purlsandmurmers

1+1 = 1

I finally started to tackle the pile of things that I thought had potential after the closet clean-out.  

First up:  two identical light gray cotton turtlenecks.  They are a basic, kind of beefy, cotton knit.  I love the color, the softness of the fabric and the weight, but the turtlenecks themselves had some problems.  First of all the sleeves have shrunk over time and are too short.  Secondly the tops are two short and they are a bit on the boxy side.  They must be several years old, back when 21" tops were more fashionable, and I can't wear them with jeans unless I wear some kind of under-layer.  Wait, the turtlenecks are supposed to be my under-layer.

I couldn't get a photo without a cat, so this is the best I could do.  At least the cat wasn't lying on the top, hiding it from view.

Basically the plan was to cut off the turtleneck and make a lower scoop neckline.  I also needed to lengthen the turtleneck so the second top was being used for fabric to extend the length of the first top.    

I found a top whose neckline I liked and traced that to the gray fabric with chalk.  I also  traced a bit of shaping into the side seams as the old turtlenecks were a little bit too big and boxy.  I did not do anything to the shoulders or sleeves, other than shorten the sleeve just a wee tad to make them more manageable pushed up to the elbow.

At first I had hoped this would go with Mine, but it is too light of a shade, and the fabric is too heavy and casual.  I also thought I would make a wide neckband on the new top, but as I started thinking about the top and what I would actually wear it with, I realized that I wanted a fairly long top, something like tunic length, and if I cut off that much fabric from the spare turtleneck, I would not have enough to cut the matching pieces for a faced wide neckline, so I opted for a simple narrow band at the neck.

I just cut the hem off the first top, since I was going to be lengthening it anyway, and as I did so I realized that the sewn up hem band would be perfect for my neckline.  Then I measured and cut the bottom off the second turtleneck to increase the length on the finished top.

It is not perfect but I like this a lot and will wear it, which is more than I can say about the original turtlenecks, which had lived beyond their usefulness.  It is a little loose through the upper chest but it is manageable.  I also made it longer than I originally intended; I don't really know what I was thinking when I cut the top but I suppose I am happy that I didn't cut it too short.  I considered taking the bottom piece off and sewing it up again, but decided against that.  I think I like this just the way it is.

Meme part 2

When I posted about the Premium Meme Award that Materfamilias so generously passed on to me, I was a bit distracted with the mental reconfiguring of my random thoughts into this blog and was somehow interrupted in process.  I meant to pass the blog on to seven other blogs but as I mentioned, I was a little unfocused at that time, so I reneged on the obligation.  

Now that I have caught up with my senses again I would like to pass the award on to seven other bloggers whose blogs I find distinctive and enjoyable (which means all of you I read, but I must limit myself to 7).

Remember, the rules are:   "list 7 of your personality traits, as evidenced on your blog, and then pass the award on to 7 other blogs with notable personality."

My choices are, in no particular order:

La Belette Rouge

The Furry Mind: Musings at Cat Fur Studio

K-Line

Hungry Zombie Couture

Diary of a Sewing Fanatic

3 Sleeves to the Wind

Bad Mom, Good Mom

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Those vegetables that we think of as "summer vegetables" are finally showing up in my local farmer's markets, and to a very small extent in my garden.  I didn't really get much planted in the garden this year, so the low yield is not surprising.

Tomatillos are plentiful now, so I have made my first batch of tomatillo salsa.  I usually make two kinds when the fresh ripe tomatillos are plentiful, and either can or freeze them for future use.  Now that mexican markets are more common, I can get tomatillos all year, but the winter tomatillos are never as nice as those fresh off the vine, so I still put some away for the depths of winter. 

Sunday I made roasted tomatillo salsa.

First you pull the lovely papery wrapper off the tomatillos. Then I roast them under the broiler until they are brown in spots and soft, but have not yet burst; you don't want to loose much of the lovely juice. Remove tomatillos from heat and allow to cool.

I also roasted some peppers and garlic cloves.  This can be one on a griddle, or under a broiler; if you are using a broiler however, be careful to watch carefully so that you don't burn anything.    I used a combination of serrano chiles and jalapenos, as that is what I had available, although generally I prefer serranos in this salsa.

