What to do With a Rainy Weekend

The rain started falling on Friday of last week and it continued falling through Sunday. There were a couple of breaks in the rain, breaks long enough for a 3 baseball games to be played, but the breaks seemed tenuous and drizzly. It wasn't cold or even chilly out, but it is fall here in New England, so I decided to use the rainy weekend to try keeping busy doing some fallish things.

My first activity on Saturday morning was to make a pie crust. When the crust was ready I made an apple pie with a cheddar cheese crust.

While the pie was being prepped I soaked some black beans. By late Saturday afternoon I started making a pot of Southwest Black Bean Soup. A bowl of the soup was my dinner.

Since soup, by itself, seems a bit lonely I decided, while the soup was simmering, to make some corn bread. The recipe I used called for the corn bread to be made in a cast iron skillet. My cast iron skillet is only big enough for one veggie burger, so I made the corn bread in a cake pan.

While on my cooking frenzy, I finished up my Gothic Spire Socks (photo to come latter).

On Sunday, a new, rainy day dawned, and I had more indoor hours to fill. To fill those hours I finished reading 2 books, and finished knitting my Shaped Lace Tee (from Knitting Lingerie Style). I also fried up some Chili-cornmeal encrusted Tofu (recipe from the Veganomicon) to have for lunch during the week.

By the end of Sunday I was ready to jump out a window (and I actually was gone from my apartment for about 2 hours +-). I guess that I am not really that much of the type of person who enjoys THAT much at home domestic activity (please note that while I was domestic this weekend, there was no mention of me spending time cleaning, I guess I just can't reach that level of domesticity)

A Tiny Bit of Knitting

I have been bored lately. Bored to the point of distraction, therefore, there hasn't been much knitting happening and with no knitting happening there has been no reason to blog. This post is going to be brief. Both K & I are still alive and kicking. I have done some knitting and have just turned the heel on my second Gothic Spire sock.

Instead of knitting I have been doing some real cooking (people that know me IRL know that usually cooking for me means opening something from Trader Joe's and heating it up).

In addition (ready for some pointless bragging? If not, you can stop reading) I rode 50 miles on Sunday as part of the Hub on Wheels Ride. I rode my 50 miles in 3 hours and 26 minutes! This gives me an average pace of about 14.5 mph! For me this is fabulous, I am usually a 12 mph kind of rider.

Ennui Shawl Part Deux

The Shawl if finished. It is blocked and dried. Done, off the needles, soft and warm. Unfortunately, the photos of me with it were kind of blurry, so for now, the above is what I have to share. It looked a little short before blocking, but thanks to the magic of water and blocking wires it turned out to be a good shawl size. Bellow is a detail shot of the little circles in the center and the start of the border pattern.

Ennui Shawl

Last year I began to attempt to design a triangular shawl. My inspiration for the shawl came from seeing the beautiful and oh so soft Malabrigo Lace. I wanted to create something unique with this lovely yarn. I decided to make my triangular shawl following the top center out plan of Icarus and the like. I carefully selected my center pattern and began working on it.

After a while I decided to mix things up and switched to a different pattern. Originally, this was not going to be the border, but instead a step between the main pattern and the border pattern. I attempted to choose a motif that continued with little circle/rings, but which used them less often. As I continued though, I decided that adding another center motif would be too much, so this became my border.

Next was time for the edging, I decided that the little picots on the very edge of the edging would be a nice follow through with the other circles (admittedly, unblocked, the circles in the border don't show so well). The edging pattern departs from the knitting structure of the rest of the shawl and is knit separately and attached to the body through means of purling two together.

Now, after nearly a year of off and on knitting the shawl is coming close to completion. My edging is almost half done. The only challenge left is figuring out how to make the edging turn at the point of my triangle...