Need to be tougher with the lace.........

I finally blocked my fan and feather scarf. It was good but not earth shattering. I don't think I blocked it hard enough. I won't be using a variegated yarn for lace work again, it just doesn't show the pattern as well as I would like. However a lace shawl is definitely in future plans. I can see why lace work is addictive for some. It does have a light, frothy feel to the scarf which I like.

Before:

During:

After: (Sorry it seemed like a better close up before I posted it to the blog. I will get this picture thing down soon I am sure)

That's not all of the "making" going on in this house.

I present Montreal Style Bagels.

There are some things New Zealand are known for but unfortunately bagels is not one of them. I was craving some real bagels and we set to work one afternoon, doing it as a group so it didn't seem too overwhelming.

The reward: yummy warm chewy bagels for dinner with fresh tomatoes, salad straight from the garden and good cream cheese. Don't ask me how many I put away! They were good!

The recipe came from "Home Baking" by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, a gorgeous book we received last holidays. It is a 2 rise dough that takes about 3 hours total, allow about 5 hours for the whole process, about 1 1/2 hours are actually work time, the rest is waiting.

Rolled out ready to boil.

They boil for about a minute in water and honey, then are off to get rolled in sesame seeds (or whatever you have)

Boiled, ready to be baked for about 15 minutes:

For all of those that have not yet given bread a go I thoroughly recommend it. (It is time consuming and messy so if you aren't into cooking it won't be your thing.) It is the greatest thing to do with kids (think rainy afternoon). They can be involved in the whole process and what kid doesn't like fresh bread and butter (while you are at it have a go at making your own butter, only if you have kids handy as it takes a lot of shaking!). We tend to make our bread wholemeal with lots of seeds, flax and maybe some nuts and it is still a hit. You can easily minus the wheat with all of the other flours on the market if someone is gluten sensitive. And of course the aroma from baking bread is divine.

Does anyone have a really good tortilla recipe they can recommend? (Another thing New Zealand is not known for.) I don't want to use lard in them (ooh yuck!) but oil is fine. I really want to find a recipe like the soft chewy ones I use to eat from Tommy's in San Diego. The ones I have made so far have been blah. Oh and hot carrots, I seem to make them too pickley and acidic, any suggestions?

Sometimes you have see the big picture............

Ever had a vision of a project and then when you start it it somehow seems to turn out differently but you feel you have to trust the original vision and then you finish it and and you think "what the bloody hell was I thinking" and your gut was right.

Yeah me too but thankfully this wasn't one of those.

So I am knitting up the Community Afghan from Handknit Holidays. I have had my eye on it for a while. I have always had a hankering to knit a blanket (I know that may make me officially crazy) but always felt a bit sick when I would work out the cost of it. There seemed no point making it unless the yarn was delicious. I knew after my alpaca haul the time had come.

I started playing around with the colours and the gauge and it never felt right. Then I just decided to trust the vision and go for it.

Check out an individual square. Kinda of ugly and trashy in a god-you-have-to-be-joking kind of way. Have faith.



Now check out the blanket, now do you see?

Yeah me too. Did I mention alpaca, hmmmmmm, soft goodness.

This is only about a quarter of the finished size, it is a long haul this blanket business.
And no I don't want to talk about the sewing up at this point.

Feather and fan scarf update: It is getting longer, it is not just my imagination, right?

Oh and by the way I got tagged by Emelia. I have to mention 6 weird things about myself. This is not as easy as you would think. I asked Ted and was a little shocked by the reply; "that is not weird, why is that weird? well I never...!" Give me a few days on this one. By the way check out Emelia's blog, her clogs are awesome! She is very, very talented. New blog to lurk on (old me talking, of course I don't lurk anymore, I comment).

By the way I love the comments and emails I have received, thank you so much. I do appreciate them all.

.....by way of a yak.........

My Vogue Knitting has finally arrived!

The Holiday 2006 issue (not the latest one, that would be unthinkable). Only 2 months and one gentle reminder to Vogue that as a subscriber getting the actual magazine might be nice. It is a better track record than Interweave Knits. My first love is IK. That does not mean I don't appreciate a good read of Vogue. Now here is the weird thing I don't think I have ever knitted anything from Vogue and to be honest don't tend to even like anything between the pages. My reaction ranges from "I guess that is okay" to "what the hell are they thinking!". (Although there was one little shrug in a past issue that will be given its turn on the needles at some point - well once I can figure out the pattern directions, you know translate them to english from double dutch.) But they do stir a comment and that is what keeps me an active reader. Unlike many other (unnamed) magazines they are not "tired". They don't look as though they are stuck in the '90's. They have a point of view, yep not mine or anyone I know but still a point of view.

This issue did not disappoint. Is it possible their models are getting thinner, like scary thin! I had such hope after their last issue with an older (but still slim, it is Vogue after all) model, such hope that perhaps they were trying to make it "more real". As always I enjoyed the ads (scary isn't it), the articles and little bits of information scattered throughout the magazine.

Especially liked this ad....

And yes it is in black and white in the magazine. This one I don't get even a little bit, in fact I had a wee bit of a dry heave, followed by a giggle. Especially when I got to the bit "You'll look elegant season after season". Elegant wasn't the first word that came to mind.

The patterns in this issue were even less likely to ever be knitted. In fact there was not one that I even considered, even with much alteration.

Verdict: not worth the purchase price unless you are like me and just like to get it - just because. (Or you are about a size 0 and want to look like this year's fashion victim - you know, unless that)

Have you ever had a project around for so long that feels like part of the family.

Slightly annoying but still you feel a commitment to it. I have a project like that.

My feather and fan scarf.

It is made out of the lovely Artisan NZ Merino Laceweight. It is my warm up to a full on shawl.

Let me digress here a little. I have knitted lace before, in fact quite a lot of lace, in regular weight yarn. So I figured how hard would laceweight be. Ummm it is a tricky little buggar isn't it. I am doing a simple fan and feather and yet, oh and yet........

So I knit and knit and then I knit some more and here is the thing it doesn't get any longer. It keeps going away for a holiday until I can stand the sight of it again (wow this sounds more and more like family doesn't it!). It has come for another visit. I want to finish it - not because I actually plan to wear, I mean I might, but because I want to experience the magic. The magic that I have witnessed on blogs and heard about in the circles I run in. The magic of blocking. It is a crumpled little mess at the moment. I frequently crush it into still more of a crumple, you know so the transformation will be even more thrilling.

So back to the plot. Yes my warm up to a shawl. I am not made for shawls. I get cold easily and I don't see a shawl cutting it to be honest and it might lose something over a thick jumper (sweater to the rest of the world) and my fleece. The other thing is unlike the Amy Blatt lovely I am not elegant. Wish I was, have tried to be but lets just say it wasn't a good fit. I think you have a wee bit of elegant going on not to look silly in a shawl.

But how, how I ask you, how can I call myself a knitter and not have knitted a shawl.

See, now you see don't you.

Maybe I could pull it off. I have always wanted to be elegant. I have some lovely silk..................