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It's Florida in the summertime and I'm working on patterns for the book, so the title of this post has 2 meanings! The weather has been scary with heat indexes over 105 and electric storms that shake the house. One storm last week they recorded 550+ lightning strikes in an hour. Bad weather if you have to be outside or driving, but GREAT weather for knitting.
OK, I know I said I wasn't going to cast on any new projects for the book until I finished the ones already in progress. But it's really not my fault. One of my dogs has been very sick so I've canceled travel plans for awhile and other than vet visits, I pretty much am housebound. So what's a girl to do? Why knit, of course. And oddly, I keep waking up with ideas for new designs for the book. Designs that call to me and tempt me to cast on NOW and get them started. One of them beat me into submission and it's on the needles taking shape. It's my Honeysuckle Bridal Bag, inspired by the honeysuckle blooming on my garden trellis now, and the white lace, soft greens and yellows that say "summer in the South" to me. I've decided that this pattern will be a gift to readers of this blog and will be available for download free as a little taste of what's to come in the book.
As for the rest, I decided that swatching and sketching don't count, as long as I don't cast on the actual project, right? But I admit that knitting patterns and I are somewhat like a cat and a shiny toy -- I'm so easily distracted by the next pretty, sparkly thing. I'm really itching to cast on my design for the Beaded Azalea Evening Clutch, and the Run for the Roses Coverlet and Shams. I need to remind myself repeatedly that my project boxes have taken over my bedroom and family room and I am running out of space. I've run out of storage containers, so I need to actually finish something to make room for my next project. So I'm publicly declaring that nothing new hits the needles until I finish a project and finalize the written pattern. I promise. I promise. Darn, I want to cast on that beaded clutch. I'd better get something finished...after I have a nice cool cocktail.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Is There Such As Thing As Too Much Dessert?
Is that a stupid question or what? Think about all the little phrases -- like "life's short, eat dessert first" -- and the sheer volume of cookbooks devoted solely to chocolate and it's hard to ignore the fact that dessert rocks. Ever heard of a birthday salad? Yeah, I didn't think so.
My taste testers have pointed out to me that almost all of the recipes I've been working on for the book are for desserts. Sure I cook as well as bake, but dessert is just my favorite thing to make. But I'm bowing to pressure from my co-author (and test baker) and am including a few of my favorite food recipes as well. It has occurred to me that although my taste-testers thought I should include some non-dessert recipes, they seem to be more interested in dropping by when I'm baking dessert.
My husband is rarely home for dinner as he has an average of three dinner meetings a week and tends to work late to catch up his paperwork so that he gets home after normal dinner hours. And I'm so not interested in eating dinner at 9:00 at night. So he usually fixes himself a salad and sandwich and that's dinner. But now that I'm testing and tweaking my Deep South food recipes, he's cut back his meetings and has been asking "what's for dinner?" with an alarming regularity. Uh-oh, I think I'm starting something.
I've gotten away with cooking dinner twice a year (Thanksgiving and Christmas) for years starting with when my son left for college more than a dozen years ago. While I was still practicing law, I always had that as an excuse for not having time to cook. But now that I work from home and it's one short flight of stairs from my home office to the kitchen, it's a little harder. My husband's schedule was my excuse, and now he's interested in bringing work home so that he can have dinner with me. At least on nights where the answer to "what's for dinner?" isn't "whatever you pick up on the way home!"
So what's on for tonight? Well, he has a meeting, so I'm working on my Crock-Pot Brunswick Stew. It's really best on the second day after the stew sits in the refrigerator overnight and all the seasonings have a chance to meld. He doesn't have a meeting tomorrow, so I'm thinking he'll be home for dinner, especially if I bake my Best-Ever Cornbread.
He just called while I was writing this to tell me that he wouldn't be home for dinner tonight (I had already called his assistant this morning to check) but that he would be home tomorrow. And what would I be cooking? Yep, it's started. Guess I'll be hitting the grocery store more than once a month now. I suspect my bank's fraud department will be calling to make sure it's really me using my ATM card there...
My taste testers have pointed out to me that almost all of the recipes I've been working on for the book are for desserts. Sure I cook as well as bake, but dessert is just my favorite thing to make. But I'm bowing to pressure from my co-author (and test baker) and am including a few of my favorite food recipes as well. It has occurred to me that although my taste-testers thought I should include some non-dessert recipes, they seem to be more interested in dropping by when I'm baking dessert.
