A weft yarn

Progress on the Oregon Vest - Alice Starmore

I have been working on the Alice Starmore, Oregon Vest.

There are 17 colours in total in this pattern. So far, I have used 14 of them. The pattern of changing colour has been interesting. As you know, you work with two colours at a time. One in the right hand, one in the left. The most amount of rows that a colour has been used for is: 7 rows and the shortest is: 2 rows. This results in a lot of colour changes. And interestingly, very rarely do you change both colours at once. What usually happens is that first you swap the pale one and then in the next row you change the brighter one. Also, I'd say that of the 17 colours of wool only about 4 balls of wool would be a single colour. The rest are a mix of colours. So while it is predominantly a beige colour say, it is also flecked with green and red and blue and orange to give it a muted and mottled look. Amazing.

Mostly, I do my knitting at night. At the end of a long day of garden, work, after school activities, dinner, homework, blah de blah, I can sit down with the colours and the sticks and loose myself in the soothing clicky click. But on the weekend, I broke with tradition and sat down for an hour in the afternoon and did some Oregon Vest. I was stunned at how rich the colours were in the natural light. In the spirit of trying to communicate this, I've photographed the vest outside on our new deck. Some photos are probably a bit too bright, but you get the sense of the true daylight colours of the vest.

I was worried last time I worked on this, that it would not be big enough. I feel much more reassured this time around. It should be fine. In both tape measuring it and just holding it up to my waist, it seems fine.

Just so you know where we're going with all this....here's the pattern photo. I'm nearly up to pattern B, which is the pine cone, spiky leaf, stylised pine tree symbol that makes up the main part of the vest.

I'm also pleased that this is progressing a bit more smoothly than that other chap....GAAA.

 

Previous posts

Alice Starmore - Oregon vest - a start (September 2011)

Alice Starmore - Oregon vest - swatch

Fair Isle cowl progress

My next project - Alice Starmore

HCB - Peanut butter ingots

I was grateful this week's Heavenly Cake baking wasn't a complicated cake. We had interstate visitors drop in on us for the weekend, somewhat unexpectedly. We had warning a few days in advance but not much more than that. At work, I'm entering into the part of our annual cycle where deadlines start to press and every day is full of things that have to be accomplished in order to meet our long-term goal. At present, when I make it through to the weekend, I'm really craving some peace and routines and some quiet time. To add to all of that I had quite a disturbed night, with little sleep, on Friday night, as I mulled over some interpersonal conflict that had happened at work. I was not at the core of the conflict, merely a bystander but as usual I wondered were there things I could have done differently to help my colleagues avert the crisis. Anyway, long story short, I'm glad it isn't difficult to bake Peanut Butter Ingots. I certainly wasn't up to a Chocolate Raspberry Genoise that Evil Cake Lady made last week.

I had made the Plum Ingots, though it was mid-winter when I did, so I used frozen blueberries instead of plums. I hadn't really liked the consistency of those ingots. Maybe I did something wrong in that batter because the consistency was kind of rubbery.

Anyway, general kind of "unwellness" over the weekend and trepidation over the rubberyness of an almond-beurre noisette batter were banished after I whipped these up.

First of all, you make the beurre noisette (which we've done before). You melt the butter until the solids have browned. Then you toast almonds and grind them up with powdered sugar (icing sugar), then add a scant amount of plain flour. Whip the four egg whites until they are foamy, add the almond/flour mixture and the strained browned butter. Then the final touch is the peanut butter. They don't take long to cook (another bonus).

When they came out of the oven they smelt fantastic - warm and buttery, with wafts of peanuts. They were crunchy on the outside and crumbly and moist on the inside. I could make these again for a quick afternoon tea treat for the kids.

I'm sorry I didn't put a better effort into photographing them. But hey, given the life issues at present, at least I made something!

GAAA - Jay Campbell block

In October 2010, I managed to knit two blocks of the Great American Aran Afghan in a week of holidaying around Northern NSW and QLD: the Ann Strong block and the Hanna Burns block. In October 2011, in about the same amount of time, I managed to mangle, rip out, and knit one block; the Jay Campbell block. I have to tell you, this is really testing my abilities and my confidence and while I deeply love knitting, I'm having my doubts folks. I'm actually getting worse at this instead of better. And according to the manual - I haven't even hit the hard blocks yet.

