pepperknit

I’m one of those people who gets sick after a stressful event. In college, I got sick on every visit home; for a while in Philly I was getting sick each weekend. I moved to New York, and the constant stress was such that I didn’t actually catch a cold until the week after I stopped working at my job. So after these past few weeks, in which I had a lot of fun but did a LOT, I’m now sick! And home on a Friday night, so I’m talking to you guys for the first time in ages.

First, I started the apartment hunt. Anyone who’s lived in New York knows that finding an apartment in this city is one of the most painful experiences you’ll ever have. In truth, my search was relatively easy . . . and I found the most gigantic apartment ever, at a supremely affordable price, and near to some new friends!

Then, while packing up my life, Jocelyn_ came for a visit. She’s been a Flickr/email friend for two years, and she was my inspiration for starting the 365 self-portrait project. We played in the big city, of course.

The same day Joce left New York, I flew to Boston to visit with my closest bloggy friends. We email daily, but there’s just no match for hanging out for reals. And did you see the mittens Maritza made for me? Gorgeous. I’m carrying them around with me whenever I go out, but honestly it’s not cold enough. So I pet them on the subway.

And THEN, because I’m not greedy enough for knitterly goodness, I went to Rhinebeck! Anne-Marie chartered a bus for the Sit ‘n’ Knit New York group, so we all went for the day on Saturday. I got to see some bloggers I hadn’t seen since last Stitches, and, um, I bought more yarn. But you wouldn’t know it from the photos, because I only had eyes for the changing leaves. Just believe me, I was there.

The end to all this fun was the actual move. I packed up my postage-stamp-sized apartment on the Upper East Side and the movers carted it all down to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I am loving it down here—it makes me think of South Philly, actually, and in so many ways it feels like home. Unpacking is . . . going slowly. And like I said, I’m now battling a gross head cold. But the apartment is cozy and big and just totally, totally awesome.

To make myself feel better, and also to christen the new kitchen (gas finally got turned on today), I made my favorite black bean soup. The original recipe is just a jumping off point for a lot of tasty variation—today I used 2 chipotle chiles in adobo instead of fresh jalapeno, and I didn’t have a tomato so I just left it out. It’s easily made vegetarian (in which case, I highly recommend a chipotle, so you get some smokiness, which I get a double-punch of with the bacon), but please, please don’t make it vegan: the cilantro-lime sour cream is the condiment that makes this soup.

Here’s how I make it.

4-6 bacon slices, chopped (substitute some vegetable oil if making vegetarian)
3/4 cup finely chopped celery (a few ribs)
3/4 cup finely chopped onion (half an onion)
3/4 cup finely chopped carrots (2-3 carrots)
3/4 cup finely chopped leeks (one large leek)
2 or 3 cans of black beans, rinsed and drained (3 is preferable but I only had 2 tonight)
4-5 cups low-salt chicken broth (or veggie stock, of course, but both preferably homemade)
1 large tomato, chopped
1 cup (packed) fresh cilantro
1/3 cup (packed) chopped fresh parsley
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 jalapeño chili, minced or 2 chipotle chiles in adobo or heck, both!
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander

3/4 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
Additional chopped tomato

Cook bacon in heavy large pot over medium heat until brown but still soft, about 4 minutes. Add celery, onion, carrots, and leeks and sauté until vegetables begin to soften, about 10 minutes. Add beans, chicken broth, tomato, 1/2 cup cilantro, parsley, garlic, jalapeño, vinegar, cumin and coriander. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer soup until beans are very tender, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour.

Puree with immersion blender. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Bring to simmer before continuing.)

Mix sour cream, lemon juice, lime juice and 1/2 cup cilantro in small bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls. Place dollop of sour cream mixture atop soup. Garnish with additional chopped cilantro and chopped tomato.

I hate having secret knitting in the works, because really, if you can’t blog it, is it worth it? I just spent a bit of time knitting something for a designer, and I hope I’ll be able to share it with you when it’s made public. Not taking a single shot of the completed project was really weird, but I packed it up and delivered it this past week.

There was also another secret project, and I can tell you guys about it now, but it’s not directly knitting so it will wait.

Happily, I was working on some secret knitting that I can now share.

The pattern is my own—and is not what I’d originally intended. The legs of the socks were supposed to be an intricate, elaborate, jaw-dropping design of interlocking cables. I’d charted dozens of variations, settled on my favorite, and knit it up. But the dang things wouldn’t fit over my heel—even though I’d added stitches in order to accommodate that! I do know how physics works!—and so I had to simplify, or else I never would have hit the sock swap deadline.

As they are, the cable is Hartshorn from Barbara Walker vol II, and I may yet write these up for public consumption. It was fiddly to get the dang things to work, so you may well need some guidance. My tentative name, already dubbed on Ravelry, is Spidey Sense. I’ll of course let you all know when I’ve worked out the buggers for various sizes—these are quite tailored to the recipient’s feet (luckily, the same size as mine).

