Nibbling Along

Runaround Raglan

 
Another new pattern! I worked on a lot of things over the past few months, but the knitting and writing part is always easier for me to do than the photography and layout part. So, right now I've got a backlog of nearly-finished patterns I'm working through -- but this is one of my favorites, and I really wanted to get it up in time for fall and winter knitting.

The Runaround Raglan is knit from the top-down, with mirrored cables running along the inside of the raglan increases and down the sides of the body. The pattern includes instructions for both a cardigan version and a pullover version, so you can go with whatever floats your boat. There are four size options, ranging from a 22" to a 30" chest measurement, which I think will cover a pretty wide range of kids; definitely most one- to five-year-olds. Since it's top-down, you can easily make adjustments to the sleeve length and body length to fit.

The pattern calls for Berroco Ultra Alpaca, which is really warm and soft, and comes in a wide range of great colors -- but you could use any worsted-weight yarn you like. I went with more boy-ish colors for the samples I knit because Measure and his friend Jasper were the only models readily available to me, but obviously this would be adorable on little girls as well! (My sister is knitting one for our cousin's daughter in Cascade 220 in a really pretty heathered teal -- we picked out little leather-look buttons to go with it. When she's done, I promise photos.)

Since it's knit from the top down in one piece, there are hardly any ends to weave in. It's a pretty simple knit, and a quick one, too. Each sweater only took a weekend's worth of knitting to make, although I admit I procrastinated a bit when it came to sewing on the buttons for the cardigan!

You can check out more photos on my Flickr page here, and more details on my Ravelry page here. You don't have to be a Ravelry member to purchase the pattern, though -- you can buy it for $5 via PayPal here.

Baby-Wrangling

Seriously, I do not know how professional photographers who work with kids do it. Baby-wrangling is difficult.

This week Measure and I got together with our friends Rebecca and Jasper for a little photoshoot -- the boys are modeling a design I worked on over the summer. I'm almost done laying out the pattern, so it should be ready in another day or two. I'll post with more details then.

Auditions

Some people work on one project at a time. I am not one of those people. I prefer to think of my projects as auditioning for a starring role on my needles.

This one danced onstage and stole the show. I'd been craving a little project, something I could finish in an evening, and I knew I wanted to use this Sundara Aran Silky Merino from my first Seasons subscription. Ideas bubbled and percolated somewhere in my subconscious, until this pattern sprang, tapdancing and singing show tunes, into the spotlight.

So, I wrote this one up and put it up as a freebie in my Ravelry store -- you can find it here. I've named it the "Darkside Cowl." The stitch is based on a rib pattern (Rib and Welt, I think) from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury. It's an easy stitch to memorize, and reversible. I think it works really well with this colorway, called "charcoal over blue lagoon" because the texture of the stitch brings out the subtle shadings in the yarn.

And now, I'm off -- I'm negotiating a three-project deal with an alpaca blend.

New Pattern!

I've been working on this design for ages, and it's finally ready!

I'd like to introduce you to my Hidden Path socks; the pattern is now available as a downloadable PDF in my Ravelry store for the very reasonable (I think) price of $5. The socks are worked top-down in the round on two circular needles, and the motif is only worked on the back of the leg (hence "hidden"). From the front, these look like ordinary stockinette socks with a 1x1 rib cuff. The stitch pattern is based on several similar patterns in Barbara Walker's first Treasury book, but it's probably closest to the stitch called "turtle tracks." I wanted to create a stitch that would have a lot of "movement" to take advantage of the beauty of the variegated yarns I was using, and I think this stitch works very well for that.

The socks feature an unusual gusset, which I've called an "upside down" gusset. Instead of having the gusset decreases run in a diagonal across the ankle, as it does in most socks worked with a heel flap, I've placed the decreases along the side of the sole. It's perfectly comfortable, and it keeps the whole top of the instep in smooth stockinette.

The pattern is written for two sizes, one "standard" and one "wide" -- because even those of us who have feet that are the same length sometimes need more or less room width-wise. I know my feet are on the wide side -- probably from all these years of wearing Reef sandals!

Both of the samples you see here were knit on 2mm (US size 0) needles, at a gauge of 9 stitches to the inch. I tend to knit a little on the loose side, so be sure to check your gauge -- a slightly larger needle may suit you better. The sock in the top photo was knit using Sundara Yarn Sock Yarn in the "bronzed sienna" colorway, and the sock to the left was knit using Cascade Heritage sock yarn in the "Forest" colorway -- which I believe is color number 9824. The Heritage sock yarn for the sample was provided by Bella Knitting, and I highly recommend it for socks -- I used it for the prototype, and it stood up beautifully to repeated frogging! As you can see, it also offers great stitch definition.

