theraineysisters knitting and so much more

Lately, the simple things are my favorite to wear!  I do like knitting more complex projects, but I love the simpletons.

Case in point.  Surly came into town for a very quick visit.  I needed a really simple, dragalong project to have with me.  She was already planning on going to The Yarnery since she ordered yarn for pick up.  I found some BC Hamelton Tweed 1, color 002 for the simplest capelet ever, The Ponchetta by Elizabeth Smith.   It is a big rectangle with a cowl-like turtleneck.

My gauge was dead on with the suggested size 8, which is unheard of for me.  This quick project took a little over a week, but ended up being very cute and very wearable!!

I added the ribbed sections to the back and did a different 3-needle bind off.  I also lengthened it a tad.  I highly recommend the yarn and the pattern.  A+ from me!!

At the state fair last summer, my eldest DD asked me to knit her one of the hats on display: the Oregon Hat.  I knew I had the yarn because I had just made the Oregon Vest.  My plan was to knit it for Christmas, but opted to make it for her January birthday instead.  I presented it to her last night, and she said the words in the title of this post…or close to.  Oh, well!

My only picture and it’s right at the jog — which I didn’t bother to fix!

I charted the crown using trees and the colors of the vest.  The original hat did something else entirely.  At least from the pictures!  The hat is actually butter soft and fits her quite nicely.

PS to our Readers: the yarn I used was leftover bits from knitting my Alice Starmore Oregon Vest.  The yarn is her Hebridean 2-ply, available on-line at Virtual Yarns.  The Oregon Cardigan originally appeared in Vogue Knitting, Holiday 2007 and was knit in Jamieson & Smith Jumperweight.  Now she sells the pattern in kits with her own yarns only.  Her yarn is bigger and softer than Jamieson & Smith or Spindrift.

Happy New Year, everyone!!  I have good feelings about 2024.  But I also felt good about 2020…right before the pandemic and shut down.

My recent FO involves cashmere.  Beautiful cashmere!  I went to an event at BeWoolen a few months ago featuring Pascuali luxury yarns.  Britt-Marie Brehmer was there, wearing a classic capelet that she had just designed in Pascuali 6/28 100% Cashmere.  They had a sale and gave us a ball of yarn as part of the event.  It was a feeding frenzy!  I, of course, bought the most boring color of them all, Graphite, but also a classic.  The cowl/capelet had not been named so we suggested she name it after one of the BeWoolen owners.  That is where the name Angel comes from.

This was a very slow knit!!  There also seemed to be a problem with the stitch count so that the decreases weren’t symmetrical.  I made corrections and describe them on my project page.  This was incredibly soft while I was knitting, but bloomed and got even softer after blocking.  It is really gorgeous.

Every year our local paper, The StarTribune, sponsors a holiday cookie contest.  The “reveal” takes place at a public cookie tasting.  I have gone to the tasting in years past in downtown Minneapolis.  This year they opted to hold the event at the first indoor shopping mall in America: Southdale.

I decided to enter a cookie.  I was inspired by the smash hit of this year’s state fair: Pickle Lemonade.  I sent my recipe in right at the beginning of the submission window, thinking others might have the same idea.  And they did.  Five of us entered pickle cookies and one recipe was published.  It was not mine. 🙁  So, I am sharing my recipe here!  I have made these many times and everyone LOVES them!  People who don’t like pickles love them.  People who don’t like lemons love them.  Give them a try!!

Pickle Lemonade Shortbread Cookies 

Cookie Dough (can easily be cut in half)
½ cup sugar, plus more for rolling cookies 
2 cups flour
¼ – ½ tsp dry dill (opt.)
1/3 cup dill pickle relish (NOT sweet) prepared as below to equal ¼ cup, or more to taste
Zest from one lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup butter (2 sticks), at room temp
Yellow and green decorating sugars

Pickle/Lemon Icing
3-4 tsp fresh lemon juice
4-5 tsp pickle juice
Zest from ½ to 1 lemon
1 cup powdered sugar
Sesame seeds (opt.) 

Make Dough
Prepare dill relish: use spoon to obtain some of the pickle juice from the jar (push spoon down into the relish) and reserve in small bowl.  If ample juice is not available, use additional juice from a regular jar of pickles.  Measure 1/3 cup of relish and place in small strainer.  This amount should yield ¼ cup relish once prepared.  Use back of spoon to squeeze out as much juice as possible, retaining the juice for use in the icing.  Place relish in a paper towel and squeeze out as much juice as possible.  Set aside.   

Combine all dry cookie dough ingredients in mixing bowl.  Stir in prepared pickle relish and zest.  Add butter and vanilla.  Beat until ball forms.  Chill dough for ½ – 1 hour.   

Preheat oven to 375°.  Combine about 1/3 cup sugar and smaller amounts of the colored sugars in a small plastic baggie.  Roll dough into 1” balls.  Place balls of dough into sugar and shake to coat.  Place cookies on cookie sheet lined with parchment.   Flatten balls with the bottom of a glass.  Bake for 14-16 minutes, or until golden brown.  Remove to cooling rack.  NOTE: these cookies soften once iced, so they need to be crisper and darker in color than standard shortbread cookies.  The bottoms of the cookies should be dark golden brown. 

While cookies are baking, prepare icing:
Combine equal parts of lemon and pickle juice in a small bowl, then add a tsp or two more pickle juice.  Use this to make the icing.  Place powdered sugar in a small bowl.  Add lemon zest and mix.  Adding small amounts of lemon/pickle juice at a time, stir until smooth and desired consistency is reached.  Stir in a few grains of green sugar to the icing to give it a slight tinge of green.   

