Technological black thumbs strike again

So I still fail at blogging, but at least this time I have a valid excuse.  My computer (can't remember if I'mat 4or 5 now) died.  My techy friend said he could be bribed with beer to come look at it and give it the verdict.  I'm hoping I can get it working, or Frankenstein together a working laptop from the crashed one, and the old one that got destroyed in the car accident.  But if not, well, yarn budget gets repurposed to computer replacement budget.  Which was not part of the budget.  Le sigh.  And my lovely, occasionally forgetful Yeti took my memory card out of my camera and put it on the windowsill.  Is it there?  Nope. Behind the bed? Nope.  Do I expect to find it someplace weird, hopefully not in the cats litter box? Yup.

Anyway, to today's regularly scheduled program.  I'm being a little knitting ADD right now.  My sweater is coming along.  I'm having to make up the sleeves as I go, because I wanted long sleeves, and the pattern was written for either short sleeves, or long flared sleeves, and I have a VERY strong hatred for flared sleeves.  They always remind me of the witch costumes I wore as a kid for Halloween, and not in a good way.  I have also discovered that I abhor knitting sleeves. They're so damn fiddly.  This is likely why I will never be a sock knitter.  I will fondle, and love, and appreciate, but knit them?  Bwahahahaha.

So currently, I got these mitred squares I'm whipping out to ostensibly make a throw pillow with, some apple core shapes I going to piece together to maybe make a rug with (it works in my head, don't know if it will in real life though).  I also have resurrected my Moderne Log Cabin blanket. Now that it's getting colder, it would be nice to have, but all that garter stitch just gets incredibly dull, so it's being alternated with other fiber experimentation. I would post pics, but well, with no camera card, and minimally functional computers, you all in internet land will just have to deal with the anticipation.

We go together like rama llama llama dingy dingy dong

Okay so those aren't quite the right lyrics, but I tried. Anywho, at the request of my dear partner in yarn crimes Jessy, I might start throwing in some of my cooking misadventures as well as the fibre-y kind.

So before popping my food blogging cherry, here's a bit of back story. Sean LOVES pho. He is always bemoaning Asheville's lack of pho establishments (he thinks it's a pho-king shame bwhahaha yeah I went there). So the other day, I stumble upon this recipe: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/05/crockpot-vietnamese-pho-recipe.html and thought I would give it a shot. Went to the store, bought the ingredients, plus a few extras. Now I have only had pho once, and that was a good 10 or 12 years ago, so I had no clue what it was supposed to taste like. I thought it sounded odd, frankly. Well, 5-6 hours later, we sat down to eat the stuff. The reviews were mixed. I thought it was gross, picked out the mushrooms, ate enough of my noodles to not be starving, and gave Sean the rest. Sean liked it, but said it wasn't totally pho like. He assured me repeatedly that it tasted good, it just wasn't real pho. Would I make it again? Maybe, if he wanted it.

But to counter this flop (in my mind anyway) I made one of my favorite dinners of all time. The kind of meal that makes me feel like a kid again, and if I eat it prepared any other way, it is WRONG, and they obviously don't know how to cook, and sends me weeping to McDonalds. Okay, maybe that was just that one time in the UNCA caf where they used tempeh. Shudder. I find it simple, and delicious, and uncomplicated. What is this culinary delicacy you ask? How do I make this party on my taste buds dish you ask? What could it BE?

STROGANOFF. And here is my dad's recipe, word for word as it was given to me.

Ingredients:

A pound or so of ground beef (you can use slab meat cut into little cubes or shreds, but I thing ground beef is better)

A few fresh shallots (onions and a clove or two of garlic work if you don’t have enough shallots, but chop ‘em fine whatever you use)

A pound or so of fresh mushrooms (brown creminis are best, ordinary white ones are okay) sliced so they aren’t too big

Half a cup or so of white wine – something with a lot of flavor, like a white burgundy or bordeaux, not some weenie Italian white. (Red wine produces a really vile pink color, so if all you have is red wine just drink it and leave it out of the stroganoff.)

Butter (NOT olive oil)

Sour cream (not under any circumstances the low-fat shit)

Black Pepper

Grey Poupon mustard (do NOT use French’s. This is not a hot dog or a ham sandwich)

A small amount of beef base if you have it, but don’t worry if you don’t

Dried tarragon. This is non-negotiable. Fresh tarragon just doesn’t work as well, for some reason.

