Sweating it out

Summer is here.

I am pretty excited that I can enjoy it this time around.

On the flip side, I am definitely not used to the humidity and heat. This may never change. I am a northern girl, and I wilt when it is 90 and thrive in any temperature below 85.

I also passed an important blog milestone. I deleted my very first spam comment. 

Fractals include a little fooling with my powerful machine.

And the fatal flaw of 64 bit apo is that plugins are not supported. This week's challenge was to use unpolar, which is interesting. Unfortunately it wasn't on the essential list for Apo7x.64 bit.

If anything the gradient on this guy is a very pretty one.

I am going to try out a pretzel recipe, since it sounds like fun. I will either have a disaster, or new cooking techniques will be added to my repertoire. It isn't an adventure if success is guaranteed. And by the power of me taking the weekend to write a blog post I have results!

 MMMMMM cheese sauce.

It was both a success and a failure. Always always always double check the suggested amount of salt before adding it. teaspoons are not tablespoons. They were really good. They just leave you desperately thirsty after eating them. They turned perfectly brown, and chewy, and the rosemary adds a complexity that is delightful. I will try again soon, now that I have a better handle on making them.

The next challenge is to make Russian Black Bread with more of the ingredients than the last time.

I am sporadically working on my sweater. Last night I thought I would have a ton of free time. However, that was a lie. I made dinner, packed boxes, and went to bed. I might have finished a sleeve while walking around with the home inspector. I might want to change to size 3 needles for the ribbing, and rip back to the 8 1/2 inch point. I made it to 10 inches before thinking to measure. Maybe tonight will be better knitting time.

So maybe to compensate for stretching, 10 inches of sleeve before 2 inches of ribbing turned out quite well. I am trucking away on sleeve number 2, because there is much knitting to do, and less time in which to knit. In order to meet the yardage requirement I might need to make the sweater a good bit longer in the body. The body so far, and one sleeve weighed in at 87g, which means I am more than halfway to the goal of 150g. It is hard to tell how much yarn the collar will take.

I suppose if the other sleeve takes 25 g, I want to be in the 115 g range before I start the collar. The yarn scale will have to follow me around.

The department of stashquisitions visited my apartment. I entered in the 2nd anniversary contest for The Knit Girllls, and I won of skein of sun valley fibers sock yarn in the coral colorway. I must admit I would have never bought it, but I really love it. I am not normally drawn to the pastel, orange/yellow/pink colors, but I think it will make a great pair of socks.

I was so excited when I was watching the video, because I heard a number in the 30's, but it wasn't me. Then for the last skein of yarn, my name came up! Yea! I stopped it and told the dear sweet lovable one. Who was confused why I was so excited. Oh well. Free Stash! Stash elephant is very proud.

Speaking of stash . . . I packed it all into a box, along with most of my knitting books today.

I also have all of my notions, knitting books, and patterns, and yarn I never entered in raverly. The only things not in the box are blocking wires, umbrella swift, some straight needles I didn't put in for the picture.

I suspect that I will have to post it in the flash your stash thread. since I don't normally take photos of my stash.

That's all for now, take care

Molly : )