Specs Knits

A few weeks ago one of R’s friends told me that he loves gazpacho. So, of course, like the terminal people-pleaser that I am, I volunteered to give him some of the next batch we made. Because “we make gazpacho all the time in the summer,” I enthused. That, of course, was weeks ago and I’ve just now gotten around to making some delicious chilled soup. But now that I have, there will be no stopping me from making this very, very often.

“My Gazpacho” from the Vegetarian Epicure (Book Two)

5-6 large tomatoes
1 large cucumber
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup coarsely chopped watercress
3 tbs olive oil
3 tbs red wine vinegar
2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups ice water

Cut tomatoes into wedges [roughly the same size, unless you like inconsistently lumpy soup — which I do]. Peel and seed the cucumber and cut it into chunks. Chop the onion and garlic.

Purée the tomatoes, cucumber, onions and garlic in a blender, about 2 or 3 cups at a time [or however much your blender can handle at once]. Add watercress to the last batch and blend until smooth.

Pour the pureéd vegetables into a large bowl and add the oil, vinegar, and salt. Blend these seasonings in with a whisk until the soup is smooth. Taste and correct seasonings. Now whisk in the ice water, and perhaps add an ice cube or two. Chill in the refrigerator until it is time to serve and then give it another quick stir with the whisk just before ladling into bowls.

Now, a couple of notes on this. First of all, I used less than half the salt, and only 2 tbs each of oil and vinegar. And I used only a cup of ice water, because I like my gazpacho on the thick side. I didn’t have large tomatoes, only a bunch of small ones that we got for cheap because they weren’t very pretty, and I used about 9 of those. Just eyeball the blended soup and if it doesn’t look or taste tomatoey enough, throw another one in there.

Garnish it with whatever you like. I’m partial to hard-boiled eggs diced and thrown in just before eating, but I won’t say no to croutons or extra cucumber cubes.

But really, this is a hard recipe to mess up. And an easy one to eat a lot of in a very short amount of time. R’s friend is going to have to wait until the next batch to get some.

I’m sure that by now most of you have heard of the Cool Kids Party that I somehow, magically snagged an invite to a few weeks ago (has it really been a month?) and of all the cowls, fun, and bloggy love that happened that weekend. And since then, I’ve just been burnt out on the ‘ol blog. I haven’t even been reading blogs, which is odd for me and for which I apologize for neglecting you, internet friends.

But I’m cannonballing back into blogging now with the cutest. Sweater. I have ever knit.

Pattern: The ubiquitous Placket Neck Pullover (Rav link)
Yarn: leftover Cascade 220 from my Hourglass
Needles: US 7, Denise circs and Brittany dpns

If there’s one thing that I probably haven’t made clear on the blog about my knitting habits, it’s how much I love seed stitch. Not so much knitting it (which can get old) but the look of it in an FO. Adore it. Love it to pieces. So clearly this is a sweater that would appeal to me. And hopefully it will appeal to Kitty JimJams, who gave birth to a son the very day I finished this sweater. (Thanks for waiting! I really appreciate it.)

There really isn’t much I can add about the pattern as written. It’s simple and quick and cute. (Take note that I have a 3rd edition of LMKG and so the pattern was printed correctly. If you have a 1st edition you should seek out the errata.)

HOWEVER. Knitting with contrasting colors and want to have a straight and lovely placket? Block harshly and graft firmly but carefully, lest woe betide you:

See how the placket doesn’t fit seamlessly (in the more abstract sense of the word) into the stockinette stitch? I re-grafted that thing so many times, but finally just threw up my hands and decided it is a) for a baby who won’t care and b) for a lovely new mum who probably won’t care too much either. And it doesn’t look terrible. Just like it’s been grafted by someone who isn’t very good at grafting and then blocked into submission. Which it was.

