Year of the Dumpling

Happy 2019! Chinese New Years is this week, and it happens to fall in line with my newest obsession: dumplings and baos! When I was a kid, I helped fold endless wontons and potstickers, but we always used the prepackaged wrappers. I got it in my head late last year to start making dumpling wrappers and baos. And once I start something... Well, you know how that goes.

The boy made me some Asian-style rolling pins, because my tapered bread pin from India wasn't made for the task at hand. Dumpling rolling pins are straight, so conveniently, you can buy a dowel rod between 3/4"-1" in diameter and cut it into 12" chunks. I wanted a fancy walnut rolling pin, not quite traditional, but they're sooo pretty!

Rolling out dumplings reminds me of first learning how to knit. I was all thumbs when I started to learn, and my garter stitch scarves would mysteriously increase and decrease in width. My dumpling wrappers are doing the same thing! But, I'll get my 10,000 hours in and rock this with time. I just have to push through the apprentice stage and realize that even ugly dumplings are good to eat. Two particularly ugly batches of dumplings are pictured below.

Now that I have the hang of the dumpling dough, I've been experimenting by replacing some of the flour and water with sourdough starter discard. For any of you making sourdough breads, you know that the hungry little starters need to be periodically fed by dumping out half of the old starter, and refreshing with new flour and water. But what to do with that old starter? I was making pancakes with it, but I'm not really a pancake person. However, I can confidently call myself a dumpling person now, so into my dumpling mix it goes! I still don't have the perfect proportions yet, but I can share if I ever get there and if you're interested and make another post.

I've neglected this blog in favor of Instagram, but I find myself constantly coming back to this blog to look up recipes and methodologies because I have a hard time keeping track of what I do and when. It's handy! I need to remember to post more often.

And since this blog started off as a knitting blog, here are some of my favorite FOs for 2018.

Laurie

POP!

Faceted Yolk Pullover

I linked my project pages to the captions if you would like more deets. Until next time, have a happy 2019!

Spicy Knitted Carboy Sweater

Hopefully, this is the last carboy sweater I knit for a long, long time. The summer of 2013 is forever going to be remembered as the time I knit 4 consecutive carboy sweaters. It's a rather pathetic label for a time that should be remembered as, say, the time I conquered stand up paddle boarding (I have a long way to go) or time I took a fab vacation to Italy. Still, it will have to do. As my friend said after she gushed about unwrapping a new kitchen sponge, sometimes being an adult sucks.

Numerous people have told me that I should make these and sell them because I could make so much money. These people think I'm a little lazy for not spending my time cranking these out. Then, I ask them how much they would pay for this sweater made of mostly acrylic. The answer? $20, max. I tell them that it took me probably 6 hours or so to knit this, and they now look at me like I'm a little crazy. One person had a novel solution: I should have a sweatshop in China where people knit these carboy sweaters. That's every young girl's dream, isn't it? To lord over a sweatshop in China! Ugh, no thanks.

This is why I sell patterns, but not handcrafted goods. Although desktop publishing makes me feel all stabby, the stabby feeling fades after a brisk walk with the dog, and I can resume wearing my rose-colored glasses. That stabby feeling would last 6 hours multiplied by the number of commissioned sweaters I made if I were to knit for hire. No thanks.

Who I'll knit for and what I'll knit is always evolving. Babies? Sure! I do love giving babies a hand knit sweater. Adults? It depends. I will happily teach adults to knit, but the thought of knitting something for someone who just wants to throw money at me never seems worth it. I'd be interested to hear other crafter's thoughts about this, and how you handle people asking you to make them things.

Top-Down Carboy Sweater Pattern, Finally!

Because I've knit this carboy sweater 3 times, each time taking notes and making improvements, it is time to publish a pattern to save others the trouble. When you are making this, do not dwell on the fact that you could be making yourself a sweater instead. No, no, no, that will make you bitter.

Instead, think kind thoughts about the person who spent 3 months fussing over every little detail about the sweater when she could have been making 3 sweaters for herself or 20 cat hats. And buy her pattern on Ravelry.

$4.00 USD

Because carboys with sweaters are happier, more productive  carboys, they reproduce. There is an additional carboy that just appeared in our house, and since I'm not one to discriminate, it will get its own sweater.

Knitted Carboy Sweater

Click here for my Knitted Carboy Sweater Pattern!