Salt

Process:

1. Put some butter in a large-diameter high-sided pan and melt it. Don’t be stingy with the butter.

2. Toss in the shallots and sauté them until translucent. If you use onion & garlic sweat the onions good, then add the garlic when the onions are about to be done – otherwise the garlic will overcook and be bitter like folks in small-town Pennsylvania.

3. Add the beef and brown it good, breaking up the big chunks. Add several grinds of black pepper.

4. Remove the beef & shallot/onion/garlic mix from the pan, leaving as much of the meat juice/fat/butter residue in there as possible. Don’t worry if you leave a few bits of the meat & stuff in the pan – you’re mainly making room for the next step.

5. Put the mushrooms, white wine, and about ½ a teaspoon of the tarragon in with the meat juice, etc. Cook this until just about all of the liquid is gone but not until the mushrooms get dry. It will take awhile, as mushrooms are mostly water. Adding a pinch or two of salt will help draw the water out of them, but don’t go overboard. FYI, the reason you removed the meat from the pan is the shrooms cook a lot faster when it’s gone, and it’s easy to determine if most of the water is gone, which you want – it will be a pain in step 9 if you don’t cook off most of it now.

6. Put the beef & shallots back in the pan.

7. Add several really big globs of the sour cream and about a tablespoon of Grey Poupon. Stir until everything is well mixed.

8. Taste it and see if there’s enough pepper to suit you and to see if there’s a stroganoffish balance between creaminess and mustardy sharpness. You can put in some more tarragon here if you want to, or add a bit of the beef base if it tastes wimpy. If you’re going to use beef base, use like half a teaspoon at the time, and remember it has a hell of a lot of salt in it. Don’t add salt until after the beef base is well and truly assimilated and you’ve tasted it again.

9. Cook this until it’s as thick as you want it, but don’t let it boil. This might take awhile as you’re basically getting rid of the remaining liquid from step 5, as well as what’s in the sour cream. During this step you can fiddle some more with the sour cream/mustard/tarragon balance if you need to

10. Serve over noodles.

DISCLAIMER: As far as I know, there is no one of Eastern European descent in my recent gene pool who would know how to make true stroganoff. It is entirely likely I could eat this in Russia, made by someones babushka, and think it was wrong, because it wasn't my dads recipe. But this is GOOD. Not healthy. But who cares, cause it is YUMMY.

Knitting disaster to be posted tomorrow, so sharpen your tenterhooks.

With a knitters yell, she cried more more MORE!

So I finished the Global Warming I cast on last weekend. Whole thing took about 3 days. I still have to sew the pocket on, and weave in a few ends, but it's done. This one I am giving to Katie, cause she liked it. I'm knitting myself another one, and I am excited. I like the look of this pattern. I'm doing a few mods to mine, which I will detail later. But here is Katie's:


I also whipped this up, and want to make more, because I think they are really pretty!


I've got another row done on the Drexel Puzzle, and I think I have 2, maybe three more to go, but I can crank those squares out fast. No reason why it shouldn't be done by next weekend, just in time for Charles to take to school!

Busy beaver (bee? whatever)

So this is the before and after picks from the yarn stash reorganization project. I think it looks great! There's no strict system, but I do have it so that I can see everything that I have. One of the drawers has loose needles (I don't have many, I always use my KP Options), and another has scrap balls, which will eventually be used for my Tessellating Fish. I threw away almost one whole plastic bin of swatches, scraps, and tangled messes. Sort of cathartic, wish I could do the same thing with my brain sometimes.

Erica is going to see her sister and her kids this weekend, so I cranked out these guys:


Both patterns are from Knitty. The turtles shell comes off, and there are some different outfits you can make one. I messed up somewhat in assembly (his eyes are in the wrong place, and one leg is crooked) but no one but me really knows, so I guess it's alright. The penguin required learning how to w&t, which not being a sock knitter, I've never really done before, so that was cool.

Now I have to do some serious cranking on Charles' afghan, because it would be best if I could get it to him by next weekend, cause mailing that thing would be a bitch, it's going to be HEH-EH-VY.