Jalapenos are producing now locally but the serrano season is a non-starter.  By the time the nights got warm enough to set fruit, the days were already growing too short, and unlike jalapenos, serranos are not daylight neutral. I didn't plant jalapenos, and my serranos and chiles de árbol are not likely to produce unless I dig them up, pot them, bring them indoors and hand polinate them.  I've done it before.

But back to the salsa.  We don't make a particularly hot salsa, and the number of peppers depends on the type of pepper, and the heat of the individual peppers as well.  For example usually jalapenos grown here are not as hot as those grown further south in Texas, where I grew up.   I used 2 serranos and 2 jalapenos for each pound of tomatillos along with 3 cloves of garlic.  Leave the papery peel on the garlic and leave the chiles whole.  You want to cook the chiles until they are blackened in spots, and soft, about 5 minutes on a griddle.  The garlic will take a little longer, 10 to 15 minutes.  You want the papery peel to be dry and brown and falling off the garlic with dark spots and the garlic to be soft and beginning to turn golden.

Using rubber gloves, remove the stems and seeds from the peppers and the peel from the garlic.  Throw the peppers and garlic into a blender jar or food processor along with the cooled tomatillos and any juice.  Add about a teaspoon of salt per pound of tomatillos.  Pulse or blend until everything has formed a coarse textured puree.  

Mince a small white onion (for 1 pound of tomatillos) and stir it into the puree.  Taste the salsa.  You might need to add a small amount of sugar to round out any bitter flavors.  Add sugar in small 1/2 teaspoon increments.  You don't want a sweet salsa, you just want to take the edge off the flavor if necessary. 

If you are going to use the salsa right away I would also add cilantro, about a generous quarter-cup, but since I am saving this salsa for use later in the week and freezing the rest, I left it out.  The cilantro does not freeze well and loses its fresh flavor.  Since it is always available it is better to add it just before serving or using the salsa.  This salsa is also rather thick, and it keeps better in this form.  If you want to use this right away as a dipping sauce for chips, you will probably need to add some water, probably 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup to thin 2 cups of salsa.

One pound of tomatillos will yield about 2 cups of salsa. 

I freeze this salsa as the canning process changes the flavor and raw onion is not safe for water-bath canning.  It keeps well in the freezer stored in one or two cup containers.

New, New, New! Mine, Jeans, and Doubts.

After a week, more than a week(?) of interruptions, chores, distractions, and other obsessions, I finally returned to Mine yesterday.  

In the end, sewing on the beads was the least of it.  I spent far more time coming to terms with the actual sweater and my own feelings about it.  

It is not that I don't love the sweater, I do, in some abstract sense.  I love the sweater when it is lying flat on the table (shown here immediately after sewing and unblocked).  I love the drape and the texture and the pretty beads.  It was only when I started to try to wear the sweater that my dreams ran smack dab into a wall of reality and the results were not exactly pretty.  

First of all, I realize now that some of my dreams of Mine were purely in my imagination.  I envisioned something, but I was ignoring certain clues.  I wanted to wear the sweater in a certain way.  I pictured it with a certain type of top, over a certain pair of pants I own,  I probably also imagined said sweater being worn by a certain idealized version of myself which is not particularly compatible with the person who looks back from my mirror.  

I  wanted to wear this top layered with a longer tee underneath.  When I tried it on, before sewing on the beads, this was possible, and not at all surprising as I had read the schematics in the pattern book and had a good idea where the sweater length would hit on me.  But I was not thinking about the visual evidence from the pattern photo. 

Notice how long the openings are at the neckline and the arm.  Notice the length of the sweater on the model.  There is a good bit of length and drape on that sweater.  And the weight of the beads definitely  add to this length.  The body of the sweater itself is unchanged, but the beads do cause the neckline and armholes to hang down from the weight.

