Knitwith Homespun

Good morning all! I have a few things to say but don’t have time to say them. My mother-in-law is in the hospital in surgical ICU after open heart surgery. We have been driving to and from San Diego all week. They will be moving her out of ICU today I think and I will tell more later. We are taking Bella down after school to trick or treat in her room. Hopefully, they will let her into the room to cheer up her Grandma, even just for a few minutes.

Also, I received a “Pay it Forward” package the other day and I don’t want to neglect it. It’s beautiful and I will take pictures and post later this week.

It’s been so busy since Bella started school and the summer of bleeding money (that’s what I call it), I haven’t had any chance to cook and take pictures. Sure, I cook, but I don’t care how it looks and I don’t want to talk about it! Until today.

I have been wanting to take pictures of these potatoes that I have been making since my birthday. I have never heard of this but I do it because I was trying to think of some way to make potatoes so I could have the salt I got for my birthday. This is what I came up with. I baked some smallish potatoes in a 350 degree oven for an hour. After that, I sliced them thinly (a little less than 1/4 inch thick) and placed them on a very very hot cast iron griddle with some olive oil on it. Flip them once after a couple of minutes and you have some super crispy, fully cooked potatoes. If you are lucky, like I am in this photo, your baked potatoes (these were cooked previously and refrigerated), will have a small hole in the middle that also crisps up for extra crunch. I love the texture of these potatoes. All fluffy and nice inside, and crispy and salty and brown on the outside.

Ok, so now there’s a story about tonight’s dinner. Sirloin (to display my black lava salt), potatoes, salad (no picture), and garlic bread. David has had a super busy weekend. He had an open house at his shop and that always stresses him out. About 400 people or so come to the shop and have bratwursts and sodas and he gives away prizes and stuff. It’s a busy busy day for him twice a year. Today he had to go to some other event at 6am and set up a display and stay there all day. It was called, “Wings, Wheels, and Roters”. He had a long day yesterday and a long day today so I thought I would make him steak and potatoes. I think I have mentioned before that he is a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I had a couple of left over baked potatoes from the other day but I thought I would make more. I did this and since I had the oven on, I threw some garlic in there and roasted it for some garlic bread (also a favorite of his). These two sirloins I had were too big to cook together so I made them separately. David’s dinner was first and mine second. Bella had already eaten since she isn’t a fan of steak at all. I had some leftover chicken and gave her that with the potatoes and salad. Anyway, I am making two batches of the potatoes also.

So I serve David and I am making my stuff next. My steak is done and resting and my potatoes are coming off the pan. For some reason, my potatoes slid off the plate onto the floor! Oh My God! They were perfect too, all crispy crunchy perfect with the hole crispy and nice! My sister just told me yesterday about the 5 second rule thing too that if you have ecoli, it grabs on immediately, but that if you have samanilla (I have no idea how to spell this), you have like 10 seconds. But they don’t consider dog hair in their calculations! I wanted to cry! So my nice presentation got ruined. My mojo was gone! I didn’t get out the herbs or take a picture of the salad. I had plenty of potatoes because I truly made too many anyway. However, I was able to at least get my black lava salt on there. Makes it look nice, huh, with the black salt all charred looking. The bread was outstanding, if I do say so myself.

Today was the worst day waking up. Bella is off from school for regular day off (no student day) and her cousin spent the night last night to try out her new bed (bunk with futon below). Yesterday was ok fire-wise in that there wasn’t a lot of smoke smell in the air at all. It was there but very faintly. Today, I woke up and had to immediately shut all the doors and windows. It was stifling. I couldn’t breath very well and my throat was sore. So we all three stayed couped up in the house and wondered what we would do all day. We made breakfast and they played in her room for a few hours while I sliced bread. After a while, the kids asked if I could take them over to Nicky’s (referenced cousin) house (2 blocks away) and play over there (where there is a Playstation II). I said sure and drove them over. While getting there, it was astonishing how the smoke laid on the ground. It looked like fog almost. Not too thick though, but visible. Completely horrible. So I had them wait a second and we all opened all the doors at the same time and didn’t run, but walked purposefully to the front door. Nick’s brother (20) answered the door and let us in. That was about 2-3 hours ago. Now, there is a really pleasant breeze. The winds have shifted completely! Thank God, but now it causes different problems for firefighters because the winds are blowing the opposite direction than it was the other few days. It is blowing from the ocean now, which cools us off and brings in some moisture from the ocean. The Santiago fire is still very big and it’s not 50% contained yet. There are still a bunch of evacuations in effect including an associate of my husbands at work who hasn’t been at work all week. We know he and his family are safe. We think his house is ok because his answering machine is still working. The really good news is the smoke is cleared today. Let’s hope the same thing for tomorrow and the moisture stays in the air. As of 4:00pm today, here are the stats on the firefighting for the Santiago fire at 30% contained:

