I got it!!!

So while everybody was being drowned by the Snowpocalypse this weekend, I was fretting as to what to make with my wonderful new Wollmeis that came in the mail on friday.



The colors are gorgeous! Limone was exactly what I expected, but Terra was a lot truer to the name then the picture I'd seen. Which is good for the yarn, but bad for the shawl I wanted to make with both of them. Oh well, back to the pattern archives!

The yarn is quite thin, as sock yarn is want to be, and very intimidating. I want to make something lacy, and really want to actually design it, but I get lost looking at books and charts and am way too scared to ever commit to anything.

Oh! I managed to reap one of the benefits of having a programmer for a roommate. He fixed my blog! It is now the red I wanted, and wide enough to fit two pictures side by side ^_^
Maybe someday I can get the text justified :/

[FO] Evergreen neck triangle

Pattern: Evergreen, by Kristin LeMoine
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Pure Silk in 27009 (lavender)
Needles: US 6 / 4.0 mm
Completed: January 28, 2010
Notions: five wire wrapped amethyst beads, chained together, to be used as a scarf pin



The main reason Fer and I met up in NYC, was because our other friend, Pili, has been working at Disneyworld this year and came up to see the snow. It's funny that the Snowpocalypse hit this same weekend, but only a few flurries actually made it that far northeast.



So, in my undying NEED to knit people gifts, I played hooky that thursday and knit her a neck scarf triangle thing in about 12 hours, with a total of 6 pattern repeats, and had a whole 6" left over after binding off! And, holy shit, I even blocked it! Which was completely pointless, because it was silk and had no memory. But I felt like a Big Girl ^_^

It was so odd, yet nice to work with the silk, and the pattern was very easy and intuitive, and can be scaled to desired dimensions. I didn't like the 3st garter border, but that can easily be changed for future iterations.

[FO] Low Cal

Pattern: calorimetry, minus half the rows
Yarn: my handspun Merino in Mustard and Raspberry, purchased at Pennsic 2008, poorly fractal plied, about sport weight
Needles: US 8 / 5.0 mm
Completed: January 31, 2010
Notions: 2 1" buttons

I met up with my bestest friend from high school this weekend in NYC, and found the NEED to make her something. It was originally going to be made out of a (now I know is absolutely nasty) pink wool yarn I bought, but thought to ask what her favorite color was before making it. She said yellow. Well, I know half of what she owns is pink, and I didn't have any yellow yarn, but I did have roving in mustard and raspberry colors that I had bought a year and a half ago, that should probably get some use out of, so I spun some up.

My original idea was to fractal ply it (your first ply is half of your color A roving, and then half of your color B, and your second ply is the first 1/4 A, then 1/4 B, then 1/8 A, 1/8 B, 1/16 A, 1/16 B... etc. until you are sick of splitting your leftover roving in half), but DEX was my throwaway stat, and must have botched my skill: craft roll, that my two plies were different lengths and the thickness got progressively more consistent (but very much not at first).



I ended up with about 50 yards of yarn, that knit up nice and quick into a Calorimetry. I only did the first 12 rows before turning back, managing to make it about 3" wide. It also works as a neck warmer. And I think that what Fer liked the most was the button I used >.<

I also need to learn how to better instruct my roommate in taking pictures of my FO's, not me.

Pozole!

Pozole is a traditional Mexican soup, commonly consisting of a pig-head and dried red pepper stock. It stains like a mofo, but is ever so good!

***WARNING***

At the bottom of this post I will be including pictures of the pig head. And my crazy friends posing with it.


The recipe itself was quite simple. You simmer 20 chiles for a while, blend them up, and pour into a 5 gal stock pot with a couple of onions and garlic and herbs, and a 15 lb head. Simmer for several hours, remove meat from head, remove fat from meat, and serve meat and stock with hominy, radish slices, minced onion and tostadas.

As with many great soups, it tasted decent on Saturday, but I can't wait for it to sit a couple of days and let the flavor mature!

Now for the adventure. There is always an adventure when I cook.

After a couple of hours of cleaning off the meat, we were finally ready to serve ourselves and eat, when my roommate dropped the can of hominy into a gallon sized bowl of the bright red soup. Did I mention it had 20 dried red peppers blended into it? Does anybody have any clue how potently peppers can dye things? Do you know how much fat is in a pig's head? Yeah, all over the kitchen. And my friend Cassie. It was like Carrie's prom scene. And judging by the look on Cassie's face, we were thisclose to being incinerated. Luckily I managed to clean it off with Dawn soap while she showered. And even though we put a lot of effort into cleaning the kitchen, it is still greasy. That's going to be our project tonight after work >.<
Wilbur.


The perk of working in a chem lab is that I have gloves for devaining the peppers!


After a few hours simmering with the peppers. I think his ear was getting chapped.


Wrestling the head out of the pot was such an ordeal! Bastard was slippery like a wet pig!


Getting down and dirty taking off the meat.


After fondling a pig head for an hour, it kind of loses its mystery, and turns into a fun prop!


Because we needed to take a break from playing D&D.


The first time I have ever been thankful for synthetic fabric!


The next day, all the gelatin in the soup made it very jiggly ^_^

To Wollmeise or Not To Wollmeise?

I managed to snag three skeins of the ever allusive WM last night from a destashing raveler. The colors are

Limone


Terra di Siena


Tiefer See WD


Now, my funding is most probably running out at the end of this semester, so I've told myself I'm not allowed to buy any more yarn until I have a Big Girl Job. But it's WM, and everybody says it's made of fairy pubes. Now someone is offering me

Wilder Mohn


and/or a Dunkle Kirsch



Can I afford another $76 for yarn? I ever so looooove red, which is what I originally was trying to get from the first destasher. Imagine what a gorgeous shawl I could make with limone, terra and wilder (and hope the last two aren't too similar)!