This is one of those weeks where I’ve felt like a circus juggler—you know, the fellow who starts with one or two balls and then adds more and more balls as his confederate throws them to him. In my case, however, after two balls, the whole shebang just dropped on the floor bouncing in all directions. I think Thanksgiving, a surprise “you’ve got to do this in five hours” assignment (which is still on my desk waiting to be completed), and a problem with my email program that took a half-day to fix pushed me over the edge. I have been knitting, but blogging was one of the first things to drop from my repertoire.
I’m proud to say that the Target Wave Mittens are on their way to the mitten drive run by the Rochester Knitting Guild. Although late, I hope they are in time for the December giveaway.
These turned out acceptably, but not as good as the picture in Norah Gaughan’s book. If you decide to use this pattern, look at the many suggestions on Ravelry for alteration. I reduced the number of circles around the thumb, and it still seems a bit wonky. I am glad, though, that my meager stash of acrylic is depleted and the mittens are going to someone who could use them.
I also finished Ed’s hat from Charlene Schurch’s Hats On! book.
This took about 2 ½ skeins of Heilo, and I knit it on size 0 needles so it would be warm and dense. I also made a very deep brim so that it would be double over Ed’s ears. Heilo can be a bit splitty on such small needles, but I’m very pleased with this hat—as is Ed. Usually when I finish a warm sweater or other garment, the weather gets too warm to wear it. Although we had a couple of relatively mild days, it is now snowing, and I think our warmish weather is over.
In fact, one other obstacle to getting on with my life was the need to put my garden to bed. October was so mild that I was harvesting tomatoes into the first few weeks, and lettuce, kale, and Swiss chard through the end of the month. Then we had a cold snap, and I never pulled up my spent plants or took down the row covers. That took most of yesterday.
But to give myself a treat for working so hard through the summer, I ordered some things from KnitPicks.
The wonderful brown box, which arrived around a week ago, contained copies of Nancy Bush’s new book on Estonian shawls and Folk Shawls, which I ordered before, but was out of stock. I’ve wanted to try KnitPicks Gloss for socks, and the purple (color Cosmos) was inside. Also enclosed are some extra points for my Harmony circular needle set, chocolate Andean Silk for a scarf for Ed, and some Superwash Merino in gray (cobblestone heather) for fingerless gloves for Ed. Ed insists that they have to be washable, and so Superwash seemed the only way to go.
I decided to cook on Thanksgiving, for just the three of us. Ed does most of the cooking ordinarily, and so this was intended to be a treat for him, since he could just watch football and let me do the work. He didn’t quite sit with his feet up—he did cook the vegetables and raced over whenever it seemed as if I wasn’t in command of what I was doing. But I roasted Cornish game hens and made cranberry sauce. And, for what has become a tradition, I made a chocolate layer cake. This is what’s left:
I’m not a skilled baker because I don’t bake that often, but this cake, from a recipe on the back of the Swan’s Down Cake Flour box is really a winner. I usually frost it with vanilla butter cream icing, but the new flour box had a recipe for chocolate butter cream, and this variation was a success.
Now if I can only manage to add one more ball to my juggling routine and get these projects up on Ravelry—I think that just might have to wait for next week.