When cookies have cooled, top with a small amount of icing and spread just to edge.  Sprinkle with a few sesame seeds to mimic pickle seeds.  Let icing dry completely before serving. 

So, how was the official tasting?  A disaster!!  We never even saw a cookie!  Hordes of people descended on Southdale to get a free cookie.

This doesn’t even show how crazy it was!  The organizers rightly assumed that free parking would be a plus, and they were right!  I will not be going next year…

ETA: The recipe calls for dill, not sweet, relish.  Who wants sweet pickles in a cookie??!!?? 😎

PS to Maureen: These really are good.  I’m not kidding!  Pickle juice and lemon juice really mix well together.

PS2 to Bonnie: I can’t wait to hear how it goes!!

I’m a little late with a Thanksgiving greeting, but I hope yours was lovely.  I made turkey with all the fixings, two beautiful pies, and the best gravy I’ve ever made.  My tip is to keep it warm in a baby crockpot!!

Surly and I went to Rhinebeck this year.  It was fun.  We stopped at Webs on the way there and were very impressed.  Amazing!  While there, I checked out the Plymouth Homestead yarn in Pumpkin Spice Heather — gorgeous and very reasonably priced.  I had Broken Oath in mind, but thought I should get to Rhinebeck first to see what was there.  I found the prototype in the yarn called for: Anne Hanson’s Bare Naked Wool Kent Worsted.  Nice yarn for $40/skein!  I would need 8 skeins.  $320??!!  Uh, no.  I bought 9 skeins of Homestead for about $85, and have almost two left over.

I split the hem and slightly altered the front.  The larger sizes were created by moving the cables farther apart.  I liked them close together, like the original, so I made adjustments.  I also did not bind off and seam the shoulders (too bulky IMHO), but did a 3-needle bind off instead, with the ridge to the outside.

It fits perfectly, is very classic, and I have nothing negative to say about it.  So there!!

PS to Kathy: I did finish this last week, so it was blocked and dried well before Thanksgiving.  However, I never wear good sweaters hanging around at home, and never wear any sweater, good or bad, when I’m cooking!  It gets too hot and the sleeves get in the way!  See you at cookie tasting wearing this sweater! 😉

PS to Sue:

A friend bought earrings at a craft show and wanted to make her own.  She asked me to take a look and see if I could reverse engineer them. Quite an easy one!  I just took the Pumpkin circumference, divided by the diameter, and voilà!  Pumpkin Pi!  ::groan::

Here I am actually wearing them!

The instructions can be found on my Ravelry project page.

Happy Halloween!  It’s too late to knit up this lil cutie, but remember it for next year!  It’s called Spirited Spirits, on Ravelry.  Three color rows at points.  Ugh. But, very cute!

I knit this with Cascade 220. My project page has a few more details.

Sister Surly is quite generous to me.  For my birthday, she got me the yarn to make Belfair, a super cute sweater that she was knitting for herself.  The yarn is Woolfolk Luft, which was purchased from Wool & Company (free shipping!!).  I chose the color, though I maybe should have chosen differently (?).  Too late now!!

Color is impossible to capture.  It is a rusty, brick red.  What I like about the pattern is that at every transition, the basket weave pattern is maintained.  This shows where the fronts are picked up from the back shoulders (top-down construction):

I honestly couldn’t tell where the back stopped and the fronts began.  Same with the sleeves:

The pattern even changes at the sleeve join, but you still can’t tell!  This is such a cozy, wearable sweater and a really fun knit!!  Be forewarned: there are seams!!  The ease is supposed to be 14-20 inches.  Mine is probably around 14″.  That sounds like a lot, but really isn’t.

Sweater weather is here and I have a new sweater to wear!!

PS to Amy: It is a nice color after all!  The pictures are pretty accurate.

PS2 to Millie: the holes are made with yarnovers (and decreases).

PS3 to Chloe: I can’t make any guarantees!!

These little acorns are too cute to resist!  They just take a few yards of worsted yarn, and a little bit of time.  The perfect little break from a large project!

The pattern is free: Fall Festival Acorns from Blue Sky Fibers.

We have been dormant for a bit!!  Happy fall, everyone!

I recently attended an event at BeWoolen.  I’ve mentioned Lock Ins before!!  At this particular Lock In, the shop was featuring some gorgeous kits for the Chevron Delight Shawl.  It’s beautiful.  The yarn (Malabrigo Sock and Malabrigo Mohair/Silk) is beautiful.  The colors were beautiful…so I bought a kit.  The pattern is free because Malabrigo is promoting a KAL.

My colorway: Anniversario

However, I soon realized that I didn’t feel like knitting a shawl.  So I sought out patterns that combine these two yarn types in sheer and solid alternating stripes.  The Elton Cardigan by Joji Locatelli fit the bill!!  I was worried that one kit wouldn’t be enough yarn, so I rushed back to the store to buy a second kit.  I needn’t have bothered — I never touched an inch of Kit #2!!  I was able to sell the second kit, though.

Here you can see the sheer beauty of the fabric:

I found the perfect buttons in what is now my new button source: old sweaters I no longer wear!  😀

This took forever to knit, which surprised me.  But, why did it surprise me?  It was fingering weight and laceweight!  What did I expect??  Oh well, it is done and I love it!!