Knititude

Poor neglected blog

This is the longest I've gone without posting since I started this blog; having three knit projects due in the space of a few weeks which also encompassed Christmas, the New Year, hauling the family from Italy to Boston to Cape Cod to Florida and back, and choosing tile, cabinets, countertops and paint colors for two building projects may have had something to do with that.  Maybe having all that over with is the reason I feel more relaxed than I have in a month, in spite of being jet-lagged and arriving home to no heat this morning.

Anyhoo...(anyone see the Daily Show's Samantha Bee's advice to Al Jazeera on how to appeal to an American audience?  We get Al Jazeera here in Italy so it cracked me up.)...ANYhoo, this photo, taken in early December, shows "Filo e filo", a yarn store in Lucca, a lovely walled city in Tuscany, between Florence and Pisa.  It's fairly small but has a nice selection of yarns and patterns, and it has an unbeatable location:  Piazza Dell' Anfiteatro, a piazza built on the site of an ancient Roman amphitheater.  The piazza is completely walled in, with several tunnel entrances, and retains the oval shape of the amphitheater, as you can see in this photo.  I was so delighted to find a nice yarn shop in a totally cool spot that I bought some totally unneeded (but gorgeous) yarn, Filatura di Crosa Zara, extrafine merino, in a delicious chocolate brown.  I'm sure I'll find some use for it someday!

A Thanksgiving Story,

a day late due to internet noncompliance.  (More knitting someday!)

It's a little-known fact that the Pilgrims much preferred toad tails to turkey; so when I was at the Esselunga supermarket on Thanksgiving morning, and I spotted these lovely specimens, well!  I just had to buy them. 

The truth?  Whole turkeys are hard to come by in Italy; word is you can order one ahead of time, but from the few turkey dishes I've had here, I just wasn't sure what we would end up with.  So we decided to do a turkey when we're Stateside for Christmas, and when I asked my son to choose something else for Thanksgiving, he answered, "Grandma's fish."  Super-easy (recipe at the end), very good; not especially festive, but then the "fest" really comes from family & friends, right?  (Does "fester" mean the bacteria are having a party?  Anyway.) 

So I entered the Esselunga looking simply for the freshest white fish fillets they had, and I found these.  When I got home I decided to look up the name:  "Coda"--tail; "Rospo"--toad.  Yum. 

(They turned out to be pretty good, with a firm texture like monkfish.)

Grandma's fish:  2 servings.  Place 1 lb. mild white fish fillets (cod, haddock, sea bass, etc.) in a microwave-safe baking dish and cover with plastic wrap; poke a few holes in the wrap.  Chop a half dozen scallions; peel a thumb-sized piece of ginger and cut into matchsticks.  Put fish in microwave and cook on high just until done--3-5 minutes depending on the microwave.  While the fish is cooking, saute ginger and scallions over low heat in a generous amount of oil; add several tbsp of soysauce and a tsp of sugar OR maple syrup.  Cook only until scallions are wilted.  Take the fish out and drain off any accumulated liquid; add scallion/ginger sauce, a little more soy sauce to taste, and serve over steamed rice.   

 

A cheap trick

I just realized that my first blogiversary is coming up at the end of the month.  Last November, I had no idea I would be living in Italy a year later!  Anyway, here are my first, second and third posts; I'd say they are somewhere around a 7 or 8 on a 1-10 scale of silliness, 1 being somewhere around here or here, and 10 being here or here.  (And I mean no offense to fans of big balls...of twine; lovers of Hello Kitty; or devotees of Marilyn Manson.  Or any combination thereof.)

I know it's a cheap trick to recycle old posts as new, but hopefully I'll soon be done swatching with this yarn so I can post a photo or two, and the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino I ordered from Angel Yarns for my adult Sherwood is en route!

Sherwood for grownups

Now, I couldn't tell from the photo at left (both are from Harper's Bazaar, September 2006) if the jumper shown is a knit, but it could be; the one below is definitely not, but it has a sort of heraldic, medieval feel to it that makes me think of...Sherwood.  The rib and braid pattern I used in Sherwood makes me think of tunics and halberds, chain mail, that sort of thing, and now I'm picturing Sherwood sleeveless, mid-thigh length, worked in a gorgeous gray wool-silk combo, something that has a sheen to it, not metallic so much, or at least no more than that metallic glint you might catch from some bird's feathers, around a pigeon's neck, say.  Those ribs and the "V" effect of the braid arrangement are very figure-flattering; much as I like the idea of a white blouse, I would probably end up wearing it over a turtleneck.  You could put tights under it, or those %$#! leggings that are seemingly back in style.  Size 14 has a 36 inch chest circumference, and size 16, 39 inches.  Just keep working until it's long enough, a little armhole shaping, a little ribbing around the armholes to match the neck...yum.  Wish I had time to do it myself.

