Category Archives: Knitting

Animals and Nature, Cooking, Knitting

Happy Birthday My Little Redhead

Posted on by Jean

From this (Aggie is on your left):

to this:

in two years.  I took this picture on Aggie’s 2nd birthday (Saturday).  Happy birthday my sweet girl.  To celebrate I bought Aggie a gift!  Wasn’t that nice of me?  She’s always wanted a skein winder that she didn’t have to clamp down!  Who knew?!

What better way to try it out than with the yarn Kim (Woolen Rabbit) gave to me over Labor Day weekend. 

Finished the socks I started on Labor Day from Regia.  I have to say that the mismatched look drives me nuts.  Someone in the family is definitely getting these socks.

The color got me thinking of blueberries and blueberries got me thinking of one of my favorite treats:

Blueberry scones and a cuppa tea.  Must be the Scottish blood roaring through my veins.  I’ve made them enough to have been able to tweak the recipe a bit from various recipes I’ve found in books and on the web.  I like a denser, not so bready scone with an almost crunchy outside.  This was my latest try and so far it’s our favorite.

Scottish Lamb’s Blueberry Scones –

  • 2 1/2 c flour
  • 1/3 c sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 TBS baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • fresh nutmeg (I grate about a tsp worth if you’re using the already grated stuff, I’d double it)
  • 1 TBS grated lemon rind

Preheat oven to 400F.  Mix above ingredients in a bowl with a whisk until well blended.  Then cut in:

  • 1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup) – do NOT use margarine

Until it looks like cornmeal.  I usually stick the whole bowl back in the freezer (or at least the fridge if there’s no room in the freezer) for about a half an hour before continuing so that the butter gets nice and cold again.

Then add about a pint of fresh blueberries (you can use frozen but don’t defrost them so they won’t turn the dough blue).  Really, you have a lot of choices at this point.  Try raisins, craisins, nuts, cranberries, etc.  You really can’t go wrong.  My favorite is blueberries or raspberries though.

Beat together:

  • 1 egg
  • 3/4 cup milk (buttermilk will make the crumb softer and lighter if you’d like to try it)

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a spoonula until it comes together into a ball.  Dump onto a floured surface and gently knead just until it is combined well (you have to do this carefully with berries so you don’t crush them).  Flatten out into a disk about an inch thick and cut like a cake into wedges.  Place on a sheet pan and brush with either milk or an egg wash.  Sprinkle with sugar and bake at 400 for about 20 min or until golden.  Best when fresh out of the oven. Brèagha (Gaelic for Beautiful)

Cooking, Family, Friends, Knitting

Nothin’ Says Fall like FOOTBALL!!

Posted on by Jean

Black Knights!!  Hooah!

I wish you could feel the excitement here today.  Tomorrow is a special day.   The first home football game of the season and guess who has tickets?!  We are SO excited we can’t stand it.  Best news… we live less than a mile from the stadium so we can walk and not suffer all the traffic.  We went today and bought all the fun stuff for the game.  Evidently football is HUGE here.  Dan even had to bring home one of the office cars with the sirens and lights so that he can get through traffic if he has a duty call.

Dan laughed and said we have a pretty good chance at being at a game when Army wins because they’re playing Rhode Island tomorrow (please, if you’re a Rhode Island fan…  yell at Dan.  He said it, not me).  Next one that we have tickets to is against Rutgers.  He suspects we’ll lose big time.  Still fun to go though.

Kim blogged today about the little things I brought her last weekend and I felt like a schmo for not sharing what she gave me.  I’m sure you all know she’s been working hard to get ready for the fair but she let me dig into her bag of goodies and pick a skein.  This colorway is called Boysenberry.  Purdy, ain’t it.  As soon as I finish up the other socks I started on the trip to NH, I’ll cast Kim’s luscious yarn on.

I turned the heel on the sock I started last weekend.  This yarn is fun.  I’m carrying the ribbing just down the top of the foot.