In the end, I left off the “buttons” because I like the look of the open neck and also because the idea of sewing beads onto a baby’s sweater makes me nervous. I haven’t been around many babies recently, but I estimate it would be about 2 hours before he’d have popped those things off and tried to eat them no matter how firmly I sewed them on.

And I refuse to give baby death traps as gifts. It just seems really tacky.

I do have knitting-related content waiting in the wings, but first a question for you:

Who dyes your favorite roving?

Stop clapping/wringing your hands; it isn’t for me. My dad is well into the roving he got at MDS&W and needs a source for some more beautiful fiber (preferably merino). So, lovely internet spinners, who is your supplier of choice?

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival 2008.

And the spoils:

The Yarn Place’s laceweight tencel/merino blend in a beautiful deep grey not-quite-variegated color. I am in love.

Colinette Jitterbug in “Salty Dog.” Last skein at the booth and it was mine, all mine.

Malabrigo (my first ever) worsted in Navy. Hello, my favorite hat of next winter.

It goes without saying that I had a fantastic time (but I’m saying it anyway), met some lovely, friendly knitters and found that the festival still has the same warm community feeling it had when I was a kid, despite the increase in size and popularity. Next year I’m going for both days and bringing twice the budget. And wearing more sunscreen.

This vest. It has been weighing me down. There has been a lot of drama with it “behind the scenes” that I haven’t mentioned on the blog because, well, nobody likes a whiner and I’ve been really embarrassed about the whole thing. I made a couple of erroneous assumptions when I started this project, so while the finished object is vest shaped and functional, the process has been less than wonderful. I assumed that:
1) knitting a vest will take much less time than knitting a sweater — no sleeves! That’s, like, 50% of the work!
2) designing a vest myself will be easy and fast (again — no sleeves)
3) seed stitch button bands will look awesome and be fun and easy to knit
4) ok, so I’ve never done anything like this before — how hard can it be? (No sleeves! I can’t overstate how important this was in my reasoning.)

You can see these things coming, can’t you?

But at this point, all the ripping and re-knitting is moot because it’s done and it looks good and this weekend it’s being solemnly given to my dad, who I hope will wear it until it just falls apart.

Upper Class Vest of the Year (Rav link)
Yarn: Mondial Prima (100% merino)
Needles: 5 circs, metal
Projected started: Dec 1, 2007
Project finished: April 21, 2008

I’m just going to skip all the details about the progress and dive into my thoughts on the finished object. The first thing that strikes me when I look at this is how uneven it seems. I couldn’t find a (free) pattern for a waistcoat, so I based my pattern on this one, from an out of print Vogue knitting book (More Knitting in Vogue):

Stylish, no? Refined, sleek, debonair, scholastic and sophisticated? I think the Upper Class Vest of the Year (hereafter VoY) will be much sleeker after another severe blocking to take care of any button band pushing and pulling. But I want to see it on my dad before I commit to another 48 hours of soaking and drying, so it’ll stay lumpy for now.

I also can’t help but be unhappy with the bands (button, sleeve, and pocket). What you see is the third, fourth, or fifth incarnation of some of those bands, so when I sewed them on and they didn’t seriously disrupt the vest-ness of the vest, I was done. But oh, have I learned some valuable lessons about button bands and miters. Most importantly the “two stitches for every three” lesson, but also the “miters have holes — they just do” and the “do not knit these in the car without a tape measure” lessons.

There are other little things I’m not happy with (pockets look weird, top button is too far from bottom of the V, etc), but I don’t want my nit-picking to give the impression I’m not pleased with this. Instead, I’ll end with the positive: I learned so much from knitting this vest. So much about designing, gauge, time commitments, techniques, buttonholes, button bands, grafting, and even blocking. It was a learning process disguised as a vest, and as such it was a monumentally successful project.

Merry Christmas Happy Birthday Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

And while I don’t want to steal the spotlight from the VoY, let me just add here that I’ll be at MDS&W on Saturday. I think I’m avoiding the Rav gathering (I know, insane, right? But I don’t do much socializing on Ravelry and the large number of people they’re expecting is frankly intimidating) but if you seem me or I see you, let’s say hi to each other, ok?

