What I did on my vacation + Rosemary shortbread

Hi Knitters!

I've been "away" lately. Managing my contractor work life @ Symantec has been a big learning curve for me since October and I don't expect that to change much now that they've hired me as a regular employee, starting May 18th. Church choir meeting on Wednesday nights this year means I'm missing all the Santa Clara Knitting Meetup nights and I even missed a knitting guild last week. Booo!

So what *have* I been doing? Well, May 9 thru May 17 spouse-man and I were on walkabout with our very good friends from Milkwaukee. We drove north to the far northeastern corner of California (no, there there really isn't anything there - it was great). From there, we headed into Oregon for a visit to the High Desert Museum and a weekend in Ashland at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Phew! Our friends sent me a thank-you note that I am blatantly stealing from their note to tell you what we did:

... This was our longest vacation to date - it had everything, too: mountains, waterfalls, theater (second row!) duck (live and on plate), more theater, falafel, prairie falcons, jalapeno cheese curls, Sid's Water Hole's fried chicken and JoJo's, early morning birding, veggie box greens, moving furniture, high end shopping, business socks, modern architecture, badger petting, red naped sapsuckers, lava beds, petroglyphs, jazz piano + bass, Vietnamese food, lots of life birds, way too much cheese, late night discussions, Star Trek, wine flight, rainbows, microbreweries, sock knitting, Shakespeare, mosquitoes, kitties, Dr. Horrible, Ave Maria, fava bean puree, vast changes in climactic zones, post-theater discussion and, well, being with y'all!

Oh yes, S&R, it was a fabulous week. Thank you so much for coming to California to make it all possible!

Honestly, it was a startlingly successful vacation for the amount of planning that went into it, AND we got to spend 10 days on the road with our friends, meeting up with AWiz & the Wiz knitter in Ashland to top it all off.

Meanwhile, the thing that finally drove me to post on the blog today was the crazy search I go through every time I want to make rosemary pine nut shortbread. Well, this time, I'm getting SMART. If I post the recipe here, then I won't be able to lose it anymore. Hah! I'll fix your wagon, Internet! Just try messing with me again! Hmm.. maybe I shouldn't have said that.

Anyway, here's the rosemary pine nut bars, a recipe we found in our Two Small Farms CSA newsletter in June 2008. Quick & easy - try it!

Tuscan Rosemary and Pine Nut Bars,
here is that old recipe from the L.A. Times Food Section 8/11/99—Julia
¼ cup pine nuts, roasted
½ Cup butter, cut in 10 pieces
½ cup powdered sugar
1 TBS chopped fresh rosemary
1 cup flour
Melt butter. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, rosemaryand pine nuts. Stir in flour to make dough; it will be stiff. Pat dough evenly into ungreased 8-inch square baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees until golden and firm at edges, about 20
minutes. Cool pan on rack about 2 minutes, then use sharp knife to cut bars into 16 squares. Let cool in pan at least 10 minutes before removing with small spatula

ONE Tropical Mer-tini...

ONE Tropical Mer-tini
Originally uploaded by spinnity

... is not a pair. Round 1 of the Sock Madness closed yesterday, and I've been so busy with work that I didn't even manage to knit the assigned pair of socks in two full weeks of life. I finished both up to the heels within the contest period, but work interfered with finishing the heels by 3 pm Thursday. Sad, sad, sad.

But they are still nice socks, so I am marching on to finish them. I wanted to share this photo of the first sock all finished, so I could show you the unusual heel flap.

In this sock, you knit the entire tube of the sock, close up the toe, and then come back to fill in the great big empty triangle where the heel goes. The last move is to take live stitches from the sole and live stitches from the heel and graft them together!

The pattern was fun to knit and creatively designed. It definitely fit the bill for sock madness, by making us excecute several unusual maneuvers (German twisted cast-on, the large chart, a modified toe, and the dreaded afterthought heel flap heel).

I think it could be refined by graphing the quilt pattern on knitter's graph pape to make the Drunkard's Path quilt blocks come out square instead of rectangular. I bet that would also soften the tendency of the purl sections to pooch out around the ankle a bit.

Anyway, that's it, I'm booted out of the Sock Madness and I'm liberated to go knit other things. Bill has an owl kit next on his knitting docket and I'm responsible for the wing parts. And I think I could maybe get my Early Spring socks finished to wear to Easter services. Green, the color of hope, right?

March 14 - 20: the week in photos

First veggie box of the year!
By spinnity

It's really feeling like spring around here. And it's not just the weather -- so much is going on, it's like everyone's energy has woken up after the long winter sleep. These photos give you a flavor of the week.

First up: The veggie box is back! The Two Small Farms CSA made it's first delivery this week: flowers, fennel, kale, carrots, napa cabbage, parsnips, beets, spring mix, parsley and green garlic. The flowers were the most beautiful bouquet we've ever seen from the CSA and the fennel, orange and arugula salad was a fabulous first receipe on Wednesday night. On Friday, we munched up half a head of napa cabbage in Sesame Noodles with Napa Cabbage. Mmmm, peanutty.

