A Bluestocking Knits

Yes, We Have No Bananas

But we do have Monkeys!

These arrived yesterday from Specs of Specs Knits.  I fell in love with the colorway as soon as I opened the box --

Socks That Rock medium-weight in "Nodding Violet".  So gorgeous!  The blue is a little more vivid than I could capture, but still, this gives a pretty good idea.  Also in the package was a box of salt-water taffy (a perfect treat, as we missed it at the county fair this year!) and a postcard of the colonial kitchen at Cedar Grove at Fairmount Park -- not only an intriguing thing in itself, but also cleverly color-matched by Specs to the socks.

("That salt-water taffy sure looks good," Julia said with all the subtlety of a five-year-old.)

A few action shots before it gets to hot to even want to think about thick wool socks -- the beautifully-grafted toe --

and the fabulous swirly-swirls.  Thank you, Specs!

("So how's the taffy, Julia?" "Ih's guh--!" she said, appreciatively if somewhat incoherently.)

Thoughts on Knitting Olympic Gold (Ribbed Socks)

Finished the socks yesterday morning, and blocked them, although I couldn't help wearing them around the house for a few hours first.

As I've said, I used the sizing in Ann Budd's Handy Book of Patterns, which is set up perfectly to accommodate a variety of sizes, including my rather expansive feet -- I used the Men's L size for the width, shortened to the length of my own size eights.

The Cherry Tree Hill Supersock is lovely, very soft to work with, and it softened even more with the first wash.  It did turn the water quite blue, so I added a bit of vinegar to the rinse just in case.

As I mentioned before, I had to nudge the Spanish Moss' color shifts a little -- well, rather a lot, as it turned out.  After the third time of ripping the second sock down to the cast-on, I decided that slipping a purl stitch now and then (thereby gaining a millimeter or two of color) was enough to keep the pink lightning-bolt effect at bay.  This had the disadvantage of loosening the ribbing slightly, and making the whole thing look just a bit knobbly, but it did help the color shifts marvellously.  It doesn't match the first sock -- and I just let it go after turning the heel, so the two feet are quite different, but I've decided to look at this as a quirk, not a flaw!

To use an Olympic metaphor -- and why not? -- the first sock was like speed skating, as it raced smoothly around the curves and straightaways, and the second sock was like curling, with lots of frantic sweeping back-and-forth to get the thing to go where I wanted it.

So Sock Team USA and Team Ann Budd cross the finish line with a flourish! and here is a celebratory seed cake for Team Tea --

Seed Cake

2 cups/225g flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup/175g butter, at room temperature, plus extra for the pan
3/4 cup/175g sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup/75ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 teaspoons caraway seeds
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
a dash of mace

Preheat the oven to 350° F/180° C.  Butter and flour an 8 1/2-inch/18cm loaf pan or an 8-inch/18cm round cake pan, or butter and line the pan with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour and baking powder.  Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs, one at a time.  Gradually stir in the flour, mixing carefully.  Add the milk and vanilla, then the caraway seeds and spices.  (The batter will be heavy.)

Pour into the prepared pan, and smooth the top.  Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Makes 1 loaf or 1 round cake.  This is a lovely, rather dense cake, very popular with the Victorians although versions of it have been around since at least the 16th century.  Caraway seeds may seem a strange choice to those of us who are more used to that taste in pickles, but here the spices combine with the seeds to make a cake that is rich but not overly sweet.  Spread the slices with butter, if you like, or eat them plain, with tea whenever possible.

Men's Finals, Second Sock

This is the first Olympics in a while that I've actually gotten to watch a lot of the events -- an added benefit of the Knitting Olympics!  Last night was the finals of the men's figure skating.  Of course NBC saved that until the very last, so I was up until 11:30.  (I must wonder aloud here why NBC went to all the trouble of getting the great Dick Button to do commentary on the skating and then put three other commentators with him.  I don't have anything against the others, but are four really necessary?!)

This fellow, Evgeni Plushenko of Russia,

was the favorite to win, and he did eventually, but I must confess that my sympathies were elsewhere.  It's hard to find fault with someone who says that he owes everything to his mom and dad, but I would rather watch the skaters who dance as well as skate, who are actually listening to their music as they skate, who don't just "connect the dots," as one of the commentators said.  Plushenko was good, obviously, but he didn't thrill me.  I'm lucky in that I can be completely subjective -- I don't have to make my "judgements" according to the rules book, I can give good marks to costumes as well as skating, I don't have to pick just one winner! 

There's a lot of flash on the ice in the men's competition this year.  Johnny Weir had a beautiful short program, with lovely lines as in this sit spin,

but unfortunately he lost a lot of steam in the long program and turned in a disappointing performance.  This --

is not a very flattering photograph of Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland, but there was not a better one at Torino 2006 (I like to credit the photos that I snatch off the internet, so am collecting these all from the same source for that reason).  I confess that my heart skipped a little beat whenever he was on, although Stephane, Stephane, the tiger costume thing, oh dear!  Still, he did skate very well, with interesting choreography albeit inconsistent in execution.

Lambiel won the silver, and Jeffrey Buttle of Canada got the bronze medal --

another who seemed to actually enjoy what he was doing on the ice, to skate as if he loved it and felt it in his heart as well as doing the required moves (fellow Canadian Shawn Sawyer will also be one to watch in coming years).

Matthew Savoie of the United States placed only seventh in the final standings, but will I hope go far in men's skating -- he has a very elegant form and presentation, very graceful to see.

