Happy New Year!

I have no exciting adventures to report after a very relaxing two weeks of vacation. Our school didn't get out until the 23rd, which I complained was very unfamily-friendly, but actually, it was kind of nice since we had time after Christmas and New Year's to enjoy ourselves. We had planned on going skiing in Yosemite earlier this week, but there was no snow, so we didn't go anywhere other than to see go see War Horse on Christmas Day; run and bicycle on the Kern River Parkway Biketrail, work in my garden (sorry to rub it in Midwesterners and Easterners); bake numerous batches of cookies, watch the entire, awesome, first season of Downton Abbey and, of course...knit. 

I started this little sweater over a month ago with all of the  Louet Gems yarn left over from the little headband I knit for my friend's baby toddler earlier this fall. Typical of me, I started about five different patterns before I settled on the pattern I wanted to follow through with, a pattern from Garnstudio. I'm happy with the product, but I have to admit that I'm ready for a new challenge with a little thicker yarn.

I couldn't resist knitting a little bunny to go along with it, using my extra, extra yarn. I still use Barbara Prime's well-dressed bunny pattern for the body and limbs, but I use Little Cotton Rabbit's egg cozy pattern for the head.

Ribbed Socks

No tasty pictures of our Thanksgiving feast, even though it was pretty delicious and no awesome pictures of Russ and my recent trips to Hearst Castle or Arroyo Grande or Morro Bay, even though they were wonderful. Just a picture of some socks that I knit as part of my little knitting group's KAL. My friends are all very competent knitters, but none of them had knit socks before, so we decided that ribbed socks would be the perfect way for them to start out. We took a little trip about a month ago to buy our yarn at Classy Knits in downtown Bakersfield.  Her sock yarn selection was a little small, which is understandable, considering that it has only recently starting get even a little chilly here in Central California. We all found something we liked though, pace ped varigate sock yarn from The Alpaca Yarn Company.  It's beautiful yarn and has a separate little surprise in each hank--solid colored yarn for the heels and toes. It's not cheap, like $24 a skein, but foot comfort is important, after all.

Uninspired and uninspiring

So, it's come to this. Posting pictures of my fireplace, on which I've admittedly displayed a few knit items, but they're items I knit  several years ago. I'd like to pretend that I painted the eggs myself, but they're just an exorbitant purchase from Sturbridge Yankee Workshop. I was just afraid that if I didn't post soon, I'd forget my blog password! This is the time of year that I wish I would be less greedy and just have one job, instead of three! It's not like I don't have free time, but teaching two extra college classes does limit my "sit around and knit" time. Russ and I did mange to take a little trip to San Luis Obispo this Saturday. I dutifully brought along 30 four-page essays to grade, and there they sat in the back seat the entire day. Oh, the guilt!

I did finish this Birds and the Bees headband for a friend's baby a couple of weeks ago. I've called it (not to my friend) the $40 headband since it used four skeins of louet gem fingering yarn which is $10 a skein. I justified it by assuring myself that I would also knit a little striped sweater with the leftover yarn. I just can't find the right pattern though. The colors are really cute on the headband, but ultimately they're not colors that I think about going together in a sweater. So, the search continues. I'm thinking of buying a skein of pink to offset the "non-baby" brown and dark green yarn. What's another $10 anyway?

This and That

I once told a friend that I'd call myself a "neat freak" except that I'm so insecure about my abilities in that area that I'd be afraid that people would think that was strange to call myself "neat" when my house in never that clean. There are several reasons for this fact, but the number one reason is that we have three animals who have the run of the house at all times. Our beagles may have short hair, but they shed constantly, which is why I sweep and mop our floors at least once a day, usually twice. Kitty contributes even more to my cleanliness angst since she likes to sleep on the couches and (horrors!) the kitchen table. I've given up on table cloths since she'll just walk across them and take a little nap, leaving black hair everywhere. But, today I decided that I'd get out her kitty bed to encourage her to stay away from the couches, at least. Yes, she's still on the table, but I feel better about her, at least, being in her little bed....and she is so cute and cozy in there.

Oh, and I didn't crop my last picture very close so that I could show off my little pumpkin salt and pepper shakers from Sturbridge Yankee Workshop that  I recently purchased.

 What wrong with the above picture? 

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the The Maricopa Quilt Company with a quilting friend of mine and bought a fabric pack, thinking that maybe I'd follow through with a little quilting project. I don't know much about quilting, but I do know the alternating bold fabrics with lighter fabrics rule. Somehow, I got my right band of fabric reversed so that I had lights with lights, so even though it's so much easier to unravel a knitting mistake, I ripped out my misplaced band and fixed it. Success! My seams all match. It's amazing what one can do if she is willing to rip and sew, rip and sew, rip and sew...I mean baste.

