Fiber Fool

I have read in many of my Swedish cookbooks that the proper fika hostess offers seven items to her guests. For special occassions there are even specific courses that are recommended for each cup of coffee. I didn’t quite reach seven different treats myself. We shared some of the baklava that Gene baked on Saturday night, and our two guests also brought cookies for the fika table.

In the photo above are the five items I put out: pepperkakor, baklava, kanelkakor (cinnamon dreams), bondkakor (almond and molasses refrigerator cookies), and citronsmakåger (lemon wafers). The last three cookies I baked over the course of the weekend from Beatrice Ojakangas’ The Great Scandinavian Baking Book. So far I am more than happy with the book. Three good recipes baked out of it in a row in the same weekend. That has to be a record for me!

I cannot say for sure, but it seems the favorite amongst DH’s co-workers and the fika guests were the cinnamon dreams or kanelkakor. They are a slightly sweet and spicy cookie that was rolled in finely chopped walnuts, more cinnamon, and sugar. I will definitely be making them again. I loved that the recipe was a smaller one so they were done quickly and they won’t be sitting around for too long waiting to be eaten.

As I mentioned previously, the fika guests helped round out the seven offerings. Ashley brought over some yummy Danish Almond Butter cookies. These melted in your mouth with just a hint of almond extract and the texture of almond pieces. PaperTiger also joined us and brought a wonderful spice drop cookie (I forgot the official name, I’m sorry). These were balls of soft, yet not overly moist dough filled with sweet spices. Both cookies were a wonderful and welcome addition to the fika!

I’ll leave you with a couple more photos of the individual cookie types. You can click on them for larger views or more information.

I sucked it up and just kept going on fingerless mitt #1. All the knit grrls (as Margene would say) thought it seemed good so I plugged along. Ultimately if I’m going to wear them while computing a snugger fit is probably desirable so they aren’t getting in the way and pressing keys on their own.

That brings me to reader participation question number 1 - How do you use your fingerless mitts? I have a knitting friend who just “doesn’t get it.” She sees patterns for them and asks what good they are for. I tell her I like to wear them while computing because I have poor circulation and my hands tend to get quite cold. Then I remembered using such things for football and hockey pep band. What other uses can I offer her to make her see the light of fingerless mitts and gloves?

I’ve also been going round and round about whether to offer this pattern. But after much deliberation at SnB last night it was decided there were many neat details and techniques to this pattern that would make it of use to people. I’ve been doing a lot of free patterns and test knitting for others lately so it is getting about time I put out another pattern.

At first glance I’m sure this mitt just looks like another Fetching. It was certainly inspired by all the gorgeous Fetchings I have seen around blogland. However, I had wanted to use my handspun which was a far cry from the gauge used in Fetching. Then, since I was going to have to retweak that much I decided to use a different cable and put in a thumb gusset for a more comfortable fit. While doing all of that I decided to knit it on 2-circs and skip the waste yarn often used for thumbs. I also figured out a way to skip all that pesky picking up or casting on of extra stitches to close gaps between the thumb and the main mitten body. The result of that technique is a really nice fitting thumb join that I find quite comfortable.

So, reader participation question number two (prizes are involved) - What should I name this pair of mitts? The person who suggests the name I choose (or stimulates my arrival at the chosen name) will get a free copy of the finished pattern. I’ll also throw everyone else in a hat and give another copy of the pattern to that person.

So, reader participation question(s) number three - Do you have 200-225 yds of fingering weight yarn in your stash calling your name for some fingerless mitts? I’d say Mountain Colors Bearfoot, any of KnitPicks sock yarns, perhaps the mid weight Socks that Rock etc. would work. I wouldn’t recommend the finer sock yarns like Lorna’s Laces, Wildfoote, or Anne and the like unless you have petite hands. Do you have any pairs of circs on hand? You don’t have to be experienced in knitting on two circs, but you’ll need a size that you can achieve 7 sts/in in st st on with your yarn. In fact, I’d like at least one person who will be knitting on 2-circs for the first time if at all possible. Would you like to test knit the pattern? I should have the draft completed by the end of today. I’d like someone who thinks they can get through the first mitt and get back to me with any questions or point out unclear areas in the next week. This means you probably need to have the circular needles (or a nearby LYS with them) and the yarn on hand so you can jump right in. I can only offer up a free copy of the final formatted pattern in the end and of course you’ll get to knit it before anyone else :-)

EDIT: I have all the test knitters I need. Thank you all so much though! I really appreciate the offers. I am enjoying the name options as well, please keep those coming! :-)

We did a *ton* of entertaining this weekend. We had another couple over for dinner on Friday night. DH made wonderful cheese gnocchi from Moosewood (the older edition) with a tomato and pesto topping. He also made a winter leek soup. We tag teamed on one of our favorite bread machine breads, but baked it in the oven this time around. I also made skordalia (a potato and almond based hummus of sorts with *tons* of garlic) and dessert. Since I played a bit more active role in the Friday meal this week I only got about 5-10 minutes of spinning done on Friday.

Saturday was the usual relaxing around home sort of Saturday, but I did a bunch of reading. There was the latest William Kent Krueger to finish up, some re-reading of areas of The Joy of Coffee, as well as some quality time with the latest in the Scandinavian cooking library - The Great Scandinavian Baking Book. By sundown I had only spun another quarter of the second bobbin of superwash merino.