I also did a little more canning.  A bunch of Gramp’s tomatoes were nice and ripe and I didn’t want to lose them so I made some marinara sauce with them.  No recipe.  Just winged it which is usually what I do when I’m cooking.  I had a bunch of fresh parsley and basil to use up to so it all worked out great.  I only got three quarts but that red color is spot on.  I’ll save one jar to take back to Gramps on the next trip.  He’ll like that I think.

Cooking, Family, Knitting

Take Me Home, Country Roads….

Posted on by Jean

What a FABULOUS weekend! Family, friends, even some knitting!

The biggest reason I begged Dan to endure the winters of the Northeast (he is a Texan, you know) was to be near my family in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. They’re only a five to six hour drive away (not counting the Friday before Labor Day when everyone and their brother seemed to be headed the same way we were…).  We’ve been so busy getting settled in that we’ve only been up there for once right after we landed back in the States.

Joe got a little taste of what I loved to do as a child.  Go pick dinner out of Gramps’ garden.  Fresh potatoes, tomatoes, cukes…  nummy.

My grandfather is the best gardener, historian, teacher (not professionally) and philosopher.  I love sitting and listening to him talk about anything.  When I was a little girl we weren’t close.  I lived with them for a while after my parent’s divorce when I was four but he was working (they were very young grandparents – their youngest of eight, my uncle, is only a year older than me) and busy with his own kids.  Age has mellowed him but he still doesn’t sit down for more than a couple of minutes at a time.   Even at 81 he still works hard keeping the up with the land and home he’s built for them up on the mountain.  I remember being about 11 and he and my grandmother would be walking us through the woods next to the house he was born in, telling us just where each room in their house would be.  I thought they were nuts at the time.  Funny, here we are, about 30 years later… yesterday morning Dan and I were walking in the woods with my grandfather having him show us just where we should put a clearing for our camper so we have a place to stay when we go up to work on our little cabin we’re going to build down the road from them.  It will be right across the dirt road where his grandmother’s house stood more than 50 years ago.   I love family history and I love going home.  I love showing my boys through the little town where my roots go way back.  Lots of people have that every day but growing up military and then raising military kids…  that’s one of the things I miss the most.  Roots.

Years ago Gramps used to make these spicy pickled green tomatoes.   As he got older he stopped making them and my Uncle Chet started.  Dan and I always managed to get a jar and we’d savor them for as long as we could.   If you remember, my Uncle Chet passed away suddenly less than a year ago.  Gramps and I made a date for this past Saturday to make those special little treats and I couldn’t help thinking Uncle Chet was up there grinning down at us and probably thinking we’d never make them as good as him.  He’s probably right. lol.  It was so much fun to share this with my grandfather.  He showed me how it was done.  When we were leaving this morning he told me I could take half the jars and he gave me a few pounds of green romas so I could make some more.  I wouldn’t take more than two jars and I plan on bringing some back to him on our next trip.

The other big treat was getting to finally meet someone that I’ve considered a friend for quite some time now.  Dan and I felt right at home in Kim and Ken’s wonderful home.   They live only about a half an hour from my grandparents so I know we’ll be seeing each other again and hopefully have the chance to spoil them as they did us.   I brought my camera.  I really did.  I have no idea why I didn’t take any photos because they would have been great.  When we got back to my grandparents and were trying to describe the day I hit myself in the head in disbelief.  Kim and I have so much in common and it was so fun to finally meet her family and her beautiful little dogs.  It was funny to see four little Cavs go sniffing at Aggie (who is a little alpha and used to being in charge).  The hubs kept busy talking the whole time as well.  The boys even had a great time playing in the pool and rolling around with all the dogs.

I even got a little knitting done on the trip there and back.  Just a sock but it feels good to have the wool and needles in my hands again….

I leave you with a before and after picture of the town store that my great-grandparents ran for years.   It’s so sad to see it as run down apartments now. 

