I know that I am not the first person in history to use one of these covers, but they are usually seen outside at picnics to keep bugs off of food. When I came across this at the newly-opened Sur la Table near me, a lightbulb went off. I can use this to keep Bad Boy Baxter from checking out food I am cooling on the counter.

Genius!!!

In this case, the cover is protecting bread cubes for a chocolate bread pudding.  I don't know where the recipe came from, but I am sharing it with you.  It is wonderfully rich and chocolatey and gooey and...

Well, just give it a try!

Chocolate Bread Pudding-

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon unsalted butter

4 large eggs

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted

1/4cup Grand Marnier or other orange flavored liqueur

2 cups half-and-half

8 slices day-old white bread, crusts removed and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 4 cups)

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Spiced Cream

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 6-cup (9 1/4 x 5 ¼ x 2 3/4-inch) loaf pan with the butter.

2. Whisk the eggs, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, melted chocolate, and

Grand Marnier together in a large mixing bowl until very smooth. Add the

half-and-half and mix well. Add the bread and let the mixture sit for 30

minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Pour half of the mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the top with the

unmelted chocolate chips. Pour the remaining bread mixture over the

chocolate chips. Bake until the pudding is set in the center, about 55

minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes.

4. To serve, cut the pudding into 1-inch thick slices. Top with the spiced

cream.

Makes 8 to 10 servings 

Ingredients for Spiced Cream

1 quart heavy cream 

1/4 cup granulated sugar 

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Directions

1. Beat the cream with an electric mixer on high speed in a large mixing bowl for about 2 minutes. Add the sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg and beat again until the mixture forms stiff peaks, another 1 to 2 minutes.

Makes 4 cups

This is it, HOT out of the oven.  It's missing the whipped cream, but I will make that just before I leave for book club, which is where we will eat the bread pudding. We read
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum.  It's an interesting read from an historical perspective; up until the early 1900s there really was no forensic science, but the popularity of arsenic as a murder weapon, and then the development of other toxins led to the study of new methods of hard-to-detect murder. So, it's interesting as history, but the autopsies and procedures described as pathologists and toxicologists tried to figure out what killed someone does not make for good bedtime reading. Consider yourself warned.

Off to eat some chocolate.

Um....Help?

I ordered a new camera, a DSLR, which I have wanted for awhile. I did lots of research, asked people about theirs, and finally chose one.

It arrived yesterday and I haven't taken a single photo. Why? Because while I thought I bought a camera, what I really bought is apparently a construction project.

I don't know where to begin.

I do hope there is a camera in there someplace.  

MOOOO

I passionately hate going to the grocery store more than is reasonable. The larger the store, the more I hate going there. I don't mind going to the Post Office, even though lately they have disappointed me with a package torn open (by, the PO says, sorting machinery) and delivered empty, and with a package sent to my Texas daughter, last MONDAY that is still not there a full week later, so go figure. I make no sense.

Back to the grocery store, figuratively. When I inevitably run out of milk---or food---I reluctantly haul myself to the store to restock.  And reward myself with a small bottle of chocolate milk.  I LOVE chocolate milk.  Good reward, right?

I love it so much that you would think I would go to the store more often.

Not if I can avoid it. But the Post Office? I know where everything is there and I love that it is open, 24 hours, and that it has a machine that lets me print labels and postage. Any time, day or night.  My kind of place. 

The grocery store?  Pfttttt.

Dental Floss Saves the Day!

Not really.  I saved the day.

I had knit a pair of socks using size 1 needles for the first time.  The socks were too short, even though I had added rows to my usual recipe.

SO, do I rip them out and start over using size 2 needles?  Do I find a short-footed person to give them to? 

Nope.  I decided to pull out the dental floss, thread it through stitches just below the beginning of the toe decreases, frog the toe, and then knit up from the dental floss stitches.

Sock with dental floss

Sock back on the needles

Original sock plus one inch---Perfect!

Both socks are now the right size.  I used dental floss rather than thread because it's skinny AND strong.  Worked perfectly.

Now off to soak and block.

OK, Knitting Perfectionists

You know who you are.

From television legal shows (fictional, yes) I have learned that it is never wise for a lawyer to ask a question of a witness or client that he doesn't already know the answer to or doesn't want to know the answer to. A surprise in front of a jury is never a good thing.

This works in real life too. Never ask for knitting help if you sort of didn't want to know the answer.

Last night at knit night I asked two knitters if the mistake I found in a project was really a mistake, and if so, did it need fixing, and if so, how would I do that?

Because (I discovered) they are apparently perfectionists, they said Yes, it's a mistake, yes, you MUST fix it, and yes, here's how.

