July Doings

First of all, I made vegetable lentil soup today. Recipe courtesy of Leila.
I added a bay leaf, generous shakes of basil, a good amount of thyme, a few shakes of oregano, and some cumin. In retrospect, it was well spiced but could have been even stronger, especially with oregano. I don't like the strong smell of it while it is in the bottle, which kept me from adding more to the soup-- mistake. I added smoked ham, which went nicely, and did add some red russian kale from the garden.
Next time, because I am not vegan, I would definitely add some chicken broth.

I finished the lace ribbon scarf and also the bainbridge scarf-- I'll have to post pictures. I finished them during a family vacation to San Diego, in which I did not have to drive. Thus, the hands were free to knit. It was a good trip. Still love Balboa Park.

During a recent sidewalk sale at an outdoor mall, I bought a decorative ceramic milk bottle with flecks of paint that ran down the bottle in vertical lines. I became so attached to it that I bought it. What a random thing to get. Among my friends, I am the most likely to buy random bottles because I get aesthetically hooked. I think it represented to me hope and a vision for a clean bedroom. Ironic that I bought something to go inside that room-- that is, adding to the clutter instead of bringing the cleanliness it symbolizes.

On the queue:
--Sew a tunic or sundress using a Japanese pattern.
--Replant arugula and chard sprouts. I need 1) to weed myself more plot space, 2) floating row cover. There was a point this year where I didn't think I needed floating row cover, but I actually do. P.S. copper really does prevent slugs from entering the garden plot. It works amazingly well. No slug problems since putting copper rod on the perimeter of my plot and removing slugs inside the plot.
--Knit the Coachella tank top. This pattern was only appealing to me because I saw the mods that Roko made to it-- darling. I also saw a different project modification where length was added to the body, and it made a super cute dress. I'm thinking about doing both those things. (I love that Roko called her project "Coachella for shy scapulas"-- the use of the word "scapula" brings out the anatomy geek in me). I also like that Coachella is the name of a music festival in California.
--Continue cleaning my room. I made significant desk progress recently, but still need to clear up the room environs (e.g. file folders, academic materials, dresser). I bought some organizers, which should help.

Lentil Soup

I bought lentil soup from the school cafeteria today, and brought it back to my office to eat. However, when I stirred my soup around, I found white crescent shaped things in the soup! There were so many. Worried that they were worms, I examined them. The first time, I couldn't be sure-- they were not all uniform, and I couldn't make out any segmentation-- seeming to say that they were not worms. However, for one or two of the white things I examined, I found a slight black spot near the top of the crescent. A head?!

Frantic, I googled "lentil soup white worm" and came up with a couple comments on blog posts reporting the same problem. Relieved that I was not alone in this, I read on. It seems that there is a small controversy among readers about whether these are indeed worms or if they're just sprouts.

The entries I looked at:
Red Lentil Soup Recipe at Dove's Eye View
Living the Life: Lentil Soup

Most readers seemed to think they were sprouts. Only one wrote a strongly worded comment saying it could possibly be worms, but she detailed her findings as "segmented crescents"-- which was not my case.

Upon further examination, some of these white crescents were attached-- seemed a part of-- a piece of lentil skin. This was quite often the case. Other crescents seemed to have a fibrous ending. I did not find any white crescents with segments. So, I have come to the conclusion that these are indeed lentil sprouts, and I am now eating my lentil soup in decided peace.

I intend to make lentil soup later this season and add kale from my garden for extra nutrition :)

May gardening

I only got started with this summer's garden at the end of April.

Today, I planted some beans! I haven't weeded the actual garden plot enough yet, so I decided to get started in little containers. I also inoculated them, which is supposed to make them healthier and yield more beans. I bought a small package of inoculant at Wells-Medina Nursery. It consists of a couple kinds of rhizobial bacteria. Hopefully my beans will have some good symbiosis going on! Two way relationships are good for everything and everyone... Makes for healthy beings all around. Even beans :)

I have three types of beans this year: Sugar snap, "Renegade" bush beans, and "Burpee Stringless Green Pod" bush beans. I had the sugar snaps from last year, I bought the "Renegade" bush beans this year, and one of our caregivers gave us a package of the Burpee kind.

Yesterday I went to the Seattle Tilth plant sale at their Good Shepherd Demonstration Garden in Wallingford. I was supposed to go to the "1-2-3 grow a garden" class, but traffic was SO BAD yesterday, especially in the UDistrict, that I was only able to show up for the last 15 minutes of a 1 hour class :/ I walked around the demonstration garden and took notes about the plants and the informational signs they had around, so although I felt really frustrated for missing most of the class, I did come away feeling like I'd gotten something from my visit.

I bought some plants at the plant sale: 2 lavender plants (hopefully they will help attract pollinators to my garden!), a lemon thyme plant, a "crookneck squash" plant, a "Sweet Million" cherry tomato plant, and another cherry tomato plant that is supposedly a relative of "Sungold," the tomato I liked the best from last year.

