Sigh

So I have failed at keeping up with this for a while. I will try to do better.

I have knitted Melia from Little Red in the City by Ysolda Teague (photos to follow when I have some I like).

I'm also knitting a sock for Him Indoors - and I've been taking pictures of it all over the place, including at LARP. Sock is toe up, short row toe, short row heel. Yarn is crazy zauberball.

Ben wants boot socks, and so they are quite large (2.75mm needles, 80sts) to fit over other pairs of socks, and I'm making them quite tall.

I want to recommend very highly Susan at fat free vegan. I made her Burritos with Spanish Rice and Black Beans tonight (link) and they were as good as the rest of the things I have cooked from her website. I added leeks because I had some laying around, and shop bought salsa. The event has left me feeling tired and quite lazy, so I was proud that I managed to cook at all.

Tomorrow we are planning to havecurried chick pea soup with cauliflower again from Susan, and I can't wait. The weather was cold enough at the event that I am craving soups and stews. Having made this before, it is a perfect recipe for the weather.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year all.

I did finish the 11 shawls in 2011, the 11th being Lazy Katy by Birgit Freyer. I'll have pictures of that at some point.
I also completed a Dwarven Battle Bonnet for Ben.

This is it modelled by me. I have now got at least 3 requests for more battle bonnets. Silly nerds :)

I don't really make new years resolutions as such. Last year I wanted to complete my 11 shawls, but that is the closest I've come in a while. This year may be slightly different. Not a resolution per se but just a goal to eat better and be nicer to myself.

I know what I'm like, though. I work well with challenges and with deadlines. So starting today I am going to be eating as close to a vegan diet as I can for a month. What I mean by "as close as I can" is that I'm not going to throw out my utterly butterly, but when it runs out I'll be picking something dairy free.
Ben is joining me for the most part, but I can understand his lack of desire to switch the milk in his tea for non dairy.
The aim is that after a month I sit down and see how a month eating this way has made me feel. I may decide to continue, I may not.
The exception this month is going to be my birthday - if I decide to have cake, then cake I shall have. If I bake my own cake, I'll do something vegan, if I buy one then the chances of it being vegan are significantly reduced.
I'm not doing this for the love of animals (they're all right I suppose :p) but essentially out of sheer vanity. When I ate mostly vegan food a couple of years ago, I was thinner, and I would like to be healthier.

And no, I am not giving up wool :)

I shall be blogging my progress, recipes and the like, along with the usual yarn related blatherings.

Batik is finished.

There will be better pictures after it finishes blocking. The colour doesn't look great against the carpet, and the colour contrast is pretty nasty, but I don't care :)
I used a ball and a half of Mercia Wools 100% cotton 4ply. It was sometimes a little rough on the hands, and I feel that the cables would pop more if I had used wool, but even so I am ridiculously happy with it.

It is easily the most challenging thing I've made, and this one I may keep for me.
I will sadly not be wearing it to the WI Christmas do though. We didn't sell enough tickets, so it's being postponed and possibly turned into a spring fling.

This was the 10th shawl this year, leaving me 20 days to finish ethereal in order to complete my 11 shawls in 2011. I am hopeful about managing it.

Dinner tonight is sausages and roasted vegetables (carrots and potatoes and sweet potatoes and jerusalem artichokes and leeks and onion and garlic and parsnips) with braised cabbage and red wine gravy. Easy, low effort and hopefully very tasty.

In with a shot

I have realised that there is a chance I may finish 11 shawls in 2011. I haven't posted any of my FOs in the group, and I am pretty sure that I am counting one they wouldn't count on yardage, which was 198 yrds of heaven,  but in my on mind, and for my own challenge, I may actually finish it.

