I may have mentioned that I finally tried David Lebovitz's famous Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream recipe, and that it was a resounding success. I only have one picture of the endeavor, because my fingers were preoccupied with scraping stray ice cream bits from the ice cream maker and aiming them towards my mouth. Sticky ice cream fingers and photography simply do not mix. However, I did capture part of the caramel crunchies process - here's the salted caramel praline spread out to cool on my Silpat. Those little white flakes are salt crystals. And yes, it does look like the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

High off the success of my Trellis scarf, I'm already scheming my next lace project. I'm thinking another rectangular scarf. I've had my eye on Eunny Jang's Print o' the Wave stole for a while, but the grafting and edging are a bit intimidating. However, I just found Kodachrome's simplified pattern adaptation, so the PoW just entered the realm of possibility for me. I certainly don't feel like buying a pattern to satisfy my lace craving, but I do have a bunch of back issues of Interweave Knits to leaf through. I do like Panda Bonzai's Anya Scarf (and the fact that it only takes one 440 yard skein of yarn!). And Twisted Knitter's Leaf Lace Scarf has definite potential - I just love the color of the sample scarf! Anyone else have a favorite, moderately difficult lace scarf pattern to suggest?

So I was instantly smitten by the Foliage Hat in the Fall Knitty, and I started one up right away, using Manos in a weird pink/grey colorway. Somewhere along the line, I made a mistake and ended up with the wrong number of stitches. I tried to figure out where the mistake occurred, but I just couldn't. So a frogging we will go. The leaf pattern didn't come across too well in the variegated yarn, and the gauge was a little off. Although the pattern is written for two gauges, Manos falls squarely between the gauges and I didn't think this hat through well enough before starting. That is a common theme in my knitting, unfortunately! I know this yarn will be a hat someday, I just have to find (or design) the proper pattern.

It's done! The trellis scarf is DONE! I've been toiling away on this beast since last summer! And it's finally done. Here are some crappy, blurry, Interweave Knits-worthy pictures of my triumph: Pre-blocking. I wore it once in this state, and it was so cozy and soft. That little squiggle of yarn is all I had left. Yes, this was a photo finish with mere feet of yarn remaining.

Oops, someone missed a yarnover! WTF? Something very bad happened here. I wish I knew what was going on when I knit this section. Perhaps I was daydreaming about muscular celebrities or caramel ice cream. Or both. I wasn't sure of the best way to block this, so I ran fishing line through the same point every pattern repeat, and ended up with a little scalloped edge. This was a major pain, and I wonder if blocking wires would have made this easier. Does anyone have experience with blocking wires? On the whole, this scarf looks pretty great. The mistakes don't bother me, since they will be pretty much invisible when I have it wrapped around my neck. It's very warm, and I love the warm, neutral color. I usually go for wild colors, but I realized that all my scarves were wild, and I needed something tamer. Specs: Pattern: Trellis Scarf by Evelyn Clark; IK Spring 2006. Yarn: Knitpicks Shadow in Oregon Coast Heather, one entire skein Needles: Size 5 Denise Interchangeables Date Started: Early summer 2006 Date Finished: Oct 16, 2007 This is the second lace project I've completed, the first being the Flower Basket Shawl, also by Evelyn Clark. I think I liked the Trellis Scarf better, because the rectangular shape is much more wearable than a triangle (in my opinion) and the FBS gets larger every pattern repeat, which makes time seem to slow down to a crawl when working on the FBS. I wasn't able to memorize the trellis lace pattern, but I eventually became familiar enough with the pattern to be able to "check in" with the pattern at the beginning of each row, and complete a row from memory. I was able also to recognize mistakes immediately, something I obviously wasn't able to do at the beginning of this pattern! One thing I would do differently is try to knit the entire scarf at a similar gauge - the first third of the scarf is extremely tight compared the the latter two-thirds, and although this is somewhat fixable in blocking, it would have been better to keep a similar tension throughout. I knit the first portion way too tight, and I couldn't keep it up for the rest of the scarf, especially given the k7tog in the pattern. You heard me, knit SEVEN together. Oy.

