Enjoying a French dish (soufflé) for dinner, an English dessert (trifle) and a local, American beer (DC Brau’s The Corruption) for our first Independence Day here in the DC Area. Now all we need are the fireworks!
All posts by Wind Cowles
Pointy Elf Hat
Miss L commented in passing that she really liked Mr. C’s red elf hat (which he longer wants to wear, alas) and would like one herself, preferably in blue or green. Luckily, I still have a print out of the pattern I used – this saved me the trouble of finding a new pattern online, thinking it was the old one, realizing it was wrong, looking again, and so on. Plus, and this is the bonus part, I found a yarn that is a mix of blue AND green!
This hat is knitted flat and then sewn up the back. Honestly, my knitting is better than my sewing, and so in hindsight I might have been better off with a new pattern than was knit-only.
THE sweater (done!)
After way too many months, a whole lot of beer and a soupçon of profanity, the husband sweater is finally done! Drum roll, please…
It seems so simple now… still not sure what took me so long. Though, I will say that there were a couple points that held me up because I was nervous about dealing with them – in particular I procrastinated forever before I finally worked up the courage to tackle button holes, and then I ended up knitting about twenty holes to get the five finalists you see above. (Button holes provoke so many questions for me: How do you get them evenly spaced? How do you prevent that weird stray stitch cutting through the middle? How can knitting empty space be SO IMPOSSIBLY HARD? Why couldn’t Redbeard have asked for a zipper?) But, more than that – the pattern also spooked me a few times. It was supposedly for beginners, and really good in some ways. But, I guess I am too beginner for even beginner status, because it would also throw out strange, uninterpretable instructions, too. With a scarf or hat, I would just roll with it – because honestly, how bad can it go wrong with a scarf or a hat? But, in the high stakes world of sweater knitting, where I might not even understand how badly I’d screwed up until I went to sew it all together? Not able to just bull ahead.
In fact, for the sleeves – I actually rewrote all of instructions into something comprehensible for me. That way, I only had to divine the meaning of the instructions *once* – with coffee in hand – and translate them into something a mere pre-beginner like me could understand, even when drinking beer instead of coffee several hours later.
But, all worth it in the end! In fact, there must be something wrong with my brain, because I hadn’t even finished sewing on the last button before I started thinking about what sort of sweater I’d like to knit next…
Gin vs. Gin
Gin and tonic is one of my favorite cocktails, but our first gin drink is the simpler Gin Fizz – gin, soda water, and lime, all shook up with ice:
We had two gins on hand, Hendricks and Plymouth. I’m partial to gins with character, and am particularly partial to Uncle Val’s. But, The 12 Bottle Bar recommended getting a dry gin, and so I went out and got a bottle of Plymouth to experiment with. Yay for an excuse to buy more gin! Redbeard and I decided we’d try Hendricks and Plymouth head to head, and so I mixed up a Gin Fizz with each. The verdict? There was definitely a difference, though not as dramatic as we’d predicted. To me, the Plymouth created a drink that tastes like summer – clean, crisp, with a clear lovely lime. The Hendricks was also very good, though – clearly dry gin is not strictly required for a good gin fizz. It was warmer to me; Redbeard characterized it as ‘well-rounded’.
New adventures in advanced drinking
We recently acquired a copy of The 12 Bottle Bar, and it has inspired me (Wind) to start approaching cocktails in a way similar to the somewhat systematic way we’ve approached beer, with the goal this time of building up a small but select repertoire of excellent drink options.
So, armed with a few basics (Boston shaker, citrus juicer, 2oz jigger), I’ve started to put together drinks beyond the occasional haphazard rum-and-cherry-coke-zero and beloved gin and tonic.
First up, the Waldorf:
This is a boozy combination of Grand Marnier, sweet vermouth and grenadine, all shook up with ice. Despite usually drinking liquor that’s largely cut with something, I found this to be pretty tasty. I’m still getting the hang of the Boston shaker, worried that I’m going to break the glass as I wiggle it free of the metal cup. But, otherwise this was an easy beginning.
We already have store-bought grenadine on hand, but I’m looking forward to making my own when it runs out.
Welcome, Lucy!