Here's a picture of the "Crookneck" summer squash seedlings-- apparently native to this area. I'm excited for it!

I bought some strawberry plants at Home Depot a couple weeks ago. Hopefully their yield will be bigger and better than last year's. I can't put much energy into getting a couple dinky strawberries again... :p

Here's one of the salad planters I've got going. I bought the mesclun mix from Wells-Medina nusery. I hope to be grazing all summer long :) You're supposed to be able to cut leaves off a maturing plant, and keep coming back as the plant grows more leaves.

Finally-- problem of the season. I reused pots and some soil from last year. I didn't see any slugs, but I think I potted my plants with sluglings!! They're eating some of my plants. This is a ruby red chard plant, but they're a little leany because I think a slug has been chewing around the stem. I intend to go out tonight and see if I can find those nasty things. If I do, it is their END! >:( This is annoying because I planted many of these specifically in pots to reduce the predator load. I may actually go out and buy me some beer. This slug business is not acceptable!!

One thing I'm going to try this year include building a "cloche" -- kind of like a portable greenhouse you can set over the top of a garden plot to ward off animals and also raise the temperature of the ground and air inside. I'm also going to try to get "floating row covers" -- looks like a gigantic dryer sheet-- to try and keep bugs away from my plants while still allowing them air, sun and water.

spring gardening

It's April-- now more over than it was begun, and I hadn't even begun planting anything yet!

Today I went out and bought a crazy crapload of stuff and I spent that much money, too.

• Garden inoculant for me beans and peas
• Broccoli ("Thompson") seeds
• Bush beans ("Renegade") seeds
• Kale ("Improved Dwarf Siberian") seeds
• Swiss chard ("Fordhook Giant") seeds
• Basil ("Sweet Basil") seeds
• Ruby Red Swiss chard seedlings
• Rosemary ("Tuscan Blue") starter
• A salad mesclun mix from Langley
• 4 strawberry plants
• Roma tomato plant
• Zucchini ("Black beauty") starter
  
• 2 window box planters
• 2 plastic planting bowls and dishes
• 2 bags of potting soil
• 1 bag of compost
• A roll of burlap

It's crazy! I have my work cut out for me this week. I planted the salad mix in the planter boxes and I transplanted the chard seedlings, but I am never quite sure if they'll survive or not. Hopefully, or that is a $5 waste.

I still need to weed the plots :/ That's the most time consuming task of all!

Haikus, Set 1

March 6, 2009

Today it rains.
Yesterday the sun was out.
Stop messing with me.


March 9, 2009

The door is open.
Singing loudly to music
Is noise harassment.


March 10, 2009

It has been raining.
The boss sees me at my desk:
"Put your shoes on."

I keep thinking back to Japan. I have such fond memories. I want to go back!

This is where I stayed in Osaka (Chuo-ku): Weekly Mansion Osaka at Otemae.

In Kyoto, we stayed in Gion at a weird youth hostel: BakPak Hostel. We went to the next door Fresco grocery all the time.

This is where I stayed in Tokyo (Ebisu): Stork Daikanyama Apartments. Next door was a cute cafe/restaurant, Dexee Diner.

fo: Crochet Beret

Yay! It's done! I'm so excited when I actually finish something.
That's why I love crochet... it is so fast. So I can be excited on a more regular basis :)

Modifications:

• I cut rows 9 and 10. It was getting too big. I think the shape would've been better if I had them in there, but I don't feel any remorse for my actions :)
• Row 14 (cluster) I alternated 2 skip two clusters, 1 skip 3 cluster (sk 2, sk 2, sk 3...). This was an effort to reduce the circumference some-- I ended up with a 54 cm circumference, which is fine. Still large. The pattern calls for a 51 cm circumference.

Now I can look even more like the mushrooms I love.

More dreaming

I want to make okonomiyaki. Or pajeon.

I want to go out for dim sum.

Fro-yo... the new bubble tea. I could go for that too.

So many food yearnings during the quarter.

Dreaming

Right now I'm pausing before going on to the last question of this beast-like take home test. I hate this class.

I dream about starting new projects quite a bit in the middle of the quarter. This time it's been pretty bad because this quarter has probably the worst midterm area we've ever had in our program thus far. Fortunately, it's only a two-weeks of the underworld, then out to fieldwork in the community for a week, then a somewhat breezier (but not easy) way to the end of the quarter. And this is supposed to be the most work intensive quarter of the program, so I'm looking forwards to a good spring.

The harder school gets the more my mind goes on excursions, thinking up things I would rather be doing.

Ravelry helps me do this quite well!


On the needles and hooks

Slouchy crochet beret - Crochet. I made this once too large, frogged it, and am back at 50% currently. I've been venturing forwards a row or two, then ripping back because I'm experimenting with the sizing as I go. Today I decided to cut two rows from the pattern, so I hope the hat turns out ok.

