Bear Love

I'm not much of a toy knitter. It's not that I don't like knitting toys, but that the toys never make it to their intended recipients. Blame for this solely rests on bf, who, after watching limbs and heads and ears emerge from my needles, gets, ahem, somewhat attached and looks at me in wide-eyed terror when I try to tell him that they are supposed to be gifted....(haha, he hasn't been checking out my blog in a while, so let's just hope he's not reading this post ;-)
But, I love bears, polar bears especially and when I first saw Ysolda's Otto, I knew I had to make one for myself. I had a few balls of leftover yarn, and born was Bina

and since I still had yarn leftover, she got a younger, slightly larger brother, Rudi

they are so adorable

Pattern: Otto by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: 3 skeins total Louisa Harding Grace, Otto also has some Kidsilk Haze in his head and body until I ran out
Needles: US 3
Mods: I made the bear snout a little shorter by omitting the knit rounds at the end (I only knit the decreasing rounds). Also, I took me forever to figure out the disappearing loop cast-on. I think I’m still not doing it correctly, but fudging it worked.

Summer Roadtrippin'

Well, actually I've been back for a week, but as always after some time spent in nature, it's taking me a while to get back into the city living groove.
BF and I spent two weeks visiting places that have been on my dreamlist for a long time. We flew into Salt Lake City, drove up to Grand Teton National Park, spent a week at Yellowstone National Park, headed through Montana to Glacier NP, traversed Idaho to check out Craters of the Moon National Monument, then finished the loop by skirting the Bonneville Saltflats in Utah to SLC. What an amazing trip! My hopes of spotting some wildlife no matter how far away were rewarded by fairly close but respectful encounters with lots of the local fauna.
I love love love geothermal areas, and Yellowstone is a great place to experience lots of different features, here's just one of many colorful hot pools

We were lucky to not only see Old Faithful erupt a few times, but to experience some other geysers who erupt less frequently

Buffalo often wandered into the campground

my favorite, Glacier national Park

where we saw these guys, two adolescent grizzlies

lots of moose

we meet this mountain goat on hike

I loved the eerie lava landscape at Craters of the Moon in Idaho, but man was it hot!

It was wonderful to spend two weeks without many creature comforts, just living simply, and in the moment. My senses heightened, I became able to spot animals at a distance that would have been a blur before, and smell and hear better (unfortunately I'm hoping to lose some of that sense of smell, the first few days in the city made me almost nauseous, what with all the paint fumes and exhaust hovering in downtown).

Some of my favorite experiences on this trip:
- watching a grizzly and her cub being stalked by a coyote at dawn
- huckleberry ice cream
- friendly Canadian border officers letting us into Canada for a few hours despite our lack of appropriate ID
- meeting a group of Hutterite people at Waterton Lakes Park I spoke German with
- hearty breakfasts at family diners in small towns
- dipping hot feet in glacial lakes after long hikes
- BIG skies
- seeing a baby moose on our last day at Glacier
- cooling off in icy lava caves after hiking in 94 degrees through black lava

I'm already dreaming about the next roadtrip...maybe drive from Canada to Alaska on the Alcan, maybe revisit the Southwest....
What have your most memorable roadtrips been?

Jonna

I've been on a minimalist trip for a while. My favorite colors right now are white, grey and blue. Simple shapes. No patterns, no frills or details. So I surprised myself when I felt the desire to knit the Jonna scarf from Berroco's Norah Gaughan Volume 1. Was I really going to wear are scarf with, ugh, bobbles dangling from the edges??? Well, yes indeed. I had a few skeins of yarn in my stash in a beautiful steel blue color, which would help tone down those frivolous bobbles just a bit. Paired with dark jeans, a white top (my favourite uniform) and a vintage coat, the bobbles add some spark to an otherwise unassuming outfit.


pattern: Jonna, from berroco Norah Gaughan Volume 1
yarn: Poshyarn sock yarn held double
needles: US 8 circs
mods: I knit the bobbles in the round on dpn's instead of flat and seaming them up; and I used cotton quilt batting to stuff the balls instead of polyfill (the name alone sounds itchy and scratchy).

Next on my plate is the lovely Shalom cardi by Meghan. I am pretty excited about this pattern because many months ago I had ripped out a picture of a Paul & Joe cardi with the intent of copying the design. Meghan loved that cardi too and wrote up a pattern for it. How awesome to find something you've wanted to make and then another blogger writes up a pattern and shares it. Thanks Meghan! I'm making this with Rowan Big Wool that was meant for another cardi that never came to be. And I'm thinking of adding sleeves. Sure it's already pretty toasty here in SF, but bulky wool knits up pretty fast, right? Right!

