I never imagined I’d be considering joining my second WestKnits mystery shawl knit along, but I am! This year’s pattern is called the Geogradient and as usual, the goal is to knit the shawl in a period of four weeks in the month of October — that is if we can keep up with all the speedy knitters out there! I still don’t know if I will buy my yarn locally, or order one of the kits that will be on sale starting tomorrow morning.
WESTKNITS MKAL GRADIENT MKAL IMAGE
Last year was my first-ever MKAL, which I knit using very bright pink colors. This year I’m leaning towards blues and greens, but the pinks have a way of calling my name! (I’m looking at you, “Flamingo” & “Miracle” gradients! 🤩)
One of my favorite kits going on sale tomorrow is the “Wave Gradient” shown below. Aren’t those blues gorgeous? Blue is a super safe color, I think, especially for me, since you’ll often find me wearing jeans and white tops. But doesn’t everything go well with jeans and white?
Green tones might also be a good idea since they’d match my son’s school colors and I’ll be able to wear my shawl to his football games. The “Sage Gradient” looks super soft, but I like the bright yellow in the “Mythical Gradient” a lot. I’m excited!
Here are my top 11 kits. I still can’t decide which one I love the most — I want them all! And these aren’t even all the colors. See the full list of options here, or check out this video.
Which one would you choose?
And now I’d better go set my alarm. I don’t want to be the last one to sign up. Last year the kits sold incredibly fast.
Things to note:
Sign-ups and kits launch tomorrow, September 2 at 16:00 Amsterdam time! That is 7 a.m. PST, Marin!
Have you ever made no-churn ice cream? I had always been skeptical about whether you could get good results, but after watching a few of my favorite chefs make theirs without a machine, I decided this was something I had to try.
And guess what? I’ve confirmed that you don’t need special equipment to make delicious ice cream at home. No, really, not even a beater. I made this with a little handheld whisk, and so can you! Have a large crowd to feed? Make sure to save this recipe!
After watching this Jaime Oliver video, I immediately knew this was the recipe I wanted to try. It has strawberry sauce, crushed meringue cookies, and dulce de leche – who could resist?
And the tray he used to serve it… Well, that was love at first sight for me, so I had to get one just like it. Once it arrived, I was ready to make the recipe. It even had a lid! I love my new tray.
To ensure the berries were super fresh and ultra sweet, I bought them at our local farmers’ market on the weekend. I love any excuse to go to the farmers’ market.
I couldn’t find ready-made meringue cookies at any of the local supermarkets, so I used Amaretti cookies instead. I thought they’d have a similar texture, a bit airy…
I must say, the Amaretti flavor combined with the strawberry sauce worked out great. So, if you can get these cookies where you live, I totally recommend them, and if not, you can go with store-bought meringues.
The only problem I had with this recipe was how much ice cream I ended up with, especially now that our household is shrinking with one kid off to college (I miss my baby girl!) and the other members of our family too busy to stop and grab a cone, a bit dangerous for me and my sweet tooth!
So, I’m contemplating making a huge sign that says “Free Ice Cream” to hang outside our door and get a box or two of sugar cones to hand out to anyone who walks by.
What do you think? Would you accept ice cream from a total stranger?
I read later that the ice cream can last in the fridge for about two months, so I may not have to do that after all. But if you are in our neighborhood and want a little sample, just knock on the door. I’m happy to share!
No-churn strawberry ice cream with crushed amaretto cookies (serves 12)
ingredients
3 cups of strawberries (washed, hulled and sliced in halves) ½ cup sugar 2 Tbs. water 1 tsp. Balsamic vinegar (optional) 2 ½ cups heavy cream 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz.) 1 cup crushed Bonomi Amaretti cookies
method In a saucepan over medium-low heat make the strawberry sauce by melting the sugar and 2 tablespoons of water. When the mixture has a nice amber color, carefully, add the strawberries. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the strawberries have reduced to syrup. (If using balsamic vinegar add it just after you add the strawberries.) When ready, strain the mixture through a medium-mesh sieve, and let cool completely.
Place the cream in a large bowl with the vanilla extract and whisk by hand until soft peaks* form, then stir in the condensed milk. Crush over the cookies and fold gently.
Pour the cream mixture into a freezer-proof container. Drizzle over most of the strawberry syrup, leaving pools of the syrup intact. You don’t want the strawberry syrup and the cream to blend together completely. Doing so will get in the way of the ice cream setting.
(BTW, I did not use all the strawberry syrup. I have about a cup left to drizzle on top of pancakes or waffles—yum!).