For the boy's birthday, I wanted to make his 6.5-gallon carboy a sweater of its very own. Since light exposure can lead to skunky beer, he had been wrapping his carboys in dog towels. While this practice wouldn't bother me that much if his beers were brewing in the back room, the fact that he insists on fermenting on our kitchen counter, where it was the first thing I'd see upon entering the house, started to wear me down. So, I guess you could say that I also knit this for myself.

See that blowdown tube in the above picture? That tube saves marriages. Seriously. It still makes me livid to repeat the stories (yes, plural), so just trust me on this one.

I decided to knit the sweater in 4x4 ribbing in a tight gauge, and I did want something that looked, well, classic. More Pottery Barn than CB2. It's hard to not think of yourself as a little odd when you're designing a classic sweater for a carboy, but I am pleased with the final result!

In the end, it was all knit out of leftover Wool-Ease I had purchased for a blanket (almost done, although I keep saying that!). There were several times during this process where I resented the carboy sweater because it was more knitting than I would have to do for a sweater for myself. Yet, it was the perfect project for that time because it was fairly mindless after a few easy calculations and gauge swatches. I knit it bottom up, but the next one I do will be top down. Although this is a ribbed sweater and it can fit both the 6.5- and the 5-gallon carboy, I do want to knit another one since the other carboy we have in the house is sitting in a cardboard box. Sour beers age for about a year, and I've been staring at that box in the corner of our living room way too long. If I don't knit it a sweater, I'm going to insist that the boy makes it into some sort of coffee table so that space isn't wasted.

Vitamin D

Done! My Vitamin D sweater, started in June 2012, is finally off the needles, and I've been sporting it around town. Since I wanted my cardigan to be longer than the pattern suggests, I knit 5 lower body radial rounds instead of 4.

The yarn is Lisa Souza BFL DK in the Forbidden City colorway. I purchased this at Stitches West 2012. Happily, this yarn softens up quite a bit after a good soak because part of the reason the cardigan sat around so much was that each time I tried it on, it was itchy. I lost my motivation because I hate wearing itchy wool! But, since my girlfriends have reinstated our weekly knit nights for 2013, I had to do something during that time other than eat cookies, cheese, and drink sparkling wine. So, I dragged the sweater with me. Some nights, I didn't knit a stitch, and then after about the 3rd week of dragging the sweater around, I really wanted it done. Two days later, the second sleeve was bound off and I was ready to soak it.

The most exciting part about finishing this sweater is that I no longer have a sweater's worth of yarn stashed away. Wheeeee! This makes me feel free! I have a few single skeins of yarn leftover from projects and some earmarked for socks, but besides that, my stash is teeny tiny. The anti-hoarder in me is rejoicing.

More details about my modifications are on my Rav page.

Endings and Beginnings

Finally, FINALLY, I finished the boy's Hempathy sweater! I started it in May 2010 with some sale yarn from Stash, the now deceased LYS that I miss so very much. I think the sweater was finished a few months later, but the sleeves were kimono-like. Not only were the sleeves enormous, but they stopped short of his wrists, so they were double stupid. I forbid him from wearing it, even though he swore that he didn't mind the ridiculous ginormity of the sleeves, because I had visions of him pointing to those sleeves explaining to coworkers and friends that his wife was forcing him to wear this hand knit sweater, and of people giving him a sympathetic look in return and telling him that he is a good man. No way was I going to be that knitting cliche!

I stuffed the sweater into a cloth grocery bag, and then shoved it into a cabinet, and it didn't see the light of day until I unearthed it a few months ago. I was shamed that something that took me so much time and so much yarn was not getting any air time, so I ripped back both sleeves, took some more of the boy's arm measurements (which proved difficult because it was hard for him to stop flexing and talking about his "smoking guns"), and knit some appropriate sweater sleeves. He now has a functional sweater that, if I may say so myself, looks jaunty and hip. Done, done, and done!

Last weekend, the beet greens were ripe for thinning. Since I have an affinity for trimming and picking, and since I have not been taking part in the nightly slug and snail hunting, it was my task. We ended up with probably 1/2 a pound of beet greens that were quickly washed, then wok-ified. I stir fried them with olive oil and garlic, dusted them with a bit of freshly ground salt and pepper, and then we inhaled them. The boy wondered why we were bothering with beets when the greens were delicious. I must remember to buy some more deep, leafy greens seeds specifically for cutting.