I am not really complaining about that, I like the look.  But the added length changes the entire length of the sweater, and I did not fully take that into consideration.  At first I considered shortening it, but as I tried on outfit after outfit yesterday afternoon I realized, slowly, that the problem was more with my "idea" of the sweater than with the sweater itself.  The solution is obviously to find a way to wear the actual sweater, not the virtual sweater that lived in my head.

My original plans for Mine were a dismal failure.  Then began the long process of finding something that did work.  Many outfits, and hundreds of photos later, this is what I came up with.

I'll just start out by saying that the intended pants-to-wear-with-Mine, were a failure, so then my next project was to see what might work.  I was still running the idea of a tee as an under-layer through my brain.   That proved problematic as well.

First of all, most of my knit tops have the wrong neckline to wear with this sweater, as you can see in the photos on the lower left and upper right.  I need a deeper scoop on the neckline, and a longer tee.  To be long enough to peek below Mine, a tee would have to be 30 inches (long torso) which means I would have to make it, not in and of itself a problem, but I am still cautious about whether I would actually like the finished result.  Of course I could make a long tee, and if I didn't like it just cut it shorter.

Of the tee-based looks.  I think the black outfit is best.  Although you can't see it well here, I still think a little touch of the under-layer peeking beneath the sweater would be better.  The jeans look is questionable, and I doubt even a long tee would help, although it might if it were a loose, soft tee with drape. 

The jeans are also new, you can see the label peeking out in the bottom photo, and I was trying to figure out if this is a look that works for me, or if they are getting shipped back to the store on Monday.  The fit is good, which surprised me, and G loves them.  I am inclined to think that my rear-end is still a bit too ample for these jeans, although the top look, with the crisp shirt is much better.

I think the two looks with the shirt look much better with Mine.  I took my inspiration from the pattern photo, which is shown with a cotton blouse or shirt.  I didn't have anything appropriate in my closet so I borrowed one of G's shirts for this shoot.  It is a bit big through the shoulders and long in the sleeves,  but I think it worked well here.

I like the picture with the shirt and the flare leg jeans best.  The wider pants and heels make my legs look longer, and I am perhaps more comfortable with the more covered, less fitted look.  But I wonder if perhaps it is just a bit too baggy and my preference for this look speaks more to my own body-image issues than to how it actually looks.  The look with the jeans definitely gives more of a sense that there is a person under all that fabric. Of course the rolled up jeans and the long shirt do nothing to lengthen my legs, but I do like the jeans better with the longer top, and I like the spirit of this look even if I am undecided as to whether I can pull it off.  I am wondering if showing some shape is better than shapeless with long legs.  I need to think about this a little more.

In the end it is too hot to wear Mine now that summer has finally arrived.  I think the best solution is to let it sit in my closet until fall comes around and then decide what works best.  Maybe by then my efforts at exercise will have gotten beyond just trying to build up stamina and have yielded some body-image enhancing results.

Curious Cat

Moisés the apprentice photographer:

Fall Knitting Magazines: Vogue and Interweave

The fall Vogue Knitting and Interweave Knits arrived a while ago and I have been taking my time looking at them and making up my mind.  Both magazines had designs that intrigued me at first glance, but which didn't measure up the more I looked at them.

The scoop pullover, shown here, was the first thing that caught my eye in the Interweave knits and it is still my favorite design from this issue.  It is quite likely that I have a suitable worsted wool in my stash.  I can get the Blue Sky Alpaca yarn easily, but as I said, I am confident there is something here that will work well, and I am not convinced that I really want this sweater in an alpaca blend.  It seems that there is a lot of alpaca yarn running round right now and I seem to have ended up with quite a few alpaca blend sweaters, soft and light yes, but sometimes too warm, even as my system is cooling down again.

I also like this little top, called the Slanting Gretel Tee.  Wool shells have always been one of those things that I tell myself I should knit more of, because I actually do wear them in the winter, under jackets, and sometimes layered, as shown here with turtlenecks.  This looks like a good versatile piece and a fun knit as well.

There are other interesting patterns here, some socks, a cute hat or two, but nothing that really speaks to me.  Well, the socks perhaps, but really I am so content with simple self-striping socks. When I knit my first pair of socks I probably said I never wear socks and although that may have been true at the time it has not held up as I do find myself wearing socks now, just as I find myself living in jeans although a few years ago I didn't own a single pair.

