homecoming

I'm back from a whirlwind trip to Minnesota. Some highlights...
- spending time up north on Roosevelt Lake (NW of L. Mille Lacs)
- visiting a new cidery in Stockholm, WI -- Maiden Rock Cidery. Their Honeycrisp hard cider is delicious!
- seeing Public Enemies -- the scenes of Billie's apt. along the El tracks were shot in my back alley! I enjoyed the movie; that Johnny Depp can really act. It's a pretty straight portrayal -- not overly stylized, as many gangster movies are.

Strangely enough, I didn't knit much on my trip. Staying at my parents' house causes me to revert back to my teenage self -- lots of reading and listening to the Smiths.

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Pattern: Moderne Baby Blanket by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne

Needles: Clover US 8 bamboo circs
Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, many skeins
(305 lemongrass, 207 chili, 102 ivory, 400 fog, 209 maize, 401 chicory, 403 sky)

Notes: Great pattern - very fun and easy to knit. It's a yarn-eater, so be forewarned. I started off using leftover skeins, so I didn't follow the number of rows in the pattern -- I just knit until I ran out of yarn or thought it looked good. This blanket was a great opportunity to play with color. I hate doing actual colorwork, so this was perfect for me. Mission Falls is great to work with -- not too much wrist/hand fatigue considering that it's 100% cotton.

Time to pop this in the mail to Colorado!

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My cousin adopted a new cat while I was home last week. Such a cutie. See those paws?
Yep, he's polydactyl. He looks like he's wearing big mittens. :-)

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The Hap Blanket is almost done... I'm still loving the Eco Wool.
We've reached the amorphous blob stage where it's all bunched up on the circular needles.

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In the kitchen

I whipped up a Lemony Zucchini Goat Cheese pizza for dinner last night. Yum! I substituted thyme for basil, and I added a sprinkling of shredded Parmesan. Next time I'd cut back on the lemon juice a bit. I used Smitten Kitchen's simplest pizza dough recipe, too, but I made it in the breadmaker on the "dough" setting, which worked perfectly.

blanket statement

The log cabin blanket is nearing the finish line. See where the blue and yellow meet? This was my first time doing even the most basic intarsia.I've enjoyed log cabin-ing, and I don't mind the miles of garter stitch, but the way this project eats yarn is horrifying. I would knit the pattern again, but I would make sure to stock plenty of yarn first. This blanket would have been done long ago if I had paid closer attention to the yardage requirements.

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Since one can never knit enough lap-covering projects during a 90-degree heat spell, I cast on for another blanket last week, this time in Cascade's wonderful (and affordable) Ecological Wool, which is a lofty and springy loosely-spun 2-ply. This is yet another pattern by Ysolda Teague -- the Hap Blanket (rav). I'm done with the center square, which knits up quickly, and I'm ready to pick up stitches for the feather and fan edging.

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One movie I'm definitely not seeing this summer is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Why not, you might ask? See Roger Ebert's review. I'm gonna trust Ebert on this one. I've only recently discovered the entertainment value of Ebert's reviews -- esp. the ones of bad movies (collected in Your Movie Sucks and I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie).

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Did anyone catch the new Hercule Poirot, Mrs. McGinty's Dead, on PBS last night? I was quite taken by the cinematography (videography? not sure what you say for TV). The old Poirots always seemed like they were shot by someone's dad on a camera borrowed from the local high school. This one had some great shots, esp. of Poirot right when he arrives in Broadhinny; plus the period cars are gorgeous.

P.S. You can watch it online here until July 5.

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Other exciting news on the PBS front...
David Tennant is the new host of Masterpiece Contemporary, starting in October. On a related note, am I ever itching for the next season of Dr. Who.