Since we seem to be the only gardeners who cannot get zucchini to come out of our ears, this made me feel like less of an urban farmer failure.  In fact, I think that our squashes are shrinking in size, which probably means I should cut them off to end their agony.

Gaia

Another cardigan down! Wait, didn't I say last time that it was time to stop knitting cardigans??? This makes my 5th cardigan of the year, and I'm beginning to think I should have joined one of those knit 12 sweaters a year challenges.

As you can see, I am procrastinating my sock knitting with cardigans. Usually, that would be just fine, but since I'm going to Sock Summit this year, I do want to have a sweet pair of socks to show off!

This is Gaia by Kristen TenDyke. It is knit using Spud & Chloe's Sweater in colorway 7515. Sadly, I bought this yarn Stash's going out of business sale. Sigh, that was such a fantastic store. I wrote a bunch of notes about this pattern on my Rav page, so I'll spare you them here. The one thing I should mention is that I used a lot less yarn than specified; I could have knit this using 3 balls of Spud & Chloe if I would have made it a bit shorter.

It was fun knitting set in sleeves again, and I'm especially happy with the method used in this pattern to knit the sleeve cap in place. Very, very slick.

OK, socks are next FO. At least one sock. I promise. However, I've been obsessively sketching cardigans in my design notebook, so I hope have the resolve to not knit up that last sweater's worth of yarn in my stash.

Vintage Cardigan

 Another cardigan complete!  This is Miette by TheAndiPants, a free pattern on Ravelry. So far, I've knit 4 cardigans for myself in 2011(Aidez, Ocean Beach, Swingy Cardi) - I needed some more cardi action in my wardrobe.

 

The yarn is Spud & Chloe Sweater, a 45% organic cotton and 55% superwash wool blend. Knitting with the yarn was more pleasant than ordinary cotton yarn due to elasticity of the wool, but the finished yarn does feel very much like cotton to me. And so far, it's stretching like cotton, too. Remember that if you knit with the stuff - add some negative ease!

I'm a shortie, so again many shortie-specific modifications were made. For the details, see my Rav project page.

The flower buttons were a lucky find. The wall of buttons made my eyes cross at the craft store, and I almost missed them.

My next FO will hopefully be a pair of socks, the Twisted Flower by Cookie A. I need to finish up my sock stash before Sock Summit!

Swingy Cardi

Being less than five-feet tall makes it hard to find clothes that fit right, especially when the style I'm after is a cardigan that's long in the front and short in the back. (It's a reverse mullet cardi!) So, what's a knitter to do? She makes one herself!

I added picot trim to the sleeves and the bottom of the cardigan,

 and I added some scalloped edging to the neck.

Madeline Tosh DK is so smooth and soft. I had reservations about knitting with a single-ply superwash yarn, but those reservations melted away with each stitch I knit. MadTosh is a pricey yarn, but I was lucky that it was 20% off at Article Pract (it was a staff pick).

 Speaking of yarn stores, my all time favorite store is no longer. Stash Yarn, you were the best! I am going to miss you.

More details on the cardi can be found on my Rav project entry. Perhaps I'll write this pattern up, too.

Anyone going to Sock Summit in Portland? I'll be there attending the marketplace and hopefully the Sock Hop! My train ticket and hotel are booked, so now I can concentrate on what I'll eat and where I'll visit. A friend works at the Omsi, so that's on the list, and I've love to do some kayaking, hiking, and yarn shopping.  All recommendations are welcome and appreciated.

Ocean Beach Cardigan Sneak Peak

I finally sent out my Ocean Beach cardigan to be test knit. It's an open, top-down raglan with eyelet details. Oof, designing a sweater pattern in a non-me size has been a challenge because I have to believe in the size charts. I'm not so good at the blind faith thing!

 

 Hopefully, I can have the rest of the sizes written up and test knit in time for fall, although the thought of my summer being over and done with makes me weepy.

They Fit!

No muffin tops on these puppies! They sweaters fit! And in my opinion, they look much better on the dogs than on my cats. After all, they were custom knit for Moxie (blue) and Quinn (lavender).

It's a huge relief. Now, the puppies won't be cold. Just in time for the 100 degree temperatures of summer? It's a good thing the sweaters are cotton...

See? I am knitting!

