The great exhale

Some weeks are challenging to get through.  This week, it is for no good reason other than it is f*(&ing cold outside.  Don't get me wrong.  I actually like winter.  To qualify, I like southern Ontario winter which generally is not too cold (my first winter here I wore a raincoat with a liner the entire season quite comfortably).  But this month-long cold snap is really getting to me.  Leaving the house involves about 17 extra clothing items and 15 minutes of prep time.

Anyway, I had to take my car in to the garage this morning (my car has been in the shop more in 2014 than I've been driving it but that is another very annoying story) and needed to get home from the train without the benefit of my in-house taxi service so, took the bus to, admittedly, not that far from my house, but was never-the-less very glad for my parka, hood, knitted hat, cowl and mitts.  When I got home, I was strongly motivated to order pizza.  Then I remembered that I don't have any cash, don't like using a credit card when ordering food, the aforementioned in house taxi service wasn't home yet and we still have good food in the fridge so … I decided to make some pizza.

The pizza dough comes from Fine Cooking magazine, a very quick, limited rise time dough and a bunch of yummy ingredients from the fridge (mushrooms, red peppers, pancetta, mozzarella, beet greens and goat cheese).  Combined with a nice bottle of Peller Estates Merlot and I'm feeling the relaxing effects of the great exhale.

Rise up

It is rather cruel that when you spend a couple of days and a few hours making bread that you aren't supposed to taste it until it cools for an hour.  Fortunately, I have a braise in the oven and the bread will go very well with it so I'm not too upset.  And the little bit of crust that stuck to the pan when I popped the bread out onto the rack was enough to tide me over for a little bit longer.  We'll have to see if I can hold out all the way to dinner.

About the bread itself … I have two of Peter Reinhart's bread cookbooks and I can't decide whether I like them or not.  I regularly and successfully make a really nice loaf from a fairly simple recipe.  Then I crack open one of Reinhart's books and the bread takes at least two days to produce.  The recipes require pre-mixing of certain parts of the dough the day before the double rising process.  And instead of the standard two loaf recipe, his recipes make one.  And I can't say that I have thought Reinhart's breads were so awesome that they were worth the extra time.  But I have had very good success with bread lately, and I'm giving the proofing feature on my new oven credit for that, so thought I would try again.  More to come after the official tasting later today.

And speaking of braising, I'm back into Molly Stevens' All About Braising book.  Yesterday I made a delicious braised tuna with chickpeas and radicchio.  It is a fairly quick recipe; a maximum of an hour from start to plate.

Today a little more involved braised oxtails is in the oven.  I have no idea if I like oxtails or not but I see them every time I go to my local butcher and decided to take the plunge.  If I don't like them, I can always have another slice of bread!
 

The sunny side of the street

We had quite a bit of snow with a quite a bit of blowing today.  The hood fan outlet has been banging away all night and much of today.  I just finished my second shovel of the driveway.  It is alway interesting how well my husband's curling schedule lines up to allow him to leave me with maximum shovelling duties.  Good thing I like doing it most of the time.

For now the snow has stopped and the sun is shining brightly.  One of the things I like about winter is the way the combination of sun and snow makes the world simply shine.  And it gives you that sense (as I look out the window anyway) that things will get warmer again.

I finished another project yesterday.  These mitts, which go with my new cowl are from the same Norah Gaughan book and are called Rosina.  These are not mitts I would have picked out to knit if I wasn't marching toward a goal.  But I'm glad I made them.  They look really nice and I feel so coordinated with my knitwear for the first time ever.

Almost

Yesterday, after writing about darning socks, I got the urge to keep going.  Nine pairs later and I now have an overflowing sock drawer again.  Yay!  The crazy thing, I can only say that I'm almost done.  I still have 2 or 3 pairs in the sock repair bin. I do like knitting, and wearing, socks.

Warm love

I really should try to take better pictures.  This one doesn't do the project justice.  But anyway, I have finished my second January goal project.  It is the nyx cowl by Norah Gaughan.  It used 2 skeins of Manos del Uruguay Maxima that I bought using a Groupon from Spun a few years ago.  I have looked at it many times and couldn't decide what I wanted to make that would maximize its coziness.  I think I chose the right project.  I love it.

I now have mittens on the needles with the third and last skein of this yarn from the stash and am really looking forward to having matching winter wear for the first time ever!  And with a goal of January 31 completion, I'll get to wear it all this winter!

I feel it all

These are the first pair of "fat socks" I made.  So called because they are made with Hello Yarn's Fat Sock Yarn, a sport weight yarn that I quite enjoyed knitting socks with.  I had three different colour ways that made three pairs of very comfortable socks.  I like wearing them around the house when I have no plans to venture too far in shoes that are too small to fit the socks.

I made these socks several years ago and have worn them quite often.  As a result, they have popped a few holes.  The heel and a good part of the toe are both made up of replacement parts (aka leftover yarn).  They are now quite a bumpy walking experience but I still can't bring myself to throw them out.  I guess as long as the darning is on the bottom of the sock, I'm the only one who is going to know about it and until feeling the little bumps from the darning starts to bug me, I'll keep fixing them up.

I have a box of other socks with holes in them that I've started fixing gradually.  If I have a few moments when getting dressed, I'll darn a pair to wear for the day instead of pulling a pair out of the sock drawer. This might get them finished in time to start popping holes in my newer socks.

A nice side effect of my sock knitting hobby and reluctance to part with any of the socks … I get to link with the past by using my grandmother's darning eggs.

