There was a new episode of The Barefoot Contessa on the food network yesterday. I think I must be Ina Garten's number one fan. Well, maybe not number one because that title might be reserved for a stalkerish nutball ala Kathy Bates in the movie Misery. But I sure do love Ina's recipes and I wouldn't mind having a bite of lunch with her at a Paris cafe. Anyway, thanks to that new episode, Adrian and I enjoyed fresh maple oatmeal scones for breakfast. The recipe is a keeper for sure but I recommend halving it because it makes a butt load of scones. In the future, I think I might play around with the amount of whole wheat flour and baking powder in the recipe (I always like to try adding more ww flour to my favorite recipes). I used a heart shaped cutter partly because I'm a romantic sap and also because it's a scientifically proven fact that everything tastes better when it's heart shaped.
This past week my former sister Brenda rebroadcast an essay that I wrote for her podcast, Cast On. It was an essay about the first sweater that I ever knit. I thought I'd post a few pictures of that sweater here. If memory serves, I think that I knit it five years ago or so. It took along time to work up the nerve to buy all the yarn for it because I was terrified that I wouldn't have the perseverance to finish it. Then I'd be stuck with this shaming pile of yarn that would heckle me and remind me of my failure. Thankfully I had my very own sweater coach who cheered me on and encouraged me as I went along. That role was filled by my former sister Brenda, by the way. She was great about keeping me motivated even though sometimes I had to remind her that the phone call was supposed to be of the 'Yay, Pam!' variety and not a venue for Brenda to tell me all about what was going on in HER life. In fact, most of our conversations include the phrase "Enough about you, let's talk about ME". The pleasure of who gets to utter that phrase depends upon which of us is yakking the most at the time.
Anyway, the facts about the sweater are these: It's adapted from a pattern in an Aran Knits book put out by Knitter's Magazine. I knit it in this wonderful dark blue/purple color. The yarn was Lopi light because I happened to have a half a skein of it in my knitting basket and that's what I knit my swatch out of. I had never knit cables before and I wanted to see if I could do it so I grabbed the yarn and knit a swatch. I liked the look of it so I went to my local yarn shop and ordered the 4000 skeins that it would take to knit this sweater. (Bonus points to whoever can name the tv show that always began with narration by Jim Dale and the phrase: 'the facts are these'.
Naturally, like everyone else who has knit their first sweater, I was immensely pleased with myself and I spent a good amount of time thinking that I was the cleverest girl on the planet. I wore (and still swear) my sweater a lot that first winter, and it's still my sweater of choice for cross country skiing. But the problem with Lopi light is that it's itchy as hell. Also, I discovered that my delicate moon flower of a face does not like itchy wool rubbed against it so I have to make sure that I wear a heavy turtleneck with the sweater. Also, Lopi light is a single ply yarn. I don't know if this is true about all single ply yarns, but my sweater has been growing steadily ever since I knit it. Though it's not quite down to my knees, it could almost be considered a dress at this point. I know it's just a matter of time before I have to breakdown and shorten it, but I am putting that thankless chore off for as long as I possibly can.If you want to hear more about my sweater, pop over the Cast On and listen to the episode. Also, in case you were wondering, my former sister Brenda gave me to her partner Tonia because Tonia wanted a sister of superior quality to call her own. So now I am officially Tonia's sister and Brenda is now known as my former sister, Brenda.
