Muffin Top

Not much knitting progress this week.  It was an extremely busy week at work.  I came home exhausted every night.  After dinner all I could manage was to stare at the TV. 

I now have a new favorite show - The Big Bang Theory.  I have absolutely fallen in love with it.  This is typical of me.  I catch onto shows long after they've begun.  This show is in its 5th season, so I have a lot of past episodes to view.

Since we are on the topic of nerds, I got my geek on last night.  It was a perfectly clear night so I took my telescope out front and pointed to Jupiter and Venus.  My telescope needs some adjusting and I need practice with it.  I believe I saw several of Jupiters moons casting shadows on the planet's surface.  Or it could have been Venus with some space junk in my line of site.  I'm not exactly sure and I got too cold before I could figure it out.  At any rate, it was exciting.  In a couple days Jupiter and Venus will be right next to each other.  Unfortunately, the prediction is for rain that night, so I don't think I'll get to see it.

Another obsession of mine is Pinterest.  If I made even a fourth of the food I pin, I'd be over 200 pounds by now.  I did come across a recipe that I pinned:  Apple Butter Muffins from Recipe Girl.  Since I made apple butter last fall, I figured I'd try these.  They were absolutely yummy.  They have allspice in them, which complemented the cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg I had put in the apple butter.  They baked up beautifully.  I used Alton Brown's muffin method to preheat the oven to 25 degrees below the baking temperature and then set it to the correct temperature when the muffins go in the oven.  Since ovens cycle, this gives the muffins an initial blast of heat to work with the leaveners to allow the muffins to reach their maximum potential.  The result was a beautiful muffin top. It was a great way to start my Saturday:  a yummy muffin (or 2), a cup of hot tea, the newspaper to read, and the sound of early spring birds outside. 

Now I have to get off by behind and work on my own muffin top.

Round 'n Round She Goes

I didn't get the Go Live Minimalist cardigan finished in February.  This is as far as I got.  Work was a bit hectic this week and one of the kids was sick.  Just not a good week for knitting.

Last summer I bought myself a drop spindle and gave it a whirl.   I had a book that guided me but I just didn't feel like I got the hang of it.  The resulting fiber was inconsistent and broke often.  It was very frustrating.  Here is what I had managed to make.  I wound it off onto a pencil to empty the spindle.



This past Tuesday I took a spinning class at a LYS.  I was the only student so I got personalized attention and learned a tremendous amount.  Since I had my own drop spindle, the teacher focused mostly on that instead of the wheels.  Toward the end of the class she let me test drive a couple wheels.  They were very fun to play with but I'm just not in the market for a wheel right now.  I had so much fun with the spindle that I came home and spent 3 more hours spinning while watching television.  Below is my work after the class.  What do you think?

I'm going to ply this into lace weight yarn.



Here is the before and after picture.  Dramatic improvement if I say so myself!!



This is the first fiber that the teacher had me spin.  It was 5-ply pencil roving.  She used this to teach me about Z and S wraps and fiber management.

The fiber management lesson continued with this fiber.  This was Corriedale roving.  I practiced drafting and not holding the fiber with a death grip.  The resulting fiber, as you can see, varied in width.  Since I wound this into a ball to get it off the spindle, what you see on the outside of the ball is beginning of the lesson.  The fiber inside the ball is more consistent and thinner.



After the class was over, I bought a bag of Corriedale from the teacher and rushed home to practice some more.  The purple/pink on the left if the top I purchased when I bought the spindle.  Even though the teacher explained that top is not the easiest to spin with because the fibers are parallel to each other and makes it easier to break, I am going to finish practicing with it before moving on to the Corriedale.    I can't tell you how excited this makes me!!   I can't wait to try other fibers.



Another Knitter is 'Born'

Kristin has started her Infinity scarf.  Below is a picture of how far she has gotten.  She is doing a fantastic job.  I really like how it is turning out, even though there isn't much to look at yet.  Her tension is a little tight, but she'll get the hang of it.  She's doing better than I did on my first project. (I remember making a sweater.  The sleeves hung down to my knees because the stitches were so loose.)  She has already mentioned that she wants to make something in garter stitch next.  I had to squelch my excitement when she said that.  Jumping up and doing a Happy Dance might have made her change her mind about becoming a knitter.

I finished the first sleeve of the Go Live Minimalist cardigan.  I'm about 2 or 3 inches into the second sleeve.  It is 13 inches of moss stitch before the armhole shaping.  Pretty boring stuff.  Multi-tasking is my plan for getting this done.  Yesterday I knit while reading a book on my Kindle at lunch time.  Today I think I'll ride our exercise bike while I knit.  It is a recumbant bike so I'll manage without getting my yarn tangled in the peddles.

Blake mentioned the other day that he wants to make a blanket over the summer.  He wants to learn how to sew.  I have plenty of fabric downstairs for him.  We'll have to dig through it to find some to use in a patchwork quilt.

Sunny Saturday

It's hard to believe that February is half over.  Time is flying by.

Blake has decided that he wants to get in shape for the summer.  I've caught him watching the P90X infomercials.  He asked if we could buy the set of DVDs, but I told him that I have a friend that would loan them to us for a while.  After we got the disks, he went online and found the workout schedule.  He figures he'll have six-pack abs by the end of May.  He started yesterday with the Chest & Back and the Ab Ripper workouts.  He's downstairs right now doing plyometrics.  I'm proud of him for taking this on.  Other people who have done them have told me that they are hard workouts, but effective.  I hope he sticks with it.  I need to remind him that he should shower after each one.  

Last week I mentioned that it was Finish February. I dug out the Go Live Minimalist Cardi to work on. This has become my take along project. The first sleeve is almost to the shaping. It will be stretch for me to get it done by the end of the month. I'm determined not to pick up any other project until this is done.

Did I mention last week that Kristin wants to knit herself an Infinity scarf?  I wrote out a pattern for her and took her to the LYS to pick out yarn and a needle.  She and I sat down to learn a few stitches.  The pattern only involves knit, yarn-over, and knit 2 together stitches.  I hope she catches the knitting bug.  I've always hoped the girls would share one of my hobbies with me.

I signed up for a spinning class at the LYS.  During the 2 hour class I will get to use both a wheel and a spindle.  I bought a spindle last summer, but have never learned to use it.  I'll have to dig it out and take it along for the class.

Last week in the mail I received a jury duty summons.  I'm required to spend at least a week downtown at the courthouse.  Trying to think positively about it I decided I would use the week to make some major progress on some UFOs.  Unfortunately, knitting needles are forbidden in the courthouse.  Bummer!!  I'll have to find some other diversion.