Amenities in an Amsterdam hotel: shampoo, conditioner and hand lotion in “mood therapy”.

Moods are: “calm”, “happy” and “alive”. I must confess, I had not really considered the state of being not dead was especially a mood, before!

I laid the washed swatch out to dry in the sunspot. It was mere seconds until the cat was there to “help”.

Someone else quite happy with where she is right now…

Well, yesterday, it was that time again –  time for a different
view on my way to work.

(Luckstone Quarry lookout, W&OD bike trail)

A momentary aberration in my daily commute — Bike to Work Day! (Or, as
I like to think of it — “Guilt-free eating day” ;-) ).

Yesterday’s ride was 19mi in, and 19mi home, in about 90min
(each).  I was pretty pleased — given that the last time I’d
ridden seriously might well have been BtWD 2007.  I had arranged
myself not to have to bring lots of stuff with me (left the computer at
work the night before, et cetera).  It made a big difference not
to have to use a backpack.  Though, to do this on a basis more
regular than every 3 years, I’d want to do something about those knobby
tires, too.

Riding on the W&OD was mostly pretty good, except for the areas in
and around towns — it’s pretty hard to get bike traffic, cyclist
traffic, roller bladers (with their wide-swinging arms & legs),
dogs, toddlers (random and erratic trajectories) to mix on one
trail.  I only saw one accident — I think the toddler will
survive, and the cyclist picked himself up and passed me (again). 
But — far better than trying to deal with bicycle & car traffic on
some of the 8-lane concrete oceans around here.  It’s nice to have
the trail.

Routing courtesy Icelandic volcano ash cloud…

Leesburg VA reports 27.5″ of snow from the storm.

I’m still miles away on
a different continent, but, here are the reports I’ve gotten from
home — digging out.

08h00 Sunday, February 7, 2010 –
the sun does come up, post-snowpocalypse

16h00 Sunday, February 7, 2010
– dug out, to the road,
anyway

Here’s how the current winter storm  is playing out in the
Washington DC area:

Reporting from the LA
Times (!).

“As of late afternoon, a total of 32.4 inches was recorded at Dulles
International Airport outside of Washington, according to the National
Weather Service. That two-day accumulation topped the previous record,
compiled during the blizzard of January 1996, the weather service said.”

I’m “enjoying” my first business trip of the year, so I’m miles away on
a different continent.  But, here are the reports I’ve gotten from
home — snowpocalypse in evolution!

10h00 Friday, February 5, 2010 –
first flakes fly

16h00 Friday, February 5, 2010
– hunkering down

09h00 Saturday, February 6, 2010 –
buried

16h00 Saturday, February 6, 2010 –
there are cars in there?

And, weaving fun was had, for sure! 

So, the first thing off the loom is not “a piece” or really even an “FO”.  It’s just a sampler, warp that I filled with weft as I was playing around to get to know what this weaving thing is all about.  I won’t even begin to discuss the challenge that is “selvages”. 

Without further ado, here it is:

Perhaps worth noting — from this perspective, I began at the right and worked my way to the left, so that the final 2 sections of plain weave were what I did to fill up the warp as much as possible (to figure out how much waste I can expect with this loom).  Not particularly visible in this photo, the selvages were becoming somewhat credible towards the end.

Per the instructions for the exercise, I put on a 2 yard (72″) warp.    Less 7 1/2″ waste (fringe, below) at the front, and 14″ waste at the back, that gave me room to weave 45″ on this warp.  (The other ~5″ were presumably lost to take up, as the warp and weft threads crossed).  Post-wash, the worked length was 43″.  I had set it for 10″ wide (120 ends, 12 dent reed).  It ranged between 8 1/4″ and 9 1/2″ wide before washing, and shrank to 8″ – 9 1/4″ after washing.  (The variations in width have to do with the different weave patterns (plain or twill), as well as the density of packing, through heavier beating).