Animals and Nature, Family, Knitting

1/2 a Saturday Left

Posted on by Jean

As of right now we have 1/2 of a Saturday left.   The boys think we have two.  Here’s the clicker.  For weeks, at least six, I have thought the 7th was on a Thursday.  Dan’s Detachment Sgt’s wife called me from Italy yesterday to see what my plans were for “Wednesday”.   I assumed she wanted to drive up a day early and needed a place to stay.  I said, “Oh, it’s only a 2 1/2 hour drive for us so I’ll just go up on Thursday morning.  Would you like to spend the night here with us and follow us there?” 

Dead silence.  Cricket.  Cricket.   I’m thinking, “What?  What’d I say?!”

“But, Jean, they come in on Wednesday.”   WHAT?! I ran to look at my calendar.  Holy crap! She was right! Why didn’t anyone tell me that the 7th was Wednesday?!  LOL.  I mean, I would have realized it sooner or later, probably tomorrow when I look at the calendar for the next week, but NO ONE told me!  Not even Dan.  I have sent him an email every single Thursday for weeks now, “Six more weeks today!…..  Five more weeks today!…”  He never caught on.  Everyone around here said they thought I was just excited and mixed up.  What a great gift!  It also means I have to get off my tail and get things done.  Wednesday is SO much earlier than Thursday.  Seriously.  Thursday is at the end of the week.  Wednesday is in the middle.  There’s a HUGE difference. There’s a rack of beer to be bought, house to make sparkle, banners to finish and hang up, clothes to be washed (his clothes have been in a closet for a year… they need freshening up)…  I think Daniel will figure it out (if he hasn’t already) but Joseph doesn’t have a clue and I can not wait to see his face when he realizes we’re going to pick up his dad.  He keeps saying, “I wish it were the 17th so dad will already have been home for a day.”  It’s killing me.  I’ve never kept a secret so well. I’m going to pretend I overslept and they missed the bus.  I’ve already set up the ground work and keep telling them that Aggie has a vet appointment (I just said, “next week” in case the flight gets delayed) so they won’t wonder why she’s in the car.  They won’t realize until I make a right turn for the Autobahn instead of a left for the school.  I wish I could run a video camera and drive at the same time.  lol.  So please everyone pray for on-time flights, no bumping of  seats and great weather from Afghanistan to Germany so that he actually gets home when they say he is because I don’t think I can keep quiet much longer. 

I gave Aggie a bath and good brushing yesterday.  Can you believe she’s 17 months old already.   She’s grown into such a beautiful little lady.  I use the term “lady” loosely.   She’s really a big pig.  I know it’s hard to believe looking at that face but you can bet that within five minutes of eating a huge belch comes out of that pretty little dog.  It’s hilarious and we laugh every single time.

I cast on the Chick Knits Ribby Cardi a couple of nights ago.  I’m using my favorite yarn, Elann’s Highland Wool which I bought for this pattern over a year ago.  I also bought it in medium and dark blue.  It was just serendipity that the Elann group is doing a KAL.  It’s a perfectly relaxing knit so far.

Okay.  Gotta get to work.  You probably won’t hear from me until next weekend so everyone have a great week.  I know I will!  :-))))))))))))))))

Family, Knitting, Sewing

2 + 2 Still Equals 2

Posted on by Jean

I finished the two socks on two circs.  (I don’t normally block my socks but for photo purposes I used the instructions for the sock blockers online by bending coat hangers. The website I found the directions on is gone now.

yarn:  Regia 6-fadig Country Color / color #4758

So here’s my opinion about this method.  This is just my opinion.  It may be great for you.  I wasn’t crazy about the 2 on 2 method.  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been using dpns so long but I just never got to a point where I was totally comfortable with it.  The one major pro was being finished with both socks at the same time.  I can achieve this by knitting a little of each on dpns though.  The circulars just always seemed to be in my way.   Made it seem faster but I’m sure that’s just in my head.

I really tried not to cheat but after several attempts to do the heels, I did put them on dpns until I got to straight knitting again.  I doubt I’ll ever knit socks this way again.  I originally thought that I’d do at least one more pair to see if it grows on me, but really, I didn’t enjoy it so what’s the point?