Revolouti is finished, and what a fun knit it was. Excuse the state of the carpet. It was stained when I first started living here, and I haven't yet steam cleaned it.
I like it very much, but I am currently a little irritated by it. The pattern and the yarn combined come out as really striking, and I have had a load of complements. I feel a little bit like a fraud though, because the pattern wasn't very complicated, and the skill level used wasn't so great. It was, dare I say it, pretty mindless knitting when I got started. And as such, I don't really feel I deserve the praise that it's been getting.
I also chose not to knit it as large as I had intended. My good friend K is a fairly new knitter, and I thought this pattern would be perfect for her, so I passed the second ball of the zauberball to her. I think that this is a great pattern for fairly new knitters - it's simple, it's logical, and once the set up is done it knits up really really easily.
I bet I'll get over that soon enough :)

Batik is going really well. I'm up to about row 114 (of 168 for the large size), and because the rows are getting smaller all the time, I am feeling hopeful that I will finish it this week. Then of course is the big decision about which shawl to wear to the WI Christmas party on Friday. Usually I give my shawls away so fast that I don't get a chance to wear them.

Then, if that is finished, I am determined to pick up Ethereal once again. I have started the border charts and so the end is in sight. And I have 21 days of knitting to get them done in.

Let us ignore the Christmas knitting I am supposed to be doing, please.

Reading rav I came across a tip for blocking beanie style hats. I had knitted the other half a lovely hat, but it was slightly too tight for his head. I knew a good blocking would rectify the whole situation, but had utterly no idea how to block a hat that wasn't a slouchy beret (tip, block the berets over a plate). And rav, as always, came through. So I bought balloons, and blocked the hat over a balloon. It came out well.
There will be pictures at some point.

Speaking of pictures, it occurs to me that in my first post I promised pictures of my Winterfell shawl (pattern not yet published, it was a test knit), and then never got round to posting them. So without further ado, here there are.

I broke. I know last time I spoke about how I was resoloute, and I would not cast on another thing until I had finished something. But my LYS had two balls of the crazy zauberball I have been coveting, so I bought it.

And I cast on Revontuli-huvi by Anne M.

It is coming along just delightfully and I am charmed by it. I love large shawls, so I am planning on knitting in pattern until the rows are so long that the white stripes become teeny. I have two balls of the yarn, and look forward to having a lovely large shawl for me. I am wanting to wear it to the WI Christmas bash on the 16th.

In recipe news, tonight we had chole. Its a recipe that I have been cooking for years, and it is one of those that I have always found surprising in it's simplicity and deliciousness.

1/2 onion
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp oil
Pinch of hing (also known as asafoetida, and this is optional)
1/2 tsp tumeric
2 cloves of garlic (or about 1/2 tsp garlic powder)
1 tin tomatoes/pack passata/4 whole tomatoes
1 tin chickpeas (or equivalent dried, soaked and cooked)
Pinch garam masala
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground corriander
1/8-1/2 tsp chili powder, or to taste
Pinch sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Chop the onion. Put the oil into a pan and heat. When it is hot add the cumin seeds and let splutter for a couple of seconds. Add the hing and the tumeric and leave for a few more seconds. Add the onion and cook until brown.
Chop the garlic and add, cooking for a couple more minutes. Then add the tomatoes, and the rest of the spices. Add the chickpeas and simmer for about 20 minutes with a mug or so of water. Stir every now and then adding enough water that it not become too dry. Salt to taste.

Serves two generously over rice (and this goes particularly well with brown rice).

Oh deary me. It would appear I am not good at updating very regularly yet.

Firstly with knitting I am trying to be less chaotic. I haven't actually finished anything in a while (except a darling little baby sweater and booties set last weekend) and am trying very hard to actually knit on something until it is done.

A while ago my darling other half bought me a beautiful skein of Angel 2ply lace from the Natural Dye studio. It's pale lilac and green and at 70% alpaca, 20% silk and 10% cashmere it is so very soft. I started knitting Ethereal Triangular Shawl by Lakshmi Juneja and it got put to one side. I have decided, however, that this, this is the project I am going to finish next.

And there it is. On my kitchen table. I'm always struck by how crap unblocked lace looks.
I'm on the final chart, and I have about 34 rows left to go. I would love for it to be finished by the 16th of December so I can wear it to the WI Christmas Party.

