’ve been eyeing some Aran sweater patterns and have been experimenting with some more complicated stitches in my quest to become a better knitter.

My Aran Sweater Swatch

I’ve tried my hand at the Moss Stitch Diamond Pattern, the Wheat Ear Cable Stitch, and the Honeycomb Cable Stitch, as well as experimenting with 1×1 and 2×2 ribbing stitches. The little blue loop is a stitch marker that I used to keep track of where one pattern started and another ended. I knitted this swatch in cotton just for practice, but traditionally Aran sweaters are knitted in wool.

Moss Stitch Diamond

The Moss Stitch Diamond was difficult for me. There were 22 different rows to knit through before the pattern repeated, so I constantly had to refer back to the directions. I think that I might try knitting another swatch of this cable and try to work out where I went wrong because my swatch looked like a slightly melted version of the original pattern.

Wheat Ear Cable Stitch

The Wheat Ear Cable Stitch was a dream to knit. It looks beautiful (sort of like an ear of wheat waving to and fro in a gentle breeze) and the pattern repeats again after only 4 rows. This meant that I only had to refer to the directions every 3rd row or so because only one row of the 4 actually requires you to do any cable stitches. I can’t wait to knit this on something bigger than a swatch!

Honeycomb Cable Stitch – With Practice Cables

The final stitch that I learned was the Honeycomb Cable Stitch. Many Aran sweater designers traditionally use this stitch in the center front panel of their sweaters. This cable stitch looks super complicated and I was intimidated to even try to knit it.

Could I hack it? Would my honeycomb swatch be super messy? Would you even be able to make out the honeycomb pattern at all once I was finished?

My Confetti Colors!

As it turns out, this pattern is way simpler to knit than I thought. The pattern repeats after 8 rows, but you barely have to glance at the directions because it’s intuitive where you have to knit your cables. Some you hold in front of your work, and right afterwards you hold the next set of cables behind your knitting. It’s almost like weaving in a way, working your stitches in front of your work and then behind your work.

The variation in the knitting comes from knitting with 3 differently colored yarns. Knitting them all together creates a confetti colored pattern which I really like. It’s like knitting joy into every stitch.

Party in a Swatch

It took a few hours to create 6-8 inches of knitted honeycomb. I felt quite proud when I finished! Learning each new stitch was like accomplishing a mini-goal. At first you don’t know if you’ll be able to coax sticks and string into knitting more complex fabric in an orderly fashion, and then a few hours later you’ve done it!

It’s funny to think that I only started knitting in January of this year. I have yet to make anything more complicated than flat knit socks, but it’s so exciting to think that there are so many more stitches and techniques to discover! It’s like being a knitting explorer!

This must be like how Sally Ride felt when she was blasting off into space for the first time. So many new adventures await!

Adventures in Knitting! – Flat Knit Socks

February 28, 2019April 1, 2019

I know what you’re wondering…

Did Elaine get snowed in at some point during the past few weeks?

Why, yes. Yes I did.

I have lived in snowy places before, but I have never in my life seen as much snow as I have the past few weeks.

It just kept snowin’…

Three foot long icicles hung from the roof, and I was knee deep in snow for more than a week. It was super crazy!

But also kind of fun. There was something really nice about knowing that everyone in the surrounding areas got to spend some extra time with their families for a few days.

Good news though! The weather finally cleared, the snow finally melted (well, mostly… there’s still some piles of it here and there) and I have finished my socks!

Nothing says snowed in like flat knit socks. They are pretty easy to knit, and I had to knit them flat because I lacked the size 7 double pointed needles that I needed to knit them in the round. (Unfortunately, those double pointed needles don’t just appear in the snow like Turkish Delights do in Narnia…)

Oddly enough, the hardest part came when I had to seam them together. I couldn’t get the socks to fit together properly for a while. Finally after using the seamless mattress stitch to seam them together for the 3^rd time was I able to get a sock-like shape.

I still have to block the socks (wash them gently and shape them flat for drying) but that’s a project for the weekend I think.

I found the pattern for flat knit socks online. Admittedly, they don’t match and they are slightly different patterns as well.

This is for a fun reason!