For more details and photos, you can check out the Ravelry page for these socks, here. I hope you give them a try, and if you do, be sure to send me a photo! And as always, if you have any questions about the pattern or require any assistance, feel free to contact me -- I'm always happy to help.

Irish Soda Bread

When in Ireland this summer, I tried some really fantastic Irish soda bread. Unlike my great-grandmother's recipe, which is made with white flour and includes currants and caraway seeds, the bread I purchased from a stall in the English Market in downtown Cork was a very savoury brown bread, full of the flavor of wheat and buttermilk. I'd been meaning to try my hand at making a similar bread at home, but hadn't gotten around to it until this afternoon, when I realized that we had no bread in the house. Since Measure had just gone down for a nap, I didn't think we'd make it to the store before Jason got home for dinner, I decided to give this a shot.

Unlike yeast breads, soda breads take very little time to make, since they are leavened with baking soda or a combination of baking soda and baking powder -- no kneading and rising needed. In fact, you want to avoid handling the dough too much, as this will toughen it. Really, all you have to do is stir the ingredients together. My recipe is modified from "Favorite Irish Recipes" a little booklet of recipes my mom brought back for me from her first trip to Ireland. The original includes no butter or flaxseed meal; I think that the former gives the bread a richer flavor, and the latter improves the somewhat anemic flavor of supermarket whole wheat flour (I think the bakery in Cork was using real, fresh-ground wheat flour). Wheat germ or whole flaxseeds, as noted in the recipe, would also make a nice addition.

Irish Soda Bread
1 lb wheat flour
1/2 lb white flour
1 large handful of rolled oats
1 handful of flaxseed meal, whole flaxseeds, and/or wheat germ
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 stick butter (1/2 cup) melted
1 1/2 to 2 cups buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 425. It only takes a few minutes to mix up the bread, so be sure to do this a little ahead of time. You want to be able to put the bread into a hot oven right away once it is mixed together, so that it will rise properly. Lightly grease a large baking dish (a cast-iron pan would work well -- to get a really nice bottom crust, preheat the pan inside the oven and skip greasing it.)

Stir together the flours, oats, flaxseed and/or wheat germ, salt, and baking soda until well combined. Cut in the melted butter, distributing it as evenly as possible throughout the dough. Add the buttermilk -- you will need somewhere between 1 1/2 and 2 cups, the idea is to get a dough which is moist enough to hold together without being really wet. Gently fold the dough over a few times, then pat it into the pan. Using a sharp knife, score a cross in the top of the loaf. (It's traditional.) Bake for about 30-40 minutes, until the bread is browned and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean or nearly clean (moist crumbs are ok, raw dough not so much.) Baking time will vary depending on the size of your pan. You can also choose to split and bake the dough in a couple of large loaf pans. Baking time will be around the same.

This kind of bread is best eaten within a day or so of baking.

Too Damn Busy

I think I cast on new projects as a kind of defense mechanism.

Think about it...when you're really busy, you get stressed. Maybe a little twitchy. You need something to calm you down.

Some people de-stress with yoga, or by zonking out in front of the TV, or with a glass of wine (I like wine), but I'm a knitter, so I knit. It's my Xanax.

This past couple of weeks I've been pretty busy. I've got a heavy workload for school; in one of my classes I've been saddled with a pair of group members who are neither productive or useful, so that means 80% of our group workload has been falling on my shoulders. How fun for me!

At the same time, Measure has been cutting a new and evidently painful molar, as well as learning how to walk. Finally. He's 16 months old now, and for the last seven of those we've been saying, "wow, it looks like he'll be walking any day now!" (He's skinny for his age, but has a gigantic head, which I think is the reason it took him so long. His pediatrician referred to it as the "bobblehead effect.") These developments have been resulting in a change in his sleep schedule -- well, a disruption in his sleep schedule, to be exact. I swear he woke up, fussing, a dozen times last night. So no sleep for me. Again, how fun for me.

So, yeah. Casting on new projects as a defense mechanism. I'm stressed, I've got a lot of intense reading and writing to do for school -- oh, yeah, and there were those patterns I've been trying to finish laying out -- so I NEED some simple knits. Badly.