Total time spent weaving… probably not more than a few hours.  And, it was a lot of fun — very rhythmic, when it got going.  It was easy enough with a simple treadling pattern to follow (1-2-3-4, or 1&3-2&4, for eg), but I really don’t know how I’ll do when it comes to more complex treadling.  I envision having to learn the fine art of figuring out where I’ve gotten to and having to backtrack to work out mistakes :-/  The weaving equivalent of learning how to fall, I guess.

Above, from left to right — brown tightly packed (weft-dominant) 2x twill, white loose (warp-dominant) 2x twill, and some basic 2×2 twill making a herring bone pattern, followed by plain weave in various degrees of packedness (mostly intentionally :-) ).

Closeup of plain weave — tightly packed at the right, loosely packed in the middle and left (white & brown weft, respectively).

So — there you have it:  first thing off the loom!  Next step — planning a project with a result I’ll want to keep…

Oooh, lookey!  Another weekend!  More Quality Time with the Baby Wolf.   I managed to thread the heddles on the shafts, in the appropriate order, and get the warp threads actually attached to the front and back beams. 

And — treadled! 

Don’t look now, but this warp is ready to be woven!

On the weekend, I finally had the opportunity to spend some Quality Time with the Baby Wolf.  I measured 120 warp threads (in 2 colours), and got as far as getting the reed sleyed.

Still a ways to go — have to thread the heddles on the shafts, in the appropriate order, and get the warp threads actually attached to the front and back beams. 

I’m following the excellent, detailed instructions in Deborah Chandler’s “Learning to Weave”.  While it’s slow going, it’s making sense so far, and seems like the sort of thing that will get faster as you learn what you’re doing.

Of course, actual weaving may be an entirely different matter!

… and don’t you ever forget it!

We were driving by Castalia Marsh at high tide, the other day, and were astonished to see that it was completely flooded.  It’s winter, high tides tend to be at their highest, and we did just have a wicked storm system come through, that did significant damage in Port Elgin, NB.  But, still — this was a couple of days later, and we’d never seen the Marsh as anything other than, well, a marsh, with small tufted islands and channels of water.

Instead (click for slightly bigger) — in the image below, you can see the picnic area almost overrun, and the remains of a couple of duck blinds poking out of the water in the distance.

And, as you can see below — the causeway/breaker wall between the Bay of Fundy and the Marsh was completely overrun.  The 3 pictures below show progress along the causeway, on what used to be the access road.  It’s now strewn with football-sized rocks, tossed up by the surf at some point.  (While we were there, someone came by in their F-1Million pickup truck and tried to pick his way along — he gave up and retreated).

It always impresses me what the simple forces of nature can wreak on our carefully engineered, man-made interventions (like, say, roads).

A slightly different perspective — looking back at the exit from the picnic area parking:  the road just stops:

The water was still somewhat stormy that day — lovely winter colours.

I dug through my old photos to try to find some useful comparisons.  It seems that the things that were photogenic in the wintry, flooded, stormy state were not the same as the things I thought to snap when it was in its seasonal prime!  But, a few comparative pictures of the surrounding shorelines, below (click for bigger pics).

Before	January 2010

Many buildings in Amsterdam are old.  And they have a “native population”, that survives transfer of ownership.  To help deal with this, it is not unusual for restaurants to employ “peace keepers” of the four-legged sort.

I recently met Mavis:

Mavis was not above supplementing her rodent-chasing diet with handouts from the restaurant’s kitchen:

While I’m not naming the restaurant above, it should be noted that I have actually seen mice running across the floor in a (different) restaurant in Amsterdam, and Mavis was not the first resto-cat I’d encountered in that city.  Sometime back in 2003, I met this “greeter”:

Double-duty mouser & maitre d’? ;-)

Best wishes, from Grand Manan.

And, by request — socks in the window:

Those are, in fact, new socks (old feet).  There’ve been a few end-of-year Finished Objects here at KnitBot central, and they are duly posted up on in the KnitBot Yarn Gallery.

And, for fun — here is the year in review (all objects finished in 2009 — some were certainly started earlier).