New projects

This is a DSi case I am concocting right now. SWS in Natural Earth. I gotta say, I love this yarn. Lovelovelove. Anyway. I'm doing a rectangle in a double knit, cause I was the plushyness for protection, then putting a zipper on the top. Going to put some sort of side pocket on for games as well, but that's more experimentation.



This is Charles's re-done afghan, which I am trying to get done before he leaves for Drexel in a few weeks. I am optimistic. I think it's going to look really cool, I just hope he likes it!

Next up, I have to whip something up for Sean's sister's new baby, and I found some really cute little tops I want to make his nieces, which I am shooting to have ready for xmas. I also want to find a great pattern for Elizabeth's new one, but I am waiting to find out that she is actually pregnant, I don't want to jinx it for them! I'm thinking about doing a Hoover blanket (http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall03/PATThoover.html), but doing one side in a self striping, and one in a solid. I've been wanting to make one for awhile, and this gives me an excuse!

I suck ass at posting

So I suck at this knitting/blogging shit, but whatever. Done a couple of things lately, but nothing spectacular. Except for...

THIS.



I am actually pretty freaking proud of this. Dimensionally, I'm not a huge fan, but I like the design. Debating writing up a recipe/pattern for it. Wasn't difficult in the least. I want to do a little more experimentation with it, because I'm not sure I did it in the most logical way, but I do like it.

And given that I bought new bedding, for the new house (squeee!) I am using it as an excuse to knit a new afghan for our bed. So far I got this:



The plan is strips like this in green and brown, and alternating them with some sort of leafy lace pattern in beige. As usual, I'm going to change my mind another 15 times I'm sure, but for now, that's the plan.

I'm a knitting machine...

Well I finally finished Katie and Anthony's wedding afghan. They got in married in October, but it simply wasn't done, so they're getting it for Christmas.

Mods: I think the pattern meant you to pick up and knit stitches, and I just picked them up. It meant that each side has lines of color joining, but it gives an interesting effect where there's no right or wrong side.

For the border, it also wanted to you basically carry stitches along while do the decreasing squares. I didn't want to do this, so I bound of squares as I finished rows. I think went back and picked up stitches along each side, each side a different color. Then did a round of single crochet in the tan. Gave a nice unifying effect I thought. I do still need to deal with some ends, but other than that I am really happy with it. It's a nice couch throw size, which I what I was going for. I think I might eventually make one for our bed, but that's another day!

I also finally finished my Noni Carpet bag and got it felted, and am waiting for it to dry. Charles scarf is about half done, and I have finished the back piece of Sean's vest. I still need to take some pictures, but I think in a day or so I am going to do a picture heavy post.

Now I am off to knit some more!

Christmas

There's really not much to post about when I haven't accomplished much. I am mostly done with Katie and Anthony's afghan, its just the same finishing issues I always have. The idea of picking up stitches all along the edges don't have me very motivated either, alas.

The more pressing list right now is:
a dishcloth by Wednesday
a dishcloth by Friday
a scarf by Saturday

The scarf is the least pressing, because I can technically work on it after I leave to go home, but it would be harder to do, since its for my brother, who will be home. But it might happen. I'm hoping to make the Mason Dixon dishcloth, but its sort of dependent upon the book getting here on time, which I don't think is going to happen, so this: http://www.geocities.com/love2knit_dishcloths/Dishcloth022 is my backup. I think they will like it.

Eventually I am going to start on hats for Sean's nieces, and a sweater for my friends toddler. I have done the back of Sean's vest, and need to start the front. That and the wedding afghan I think are going to be the projects I take home to finish up. Ten days should equal plenty of knitting. Theoretically. When I get around to it, I will post a bunch of pictures of schtuff.

Pillow

There is a new first in the life of the Yarn Hussy. I made something all the way through based upon my original design. Very minimal, if any, froggin. Holy shit. I have made one pillow cover, and here it is in all its glory! My color work needs some help (I think I have wrapping/tension issues), but for the most part it looks good. I'm seriously considering typing up a pattern and posting it on Ravelry, in the hopes that someone else will make it. Easy as hell to make. Course now I have to figure out what I want to do for the second pillow. I might just not bother, we have about four pillows as it is, which I think is more than sufficient atm.

