Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Knitting Friday
OK, I've been pretty bad about posting any knitting stuff, though I have been knitting. Apparently, not taking picture however.
We in NJ are in the throes of a major snow storm. Across the street from me, my neighbor has a 6 foot plus piles of snow removed from the roads and driveways. The guys who do our shoveling (Association fee) worked on the driveways first so now they have 5+ feet of snow on the sidewalks to remove. Poor guys.
Last night, my husband went to play pool and finally walked in the road when he realized he was making no headway trekking through 3 feet of snow which covered the path. (You realize your place in the universe when you have to transverse acres of snow.) One guy drove, not realizing the clubhouse parking lot was not plowed (that's last priority.) If you're in the area, his car is the one in the snowbanks in front of the clubhouse. I think they're going back for it when the thaw comes. What a Keystone Kop comedy!
So, that's what we've been occupied with this week; but back to knitting. Not much to report. I'm just finishing my Advent Calendar Shawl. (It's much to big for a scarf.) I'm sorry I had to eliminate a lot of patterns but it's pretty huge without blocking already. Now, I'm waiting for blocking wires from Knit Picks to arrive since I've abandoned my search for alternative blocking wires from a place like Home Depot. This "thinking off the box" was not not coming together and was just too time consuming.
Since free shipping is $50 at KP, I added the Vogue Knitting Book (a lot of people review it on Amazon as the best reference book and I'm just hoping they don't all work/have relatives who work for Vogue.) Plus, to get to $50.50, (that was cutting it close) I splurged on two skeins of lace weight alpaca. Most people wouldn't consider $3.57 a skein as splurging but I must be a cheap bastard.
For some reason, this is the first winter ever, I'm searching for warm tops. I remember the days of blouses covered by a big man's shirt for cooking, etc. Now, it's shirt, wool sweater, shawl - you can imagine me as the Pillsbury Dough Boy by the time I'm finished. So I'm spending a lot of time eying the wool yarn I have and devising warm, non-bulky tops. Non-bulky is the key word here. I just ripped out the front bands on a cardigan I made in prehistoric times. Obviously, back then, I thought that a double knit weight front band doubled over so that when both sides joined you would have four layers, was a cool idea. For the last 3 months, I'm been spending time putting the sweater on, putting a coat on and then staring in the mirror saying: Do I look pregnant? Finally, I ripped out both bands (thank goodness they were done last without any connections) and replaced them with single crochet bands. It works and I'm wearing the sweater w/o the baby bulge look. I did the same look with a beautiful Aran-like beige sweater but I would hate to unravel that one only to discover the bands are connected and I'm looking at some very serious modifications.
More on my adventures in sweater mods, next week. I'm going to leave you with a non-knitting web site today. Always coming late to the dance, I just discovered this no knead bread recipe:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html
Apparently, the entire world is eating it. You do need yeast and an oven-ready heavy, covered pot but it rises without kneading. I think it tastes like beer bread (which is still one of my favorites.) Bread is funny and I don't know if you can use "good" flour and get the same results. But this bread is heaven. Eating for me in heaven would be good bread, cheese and grapes. Of course, I'm not making heaven so I'd better revise the menu.
Happy knitting and bread making.
We in NJ are in the throes of a major snow storm. Across the street from me, my neighbor has a 6 foot plus piles of snow removed from the roads and driveways. The guys who do our shoveling (Association fee) worked on the driveways first so now they have 5+ feet of snow on the sidewalks to remove. Poor guys.
Last night, my husband went to play pool and finally walked in the road when he realized he was making no headway trekking through 3 feet of snow which covered the path. (You realize your place in the universe when you have to transverse acres of snow.) One guy drove, not realizing the clubhouse parking lot was not plowed (that's last priority.) If you're in the area, his car is the one in the snowbanks in front of the clubhouse. I think they're going back for it when the thaw comes. What a Keystone Kop comedy!
So, that's what we've been occupied with this week; but back to knitting. Not much to report. I'm just finishing my Advent Calendar Shawl. (It's much to big for a scarf.) I'm sorry I had to eliminate a lot of patterns but it's pretty huge without blocking already. Now, I'm waiting for blocking wires from Knit Picks to arrive since I've abandoned my search for alternative blocking wires from a place like Home Depot. This "thinking off the box" was not not coming together and was just too time consuming.
Since free shipping is $50 at KP, I added the Vogue Knitting Book (a lot of people review it on Amazon as the best reference book and I'm just hoping they don't all work/have relatives who work for Vogue.) Plus, to get to $50.50, (that was cutting it close) I splurged on two skeins of lace weight alpaca. Most people wouldn't consider $3.57 a skein as splurging but I must be a cheap bastard.
For some reason, this is the first winter ever, I'm searching for warm tops. I remember the days of blouses covered by a big man's shirt for cooking, etc. Now, it's shirt, wool sweater, shawl - you can imagine me as the Pillsbury Dough Boy by the time I'm finished. So I'm spending a lot of time eying the wool yarn I have and devising warm, non-bulky tops. Non-bulky is the key word here. I just ripped out the front bands on a cardigan I made in prehistoric times. Obviously, back then, I thought that a double knit weight front band doubled over so that when both sides joined you would have four layers, was a cool idea. For the last 3 months, I'm been spending time putting the sweater on, putting a coat on and then staring in the mirror saying: Do I look pregnant? Finally, I ripped out both bands (thank goodness they were done last without any connections) and replaced them with single crochet bands. It works and I'm wearing the sweater w/o the baby bulge look. I did the same look with a beautiful Aran-like beige sweater but I would hate to unravel that one only to discover the bands are connected and I'm looking at some very serious modifications.
More on my adventures in sweater mods, next week. I'm going to leave you with a non-knitting web site today. Always coming late to the dance, I just discovered this no knead bread recipe:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html
Apparently, the entire world is eating it. You do need yeast and an oven-ready heavy, covered pot but it rises without kneading. I think it tastes like beer bread (which is still one of my favorites.) Bread is funny and I don't know if you can use "good" flour and get the same results. But this bread is heaven. Eating for me in heaven would be good bread, cheese and grapes. Of course, I'm not making heaven so I'd better revise the menu.
Happy knitting and bread making.
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