Knitbot’s 2009 FOs

In that, you can see that there were 7 travel projects (i.e., projects that could be worked on while in transit and/or in meetings).  That’s not too surprising, given the type of year it was…  It’s a little surprising to me that I managed to finish 4 non-travel projects in the year — the sweaters/top.  Three of them were pretty easy knits — the diamond modular top, the diagonal (Petra) sweater, and the black jacket.  The Triple L Tweed sweater was the really big project for the year — in December 2008, I was swatching with the yarn to get some ideas.  The rest of the year was about working out a plan for the whole sweater, and then constructing the various bits of it.  I might go as far as to say I think it’s my most successful sweater design yet (not that there have been many…). 

And, it’s a new year.  Not that I’m formulating any formal resolutions here, but let’s just say it would be good to see as many projects, fewer of them travel projects, this time next year.

When looking at grey November vistas, stunning in their simple beauty…

there’s only one question:  guess who’s coming…

… to dinner?

And a fine dinner they were, too.

Didn’t stop me from playing with the “Duck
a la Something or Other” recipe — browning the cabbage and onion
before adding it to the duck in the slow cooker to braise for the last
hour.

And this year’s sauce was orange and raspberry:

Wanting to play with something completely different, I came across a
recipe for smoked
cheddar, spinach and sundried tomato ravioli.  But, I thought
it would be dull to use the wonton wrappers called for — made some
fresh pasta, instead.  And, I didn’t have a ravioli form — went
with a mini-muffin tin, instead:

Which made yummy, if oversized, ravioli!

And, there was pasta leftover.  I cut the leftover pasta into
fettucini.  Now I know why there are those nifty holes in the
backs of chairs:

And, in more discoveries… The measuring cup lurking on the stovetop
in the duck adventure?  Well, gelatinous.  And, suspiciously
like “graisse
de canard“.

Haven’t quite found the gumption to try a slice of this on bread…
might just sort it into duck soup (still have the bones) and keep the
fat for confit.  Who can say what the next culinary adventure will
be?  If you could, it wouldn’t be play…

So, what would make you, the day after a 12 hour flight home from Japan, turn this:

Into this?:

I’d like to say something clever, like “reverse jetlag”,  or “desperately delayed burst of house pride”, but that’s hardly the case.  Rather, it took a wolf’s influence… the arrival of the Schacht Baby Wolf I’d ordered in the middle of the night from a hotel room in London, on the last day of September…

It’s a folding loom, with 26″weaving width. 

Being the sort of person I am, I blew straight past the 4-shaft phase, and straight to an 8 shaft (10 treadle) loom.  My expectation is that this will be not only my first, but my only loom.  Not everyone in the house is quite so sanguine, as our basement slowly gets devoured by my fibre-consuming toys…

Of course, having 8 shafts, it also came with 800 heddles to install on those glaringly empty shafts.  It occurred to me that playing with 800 fiddly, loose metal bits was not something to attempt while jetlagged and/or tired.  From experience, I can say that was the right expectation.    Sigh.  They pick up easily.

I still don’t have the final pieces in place, not even the cords to attach the treadles to the shafts — but here’s a quick view of what it looks like with one shaft raised (which will form a shed through which one shoots the shuttle with a bobbin, once it’s all warped up and set to go).  You can see — the shaft is pushed up by the “jacks” underneath.

Well, lots more to learn and fiddle with.  It’ll be fun.  And take a while.

And, why, yes, that is a complete Atari 1040st system in boxes in the background above.  Complete with black and white AND colour monitors!  And a 30Mbyte hard drive.  Any takers? :-)

Every now and then, the question comes up on knitting message boards — “can I take my knitting project on the plane?”.  There is no uniform answer across the globe.  Generally speaking, knitting needles are allowed through airport security in Canada and the US, but not allowed in a number of European airports.  And, there are plenty of stories of sad knitters who have had to throw out their expensive Addi Turbos at the security checkpoint, leaving their knitting project in a tenuous state of unattached stitches.  I’ve even heard of some airports requiring people to cut the cable on their circular needle, for fear it would be used as a garrote:  safer for the knitting project than abandoning the needle, but end of useful life of the circular needle.