Now I might work on knitting a mate for my sock. I'm so flipping excited about my recent bursts of creativity. Now that I'm not in school, I haven't been doing much to make me feel accomplished, and this is filling the void nicely!

Progress

Well, I have made some inroads into the pirate afghan. The current plan, which I think I like, is to make a shit load of squares in black and white, with one skull and crossbones square in each corner. This thing is going to be massive, but the Yeti wanted snuggling/blanket burrito-ing room, which when you're 6'2" means a LOT of squares. Each one is 48 x 56 sts on size 7's. I'm using cheapo One Pound acrylic. When its going to be this big, and its just for us, I can be cheap. I'm debating putting pink skulls on on half, but I don't know yet. I'm about one and a half strips in, and I'm guessing I'm going to need about 10 across, as I want it to cover our queen bed.

In other news, I KNIT A SOCK. Despite the plethora of sock patterns on Ravelry, I have resisted, for the large part because I hate dpn's. Well, I have discovered what I honestly believe to be a gift from a higher being/God/Zeus/Great Mother, whatever. The Magic Loop method. I know, its old, not new, whatever. But it's freaking awesome. And here, in all its glory, is my sock.
I used some KnitPicks wool of the andes I had lying around, and its nice and soft. I should have used stitch markers, and the beginning of my round changed about 3 times as a result of my refusal to use them, but it is still a perfectly wearable sock, and I am quite proud of myself. I don't know if I am going to become addicted to sock making or not, but it was enjoyable to learn a new thing.

Next up: 1. pillow covers for my couch throw pillows. Of my own design.
2. Cunt clutch for Katie.
3. Finish my flipping Noni bag already!

New start (and yes, this is a loaded title)

So the move is completed. The yarn is unpacked. Which means...

You guessed it, a new project. Or rather the umpteenth incarnation of an old one. New variation of the pirate-ghan. Pictures will be posted if this one sticks for more than 52 hours. Promise.

Moving sucks

So I've declared myself on a new project hiatus. Which hurts. It hurts bad. BUT I am moving in 10 days, and I can't unpack the yarn. So I have been working on my brothers afghan (mainly because it's half done already, and it's T & Q, which means bulky as all hell. That and the Noni bag are all I am allowed to work on right now. Mainly because I want that bag done. I'm okay with not felting it until after we move, but I would like to get the knitting done. I would felt now, but unless I can get it done tomorrow, I doubt this thing is going to have time, it being so dadgum thick.

Moving is not fun. It makes me put away my knitting needles.

Ugly Bath Mat

In an effort to use the massive amounts of ugly cotton yarn I had laying around, I made a bath mat, one which I find hideous. But it's a bathmat, and the Boy liked it, and he hates it when I frog things, so I left it alone. Besides, the cats just going to pee on it soon anyway. I might type up the pattern soon, for posterity sake, I might try it again, but knit it, and use prettier colors. But here are pictures anyway.

IMG_0454

IMG_0454,
originally uploaded by Yarn Misadventures.

So I finally finished the crayon blankie for Wendy/Noah. For the most part I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Made a note of all the changes on Ravelry (for which my name is YarnHussy, btw). Embroidering on those letters was a bitch I must say. But the recipient at least pretended to like it, so it was worth it. Now I want to play around with the idea. I am thinking about making a felted version as a bag, maybe a laptop case. But I am forbidding myself to buy yarn until after we've moved. We'll see how my resolve holds up.

Grumble

So I'm sitting in bed on a Sunday watching bad bridal WeTV (never a good idea, makes Sean nervous to see me around weddings. Its going to be a long fall) and decided that I wanted to whip up some quickie afternoon project. I do what any logical knitter (and no I see no contradiction in that statement) would do and head to my Ravelry queue. I start knitting whipping this little beauty up http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/swiffer-re-usable-cloth, and about 10 rows in, I realize that my Swiffer is the velcro time. Not the bobble kind. Crappity crap crap. Now I have to find a new project. Hmph.

Updates on the Noni Bag

Oh this Noni bag. I am making the rather huge version, because despite what Stacy and Clinton say, I am a small-ish girl who carries monstrously large bags, and dammit, I like it! That being said, I made some modifications to the pattern.