If your container doesn’t have a lid, make sure to place some plastic wrap or parchment paper right on top of the mixture before placing it in the freezer.
I believe there are two types of knitters, the ultra-careful ones that faithfully follow a pattern and will not give up until they “get it right,” and those that cannot help adding their own “touch” to every piece. These are the knitters that no matter how hard they try to follow a pattern, end up skipping steps, adding and removing stitches at random when they notice they’re off track, and see any mistake as a decorative element. They’ll also do anything to avoid ripping back!
I identify mostly with the first group. Typically, I choose a pattern because I love what it looks like in the photo of the magazine, website, or book it is in, and I’ll often go to great lengths to get the exact yarn that is recommended. A good example is the April Blouse I’ve been working on, where I scoured the Internet to find the same yarn and color I had seen on the @sandnesgarn brochure.
I’m also the type of knitter that needs to fix their mistakes. I would rather start over than have a mistake bug me forever. I blame my grandmother for this mindset. She would always say, “If you’re going to do something, you should do it right.”
So, I tend to take each project as a small challenge, like a class I need to pass to achieve a higher skill level.
Last Friday, I finished knitting this red jacket, which was an experiment to see if I could adapt a pattern using a different yarn and a slightly different gauge.
Adapting a pattern was something I had read about, but never had to do. I was a bit nervous that my calculations wouldn’t work but decided to go for it anyway.
I must admit, this was a super low-risk experiment: The yarn I was using wasn’t too expensive and the pattern was pretty basic – a raglan construction knit in pieces that you then sewed up together– something I am quite familiar with.
The typical setbacks
I don’t think I’ve ever knit anything where I didn’t (at least momentarily) wonder if I was interpreting the instructions correctly. While working on this sweater, the instructions for making the sleeves slowed me down quite a bit.
First, I was trying to figure out if there was a special way in which to increase when knitting the half fisherman’s rib stitch, a stitch I had only used to make scarves.
Could you really increase only one stitch at each end and stay “in-pattern”? What type of increase should I use? Left-leaning, right-leaning, lifted increases? There are so many ways to do this. This led me down a rabbit hole of videos on Youtube.
Then, I had to decipher another part of the pattern. It said to increase every 8th and 10th row. Really? Hmm, that didn’t look right. I wish I had taken photos of the results. I ended up with pretty funny-looking sleeves! 😂
Thankfully, most patterns include schematics which helped me realize something wasn’t right.
This is the instruction that confused me the most:
“After first inc. cont. in half fisherman’s rib. At the same time inc for sleeve shaping at each end 1 st. on every 10th row 8(4) times and 1 st. on every 8th row 0(5) times.”
What I did: I increased on every 8th and 10th row “at the same time,” making the increases super close to each other.
What I was supposed to do: Work the first 8(4) increases every 10th row and [THEN] work 0(5) increases every 8th row.
After knitting and unraveling the left sleeve twice, I finally got it right on the third try.
Other minor setbacks during this project: 1- picking up stitches for the collar: I did this four times before I was happy with the result.
2- making the zipper band: For this, you had to turn your yarn into thinner yarn by removing some of the threads that made it up. This took a while but was totally worth it. It’s a cool new technique to add to my toolkit.
3- installing the zipper: This step has the potential to ruin your whole project, so I took my time to pin the zipper in place and carefully trim the excess.
The sweater took a bit longer to complete than I imagined, but it fits and I think it looks pretty good (although I’m not so sure I like it with this white shirt).
I can see this becoming my cozy “walk the dog in the mornings or evenings” sweater. It’s quite warm and super squishy. It would be great for sitting around a firepit if we ever go camping again.
I still really love the look of the cotton version of the sweater, so I might knit it again in cotton to wear next summer.
And now that I’ve dipped my toes in the world of pattern modifications, I think I would love to see if I can figure out how to add some pockets to this design.
Well, this feels like another completed class. And now it’s time to get back to work on the April Blouse! I have about six weeks left before summer ends.
These are two links I found useful while making this sweater:
I finished knitting the baby top I started a few weeks ago and finally got it in the mail. Well, with a few hiccups.
I’d been worried that I’d taken so long to knit it, that by now it wouldn’t fit. Babies grow so fast!
So, as soon as I finished it I ran out to buy a small envelope at the local pharmacy, looked up my niece’s mailing address as soon as I got back, and stuck one of my Elvis forever stamps on the front of the package. There. Ready to ship! Or, so I thought.
I put the package outside on top of our mailbox to make sure the mail carrier would see it, but when I went out to check later, the package was still there.