Here sits Jay Campbell with one corner ripped back. Then after I examined it carefully, I realised I couldn't fix it without starting over as I am knitting in the round and so the mistake is carried all through the round. Sigh.

So, I cut it off and started again. This was the third time I started again. It was that notation on the decrease. It said S2KP2O - which means, slip two stitches without knitting them, then knit the next stitch, then pass 2 stitches over. This results in a single decrease. And then the next notation is to K1. It wasn't until the fourth time through that I worked out that by doing the K1, I was repeating the Knit in the middle of the S2KP2O.  OK. Breathe. I've spent hours and hours of knitting and have nothing to show for it. It's meant to challenge. It's complex. I wanted a challenge. Remember, this is a voluntary activity. And other mantras encouraging me to cope.

Then, about 20 hours later of knitting in the round; round and round we go, cable this, slip that, decrease here, blah blah, I think its looking pretty good.

 

 

And then check it out. I cast off last night and lo and behold IT IS TOO BIG. (Sorry about the caps lock). Each block is meant to be 12 inches by 12 inches. Ann Strong is. Hanna Burns is. But not this one. Maybe when I block it, I can get it to fit. Or maybe I can use it as a cushion? Moving along folks. There are other things I can do.

Previous posts

Great American Aran Afghan (September 2011)

HCB - White Velvet Butter Cupcakes

I know I was meant to make some molten lava chocolate explosion thing, and really I would have loved it, however, my daughter was having a 4th grade class party at school this week and asked for little vanilla rose cupcakes. I was happy to oblige. I do understand that I am not fulfilling the bake-along this week but I thought you might like to see what we got up to! They were a big success at the class party.

We followed the White Velvet Butter Cupcakes recipe and everyone in the family had a little scoop of batter before we baked the rose cakes. 'Yum' was the universal expression. As they were for a party, we couldn't sample the actual cakes so we made a few little extras. Tess and I each ate one of the little round discs (the boys were gone to school and work so we wern't being deliberately selfish). The cupcakes were fantastic and I could easily use this as my "go to" Vanilla cupcake recipe. Then we decorated the little roses and packed them up ready to go. Tess was also meant to bring along a "surprise", which she interpreted as lollies.

One thing we learnt about decorating these little rose cakes....it looks slightly better if you put the icing gel into the groove of the rose, rather than trying to highlight the ridge of the groove (if you know what I mean). Tess then added little sprinkles of flowers, leaves, hearts. Personally, I prefer the cakes undecorated but I'm not a 9-year-old and she had a lovely time and the 9-year-olds in her class loved them. So there. Not sure about those lurid, red lolly things though. They are called 'clouds' but look like 'lips' to me. They are soft and chewy and tangy and even though they are clearly NOT food, you do find yourself trying just one more.

 

Red Felt Santas - October 2011

Last we saw Santa, he had his green leaves on his hat done and I was starting on his boots. 10 hours later he has boots on, and one of the fat Santas has a hanger and a nicely plump body. The other guy is still flat on his back waiting for the next embroidery session.

 I had to make some red and white cording by twisting together two strands of DMC. I hadn't been looking forward to that fiddly task when I did the black and white cording on his coat, but like all things, second time around was easier. Having said that, I made the cording and sewed it onto his boots during a Saturday night viewing of the Hurt Locker. That was really tense, that session. We were thoroughly impressed by the film. The filmaker's attention to detail, the sense of impending doom and menace, the fear, the tension, the tough yet fragile guys doing war, some adapting, some being destroyed, the clash of cultures, the futility. It was interesting. Perhaps a bit surreal to vicariously experience the hell that was the Iraq war while I sewed thread onto felt boots. We live a very safe life, considering the range of human experiences on the planet.

One of my goals this year was to finish these guys. I think if I'm done by Christmas I'll be happy with that, although technically my sewing year runs from Sept to August (as I started the rotation system in Sept 2010). Still, that's a bit stupid fussy to even pay attention to such things. So, ignore me.  I think I probably only need one more 10 hour session to finish these chaps off and then they can join their "folky Santa" buddies on the tree.

 

Previous posts

Santas - embroidery update June 2011

Felt ornaments - Christmas santas April 2011

Hand sewing rotation system: September 2010 - August 2011

 

During 2010, I began a new method of organising my stitching projects and stitching time. This rotation method officially started in September 2010, so one year later, I'd like to reflect on what I achieved, what were the benefits and the disadvantages of this organisational plan, and whether I'd modify anything going forward into my next year.

