11.22.07

Turkey Day.

Posted in food, holidays, knitting at 10:36 pm by wendy

This year we celebrated the holiday at my grandmother’s in Coronado with my uncle, aunt and two cousins. I made the turkey, creamed onions, sweet potatoes, and bittersweet chocolate pecan pie here at our house and then we jaunted off to enjoy them with family. (all of these recipes are from Gourmet’s November 2007 issue, lazy me)

I’d make the sweet potatoes and the pie again (definitely the pie) but the spiced turkey was more trouble than it was worth and the creamed onions weren’t anything special. Pretty easy though and they did taste good, if you ever have to make creamed onions.

I wussed out on making my own pastry crust, I just bought a frozen one from the grocery store. Good thing too, because the night before, I’d picked up a crumb crust. They were out of dark corn syrup so I knew I’d have to come back in the morning for it after they’d put the load up. So I came back with dark syrup and the frozen pastry crusts and saw this…

Oops. Nothing edible can be left anywhere within five feet of the floor. I know this, but forgot. I was glad I had the backup crusts.

I love that she had pieces of the label stuck to her and only wish I’d been able to snap a pic of the expression on her face when I came home. It was the very picture of “d’oh! caught redpawed but please don’t take it away from me”ness.

You can’t really see the stem and it’s not made for a head as fat as mine, but you get the idea.

I knit this hat a year or so ago, with the stem at the top and single crocheted around the hem, and meant to finish it off with some curly icord and leaves. But my google fu failed me and I couldn’t find a curly icord and didn’t like the leaves I knit so buried it in the stash.

But a while ago, I picked up a copy of Epstein’s Knitting On the Edge, which has both curly fringe and dangly leaves, so eventually I was able to dig the hat out of the abyss to finish it. I knit the curly fringe according to the instructions and it looked just awful. So instead I made my own after all.

curly fringe/ curly fake icord:

row 1: cast on a bunch of stitches.

row 2: knit two together, knit two together, knit two together….etc. ’til the whole row’s been knit.

row 3: (bind off row) knit the first two stitches together, then knit the next two stitches together. Then lift the stitch from those first k2tog over the 2nd, binding off. Knit next two stitches on left hand needle together, lift 2nd k2tog stitch over the new stitch…etc. until the process has been repeated all along the row, and you’ve fastened it of as normal.

Twist the curl like you like it, like it wants to be, baybee.

I knit the leaves as instructed, although I slipped all the edge stitches, because the leaves look raggedy as written. One had a bit of icord, the other was no stem. I’m really happy with the way it looks, I think it looks dead cute. It’s for my flight instructor’s son–while I wouldn’t normally give a knit gift to a Normal (that is, non-knitter, and not related to me ;)), my instructor loves pumpkins (the things you talk about while flying around in a pattern) his son’s birthday is the same as my mom’s (next week), and he’s taking off to teach at another local school that has twins and will be able to get him closer to his goal of being an airline pilot, so it’s sort of a thank you for getting me to solo stage, being fun to fly with and good luck, best wishes present.

Other than that little bit of finishing on that hat, I haven’t really been knitting anything. For some reason I have really been wanting to knit the Bubble Pullover from Gaughan’s Knitting Nature. I had kind of a “meh” reaction to it in the book, but it looks awesome here and here. I just want to knit that, and nothing else rings my bell.

I even went to Michael’s to pick up enough Paton’s Classic Merino Wool to knit it, since I heard they were having a $3.50/ball sale. But, they weren’t on sale and there weren’t enough in the colors I wanted in the same dyelot, so I took that as a celestial smackdown.

I am after all a handspinner with a huge personal stash and shop inventory which needs to be whittled way the hell down before we move. And I had resolved that we’re not buying anything new until after our move. We are so lucky, we need absolutely nothing. But it’s a hard habit to break.

One goal for the next year is to pare the stash down to pretty much nothing. No more buying skeins just because they’re pretty with no specific project in mind. I have a maddening stash, with two balls of everything. I have enough yarn to make a million scarves, or hats, or wristlets or whatever. So hey, that’s great, if I was into it. It’s just blah knitting. I crave sweater knitting, at the moment.

Speaking of cravings:

Mmmm…oatmeal…

Frankly, I have so many things I’m thankful for, if I’m to recount them here I need to put them in a separate post. And you’ll need an hour and a cup of tea. Just fair warning.

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