And remember this whole mess so that I could knit until I ran out of yarn equally?  What a waste of time. It was all for nothing.  Look how much I had left of each ball.  If I’d knit until I ran out of yarn I’d have thigh-high stockings which would be fine if I was going for the school-girl look but if I were, it wouldn’t be in this pattern. 🙂

So, what took me so long?  I’ve been working on a couple of other things.  One of them I can’t really show you yet, but here’s a hint:

Hardy Stock

After my last post I pulled all my old genealogy files out and joined Ancestry.com.  Wow.  It’s amazing how much the internet helps in the research.  From right here at my desk, I found more in a weekend than I found in all the days and days that I spent in the National Archives and Library of Congress when I lived in the D.C. area.

I’ve mainly been working from my grandmother back.  I got stumped in 1880 because the line I was researching came from Nova Scotia (Campbell and Fraser) during that year and I’ll have to order vital records to get more information.  The 1890 Census records were destroyed by a fire and it’s really bogging up my research.

Since I couldn’t go any further along that line I started looking up another line. I was amazed to find that my tenth great-grandparents are John Alden and Priscilla Mullins who came over on the Mayflower and founded Duxbury, Mass.  I called my Gram to tell her and her reply was, “I could have saved you a lot of work and told you that”.  This is the price I pay for not getting to live around my family in New Hampshire very much. 

So I thought it’d be fun to see if any of you are my long, long…… long lost cousins.  At the end of this post you’ll find my family history to the Aldens and Mullins.  As you can guess, most of them were born, lived and died in Duxbury. Edith Chick Hodgdon was my great great grandmother and her mother, Christiana Soule Chick, was the first to move away… all the way to Watertown, Ma. (a whopping 40 miles away).  This photo is Edith with her sister, Elizabeth. My Gram believes Edith is on the right.  I can totally see Gram and my aunts in both of these women so who knows. Edith’s mother-in-law was Georgianna B. Allan Hodgdon (the great granddaughter of both Col. John Allan and Col. John Crane that I wrote about in my last post).

Family, Knitting, Travel

A Heel Is Born

Posted on by Jean

Thanks for all the well wishes.  I’m back to normal.   The stuffed nose is even gone.  It was kind of nice to sleep for a couple of days.   I’m not a sleeper so on the odd occasion that I do, it’s pure bliss.

Winter has finally arrived here in Bavaria, Germany.   It seems it’s coming in full force.  The forecast is up to 12 inches in the next couple of days. Yesterday I was wearing a thin jacket around.   This morning, I was shoveling a ton of snow so the boys could walk out to the bus stop. I just let Aggie out a bit ago and she didn’t know what to do.  It was hilarious to see her go running to the door only to come to a skidding stop to look at all the white stuff that was all over her yard.  I’m really hoping they call a snow day tomorrow.  The boys have a four-day weekend (not really sure why) so it’d make it a five-day one full of fun sledding and hot cocoa… oh, and shoveling… lots of shoveling.  Good thing I don’t need to go anywhere today.  I can’t unless I go dig the mound out at the end of my driveway that the plow truck left there.  Swell.  I *really* miss Dan. lol.

I’ve been working on the socks on 2 circs.  Still haven’t decided if I like it or not.  Here I am working on one of the heels (I did them one at a time – impossible to do both short-row heels at once):

Here it is finished:

I have to admit that I ended up ripping it back out several times after knitting the other one and something just didn’t seem right (the stripes weren’t even close which led me to believe that I’d knit something wrong).  I ended up cheating and putting them both on dpns to do the heels.  I’m working on the ribbing now and am about 1/3 done.

While I was knitting on them last night I was watching the PBS special (on DVD) of Colonial House.  I LOVE these shows.  I was hooked on Pioneer House so I had high hopes for this show.  I watched three episodes last night and it’s really starting to get interesting now.  And they have Texas Ranch House out now!  Already ordered it so I can watch it when Dan gets home.  Did I mention that’s TWO WEEKS FROM TOMORROW…. but on to my story…

I took note that a lot of the men were wearing knitted hats that looked felted.  They seemed to be brighter colors than I would have imagined the Puritans wearing.   I love it for the scenery as well.  It’s shot in Maine.  Even though I’ve never actually lived there, I’ve visited often and it’s where my ancestors came to America from Scotland (through Nova Scotia).  My grandparents live about 20 min. from the Maine state line, so they didn’t go far. lol.

