Stillness Shawl - Halfway There

 

I finished up my test knit last week, so I’m back to focusing on my Stillness Shawl.  I’ve done the last increase, so I now have 577 stitches on my needles.  The rows are simple, but long.  This has been a very easy shawl to modify into a cape.  At this point in the pattern, and since row 100, the extra stitch I have is worked as a k1 for the first pattern repeat.  This makes the pattern symmetrical overall.  I used leftovers from two of my other trio sets (Granny Smith, from an Autumn Trio set and Thyme, from the English Garden Trio) for the Color D stripes.  I am almost out of the the Thyme and searched yesterday for a replacement.  I didn’t really have anything that would work in my leftovers bag, so I checked all of the Kiri in my stash for a suitable color.  I ended up going to my Yule Ombré set.  It turns out that the second skein of that set matches the Thyme exactly so I caked it up yesterday.  If I need more of Color D, I will have to decide if I want to go darker (the third skein) or lighter (the first skein).  I can go either way.  The Granny Smith is darker than the Thyme, so I already have a darker to lighter thing going with Color D.

Pattern:  Stillness Shawl by Helen Stewart

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Goblin Kalari - Finished!

 

I finally bound off my Goblin Kalari.  It has been sitting in my project bag for a while now.  I was going to do a knit on edging instead of binding off, but could not get a good color or a good border that seemed to go, so I gave up trying and just bound off.  I had to tink back one row to get enough yarn to bind off with, and I almost made it.

Fortunately I had some yarn in my Kiri leftovers that was a pretty close match.  I did not do a lace bindoff, just a regular bindoff done a bit looser.  I blocked pretty aggressively.  I love how it came out.  I may do more of these.  It is a great way to use up leftovers, and I like the shape.

Pattern:  Kalari Shawl by Ambah O’Brien

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri - Goblin Ombré 

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Pardalote Shawl - Finished!

 

I blocked my Pardalote Shawl yesterday morning and this morning it was dry, so I unpinned it and blocked my Goblin Kalari.  Once it got light I grabbed a quick picture on the deck.

A blocking picture in the early afternoon winter sun.  It is hard to do justice to the colors, but here are a couple more shots that get close.

Here you can see the contrast bind off.  I worked the last couple of rows in C1.  And I think this photo helps show the lovely subtle colors of the Haunted colorway.

Both of the colors are Dream in Color Loopy Ewe exclusive colors - Exploration Station and Haunted.

Here they are in the skein - Haunted is the one on top.

Pattern:  Pardalote Shawl by Ambah O’Brien

Yarn:  Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere 

Needle: US 5 (3.75 mm)

Stillness Shawl - Cast On!

 

Yesterday I bound off both my Pardalote Shawl and my Goblin Kalari Shawl.  While I was straightening my project bags I came across the three skeins above.  They are the Valentine Trio from The Unique Sheep and they have been in my stash for a while now waiting for the right project.  I looked through my pattern library last night and finally settled on Helen Stewart’s Stillness Shawl.  I thought about doing another Snowmelt but I felt like doing something that I hadn’t knit before.  The Stillness Shawl is a circular shawl, but I’m working it as a circular cape, my standard modification for circular shawls.  For the B color I am not using mohair (can’t stand the stuff), or lace weight.  Instead I am using up some leftovers in the same yarn base.

Pattern:  Stillness Shawl by Helen Stewart

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Jimmy Beans Craftvent 2020 - Tidings to Yew

 

I purchased a Craftvent set from Jimmy Beans Wool again this year.  This is the fifth year I have done this,  although I have only knit three of the projects.  I went a little Advent kit crazy this year.  Along with the past kits that I’ve bought that I haven’t knit up yet I think I can do a year of Advent, which is what I may do in 2021.  I haven’t even opened all of the Advent kits that I bought this year.  For some reason I decided to open this one, but obviously I did not abide by the open one a day rule.  I started this on December 3 and finished it on December 12.  I don’t feel bad about spoiling the mystery, as Jimmy Bean posts pictures of the finished project on their product page.  I think they learned one year that not everyone likes surprises.  This was an interesting knit.  The texture is a bit different because you have lace sections that are separated by slip stitch and fisherman’s rib.  I wasn’t sure how it was going to block out when I was working it, but am pleased with the result.  I couldn’t stretch the lace out as much as I normally would, but it still looks good.