Oh, that’s right, it was Wednesday, we rarely get mail on this day, so the mailman probably drove past our house.
The next day, the same thing happened, which annoyed me a bit. So right before five, I drove down to the corner of our street where there is a blue collection box to make sure it went out that day.
Unfortunately, that box’s pickup time was 3 p.m., so I decided to drive to the main post office downtown. I was sure their last pickup was right at five.
I was right! I made it by a few seconds. I placed the package in the collection box and started to drive away, when I saw the mail worker in my rearview mirror, walking out to retrieve the packages. I suddenly wondered if I had put enough stamps on the envelope. So, I drove back to ask her.
The lady told me I couldn’t put this type of envelope directly in this box and that I did not have enough stamps to cover shipping – I am so glad I drove back!
So, the next day I drove to the post office once again and was finally able to ship the vest.
How did I not know I couldn’t just put this in the mail after all these years? 🫢🙄
The pattern is by Erika Knight from her book, “Simple Knits for Cherished Babies”. It was easy to follow, but I did have a little trouble with the sleeves.
Here’s what happened: the body of the sweater has straight edges. It’s knit like two big squares front and back, but the sleeves are curved. I wasn’t sure whether I should sew the curved part of the sleeve to the edge. (Now that I’ve read the instructions a few times, it does say to sew the sleeve head to the edge, meaning to include the curved part of the sleeve.)
After I sewed on the first one the wrong way, I immediately knew that didn’t look good and redid it.
In my defense, whenever you have a capped sleeve, the back and the fronts of the sweater also have curved edges. This was the first time I’d seen this construction. But, now I know better!
I made one modification to this vest. Instead of using ribbon on the collar as the pattern instructed, I decided to knit an i-cord instead.
It wasn’t that I had trouble finding the ribbon. I was able to get an exact match, which I thought was pretty amazing, but I didn’t like that it was shiny. That didn’t match the yarn I was using, which had a slightly rustic feel and I really like i-cords.
I would love to make another one of these little vests, but I might change the construction a bit. I don’t see a reason not to knit this in the round until you get to the sleeves, actually, the neck.
I’ll keep the grafted shoulder detail, I really loved that, but since this was the largest size that comes in the book, I’ll probably have to do some math in order to make a larger one. We’ll see…
Update: the package was delivered to my niece yesterday, and it fits!
the corn salad recipe you need to make this summer
We celebrated early July birthdays this week with a potluck dinner and I was asked to bring a salad. Immediately, a few salads I’d seen online came to mind, all made with corn. I LOVE corn.
At first, I worried that my choice of salad would not go well with the dishes others were bringing (I didn’t know what anyone else was bringing), but then I figured, it probably didn’t matter. People would choose what they wanted to eat, and I should make something I wanted to make because I’m convinced that when you do, everything tastes better!
Well, honestly, I secretly hoped they would grill some meat because that would go great with this salad.
You should make it. It’s so good! It’s also a little different which makes it feel special and better yet, it’s pretty easy to put together.
Notes:
Be sure to cook the corn on the grill! This adds tons of flavor.
I used the immersion blender to combine the cheeses to make a smooth dressing. I thought my family would prefer it this way. You may like the chunkier consistency of the original recipe.
I’m saving the recipe here the way I made it, but here’s the link to the original by @ Smitten Kitchen.
Ingredients
6 ears of corn, shucked
½ small red onion sliced thinly
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
1 lime, halved
⅓ cup of sour cream
⅓ cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
½ teaspoon combination of guajillo chile powder and cayenne pepper
chopped cilantro leaves
Method
Heat your grill.
While the grill gets hot, slice the onion into fine rings about ⅛ inch thick. Place the onion slices in a bowl with the vinegar, sugar, and salt. Put this in the fridge until you are ready to serve the salad.
Chuck the corn and grill it turning a few times until the kernels look nice and golden. It’s okay if they get a bit charred, it will add to the flavor.
When the corn is ready, set it aside to cool while you prepare the other ingredients.
Using a food processor – or immersion blender (I used this) process the feta cheese with the sour cream until it has a smooth texture. You can skip this and just mix the ingredients by hand, but I like the smoother texture.
When the corn is cool enough to handle, remove the kernels from the husk using a sharp knife.
On a large platter spread the cheese mixture evenly. Place the corn kernels on top and sprinkle with chile powder and cayenne pepper. Remove the onions from the vinegar mixture and spread them on top of the corn. Squeeze some lime on top and finish with some cilantro leaves. Serve right away, preferably while the corn is still warm.