P.S.  I remember you, Paige Farley-Hackel--you, and your little dogs, too.

A good read

Gosh, I wish I'd written this!

Poetic license

Now that our Hibiscus syriacus, or Rose-of Sharon, is in full bloom, I'm afraid that the flowers are much pinker than I remembered.  They are lovely, and more numeroous than ever, but not quite the shade of lavender that would match my eponymous hat.  However, I did notice that the spent blooms, which fall in profusion and are cigar-butt shaped, thus resembling nothing so much as the detritus from a stogie-lover's convention, do have a purplish cast.  Purplish-greyish.  At least they don't have that old-cigar stink. 

I thought I should put a link to Rose-of-Sharon under "free patterns," and so it is done.

Wisteria hysteria

I just had to demonstrate what I meant when I said the hydrangeas must love all this rain; I've never seen them like this before.  I mean, don't they look Seussian, like they should be blooming under Truffula trees?

What's that?  What do hydrangeas have to do with wisterias?  You think this post should probably be called "hydrangea hysteria"?  You don't give a flying f--- about a bunch of freaking freakishly blue flowers?  Where the f--- is the CHINESE LACE?

Ah, yes.  Here, here she is, in child's sleeveless dress form, and I shall call her...Wisteria.  Why?  Well, the first time I remember noticing a wisteria vine, I was a college freshman, and knew (and cared) very little about gardens--and yet the cascades of purple flowers adorning the entrance to the Frick Chemistry Lab amazed me enough that I asked someone the name of the plant.  Since then, I've seen Wisteria sinensis (or Chinese wisteria--how perfect is that?!) on buildings, on pergolas, and ascending tree trunks, and it never fails to amaze.  As this dress took form, its violet color and the waterfall effect of the Chinese Lace border brought the wisteria to mind.

And yes, instructions will be available soon, for girls' sizes 6 months to 10 years; I reworked the neckline today, and so the pattern should be up by (dare I say it?) next week. 

Happy 4th!

Some snapshots from today: 

The Annual 4th of July Parade, Cotuit, MA. 

(Although there has been a little knitting happening here--in between the swimming and the bar-b-q-ing and the soothing tired children and the grateful savoring of each day's first glass of wine or beer or margarita--I'm going to work a little farther before showing progress pics.)

Someone likes all this rain;

I mean, I've never seen the dogwoods like this before.  The flowers are so thick, they look like a layer of snow.  In a few weeks our hydrangeas will be solid globes of shocking blue, and the climbing hydrangeas have grown a good two feet since April.

So much for the horticulture report. 

In other news, look for another pattern of mine in the September MagKnits; it will showcase the lovely Alchemy Synchronicity silk/wool pictured here, and beads are involved.  And that's all I have to say about that. 

Maple Seed Hat

The spiraling columns on this hat remind me of the spinning trajectory of a falling maple seed, and if you look closely at the columns, the shape of the maple seed’s wing will emerge.

And no, maple seeds aren't usually red, but rather a pale green, or a light brown after they've lain around in the street for awhile.  But maple leaves are often red, especially in the fall, and I love the fall (scroll down to the bottom of the linked entry for the photo of gorgeous Mt. Auburn Cemetery in October) and especially maple trees in the fall.  And there are already several patterns called "Falling Leaves," which is what I originally thought I might call this hat, and then Acer, the genus name of the maple, is a cool name, but I was afraid people would think I named this hat after Ace Young, that American Idol contestant with the penchant for wearing knit hats (and the wide-eyed puppy gaze that got downright creepy after awhile).

Can you tell I've been up at 4:30 a.m. for four mornings in a row now?  That jet lag can be insidious.

Anyway, Maple Seed used one ball* of Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran, a wool/silk/cashmere blend (and a lovely, lovely yarn) in "Merlot".  You could try substituting Lamb's Pride Worsted or Classic Elite Bazic (both wool), or even Jo Sharp Desert Garden Aran Cotton (which I used for Beaufort), Blue Sky Cotton, or Classic Elite Four Seasons Cotton.  If you want to see the two hats side by side, click here; although they are obviously related, changing that SSK to a k2tog causes the crisp spirals of Maple Seed to morph into the softer swirls of Beaufort. 

Download maple_seed_hat.PDF   

Oh yes, and thanks to the TS (Twentysomething Stepdaughter--Happy Birthday!) for modeling.

*Edited to add:  I knit the smaller size which used almost all of one ball; the larger size requires 2 balls.