Startitis and high fashion

I have a few things on the go right now. It is 32°C out, and forecast to be over 30° all week! So of course, I have to pick my knitting carefully. It's too hot for a wool scarf,  or a wool hat, so now there's this:

Yes, Kate Moss and I have much in common. This is a still from a movie about Vivienne Westwood. And I love the sweater!

I have some DK cotton yarn to use. I couldn't find anything like it on Ravelry, but I found this pattern, which has been on my shelf since the day it came out in 1987.

Big rectangles knitted on 8 mm needles. Really big rectangles. It was 1987, and a sweater 50 inches around was not out of the ordinary. Kate's isn't oversized at all.

And then there's Westknits' Loosey Goosey. Super oversized, knitted on 10 mm needles. 

I think I will more or less follow the pattern for the green sweater, so the holes are not ginormous, but I will add rows knitted with a much bigger needle, and I will add some dropped stitches here and there. And I have 4 different yarns, that oughta spice things up, too!

It won't really look like the one at the top, but I'm not Kate Moss, either.

Muffin Monday: Yogurt Bran

It seems like it's been a while since I made muffins, and we happened to have a litre of buttermilk in the fridge, and 2 kilos of frozen berries, so I gave these a go. Sort of this recipe, sort of that.

I have made these before; the page in the book is pretty splattered! It says it makes 2 dozen muffins, and my notes say 1 dozen regular and 1 dozen small. This time it made 3 dozen small and an 8-inch round cake! Who knows how these things work!

I used buttermilk instead of yogurt; the recipe calls for vegetable oil and as it happened I only had about 1/4 of a cup, so these are made with mostly olive oil; and I had no white flour, so they are all whole wheat.

My regular muffin pan was dirty because I just made some cloverleaf buns for a potluck party. (Very good, made the dough in the breadmaker!) I didn't think the paper muffin cups were quite the right size, so I sprayed the one pan and crossed my fingers and trusted the "no-stick" coating on the other. Bad move.

Some came out easily, but some didn't. There will be a lot of half-mini-muffins around here.

But tasty! And I think if one actually follows the recipe, they would be perfect!

A new hat

This has been Ascot Week, and the hats have been divine. Of course, people other than the royal family wear fantastic hats; I suggest the Daily Mail's coverage if you are interested!

So, I was looking at hats and knitting on a boring scarf. Of course, I put that aside to knit a hat! In perfect pond scum colours, from a dyer in town who was moving and had a big sale on her front porch.

I wasn't sure I had enough of that, so added a stripe of the green tweed I used to make Arthur's Harry Potter sweater in 2006. (OMG, those kids are so cute; where are they now?!)

That is terribly washed-out, sorry! It's a very long hat indeed.

Knitting and pond scum

I have a plan. I will knit maybe six of these strips and make a child's blanket.

I have 3 more full balls of heavy sock yarn, so I can just knit till that is gone and see what I have!

We are fully into the lazy, hazy days of summer. The garden is full of things -- amazing how they all just come up every spring and disappear in November. Magic!

Ornamental onion! Make me a yarn with all those colours.

Another colourway for yarn, please:

I walked up the hill today and around Wychwood Park. There was a house for sale, and an actual Open House today. I toyed with the idea of going in, but it was so far out of my price range I thought I'd get turned away by the butler or something! But it was across the street from the pond, which I do love. If I had $7-million, I'd certainly think about it.

Today the pond was covered with duck weed, and there was a turtle on a log, and the shadows and reflections were very nice indeed.

Eye Candy Friday

I am reminded that Friday is for Eye Candy.

Our peony doesn't really like the shady front yard, but it does try. It looks like we'll have a couple more flowers this year. It's a very good year for peonies around the neighbourhood and some bushes are weighed down with beautiful blooms!

Two big days

Last Thursday I did something I don't often do: I earned some money by working at a poll for the Ontario election.

I spent 14 hours, from 8 am to 10 pm, telling people which line to stand in.

Basically, that is all I did! I managed to sit as much as I could, but we were greeting people and waving our arms and so on, and lifting baby strollers and walkers up the little step, and my feet were killing me by the end of the day!

Our little poll voted overwhelmingly for the NDP, but overall the province went Conservative. I'm pretty sad about that. But it did give me the opportunity to make a couple of hundred dollars, days before we took a road trip to a fibre festival.

We drove to Fenelon Falls, Ontario, a small town north of Peterborough, a couple of hours' drive away. It was sort of a practice to seduce my friends into going to Rhinebeck in the fall.

This was the first year of this festival, the Kawartha Yarn and Fibre Festival. They set up in two gyms in the high school, and when we got there about 11 am, the place was jam-packed! Lots of independent dyers, almost all of whom were selling fingering weight wool/nylon blends and not much more. My friend bought some wool fresh off the sheep, browns and grey and white. Beautiful!

I bought Westknits Book 2, full of big, squishy sweaters of all shapes and sizes. Most of them are best made with odds and ends, scraps and bits. So I didn't feel compelled to buy yarn to make a specific sweater, but I did buy more than enough yarn for a shawl!

Four skeins of yarn: grey, green and two splotchy ones.

I might end up with a Parachutey, but only time will tell.

I also couldn't pass by the Studio Loo stall without stopping. I remember a few years ago this yarn was available in the shop up the street, but I could never figure out what to do with it! This time I didn't let that stop me, and I got 109 yards of bright yellow fun.

I knit it all up on one 10 mm needle and one 15 mm. The whole thing didn't take more than a few hours last night and today.

Muffin Monday a bit early: Marilyn's Blueberry

Tomorrow I am off to a fibre festival in quaint rural Ontario. At least I think it will be quaint, we must wait and see. The person who is driving said she would stop at a Tim Horton's for breakfast sandwiches, and I immediately felt I would be letting the side down badly if I did not appear with some home-baked goodies of some sort.

So I got out my trusty Muffins book and made Marilyn's Blueberry Muffins. Totally basic blueberry muffin recipe.

I have noted on the page to add a bit of cinnamon, but I forgot. I also like a bit of grated lemon rind in a blueberry muffin, but, alas, didn't add that either.

You add some flour and sugar to the blueberries before adding them to the batter, and I had thought that was to somehow prevent the batter from turning purple, but it certainly didn't work this time.

But, purple or not, they are quite delicious and will keep us sated on our road trip!