Spring is just creeping in around the edges here, and R and I are starting to talk about planting a vegetable and herb garden. The thing is, we’ve never done this before. But my parents had a pretty large vegetable garden when I was a kid though and I loved going to nurseries with my mom to pick out herbs for the spring, so I’m not entirely inexperienced in growing, you know, stuff. But R is and he’s trusting me to plan this out and pick the right herbs and veggies for our tiny, shady backyard. His faith in my ability to nurture is frightening.

Here’s our tentative list of stuff to plant:
Tomatoes (Definitely some cherry, so as to get them from the vine to my mouth the fastest, but we haven’t decided on another kind)
Cucumbers
Red and green peppers
Jalapeños
Yellow squash
Basil (loads of it)
Rosemary
Catnip
Thyme
Oregano
Cilantro

This afternoon I am going to pull out the graph paper and start plotting. Oh, planning. I love it so.

‘Cause a knitblog party* usually includes knitting, some of the nicest, funniest people you’ve ever met, drinks, dinner, and an opportunity to talk about a part of your life that your non-blog friends just don’t get (that moment when we all shook our heads in deep, dark despair over how anyone could like pooling was heartwarming). And although it does actually stop at some point in the evening, that’s ok because you get to go home happy with with loads of pictures to look through.

Unfortunately, all of my photos are blurry and/or dark. This is the best one I took of us as a group. I am not kidding (just imagine what the others looked like). Also: the best one of everyone else is the worst one of me, as is usually the way with group photography. I promise I’m not a evil-eyebrowed hunchback in real life. At least, not most days.

Anyway, I had a great time, guys! And cheers to Jennie and D for baking for us and letting us laze around their place and harass their cats.

*with Knitting Philistine, Minty, and Twinknit. No guarantees that your knitblog party will be this much fun if you hang out with different bloggers.

I’m visiting my dad in Maryland for a few days, and I brought with me this vest I was originally knitting him for Christmas. I completely and stupidly failed to consider that designing something yourself more than doubles your project length, and the vest was quickly recategorized as a birthday present. His birthday is Thursday and I couldn’t have timed the finishing better. I’m on course to finish the button band tonight, the seaming Wednesday night, and then present it to him on Thursday, wrapped nicely and adorned with shiny new buttons.

Or, I was. Before I left my last ball of yarn in New Jersey.

FO photos will be a little later than I originally planned.

Specsknits is back online and normal service should resume shortly.

Cheers to Katie for a great suggestion! (Monthly hosting, now why didn’t I think of that?)

Thanks for all of your comments on my last post! I’ve taken several of you up on your suggestions. I now have a wrist brace thingie, am taking time to stretch every hour, and I even made a halfhearted attempt at a nail polish habit to prevent myself from using my wrists for a good 10 minutes. It’s all helped tremendously — thank you!

Some of you left really, really helpful comments that somehow didn’t make it into my inbox, so I’m sorry I didn’t reply to each of you individually. I think it’s a problem with my host, but since my contract is up on the 25th I’m not going to make too many waves about it.

That said, my site goes down on the 25th, and it’s likely to be down for a little while afterwards. This month has been financially tight for many reasons (most of them ridiculous) and a year’s worth of blog hosting just isn’t in my budget for now. It will be, next month, but not before the 25th. So the blog will be down for a while, but I’m making back-ups and counting my pennies so it should be back soon. Please do keep me on your Bloglines/Google Reader, just don’t expect anything for a few weeks and don’t be surprised if you visit the site and get a wasteland of internet space.

And in the meantime, I’m on Ravelry! It took me ages to sign up because as much as I love the internet, I’m actually a massive luddite and I like to watch others try out the dangerous technology before I jump on board. That’s what I did with Ravelry, and at this point, I’m pretty sure that this thing is going to work out.