170 g yarn used

Day 2 (A)- Filtered Day Dreams

Day 3 (B) - Eleven Dark

Day 5 (C) - Tiny House

Day 6 (D) - Saffron

Day 8 (E) - Donkey Ote

Day 9 (F) - Coffee Grounds

Day 11 (G) - Liquid Gold

Day 12 (H) - Ristretto

Day 14 (I) - Mars Rover

Day 16 (J) - Blood Runs Cold

Day 17 (K) - Glazed Pecan

Day 19 (L) - Oscuro

Day 20 (M) - Pink Clay

Day 22 (F) - Coffee Grounds

Day 23 (G) - Liquid Gold

Pattern:  Tidings to Yew by Amy Gunderson

Yarn:  Madeline Tosh Merino Light

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Woodsman Shawll II - Finished!

 

This week is my last week of work for the rest of the year, and it was a bit of a hell week packed with meetings.  Fortunately that gave me plenty of time to work on the lace edging on my shawl and I finished it up this past Wednesday.  For this shawl I bought some Cascade Yarns Heritage Solids in black.  We had a little bit of snow last night and I thought it would go well with the shawl.  This is just one of my simple garter stitch boomerang shawls.  Mindless knitting that is great for when I’m reviewing documents.  I made one for my sister Virginia, but she only wanted the lace edging on the cast off edge.  I loved the colors so much I bought a second skein to make one for myself.

Pattern:  Improvised (Boomerang shawl)

Yarn:  SpaceCadet Yarns Oriana in Woodsman

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

A Perfect Loaf

 

The last weekend of November my bread machine broke.  It was a Zojirushi, and was seventeen years old.   It was my second bread machine.  My first was also a Zojirushi.  That one was cool, it had a vertical pan, so it made a tall loaf, and it had a finish pan that I could swap out with the mixing pan so there would be no hole in the bottom of my loaf.  The top of the loaf was a wonderful pillow top that I would cut off while the loaf was still warm and spread with butter and eat.  I used that one regularly and it didn’t last too many years.  My second bread machine did not see such regular use, but lately I had been using it weekly, and it finally broke.  I had put my ingredients in as usual on the 29th of November, but when I went to check on my bread it hadn’t mixed.  I quickly scooped everything into my Kitchen Aide mixer and finished mixing, then put it into two loaf pans to rise and then baked it in the oven.  The bread came out great.

I immediately went online and started searching for a new bread machine.  Things have changed some since the last time I shopped for one.  I ended up with a Cuisinart CBK-200 Convection Bread Maker.  The picture above is the third loaf I made in it.  The pan is not as long as the one in my Zojirushi, so the bread comes out taller.  The first loaf I made was a 1.5 pound loaf and it was too tall.  The second loaf I made was a 1 pound loaf and it was too short, so I tweaked the recipe to make a 1.25 pound loaf and used the 1 pound cycle.  It came out just right.  I had seen some complaints about the Cuisinart browning the bread too much, and I agree that it does tend to brown a little more than I prefer, but this one came out perfectly. And the bread is the best bread I have ever eaten.  The texture is perfect, soft without being mushy, and it keeps well.  I cut the loaf in half right down the middle and store it in the fridge in plastic bags (it is too big to fit into a single bag).  Even after a week, the bread is not stale or dry.  I cannot say the same about the bread from my Zojirushi.

I think the secret is that this bread machine does a better job of mixing.  It only has a single paddle, but the paddle has a nice design and it beats with a solid mechanical sound and action.  I always supervise the initial mix to make sure that there is enough moisture in the dough and that everything is getting picked up.  Once it makes a nice ball I walk away until the machine beeps to let me know it is time to take out the paddle.  On my Zojirushi I had to listen for the second stir down and then go take out the paddles, then once the bread was finished baking I would let the whole pan sit on a cooling rack for twenty minutes before taking the bread out or else there would still be big holes where the bread stuck to the paddle posts.  With my new machine I can pop the loaf out right away and there is barely a hole where the post was.

I started making bread again when I noticed that store bought bread, even the high end stuff, was bothering my stomach and just making me feel off.  I got worried that maybe I was developing a gluten allergy.  So I decided to start making my own bread again, and the problems disappeared.  I figured it was probably the other stuff they add to the bread.  Now we rarely buy bread products.