Rats. I kind of wanted to ignore it and then use some thread when the whole thing was finished to sort of hide the error. I really shouldn't have asked for help and I kind of think I knew it. What I had really wanted was confirmation that I could just ignore it.

So here it is, all fixed, perfectly, I might add. No one will ever know that there was even a mistake.

This is the first of the two rows I ripped back to get to the mistake.

This is what the final fix looks like now---completely and perfectly mended.

Now I know not to ask for help and advice unless I really, really want it.  
I am prepared for law school.

On an almost completely unrelated note, this is what the sky looked like when we left the shop at 9:00 last night. This was not sunset; that had occurred earlier. The purply-red was redder than this, and extended left and right for a ways. It almost looked like pictures from California fires, but it was just a weird storm. Behind us was a rainbow, in the dark sky, something which Sallyknit said that the news reported was a very rare occurrence--a nighttime rainbow. 

We were lucky to have gone outside when we did. Seconds later, lightning filled the red sky. Very weird. And very beautiful.

[Thanks to Candi for the photograph.  It is much better than my washed out one!]

Oh My.

Is this something we should want?

I learned about this from Betsy, and I am not thanking her.

Ick.

The Google

I read the other day that knowing things is becoming extinct.  Why? Because of Google, that's why.  

What's the difference between a turtle and a tortoise? Google it.
Who played Marianne in Gilligan's Island? Google it. 
What the heck was Gilligan's Island?  Google it. (You young punk.  Get offa my lawn!)

No need to know anything? I wonder if it's true. 


Anyway, since we are speaking of the Google, I also learned about this site and I am sharing it with you. (You are welcome!) You can enter any name and find out what Google thinks about that person.  

I googled my real name, and Google claimed to know nothing about me.  That's good, I think.

I googled Knittergran and this is what Googlism said:

Knittergran is not alone.

I don't know whether this means:

a.  I am not alone because I have readers. Yay!
b.  I am not alone because there is a stalker. Ummmm....
c.  I am not alone, and neither is anyone, because, well, WE are not alone. 

b and c are potentially creepy, except that it's only on the interwebs. Right?

But I guess, no matter what it means, it's reassuring (?) that I am not alone. 

Mulder? Scully? Hello? 

Souvenir Yarn

Yes, there is such a thing, and here is some:

I bought it last week at Williamsburg. It is from a sheep named Meathead (because no one likes him and everyone says he is mean and a pain to work with), and it was hand-spun and hand-dyed---with indigo---on premises.  Meathead is a Leicester Long Wool sheep, which means that the fibers are long and spin up nicely into a strong yarn.

Now there is a rule about souvenir yarn (I just created it) and that is:

*It doesn't have to be bought with any project in mind.  It's a souvenir. It might never be made into anything.  It might just be admired.  

So proclaims Knittergran.

It's its?

For those of you who, like me, twitch a little each time you see it's used instead of its or, less commonly, its used instead of it's, no less than a former president says, "So what?"

I spotted this at his house when I visited last week:

A sign at Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson

So we should just get over ourselves already.

But I'll probably still twitch a bit.

TFCC

When I went to my FINAL appointment with my orthopedist's pa yesterday, I expected it to be my FINAL appointment.  But she diagnosed this smallish pain I have as this:

and told me to come back in six weeks.

Don't use the googles.  It's not interesting. 

So, the official medical rx is:

1.  Use rx anti-inflammatories.
2.  Six more weeks of pt.
3.  Wear the removable cast.
4.  Use ice.

My plan:

1.  No thank you.  I'll use Advil.
2.  H*ll no.  I mean, no thank you.
3.  Are you freaking kidding me? No thank you.
4.  Maybe...... but probably not.

It only hurts when I press down hard on the area, so my theory is that I won't touch it or bother it in any way and it will go away on its own.  No need for follow-up in six weeks.

So says Knittergran, MD.  

Plethora

I have a plethora, an overabundance, an excess of knitting projects started. It's no one's fault but mine, unless I can think of someone or something else to blame it on, but actually, turns out that this time, it's a good thing.

I am trying to use Judy's #$%^&* Magic Cast On and it's not going well, not well at all, because

a.  I've never done it before so I'm clumsy at it, 
b.  I have to put 145 stitches of lace weight yarn on each of two size 4 needles at the same time and
c.  I seem to be swearing a lot, which distracts me. (Because I don't swear.)

SO, having something else to work on while the Nuvem sits in time out is a good thing.

I've been working on the Trillium sweater, and I have two sleeves and the band for the body of the sweater completed.  It's easy going from here on (I hope).

Judy can wait.