My husband is rarely home for dinner as he has an average of three dinner meetings a week and tends to work late to catch up his paperwork so that he gets home after normal dinner hours. And I'm so not interested in eating dinner at 9:00 at night. So he usually fixes himself a salad and sandwich and that's dinner. But now that I'm testing and tweaking my Deep South food recipes, he's cut back his meetings and has been asking "what's for dinner?" with an alarming regularity. Uh-oh, I think I'm starting something.
I've gotten away with cooking dinner twice a year (Thanksgiving and Christmas) for years starting with when my son left for college more than a dozen years ago. While I was still practicing law, I always had that as an excuse for not having time to cook. But now that I work from home and it's one short flight of stairs from my home office to the kitchen, it's a little harder. My husband's schedule was my excuse, and now he's interested in bringing work home so that he can have dinner with me. At least on nights where the answer to "what's for dinner?" isn't "whatever you pick up on the way home!"
So what's on for tonight? Well, he has a meeting, so I'm working on my Crock-Pot Brunswick Stew. It's really best on the second day after the stew sits in the refrigerator overnight and all the seasonings have a chance to meld. He doesn't have a meeting tomorrow, so I'm thinking he'll be home for dinner, especially if I bake my Best-Ever Cornbread.
He just called while I was writing this to tell me that he wouldn't be home for dinner tonight (I had already called his assistant this morning to check) but that he would be home tomorrow. And what would I be cooking? Yep, it's started. Guess I'll be hitting the grocery store more than once a month now. I suspect my bank's fraud department will be calling to make sure it's really me using my ATM card there...
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Pain of Frogging
I have 6 projects for the book on the needles at the moment -- Magnolia Tea Cozy, the third of my set of 3 Charleston Gate pillows, Gilded Age Placemats, Tybee Island Beach Mat, Williamsburg "Braided" Rug, and the Great Smoky Mountain Afghan. I'm not counting the 15 or so personal projects which are languishing unfinished in project bins, despite my resolution to finish all of them before year end. But I have made a commitment not to cast on any more projects for the book until I finish the ones in progress. Which brings me to the title of this post.
I normally don't frog much (the painful art of having to take your project off the needles and "rip it, rip it, rip it" the yarn out). If I'm knitting someone else's design, I may decide after I start it that I'm not enjoying it, but I know pretty quickly if I'm not into it and I stop, rewind the yarn and get on with something else. Life's too short to knit something you don't like or with yarn you don't enjoy. But while I'm designing, there is so much frogging and starting over. The Great Smoky Mountain Afghan has caused the most re-knitting pain. The first time I ripped out, it was an issue of color transition that I wasn't really crazy about. So I ripped back about 1000 stitches. After I was about a quarter done with the entire afghan, I decided the design wasn't what I really wanted, so I ripped the whole thing out. All 6,000+ stitches. I felt a bit like crying. It made it much harder to cast on my 3rd version of the afghan. I briefly considered converting the design to a hat -- after all, ripping out a hat is hardly traumatic. But 6,000+ stitches is another story altogether. But "rip it, rip it, rip it" I did. The blanket is knit with a double-strand, so my husband had to hold and wind one strand while I did the other. It was an obscene amount of frogging.
So I bit the bullet and made myself cast on version 3. And the yarn I'm knitting with is all wavy from having been previosly frogged. It's a constant reminder that I was already past this point a month ago. And in case I forget that, I can see the hundreds of yards of wavy yarn still in the project bucket. Yep, I'm in frogging hell.
Just to make matters more fun, last week the cable on my interchangeable needles broke in mid row -- a row with over 400 stitches in it. As I watched my live, loose stitches cascade off my lap and onto the floor, I had a few choice words that I won't share with you now. I gingerly scooped up the mess, gently placed it on the kitchen counter, threaded up a tapestry needle with a very long piece of contrasting yarn, and starting running a line through the loose stitches. By some miracle, I was able to save every single stitch. And I drove straight to the store and bought a 40" bamboo cicular needle with a heavy one-piece cord. It's starting to feel like this design is cursed....