When the evening rolled around quicker than I would have guessed we had another guest over for an impromptu pasta dinner with left over skordalia and bread. Gene came over and made baklava. Each year he makes it as his holiday gift to friends, but this year’s crazy weather combined with a rather unpredictable work schedule had him a bit behind. We had spoken of wishing to learn how he makes it, as it is even better than the restaurants in town so he came over here to make this batch.

Then, Sunday was fika day again. It was lower key fika this week, but I’ll share what I served on Wednesday as usual. It all added up to not a lot of spinning, though I did get a fair bit accomplished during the week. Bobbin two of last week’s Emerald Forest Superwash Merino from Bonkers is complete now. If my knitting continues to go down the crapper this week perhaps I’ll be plying next Friday…

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As I mentioned above I had the latest William Kent Krieger novel to finish. I hadn’t wanted to be quite caught up with WKK’s writings, but his previous book really didn’t have an ending. Sure, we knew who dunnit at the end of the book, but Cork O’Conner’s life was anything but settled. It was one heck of a cliff hanger. So, I found myself having to put the next installment, Copper River, on hold at the library. The book was as I suspected. A real page turner, especially once you crossed that half-way mark. This time most of the action was centered around a small town in the UP of Michigan. I won’t fill you in on how Cork ended up there in case you haven’t read Mercy Falls yet.

If you like murder mysteries from the point of view of the law or if you’ve enjoyed previous William Kent Krueger books you’ll definitely enjoy Copper River. In fact, I think his books just keep getting better and better! This was my second book of 2007. That is much more like it!

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On another slight aside, I figured out a way to set up an RSS feed for my photos from Project 365. You can set up RSS feeds for your photostream with a specific tag. So, if you wish to see any new photos I upload to my Project 365 set on Flickr, please subscribe to http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=73771158@N00&tags=365&format=rss_200

You can follow my photography on any of the following subjects in the same manner:

• Works in Progress
• Knitting FOs
• Spinning FOs
• Sewing FOs
• Food & Drink

I know I had shown photos earlier of the star we hung in our window this past holiday season. It was a nice green one with a creamy yellow print on it. It has and will serve us well (once I shore up the folds with some tape). However, when we were in Willmar over the holidays we stopped in at a great Scandinavian store downtown called House of Jacobs. Two of the items we purchased there were the stars in the photos above. These are wooden and will continue to serve us for many more years than the paper one I’m sure.

Now, St. Knut’s day is gone so even the Scandinavians agree that the holidays are over. However, we decided to hang these wooden stars through more of the winter. It is a nice reminder of longer and warmer days to come and helps keep the house from seeming quite so bare after the removal of the other holiday decorations.

I am not having much luck in the knitting department lately. I started a fun sock pattern on New Year’s Day in hopes of using it for the Socknitters 2007 Challenge. I grabbed two balls of Fortissima Colori that I had picked up at Creative Fibers in the Twin Cities in July of 2005. I had a plan to work increases into the leg for fuller calved people and it was going to be awesome. Only trouble? I had to ball up a *ton* of yarn off of one ball to get the stripes to match. I have two more color stripes and the smaller ball of yarn will be gone. That will yield a very short sock. Even if I had the full ball to work with the socks would still be shorter than I had planned. (I took photos, but those are the files I’m trying to recover and so far the process is slow as I haven’t figured out how to feed these various programs the specific files I know are missing thier JPEG marker so I apologize and with any luck I’ll be able to pop in a photo that I either re-take later or that I have been able to recover.)

These are 50g balls with only 125m to the ball. I realized it was thicker yarn when I was casting on, but I figured it would be fine. I should have been more worried when I realized I was only getting 7 sts/in. That should have been my first clue.

As is, these socks should wear like iron, being a light sport weight knit on 2.5mm needles. That said, I’m not really much of an anklet wearer. If it is warm enough for short socks I’m in sandals. I very much a sandal girl. So I’m at a dilemma. Do I rip and try the pattern with some other yarn? Do I try get my hands on another two balls (making this a $40 pair of socks)? I’m leaning heavily in the rip direction. The yarn makes me mad for one, but I’m also not in love with the brown and olive green that are breaking up the nice bright other colors. It just doesn’t fit to me.

When the sock project went south I decided I could do a smaller diversionary project while I made up my mind. So, I cast on my just finished handspun (it has to be a record BTW - from finished skein to cast-on) for some fingerless gloves similar to Fetching, but in my own gauge and my own cable selection. It looks pretty good, but they feel quite stiff and a tad snug. Seeing as how I wash the yarn before knitting it I’m guessing there won’t be much of any bloom to increase the circumfrence of them much.

So, do I rip and redo on the next needle size up? And if I decide to go that route do I wait until I can get my hands on a pair of circs to do it that way again or do I suck it up and use DPNs - keeping in mind there are seven cables and you cannot split cable stitches between multiple needles so that yields a very uneven distribution of sts amongst four or even three DPNs. Gah! Or, do I finish this first one while I wait for new circs to arrive, knit the second one on the bigger needles, wash/block and compare and then reknit the one I don’t like?

Needless to say I’ve been spending a bit more time reading (just finished All Creatures Great and Small for my first book of 2007 - can’t believe it took me so long), doing things on the computer, and spinning (I’m half way through the second bobbin of the superwash merino from Bonkers).