Never say never, I suppose.

As for the Vogue Knitting.  It too has two patterns I am interested in knitting.

This fabulous cable cardigan is classic but with just enough interest due to the horizontal cables at the wrist and hip.  This should be fun to knit and wear.  Since the original is knit in one of my favorite yarns, Filatura di Crosa's Zara, I will probably even use the recommended yarn for this.  Hmm, I have some Zara.  I wonder what I originally planned on doing with it.

The other sweater that caught my eye is this sweater with the open work pattern at the neckline, creating a jewelry effect that is quite lovely.  The sweater itself is quite simple and I would think it would look best in a yarn with a nice drape, which is perfect as the original is knit in bamboo.  I haven't used that particular yarn, but I've knit with enough bamboo to think this simple shape would be perfect in that fiber.

In mid July I decided it was time to start exercising again.  Oh, I had thought about it before that, but in July I finally set my mind to it and actually started.  I had stopped sometime after G had started with his various troubles, about 2 summers ago, when it seemed that I would get to the gym and my cell phone would ring and I would need to go home.  I could no longer walk along the trail near my house because I could not get home in a hurry if I was a mile or two away.  I stopped exercising at home because I seemed to be interrupted every 15 minutes.  

I know, one can exercise in 15 minute intervals, but it really wasn't working for me.  I just gave up.

But this summer I was just tired of being tired.  I want my stamina back, my energy back, and truthfully I wouldn't mind if the exercise helped me take off a few more pounds, but mostly I am just tired of being slow, weak and tired.

I finally managed to wean myself off the antihistamines in early July as well, after a 7 month battle with hives.   Without medications that made me tired and groggy, or hives that made my feet swell and itch, exercise also seemed like a more promising option.   I started slowly, and not perhaps as regularly as I should have.  I skipped a few days when my step-son was here, partially because of scheduling issues, partly because of a couple of minor gluten incidents which brought back the hives, although I caught them early and dealt with them efficiently.  That was my punishment for going along with something I did not think was a good idea just to  be sociable and be a good hostess.  Lesson (hopefully) learned.

Since the end of July though I have been more motivated and more determined to really stick to a schedule and push myself, exercising every day, because I know myself and know that if I allow myself to slack off now, before I am fully settled back into a routine, I will just continue to slack off.  It was not always easy and I was often tired, falling into bed at night in complete exhaustion.

And then sometime last week something changed.  I started feeling a little more energetic.  I started feeling a little calmer.  I started sleeping fewer hours, but far more soundly.  At first I just couldn't go to sleep at night.  I would be up until midnight, 1 or 2 AM and wide awake at 7.    I kept telling myself that I needed to sleep more, although I obviously didn't; and I would get frustrated that I couldn't go to sleep earlier.  One night, when G was particularly grumbly about my being up all night, I made myself go to bed at 11.  I was awake at 5.  It was dark out.  I was not happy.

But then I suddenly realized that I could work out early, before breakfast, and if I got up at  5 or 5:30 I could get an entire long workout in before G woke up.  I could even do an exercise tape or weight work without an audience or interruption.  Suddenly I was eager to get up early and watch the sun rise.  Suddenly, I was starting to have energy again.  

I still have a long way to go, but I am seeing progress and it makes me want to go further and do more.  I am reaching a point where it is easier to make myself exercise even when I don't want to do it.   I am not yet strong, and I have a long way to go with the weights.  I don't think I am up for my old loop around the Vanderbilt Estate, which is 3 3/4 miles round trip from my front door, and G isn't quite comfortable with my being out of touch, yet.  But I am walking, and riding the exercise bike, and my knees are thanking me.  And I have started strength training again.  

I am not sure that I will always sleep 5 1/2 to 6 hours a night, but I am happy now as it is making the process easier for me.  For many years after I went through menopause I slept 6 hours a night most nights.  Actually I would go through 2 or 3 weeks of 6 hour nights, and then 2 to 3 days of 8 or 9 hour nights and repeat the cycle.  I can't say I would object to that cycle should it recur.  But mostly I am just happy because I feel my focus coming back.  And that really is a good thing.