Last night's knit night was packed; last week's was almost empty. No predicting attendance at knit night. And with lots of people there, I get distracted. I went intending to return this yarn:

Claudia Hand Painted Yarn/Silky Wool Lace

because it's meant for this enormous wrap, made on size three needles, and will take forever.

Nuvem by Martina Behm

But Sallyknit is making one, and she assured me that I will love it and that I won't mind having to work on it FOREVER. So I kept the yarn and this makes it..about four things? I have going at one time. Maybe five.

When I came home and checked the mail, this yarn from Miss Babs was in it.

Miss Babs Cygnus Gradient Set

It's a spectrum selection of colors meant for this:

Spectral by Debbi Stone

as soon as I figure out how to do the stitch.  

So yet another project.  I am also working on two sweaters and the aforementioned lace.

I must be crazy.  

AND we had consensus regarding William (of William and Kate). He is both a prince and a duke. The Prince title was given to him when he was born and the Duke title was given to him whenever. He is entitled to be a prince because he was, you know, born, but the duke is just a bonus. Or something.  

Hey All Y'all!

I hear that is the plural of y'all.  

So, hey!

I am making progress after tearing this out and starting over.

I am three repeats in and I will post a photo every time I get another three repeats of the total of twenty-seven. And you are so welcome!

Spring Bouquet Scarf/Jojoland Cashmere

The title of my blog is As the Spirit Moves Me, but the spirit is not religious, or a muse (because I don't have one. I would like one.); it just means that I'll write when I feel like it or when I have something to say. Or not  And Odds and Ends means that I'll write about any old thing, whether or not it has anything to do with anything. Or not.

So here goes:

When I was in Mexico a couple of months ago, I waited in the car while my friend was looking for something in a market. It took her awhile, even though the market was tiny, and I watched these guys get pavers or whatever they are called from the pile on the sidewalk to the roof.  By hand.  For at least twenty minutes. They appeared to be enjoying their work, talking to each other as the guy on the street level tossed the blocks one by one to the worker on the roof.  

This gave me a chance to try out some of my new Spanish:  Hola joven!  Yo es muy fuerte.

(Hey there young man, you are very strong!)

They laughed and one of the guys teased the other. I think. I don't speak enough Spanish to really know, but they were laughing. Maybe at my Spanish, but that's ok.  

When we had a new roof put on our house, the roofers used a platform that attached to the ladder, was run by a compressor, and it ratcheted the packages of shingles up the ladder. It was really, really noisy, but certainly easier and quicker than tossing them up by hand.

So, which is better:  machine or human?

I report; you decide.


And while I can't put accents in Spanish text because I don't know where they go, I discovered while I was at the Apple bar waiting for my computer that I can in French.  A screen playing overhead showed all sorts of tips for using a Mac and one was for accents. Just hold down the key for the letter you want the accent for, and up pops a series of choices.  

Sometimes it is good to have to wait for something.

Like the time a friend and I went to NY to see some plays. On Sunday morning we went to a restaurant with outdoor seating for breakfast and once we were taken to a table, the wait was interminable. They ran out of cups and saucers, then they ran out of coffee, they didn't have enough servers, and on and on. We were sitting near the sidewalk of a side street, and suddenly, there was Paul McCartney!  

I called younger daughter and told her that Paul McCartney was standing on the sidewalk next to our table and she said Mom!!!  He's one of the Beatles!!!

I know!

He was walking with his then-wife, Linda (the second one), and everyone left them alone. They stood there for a good five minutes, studying a piece of paper, maybe a map, and then walked on.

So Yay! for slow service.

And another odds or ends:

My younger daughter put this photo on Facebook for Mothers' Day. (And since I have already mentioned younger daughter, this is a proper segue to a new topic, in case you were grading this.)

This is of my daughter and me some thirty-odd years ago.  I do not look like this anymore; in fact anyone who knew me then would not recognize me now.  I bemoaned whined about this to my husband, who said that the problem is that I now don't smile naturally for the camera. Nope. That's not it. The problem is that it is now thirty-odd years later and somehow I lost my face.  I don't know where it went.

And my daughter doesn't look like this any longer either, but she looks pretty and all grown up.

This was taken over the weekend when she was in Palm Springs for a weekend with friends.  She was lying (I hope) in the shade.

And here is a picture of her with her family:

Not really. 

BTW:  Is he a Prince or a Duke, or both? It's confusing.   

Knittergran Said

Let there be peonies .... pulleeze?

And there are!

First time in years!

They are my FAVORITE flowers (until the roses bloom, and then there are the hydrangeas.....).

Frogged

Spring Bouquet/Lijuan Jing/Jojoland Crown 100% Cashmere

sniff...sniff...sniff....