Shedir #2

Shedir is on its way to hopefully give its recipient some cheer and comfort. Calmer still isn't my favorite yarn (I get confused by its odd stretchiness), but I love how soft it is. I have another skein and may just make a hat for myself, with a different pattern though.
Pattern: Shedir from Knitty
Yarn: 1 skein of Rowan Calmer in peacock
Mods: All knit sts are tbl, for more stretch and definition.

I dream of citrus

Thank you all so much for your suggestions and well wishes. Shedir and Calmer it was, started the same day and now finished. I will have pics soon.
Here a picture from my trip, which can be descriped as fun and frosty.

Yes, this picture was taken in APRIL!!! I'm glad I'd packed the long undies. I hadn't seen snow like this in a couple of years, so it was actually quite wonderful to wander through this snowy wonderland.
Back in SF, life took off almost immediately. I'm working again and I got accepted to start grad school this fall. I look back at the past few months with deep gratitude. When I quit work last summer, I'd had all these crafty plans....lots of knits and sewing projects, quilts (plural!) were to be made. In the end, I spend a lot of time doing nothing. Literally, sometimes I would just sit for hours on the sofa, watching my cat sleep. I read a lot, and I baked a lot (and henceforth went to the gym a lot). It was the best thing I've done in a long time, and I feel recharged and happy. The baking frenzy I went through is taking a backseat now, but I wanted to share a few recipes with you that I thought were just fabulous (which is high praise from a picky, fresh-loving country girl). All these recipes contain some kind of citrus, which is just my favorite flavor and scent ever! This recipe from Martha Stewart had been on my list for a long time, Pistachio-Lime Tart.

It takes three days to finish (you have to drain ricotta, make lime curd, and let the tart rest overnight). It's really worth the trouble though, the end result was delicious! The crust is made with pistachios, whose flavor get a little lost in the lime, but tastes awesome when you have a crumb by itself. The lime curd was so good, I could have eaten it just like that (never mind that there are 20 egg yolks in there).
The only adjustment I would make next time would be to substitute drained greek yoghurt for the ricotta. I'm not sure I love the ricotta grainyness, I even pushed it through a sieve once more to get it smooth. It tasted wonderful, however, I was envisioning thie filling to be super smooth, like the curd. I'm going to make this again, just thinking about its tangy goodness is making my mouth water. You can get the recipe here.

Quick Question

What would be a good yarn for a chemo cap? For a pattern, I was thinking Shedir, or does anyone have a better suggestion? If you are sending good thoughts into the world today, could you please send some to a girl named Sarah, who is 29, a mother and wife, and undergoing treatment for AML (leukemia)? Thank you so much.

Souffle, demystified

I need to remind myself more often that when I started this blog, I meant it to be a log for all the things I love to do. My creativity needs are constantly in a state of flux. Sometimes, it's all about the knitting, then the sewing, baking, cooking,reading, bookbinding, jewelry making etc,. But I usually just post about my knitting and sewing projects, and when I don't do any of these, you guys think I've fallen of the earth yet again. So, I'm going to post more about the many other things I enjoy doing besides stuff with needles and thread. Since the beginning of the year I've been really into trying new things in the baking department. I bake almost every weekend, mostly recipes I've been making for years already. It was time for something new, something a little challenging. I decided to make a souffle. The first time I've ever had a souffle was at a wonderful restaurant not far from SF called Manka's (which unfortunately burned down a year ago) and I still dream about it. It was savory with little bits of fresh asparagus throughout. Now, If you like to cook and read cooking mags and books, you've probably heard how difficult it is to make a souffle, how a drafty kitchen or opening your oven door can immediatley ruin it, or that it'll probably deflate the second you remove it from the oven before your guests have a chance to see it. I decided not to think about what could go wrong and just go for it. I made it for myself, so if it did turn out badly, it could just go straight to the green bin, no stress involved. I used this recipe from Gourmet magazine.

I opened the oven door twice to check on its progress, because the parchment paper collar was too high to see anything.

After I took it out of the oven, it stayed nice and fluffy for a photostuff until I attacked it with a spoon. It was light and fresh and airy, just perfect. The only change I made was using regular lemons instead of Meyers (to be honest, I'm not a big fan of Meyers...they have a peculiar taste. I prefer the tartness of regular lemons).
Btw, I'm blogging long distance. A week ago I decided spring break would be a fabulous time to go to Europe for cheap, so I'm enjoying Bavaria's cold and snowy capital right now, going to museums, eating, and eating some more. I'll be back in April, then I'll show you the sparkly skirt I made.