I managed to reuse a green swatch I was knitting for the top of one of the socks when I realized that I had accidentally cast on the exact number of stitches in the swatch that I needed for the socks, therefore saving myself 4-6 hours of work. I just ripped out some of the extra stitches to make the swatch shorter (and the right length for the top of the sock), and then started knitting the decreases for the toe.

I could have made matching socks by making green and pale robin’s egg blue stripes, but it would have made for a pretty unattractive color combination. Plus, when I made them my feet were freezing. I made these socks to wear under my tall boots, so it didn’t matter to me that the colors matched so much as long as the socks were warm.

I’ve got a ball of pink worsted merino yarn and a ball of yellow cotton yarn left. I started making a pink hat about a week ago. I had bought some circular needles a few weeks ago in anticipation of making the hat but (being a new knitter) didn’t realize that you couldn’t make a hat on 29 inch circular needles because all of the extra cord gets in the way of knitting.

Of course, this was yet again a day that the local knitting store was closed, and I wanted to start my hat! So again to the kitchen I went to grab some more takeout chopsticks. I wish I would have figured out that I could make the double pointed needles before I made the socks, but it was probably good that I learned to knit them flat first. I could focus on learning to increase and decrease stitches and not have to worry about knitting in the round.

It took me about 2 hours to shave down, sharpen, sand and polish 4 double pointed bamboo knitting needles (size 7 of course). I had to keep sharpening my craft knife using fine sandpaper (thank you YouTube for teaching me how to do this) to cut the bamboo properly, but making my own knitting needles was actually a really fun process. All I needed was chopsticks, sandpaper, a buffing block and a craft knife.

There’s something very satisfying in knowing that you needed something, and then you made it yourself. I also loved the process of doing a simple carving project and knowing that my effort created something useful, something that will help me create more things in the future.

And my double pointed needles work just fine, the yarn slides smoothly across them. I started to knit with them and after knitting about 3 inches of hat I realized that the hat pattern that I was using was way too small for my head. The hat was about 19 inches in diameter, too small for anyone but a child, so I ripped the stitches out and rolled the yarn back onto the ball.

I think that I’m going to try and knit a more complicated hat pattern. I saw one with cables and an Irish Moss pattern that I love, but I’m going to try and make it with a different style of cable.

I also learned how to do basic cables!

Here’s my pretty swatch in bubblegum pink merino. My goal for this year was to be able to knit a cable and I seem to have accomplished that 10 months early. I will have to find a bigger knitting goal for this year now. Yay!

What was your first knitting project?

And if you have any advice for a new knitter it would be greatly welcome. I’ve got so much to learn and I am super excited to keep making things.

If only nice wool was cheaper…

Knitting – My New Favorite Hobby!

February 4, 2019April 1, 2019

I’ve been knitting for about 4 weeks now, teaching myself to cast on by watching YouTube videos. I’ve learned how to fix those loose stitches at the end of rows (you slip the first stitch) and slowly but surely I’m starting to knit decent looking swatches of (mostly) orderly rows of knits and purls.

I’m not entirely sure why I started knitting to be honest! I’ve always thought of myself as a sewer, not a knitter. From the outside, knitting seemed time consuming, tedious, while sewing something cozy for yourself (like a sewing a beanie from an old sweater) could be done in an afternoon.

I liked the speedy gratification that comes from seeing something that you imagined (I want a hat, and I can sew one by lunchtime!) appear in your hands quickly.

Knitting isn’t like that. It’s slower, quieter, and I’ve been surprised to find how meditative it is. You focus on your work, and stitch-by-stitch something good comes from your effort.

I read Rachael Herron’s book A Life in Stitches a little while ago. It’s 20 short essays about knitting (if you know a knitter, this is the perfect gift to get them besides some really nice yarn).

While I was reading the book I couldn’t understand why the author thought knitting was so magical. It was just yarn after all, and some knitting needles, no big deal, but I loved reading the stories.

I loved reading about how knitting a replica of a sweater from her mother’s youth made Rachael feel closer to her mother. It was fun to read about crazy knitting stashes (every knitter has more yarn than they know what to do with), and about how any yarn you buy while traveling doesn’t count towards your already overflowing knitting stash.