And of course, as I mentioned last week, Spring means Madness: March Madness & Sock Madness.

Abandoned Mer-tini
By spinnity

The first Sock Madness pattern, called Tropical Mer-tini, came out very early Thursday morning.

The design is inspired by the Drunkard's Path quilt block and comes with a photo of a nice blue martini-style drink. I wanted to stick with the blue theme and I had some great yarn in stash to work with. Socks That Rock mediumweight, in a great color called Star Sapphire


I knit 4 inches of cuff using my first choice of yarn, and decided it was just not going to work. Too big, too floppy. Curses! And to rub salt in my wounds, Illinois lost their first round game to Western Kentucky. Grrrr!

Sock Madness 3, Round 1
By spinnity

Friday, a full 36 hours after the pattern came out, I cast on again - this time with a thinner yarn and size 0 needles in another lovely blue - "Pacific" Artisan Sock yarn from Hazel Knits. I knit through the evening basketball games - two squeakers featuring Big Ten teams (Go Wisconsin!) and I've caught up to my first sock. Sigh.

I'm way behind the fastest knitters in my division at this point. But this is the weight of yarn and the size 0's are the right choice and the new yarn is beautiful. You can look to see whether I make it into the top 40 knitters in my division here on the Division 2 - Great Knitspectations - scoreboard.

Rock Star gets a new keyboard
By spinnity

The last update on the week - the Roger Steen Band, featuring our very own Janice and my multi-talented spouse-man, Bill Walker are playing TONIGHT at the Quarter Note bar in Santa Clara, just off Lawrence Expressway near Central, at 9 pm. To get ready for tonight's show, Bill sorta casually "picked up" a brand new Nord Stage EX to extend the range of available keyboard sounds.


[EDITED TO ADD... ]Whoops - I nearly forgot spin-in last Saturday! We had 4 wheel spinners, 2 spindle spinners, 2 knitters, and 2 onlookers at the spin-in, which was a great turnout on what had looked like a slow day. I had met a needleloca from Sunnyvale at Stitches & invited her to join us - and she brought delicious artichoke fritata to keep us energized all afternoon, mmmm! Around 5:30, we had a real treat when Seltsame & her fiance M. stopped by. M. tried a little bit of spinning - with terrible fiber I offered him.

Emy plies!
By spinnity

And just *look* at Emy's plied yarn, in perfect Emy purple! Spindle spun, spindle plied and look how happy it makes her. Way to go, Emy.

There you have it. A busy week of veggies, knitting, basketball, music and spinning. Oh, and work. And not enough sleep!

Jeni was here!

Can you spot the crazy one?
Originally uploaded by spinnity

Here are a few photos from the March 5th Bobaknit - The Return of Jeni. Anyone who has knit much with Noro will recognize the crazy gleam in her eye caused by the kinks building up in the yarn while making a 450 st crochet chain. Talk about fun!



It sure was nice to see Jeni and the Bobas, who I don't get out to see often enough. And I wasn't the only long-lost boba to show up:

Time for the Madness

Oh March, how I love you.

In one week, on March 19, both the NCAA mens's college basketball tournament and the annual Sock Madness competition will begin. And there I'll be: watching basketball, knitting, possibly even drinking a beer.

Not familiar? Let me explain.

NCAA tournament: college basketball teams, including my beloved Illinois, travel to distant venues to compete in a field of 65 teams to become national champions. The tournament takes three weekend to go from the first game to the championship. On the first two days, 64 teams play 32 single elimination games, then over the weekend, they play 16 more games. Dudes, that's a lot of basketball on TV. A.k.a., knitting time!

Sock Madness: A friendly competition in a field of 200 knitters to see who can knit their socks the fastest. Signups closed a week ago and the divisions were posted yesterday. I'm in Division 2. Last year, I made 3 great pairs of socks during Sock Madness, but I was out in Round 3 and sat on the sidelines while the remaining knitters battled it out. In May, MKSmiles eventually won the contest in Round 7. The patterns were really fun last year -- I'd still like to go back & knit some of those socks from last year's contest.

But now it's 2009 and time for Sock Madness 3 and a whole new set of patterns. My plan is that the combination of basketball on TV and the goad of the competition will result in 3 new pairs of socks this spring. Because in spring, a knitter's fancy turns to thoughts of socks. Wish me luck!

Check it.

Stitches 2009 : The Thursday night haul
by spinnity

Look! A lot of unplanned purchases obtained Thursday night at Stitches West. Best items: Felted owl kit selected by Bill for us to knit together and Malabrigo sock yarn in multiple colors -- for testing knitting a Janice design.

Here's a closer photo of the garter ribbed mitts I'm working on -- bought the yarn at 7:30 and by 8;30 I was knitting away at dinner with my knitting pals, Jo, her mom Joyce, she-who-is-not-named, Ms Mel, and Bill the knitting spouse.