I was so stressed, I knew it was time to bake. Comfort food was required, despite the 90+ degree heat, so I stopped at the grocery store for supplies and fired up the oven for a little experimental cooking. So from the near-disaster of my Great Smoky Mountain Afghan came the culinary miracle that is my Tillamook White Cheddar Mac 'n Cheese. Honestly, it was the best macaroni and cheese I've ever eaten. My husband agreed. But you'll have to wait for "Seaside Knitting" for the recipe! But I'll make it up to you by including my recipe for Chocolate Toffee Pecan Pie in Deep South Knitting. That pie is so good it'll bring tears to your eyes.
We mailed out information to yarn shops in the states covered in the book and the response has been huge. We're in the process of choosing shops to be featured and patterns to include, and we're really excited about the patterns. I'm headed to Savannah in 2 weeks to do a travel blog for our site, Planet Purl, and to do an initial draft of the Deep South Knitting chapter on Georgia, so we're right on schedule.
It's not too late to submit you shop/pattern for the book. Click on the link "For Shops" at the top of this blog for the online application.
I can't decide whether to bake or knit right now, so I think I'll pour a glass of wine, fill the tub with hot water and think about it until it's time for bed!
I normally don't frog much (the painful art of having to take your project off the needles and "rip it, rip it, rip it" the yarn out). If I'm knitting someone else's design, I may decide after I start it that I'm not enjoying it, but I know pretty quickly if I'm not into it and I stop, rewind the yarn and get on with something else. Life's too short to knit something you don't like or with yarn you don't enjoy. But while I'm designing, there is so much frogging and starting over. The Great Smoky Mountain Afghan has caused the most re-knitting pain. The first time I ripped out, it was an issue of color transition that I wasn't really crazy about. So I ripped back about 1000 stitches. After I was about a quarter done with the entire afghan, I decided the design wasn't what I really wanted, so I ripped the whole thing out. All 6,000+ stitches. I felt a bit like crying. It made it much harder to cast on my 3rd version of the afghan. I briefly considered converting the design to a hat -- after all, ripping out a hat is hardly traumatic. But 6,000+ stitches is another story altogether. But "rip it, rip it, rip it" I did. The blanket is knit with a double-strand, so my husband had to hold and wind one strand while I did the other. It was an obscene amount of frogging.
So I bit the bullet and made myself cast on version 3. And the yarn I'm knitting with is all wavy from having been previosly frogged. It's a constant reminder that I was already past this point a month ago. And in case I forget that, I can see the hundreds of yards of wavy yarn still in the project bucket. Yep, I'm in frogging hell.
Just to make matters more fun, last week the cable on my interchangeable needles broke in mid row -- a row with over 400 stitches in it. As I watched my live, loose stitches cascade off my lap and onto the floor, I had a few choice words that I won't share with you now. I gingerly scooped up the mess, gently placed it on the kitchen counter, threaded up a tapestry needle with a very long piece of contrasting yarn, and starting running a line through the loose stitches. By some miracle, I was able to save every single stitch. And I drove straight to the store and bought a 40" bamboo cicular needle with a heavy one-piece cord. It's starting to feel like this design is cursed....
I was so stressed, I knew it was time to bake. Comfort food was required, despite the 90+ degree heat, so I stopped at the grocery store for supplies and fired up the oven for a little experimental cooking. So from the near-disaster of my Great Smoky Mountain Afghan came the culinary miracle that is my Tillamook White Cheddar Mac 'n Cheese. Honestly, it was the best macaroni and cheese I've ever eaten. My husband agreed. But you'll have to wait for "Seaside Knitting" for the recipe! But I'll make it up to you by including my recipe for Chocolate Toffee Pecan Pie in Deep South Knitting. That pie is so good it'll bring tears to your eyes.
We mailed out information to yarn shops in the states covered in the book and the response has been huge. We're in the process of choosing shops to be featured and patterns to include, and we're really excited about the patterns. I'm headed to Savannah in 2 weeks to do a travel blog for our site, Planet Purl, and to do an initial draft of the Deep South Knitting chapter on Georgia, so we're right on schedule.
It's not too late to submit you shop/pattern for the book. Click on the link "For Shops" at the top of this blog for the online application.
I can't decide whether to bake or knit right now, so I think I'll pour a glass of wine, fill the tub with hot water and think about it until it's time for bed!
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