1. Pattern says use size 11 24" circs. Um, I'm using size 9 with a 60" cable. God knows how they think you are going to squeeze this monster onto 24" of cable.
2. For bottom, I cast on 86, not 70, which meant my round had...a lot.
3. I stuck with the four row stripes, but I am thinking I should have added a couple, but at this point I am about halfway done, and no way am I frogging that much.
4. I wasn't going to double strand it, but I did after all. I want to make this a sturdy overnight kind of bag, so it seemed like a good idea.

For more general notes, I am only about halfway done, so the actual felting is still in front of me, but based on my previous felting experiences and what I have read, I think I am going to add a few more sets of stripes than the pattern called for, in anticipation for it shrinking more vertically than horizontally. Also, I am probably not going to make the flower, because A) I have to buy another pattern to do it apparently, and B) my boyfriend hates it so much he threatened to not be seen in public with me/it. Heh.

Lining. Oh lining. What I have always liked about felting bags is that they don't require a lining. It remains to be seen if this one will need it. I also need handles. This MIGHT be done by the end of the summer.

The pattern is well written, and does have some tricks about making corners crisp and picking up stitches, which were nice, BUT... I don't know if I really needed a pattern. I could have made this bag without spending the $8. But, the guidelines for figuring out size for the different bags might come in handy.

Bad blogger, bad!

Well, not only have I been forgetting to update about my latest knitting adventures, I left my knitting at home while I have been on vacation for 2 weeks. Grumble.

BUT the exciting news is that I am now a college graduate. Woohoo! Suppose I should change my about me section accordingly. As a graduation present to myself I bought some yummy yummy yarn to make myself the Noni Very Huge Carpet bag. Spent far too much money and have to accompanying buyers remorse, but c'est la vie. This project, which my greedy little hands were so excited about is the one which remains sitting on my desk in Asheville.

Right now the to do list is as follows:
crayon blankie (goal: mid June)
Noni Bag (who knows, by mid June would be nice, but we shall see)

I have a ton of black Patons Grace laying around, and no idea what to do with it, right now I am thinking curtains. But black curtains? I dunno...

Whoops.

Okay, so I'm a bad knitting blogger. I've been caught up with school and all that jazz lately, so here's the update.

I gave up on the double knit/entrelac afghan. Too ambitious, I was never going to get the damn thing done.

I have decided that the yo-yo's are a friggen hassle, so I am going with fishies instead. Should look like an aquarium on acid. Always fun.

I am using up some random cotton yarn I had laying around to make a bathmat. My dyelots don't match, and its a funny shape. But frankly, the cats probably just going to pee on it anyway, so who really cares if my colors are slightly off.

The big news is, I have organized my stash. I don't have nearly as much yarn as I thought I did. It was just REALLY spread out. I will take/post some pictures when I have the energy and batteries for the camera.

Hopefully now that school is over (permanently! or at least until grad school...) I will have more time for stitching, which is good, my Ravelry queue is getting out of control.

Continental Knitting

I was just wading through Ravelry as I am wont to do at every spare moment, and some which aren't, and ran across a forum regarding Continental v. English style knitting. Apparently, the difference is how you hold your yarn, and I knit Continental. Interesting.

In other news, despite my personal moratorium on new projects, I am about to cast on....
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=160711.0 , which I am extremely excited about. Its going to be my first garment, and my first attempt at sleeves. Might be overly ambitious, but dammit, I am going to try.

Windmill Woes

Well I have my first 7 squares of the windmills made. The issue now is that I can't figure out how to arrange them. I didn't really think through size before I made them. They're about 8.5" each, which means one in each color would make it 68"x68", which presents several problems. First, I hate square afghans. Second, the BoyfriendYeti is 6'4", which means it will not cover him, especially after factoring in my burritoing habits.

My initial (and what I thought was brilliant solution) was to make smaller rectangles that were 3x2, thus when assembled could make an afghan which was 9x6, but then, long enough but too narrow, and the odd numbers means that a row won't have full windmills, but instead look like Don Quixote got ahold of them.

I think what I might do instead is use 6 colors (there were two I didn't like much anyway) and make it 12x12. This means it will be 102x102, plus 2" or so of border. Massive, but I like em big (dirty joke intended) and that way if I end up with a huge bed in the fall, it won't look dwarfed.