I especially like the inclusion of the Passamaquoddy Indians.  My seventh great-grandfather was Col. John Allan.  He was born in Edinburgh Castle when his father was there during the Scottish Rebellions.  They moved to Nova Scotia after the war as his father was given land there by the government for his service.  John Allan was a member of Parliment but ended up going against the crown and helping the Colonists.  Basically, his job was to keep the Indians of the Northeast on the Colonist’s side.  If you’re really interested (it is a really interesting story if you like history), you can read more here.   I even have an excerpt out of a diary of a girl that visited the Allan family.  It’s so cool to read about how they played the piano and sang songs to entertain her and how kind they all were.  Nice to know your kin were kind.

Lubec, Maine from Campobello Island (following pics are scans from old film snapshots):

Dan and I met at an Army school outside of Boston (Ft. Devens – I’m so sad it’s closed down).  About a month into the school we went on a trip to Maine.  I was going to see some papers on the Indian Reservation near Lubec that Col. Allan had written.  Dan claimed he wanted to go to see the Pow Wow they were having that weekend.  I was a little slow in realizing he was interested in more than the Indians.   The name of the cabin we stayed in was Blueberry Hill.  😉  We were married a little over a month later.   Maybe Fats was on to something! We went back there a couple of years later with 10-month old Daniel:

If you’re still reading I’ll tell you a funny story.  I knew that Col. Allan lived on an island off the coast of Lubec. There is a monument there where he and his wife were buried.  We went down to the dock and found a man that was about to take his family on a little boat ride.  He gave us a ride to the island and said he’d come back and get us in an hour.  HOW STUPID were we?!  The funny thing is we didn’t realize how stupid we were until we were sitting there waiting for him.  There was a salmon farm a little ways off and we were wondering if the faint figure we could see would hear us if we started screaming.   But the man did come back for us and returned us safely to Lubec…. obviously.

Dan, Daniel and Dallas (I still miss that dog and she died seven years ago) at our Blueberry Hill:

Knitting

I’m Thick

Posted on by Jean

I hab a cold, throat hurtths and my thinuthes are thtuft up.

My favorite tea cup and some Echinacea tea with honey was in order last night.  I was feeling pretty bad yesterday and this morning.  Feeling much better tonight though.  Still achy.  Dan has the exact same thing and we’re 3,000 miles apart.  Go figure.  So I slept most of the day today (which is HUGELY unusual for me – I am not a sleeper) and when I wasn’t sleeping I was on the couch knitting.  I cast on the socks that I wound the yarn for the other day.  I’ll let you know how I like the two socks on two circs deal.  The jury is still out and I’m trying to give it a fair trial.  It’s just new and fumbly to me right now.

I love how the thin green line formed a kind end of toe thingie… bob… macjigger… duhicky…. what’s that called anyway?

Okay.  The Nyquil’s hittin’ hard.  Time to go find the Sandman….

Knitting

Bright Ideas

Posted on by Jean

I think there’s a fine line between a genius idea and a stupid idea.

Sometimes I scare myself.  Need a reminder?  Check out this dumb move in Egypt.  You’d think with past experiences and living with my brain for as long as I have and knowing the way it works I’d learn and become very leery of a bright light bulb going off over my head.  But nooooo…..

You are not allowed to laugh at me and I will share.  I want to knit two socks at once (because I never seem to finish the second sock) using a ball of the Regia I showed you in the last post.  The problem is it’s one ball.   I need two.  Normally I’d just remedy this by knitting from both ends of the ball.  If I do that with this yarn the stripes will come out vice versa from each other on the sock.   Could be an interesting design detail for some but I’m a matchy person and they have to be the same.  Just sayin’   😉   (that’s for Norma – NowNormaKnits2).

