Bread a pleanty

Last night at about ten o'clock the last stitch (or at least I hope so) for the Elizabeth Zimmermann V-neck Aran was cast off. You may or may not have heard the shout of joy that erpupted from my living room at the time of finishing. I warn you that if you heard this muffled cry that you should prepare for another one this weekend, when I finally sew in the zipper and weave in the ends (of which there are few, gotta love a wool yarn). I should have pictures maybe Monday, we'll see how tomorrow and the next day goes.

As for the bread, well, for the past few days I've had a hankering for fresh bread. I love homemade bread, almost oddly so. I love the tast, the crustyness, the smell, oh, the smell. I even love making it, and I'm not the mamby-pamby bread maker type; I don't even use a mixer. The sensation of kneeding the dough, to feel the slightly warm lump between your fingers, slowy adding enough flour to bring it to what it should be. It's a very (forgive me) sensual experince. It's primal, it's simple, and the way it rises, magical.

This time though, I kind of wanted to do something that was a little sweet. So, I made one loaf normal, and the other I twisted, put on a cookie sheet, and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. That one didn't work out so well for me.

I failed to take into account that this bread was more flat and less round. Therefore, I should have lessened the temp, and the cooking time. Yeah, well. It's not really sweet enough, the bottom is as black as the Grinch's heart, (it is that season after all) and there just is something that is not right about it. Ah well, better luck next time.

Here's a shot of the bread's good side. It sure looks tempting. Not to bad. Maybe I'll go give it another try, don't want to be to quick to judge . . . Ah, I'll just have some ice cream if I want sweet.

More Sleeve

While I know that I will never be one of those bloggers who post daily, I really like this new regime of posting daily. This month might be just enough motivation to get me to this page daily. They say that you have to do something twenty-one times in order to make it a habit, that should establish a habit of blogging daily. But I don't think my life is interesting enough to post daily. I imagine you don't want to see the before and after pictures of my doing the dishes. But this is really a lot of crazy fun, and I do love both of those things.

Anyway, before I went way off on that tangent, which isn't unusual, I was planning on showing you how very far I've come on the V-neck Aran sleeve. (Really need to think of a better name for that one.)



I just realized after uploading this picture that I really did show my natural state of untidyness. See those socks. I finished those, sitting here at my desk, at least two weeks ago. They made it about seven feet across the room to the radio, where I thought they would keep getting in my way, thus prompting me to take them upstairs with the rest. No such luck, oh well.

Sleeve Two and Berries

I'm about a third of the way done with the last sleeve of the V-neck Aran. I love it so far, and like when you do something twice, the second one usually goes a lot faster, and a lot better. The wool supply is holding out great (second sleeve, and I still have well over a skien left. There is nothing better than wool leftovers, I can felt guilt free) Smooth sailing, and I should finish this puppy in a couple of days.

Almost to the elbow! YAY!

I must say that to avoid missing any more needles I have taken to cableing with a stick that's leftover from a stick of incence. Needless to say that now I'm prepared to lose them, I still have the exact same stick. This is one of those times where I really want to flip off the universe, but I don't, because then I will lose this little green stick, and then not be able to find the other sticks.

And here is some photographic proof that every million years (give or take a few), an Asparagus Fern will have berries. I've had this one for several years, and this is the first time that I've seen berries on it, I wish now that I had only had the presence of mind to take pictures of the little white flowers that it had this summer.

I Vant to Knit

And that really is all I want to do, knit. I suppose that after a few days I wouldn't mind returning to my current status as the most productive man alive, but I would like to take a temporary sabbatical from that. You know, for health reasons.

I may not be the most productive person alive, but I really do want to cuddle up and knit something. Especially with this weather. (I do think that Khaki season has passed, sigh.) I did manage to start the sleeve of the V-neck Aran last night. It is such a great feeling, being on the last sleeve. It's a sensation that I both love and hate at the exact same time. Love, because, well, the last sleeve never takes me that long because I can't wait to meet the finished sweater, so I always rush to get it done as soon as I can. Hate, because, with knitting two of anything, you're knitting two of it. Don't ask me why I knit so many socks only to know that I will need to of them. On socks the second one is also rushed because I can't wait to meet the pair.

I haven't worked on the BSJ for a week, because I wanted to give Tracy a while to work on it, and I wanted to make sure that Denise was in on it, I haven't seen her for a couple of weeks, so she doesn't know that we're all knitting it. So that's a little hard for me to do. I want to stay ahead of Tracy in case she runs into any hitches, but I want to wait for Denise.

But I must say, that when I finish this sweater, I will have maybe two weeks where there isn't a whole lot on the needles. After that two weeks, I'll be withdrawing from society even further, trying to knit mittens for everyone I've ever met.  As Mary from Knitting on the Cam (link on sidebar) pointed out yesterday, we Americans are lucky in the respect that we have Thanksgiving between Christmas and Halloween, where Canadians don't. (Their Thanksgiving is in the beginning of October.)