Why not focus on just one simple project at a time? Good question. The answer? My attention span is shot to hell. So I work a little on this sock here, that sweater there, and always pack a simple sock wherever I go.

If you're curious, I've got more info on these projects on my Flickr page, or you can check them out on Ravelry. Technically, not all of them are brand new, but the pink sock in the last photo is so old it's new again -- I think I dyed that yarn way back in 2005, maybe earlier, knit one sock and a few inches of the second one's cuff, then let it drift to the bottom of a humongous pile of UFO's.

Monkey? Frogged.

Remember these no-purl Monkeys? They did not work out so well. To be more specific, I practically had to dislocate my ankle to try them on.

Compared to other socks I'm knitting, they didn't look small -- my gauge was fine, and the number of stitches was well within my normal range. But this Hazel Knits yarn has a hard twist, and the no-purl monkeys did not have a lot of give. I'm pretty sure that if I had left them on a few minutes longer, my toes would have turned blue from lack of circulation.

Oh well, the newly frogged and rewound yarn cake gave me a chance to play with my birthday present. Jason got me a 100mm macro lens, and the amount of detail it can capture is just amazing. I think you can tell in the photo that the yarn was freshly frogged -- see the crimp in the strands? (I'm obviously not a stickler for washing those kinks out.)

Now I have to figure out what to do with the yarn. Not socks, that's for sure. Maybe a scarf? The Lace Ribbon scarf from Knitty has been popping up on a lot of blogs. I am open to suggestions.

Chicken a la Marinada -- Maybe?

Have you ever heard of chicken a la marinada? I hadn't, until I started flipping through Noni's recipes. Jason doesn't remember this one from his youth at Noni's table, but one of the local supermarkets had a really good deal on Rocky Jr chicken (not organic, but claims to be sustainably farmed) and all of the other ingredients were at hand, so we decided to give it a try.

As I said in my previous post about Noni's pizza, the recipes are often pretty vague. There are two reasons for this: Marsha was writing notes for herself, after observing Noni, and so had no need for extreme specificity (though the next time I see her, I'm sure she'll be able to clarify some points for me). The second is reason is that Noni herself (according to family anecdotes) was, like most skilled home cooks, not a stickler for specificity herself. Most cooking doesn't require it. As a result, it's not likely that most of my attempts at Noni's recipes will result in authentic reproductions. It's hard enough to reproduce a dish I've seen made dozens of times -- everyone's kitchens, and everyone's ingredients, tend to vary just enough to make the produce of each kitchen and each cook unique. However, I can at least capture the spirit of the dishes, and hopefully come up with something equally delicious.

Since I could find no other chicken a la marinada recipes to give me guidance, I had to make some guesses. The directions indicate that the meat is browned, then the potatoes and onions are added, then some wine and mushrooms. Quantities are not specified, nor are cooking times. I'm not even sure what kind of pot or pan is used, which would give me some more clues, though it sounds as if she used a large electric skillet with a lid. The closest thing I have to that is a dutch oven. So, I just did what made sense to me. Even if this turns out to be a wildly inaccurate interpretation of chicken a la marinada, it's a darn good one-pot chicken dish, so I'm happy to share it with you here.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken, 4.5lb chicken, cut into pieces
1 large russet potato
1 yellow onion
1 large carrot (my addition -- carrot is not included in Noni's recipe)
8 oz brown mushrooms
1/2 bottle white or rose wine (Noni's recipe calls for rose, I used sauvignon blanc)
2 bay leaves (my addition)
salt and pepper
olive oil

Note: I like using a whole chicken and cutting it up myself because I can save bits like the back and neck for making stock, and because it ensures the pieces are all pretty uniform in size. If you'd like to substitute precut chicken pieces, I'd recommend using chicken thighs or leg and thigh pieces, because these pieces hold up well when braised.

Salt and pepper chicken pieces. In a large dutch oven, heat up a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add the chicken pieces and brown well, then remove from the pan. Add the potatoes and carrots, season with salt, and allow to cook for a few minutes, then add the onions, season with a little more salt, and allow to brown. Add a little of the wine, and use a wooden spoon to scrape up the fond (the browned bits) from the bottom of the pot. Return the chicken to the pot, add the mushrooms and bay leaves, and add just enough wine to partially cover the chicken. Bring to a full boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer, cover, and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 40 minutes (thigh meat should be very tender, pieces should have an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees).

Serve the chicken pieces with the vegetables and sauce.