So I started thinking about how I could separate the ball into two that are the same size.  I thought I could just wind off a ball and weigh it as I go until I get to 75grams on my scale.  I thought that wouldn’t really work though because you can get a lot of extra yardage in a gram.   Okay.  Not a lot but I wanted to be more precise. 

Light bulb!  I’ll wind it off on my niddy noddy so I can actually count the wraps!  Genius, right?  That’s what I thought, too, until my arm was about to fall off about halfway through the ball.  Stupid.  I could have used my skein winder.  It would have been quicker and easier.   

I used my 1.5 meter Ashford niddy noddy.  The yarn band says there’s 375 meters in this ball.  I counted 226 wraps.   I could have counted wrong and be off by a few wraps but I figure that at only 339 meters (and don’t even get me started about the knot near the end).  That’s 36 meters off.  Even if I miscounted a couple of wraps, that’s a lot of yarn but we’ll worry about the difference in yardage later.   

Back to my plan.  I’ll count off half the wraps and put a marker there so that when I’m winding it back into balls off the swift I’ll know where to stop.  I know.  Genius…..

Yea.  Not so much.  When it’s on the niddy noddy… you can’t tell exactly which wrap goes in what order, so if I put a marker on wrap number 113, it’s not necessarily going to be in the middle of the yardage.  In fact, the odds are that it definitely won’t be in the middle.  ARGH!  See?  Stupid.

Light bulb!  I’ll put it on the swift and mark off one spoke so that I can count rotations as I’m winding it off into balls.  It may not have been the most efficient way but it only took about 45 minutes (counting taking pictures) and now I can just knit toe up until the yarn is gone.  This makes me very happy.  I know.  You don’t have to say it.  I’ve lived with me for 43 years. I know I’m a little tightly wound.

They each weigh 75 grams.   Ahh.  Perfection.   I recounted the yardage.   Still came up with 226 wraps.   I realize that the yarn company probably had it under tighter tension when they measured it but holy cow!

So now I’ll be in a big rush to see what I come with at the end of each sock.  Of course, I’ll lose a little yardage on one from making the socks start out at the exact same color repeat (again… I know.  Just let it go.  I can’t be changed).

I’ll keep you posted.

Forget Saturdays!  28 DAYS LEFT!

Gardening, Knitting

Glorious Sound

Posted on by Jean

Click Click Click.  Hear it?  It’s my needles!  Seems my knitting is back.

I’m whispering that because I don’t want to scare it away again.  It’s like having an old friend back.  I love the sound the needles make.  I pulled Birch out of my basket and have been working on her while watching season 2 of Grey’s Anatomy on dvd.  I already saw most of it but figured I’d re-watch since they are finally going to start showing the third season in February on Armed Forces Network over here.

I forgot to show you all the sock yarn I scored at the Rothenburg Christkindlmarkt before Christmas:

Yea… I know what I said about getting rid of stash but I don’t really think sock yarn counts, do you?  I still have a sack of yarn that I bought just before we moved back to the States the last time.  That was six years ago, folks.  Back then, Regia was harder to find in the States and twice as much.   With the exchange rate, it’s not so cheap anymore.

Dan got word a few days ago.  He should be home on February 7th!  That’s five days earlier than we thought.  That’s LESS than a month!  Being a seasoned veteran at this deployment thing though, I am not telling the boys until I know Dan is on the flight.  We’ve had an extremely mild winter (I don’t even think you could call it winter) here in Germany.  It’s snowed twice and both times melted within an hour of hitting the ground.   The pessimist on my left shoulder is whispering in my ear that Feb 7th is the day the snow will finally come in the form of a blizzard.  The optimist on my right shoulder has reached around and smacked Lefty upside the head.

Last October I planted a bunch of bulbs in baskets to force and give out to friends in the gloom of February.  The thing is, it’s been so warm they sprouted early (even in a dark garage) so I figured what the hey and brought them in the house.  I really didn’t expect them to bloom because they didn’t have any dormant time but this morning I found a lone red tulip starting to bloom.  Made me smile.