The reason I post pictures sporadically is that the computer set up to fling pictures on the Internet is not my regular computer. So I can go weeks without posting pics, then have a photo-heavy week when I finally get it together and use the photo-friendly computer. So sometimes I forget to post pictures on entire subjects or projects! Such is the case with my trip last month to Sequim. I posted photos of my jam and pie adventures, but none of my visit to the lavender fields. So without further ado, here they are! Purple Haze Lavender Farm Purple Haze Lavender Farm Purple Haze Lavender Farm Graysmarsh Farm Graysmarsh Farm The ferry ride home

A few weeks ago I tried making ricotta cheese at home, using this recipe from Becks & Posh. I actually made a one-quarter recipe, because I couldn't justify pouring a gallon of milk into my first try at ricotta cheese. The results? It turned out pretty good! And I can see why the full recipe starts with a gallon of milk, using a quart of milk only produced about 4 ounces of ricotta. I paired it with homemade pesto into a sort of layered torta, and served it with baguette slices. This picture shows the drained ricotta curds, just before I pressed them into a dish with the pesto. I'm not sure if this will make it into my regular repertoire, just because I normally prefer more robust, sassy cheeses as appetizers, and this was decidedly mild, even with the pesto.

Twelve year old me loved doing cross stitch. My grand oeuvre was an alphabet sampler, in which every letter was represented by a little picture of a different food or kitchen tool. This alphabet sampler featured on Posie Gets Cozy re-sparked that interest in me. Samplers are so fun because each element is fun in itself - it may take weeks to finish a sampler, but a letter or small motif can be completed in an hour or less. I found some free alphabet cross stitch charts here, maybe I'll find a minute to start one one of these days.

Have you seen the preview for the Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts issue? There is some really cute stuff in there, especially the dragon puppet! I have a real "thing" for puppets, I can spend hours in toy stores doing voices and squeezing puppet faces into odd expressions. It's really amazing how smarmy some puppets can be. Trashy language, snarky comments - it's really quite shameful. And I have nothing to do with it, I just let their true souls run free.

Now that the weather is decidedly COLD (unless you're in Chicago, which I thought is supposed to be a cold place, but whatevs), I thought I'd remind everyone about my Peekaboo mittens! There were published in Magknits in February, almost too late for winter and definitely too late for the gift-giving season. That's the problem with the loooong knitting pattern publication cycle, a great idea in October doesn't reach the masses until February. Not that I'm claiming the Peekaboos were a great idea, but so far almost all feedback has been positive. And I'm quite chuffed to see 50 Ravelers have the Peekaboos in their project notebooks! So if you're like me and tend to forget about patterns a week after you see them, consider this a friendly reminder, a little poke, a gentle nudge, or an in-your-face get off that tuckus already and make a pair of Peekaboo Mittens! Really, sending out a reminder takes far less effort on my part than it would to design a whole new knitting pattern for you people. (tease)Although I do have something in the works.(/tease)

Have you ever really looked at the garment care instructions label sewn into your clothes? Even the simplest underwear will have a tiny polemic attached to the waistband: Machine wash warm with like colors. Only non-chlorine bleach when needed. Tumble dry low, iron if desired. So why do you never get a label that reads: Hand wash in boiling water with colors that bleed. Apply chlorine bleach and scissors when needed. Air dry in a crumpled wad. I got to thinking about the origin of these labels, and I was surprised that it was darn easy to learn all about them! There's lots of great info here at the Vintage Fashion Guild website, which posts a guide to dating vintage clothing. I've never been much into vintage clothes, but it's very neat that you can identify World War II-era shoes by the fact that they were commonly made of exotic leathers such as crocodile. Anyway, garment care labels were introduced in the United States in 1971. Before then, people just had to decide for themselves how to wash their underwear. I have to admit, I've ignored the "Dry Clean Only" admonition more times than I can count, with very few ill effects. Yes, silk is hand washable. So is wool. Crocodile boots, not so much.