The yarn is Neighborhood Fiber Company. The color here is not as vibrant or “green” as it was on the skein—when I washed them, blue dye started pouring out and didn’t really ever stop. In fact, it stained the drain on my bathroom sink bright blue and even left blue stains on the towel that I set them out to dry on. Perhaps if you’re using this brand of yarn, a vinegar rinse would be in order. Also, at the center of the skein (I knit the two semi-simultaneously from opposite ends of the ball) there were a lot of jagged spots in the yarn—areas with little bits hanging off that looked as if the yarn had been broken and felted back together or something. I don’t know what that was about. In some cases I skipped ahead in order to avoid the questionable parts, weaving in additional ends, and in others I just knit on, tucking the stray bits to the inside. I hope that wasn’t a foolish decision.

If I can set aside what I wanted them to be and take them for what they are, I have to admit, I totally love them! I hope Sukyong, who unfortunately couldn’t be at the sock swap party to receive them in person, does too. They went in the mail yesterday!

Anne-Marie, Sit ‘n’ Knit New York’s fearless leader, organized on helluva sock swap for the group. I lucked out big time when Anne-Marie assigned Annmarie to knit me my socks, because she took my color and yarn preferences straight to heart.

Solid orange Koigu, y’all. Be still my beating heart. I didn’t even express my distaste for variegateds in the survey, but she saw straight to my true nature. The pattern, 9 to 5, is by Nicole Hindes and the pair fit me perfectly. Thanks again so very much, Annmarie! I’m also happy that by happenstance I sat next to you and we got to chat.

Other socks given showed really amazing work—Chante could “only” get through 1 intensely argyled knee sock, so the girl knit a whole other pair for Carolyn. Jane hand-spun and hand-painted the yarn she used for Virginia’s socks. I was duly impressed with all the socks—and I think my love for knitting has been totally reinvigorated.

We all gathered ’round for a group feet shot. Because I don’t have a wider angle lens (sigh . . .) there was no possible way to get all the feet in at once for me (unless I’d been up on some kind of crane, which I did not have on hand, and even then my foot wouldn’t have been in, unless it was the focus and everyone else was in bokeh . . . but I digress). You can see the whole group in the shot Anne-Marie took here. But what I was able to capture—and which definitely makes up for the lack of a circle of feet—is how closely we were jammed up against each other, and also how much fun we had!

I’ll tell you about the socks I knit soon—I just put mine in the mail today, because my pal couldn’t be at the party.

No trip to Philly is complete without a visit with my peeps, and when that visit expands from what you think will be a short but nice afternoon of knitting into pretty much the entire day knitting, laughing, and drinking, well, it’s been a good weekend.

Megan (on the far right) is of course the originator of the “whelmed” face, and after 9 hours together, it seems it had rubbed off on everyone–Specs on the left, Jennie in the middle. You can’t really tell, but Jennie’s fabulous boyfriend D is standing behind her. Not pictured here is Megan’s own M, who joined us at the bar for dinner, but who is standing near me with their camera.

Jennie and D graciously let us overtake their adorable and cozy house, where we sat at their giant table—and some knitting actually happened. Last week was crazy busy for me, with a friend staying with me and plenty of work, so at about 1 am on Saturday morning I wound a ball of sock yarn and threw what I hoped would be appropriate needles, a measuring tape, and a photocopy of a stitch pattern (go me and my own personal copier!) in my bag. I’m doing a sock swap as part of Sit ‘n’ Knit New York, and as you know, if you don’t start the pair as soon as you can, you’re doomed.

This fabulous yarn, because I know you’re about to ask, is Neighborhood Fiber Company yarn, which I bought at Stitches East (Olga, I believe you found me right around then!). I can’t say much more about what I’m knitting, so as not to give away too much in case the person I am knitting for reads here, but I’m making up the pattern myself, and I’m quite enjoying it so far.

Once the hunger potential reached a specific level, we all went to the bar on the corner and debated politics, gender identity, knitting, blogging, and, really, the state of the world until midnight. The time just flew by! Can’t wait for my next trip down.

I’ve been itching to post here lately, for no other reason than my return to blogging has made me want to do it even more, but I haven’t had much to chat about. I’m knitting only secret projects right now, so there’s nothing to show. I’m working on some non-knitting crafts, but they’re not photogenic yet.

But I have a confession to make. I got to see Pam again. And it turns out she has something of a secret. Because though she’s mentioned the band, I hadn’t realized she was a rockstar.