  

Meme

I posted the following meme on Dooney's world today.  It was my last post.

The lovely and charming Materfamilias has bestowed me with the Premium Meme Award the rules of which are to "list 7 of your personality traits, as evidenced on your blog, and then pass the award on to 7 other blogs with notable personality."

Truthfully, I am intrigued and puzzled by the meme, rather confounded by what I shall find, and indeed, if the things I see exposed in the blog are the same things that my readers see, as I don't think I have ever been particularly good at perceiving how others see me either here, or in real life, where I have less control over what parts of my personality are put n display.  This is the part of my personality I would call oblivious, but I don't think it is particularly well displayed on my blog, or at least I hope not.

So, here is my list:

1.  Introspective.

2.  Observant.

3. Sentimental.  Not that I am particularly sentimental about things, but that I am interested in the sentiments and feelings that situations or events produce, sentimental in terms of being preoccupied with sentiments, feelings, and emotions.

4.  Analytical, especially self-analytical.

5. Loquacious (sorry Mater, I am stealing this from you) as I tend to go on and on.

6. Superficial.

7.  Self-contained.  I was actually torn here between self-contained, introverted, or hidden, as aspects of all of these are in evidence on Dooney's world, and in my life.  Although I attempt to be very honest about the things I write about, one gets a very limited view of a life through this blog, and yet one also gets a pretty  complete view of certain aspects of this life.

I don't believe the character traits that were evidenced on Dooney's World were the same traits in view here or at SewDistracted, but I could be wrong.  Since I am in blog transition, I feel that my answers are somewhat inconsistent.

I am supposed to pass this meme on to 7 other bloggers but it isn't going to happen.  I have been rather absent from blog land of late and I am reluctant to foist a meme on  someone whose blog I have been rather erratic at following.   The truth is that my unsettled feelings about my own blogs have spilled over into my blog reading, my thoughts running something like: "how can I comment and participate when I don't even know what I am doing." Now of course I also think "who should I send the meme to", since many blogs I used to read, and will read again, would not recognize this place.

Obviously, I still think to much.

Blue Sky Cropped Turtleneck

G thought I had lost my mind this morning when he saw me donning dark jeans, a turtleneck, and then a heavy alpaca sweater.  If I had planned on wearing this outfit outside I would have said he was correct.  

But I just wanted a photograph.  Even in air-conditioned house, it is too warm now for heavy alpaca sweaters.

I am very happy with the way this has turned out.  I knew I wanted the sweater to be a little more close-fitting than it is shown in the pattern (shown here,  in yellow, scroll down the page) and I definitely did not want loose floppy sleeves.  There was also a yarn issue, but that worked out okay.  I have about half a skein left.

The Blue Sky  Alpaca does not have the same depth of stitch definition as the Cascade yarn called for in the pattern.  As it is alpaca, it will also probably grow somewhat with wear, hopefully not too much in the sleeve length though.

Pattern:  #2 Cropped Turtleneck in Vogue Knitting Winter 2008/2009 designed by Leena Sullivan.

Besides narrowing the sleeves, I added three or four rows to the bottom ribbing.  I definitely wanted a cropped length, but had a little trouble determining what was ideal.  I think this worked out well.  I almost made it longer, but I think I would have lost the effect.  An inch or two longer and it would just look short, as if I didn't have enough yarn, whereas here it looks intentionally cropped.

Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca Bulky Hand Dyes in color #1213, almost 10 skeins.

And now, back to more seasonable sweaters.

A new purpose

A lot has happened since I started this blog in March of 2005.  I suppose we all grow and change with time, and yet it seems like 2005 was a lifetime ago.  In March 2007 we learned that my beloved had lung cancer and our lives changed completely, before we were even completely aware of what was happening.  Several health crises later, this summer has been the calm where we reclaim our lives, where we finally begin the retirement we thought we were starting two years ago.  We are still discovering what this new stage will bring, we are still discovering if this is another period of quiet before the storm, or if perhaps the calm will settle in for a while.

