The Struggle

The struggle is real.  Do I choose to knit or do I choose Cheetos?

Wine, Cheetos, a book and some yarn

It's been a Cheetos and wine kind of day.

The wine is Hobnob Wicked and goes surprisingly well with Cheetos.

The book is Must Love Mistletoe by Christie Ridgway.  I'll be starting it as soon as I make the Cheetos vs. knitting decision so I can't tell you anything about it yet.

The knitting is a pair of cabled fingerless gloves inspired by Outlander in Wool of the Andes Noble Heather.

Join me on Ginny's Yarn Along to see what others are reading and knitting.

Celebrate Pasta!

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Happy World Pasta Day!  

I'm a lousy cook & as the saying goes, I could burn water.  Except I don't have the patience to burn anything.  My meals tend to be more on the raw side.  But raw pasta is "al dente" so the family can't complain about another meal gone awry.  A great reason to love pasta!

Another reason to love pasta is it gives you an excuse to drink a bottle of Chianti.

And yet another reason to love pasta - it still tastes good a day or two later.  And that's a good thing because...  shh..... don't tell, but I actually celebrated World Pasta Day a few days ago.  Sadly, I'm at work today, not drinking wine with my left over pasta.  But the fact that it still tastes good, even without the Chianti, is a great example why we should celebrate.

In case you are wondering, no, I didn't forget to add the sauce.  Rather than the standard tomato sauce, I used garlic flavored olive oil.  (I'm hoping the garlic will keep the zombie clowns away from me while I'm at work.  Garlic does work on zombies as well as vampires, right??)  

Anyway... my olive oil "sauce" is so simple to make.  Just chop up a few garlic cloves (I use anywhere from 2 to 5 depending on size, what I have on hand & my energy level at the time) and add them to about a quarter cup of hot olive oil.  Cook & stir frequently & turn off the heat before the garlic browns.  If I can remember to save it, I add a few tablespoons of pasta water to the olive oil & stir that around.  If the spouse is home, I run the olive oil mixture through a sieve to remove the garlic chunks.  If he's not home, I leave the chunks in it.  Add the sauce to the pasta, salt heavily (pasta ALWAYS needs more salt) and stir.  Voila!  Dinner in under ten minutes.  Just another reason to love pasta!

Besides World Pasta Day, there's been all kinds of other exciting news in my world.  First, I finally got around to blocking my Allegro sweater.  

Granted, it may be next fall before it dries completely.  I obviously did not do a very good job squeezing the water out of it before blocking.  Honestly, I'm starting to worry that it may mold before it dries.  Good grief!  But hey, at least it's one less item on my very lengthy to-do list, and that folks, is pretty dang exciting!  

The next exciting bit of news is....

My plant is still alive!  It's survived a whole week!  It's a miracle!  Every year when we go pick our pumpkins at the pumpkin patch, I buy a bush.  Every year, that bush dies a few days or weeks later.  Obviously, my gardening skills are even worse than my cooking skills.  I know, I know.  What kind of southern woman can't cook or garden?  Me, apparently.

I have high hopes for this bush though.  And look, it has the prettiest purple berries.

Well, that's about it for the news.  I know, I lead a pretty exciting life, right?  

Hope you're having a happy World Pasta Day.  Wish me luck battling the zombie clowns at work.  Good grief, those things give me the willies!

Knitters Drink

Have you ever noticed how much knitter’s tend to like wine?  I’m no exception.  But I’m not exactly adventurous or knowledgeable when it comes to wine.  I decided to change that.  At least the adventurous part.  Hopefully, the increase in knowledge part will tag along for the ride.   How will I become more adventurous you ask?  One of this year's goals is to try a new wine each month.  

January’s wine was Bully Hill Vineyards Barnyard Red.  And it was good!  Normally I’m not a big fan of reds (something I’d very much like to change) nor am I a big fan of overly dry wine.  Yes, I'm embarrassed to admit that I prefer sweet, Kool Aid type wines.  But although the label said this wine was on the dry side of the spectrum, I thought it was delicious.  It wasn’t Kool Aid, but it was good.  I hope I can get my hands on more.  This particular bottle has been sitting on the rack for over a year, maybe even two.  It was originally purchased from Grapes of Taste, a tiny little local wine store, tucked behind our local post office.  Which may explain why our mail service is so screwy.

If you have any suggestions for which wine I should try next, please share in the comments.

As for the knitting, there’s been basically no progress on the rainbow scarf originally shown in this blog post.   The yarn I needed for a custom order arrived & I traded knitting rainbows for maroon & gold stripes.  Now that the custom order is finished & shipped off, I've moved on to another cowl.  

It's knit in a staggered rib pattern that isn't showing up in the photo.  When finished, the cowl will be reversible & the other side will have a much more textured appearance.  I'm using Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable yarn in the Winery colorway.  (I really am into wine these days!)  Normally, when I think of Red Heart, I think of that horrible, scratchy, stiff as cardboard, worsted weight acrylic that probably 90% of us learned to knit on.  Nasty stuff!  And it amazes me that those of us who did learn to knit with it, ever continued knitting after the first project.  But, Red Heart has made a few changes over the last several years.  They have a sock yarn that's fairly decent & I really do like this Boutique yarn.  It's soft & one skien has 280 yards.  There's enough yardage to do a cowl & a hat or a cowl & fingerless gloves.  And it comes in some very pretty colors.

Do you have a Red Heart story?  Please share in the comments & don't forget, I'd also love to hear your wine recommendations.

Hearts!

I hope the new year is treating you well.  Rather than loosing those 10 pounds I swore I'd loose on January 1st, I think I've probably gained another 10 pounds.  But, the rum balls, cookies & all the other Christmas goodies are gone.  We are pretty much a healthy household once again, at least pantry wise.

So, instead of loosing weight, how did I spend the first week of the new year?  By sewing felt hearts.

Lots & lots of felt hearts.  I'm not overly mushy & the only reason for Valentines Day in my mind is to gorge myself on discounted chocolate the next day, but I love these heart ornaments.  I also love the idea of decorating my wine bottles.  And of course, they can be stashed away & used as Christmas tree ornaments too.  And what better Christmas ornament than one that doesn't need to be stored after Christmas.  Just take it off the tree & toss it over a wine bottle & you're instantly ready for Valentines.    Anyway, I made a zillion different ones & you can find them in my Etsy shop.  As of this moment, they aren't all listed for sale yet, but over the next week they should be.

Meanwhile, I've also been knitting on a fishnet shawl made with Lorna's Lace's wool in the Icehouse colorway.  I'm extremely happy with the shawl, except that I'm running out of yarn.  Instead of being large enough to go around my shoulders, it will be sized to fit an anorexic two year old.  I'm hoping it will stretch during the blocking process.