And in knitting news, I started the second sock again.  I really want to love these socks, and even my indulgent eye thought that the flashing was too much.  I rewound what remained in the ball and started again from the other end, but the flashing was pretty much the same -- I tried wrapping the yarn twice on a purl stitch now and then, but ended up with a kind of checkerboard -- I pulled the whole thing out and started a third time about two inches further along in the color scheme.  There is still some pooling, but it is not as obvious, as the teals and pinks don't line up quite as much as they did before.  I had thought that I would just "let the yarn be", and not try to force it one way or another, but I might just nudge it a little....

Socks and Skates

Well, lots of drama on the ice last night in Torino -- an apparently disastrous fall by this couple, Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao of China, when she crashed onto the ice and hobbled off, only to come back on again a few minutes later, bloody but unbowed, and finish their long program.  I confess that I had tears in my eyes, watching her get up and go back on.  Very courageous.

The Russian pair, Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin, had survived a rather spectacular fall themselves, when in August last year he had lost control during a lift and dropped her so hard that she suffered a severe concussion -- my heart went out to him, as NBC showed the clips of him skating over to her as she lay unconscious on the ice, and him talking later about losing his confidence, and the months-long struggle to regain it.

The Russians eventually won the gold medal last night, with Zhang and Zhang surprising pretty much everyone and getting the silver (ruffling a few Russian feathers in the process).

For myself, I was leaning towards this pair, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China, who came in third, who seemed to have a nice rapport with each other (despite the completely unmatched costumes)

(Photos from Torino 2006, with more stories to be found there as well.)

There is a handy little guide to pairs skating here, from the BBC, bless 'em.

As for me, I turned the heel of the first sock on Sunday night, and to my surprise did the whole foot yesterday!

The colors are lovely indeed, rich and ever-changing.  I had prepared myself for the fact that I might have to rip out the toe and adjust the fit, as I've heard so many knitters talk about, but this was perfect the very first time.  I am so pleased with it that I just had to make a new button --

for those who are knitting an Ann Budd pattern for the Knitting Olympics, or, gosh, who just admire the woman!

My first sock might not get high marks for execution (to carry on the Olympic metaphor) -- I put sewing thread in the heel as suggested, but had a tendency to hold it looser than the wool, so it pooches out here and there, and I completely forgot it at the toe, and my grafting is a bit, well, humorous at the end.  But I am still very pleased with it.  I can see why sock knitting fascinates so many people!

I'm a little embarrassed at the average everydayness, the sock-ness, of the project I chose for these Knitting Olympics.  These socks are nothing that requires the kind of preparation and fortitude that some do, Estonian shawls, Fair Isles, complicated Norwegian cardigans, and so on.  I've been knitting for a long time, but have always passed on socks, "too complicated" and "too fiddly" I guess (which is funny, really, when you consider that usually I love complicated and fiddly things, I'm a library cataloger through and through, after all) -- and so, inspired by the Yarn Harlot's confidence in all of us knitters, this is my project, albeit a modest one.  In a way, Stephanie is Bjørn Dæhlie and I'm Philip Boit, the Kenyan cross-country skiier who never really had a serious chance of medalling in '98 but plugged away anyway, and made it to the finish line long after everyone else, with Dæhlie there to greet him with open arms, for the love of their sport.

Tea's Up

Sorry, sorry, forgot where I was for a moment -- "Let the Games begin!"

I cast on yesterday afternoon -- needed some time to myself with this Old Norwegian cast-on, which still looks a bit wonky, but I knitted on the sock proper during the Opening Ceremonies.  I'm liking the colors a lot -- a lovely mix of teal green, almost-navy, periwinkle, and deep rose-pink, with the different combinations where the colors blur.  These are my first socks!  I'm using Ann Budd's sock shaping, with a K3, P1 rib.

Here is one of my favorite recipes for scones, this one from Shepherds Tea Rooms in Chichester --

Shepherds' World-Famous Scones

3 cups/450g self-rising flour
1/2 cup/100g sugar
1/2 cup/50g chilled butter, cut into bits
1 1/2 cups/225g dried apricots, chopped
3/4 cup/150ml milk, plus extra for glazing

Preheat the oven to 350° F/175° C.

In a bowl, sift the flour and sugar together.  Add the butter, and blend with your fingers or a pastry blender until it resembles coarse meal.  Stir in the dried apricots.

Add the milk, a little at a time, and stir until the mixture forms a soft but not sticky dough.  Add a little more milk, if necessary.  On a lightly-floured surface, roll out the dough about 1 1/2 inches/4cm thick.  With a 2-inch/5cm cookie or biscuit cutter, stamp out rounds.  Gently roll the scraps together, and repeat until all of the dough is shaped.

Transfer the rounds to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (butter the baking sheet if you don't have any parchment), brush the tops with milk, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until lightly golden and the bottoms sound hollow when tapped.

Makes about 12 scones.

Knitting Olympics

Here we are, all geared up for the Knitting Olympics to start this evening!  Oh, yes, and the real Olympics, too --

(Photo from Torino 2006.)

I must say, I'm looking forward to both.  I've been an armchair athlete ever since the glory days of "Wide World of Sports", and enjoy watching a wide variety of the winter games, although I confess a partiality to figure skating.

In the spirit of pin-trading, the Knitting Olympics folks are making and exchanging blog buttons right and left, and here are some that I've collected --

This one is from Jessica at Rose-Kim Knits, who is obviously "proud supplier of blog buttons to the United States Knitting Olympic Team",

and this one is from Sarah (who helpfully adds, "it actually means 'The Olympic Contests/ Games of Those Who Knit' or 'Those Who Make Loops With Rope'", for those of us with little Latin and less Greek).

For those of us Welsh in blood and/or spirit, there is Team Wales ("teem cuhmrih" or "cuhmree"),

and this one, lest we take ourselves too seriously (as if!), is Team Tea from Elizabeth at KittyCafe.

And my own little contribution, in honor of the unexpectedly large number of Jeannes entered --