FIREFIGHTING/LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSETS:

I am having such a hard time working this pattern backwards from the finished product. Please bare with me and understand I don’t want to go out and buy another 10-12 balls of Bohemian yarn to test knit another one. Patience will be required and I will try to take lots of pictures to show you how I am getting this information I am spewing as a pattern.

First, I have counted the cast on stitches. I have counted the stitches at the widest part of the poncho, and I have counted the stitches at the bind off edge. I have also counted the rows for the entire poncho and the rows of the hood.

Now all I have to do, is put it all together. Easy, right? Wrong! I can’t tell at what scale I did my increases. The poncho is a slightly bell shape as the person I knit it for is always always cold. She wanted something warm and toasty so I made it to have room for her arms but to come in after her butt so it would keep her warm and hold out the air (or something).

Ok, I held up the poncho to the light to see if I could count the increases and the rows. I have posted a black and white photo and one I have doctored up to increase contrast and clarity so I can count the stitches and increases. To the right is the high contrast photo. You can see where the increases are here and how many rows there are between them. Now, to write this up….brb.

Here is the count:

Neck: 40 stitches
Widest portion of poncho: 440 stitches
Bind off stitches: 300 (approximately)
Total rounds: 72
Rows in hood: 28

Ok, here goes:

Supplies:

Size 13 DPNs
Size 15 Circular Needles 24″
Size 15 Circular Needles 60″
10-12 skeins Patons Bohemian yarn in chosen color
Stitch marker

CO 40 stitches on dpns and divide evenly between your DPN’s
Place marker. Knit all stitches for all rounds. This creates stockinette stitch when knitting in the round. Switch needles when you feel you need more room to work.
Join and knit 3 rounds.
Round 4: Switch to size 15 needle. *K3, kfb. Repeat from * to end.
Rounds 5-7: Knit all.
Round 8: *K4, kfb. Repeat from * to end.
Round 9-11: Knit all.
Round 12: Repeat Round 8.
Round 13-15: Repeat rounds 9-11.
Rounds 16-23: Repeat rounds 8-15.
Round 24: *K5, kfb. Repeat from * to end.
Rounds 25-27: Knit all.
Rounds 28-39: Repeat rounds 24-27.
Round 40: *K6, kfb. Repeat from * to end.
Round 41-43: Knit all.
Rounds 44: *K6, kfb. Repeat from * to end.
Rounds 45-47: Knit all.
Round 48: *K7, kfb. Repeat from * to end.
Rounds 49-51: Knit all.
Round 52: *K20, kfb. Repeat from * to end.
Rounds 53-59: Knit all.
Round 60: *K5, k2tog. Repeat from * to end.
Rounds 61-65: Knit all.
Round 66: *K5, k2tog. Repeat from * to end.
Rounds 67-72: Knit all.
Bind off.

Hood:

Pick up 36 stitches along neckline with smaller circular needles.
Row 1: Purl all.
Row 2: Knit all.
Continue for 27 rows finishing with a purl row.
Row 28 (RS): Using a spare size 13 DPN, find the center of your work by counting over 18 stitches and place a marker. From this point, pull the cord through this spot leaving half the stitches on one of the needles and half on the other half. This is a magic loop technique often used for knitting socks on one long circular needle. We are using this hear to use the three needle bind off technique to close the hood. Line up the first stitches and begin the three needle bind off until all stitches are bound off.

Weave in all ends and enjoy!

kfb = Knit in the front and the back of the stitch making two stitches from one.

My friend, Vic, just came by and brought her poncho for me to analyze for you all and I can now write the pattern for it. I have to dissect it and work backwards from the finished product. This may take some time or I could get all involved with it and get it done in one night. Chances are good for this option as TV is non-stop fire coverage which is starting to depress me. It’s so soft and squishy and I forgot how awesome this yarn is to work with. Look for the pattern to be posted this time tomorrow.

Here is the previous picture of the poncho. I will post a better one when I am through with more detail if I can.

