Knitterly Faff

I have finally (fingers crossed for good luck) made some serious headway on my recipe binder.  I had to go through and weed some of the recipes out already, to make sure that there aren't any major references to tomatoes, onions, honey, etc (the whole fructose malabsorption and FODMAP-intolerance thing).  I have a feeling there will be a rotating series of recipes flowing through it at any given time, but it's been a real godsend, so far.

I also stole/borrowed some ideas left here in the comments and on Rav about getting a binder to store knitting patterns in.  Not sure why it took me so long to do that, but there it is.  I think it's because when I was growing up, we didn't really get new school supplies.  I always seemed to have recycled binders from my mom's office as school notebooks.  I feel guilty about buying new notebooks and binders.  It seems wasteful, even though I have no source for recycled binders, now.

Is the fact that I feel guilty about that weird?  Probably.

Anyway, in doing the Spring Cleaning of my knitting, I found a slew (how many units of something constitutes a slew, btw?) of old patterns I no longer really like, some that I tried and didn't enjoy, some that weren't really patterns, but articles on technique.  Everything got filed or recycled.  It felt fantastic!

Then I moved on to organizing my Ravelry stuff.  Found a bunch of knitting stuff I never told you about or never followed up on.  So, here's a little list:

 1.  Fingerless Mitts for my sister's birthday.  I used this pattern.  It was wonderful (first time using a picot edge and I must say, it's quite pretty).

2.  The yarn I bought from Knit Picks to make into socks for yours truly.  It's sport weight, so they'll be a little bulkier, which is fine by me and my slightly-too-big Doc Martens.

3.  I don't think I told you, but I've added Caller Herrin to my Rav queue.  I can't afford the Alice Starmore yarns that Kate recommends, so I got some from Knit Picks. I tried to match the colours up, but also bought a few extras that seemed as though they might look good.  I'm still playing with the combinations, but I'm getting excited.  First colour work of this type for me.  Eeeek!

4.  Can I just tell you how inspiring I find Kate to be?  She makes me want to go outside right now, find a mountain, and climb it.  Also, I want to steal that camper van of hers and go joyriding.  I won't do it because that's just bad karma, but still.

5.  At the risk of appearing like a Kate groupie, I also want to point out that her pattern for Deco is ready.  As an architecture/design geek, this makes my heart pitter patter.  I want to make one out of Knit Picks' Wool of the Andes in "Ash": 

swoon

6.  Let's just for a moment contemplate that yarn choice.  I will need just upwards of 1000 yds to knit that sweater.  Each ball contains 137 yards.  Let's say I decide to buy 9 balls, which gives me ample overflow in case something goes wrong.  Dudes.  That's $18 worth of yarn.  And the pattern will cost me somewhere in the neighbourhood of $10.  $28 for a sweater.  A wool sweater.  A beautiful, custom-made wool sweater.  Knit Picks, I love you.

7.  I discovered a few new designers the other day.  Can I share them with you?  

Rose Beck and her blog

Fallmasche

Olga and her blog

8.  Did you see that the spring 2011 Twist Collective is up?

Oh, and I finally saw The King's Speech.  Wonderful.  I loved just about everybody in that film.  Now I'm just impatiently waiting for True Grit to make its way to my local video shop (aka the gas station in our village).  I missed out when it was in theatres and I'm getting antsy.

Done and done.

After about 4 days (and only 2 hours of actual working time), thar she be:

(I just slipped a discarded magazine page in the front sleeve, for the sake of having a yummy picture to look at.)  I bought a heavy-duty rubber-edged binder at Staples and a pack of grey cardstock for the pages.  A set of colourful dividers and I was off to the races.

These are all recipes that I'd been holding onto for a while and though I haven't made them all, they're the ones I can see myself making.  I split them up into sections that made sense to me.  I have one for soups, seafood/fish, meat, desserts, and gluteny recipes (just in case anyone asks me for suggestions, I'm keeping my favourites back there for quick reference, even though I can't eat them anymore).

There's a section on vegetarian dishes:

There's even a section for canning/preserve notes:

Let this be a lesson to me - if I buckle down, these little things don't have to take long to get underway.  Definitely not as long as I can take procrastinating to avoid doing them.


The nice thing is that this will keep my cookbooks in - if not "pristine" - dignified condition.  I am hell on cookbooks.  Scratch that.  I'm hell on all books.  For someone who lives to knit and read, I sure do treat both with a fair bit of disregard.

{My sister once asked me to scan and send her my copy of our mom's bread stuffing recipe (I think?) and she called me afterwards to demand what the hell I had done to the page - she could barely read the writing, for all the oil stains, rips and smudges on it.}

I haven't photocopied my cookbook faves yet, to add to the binder.  I am going to do that at work sometime this week.  So far, the binder is about 1/3 full.  I'm just taping/stapling smaller sheets onto the cardstock and any print outs that I have on decent paper just got hole-punched and crammed in there.  I'm also going to start a plastic envelope for potential new recipes at the front of the binder.  Once I try them and they pass muster, they'll get upgraded to a permanent position in their respective sections in the binder.

Thank you SO MUCH for your suggestions (and keep 'em coming, of course).  It's funny, because I got the suggestion for polenta and had actually just tagged it in Michael's book as something I wanted try.  I know I said I've backed off corn - and I have - but I still allow myself to have some once or twice a week.  The reason I don't eat a lot is that I find it very hard on my system.  I just need to be very aware of my intake.  Oh, and someone suggested quinoa pasta - I have tried it and yes, it is good (better than most rice pastas, in fact).  I've been gluten-free for four years, and have had a surprising array of options in GF products (surprising, given where I live, I mean).  The best gluten-free pasta I've ever had is actually corn pasta (some informal research done among some of my GF peeps netted the same affirmation).  Alas, it is still corn and is still something for me to watch out for.  Plus, it's GF and if I'm being honest, the taste/texture is still not *quite* the same as wheat pasta, so while it's nice to have in the house, we eat pasta in moderation.

In other totally unrelated news, I have begun The Socks:

Someone asked me what I was holding up in one of my recent posts.  That is a set of interchangeable metal "Options" needles, from KnitPicks.  You get a clear vinyl case full of metal tips and a set of cables that you screw into the ends of the tips to customize your circular needles.  That case I was holding up also contains a series of 40" circulars in all the smaller sizes KnitPicks can't offer in the interchangeables, which I purchased at the same time, knowing I needed to do some sock knitting.  I am VERY happy with them and wish I had bought them years ago.  I might not have hated circulars so fervently, had I tried these (full review to follow in an upcoming post).


Oh, and I should probably tell you that I watched "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" this weekend.  Holy.  Cow.  In a good way.  A very very very good way.  (Disclaimer: if you have a weak stomach, I advise viewer discretion.  There were a couple of scenes that I found exceedingly difficult to watch.)  I'll be renting the second and third films next weekend, so don't tell me what happens!