A tale of two cowls!

Merry Christmas Eve! It's a quiet one around here - the husband and I are sticking around here since air fare is redonkulous. A couple of weeks ago I made a few kinds of Christmas cookies. We ate all of those. So I whipped up a second batch of cookies yesterday morning - snickerdoodles and meringue surprises. This is the first time my meringue cookies approximated success!


And the surprise? Chocolate chips.


The subject of this post is not COOKIES! It's a tale of two cowls. For that is what I have knit lately. I needed something quick to knit up and I found the Birthday Cowl. Exactly the thing I needed. And the yarn? Some of my much hoarded Jade Sapphire Cashmere. The thing is like butter.


I increased a bit at one end to create a flare. It's soft and warm to wear, but isn't very fashion forward.



Cowl #2 has been in the works for a while. But it's been a slow knit. Churchmouse's Bias Loop Cowl. It's knit in lace weight yarn and is a simple simple pattern. But beautiful. I knit it a few needle sizes down (Size 9!) with Malabrigo lace. My neck is sensitive and can't take mohair, or even alpaca, but Malabrigo lace gives that sort of halo with amazing softness.


Instead of a kitchener graft, I did a three needle bind off. It's not invisible, but it saved me a lot of grief. And I have been and will be wearing this cowl all the time. I might be making these for gifts one year.


And those are the cowls. Both soft and warm, but one will be worn a lot more than the other.

New books!

Look what I got in the mail today!


Three books from Amazon - Knitting 24/7, New England Knits, and Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. And, as a special bonus, Miriam Felton's Twist and Knit.

Knitting 24/7 and New England Knits feature the sort of patterns I adore. Clean, simple, but interesting. From New England Knits, I absolutely must make the Augusta Cardigan.


From Knitting 24/7, I quite like the Grandfather Vest. I love a good sweater vest.


Twist and Knit was a must have. I've been a fan of Miriam's designs since I fell swooning in love with her Icarus Shawl. So of course I'm going to buy her book! First on my list are the Porifera socks, which are lovely.

And the Artisan Bread... well, I'm enamored of the idea of baking fresh bread. But my husband is skeptical. No trials this week though. It's going to be hovering around 100 for the next few days. Yeech.

Oh! And, on Saturday, I scored a copy of Sweater Design in Plain English for three bucks! I sure do love a deal.

November 21st: In the Kitchen

I have not knit a stitch all day. I got a call at 8:40 (I was asleep at the time, mind you) asking if I could move my hair appointment for the morning up a half hour. Okay, I can do that. So I get moving and grooving, Pants gets moving and grooving. We leave the house, go to the bank, then to the hair appointments.

We went to the local cosmetology school for haircuts, since they only charge $6 a cut. I got a trim and bangs! No photos yet, but trust me, they're cute. Pants just wanted a hair cut, but the student was a little unsure about the whole thing and his appointment took an hour. Yikes.

Grab lunch, check out St. Vinnie's, then go grocery shopping. Because I have plans. Dinner plans. And they involve Julia Child. I get the necessary ingredients and we head home.

I head into the kitchen where I bake some snickerdoodles out of my old Betty Crocker book. Pants tells me he doesn't like snickerdoodles, but he'll eat them. But when I give him one, he's confused. For some reason, he was under the impression that snickerdoodles are rice crispy treats with peanut butter on top. Odd.


For dinner, I decided to make potage parmentier or leek and potato soup, from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The grocery store only had onions, but Julia says regular onions are okay, too. And darn if that isn't a delicious soup. A bit thin to our sense of soup, but deliciously tasty.


I wanted to cook something out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking because, in the last month, I read both Julia Child's My Life in France and Julie Powell's Jule and Julia. My Life in France is fantastic - Julia shines through every page and it's fascinating. I read it in 48 hours on a business trip. I felt rounding it out by, you know, actually cooking something would be appropriate. And so it was.

November 9th: Cookies

Today, I made cookies. I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from this recipe. And I wore my brand new apron, which I mentioned yesterday.

But what fun is wearing a classically styled apron if you don't go full 1950s housewife on it?


I'm even wearing pearls (oops, I wrote purls first) and heels. The heels lasted through about the middle of actually baking the cookies. Then I switched to slippers. :D

The oatmeal in the cookies really bulks out the batter. You get about 40 cookies per batch. Also, this batch and the previous are the first times I've used honest to goodness butter in baking. I was raised on margarine, what can I say? But butter cookies are so rich and decadent.


I'm not 100% with the consistent sizing of cookies either. But as far as I'm concerned, it's not the way they look, but the way they taste.


The last few cookies spread out too much and got kind of caramelized/crispy. Pants didn't care for them, but I like them. When I was done, into the cookie jar go the cookies. And we have, in my opinion, a truly excellent cookie jar.


It's not bigger on the inside, unfortunately.

No knitting yet, but I think I'll stay up a bit and work on my sleeves once this is posted.