Currently on my needles is a sweater for the boy. It's a boring man sweater, with excitement only derived from going at it sans pattern. I'm making a top-down raglan using the guidelines from Custom Knits.  Now, the exciting parts are over, with "exciting parts" being loosely defined as swatching, calculating gauge, figuring out how many stitches to cast on, and separating the armholes and calculating extra stitches to cast on for the body after that.

I've begged to add cables. Nope. I've asked to make it ribbed. Nope. How about a v-neck? I've never made a v-neck before! Nope. He wants it plain, and he hates ribbing for some reason, so I'll finish off the cuffs and neckband with either moss stitch or crab stitch. If it weren't for the fact that he remodeled the bathroom and pretty much painted two rooms by himself, I'd scoff at the idea of making him a plain sweater. However, he did concede to letting me add some green racing stripes to one sleeve, and I'm also thinking about adding a little green skull and crossbones somewhere. It will be a surprise!

Anticipating the miles of stockinette I'll have to knit to complete the body, I tried to convince him that tight sweaters look super sexy on men. Nope. In fact, the he wanted positive ease. And did I mention that this is knit up in Hempathy, that yarn that is a skinny DK?

Last night, I tried the sweater on him now that the armholes are complete. Success! Of course, it looks like he's wearing some sort of top that goes well with Daisy Dukes (sadly, he wouldn't let me take a picture), but the critical parts are all done.

Now, back to knitting miles of stockinette...

Vespa Vesper

Originally, I named this project after Vespa because it was going to be black and tan, but no tan was to be found when I was in search for my contrasting color of Hempathy. Vespa is not black and green, but since I love this top like I love my dog, I kept the name.

The hints of fall weather, instead of making me yearn for a cup of cocoa and sweater knitting, is making me sad. This summer in the Bay Area, we haven't had much of a summer! My cherry tomatoes are just ripening, and now that I'm finally tasting summer, it's over. Boo. So, I'm not especially bloggy right now. You can find more project notes about this project and my modifications on my Ravelry project page.

Green Radiate

Against the backdrop of our living room curtains, once again, I present to you: Radiate.

I finished this cardigan back in May with the notion that it would be the perfect for the summers here. Unbeknownst to me, this year's "summer here" is covered in a marine layer. Yep, fog. Now, to be fair, fog in the summer is a usual occurrence, but peaks of the sun do shine through and temperatures are slightly warmer. The summer cardigans I've been sporting lately are no different from the winter cardigans I wear, so I suppose I should take a glass half full approach and appreciate the unexpected extended wear I am getting out of my favorite cardigans.

This was knit with 5 skeins of Karabella DK Merino Silk, another 50% off yarn I bought at Stash's moving sale last year.

I made a few mods, namely casting on more stitches for the neckband, knitting the neckband and sleeve bands in seed stitch, and crocheting a couple of closures instead of adding buttons. More details on my Rav project page. I'll fill in more details when I can find my knitting notebook.

Overall, I'm feeling meh about this cardigan. I love the color. I love the yarn. I'm not in love with how it hangs, and I wish I would have done less increases on the body. As it is, I knit one less increase to compensate for the wider neckband.

Cypress Sweater (aka Somewhat Cowl)

Wendy Bernard is a sweater designer genius. I love all of her patterns because they are so wearable and timeless. This sweater, The Somewhat Cowl, is a little retro, but still fashionable enough to wear right now. For my detailed notes, you can check out my page on Ravelry.

I'm sad that the yarn I used for this project, The Fibre Company Khorma DK, is discontinued. However, if it wasn't being discontinued and therefore on super sale, I would have never bought it in the first place. Khorma's original price of $15/skein is a little rich for my blood, and I used 5 skeins (800 yards) for this project.

Don't mind Mingus. He can't keep away from the camera. Silly, camera hogging dog.

Marathon Cooking and Eating

This year, we did more marathon eating, but we did manage to make a few dishes.

This is all the fixings for a traditional sticky rice stuffing (nuo mi fan) that my family makes in addition to bread stuffing. If you are lucky enough score an invitation to a Cantonese banquet, one fancy banquet food is a deboned, whole chicken stuffed with nuo mi fan, and then deep fried. In my family, when we make this at home, we skip the whole stuffing of the chicken, or turkey, and simply serve the nuo mi fan alongside the roasted poultry. I've turned my in-laws onto this traditional food, too, and they request "sticky rice" at the holiday table now.