Rachael knitted while she was in bad relationships, living in moldy apartments, getting through graduate school, suffering heartbreak, and ultimately when she found love and published her first book. This simple activity was the glimmering throughline that gave her comfort and joy in every phase of her life.

Even after I finished the book, which was basically a love letter to knitting, I still didn’t get it. I still had no desire to knit.

One day a few months later, I woke up and suddenly had the overwhelming desire to knit. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday and the local yarn store was closed. I had no knitting needles, but I did have a random ball of silky bright yellow cotton yarn that I had picked up years ago.

So to the kitchen I went to find some takeout chopsticks! I sanded them down with a random scrap of fine sandpaper, sat down with my ball of yellow yarn, and I was off to the races!

My first stitches weren’t great. My gorgeous yellow yarn was too fine for the chopsticks and the swatch I was knitting was just a series of large loops that twisted to and fro, but I didn’t care. I was knitting! I was just beginning to learn how to do something that it had never occurred to me that I would want to or be even able to do.

Knitting had always seemed like an elusive skill to me. I admired the skill it took to make those beautiful hand knit sweaters that you occasionally found in thrift stores, with their complicated looking cables and neat stitches, but I figured that knitting was something that you either had a knack for or you didn’t. Why I thought this, I do not know.

Maybe this is because I grew up in a time when people bought their clothes instead of making them. I’m sure in the past if you wanted a blue cable knit sweater you would make it yourself. Nowadays if you want a blue cable knit sweater, you type “blue cable knit sweater” into Google and buy one online.

Making things by hand is no longer as common as it used to be, but I think that’s changing with my generation. I have friends who make pottery, who bake and cook. Those skills along with knitting and sewing (hobbies that I enjoy) were skills that weren’t celebrated so much when we were growing up.

But there’s something deeply moving about making something handmade. The item that you create is the manifestation of an idea, your tenacity, and hope all rolled into the same object. Buying something that’s been mass-produced just doesn’t have the same feel to it.

Funnily enough, I don’t think that I even know anyone who has ever hand knit an entire sweater. Maybe that’s why I never thought that I would be able to knit. I mean, I know that there are people who’ve become astronauts and explored space before, but I don’t know anyone who has actually done it.

Two things that I never thought that I’d be able to / want to do – becoming an astronaut and knitting a sweater. One is much more achievable than the other, and who knows, with all of the space exploration companies out there maybe more people can visit space at some point.

Anywho, back to knitting…

One amazing thing about learning to knit is that it completely opens up a new world to you. There are knitting blogs, free patterns, and so many beautiful kinds of yarn! There’s merino, and cashmere, superwash merino (a softer kind of merino), silk and cashmere blends, and silky soft cotton. Yarns come in all sorts of colors and some skeins even knit up into confetti like patterns!

There are so many different kinds of stitches as well and they are all made of knits and purls. My favorite stitch that I’ve done so far is the Irish Moss Stitch which lays flat and is gloriously squishy with a beautiful soft-pebbled texture that looks good from both sides. I can’t wait to try more stitches out.

And knitters are nice people too! I was sitting in the knitting section of a local bookstore recently and struck up a conversation with a more experienced knitter. She kindly answered all of my questions about cables and how to go about designing your own sweater. She also gave me ideas about where to find knitting groups and recommended some online knitting forums. It was so neat to be able to meet another knitter and for them to be so kind.

I’ve also started to take a closer look at the knitted items in my closet (things that I didn’t make). I bought a hand knitted coral vest a few years ago at Goodwill. It fits like a glove and only recently did I realize that it’s entirely made up of knits and purls, both of which I know how to do now!

Then an exciting thought flashed through my mind, “I could make this!” I could make this vest! I could design a sweater and make it any color I want, make it look however I want! While I have yet to make a sweater, I am very excited to start knitting my first project. I’m going to knit a hat.

My aunt and uncle graciously gifted me a set of knitting needles and I picked out some Plymouth Superwash Merino Wool Yarn in bubblegum pink.

It’s super soft and I’ve already knit a swatch and it’s a dream to work with. The yarn also came in a beautiful cobalt blue, but maybe I’ll buy that for another project.

With lots of love, and Happy Lunar New Year!