2008 July Archive at adam knits!

Monsoon season is in full swing here in New Mexico, and there’s nothing like street watching on a rainy afternoon.

Dallas loves to look outside while it’s raining, except when there’s lightning. It just takes one flash for him to be on my bed, quivering behind some pillows. My new bed isn’t tall enough for him to hide under, although it took him a few head bonks to figure that out. Emma prefers a more subtle method of avoiding lightning strikes. Her philosophy is, “if I can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist”. She simply curls up in her bean bag with her back to the window and gives Dallas strange looks when he runs out the room.

Who needs TV when you have afternoon dog antics to watch?

In the free time arena, it seems that home projects are the new knitting. I have a few new projects to show off, and many more in the works. One I’m especially proud of is my new pot rack.

I’m now convinced that the pot rack is one of the best inventions in recent history (you know, assuming they weren’t invented in medieval times or anything). Not only does it look slick, it’s also extremely functional. My kitchen isn’t gargantuan, so I’ll take all the cabinet space I can get.

And a special thanks goes out to my Dad, who really did all the work to hang the rack. It turned out to be a bit more work than planned, as ceiling is actually mounted on 12″ spaced furring strips, unbeknownst to us. A number of drill holes later, we were finally able to locate the furring strips. Thank goodness for spackle and paint ;)

Another one of my recent decorating endeavors involved setting up a shrine to the dogs in the hallway. Because nothing impresses the ladies more than a guy who has pictures of his dogs everywhere. Right? (I really hope so, otherwise I might be on the road to becoming the male equivalent of a crazy cat lady.)

In addition to a multi-paned frame with lots of dog pictures, I also hung up one of my oldest knitting projects. I bet most of you have never seen this, since it was completed early on in my knitting career. In fact, it was my 3rd knitting project ever.

I was quite ambitious when I began knitting, and I came across a fun pattern book in a craft store, featuring this kitschy blanket with intarsia dog motifs. I thought it would be quite fun to make (little did I know how tedious intarsia can be at times), so I broke the bank for a bunch of Mission Falls 1824 Wool and cast on.

It took me a bit of time, especially to figure out how to do the colorwork, but I soldiered on and completed the blanket. I even lined the back with fleece to give it that extra special touch. Being that it was a small blanket, I knew it would probably end up as wall art, and it has finally lived up to that destiny. I do think it looks pretty handsome hanging up in the hallway, and it’s a great step in my quest to have wool everywhere possible in my house.

because everyone needs a hand-knit intarsia wall hanging

Another way I’m working towards domesticity through sheep is by knitting a runner for my new dresser. It’s deliciously textured, especially since I’m using hand-dyed and hand-spun yarn. There’s really no better knitting experience than using yarn that you dyed and spun yourself. Especially when the result is this lovely.

Plus, the good news is that since it’s 249 stitches wide, I have a little longer to spend with this nubbly beauty. In fact, I think I might go knit a row now.

These past few weeks have been all about finding a rhythm at the new house. I am a very habitual person, and that means getting settled into the new place also includes getting things running on a schedule. There’s a new trash day, a new watering schedule and a new cleaning system to get familiar with. It’s all the mundane things like washing sheets, vacuuming floors and scrubbing dishes that make me really feel at home. Hopefully that means I’m just an obsessive engineer and not a robotic android. Just wait until I get my meal schedule in order ;)

Other than turning into a household robot, I haven’t been up to a whole lot lately. I did finish the Fiddlehead Mittens, but they deserve a spectacular photo shoot, and let’s face it, who wants to model wool/mohair mittens when it’s 98 degrees out?

I do have a few small projects in my knitting basket, but not really much to show for them. There’s a washrag I’m making with some green hemp, to go in the bathroom with my collection of handmade soaps. It’s a slowly progressing washrag, because I can only stand to knit with the hemp for about 10 rows, and then my fingers need a break. I have another one in pewter already finished, and to the yarn’s credit, it does soften up beautifully after a wash.

I also have the beginnings of a knitted runner, which I’m making out of some of my own hand-spun. I have a lot of little skeins here and there, which should each be enough to get me a few long rows in, before switching to a new color and texture. It’ll be mostly blue and white, and knit in garter and seed stitch. I think there’s nothing better than texture to warm up a room, and this should be just the trick. This project also gives me an excuse to wind a bunch of small balls of hand-spun yarn, since it seems a shame to run such lovely yarn through the mechanical winder.

In my culinary exploits this past weekend, I thought it’d be fun to make some cherry ice cream to celebrate the 4th of July. I got some delicious cherries, and went to work pitting and halving them. It’s quite a messy job, but thanks to a tip from good old Martha, I used a piping tip from a pastry bag to poke out the pits. Definitely a time saver, and much cheaper than a $10 cherry pitter that really has no other use.

After getting all the cherries prepared, I made up the ice cream and got ready to head to my family gathering, where I planned to pop it into the ice cream maker and freeze it. Sadly, the bowl of the ice cream maker didn’t get cold enough in my freezer, so the dessert was doomed from the start. It wouldn’t set, and despite many attempts to get the bowl cold enough to set the mixture, it was a wash. I was a bit bummed, since after all that work, I ended up with a bowl of frozen cherries in crystallized milk. Ces’t la vie, right?

Thankfully, the cherries weren’t lost in the pit of despair forever, since a few astute Flickr people suggested that I make some tasty milkshakes. And let me tell you, milkshakes with home-made cherry ice cream are quite delicious. Yes, indeed.

It’s getting late, so it’s time for me to wrap this sham of a post up. Hopefully next time I’ll be a bit more enthused, and/or have some actual knitting or household projects to show off. Or maybe I’ll tell you how owning my own house has turned me into a crazy granola hippie. ;)