I am sorry to bother you all again but I just want to cry. I can’t believe it. These fires are getting more out of control, especially the one closer to me. We are not in any danger other than our air quality is very bad. I had to give Bella some albuterol this morning but only as a precaution. That these fires were set intentionally is heartbreaking. It’s so hard to believe that a human being could bring such devastation and horror to so many other people. It’s catastrophic what is going on all over the state but the fire in Santiago Canyon and that area (the closest fire to me) was arson. Arson! I still can’t believe it and it hurts me. That’s all. I am just using this as a journal right now because I can’t deal any other way and I am not even suffering like some others.

Here is a link to the current information again. Fire Authority. I am going to put this link in my blogroll for ease of reference.

Well it smells like fire everywhere. The winds have died down and everything is looking better around here but there are people all over Southern California that are in trouble. There are 200 homes burned down in scenic Lake Arrowhead and I am not sure how many homes in San Diego. There is nothing on TV and for some reason, I would rather sit here than knit. So….in honor of my friend Prostiturtle, I have done a little photography experiment. She posted a picture of herself on her blog wearing her glasses which I thought were similar to mine. Noone wants to see a picture of me wearing my glasses so I photographed them from different angles for fun. Boy was it fun too. Oh my what fun. Not at all boring. Oh wait……yes it is.

Ok, background of the glasses. I bought them I think in 2003. My prescription at that time was -7.50 or so. I have had laser surgery since then (which I highly recommend). Surgery was in September of 2006. It was a breeze and I was 20/15 within a month. Since that time, my eyes have regressed somewhat. My doctor says that for the amount of correction I had with the surgery, it is more common for regression than more minor corrections. I am able to get 2 or more surgeries still to get corrected back to 100% correction. I will do that, but not right away. When I got the surgery initially, I paid a premium to be able to get corrected over and over again free of charge. My doctor says he doesn’t think my eyes will regress much more but we should wait another year and check again. My corneas or thick so that’s not a problem. Ok, so I wear glasses now since I am 20/40 but only for watching TV or night driving. My doctor laughs at me because 20/15 was soooo awesome for me and I can’t stand 20/40. It might even kill me! Well not really…….

Ok, so when I went to the doctor last month, he wrote my prescription for my new glasses and wrote the cheapest plastic lens you could possibly get and I used my old frames pictured here. After I saw the first couple of shots, I thought I would try a few things. I wanted a high contrast shot but I wanted some color. I also wanted to be able to see that these frames are purple. I think one of these shots shows that. I also wanted it to look like the frames were floating in mid air with narrow Depth of Field. Any interest? I’m already bored! Anyway, this is what I came up with.

Now I am inspired to try an HDR of these frames. Interesting……

Every time I try to post these videos, I get messed up formatting. I will now just post a link to my YouTube account so you can look at this if you want. That’s all I’m doing. I will start to get obsessed with making sure the plugin is working and blah, blah, blah……

I linked to the windy video and you can click on the fire ones when you are done with that one if it engulfs you with interest.

Technorati Profile

Ok the support people at WordPress rock hard and they helped me fix it.  Now comments and everything are fine.  I re-input the ones I deleted when I was trying to fix it.  That’s why some of the posts are out of order.  I didn’t want them completely gone.

My last best birthday was in 2004. I was going to post this on my birthday and explain it but I had such a good birthday it totally slipped my mind. Before this one, the last birthday that was perfect and lovely was in 2004. It was my 40th and my dh took me to Pechanga for the weekend. I am a gambler and a poker player and he planned it without me knowing. He planned dinner at the fancy restaurant there and when we sat down, they brought my favorite drink without me even ordering it (or him ordering it). He had made arrangements about it when he made the reservation. We had dualling massages in the spa and ordered a movie in the room and I didn’t even gamble but for 10 minutes. It was truly awesome and here is the horoscope that appeared in the paper that day. Needless to say, David is a Sagitarius.

I can’t get my comments to work properly.  I am working on it.  Thanks for your patience.  Please send any e-mail to karen at home-spun dot com if you want to tell me anything but we are fine and the fire is moving away from our location.  We drove over to Peters Canyon today after we got Bella and it’s fine too.  Thanks for your notes!