I missed Empty Orchestra’s show on Thursday, and I hadn’t paid much attention to where their show on Friday would be. Turns out Long Island City isn’t way the heck out on the island, like you might think; it’s just one subway stop out from Manhattan in Queens! When she let me know that we’d completely misinterpreted their location, well, I surprised myself by bundling up and heading right out. (Another secret: When I’ve got it in my head that I’m “in” for the night, it’s normally impossible to get me out of the house.)

Note Pam’s Ravelry T-shirt. You can’t escape the knitting.

Not only did I get to meet Stephen and the rest of the band, but I met some friends of their from Flint who live in New York, one of whom makes instruments (bass). (Yay for crafty folks of all kinds.) And I even ran into someone I recently met—he’d remembered the name Empty Orchestra, was coming by the bar anyway, so decided to check them out and see if I was in attendance.

I have to admit, I had some trepidation about going to a show by myself. But I had lots of time to hang out with Pam beforehand and afterward, and I met enough people that I could have a conversation with a few different people. And I could always hide behind the camera, if necessary. So the biggest secret of all? I had a total blast.

I’ve posted several times about my defunct annual Valentine’s cookie decorating party, and in general about my absolute and undying love of Valentine’s Day and all its disgustingly sugary motifs. (I don’t even like the color pink!) Living in my postage-stamp-sized Manhattan apartment, hosting that party myself is impossible. So when Pam came to visit for a long weekend, arriving on the 14th, and asked if we could make cookies, well, you know we were immediately at the grocery store for butter and more confectioners’ sugar.

As per tradition, we made only hearts, cupids, and some hearts-with-arrows. The first year of the party, I was a bit of a Valentine’s fascist, allowing only white and shades of pink for the icing–and only hearts (300 of them). It was a big deal a few years ago when I conceded to a different color icing (I think lavender was the first variation) and bought the cupid cookie cutter. I also used to allow only red food at the party, which requires a lot of creativity, a lot of red tortilla chips and salsa, and a lot of shrimp cocktail. This year we cut tofu into heart shapes for the Valentine dinner–because on Valentine’s day, everything you eat must be heart shaped, of course.

Though we’d bought more confectioners’ sugar, we didn’t have quite enough for a lot of variation, and I got a little liquid-happy when I mixed up the second batch, so we had a limited palette for decorating: two piping bags of pink and three “glazes” in white, green-blue, and raspberry. We made do.

We were up til 1:15 am decorating cookies, and we didn’t even finish them all. Which means I have a fridge full of sugary delights. And, thanks to Nova’s ingenious pie Wednesdays, we also baked a pear pie with gruyere crust—more leftovers! No recipe; we just grated approximately 1/2 cup of gruyere into homemade pate brisee and used that for a classic pear pie. Except, of course, it was still our Valentine’s weekend, so we cut the top crust into a whole mess of fluted-edged hearts and a solitary cupid.

It was quite tasty, with the gruyere’s tangy hints playing in the background. But I have to admit, I prefer the overt sweetness of the sugar cookies–fits better with my whole vision of Valentine’s Day as a time when you want to puke, everything’s so sweet.

My weekend with Pam could not have been more fun. I even think I’ve convinced her to embrace Valentine’s Day!

Well, I thought I had.

I went to Kaffe Fassett’s book signing at Knitty City tonight, with my friend Staci, who is celebrating her 1 year anniversary of learning to knit today! In the past year she’s made several fantastic sweaters. Probably more than I have! And she’s jumped in with both feet–planning a cashmere sweater. I swoon with jealousy. She’s not a blogger . . . yet. But anyway.

Kaffe was charming, funny, witty, and inspiring. Brandon Mably introduced him and spoke a little about their tour so far, and Kaffe showed pieces from the latest book and encouraged everyone to take his work as “recipes” to be built upon, because it’s all about exploring color.

We of course asked to see the back of the pieces. He showed us the back of the blanket (the cover shot), which he had not knit, and deemed it “anal.” Later he showed us the back of one of his own knits, and unfortunately my picture was blurry! But it was only marginally less anal than the blanket, I would say. (And, um, I don’t want to think about the searches that might turn up my blog after the use of that word twice, and once in quotation marks! Let’s not even talk about the fact that Kaffe asked if I was a hooker and I admitted in front of everyone that yes, I am. (He’s a thrower.))

Hila was the teacher’s pet, though, pulling from her bag one of his older books that wasn’t in the store (he referred to it and wanted it as a reference), and even knitting on a glove using the new Kaffe sock yarn–much to his delight. (Show-off!)

This Thursday, November 1, he’s doing a slide presentation about color and inspiration in all its forms (knitting, patchwork, etc) at the Haft Auditorium at FIT, from 6-7:30. I’ll be there, too!

It’s not the weather, since the past week stayed hot and humid. It’s not a return to school, since I work a full-time job and haven’t been in school for years. It must be some inner psychological link to the equinox, because we hit the official start of fall and I’ve been in a knitting frenzy ever since. Proof?