Now what do I do? I'm planning on hand quilting it, which I have no idea how to do. No worries. I have the internet. This isn't really even big enough to be a baby blanket, but I wanted to start really small. I'm thinking that I'll use it as a table topper once I'm finished.

Predictable Patterns

Well, I've found a nice "hold-me-over" until I feel like starting a more complex project. I'm knitting another  cuddle up cushion. I have about ten skeins of Jaeger merino extra-fine merino, which, unfortunately, is discontinued, that I bought three years ago in Santa Monica. I knit a baby sweater out of some of it last year. I think I'd planned to use it in a blanket originally, but I'm happy to use it for another cushion cover.

The back is just a mixture of seed stitch and straight stitch, which may not be exciting, but is very relaxing. I love having something I can just pick up and knit without having to think about it much.

Becalmed

becalmed   [bɪˈkɑːmd]    (Transport / Nautical Terms) (of a sailing boat or ship) motionless through lack of wind

I haven't been exactly motionless, but I have been a little stagnate for the last couple of weeks, creativity-wise. I'm actually surprised that I ever accomplish any knitting in September. I want to like September. I remember going back to college in Nebraska during September, and it was kind of warn for the first week or so, and then it turned into this wonderful month with nice, cool evenings and occasional rain storms. I really liked that about Nebraska. September in Central California is almost never like that. It's hot, and everyone is tired of being hot, and we all fool ourselves into thinking that it's going to cool down soon, when we all know that it has hit 100 degrees on the day before Halloween before. We also know that there's a chance, just a small one, that the hot temps will end by October, so we push September to just finish already. So, as much as I love knitting, September is by far the hardest month for me to get enthused about a project.

Usually a little trip to the beach, like Spooner Cover, for instance, where we enjoyed a Saturday last weekend hiking with Paige while Kai stayed home to watch some "important" football, will help me feel like knitting, but it just made me hungry this time.

So we took a little trip over to Morro Bay to eat at the Sunshine Health Foods and Shine Cafe, where we had  incredibly delicious portabella mushroom, avocado, cilantro pesto, and roasted red pepper sandwiches.

I did actually try knitting a mat on the way over to the beach and back, but I didn't have a patten and made a mess of it. I came home and started browsing through Ravelry, waiting to be inspired. I'm still waiting actually, but I did find a cute pattern for a mat, using  this pattern from  Tiny Owl Knits. I made them a little larger than her specifications and felted them, and they're kind of cute.

I'm going to have to resort to knitting a bunny if something doesn't come up pretty soon.  

My friend Julie commented a couple of days ago, teasing me that I hadn't posted a pic of my finished Pettine shawlette and opining that I probably hadn't blocked it yet since school was no doubt keeping me very busy.  I laughed out loud because she knows me very well...and because not only had I not blocked it, I hadn't even woven in the final strand of yarn!

Pie!

 When my parents first moved to Northern California, there was tons of blackberry bushes growing on the hillside right near their neighborhood. We'd pick bushels of them every summer, and I would plan to make jam and pie, etc. but I never made jam and had mixed success with pie.

I think I redeemed myself this summer. I baked a delicious pie. It wasn't the most beautiful looking pie in the world, but it was wonderful tasting, especially considering that we picked the blackberries about an hour before I used them in the pie, and we topped it off with Humboldt Creamery Vanilla Ice Cream.

The blackberry patches in my parents' neighborhood have pretty much disappeared since the neighborhood has expanded quite a bit in twenty years, but we found a great patch about ten minutes away, along our running path down by the Eel River.

Why am I posting this? I'm finished with my Pettine shawlette, but I haven't blocked it, and I'm not completely happy with it, anyway.  Plus, it's been over 100 degrees for the last couple of days, with no relief in sight. I have no interest in even cooking on the stove top, much less baking anything;  and I can barely stand to run three miles at five in the morning because it's already hot. So, I thought I'd have a nice, little memory about a fun week in cool Northern California, and I'll try to remember that they'll have weeks of being stuck inside because of rain this winter, and I'll be out enjoying balmy weather in November.

Interweave Knits Sale!

Wow!  Zibeline Knits has a post about an unbelievable sale over at Interweave Knits. Their 2009 Edition of Knit Accessories is only 10 cents, as a download. I almost thought it was a joke, but it's not. I have my copy already. Hurry! It won't last long.

So...Here We Go Again!

School starts tomorrow, and I'm not even in mourning. Of course, I would prefer to be independently wealthy and not work every day, but since I'm not, I feel lucky to have a job that I hardly ever hate and sometimes even love. Sorry folks who think that teachers only deserve respect if they sacrifice their health and family life for their job. I'm a hard worker, but I've been doing it long enough to understand the game and how to (usually) keep my sanity. Of course, some people might say I'm a poser because I've been getting and answering texts all summer from honors students who had questions about their summer work, and I spent all last Friday night getting some online learning modules ready for my high school students who are taking my college, composition class.