I also made a couple loaves of whole wheat bread, sans starter (it died!), but I didn't bring them to the dinner table because they turned out like hockey pucks. I could've sliced it up and said it was German bread, but I suspected that there would be plenty of other carbs for us to enjoy. We speedily made some coconut pumpkin pie ice cream in place of the bread. No one seemed to mind the substitution, but homemade ice cream does have a way of covering a multitude of cooking errors.

I don't think I've posted this yet: the boy's first sweater. He knit the parts on the knitting machine, and it took me about twice as long to seam the sucker up. And, apparently, it takes me a million times longer to post the finished product. He is almost done with another sweater, but I told him in no uncertain terms that I am not seaming it again, so this one will be seamed by sewing machine. He sealed the deal (of me not seaming) when he said that it would only take him 10 minutes to seam up his sweater. Fine. Knock yourself out, kiddo.

Squeeeee! Cardigan Accomplished!

Do you ever finish knitting something, step back, and think to yourself, did I seriously just make this? I am crazy in love with this Tangled Yoke Cardigan from Interweave Knit's Fall 2007 issue, and if it wasn't still oddly warm here, I'd be sleeping in it.

Since I'm a shorty, knitting sweaters for myself involves a lot of math because I can never knit the patterns as written. Even more calculations were needed because this was stash yarn, GGH Wollywasch, with a different weight than the Rowan Felted Tweed specified in the pattern. I had about a page of calculations, and even though I knew my math was sound (math is awesome!), I still was second guessing myself as I plugged away.

Knitting sweaters is like baking. In baking, I make tweaks all the time before I throw the concoction into the oven, and I never know if my changes are good or not until my finished product is cooled down and ready to eat. For sweaters, I am holding my breath until I can try on my garment after blocking. Relief washed over me when I wore the sweater and was able to fasten all the buttons - my main concern was that I designed too much negative ease in the waist shaping, but I was aggressive in my shaping because past sweaters had been too baggy around my middle.

Speaking of buttons, I was able to use the vintage buttons from my grandmother's stash! My aunts and mom gave me some of grandma's knitting notions and yarn stash since they thought she'd want me to have them. Unfortunately, all the yarn had icky poopy carpet beetles in them, resulting in me vacuuming the house about 10 times that day. Luckily, the buttons were immune to the icky poopy carpet beetles, and the buttons are fabulous, so I was waiting for the right project to come along to honor her memory. I'm so happy I got to use them.

Project details are on my Ravelry project page (rav link).

Frontwards Cabled Pullover

This was my first completed pullover, one that I finished in August, but for some reason, I've been dragging my feet about posting it here, mostly because I'm not really happy with my blurry pictures but not motivated enough to retake them! I hate taking pictures of myself by myself because of all the running back and forth. I swear I'll pick up a remote for my other camera.

The Backwards Cabled Pullover (frontwards for me!) pattern is from Wendy Bernard's most excellent book, Custom Knits. I decided to make the pullover face frontwards instead of backwards because people wouldn't put it past me to unintentionally wear my clothes inside/outside/upsidedown, and I don't feel the need to perpetuate the stereotype of women engineers, thankyouverymuch.

The cable design that flows down the front of the sweater is gorgeous. It is also much easier to knit than it looks, always a nice plus!


I especially love how the main cable morphs into the 2x2 baby cable ribbing at the bottom of the sweater. Yes, this is the sweater that started my baby cable obsession.


The yarn I chose, Fresco by Classic Elite Yarns, is really lovely to knit. I was worried about the cables not popping due to the yarn's halo, but the stitch definition turned out to be excellent. I do find this sweater a little itchy, so I have to wear a shirt underneath it.

Like always, I had to knit the pattern smaller than the smallest size due to being a shorty, but changing the pattern was inevitable since I chose a different yarn than the one in the pattern. Knitting sweaters is a case where being short has its advantages - faster to finish and less yarn to buy! So, the next time someone cracks a short joke, instead of thinking how dull witted that person is and snapping back, I'll think of my knitted sweaters, take the high road, and not give them the satisfaction of a response. So there.

The Dirty Details
Pattern: Backwards Cabled Pullover by Wendy Bernard, Custom Knits
Yarn: 3.75 balls of Classic Elite Yarns Fresco, colorway mallard blue
Needles: Hiyahiya interchangeable circulars, US Size 6

More details on my Rav page.