Two-color brioche in baby steps

My goal in learning the brioche stitch and spending months on the one-color scarf was this two-color pattern. Nancy Marchant's Alex scarf is pretty darn stunning.

Well, now I grasp the concept pretty well, and even managed to get my head around working two colors at once. But my stitches are super-sloppy, the overall pattern is distorted, and I can see where I made several obvious mistakes.

Plus I am having my doubts about the colors – the first time he saw them, the Sergeant said, "Yay, Oakland Athletics!" So that's all I see now. The Green Bay Packers also come to mind.

(The easy solution would be to make the scarf for the Sergeant, but he doesn't wear scarves.)

So, do I:

1. Struggle on with this piece and trust that my stitches will improve
2. Struggle on, trust, and add a third color in one of the central leaves to add a focal point of non-sports-team color
3. Start over with these colors
4. Start over with a different coordinating yarn

That's about 40 rows of knitting there, so it's not a huge waste. I would just cut the strings and start with fresh yarn.

Oh, knitterly dilemmas.

The lace adventure begins

I have a new resolution for 2014: Finish this shawl.

Yes, 2014. This pattern has a cast-on of 361 stitches. You work 121 rows of knitting with short-row wraps and turns, then get to the lace proper. I haven't even counted how many rows that is.

This will likely be a background project I work on in between others with more immediate gratification.

Teeny tiny stitches! And I'm slow.

Maybe I should have my head checked.

Pam Allen's State Street Cowl completed

Well, that was fun! A fairly quick, easy knit that looks more complicated than it was. I learned how bad I am at estimating how much yarn I have left – I could have done a whole 'nother pattern repeat. Really. Instead, I've got a bunch of ribbing at the end. Which looks fine.

I had planned to do a tubular bind-off, but instead went for the easier method of going through two stitches purlwise, back through the first knitwise, and dropping it off. Still took me a couple hours.

I wet-blocked it with a little woolwash, then dried it most of the way on an inverted five-gallon bucket covered with a towel. That allowed me to stretch it out a little without having to pin it.

Once again, the yarn is two skeins of Mirasol Ushya – 98 percent Merino and 2 percent polyamide – in Fern Green, from A Knitted Peace.

Thanks to Karen at Fringe Association for nudging me into knitting it, and to Pam Allen for the lovely design.

Now it's on to the next project, which might just drive me around the bend: a lace shawl knit sideways on Size 3 circulars. The cast-on is 361 stitches. Wish me luck!

Sew then this happened

Over the summer I expressed an interest in getting a sewing machine, and my most awesome mother-in-law said, "I have an extra machine you can have." She and her stepmom had bought the same machine back in the '80s, and she later inherited it when her stepmom died. It's a very lightly used Husqvarna Viking 190, and my mother-in-law had it serviced before she handed it over.

I hadn't touched a sewing machine since eighth-grade home ec, so I signed up for Sewing 101 at a local craft store and made a couple of pillow cases. Not too hard!

The first thing I made on my own was a zipper pouch. I found a free Craftsy class by Kristin Link of Sew, Mama, Sew.

My mother-in-law got the pouch for Christmas.

Then I made a drawstring bag to hold my knitting (yeah, I learned the brioche stitch from another Craftsy class, "Explorations in Brioche Knitting.")

So handy! I made some more, also for Christmas gifts.

And some more zipper pouches.

Jackson thinks they're not very interesting ("No treats in there? Yawn!"), but I think they're pretty neat. I gave them away, too. I need to make some for myself!

There's just not enough time to do all the projects I have in mind (sewing! knitting! sewing! knitting!) but I keep plugging away and once in a while I manage to finish something.

What are you working on these days?

Cowlnundrum

I got worried that I was going to run out of yarn before I finished. I have a third skein, but I really don't want to break into it for just a couple rows of knitting. I'd rather take it back.

So I skipped the last three rows of the pattern repeat and started the ribbing. Turns out I have way more than enough yarn.

So, do I rip back and finish it properly? (I put in a lifeline just in case)

Or do I just call it good and end here?

Cowl me Ishmael

So the knit-along has begun. I actually got started on Sunday and I'm glad I did, as I needed different needles and also had to look up how to purl. And how to do a yarnover, SSK and K2tog. How pathetic is that?

As ever, lifelines and stitch markers are the key to my sanity. I had to rip back a couple of rows at the beginning. If I had to, I could go to the yarn shop and get help. It's not like brioche, where no one knows what the heck those stitches are doing.

Speaking of, here's the brioche scarf, all finished. It's being shipped off to Mom tomorrow.

I guess I could resolve to knit more this year, but that's happening anyway.

Happy Knit Year!

Happy New Year! Almost, anyway.

We took the dogs to the dog park on Christmas Day and someone had decorated a tree with brightly colored tennis balls. How awesome is that?

I'm still working on that brioche scarf. I've got half a pattern repeat to go and then I'm done. Here's a photo of when it was half-done. I'll post another when it's finished and blocked.

I've learned how to sew, too, thanks to my awesome mother-in-law, who gave me a sewing machine. I made a couple of pillowcases, then started making bags. So everyone got bags for Christmas this year. I made a bunch of zipper pouches like this (it's the first one I made and I gave it to my MIL):

I made some drawstring bags, too. They're good for holding knitting projects.

I was going to do another brioche scarf, this time a different pattern in two colors, but I got talked into doing a knit-along by my friend Karen over at Fringe Association, which is an awesome knitting blog, if you haven't been.

The knit-along is of this State Street Cowl by Pam Allen. You can buy the pattern at Quince & Co. if you want to join us. I tried to buy yarn there, too, but all the colors I tried were sold out. Which necessitated a trip to the local yarn store I like.

I picked up this Peruvian yarn from Mirasol called Ushya. It's 98 percent Merino and 2 percent polyamide, and very soft. The colorway is somewhat variegated, called Fern Green. We cast on New Year's Day. Come join us!

Knitting again: Brioche stitch

I wasn't really planning to start knitting again, but I had an opportunity to take a class with Nancy Marchant, the Queen of Brioche. This stitch is common in Europe but little known here. It's actually a kind of double knitting, with each row knit twice. I'm practicing it on this one-color scarf, but it's really best for two-color patterns. What you get is fully reversible. Crazy, huh?

Here's the back of the scarf. If you're a knitter, you'll see what I mean. No purls!

The orange yarn starts as a lifeline every four rows, then gets pulled to the edge and tied off to serve as a row marker so I don't lose my place in the pattern. I started doing the lifelines after I screwed up at the very beginning and had to rip out 20 rows and start over. Grrr!

Even so, I've made at least one mistake I didn't catch in time and was too afraid to try to fix (it's a tricky thing to do). Oh well. A knitting expert will notice it, but no one else. I hope.

No, I'm not dead

I left my old job and got a new job and that's been quite an adjustment.

But I'm doing fine. The Sergeant's fine. The cats and poodles are fine.

The bees are kind of hot, so they've been hanging out on the hive leg. I'm debating whether to loosen the bottom board to give them some more air circulation.

I hope you are staying cool!

Fried spring rolls at home

In our cooking class at the Vietnam Cookery Center in Ho Chi Minh City, fried spring rolls (cha gio) were the first course. If you're making a small batch, they're not particularly time-consuming, and the ingredients can be adapted to your taste. We made them at home following the recipe, but will probably modify it the next time, depending on what's available.

Here's what the recipe calls for:

40g minced pork 60g crab meat 30g dried wood-ear mushrooms, soaked and minced 80g minced, raw shrimp 80g shredded taro (or sweet potato or potato) 1 tsp chicken powder 2 tsp sugar 1 tsp pepper 2 tsp minced shallot 2 tsp chopped spring onion 4 tsp egg yolk

14-15 spring roll wrappers (We tried to find the net variety without luck, but regular wrappers work fine. Make sure you check the expiration date; rancid wrappers are disgusting!) Coconut water, or beer with a pinch of sugar, or water with a pinch of sugar, to dip the wrappers in for softening. Vegetable oil for frying (such as soy or sunflower oil. We used peanut oil. Grapeseed oil would also work..)

Mix together the filling ingredients, then roll them up in the wrappers. There's a decent video here that shows the rolling process. If you don't have a deep fryer (we don't), heat about an inch of oil in a deep frying pan over medium heat. You don't want the oil to get too hot or you will char the outside of the roll before the filling is cooked through. Fry your rolls, turning them occasionally, until they are golden, then drain them on paper towels. Traditionally, you would cut the rolls in halves or thirds and eat them rolled up in lettuce leaves with rice noodles and herbs. But we like them simply dipped in fish sauce:

• 2 Tbs fish sauce
  
• 2 Tbs sugar
  
• 1.5 Tbs lemon juice
  
• 1 tsp minced garlic
  
• 1/2 tsp (or more if you like) minced chiles

Yum!

Working hard

Life has been busy lately, for me and the bees.

Three days after installing that package at my friends' place, I went back to release the queen. Her cage was completely covered with workers who were keeping her warm and fed. I brushed them off and tried to get the cork out, but only succeeded in breaking it off and pushing half of it into the cage. I had to leave the cage flat in the bottom of the hive so the queen could scramble past the cork once the workers chewed through the marshmallow I'd left in its place.

My friends retrieved the empty cage later and now report that 10 combs have been built out and all appears well, so that's a relief.

Meanwhile, our own hive swarmed (!) while I was at work. The swarm landed 20 feet up in a tree and disappeared later that day. But the bees that remain appear abundant and calm, so I have to assume they've managed to produce a new queen. I'll try to do an inspection next week just to make sure. And perhaps harvest some honey, too.

I received three swarm calls otherwise (two from a local garden center), which I passed along to others. I just didn't have the time to get them.
The alliums I planted last fall have been blooming like crazy, including Allium "Ambassador," a softball-sized bloom that was worth the $8 I paid for it from Brent and Becky's. It's simply spectacular.

Our poppies have self-seeded in random parts of the yard and are also happily blooming. The bees adore them, even after the petals fall off.
I hope your days are busy and blooming, too!

We interrupt this travelogue ...

... to bring you a post about bees.

Some friends ordered a package of bees for their hive this year. The swarm that took up residence last year did not survive the winter and they didn't want to gamble on getting another swarm from me. Good thing, since I haven't gotten any swarm calls this year, surprisingly.

The bees were supposed to be ready a couple of weeks ago, but delivery was pushed back to today – when my friends were out of town. So it was up to me to collect them. I should've asked how many packages the beekeeper started with; probably three times as many as you see above, as pickups were divided into three time slots and I was in the last slot.

He was also selling individual queens, which he sent home with their new owners in red plastic cups with perforated tinfoil on top.

Before the bees went out, they were given a spritz of sugar water by the beekeeper's kids. (I was impressed when the little girl came over and said, "Daddy, I have a bee in my hair." She knew not to try to get it out herself and risk getting stung!)

The day was hot, so I didn't dilly-dally. The bees rode in the back of the Subaru. A few loose ones hovered around back there, but I had the air conditioning blasting so they wouldn't be tempted to come forward.

My friends' hive was all set up. I rearranged it a little to make the space they would be in smaller. It's supposed to cool off for a couple of days and it's better if they don't feel too exposed in a big hive.

There was one sheet of foundation to give them a head start. (I hung the queen next to it.)

And feeders at both ends, with sugar syrup. Since these bees are not a natural swarm, they did not stock up on honey and will be hungry.

If you have patience, you can watch the video. I didn't get any pictures of the process since I was by myself. I didn't edit it down, sorry. If I start messing around with iMovie it'll take hours.


So. Took the feeder can out, took the queen in her cage and hung her in the hive, then shook the rest of the bees in and replaced the top bars. In a couple of days I'll go back and release the queen, by which time the workers should have accepted her as their own.

Hoan Kiem's temple and turtle

In Hanoi's Old Quarter there's a lovely peaceful lake called Hoan Kiem.

At the north end of the lake there's a little island with a temple, reached by a picturesque red bridge.

The Temple of the Jade Mountain is a Buddhist temple that draws both sightseers and worshipers. It has a dusty little gift shop where you can buy incense to burn as an offering. The temple is dedicated to a 13th century military leader who fought against the Chinese, and to a Confucian scholar who helped restore the temple in the 1800s.

Is this the scholar or the warrior? I don't know. He had plenty of offerings, though, from Chinese money to piles of cookies, rice and fruit, including Buddha's hand citron (which makes a mighty tasty infused vodka, as my friend Jen can attest!).
The island also has a pretty pavilion where chess players gather.

The temple also pays homage to a denizen of the lake – a giant turtle god that gave a magical sword to the Emperor Le Loi to vanquish his enemies. That task accomplished, the turtle took back the sword and gave the lake its name: "Hoan Kiem" means "Lake of the Returned Sword."

In fact, there does live in the lake a species of giant, soft-shelled turtle that is now near extinction. In a room off the temple there is the preserved body of one that was captured and accidentally killed in 1967. It was 6 feet long and weighed 440 pounds!

It is said to be very lucky to see a giant turtle in the lake, and many believe there is only one left. Last year, there was great concern about the health of a turtle that was spotted with some kind of lesions on its head and body. It was captured and treated with antibiotics, then returned to the lake.

As it happened, we were strolling around the lake a couple of days later when we spotted a crowd peering into the water and pointing. People were hopping off their scooters and running over to the edge with great excitement. "It must be the turtle!" I said to the Sergeant, and we ran over, too. We couldn't get very close, but sure enough, there was the turtle, peeking out of the water.

We felt very lucky indeed!

Later we told the receptionist at our hotel that we had seen the turtle, and she said the newspapers and radio have special reports when there are turtle sightings, and you can even get a text message alert when it's been spotted. Hanoians take their turtle-watching very seriously.

But even if you don't see the turtle when you visit Hanoi, Hoan Kiem is the perfect place to to enjoy some natural beauty in the heart of the bustling city.