Of my ten projects, I settled on 3 tapestry, 3 embroidery and 3 knitting, plus my tapestry class. Before I started this method, I had lots of things on my wish list, and lots of projects in my cupboards. I generally took the approach that I'd have one knitting project on the go, one major tapestry and lots of WIPs in the hand sewing genre. I tended to knit mainly through winter and forgo it through the hot, hot summer. I also had an erratic stop-start commitment to the tapestry and the hand sewing, probably due to busy life, lack of focus, boredom with slow crafts, and hitting technique road blocks where I didn't know how to finish a set stitch or some such thing.

So the benefits of the new method:

• I never get bored. Just as I start to get frustrated or disinterested, I'm over the allotted 10 hours and the project is packed up.
• I've made progress on things that used to sit languishing in the cupboard (cross stitch scissors keep, and santas I'm looking at you)
• It has given me an opportunity to think about 'defining' or specialising in "types" of embroidery - it is a huge, wide world out there in stitching land and given that I'm never going to do just one thing in this life, it is probably strategic to think of 'specialising' - so I chose threadpainting and stumpwork as two of my three embroidery projects, with a catch all of 'general embroidery' for the other one.
• This allowed me to start two new embroidery projects (got to love that!): threadpainting: African blanket, and stumpwork: Boysenberries and ladybug.
• It also gave me an excuse to do more than one knitting project at a time.
• I have a GREAT collection of bags!. In order for this 'system' to work, I needed each project to have its own bag and own set of tools so that I could put down and start up really easily. 
• I feel like, in total, I've done heaps more stitching than I would have done using the 'no particular plan' way of life prior to 10 hour/10 project system.
• I've enjoyed keeping track of my stitching hours. (I thought I'd hate being so fussy, but strange, I've enjoyed ticking off the hours and recording them in my Word document).

The disadvantages of the new method

• I didn't make much progress on knitting projects - this disappoints me. Summer is coming and I may not feel like knitting with wool through our scorching Summer.
• I am the kind of person who likes finishing things, and having ten things on the go may help with overall progress but it certainly slows down specific projects.
• I have 4 projects where I've set goals (Ferry tapestry, African blanket, General embroidery (Santas), and Great American Aran Afghan) and I didn't actually make any of the goals - though I did get close with three of them.
• I sometimes feel embarrassed by all the things on the go - it feels slightly goofy to have so many snail paced projects out in cyberspace. What am I thinking?
• I had a fairly big up-front expense in buying multiple tool sets (I have 10 sets of embroidery scissors - eeks). This was a once-off expense but if I was to abandon the system it would be seen as a wasted expense (that's my husband looking at me).

After all this, I'm not really sure what to conclude except I'll go ahead from Sept 2011, continuing with the 10 hour/10 project method. I think maybe I might give my projects that have goals associated with them a bit more lovin' than the others. This year, I had a few mad, rushy moments while I was trying to finish things and while there's nothing wrong with giving yourself a little push-along, it was kind of frustrating to still not make the goals...so, maybe if they take priority I can still rotate projects but also feel I'm getting somewhere.

Top Ten projects

1. Monthly Creative Tapestry Class - 200 stitch guide (half way through)
2. Cat tapestry
3. Ferry tapestry
4. Tim's Christmas stocking
5. Stumpwork
6. Felt ornaments - Christmas santas
7. Thread painting - African blanket
8. Knitting for children - toys
9. Knitting for me - Alice Starmore's Oregon vest
10. Knitting for others - Great American Aran Afghan

 

Previous posts

Ten project rotation system (March 2011)

The Ferry tapestry - progress after Tapestry Guild weekend

In my previous post on the Ferry tapestry, I mentioned that I'd try and give an update after my weekend of stitching. I spent Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th of September stitching, talking, listening and eating. We worked from 9:00am to 4:30pm - they are serious stitchers these Tapestry Guild ladies. There is morning tea, afternoon tea and lunch provided and then we were all invited out to Bella Vista for dinner as well. Some of the ladies come down from Sydney to join us for the weekend and so are keen to catch up for dinner.  In the five years that I've been attending these events, I've never made it to the dinners. Being the introvert that I am, a full day of socialising is usually more than enough, and the concentration of sitting still and stitching for hours and hours also kind of wears me out. I do love these weekends though. I get so much done and I also catch up with people I haven't seen all year, and I feel connected to this group of women who share an interest in this fastidious and detailed craft.