I have been using the time exploring various creative interests and also catching up, slowly oh so slowly, on the many many things I let slide over the past two years.  So much sliding was going on around here that it is fully possible that, had we not shored up the deck and the pool that was sliding down the cliff to the house below, the weight of all my unfinished obligations might have pitched us over the edge.  But we learned that there is more steel and concrete in this family than just that which holds the newly rebuilt deck and pool in place.

I have been knitting and sewing, and I have several finished projects that are finished or nearly finished, but I have also felt a certain miasma concerning my blogs.  It has not been that I don't want to write.  I write daily in my journal.  I think of blog posts and yet they never materialize.  I am not the person I was in 2005.  At one point my life seem fragmented, so fragmented that I felt broken into a thousand tiny pieces.  There were pieces of my life that seemed held together by the presence of the blogs.  But now the blogs themselves seem fragmented, no longer offering a true reflection.  Each of my blogs started with a clear purpose and framework. At the time they worked.  But this structure, and the very existence of multiple blogs no longer works for me.  I need to find a way to integrate my blogs into my life, not fragment my life into my blogs.

But how to begin?

Oddly enough it came to me while I cleaned out the china cabinet this weekend.  It had been a long time, since before G's first bout with illness, before the lung cancer, and it was desperately in need. The glass front of the cabinet was cloudy and smudged, the glass shelves harbored a layer of dust, the glassware itself was dull and lifeless, much the way I felt my life had become until very recently: dull, lifeless and full of dust.  

So Saturday night, late, I covered the table in plastic and towels, brought out a couple of large basins of water and set to work.  It was the kind of task that I put off because it seems like such drudgery, and yet once begun I savour the process.  After removing everything from the cabinet I dusted and polished the wood, removed the glass shelves and polished them until they shone, and the cabinet was there waiting to be populated, fresh and shiny and like new.

As I cleaned everything and put it back, I started reflecting on the history of the pieces and how they reflect our lives, our families, our history.  There is the very modern scandinavian china we chose and still love and the large contemporary hand thrown plates with the silver and black rims we purchased when we threw an engagement party for G's daughter.  There is the lovely silver chalice given to us by G's aunt Hilda on our wedding day, the chalice that was given to her grandparents on their wedding day in 1866.  I thought of Aunt Hilda as I polished that chalice and looked at the faded photo of her grandfather that remains on the cup.  Aunt Hilda's cup shares the cabinet with my grandmothers water goblets, my great-grandmother's china and my great-aunt's china.  I felt like I was in the presence of these women as I dipped the plates and glasses in water and gently dried them with piles of linen towels.  A couple of Vaseline glass plates from my grandmother became  collection of uranium glass, accumulated slowly over the years.  The yellow-green glass looks beautiful in front of the plates that G's grandmother brought with her from Austria, one of the few family possessions that survived the move.  There are the champagne flutes I don't even like, but which were given me by two old dear friends, now both deceased,  who I feel are with us in spirit every time we use the glasses.  All of these things coexist harmoniously in this cabinet, each contributing another piece to the puzzle of what makes us who we are.

As I listened to my murmuring thoughts it occurred to me that as old and new live in the china cabinet, all my ruminations, thoughts, and passions can live in the words of this blog, and it is this blog that is the perfect place for me now. 

When I started writing Purls and Murmurs in 2005 I chose the name because I love the way my mind can wander when I am knitting, and the way the word purl can function as a noun or a verb, thereby fitting all my purposes.  And yet somewhere I had left the purling of my thoughts and behind and let the blog become a repository of plans, patterns, and finished objects and not a place of dreams and reflections.

Here I will continue to write about knitting.  But I will also write about my sewing and gardening and whatever else catches my fancy.  If you come here only for the knitting  I hope you will not be too disappointed, but I had almost forgotten that I am writing this blog (once these blogs) for me.  I hope you will join me.  

As to the archives of Dooney's world and Sewdistracted, for now they will continue on in their current locations for now.  I see that I have much to learn and I hope to be able to create a place here where all the archives of all three blogs can exist in one place.