I think I have found my One True Crafting technique in needle felting. It’s like sculpture with therapeutic stabbiness and without the messy clay.
Here is my newest little creature – a lovely lady who’s name is clearly Lucy:
Standing at just about 4″, she is small in stature but big in heart, all soft and warm in her wooly cloak. Her staff was the only really challenging part – I took some medium-gauge copper wire and poked it through her hand, and then felted the wool onto the wire. It was very stabby, but not so therapeutic – I managed to poke my index finger pretty sharply several times. Other than that, she is all wool. I was going to shape her face more, and maybe even add some embroidery for her features, but in the end I liked the Amish doll simplicity of her face so much that I didn’t want to change it.
Now all she needs is a flock of mini sheep to frolic and gambol around her.
Why sweaters are bad
“Don’t knit sweaters for significant others,” they say.
“They’re cursed,” they say.
I ignored this sage advice because I was pretty sure that, unlike the fabled Boyfriend sweater (in which the boyfriend is no more by the time the sweater is finished), Redbeard would still be around once I finished The Husband Sweater. However, I was not prepared for this sweater to suck all of the air out of the knitting room. It’s been quite awhile since the last knitting post. I have been “working” on this sweater this entire time. No other projects. Because, if I’m knitting, my guilt tells me that I should be knitting on the Husband Sweater. Spinning? Oh, no-Â Must. Knit. Husband. Sweater. Felt projects? Husband. Sweater.
It’s a cardigan, and I’m sure I will love it *once it is done*. Right now? Not so much. The back, both sides and four inches of one sleeve are done. My goal is to finish it this summer no matter what, just so I can work on all the other projects I want to do.
And I will blog the heck out of it once I vanquish this terrible beast finish this fantastic sweater…
Baby blanket
New discovery: Baby yarn is unspeakably sweet and soft. If only there were some way to keep it from growing up into rebellious and moody teenager yarn.
I didn’t use a pattern for this, just bought two skeins and knit until it looked big enough (well, and really, really needed to give it to the recipient). A nice, easy knit 3- purl 3 checkerboard pattern with a knit 3 garter stitch border. I like how the texture came out quite a bit, and because I tend to knit tightly, I sized up a needle. This gave the blanket a really nice drape!
Two kids’ knitting projects, old and new
I did two projects recently for the children of the family whose house we stayed in in the Netherlands. The daughter is 6 and the son is (I think) 4.
For the daughter, I made this pink and orange headband (modeled by my son on the promise that I was not taking a 
picture of HIM, just the headband. He didn’t ask why I wanted a picture of just a headband. What a strange age we live in.) I did have a pattern, though mostly ended up winging it once I realized that the pattern wasn’t working for me. This was knitted flat and then sewn together. In hindsight, I think I should’ve knit it in the round instead. You can’t see it in the picture, and hopefully it will be covered by hair during normal use, but the sewn join is not so great. I’m just not good at sewing yarn. I am good, or at least getting better, at sewing felt, though – which is how I made the flower accent. The pattern called for crocheting the flower (knitting and crocheting in a single pattern, surely the first sign of the apocalypse), but I haven’t found time to learn how to crochet yet.
Speaking of yarn, though, I love the yarn I used, and want to go out and buy a bunch more in colorways that are more my own style. (It’s Natural Ewe in “Tiger Lily”.)
For the son, I decided to play it safe and knit another alligator scarf. My own son loves his, and it is certainly an appropriate reminder of their stay here in Florida. For this I used Berroco’s Comfort yarn, which I like well enough, though I find it is a little slippery to work with.
Winter birds
I had a lot of fun making these little guys – and discovered that you can, indeed, rubber stamp on felt. I had some craft ink pads lying around from back when I had enough time to actually do crafts on a regular basis (which explains the expedition I needed to take through the closet to find it. I swear I was *this* close to Narnia).
The basic idea comes from the current (Dec) issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors. I did my first bird just by eye-balling the pictures of their birds, then laughed when I turned the page and found that they’d actually provided a PATTERN, with INSTRUCTIONS and everything. Luxury.
Anyway, these little guys are super fun to do, and go very, very quickly. I’m already thinking I will have to do an updated version this spring. Blues and yellows, perhaps?