 There were about 20 women who attended the weekend stitching, most for two days, some for one day. At 48 years old I am the second youngest in the group. There is one lady who self-identified as 43 years old (she's the youngest and her children are older than mine) and then there's me and then the next closest is a couple of woman in their early 50s, who, like us 'younger ones' are still working in paid employment but, unlike us, are not raising children any more. From there, you pretty much jump into the group of ladies who are retired and chatting about grandchildren. And then, at the upper end of the group are the 80-year-olds. Wow. I have thirty-plus more years of membership of this group. Though the take-up from the younger end is really not great. It might just be the two of us 40ish women stitching together in 30 years time.

Over the course of the weekend, it is interesting to see what everyone is working on and we get an opportunity to have a show and tell table where we bring in things we've finished, or other crafts we work on. I've brought in knitted items in the past. Some ladies paint, others knit, others bring in different types of embroidery. It is generally a time of awe and appreciation.

Last year I felt I made the ladies quite nervous about my adoption of the DSL technique - all the dangling threads. I was almost a bit trepidatious bringing it along again this year but our conversations this year seemed a tad more accepting of my difference. This style of creative tapestry, where you mix embroidery stitches with tapestry has been fostered in Australia by two women in Sydney who ran the Tapestry Studio for many years. I was fortunate enough to get on their last Canberra class in 2004 and then have maintained my lessons with a Guild accredited teacher here in Canberra. In the USA, this style of tapestry, or needlepoint as they call it, is huge. But then what isn't huge in America? There are more quilters in America than there are Australians.

So far though, I haven't come across anyone in the needlepoint blogs I read who has mixed up the two techniques in quite the same way I do. Dominique-Siegeler Lathrop is French, runs a studio,  teaches in Paris (maybe someday...wist-full dreaming look) and has an online shop. The American ladies I read all pretty much do as the Australian group, take one stitch, one thread and put in all those stitches at once (ie do all the petit point and then do all the canvas cross etc).  Anyway, I find this mixed method works for me and am happy to press on with it for now. Time will tell if there are traps for unwary players.

Previous posts

The Ferry tapestry - the 2011 September Tapestry weekend (Sept 2011)

The Ferry - E.Phillips Fox - Baxtergraphix Tapestry (April 2011)

HCB - Chocolate Genoise with Peanut Butter Whipped Ganache

This week is free choice week and I asked my son to choose a cake. He wanted to know how Rose's Heavenly Cakes were grouped so I showed him the Contents page with: Butter and Oil cakes, Sponge Cakes, Mostly Flourless Cakes & Cheesecakes, and Baby Cakes. He went straight away to Sponge cakes and chose the Chocolate cake with Peanut butter icing. We've been on a bit of a Reese's Peanut Butter cups binge lately so I wasn't surprised when he picked this cake. A Costco supermarket has just opened in Canberra and someone from work went out and came back with a huge bag of Reese's Peanut butter cups. So, the love was shared and I got a handful, which I brought home, and the children quickly scoffed them. Reese's aren't super rare in Australia these days, not like when I was growing up. But still, they are a novelty item around here and everyone in this abode agrees: Peanut butter and chocolate is a winning combination.

I feel like I've made this Genoise batter a few times now and I do love it, the way the warmed eggs froth up and quadruple in volume. After the cake came out of the oven, my daughter helped with painting the syrup on the cake. I insisted that we take more care this time and we used up almost every last drop. When I did the Passionfruit Genoise cake I didn't syrup it enough and it went hard and dry after a few days. What a waste. I didn't want that to happen again. Lessons learnt were: (1) eat the cake more quickly, and (2) syrup it up a bit more.

We took Rose's advice and let the iced, syruped cake sit for a day in the fridge. When we cut into the cake it was suitably soft and moist, and the icing was perfect. Everyone loved it. Definitely on the 'make again' list. And thankfully, the peanut butter softens the bitter taste of the ganache, so it was popular with the young ones.

If anyone out there is familiar with Costco....do you know if they stock Wondra, Cake flour, and Graham crackers? I'd be a bit tempted to pay the $60 annual fee if I thought I could get some American baking products (and Reese's...of course....big bags of them apparently).

And one final comment, we are heading off for a family holiday on Saturday so I'll miss at least one week of the bake-along. Enjoy the next cake....forgotten...remind me...Angel food? I was scared of that one.