Wednesday WIPs: Going Straight

 

I knit so much during the Olympics that I don't have much interest in it right now but I have been trying to get a few rows finished on the Glennis Cowl and the Hue Shift thing every day. Both got taken off of their circulars and put on straight needles recently. I haven't used my straight needle sets in ages but these two projects work much better on them.

I love my shiny new Options set but those sharp points hurt my fingers with some projects so wood it is for now.

The socks I'm working on don't look much different and neither does the ski sweater but I have put a few doodles on the Doodle Cowl. I'm going to try to get one pattern block a month finished and when the holidays roll around and I'm tempted to start another stocking that I don't need or have room for, I'll pick up this instead. Sounds like a plan. 

TNT: Back in the Routine

 

This is what we woke up to yesterday. Most of it has been blown or melted away already. It was nice while it lasted. 

I thought that since it was a post Olympic day that I could get back to my usual activities around here but The Mister had other ideas. 

Over the weekend I finished the motif on the left. I had planned on it being the last for the year but I relented and decided to work on the one on the top this week since it's still February. 

My normal afternoons were usually spent working on this and listening to Dateline podcasts so I got right back to it. I finished that block and moved the hoop to another. 

I also picked up Funky Flower for a few minutes and worked on some leaves. 

The early morning had been spent playing with Betty. I had a big bagel fail the night before and couldn't remember which starter I had used so I tested them by making more dough. Was it Brown Betty, the original, or was it Betty White or maybe it was the newly resurrected one from the fridge, Zombie Betty? The guilty party is on the left and it was Betty White. As you can see, her bagel dough did not rise like the other two. I don't know why but I can't get a strong white flour starter going for anything. 

Unlike the hockey pucks I had made the day before, all the Betty's came through albeit in their own sweet time. Even slow poke Betty White managed to puff up when boiled. I sure hope they freeze well because that's an awful lot of wonky looking bagels. 

All Good Things...

 

I'm never ready to see the Winter Olympics end. I get all the feels. Yesterday was no exception.

What made it an especially great three weeks is that we had snow on the ground from start to finish. Just as Saturday's mild weather started melting it all away, Sunday's storm brought it back. It snowed on and off all day. It was the perfect backdrop to the ceremony.

I hadn't planned on getting all that fiber spun yesterday but I had to do something with my hands during that last hockey game. It was a nail biter. 

Ciao Italy. 

Thanks for the memories. 

Four years is a long way off at my age but France, I hope I'm there with you in 2030. 

And...if you haven't had enough of ice sports, let me brag a little about Daughter's high school skating team. They won the silver medal at a national US Figure Skating team challenge this weekend competing against 44 other teams. 

Shrinkflation

 

I'm starting my third skein of Homespun and I'm nowhere near the halfway point on this prayer shawl. I've made several of these in the past and only used 3 skeins for each according to my Ravelry project page so what's up with that? 

I thought I might have cast on too many stitches but it measures the same as my original one. Here are the directions from the free pattern on the Lion Brand website:

After 2½ skeins have been used up, use the remaining yarn for fringe (3-9 inches long). 

Ha. That's not going to work. I'm starting to think that 2008 skeins and 2026 are not the same size. I guess I'm going to have to order a fourth. Maybe even a fifth.

Anyway, I got out today. It was a lovely day for a walk at the beach. Is there snow in those clouds or more rain? We'll find out tomorrow.

A Looming Disaster

 

I took advantage of a couple of rainy days this week to get the latest warp on the loom. 

My last two projects were meh so I was hoping this kit would snap me out of the doldrums but all I see is a lot of white. Boring.

It's a tabby draft which is very plain. It's pretty much how you make a potholder so no fun there either. The only thing that is holding my interest is that it's a much thicker cotton so it's going fast. The faster the better. 

Friday Fluff

 

Woo hoo...I retired one stitch marker this week. 10 more to go. 

Like the Olympics themselves, my Olympic spin is coming to an end. I've got a handful of fiber left. 

The whole time I've been re-knitting this section of the Garter Squish I've been thinking about how nice this would be as a sweater. As soon as this is finished I am going to dig through the handspun stash and see if I can come up with enough of the same fiber for a simple, cozy pullover. 

And I owe Betty an apology. She did come through after all. The Blueberry Lemon loaf didn't rise a whole lot on the counter but it did have a decent rise in the oven.

It was yummy but it was the lemon doing all the heavy lifting. The blueberries are just there for their looks I suppose. 

Slicing and Dicing

 

Look what I bought. That wicked looking thing is a bread slicer.

It does this to my little loaves of sourdough. I had been throwing a lot of it away because we can't eat all of my experiments before they go stale. Now I can slice it up and put it in the freezer for toast. Sourdough defies cutting with a bread knife. It just ends up tearing or so misshapen it won't fit in the toaster.  

As for dicing, I bought one of these doohickeys a while back. I make a lot of soup, bean soup mostly, and this makes very short work of the vegetables and aromatics. I thought these might me a viral scam but they do indeed do what you see them doing online. It makes chopping fun.

Getting back to Betty, I thought I would try the popular blueberry lemon sourdough recipe that everyone seems to be making. I bought the expensive dried blueberries. I zested a bunch of lemons. I watched the videos a million times and followed everything as closely as possible and.....

....it's 8:00 at night and I'm still sitting here 5 hours later waiting for it to rise. It's still sitting in the exact same spot like some petulant ball of goop. Shame on you Betty. I coddled you all-day to get a good peak rise and this is how you repay me? It's going to be a long night.