Village Spinners & Weavers - quick mitts>

Getting up early tomorrow for Cotton Spinning

Honk if you love Stitches!

(Emy -- that's your shirt under the haul. Call me! Or tell me where to find you Friday.)

Expedition plan for Stitches

Following Janice's lead, as I do in so many things, I'm mapping out a plan for my four days at Stitches West. You've heard of Stitches, right? The big knitting conference? Starts tomorrow, right here in my home town? Yeah, I thought so.

Of course we've been preparing for months now -- we signed up for classes in October, bought our homework supplies and did our swatches (you *are* done, right?). We printed the marketplace map & circled our favorites. And of course the local knitting guild hand-crafted Sheepy Shirts just for the occasion. Mine's pink!



And now we are Down To It! Just 24 hours left until the excitement begins. My Stitches West 2009 plan includes:

Thursday night: Market Preview! Starts at 5, but I'll be late, coming straight from work. I'm excited that my newly minted knitting husband and our out-of-town guest, Ms Mel of Stick Chick Knits, will also be perusing the market with me. We're headed to late dinner at Tomatina when the market closes at 8.

Friday: Classes! My first is an all-day event: "Spinning Cotton for Knitting" with Eileen Hallman - something I've never tried! I wonder if they sell used charkhas at Stitches? In the evening, I'm supporting the Husband Hobby by eating delicious Cajun food and knitting through his jazz gig at the Gumbo Jumbo in San Jose. (I am *not* responsible for their tragic web site. Food's good,though!) Music starts at 9 pm.

Saturday: Being helpful! I'm working in the the Fiber Fiend booth #832 all morning. In the afternoon, I'm off to "Beyond Basic Buttons (and other excuses for playing with yarn)" with Christine Bylsma.

Sunday: Creativity! My classes wrap up Sunday morning with "Designing Embroiedery on Knitting" with the prolific creative genius of embellishment, Nicky Epstein. In the afternoon I get to see my beloved sis-in-law, who has been extra busy with family caregiving this last month and deserves some yarn therapy to restore the soul. We'll be in the market from 11:30 until close.

My class list is lighter than usual, and I'm feeling sort of unsettled, like I'm missing something. I'm especially wondering why I didn't sign up for that Danish Skrå-trøjer class. Two whole days of Beth! What was I thinking, turning that down??

I guess I'll have to fill the void with extra shopping! It's all about the smaller vendors and getting to touch that beautiful yarn in person. Mmmmm, yarn. I tried to find vendors I wanted to see that weren't on Janice's list... but she's pretty much got it covered (plus links to the maps, the $2 off coupon, really, a whole Stitches Survival Guide. go have a look!).

Hope to see you at the show!

omg, omg, he made me a hat

He made me a hat
Originally uploaded by spinnity

Knitters, look! My spouse-man made me a hat for Valentine's Day!

Here's the story. In November, Bill asked me to teach him how to knit. So I found a random yarn from the stash with a sort of manly look and figured out how many stitches it might take to make a hat in man size. i showed him how to cast on and how to knit and got him started knitting in the round.

I love a hat with a rolled edge and I think this type of project is a perfect beginner knitter. There's a long cast on, longer than a scarf, which gives them a fighting chance of remembering the motion later, and a good long section of Nothing But Knit. Ok, there's a bit of trauma at the end, but the finished product makes up for the drama.

By the time the hat was done, Bill had practiced

• long-tail cast on
• knitting in the round
• changing colors (when we figured out that the yarn would run out before the hat did)
• slip-slip-knit decreases
• using double pointed needles
• threading a needle with yarn (HINT: fold the yarn over the eye of the needle & pinch it tight. Slip the needle out and you have a nicely folded sharp edge which should go through the eye easy as pie.)
• and weaving in ends

The only kvetching came in the last 6 rounds when we had to switch to DPNs. Yes, it's true, I made my husband knit on DPNs for his first knitting project. Not only that, but I concealed the looming inevitability of DPNs from him for, lo, five full inches of knitted hat. He was a bit honked off about those size 9 sticks, and let's face it, they are awkward at that size, but he pushed through and made perfect decreases.

Somewhere around the stripe we figured out that the hat would not turn out man sized, after all. Like everyone else in this family, Bill turns out to be a tight knitter... at least for now. He says when I handed the needles back to him after fixing something, it always felt much looser. Anyway, tight gauge means a smaller hat, which means I win!

Since it was clear by now that the hat was for me, what better plan than to finish it up for Valentine's Day? Bill ran the finishing yarn through the last stitches on Saturday after the monthly gathering of spinners. After conquering the final decreases on DPNs, he threaded his needle & wove in the ends. Ta-dah!

The hat is a tad small on me, but I love it, of course. After all, the yarn came from *my* stash, right? And who doesn't love a hat knit by the spouse??

Bill and I did the calculations for a mirror image hat - orange with a thin blue stripe - in his size on Saturday, but he hasn't started yet. Next time you see him, ask him how his own hat is coming along!

Big smoochies, dahlinks, thank you for the hat!