Howl

For the last several nights between 9 and 10 pm, we hear cats howling in our front yard.  Last night, it happened again.  This time, it sounded like one of the little monsters was in our house he was so loud.  So we went to investigate.  Now, I thought I knew all of the cats that hang out in the neighbourhood.  But when I opened the front door to a pale coloured fluffy fellow sitting on the porch, he was a new one to me.  His rival, one of the black cats that hangs around was on the driveway.  They were in full standoff mode and didn't immediately react to my clapping my hands at them to get going on their way.  The black cat (who I have a soft spot for, loving black cats as I do), took off quite quickly after the first period of resistance.  And the other guy went the other way.

All of this got me to wonder about the other guy.  Has he been hanging out in our yard because he has nowhere else to go?  Is he just trying out a new territory and has heard through the cat grapevine that our yard is a good place to hang out?  Maybe he lives with the new people a few houses down.  I may never know but am sure the nights of serenading aren't over yet.  Some territory still needs to be sorted out.

Little Creatures

A co-worker who suspects that I might knit socks while on conference calls is having a baby.  So I decided I would achieve two objectives in one go.  I made some socks for the new baby and amended and PDF'd the pattern for a baby sock I wrote about in this blog ages ago.  I think they are so cute.  And at 25 grams of yarn, they make a decent dent in amounts left over from adult socks.

Purple Haze

Another batch of hats are going in the mail to Warm Hands network today.  I like the idea of someone in a colder climate than mine having something nice and cozy for their head.

I guess I could have used all of the purple Merino Aran for something else but it makes such a nice hat and I don't have as many babies to knit for as I did when I bought it so it was languishing in the stash.  It's nice to put it to good use.

The only hat of the bunch I have been tempted to keep is the multi-coloured one but, as I've said before, hats aren't my best look and I have a couple that don't squash my hair too much so I'll stick with wearing those when necessary.

I drafted a pattern for mittens that I'll use the striped approach for and those won't sit in a pile in the closet never to be worn.  I've drafted the pattern as mittens but have been thinking of these future items as fingerless mitts.  I'll see what I'm feeling when I get there.  They just need to get on the needles which I should try to make happen for the January striped challenge the Knotty Girls are running.  There's still lots of time, right?

Baby, It's Cold Outside

We were in Northern Ontario for a few days over the holidays and it was cold.  Minus 25 before the wind and I kept thinking … I'm so glad I don't live here anymore.  Then I came back down south to the Polar votex or whatever they are calling it and all I can say is, at least I became acclimatized while I was away.  And I have a nice parka … not a Canada Goose, Kerry … but a $100 generic special picked up when a local store was going out of business.  And of course, lots of nice wool items to keep my head and hands warm.  Now if only they would put a bit of sand or salt on our street, I could actually go for a walk and really test out the cold resistance of the outfit.

The projects are progressing and now I'm trying to decide on my olympic-viewing projects.  I'm thinking a finishing-based objective might be a good one but I'm still undecided.

All the Small Things

1.  My first stash busting challenge is done!  It is the 76 Stitches hat made from bits of yarn.  The Debbie Bliss Merino Aran in purple that I've been making a bunch of hats from is, once again, featured here but the colour changes break the monotony of using the same yarn over and over and over again.  In my mind I'm seeing fingerless gloves in a similar colour pattern so think I'll cast on for those too.  That will likely use up most (hopefully all) of the little pile of yarn I started with.

2.  I've made good progress on the Nora Gaughan orange cowl this week.  I'm about half way through the first skein and have acquired the rhythm of the pattern so think things should move faster from here.  I managed about 4 rows on the sweater, had to take them out because I missed one set of cables so gained no ground.  I'll try to get some traction there today.

3.  I have been semi-following the Bon Appetit Food Lovers Cleanse again this year.  I learned from the last time I tried it that I can't keep up with everything and I'm not making two different meals for dinner.  I might be able to trick the husband into eating a vegetarian dinner once in a while but never if it features beets!  So I've made some of the recipes and kept with the spirit of the menus where I haven't followed them to the letter.  After a month that involved a lot more eating out than normal, rich food over the holidays and altogether too much wine and cookies, it feels good to be eating healthy food again.  This plan is less of a diet and more of a launching pad back into eating good stuff again.  I am expecting a bit of a reduction in weight as a nice side effect.

4.  I deleted that annoying Tetris Blitz game and have been getting things done during times I would otherwise have been playing the game.  I did go down a solitaire rabbit hole last night but have now won the Forty Thieves game that was distracting me so can now move on with my life.  I am really glad we never got into PS3 and the like.  I would be toast.

Happy New Year!

The stash diet officially starts today.  In addition to the project objectives I defined using the Stash and Burn challenges, I've also decided on a Knotty Girls challenge.  This one is a challenge to use up partial balls to "stripe it up".  I'm going to make a hat that I've planned to start for a few months but hadn't managed to get to yet.  It is called the 76-stitches hat and is from Interweave fall 2004.  So two objectives met:  stash reduction and using a pattern in my collection.  Perfect.  And the next mail-in deadline for Warm Hands is January 31 so I'll be motivated to finish and get it in the mailing for this month.

I finished this hat yesterday.  It is a free pattern called Barley from Tin Can knits and I really like it.  A quick knit but with a little bit of design that makes it more interesting than a basic hat.

I also realized that I hadn't inventoried my sock yarn collection so I did that today.  I have so much yarn it is frightening.