Plans

I had plans for today. I had quite a few plans for today.

Did you ever go to the store with a list in your head of 4 things you needed? Did you ever come out of the store with those things? My guess is you came out with 25 things and when you get home you realize that you never got those original 4 things. That’s sort of what my day was like.

This little purse started life in the night before leaving for my UK trip. It was going to be a money belt. Unfortunately it only got about 12 rounds before I had to pack and leave. I’d gotten this Maggi’s Knits Linen because I wanted to see how it worked up. It laid on the arm of my chair for all the time since I’d been home but all of a sudden last night I decided I wanted to do something with it. After having a little look through some of my stitch dictionaries, I found this one in the Sheila McGregor book, Traditional Scandinavian Knitting which I really liked. This was done on 60 stitches but I think I will write the pattern on 72 stitches so the pattern will be better situated. But I really love the look this linen yarn gives although it’s certainly not the easiest stuff to work with, particularly for color work. That’s probably because I carry both colors in my left hand and it kept slipping out of my hand.

My other accomplishment, although this picture isn’t of the finished variety, it will be finished any minute now – are my new socks. These are the Regia Silk and Silk Color in yellow and Tasmania in stripes of 7 rounds each – just my regular sock recipe but the colors give it a little something, don’t you think?

Doily Done

Just a quick post to show off my new doily. I love this pattern with its Art Nouveau feel. It's not blocked properly, I just ironed it out, and I need to work in the ends of the thread but I'm very pleased with it. When it's blocked properly, the tops of the flowers will be more rounded which will be more to my liking.

This one was much more challenging than the other - DMC Cebelia white thread - size 30. Yes, size 30 and US size 0 needles. Yes, quite challenging indeed but also very addictive. I worked on this exclusively for the past 2 weeks and I never do that. Pattern is from the Danish Lace Treasures book, featuring the work of Anna marie Jensen, by Gloria Penning.

Can you believe I'm already getting the itch to do another sweater in the ilk of the aforementioned Danish sweater? I've been wondering about doing a blue and white cardigan - complete with steeks... hummm....I really must be in love!

A Cake from the Past

Just a quick report from Dianna’s test kitchen. I tried the Chocolate Potato Cake mentioned below and I’ve got to tell you, it ain’t half bad! Mine did turn out a little crumbly but I think I got too much flour into the batter or else I should have actually mixed milk and butter into my mashed potatoes. I didn’t because there was already milk and butter in the batter. I used all-purpose flour and I think if I decrease that amount a little, it would be great. I baked it at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, in case you want to try it. It’s definitely chocolatey. Actually, it might be good with a little sour cream mixed in for more moisture. The batter was a very interesting almost mousse-like consistency when I put it into the pans. I used a smaller cake pan and a round cake pan because I realized I had no regular size pan (shows you how much baking I do!) but it really could have made 3 round cakes that could be stacked and iced. I didn’t ice mine because I don’t like icing but it would make a good pot-luck bring.