For myself, I really like the Denise plastic modular needle set:  the modularity is convenient.  The plastic pieces are innocuous, and may not even show up on security scans.  Sure, they are not Addi Turbos, but they are still pretty usable needles. 

Apart from that — I keep a small project (like, a sock project on 5″ wooden needles, such as Grafton Fibers’ Darn Pretty Needles, which are sturdy and sharp) just for travel.

When traveling to or through Europe, I don’t bring knitting projects on the plane — but I have a travel crochet project I bring just for the plane rides.  The theory is simple — it’s a crochet hook, not a needle.  And, if they ever give me grief and cause me to surrender the hook at security, at least I’ve just got the one loop to secure, and the project will not unravel until I have a new hook.   Yeah, I like knitting much more than crochet, but I like crochet considerably more than being BORED MINDLESS on a plane, watching movies I never wanted to see, on half-failed entertainment system (should I change airlines? :-) ).   Knock on wood — it’s worked so far.

Of course, if you have travel knitting (or crochet, as here) — you should take it out and show it a good time, while traveling:

This crochet stole is now finished — I’ll provide more details, gallerize it and declare it an FO when I’ve gotten it home and properly blocked (along with another lace project, finished up last month).  It’s no particular pattern — just a stitch pattern I thought looked pretty, that I did for four feet of stole, and threw an edge around :-)

See — the knitting (and crochet) continue, even if I don’t blog about it every five minutes!

One more shot of the stole — where you can see some of the detail in the patterning.

I do mean fog…

It’s like somebody turned off the CGI rendering of the background (cove, boats, rest of island…).

Or, here’s a different perspective of Flaggs Cove, Grand Manan, not in fog:

The fog can also play tricks — fading here, and thickening there.  Here, you see a glimpse of Castalia.

But, here it’s all equally fuzzy:

Here’s a fine example of something that should be seen, and not heard:

These pheasants make a noise that sounds something like a car starter being turned after the car is already running.

This guy & his missus have taken over our property, strutting about in full ownership mode.

They might be even better tasted than seen, but that’s not a direction I’m planning to pursue.

988 miles, blue carrier, pink blankie…

Window!

No, really — quite happy:

I’m sensitive to the mutterings I’ve been hearing lately — that for “knitbot”, there sure isn’t much knitting content on this blog.  Well, this post is not going to change that situation! 

If you happen to find yourself considering making Bon Appetit’s Devil’s Food Layer Cake with Pepperming Frosting, there are a couple of things you should know.

First, if you have a stand mixer with a paddle blade, get yourself one of these silicone self-wiping paddle attachments:

This is a SideSwipe.  It seriously removes the need to be constantly scraping down the mixing bowl as you work — which more or less improves the effectiveness by (subjectively) 50%.  I fell in love with my KitchenAid all over again…

Second, when they say 2 nine-inch cake pans, 2″ deep.  They mean minimum 2″ deep.  Otherwise:

Not only is that a “switch oven to self clean mode, do not pass Go, do not collect $200″ situation, it is not possible to salvage the cakes in the pans, even if cooked — because they are too delicate to extract from the pan:

Well, those cakes wound up in the freezer, no doubt to reappear for some future dessert (chocolate cake trifle, anyone?).

And, the third thing you should know is that the resulting cake (once you’ve given in and recognized you don’t have 9″x2″ cake tins, and bake the cake batter in 3 9″x1.25″ tins) is really, really tall:

(Yes, I can count.  The middle cake is split in two, to make 2 layers of four).

Personally, I thought that height was out of control.  Moreover, I could not fathom how I would cut and serve it without making a toppled mess.  So, I quickly did a re-distribution:

Worked out okay — though, not surprisingly, there wasn’t quite enough frosting to cover the top of the second cake:

And, you should consider making the cake — because it is very very tasty.  Decadently rich, of course, but certainly worth the effort of making the cakes from scratch (yes, much better than box cakes, even if you have to make them twice :-(  ), the bittersweet chocolate ganache, the white chocolate filling, and the peppermint boiled icing…