Saturday, September 29, 2012

Water, Salt, Yeast, Flour,

(and in this case, some dehydrated chopped onion and sage). It smells very, very good. It's going to taste even better.



I hadn't baked bread in years and years, but I've taken it up again recently, thanks to Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  The title is a bit of an overstatement, but the basic recipe is easy, is easy to play around with, and so far has always given good results.  Good enough that I really haven't pushed on to try the other variations in the book, but one of these days.....

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Tuesday Miscellaneous

A really mixed bag today

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From Channel 3000: Humane Societies Run Out of Space, Money 

Budgets have been tight for a lot of people, us included, but I'm going to scrape up something to send to the Iowa County shelter. We adopted our two current good cats there, and saw first hand how dedicated their volunteers are to maintaining this no kill refuge. I knew they always had to rely on donations, but until I read the story linked above I didn't know just how serious the situation is right now.

Please, if you can, donate directly to your own local shelter.Giving locally means no overhead taken out for a national organization and even "in kind" donations of food or cat litter are usually welcome. And if you have room in your house and your heart, adopt a shelter pet.

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It's that season. I got a call from a polling organization this evening. First they asked if I or anyone in my family worked for a news organization or a political campaign. I said "no". Then they asked if I was registered to vote. I said "yes." Then they asked if I was 1) highly likely to vote, 2) somewhat likely to vote 3) somewhat likely not to vote or 4) highly likely not to vote in the November election.  I said I was highly likely to vote. By this time I was champing at the bit to get at the real questions. But first they asked what year I was born. I answered truthfully. Then they said "Thank you, that's all the questions we have."  I was sorry, because it sounded like a legitimate poll, and who doesn't want to have their opinion count? I assume that for their sampling they already had answers from enough people in my age demographic. But the question I want to ask them is: If you are looking for younger respondents, why are you calling a land line? 

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And it's that time of year when I realize that all of my wool socks need mending. Well, OK, that's an exaggeration. I only found two actual holes, which I have rather clumsily darned.  But several pairs have worn alarmingly thin under the heel like this one.


Some of those threads are baaaarely hanging on, and probably wouldn't make it through another washing.  So I'm working away at reinforcing it and its drawer mates with Swiss Darning (aka duplicate stitch).


For me, this is easier, neater, and more pleasant than a woven darn worked after the hole has already appeared (though not necessarily faster). Two down, about six to go.


 

Monday, September 24, 2012

Hmmm, a little more Goth than I had anticipated


The yarn is quite a bit darker than it looks in this flash photo.

So What will it be? (Not a knitting question)

Still working on what, if anything, this blog might be going forward.

One of the reasons I stopped posting for so long was that the my attention was absorbed by (mostly state) politics for a while, and the politics and the knitting didn't feel like a good mix. And the knitting itself dropped by the wayside for almost a year.

Don't know where this is going. Will see if I figure it out.




Sunday, September 23, 2012

Well, it's a long way from perfection,

but I think that by breaking up the line between the patterned and the plain, the duplicate stitch is a bit of an improvement.


Sore Thumb

I finished off the fine gauge mittens this week.


As is obvious from the photo, I wimped out and did the thumb top decrease section in just one color. I think the blue would have been a better choice than the pink. I'm not going to rip back, but if I get ambitious I may  try a few stitches in duplicate stitch to break up the vast expanse of pink.

There is no change in stitch count in the cuffs. the slight flair is caused by 1) the fact that my cast-ons always tend to be a little loose 2) there is a purl row near the edge and my purling tends to be looser than my knitting  3) stranded color work tend to pull in.

I meant to do that....... Yeah, that's the ticket.

Actually, I don't mind the flair.