I can't knit quite as much once school starts...or at least, I shouldn't; and it's easier for me to pick up a project for brief knitting sessions if it's a simple one. Pettine fits that bill. I've been working on it for a while actually, but I played "chicken" with it and didn't begin my decreases for the second half of it early enough, so I got to within about four inches of being finished and realized that I wasn't going to make it with my one beautiful skein of Ellen Rae merino yarn that I bought at Heidi's in Ukiah, California two summers ago. Luckily I'm enjoying knitting it, so unravelling all that work wasn't too painful. I have also finally memorized the pattern, which isn't that big of an accomplishment since it's easy.

Whenever we're in Humboldt County, we go crazy over the food. There's so much fresh, good, orginal stuff everywhere, especially in my parents' backyard. My parents' grow tons of garlic, and they usually give us a huge bunch of it to take home. This year was no exception. The kids helped me pick out the very best heads--twenty-five of them to be exact.

We've already gone through two heads of garlic after being home for a little over a week. Yeah, we have no vampire problems here. Today, I thought I'd use up some of the eggplant that I'm growing in my backyard. I'm not a huge fan of eggplant, but I think some of varieties are really pretty. Of course, I'm having the best luck with the tried and true aubergine eggplant that you see in the grocery stores. I used several cloves of our garlic and four eggplants to make some babaganoush this morning.

I don't think babaganoush usually looks that appetizing, and my batch is no exception. It's kind of muddy looking. It tastes pretty good though. This is a picture of Paige's lunch, which she had with cactus chips we bought at the Bakersfield farmer's market yesterday from the Baba Foods guy.

Babaganoush

• 2 large  cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 3 tbsp tahini
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley (optional)

Preparation:

Prick the skin of each eggplant several times with a fork, scorch skin until black and bubbly, then roast in a 400 degree oven for about 30 min. If you don't have a gas stove, just roast a little longer in the oven.

Allow to cool slightly, then scoop out inside of eggplant, leaving skin behind.

Pulse eggplant pulp in a food processor. Add remaining ingredients, and pulse until smooth.

Humboldt County Fair

 

We just got home last night from visiting my parents in Humboldt County, which is a grueling eleven hour drive. I'm trying not to be depressed by the string of 100 degree temps I see forecast for us this coming week because we had a great vacation up in foggy, Northern California. One of the highlights of our summer for years has been the Humboldt County Fair, which is held in the town of Ferndale, California, about ten minutes from my parents' home where we visit every summer. Two years ago, my school changed its schedule, starting school meetings the second Thursday of August, which ended our fair tradition since the fair also always begins the second Thursday of August. This year, because of a one-time alteration to our school schedule, we got one more chance to go to the fair. The picture above is from three years ago, the last time we went to the fair. Paige doesn't look too different, but Kai sure does!

  

This was probably our least expensive fair visit ever. We went on the first day, which happened to be one of three free-admission days, so we saved ourselves the regular six dollar apiece admission. The kids were also not interested in the midway, so we saved ourselves the ten dollar apiece, unlimited-ride tickets we always used to buy too. That meant that the bulk of our time was spent in the animal barns. We all loved it although no on wanted to spent quite as much time as I did.

 

There's always a newborn calf at the fair, but this was the youngest we've seen--two days old. Awwww. I could have seriously sat there an hour just enjoying his cute, little face.

There weren't a lot of sheep yet since it was the first day of the fair, and the sheep competition was later in the week, but there were some cool ones. Kai said these sheep looked like they had dreadlocks. I think I saw that they were Cotswolds

 

Of course, I also have to spend time in the home arts building, usually to admire all of the knitted items. I enjoyed it this year, but there wasn't anything that I just had to take a picture of, except for this little miniature display. I've been interested in dollhouses recently, and I think this would be a perfect craft room in a dollhouse.

The Humboldt County Woolgrowers Association always has had this cute, little "shack" every year, but it's gotten better over the years, at least to me. It used to be a celebration of lamb--as in eating it. I have to admit that I have problems with lamb. I really like how it tastes, like in a giro or other Greek cuisine, but they're so cute, I rarely, and I mean really rarely eat it. I don't have the same qualms over it that I have over veal, which I haven't eaten since I was a kid, and don't intend to. I even told that to the guy manning the booth, who obviously loves his sheep. He laughed and said it's no problem if you don't "know" them personally.

 

The reason that I say that the Bo-Peep Barn is better than ever is that they now sell yarn there. I bought the pink and tan skeins for $12 apiece, which was a bargain. They're from Romney sheep who graze on a hill about two miles from my parents' home. Right now, I'm just letting my bunnies admire them, but I'm thinking that I'll knit them into a bowl and felt it.