Speaking of which, I had utterly forgotten that I had volunteered to help out on the WI stall at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching show this year, so when my ticket came yesterday there was much excitement. I've never actually been to a show like this. Next Sunday expect me to be bouncing off the walls!

I have got some yarn put away at my LYS and I am planning on knitting Revontuli Huivi next. The 2 balls of black, white and grey crazy zauberball should be just perfect. I just want to have enough self control to not cast on before Ethereal is finished.

In cooking news, I am trying (isn't everyone these days?) to cook more new recipes. Because the Other Half and I are quite newly in a relationship there is the wonderful process of getting to know each other's favourite recipes, and one of his happens to be jerk chicken.
So yesterday we went to a local Caribbean shop and picked up ingredients for jerk chicken (though the chicken was happy chicken from the supermarket) and rice and peas.
We also came across this:

I giggled. A lot.
But yes, the rice and peas was very easy. We sauteed an onion, added rice and dried thyme, added a tin of coconut milk and some water and brought to the boil. When boiling we added cooked kidney beans, covered and left it to it. When done, salt and pepper to taste.
The jerk chicken was the easiest thing in the world. Though I usually eschew premade spice mixes, yesterday I hadn't the inclination to get out my pestle and mortar, so we had bought some jerk seasoning. After boning the chicken we dumped a load of seasoning over it, left it for an hour or two then baked it.
The two dishes complimented each other really well, and there are leftovers. I have to try not to eat them while Himself is still in bed.

First Post

I have the most terrible startitis. Since finishing the Winterfell Shawl (pics when my iphone isn't updating the new softwear) I have cast on a vast number of things:

Batik by Kitman Figueroa, using a glorious aubergine coloured cotton that I bought in Coventry when visiting Ben.

Ambroso Mittens by Carol Feller in Manos del Uraguy Silk Blend

Veyla by Ysolda

Hexipuffs for the Beekeeper's Quilt by Tiny Owl Knits

and today, I cast on for Angostura, another of Ysolda's patterns. It was my local yarn shop's first birthday, so I went along (there was cake) and bought myself some lovely British Breeds Blue Faced Leicester aran in a glorious deep red. Got the yardage totally wrong, so only bought 6 balls. I called the owner and asked her to put another 4 to one side for me.

I blame knitting on just one thing for so long for this ridiculous level of startitis. I did the Winterfell Shawl as a test knit, and was concerned by the deadline, so knit it exclusively for about a month. It has made a lovely shawl (I am a little sad I have promised it as a Christmas present to a dear friend) but the vast swathes of garter stitch made knitting it somewhat dull. The finished project is worth it, but I do think that monogamy in my knitting is not for me.

So the mittens are for my sister and need finishing by the end of November. This is achievable, but I need to frog it and make a new start. Curses to not reading the pattern properly.

The batik is for me, and is the most tricky pattern there. It needs thought, so I tend to knit it when I'm alone.

The hexipuffs are lovely and easy and I am using a load of the 4ply acrylic that I got from Alan years ago. His mother was a knitter and when she died he wanted the yarn to go to someone who would care for it. I have been waiting years until I found the perfect project for it, and I think that this is it. The 5 hexipuffs I have made so far are sitting in a vase in my living room. I am not going to get intimidated by how many are needed to make a whole blanket!

The Veyla mittens are a pattern I love so much, but the yarn I'm using is very varigated, and I am not sure that the pattern will be best shown in that type of yarn. I may frog them.

The vest is one I have wanted to knit for ages, and I am glad I have cast on. It's such a very lovely design. I have made a lot of Ysolda's patterns, and they are always such glorious fun to knit.

So that is where I am with knitting right now. Next post I promise there will be more photos, but right now I must make crostini. I am having a James Bond film night tonight, and so am making some baba ganoush, crostini, and martinis.
There will be dressing up. I shall be going as Miss Moneypenny.