In the spirit of basking in fall goodness (and in Halloween preparation mode, in Squeezer’s case), we ventured out recently to get ourselves a spiffy pumpkin. We’d previously picked up some smaller pumpkins for baking, but we were in need of a bit of ceremony, and thus journeyed out to a neighboring town with wider open spaces and plenty of pumpkin patches.
Immediately upon return back home, Squeezer wielded the knife and gave our new friend a toothy grin.
Boy howdy, that girl doesn’t waste a minute in getting projects like this started (and finished) - she’s my hero. The pumpkin was carved and propped on our front porch within 20 minutes.
The crisp fall air inspired me inpsired to whip up some pumpkin-based dinner that evening.
I removed a couple of cups’ worth of pumpkin pieces (as previously frozen from the cut-up baking pumpkins we’d bought a few weeks earlier) and altered a favorite go-to recipe from Mediterrasian.com (a fan-freaking-tastic site) to create the following:
Pumpkin Curry Soup
1 tablespoon canola or peanut oil
1 onion—chopped
3 cloves garlic—chopped
2 teaspoons red curry paste
2 cups of fresh pumpkin —peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup red lentils (or yellow split peas)
3 cups vegetable stock
1 cup coconut milk (less if desired)
1 heaping teaspoon each of ground cumin and coriander
pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg
2 teaspoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
fresh cilantroLightly brown the garlic, then add the onion; cook for a few minutes. Add red curry paste and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the pumpkin, red lentils, stock, coconut milk, spices, and brown sugar and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 20-30 minutes. Puree the soup in food processor until smooth, then add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Add a few tablespoons of fresh cilantro and serve. Serve with a dollop of nonfat natural yogurt and garnish of cilantro and freshly ground black pepper.
Too bad I didn’t take a picture to share with you. It was so pretty. And so delicious and warm and cozy.
Other reminders of cozy fall goodness include the wooly comfort of The Big Project (Bidie-In has now shortened his name for this sweater to just TBP), with which I’ve made the opposite of progress.
Yeah, I frogged my Fisherman’s Sweater, like, entirely.
It was just getting a little too baggy. And by a little I mean a lot.
Even after the first few inches of stockinette I knew it was on the big side for Bidie, but I hoped it would be within the margin of error for “big, cozy, hot-toddy-by-the-fire” sweaters.
Then I held up my in-progress front and back pieces to the actual width of Bidie this weekend. Ah…no.
The wool I’m using has a bit more give than the acrylic blend from which my seaworthy-sweater-model was knit. This makes “a little baggy” more like the way-too-droopy clothes on the kid version of Tom Hanks in Big after the Zoltar wish machine brings him back when he’s done being an adult.
This problem is exacerbated a *teensy* bit by the fact that I screwed up with the gauge at the very beginning.
I know, I was shocked too, because usually the smoking gun of improper sizing doesn’t simply lead back to the fact that the dimensions of the starter swatch were completely ignored.
Bit too quick to green-light the gauge for Rowan Plaid on US 11s.
Hello! Look at this picture!
In spite of the photographic evidence shown here that clearly illustrates how NOT close the size of the brown stitches is to that of the off-white stitches, I think I just thought my swatch was close enough to the existing knit gauge to base my design roughly on the number of stitches of the prototype pattern rather than the actual measurements.
[boo, hiss]
I know.
Argh, rookie mistake! I should have either tried a smaller needle or adjusted my first swipe at the design, or both. Which is what I’ve now done.
Frogging it isn’t that big of a catastrophe, though, really. Don’t feel sorry for me. The yarn knits up at about 3 stitches/inch, even on a size 10½ needle, so it’ll knit up fast all over again. And the yarn wears/frogs well, so it’ll look fine the second time around. I hope.
Right. Done with the ripping out part, starting with the re-doing part. Yes!
Swatching now on US 10½, I can see the fabric holds its shape a bit more to my liking. And my design notes are headed in the right direction, too. I’m using a bit more actual math, boys and girls, in converting the real gauge (not a pretend one) into a number of stitches based on the desired finished dimensions. Capital idea.
In other news, my 2-at-a-time Practice Socks are off the 40-inch Addi Turbo Lace needles (still sexy, as previously reported). The Raindrop Lace Socks, bless their wee hearts, are on. Really and truly.
Although it was touch and go during my first hour or four of learning the 2-at-a-time method, I’m happy to report that once I hit my activation energy I was off and running, with fairly infrequent consternation. Perseverance led me through the initial (heavy) cursing at tangled yarn to a happy harmony of satisfying, quicker-paced sock knitting.
At the heel flap
At the heel turn
Best tip I’ve garnered so far from Melissa Morgan-Oakes, other than the actual technique of keeping both socks on the needles at all times, was to put the ball of yarn in a Ziploc and pull two ends of yarn from the ball (one center-pull and one from the outside) and poke a little hole in each bottom corner of the bag, such that one end of yarn comes out each side. Then any (short) length of yarn that is stretching from the bag to the needles doesn’t get tangled. Smart.
These two little guys would need blocking before gifting (due to my beginner’s inconsistency), but we’ll see if I end up gifting them at all. I don’t think I have enough of the green sock yarn to do another, even small, one. Maybe I’ll whip up a second tiny beige one on its own. We’ll see.
More soon. Cannot wait to show you my new yarn coming from WEBS - yes, Allison, I went for the bonus yarn and told the boys in Massachusetts to throw another few logs on the fire with my order (boys = boys or girls, logs = skeins, fire = pile of yarn).
Two words: Cash. Mere.
Cannot. Wait.