The Santiago fire is closing in but we are pretty safe. Schools are open but the winds have shifted I think because there is smoke everywhere. Yesterday and last night there was no smoke. It was all blowing towards the ocean and the fire is slightly south and a little east of us. However, the bad news is that the fire is horribly close to the canyon where I hike very regularly. Peter’s Canyon is just about a 4 lane highway away from the blaze in Orange County. The fire has crossed a toll road that is next to Jamboree which is right next to Peter’s Canyon Park. The park has about 8-9 miles of hiking trails that are chock full of dry and dusty shrubs. Chances are slim that this favorite park of mine will survive this fire. Anway, keeping our fingers crossed and our prayers in order for the entire region. This map shows where Peters Canyon is and the fire is the big area of white immediately to the right of it.

Here is a link to the Fire Authority’s information about this fire. Tustin (where I live) is the town right next to Irvine to the north. The winds we are having are called Santa Ana winds and blow from the desert to the ocean. This is why they are so hot and dry. Typically our weather is driven from the north and the west which is why we are typically so cool and mild. These particular winds are stronger than we have had in years and a lot more erratic. At this very moment, it is calm, but in a few minutes they could kick up much more. The time of day when the winds tend to be strongest is sunrise or sunset. We are a few hours from that time now but it is completely unpredictable for this area.

Tried to take a bunch of pictures of Bella today and this is my favorite. If you want to see them all, go look at my Flickr.

Well, there is a blessing in disguise! I was trying to go to Ravelry.com and the problem is, I think it’s down. The bigger problem is Jess and Casey are at Rhinebeck and there is noone home to fix it. So…….is this a blessing? Is this a curse? Can we finally get some knitting done? You tell me:

Today is the day! The 14th anniversary of my 29th birthday. I wasn’t sure how this day was going to go but I have to say, it’s AWESOME! All my family called and sang (one by one, of course), my sister Susan calling first. I got Bella ready for school and made her breakfast and lunch and all very normally and then time for Bella to go off to school. Carol comes by and picks up Bella every day. This morning, they drive up and Sam is holding this lovely lovely cake! Isn’t that the best way to start any day, let alone your birthday? That’s probably the only cake I will see this year. I love it and thanks so much Carol, Sam, Danny, and Aaron! Honestly, I am touched and I can’t wait to eat it! Next, it’s off to Disneyland with David’s cousin here visiting from Phoenix. That’s always fun. Rode the Matterhorn, Space Mountain, and saw Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. That’s all we had time for then I picked up Bella.

Got home and the mailman had been by. Nice package on top of the mailbox. Inside, the pictured items to the right. I am not a chef, but I am a foodie without question. I love to cook and eat (as evidenced by my more than Rubenesque figure). I am starting to get a reputation around town and with most of my family as having a salt issue. I love salts! Before today, I had the following kinds of salt just sitting around:

1. Kosher
2. Coarse Sea
3. Fine Sea
4. Himalayan coarse
5. Himalayan fine
6. Himalayan with cayenne pepper coarse (in a grinder)
7. Fleur de sel
8. Iodized

Ok, so now that I look at it, it could be a problem. I like different salts with different things, like eggs get fleur de sel, fried foods get either himalayan with pepper or himalayan plain. Kosher for cooking, etc. Each has purpose and each tastes slightly different. I got these two for my birthday from my sister who is my main salt supplier! Thanks Carolyn!

So this is it, I think to myself. What a great day!?! Bella picks some flowers from the yard for me and those are pictured here as well. I get a million hugs and kisses and a nice card she made at school. Do I need anything else? Nope! Do I want anything else? Nope! I am good! Excellent nice and lovely day. Weather couldn’t be better. Spotty clouds and a high of about 70. I called my sister and thanked her for the salts and we giggled about it. Next thing you know, she asks me if UPS has been by yet. I say, no, are they coming. She says, yes they are! OMG seriously? They came within 5 minutes of me talking to her and brought me Vogue Knitting, the Ultimate Sock Book! I could just die! It is sooooooo awesome and I can’t wait to sit down and just read it! I am addicted to socks lately and as posted, I am having issues so timing couldn’t be better for this book. Thanks again Carolyn! Also in that package was the movie, Amelie which I haven’t seen before.

Some birthdays come and go without much ado but this one is a good one. I wish they were all like this. Oh yeah, and I got a bunch of birthday greetings from Ravelry too because they put a little cake by your avatar in the forums on your birthday so everyone knows when it’s your birthday! Cool, huh? I love Ravelry!

On the Sock Wars front, I am dead! Here are the socks that killed me. They came yesterday and I love them! What a way to go!