You may recall I posted this yarn in a yarn cake back on Wednesday. Late Thursday night, after swatching for a sock pattern, I cast on–finally!–for the Twist-Front Top (Ravelry link) by Adrienne Vittadini (scroll down; it’s the second photo). I’ve been wanting to make this top for years–evidenced by the fact that this is from the Spring 2005 booklet. I first saw it in one of those ads in the back of Interweave. And now I’m done with the back and about 1/3 of the way up the front. It’s a simple 4-row pattern repeat, and everything is chugging away quite easily so far. I’m eager to get to the miter shaping to see how it all comes together.

I’m using the Brooks Farm Acero I got at Maryland Sheep and Wool, and it is much thinner than the yarn called for in the pattern, but I did some math and it seems that using the largest size in the pattern should yield a sweater that fits me. Plus some of the comments on Ravelry indicate that it stretches (it is lace, after all) and knitting a smaller size is recommended. Keep your fingers crossed.

Yesterday was Spin-Out, and since I don’t spin, I showed up with this in tow and knit happily away for several hours with the crew from Sit ‘n’ Knit New York. The weather was perfect, perfect, perfect. There were lots of spinners who even dragged wheels to Central Park. It was the first time I’d ever seen spinning live. And . . . I still have no desire to learn.

I want to finish this NOW! The back is blocking while I work on the front. Happily, it seems that 2 skeins of this yarn should be the perfect amount for a tank top. Note, the color is most accurate in the outdoors shot.

Finally! I’ve knit something, and I’m here to shout it from the rooftops. Look here, everyone!

This sock was begun on Thursday, and I finished it around 6 today (Monday). Anne-Marie and I decided fairly last minute to get together and knit over beer and burgers on Thursday, which meant I had to find some knitting in a jiffy. I dashed home from work, ran to my sock knitting basket, found a wound-up skein, dug around for needles–any appropriate socky size would do–and ran out the door. Oh, I managed to grab some waste yarn and a crochet hook too, so I could do my favorite provisional cast-on and short-row toe. Over dinner, I finished the toe and did a wee smidge of the foot.

Simple stockinette means easy bus knitting, and I progressed a few more inches on the way to work on Friday. But I’ve got this cross-stitch project, and my obsession for that continues to grow–so in my down time during my parents’ visit this past weekend I worked on that (it’s gotten a lot farther than in that photo).

Until we decided to watch Amelie (cute!) last night. Darn those subtitles–cross-stitch is out of the question. But a stockinette sock is perfect! I decided, quite randomly, to do the Widdershins heel, so I had to look at the computer only a few times. I was way up the ankle by the end of the movie. This afternoon, after my parents left, I headed over to Central Park to enjoy the weather as I finished it up.

I have since uncovered the “matching” sock that this one should go with–it’s the one that killed my mojo last March and of which there is zero documentation. All I know about that one is that the cuff is unwearably tight. A quick glance at the first one and . . . the two don’t match at all. I didn’t take a picture of the original, but it was clearly knit on a different size needle. Don’t know what size. It also appears that I did some shaping, which didn’t surprise me, but today I did shaping of a completely different sort without any regard to the first one. Oh, and I knew full well that the original sock was a short-row heel, but I was going to just have socks with character.

With all these differences, though, I think the original one will be redone, complete with a matching heel. I’m not sure how I feel about the Widdershins–it fits great, but it caused unsightly pooling over the instep, which short-row heels don’t generate. So . . . lukewarm on that heel when using variegateds. Otherwise okay.

Of course, now that I’m between projects again, the cross-stitch is calling my name . . .

Or, the post in which I continue to distract you from my lack of knitting content by showing you pretty pictures–but since I was with a fellow blogger–heck I was on her property–it is perfectly good blog fodder and justifies my little bit of real estate here in the blogosphere entirely.

So when I left off, I had posted about the start to my weekend vacation with Rachel, Matt, and Rachel. I couldn’t post the rest of the story because Rachel was holding the finale photos hostage (I think she was hoping she could best me in the blog wars.). But I have the photos now.

First up, the eye candy, or “Minty goes sailing.” This was a first for me (at least, as far as I can remember), and it was delightful! Rachel’s great-uncle invited us out, and Rachel, Matt, and I went (Rachel stayed home). My camera batteries had died, so it was a perfect opportunity to snag Rachel’s DSLR and play–I am hoping to get a DSLR this year.

We got back right before an intense storm kicked up (Matt and his sister grilled dinner anyway), and we spent the evening chilling with crafts or books and playing games. (How delightful it was to find good Boggle players to hang out with!) And, as you might imagine, my relationship with Rachel’s sister-in-law got over the initial hurdles. It progressed so far, in fact, that the end of the vacation looked quite a lot like this: