You too can have Yumph

Desperate for some evening entertainment, I've been watching 1930s movies - for the clothes, the banter, the cars, the nightclubs, the crowd scenes of hundreds of hats and heels and suits and gowns driving big steel cars and ordering drinks for the table. 

Counting Pane

Old picnic tins are great for organizing large blanket projects like our current "Counting Pane" from Wooly Thoughts. Inside we have yarn and three sets of needles. On the lid we keep scissors and darning needles and a picture of the blanket. We are using the same colors as the Montessori bead chains.

Blanket-inspired clothing

The Financial Times featured some of the blanket-inspired clothing at London's Fashion Week.  I like the quote by Christopher Kane, "I've seen girls wearing crochet who look pretty hot."

Birch mitten

I made this second Birch mitten more like the original in the picture. I love the woven single strand of white all up the cuff to mimick the trunks of birch trees. Next time I'm going to continue the weaving to the end of the cuff. I am eager to block these and embroider the bark with black yarn.

Sandwich ideas

I picked up 'Wichcraft at the library this week. It is full of beautiful and delicious sandwich ideas. I think we need a soup and sandwich night during the week. If I make large batches of soup we can freeze half and have a meal in the freezer.

Beeswax candles

I took that medium-sized metal pitcher for frothing milk that used to sit on the espresso machine and I filled it with chunks of beeswax and set it in a simmering pan of water. While the wax melted I cut some wicks and stuck them in the bottom of some votives, a small pot and a cookie cutter on a piece of foil. I poured the wax in and steadied the wicks with toothpicks. Fifteen minutes, 6 candles! I need to read about candle-making. Any suggestions?

Happy Valentines Day

I'm mixing up some Valentines gifts here in the kitchen today - brewing some hair rinse and sewing some herbal sachets from leftover muslin. I may even serve hot chocolate this afternoon with heart-shaped marshmallows. I just saw the recipe on Martha's site requiring only a marshmallow and a cookie cutter!

Devon socks

I have finished one Devon sock from Cookie A's Sock Innovation. I'm using Socrates which is an alpaca sock yarn. I'm looking for a great sock yarn - sproingy, wool with a little nylon, nice solids or semi-solids, a lot of yardage. I am thinking again of dyeing some of my own using those fancy food coloring gels.

Dragon mittens

Here's my first dragon mitten - a request. It's a pattern by Barbara Gregory here on Ravelry. My sock/mitten stragegy is to knit one and then switch to another project and knit one of those and then switch back. So far it's working.

True Brit Knits

Belinda over at True Brit Knits recently put her pattern for these Charleston cushions up for sale. The green and pink version in the back there has me hooked. The originals are knit in sock yarn, but I am thinking of using a heavier weight and using some chenille for the pink bits.

Totoro mittens

I made the Totoro mittens in good old Cascade 220 for a quick worsted weight mitten needed for a snow trip. After reading Anna Zilboorg's introduction to Magnificent Mittens I became addicted to the idea of lining mittens in angora.
"Since you're putting so much labor and love into them anyway, and they'll be so beautiful, you might as well use the best lining material. This is either angora or alpaca or even kid mohair...All these are worked up loosely, so the lining doesn't take forever to do...With time the lining felts into the mitten a bit making them virtually waterproof and windproof."
Something happens inside your head when you puick up a wool mitten and then slip your hand inside and feel angora on the inside. I do not know the scientific term but it feels like ahhhhh.

Mitten binge

Here is the latest in my mitten binge. I read about the hand dyed Riihivilla yarns and mitten kits a few weeks ago on Knitters Review. These remind me of pressed wild flowers. I think I'm ready to create a Berkeley mitten. I'm going to throw all these very different mitten traditions into the runcible bin with some Berkeley history books and postcards and see what bubbles to the surface!

It's been so long I forgot how to log on

I am beginning a new year today and am resolved to get back on the blog horse and ride again. For my mid-morning snack I prepared my new favorite treat from Mad Hungry. I keep bagels in the freezer and I bake a batch of bacon and keep it in the frig, so when I need a bagel breakfast sandwich I just warm up the pieces in the oven and scramble an egg! It is magnificence!

I've been knitting these Valentine wash cloth/dish cloths. I use Natalja's pattern over at Sonnentaler. For a nice dish cloth size I double her numbers - casting on 10 (instead of 5), increasing to 18 (instead of 9). Her instructions are so nice you could adjust them to knit any size heart!

I'm also making some Kiki Mariko socks with my leftovers...

And mittens - I've been thinking of these Birch Mittens in last year's Piecework (Jan/Feb 2010) by Jette Uzane and adapted by Barbara Plakans. I changed the leaf a little to resemble the originals. I am going to embroider the black lines of the Birch bark after I steam them. I enjoyed this quote in the article:

"I soon lost interest in following the strict geometrical patterns of traditional Latvian etnographic designs and wanted to make something more complicated and original. When knitting those traditional designs I was only moving my fingers. I couldn't knit myself into them."

They are wonderful to make, as are all the traditional Latvian mitten patterns that can be found in Lizbeth Upitis' Latvian Mittens. Why not go on a mitten binge, or like Jette Uzane, create a mitten cycle?

Luxury brand rice crispie treats

I meant to take a beautiful close up of these white chocolate rice crispie treats, but I only managed to snap a shot of this little pinch of a piece. This is David Lebovitz's famous white chocolate and candied peanut rice krispie recipe. He managed to take a wonderful photograph before they were gobbled up. I was brave and managed to make my own candied peanuts as well! No pots or utensils were harmed in this process!

Beaded knitted capelet

This photo of a Brunello Cucinelli beaded knitted capelet from today's Financial Times has me thinking I need to knit something similar. I have been working through my stash, my pottery, my books, my clothes - a long drawn out clean out. I will root through the remains this weekend.

Fish sweaters

Mr. Lear saw this little exhibit in the Southwest Airline terminal at LAX. The theme was non-functional clothing. In addition to the bog large fish, there were little minnows that had sweaters too.

Bookshelf

This Fall I am thin-skinned. I strive to be 'even-tempered, prudent and resolute' and so I am reading Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf with Tolkien's essays. The introduction alone is wonderful. I am also paging through my old favorites in the housekeeping and parenting category, but I am haunted by images of swimming in chainmail and magic swords that are powerless against monsters, and Grendel's patchwork pouch of dragonskin. Perhaps you have some interesting leftover skeins of metallic this and that that could be swatched up into all the stitch patterns resembling scales? Then you could wear your pouch 'intracately strung and hung at the ready' for marauding farmers' markets!

Red shrug

This is the "silk" shrug from Erika Knight's Classic knit in Quince and Co.'s chicadee. I should make a bunch of these and some with long sleeves.

Wire bags

This page of wire carry-alls from a recent Real Simple got me thinking about knitting string bags with wire! I have been seeing a version in my head that looks like tinsel and shredded pink tissue. I'm sure there are multiple possibilities over at Habu.

Parsley Snap Pea leaves

Nothing gets watered in our yard. The only thing that made it through the Summer was a recycle container on the back step filled with potting soil and a basil plant and some mint - I emptied the tea kettle into it whenever I thought of it. So I am planning a kitchen doorstep garden and trying out Quince and Co.'s Puffin yarn on large needles in the Cotton Leaf Rag pattern.

Old gold socks and "A Reverence for Wood"

This is Cookie A's Angee pattern from "Sock Innovation." I love this old gold color which I think is from Black Bunny Fibers. On Phila*craft's advice, I am reading Eric Sloane's "A Reverence for Wood" - old barns, eel traps, barrels and canoes.

Last days of summer

This wonderful raspberry souffle is really a neck warmer using Quince and Co.'s Osprey yarn. The pattern is from Reversible Knitting. I have finally settled into the new school year and need to take pictures of all my Summer knitting!

Yarn bomb in my neighborhood

We were very excited to see a yarn bombing right here in our neighborhood! The Berkeleyside blog did a post here:
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2010/07/20/inside-the-mind-of-an-anonymous-yarn-bomber/

Hands on with a hand axe

Late on a Friday we discovered the British Museum was celebrating the Italian Renaissance. Besides falconry, sword fighting and dancing, they had a table where you could hold a 350,000 year old hand axe. My hand fit perfectly! Have you been listening to the British Museum's 100 objects podcasts?
http://www.britishmuseum.org/ahistoryoftheworld

Tea granita

A glass of tea granita with a chilled spoon really hits the spot when it's 105! I was inspired by the granita recipes in Jamie Oliver's British magazine. I steeped some tea in a sugar syrup for about four minutes and then froze it. When you need a treat, scratch the ice with a fork until you have a nice cup of tea. The magazine also had an ad for Aztec Duel, "the new garden game phenomenon for 2010," which makes our plain old ladder golf game sound so exotic!