Lace ribbon scarf - Knitting. I had been using two size 3 dpns to knit this originally, but the stitches fell off while in my bag (an absolutely horrifying moment for me, because this is a lace scarf-- meaning there double yo's in there that are so friggin difficult to pick up if the stitches slip off!). A classmate, who is also a knitter, told me it was a requirement that I had to get size three circulars to finish the project. I got some and put the stitches on the new needles rather sloppily. I am incredibly indebted to her for "knitting" backwards to pick up dropped stitches. She's got so much more experience on me-- I have trouble thinking and working backwards on projects-- I would rather just rip everything and start over. Thanks to her, I can keep going forward on this project! She's got her own lace scarf going now, so it's almost like we've got our own KAL (knit along) group in the OT program :)

Flap top mittens - Knitting. This one is on size 6 dpns. I'm doing lice stitch. It requires so much coordination between the two colors (and I'm new to colorwork) that it is definitely restricted to my desk. I have also decided to do several other mods to the pattern, including resizing the mitten and partial fingers. We'll see how it turns out! I already wish I did the cuff smaller, but it's too late now and I'm too lazy to go back.


Dreaming

Japanese turban hat - Knitting. A brioche stitch hat that is basically a scarf that is sewn into an origami-like configuration and magically becomes a really cute hobo hat. There's another one I saw called "N. cap" which I would have to figure out own my own from looking at pictures. Both are super cute... better start with the one I have more instruction for! I have tweedy O-Wool balance yarn that I'm eager to use.

V-neck sweater vest - Knitting. From Classic Knits by Erika Knight. Looks really cute and a relatively short project for an actual item of clothing. I've never attempted anything beyond a shrug, but this looks like it might be a safe advancement. The pattern reviews on Ravelry say the pattern is ill-written... surprising to hear, since this author has written so many books. I'm still willing to venture, perhaps over spring break. I could splurge on Rowan Big Wool (but its been said to pill badly) or just go with the economy of Wool Ease Thick & Quick... quite a dilemma.

Wham Bam Thank You Lamb Neckwarmer - Knitting. A quick asymmetric cowl in purl stitch. I'm not sure whether I should actually do this, because I'm not completely sure if I'd wear it. But it looks like such a quick knit, it looks cool when other people wear it, I've seen nothing like it on my friends, and I actually have Wool Ease Thick & Quick in my stash, so this is very tempting indeed...

January knitting

First post of the new year! I hope to start it off with some good knitting :)

Over the break I accomplished a couple of my December goals:
--Finished the "little silk shrug"-- I wove in the ends on the day before school began again. It looks pretty good, IMO. I'll have to take some pictures of it sometime. I feel that one danger of me wearing a shrug like this, however, is that if it isn't properly stretched across my shoulders, I could come off as having football-ready shoulders. Also, the bottom back edge is a little too wide, so I must keep pulling the shrug forward so the edge doesn't bend out strangely. All in all, though-- good for a first non-mitten, non-scarf project!
--Finished the felicity beanie. Now that was a quick knit! I really want to do this one again. I saw several really cute projects people did using hand-dyed yarns on Ravelry. Felicity is a really good candidate for displaying amazing yarn because it's all plain stockinette with an interesting shape-- great canvas for special varigated yarn.
I like how the back bunches up like that. I had serious doubts about how this was going to look on me, but it turned out okay! Note to self: on M1, be sure to knit through the back of the stitch. That way, you don't get holes.

In the January/Winter 2009 queue:
--Japanese slouchy crochet beret: I have to frog this baby and start over. I accidentally increased way too rapidly and even though I then attempted to slow the growth early on with each row, it grew out of proportion. Now when I try it on, it looks like an animal is engulfing my head. So... it must be destroyed and remade.
--Lace ribbon scarf: my first time working with fingering weight yarn. I'm a bit intimidated by size 3 needles and it'll probably take forever. I've done about 4 inches since Friday (2 days), so if I think this is going to be 60 inches long, then it'll take me at least a month to knit (and that's assuming I work on this everyday).

Love the color, don't you? Too bad it's called "prune." My first time working with an alpaca mix. It's good but it can be a little splitty on difficult stitches. Also a turn off was that I had to rewind the skein into a ball of yarn so I could actually knit it pain-free. I wish all yarn companies wound their yarn into usable skeins so that customers could start knitting with the stuff immediately.
--Flap-top mittens: I've tried this pattern (in Melanie Falick's Handknit Holidays, by Kim Hamlin) before but always got stuck at the "prepare flap" instructions. Thanks to user eleanorw for clarifying them for me! So now I've gotten past that step and am thinking about knitting fingers into this instead of just ending at an open mitt.
I'm looking forwards to knitting in class this quarter!