Thursday, November 30, 2006

I made love pie!














Here's what's in love pie: peaches and black cherries. Mmm!
Now, there is a story that goes along with this pie. It has to do with crust. Yes, yes, my skills are awesome with shaping the top crust into hearts and letters (lightning bolts were too hard). But there is more to this crust that meets the eye, and it's not always good.


My friend Lauren and I had the idea to make this pie, so we went for it after school one day. We didn't have any shortening, but no worries, says Mom: there's this Earth Balance margarine in the fridge that works great!
Thanks, mom. (Margarine with no partially hydrogenated oils? What IS it, then?)

Okay, so the pie is made, we bring it to a party, and it gets eaten.
That is, the filling gets eaten... Somehow, strangely, the masterfully shaped crust tasted, well, awful. Really, it was bitter and chewy. No one could figure out why. (And the fact that Lauren's backpack fell on it, projecting excess pie juice everywhere into the car definitely has nothing to do with it at all.)

A week later, it was Thanksgiving! My dad, a connoisseur of delicious piemaking, made two pies to contribute to the feast. (I created decorative designs in the tops of those with a pokey thing. They looked awesome, I wish I had gotten pictures!)
So after Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family, we slice the pies and start to eat them. Before long, the conversation took a violent shift when my great aunt Nancy barked, "John, what'd you put in this crust. It's terrible." Oops. She was absolutely appalled to know that we had actually used expensive, healthy, eco-vegan-approved buttery spread in the pie crust. "What ever happened to lard?" She then proceeded to reiterate the point to anyone who would listen--including my grandmother who, about to stick her fork in, was immediately warned, "wait till you taste the crust."
My poor dad! The sense of wastefulness and shame towards his beautiful pies that, apparently, my great aunt Nancy "wouldn't feed to a dog." The very next day, he went out and bought shortening and made a whole new pie, with good old-fashioned trans fat and everything.
The moral of the love pie story is that if you can't taste your arteries becoming clogged, you're completely okay.

Onward to the knitting content! Check out my hot new addi c tions to the (already blooming to be voluptuous) stash:






















When it rains, it pours. And when I get new yarn, I get just a little tiny bit of yarn that appears to multiply post-purchase.

So, who wants some racy closeups? Yeeeeah...












(Again with the nasty lighting--it's late.)
Knit Picks Salishan. DK Wool/Cotton. These colors remind me of Native American stuff. The long, black hair; the red clay; turquoise; brown leather. I was lucky that all the shades Knit Picks had left on sale meshed together so remarkably.




















Monidal Genius. Colors that remind me of Valentine's Day, but aren't too obnoxious.






















Katia Mexico. Hues that swing through hot, candy-colored pinks, warm sunset orange, magenta, and a little bit of bright blue. Undertoned by grays, purples, and a touch of emerald.
Since these colors perfectly illustrate my friend Lauren, she's getting an entrelac scarf out of this yarn. (Otherwise, none of these new yarn purchases have anything to do with Christmas--isn't that disgusting?)





















Ironstone Yarns. I can't find the name of the line, but this is a pretty direct knock-off from one of the dye varieties of Berocco Foliage. That's okay. It was about 50 cents cheaper, that's all that matters.
Are you noticing a trend here? I can't get enough heavy-worsted, single-ply wool in crazy dyes. If different colorways of these yarns were all I could knit with for the rest of my life, I might be okay for a while.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

My school needs to go more days without assigning essays. Because look at all of what I could accomplish in just two of them:
Sorry the photo's so unbearably flashed out. I'm pretty pumped that I could actually squeeze out another pair from the sock yarn I got. Do I wear hand-knit socks? Never. Do I know people who do? I honestly have no idea. Regardless, based solely on entertainment I am still able to maintain my recently drawn conclusion that sock yarn is an entirely worthwhile investment.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The fruit of yesterday and today's labor manifests itself here, in a most ghastly mess on my hand:


















Gloves that look like trees, haha, get it? (By the way--there's nothing to get besides that they're gloves that look like trees.)
They're eventually, after much alteration, going to be a Christmas present for my sister.

Sadly, my first attempt to make this vision a reality is quickly approaching its downfall. The whole knuckle portion is so not knuckle-shaped, and the open stitch I used on the fingers makes the points at the end completely twisted. Not to mention the fact that they don't look as much like trees as I expected they would. I believe when I start freshly from the hand again, I will begin the green earlier (like, start all 5 sections of leaves when the gusset starts) and not go so crazy with the increases. Until then, a hearty frog session is due.
P.S. if you feel inspired, your input is always appreciated. I feel like I'm doing this is a lot more complicatedly than it needs to be.

To close, I got my senior pictures back. I figured I'd exploit my pretty face after alarming you horribly with that wretched post-GWAR photo.
















The yearbook shot..............The one my mom likes, played with

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Some of you may have thought I was kidding about my inability to bake without using food coloring.
I really, really wasn't.





















This affinity for saturation overload is also reflected in my daily life (as long as "daily life" and "knitting" are synonymous), in projects such as the three sweaters from the previous post, as well as in others.






















I guess the point of this is that I found a new resource for free lace patterns, yarnover.net. Really exciting for me, since lace is seriously the one thing I don't know how to "wing it" for. Someday I will be writing my own lace patterns, mark my words. But for now, I guess directions will satisfy. Free directions, that is.
In the name of all that is gaudy, pay no attention to the utter tastelessness of every single picture I post. Displaying distracting yarn in a semi-complex openwork pattern draped across leopard print betsheets?
You bet.
Hey, the disoriented splotches of the different colors almost resemble my face after the GWAR concert a couple weeks ago.












Of course, this picture doesn't capture the "blood" soaking my clothes, or the "jiz" (or was it heroin?) sloshing in my inner ear. Yeah. GWAR is a pretty fun time.

Oh, I almost committed the best felony the other day. (Somehow that doesn't sound as awesome as I wanted it to... hm.) My sister's out of the country, so I was going to vote in the congressional election using her I.D. But alas; for whatever reason, she apparently felt the need to bring her driver's license with her to India.
But really, though--twenty years from now, I would LOVE to be able to look back and say, "yeah man, I to voted with a fake I.D. when I was seventeen." To be able to say that would give me great pleasure. Oh, well. I guess no voter fraud for me. Kind of a bummer.
It's fine, though. I would have gone for a straight Democratic ticket, but upon seeing the results, it looks like my vote wasn't needed after all. :)


I think I've been both innappropriate as well as knitterly enough for one day. Peace, everyone.