I started this Spring Bouquet lace scarf so many years ago that I don't remember how long ago it was. I bought the pattern and yarn at the Old Oaks Ranch and Fiber Arts Center in Wimberley, TX and it is not even in business as a yarn shop any longer. I think I was there pre-Elizabeth, and she is now five years old. So the project has been in limbo for quite a while.

I just pulled it out of its time-out to work on it again.  It is not a difficult pattern, especially when compared to the pattern for Currant, the many-cabled sweater I made for my daughter. When I first worked on this pattern, I was completely confused by the chart and there are now so many mistakes in this that I can't make it work.  I tried.  For ten rows or so. But where there were supposed to be 31 stitches, there were sometimes 30, sometimes 28. Never 31.  I tried adding random yarn overs to make up the count, but that didn't work either and I still wouldn't have 31.  Where did the stitches go?

I have no idea.  

So starting over is the solution, I hope.  I don't consider it giving up; I think of it as correcting mistakes.

Many, many mistakes.  

May Day Plus One

In other words, it is May 2nd.

At knit night last night, knitters discussed May Day traditions from their childhoods, but some of us didn't have any. I didn't. These traditions weren't regional at all, which is surprising. North? South? Didn't matter.

My husband arrived home earlier than I did last night, and he found flowers hanging from our front door. No tag from a florist. No note from a friend or neighbor. 

Just these pretty flowers.

This morning while he was checking out new posts on Facebook, my husband saw a photograph of what looked like our front door. It was our front door, complete with the flowers. The poster, a neighbor, wrote that she had revived a May Day tradition from her childhood by presenting flowers to a randomly chosen person. We are random! I plan on doing the same next year because it's a treat and a nice surprise.

At knit night, I almost finished these socks, and I would have if I hadn't thought that I had knitted 20 more rows than I needed for the length of the sock. So I tinked it by a few rows, tucked it back in my bag and came home. Today I discovered that I hadn't knit too many rows; I had counted from the wrong place. So I re-knit the tinked rows, decreased for the toe and kitchnered the toe. Once I soak the pair in SOAK, I will be finished with them. They are a gift for a friend who is a birder, and I think the camouflage colors are appropriate.  I admit, though, that I had no idea that this is what the yarn would look like knitted up.  Kind of an unwelcome surprise, but I guess they will be ok.  

MissBabs Hand-dyed Yarns and Fibers, Cosmic Sock Yarn

I blame my counting error on being distracted by this cute little puppy. She is our new shop dog, Blanche, and she belongs to the shop owner.  5 1/2 weeks old! She plays really hard for a few minutes then sleeps really hard. And she BARKS!!! The tiniest bark I have ever heard.  

I sometimes think it would be fun to have a puppy, but I have Baxter (and Molly) and Baxter is my challenge, although I think I have pretty much given up.

See the runner on the table? When I brought it home and put it on the table the first time, it had creases on it where it had been folded.  I didn't get to it right away, and Baxter paid no attention to it. I finally washed it and ironed it and put it back on the table.  

Baxter loves it. He plays with it, tries to hide under it.   

 I give up.  

BREAKING NEWS

Georgia Outguns Texas

I'm just so proud scared.

Thanks, gun nuts.

Not My Fault!

See the cute bunny?

SallyKnit made a dozen or so of them and let knitters choose their favorite at last week's Knit Night. The bunnies hide Cadbury creme eggs inside.  

I had never had one, even though my children have had many of them and love them. I knew there was imitation egg yolk and white in them ..... euwwww........

However, I craved chocolate the other day and ate the one in the bunny. I HAD to buy a replacement, but they come in boxes of four. So I bought four, replaced the one I had eaten, and ate a second one.  Yummmm.......... All those years, I was wrong.

I told my husband that he could eat them as well, but he said that he doesn't like creme fillings.

So they are MINE, all MINE, and it's SallyKnit's fault and my husband's fault that I will have to eat all four.  

Really! What else could I do?

Tweet?

I have had a Twitter account.  

My younger daughter set it up for me last summer.  I have looked at it once or twice, but I: 

1. don’t get the point of it.
2. can’t not read every entry. 

I was an English major in school;  what a wonderful major it was for someone who loves to read. While math majors were busy puzzling out calculus and trigonometry and who-know-what, while science majors and history majors were memorizing, I was reading. And writing.  Heaven for a reader.

Years and years later when I was subbing in my daughters’ school, another teacher in the break room asked me what I was reading.

A biography of Isak Dinesen, and it’s really boring.

She asked me why I was reading it since I didn’t like it.

It had never occurred to me to not finish reading something I had started.  I had never done that.  Sacrilege!!!  But who would have thought that the biography of someone who could write such a beautiful story as Out of Africa and who had lived such a fascinating life could be the subject of such a boring biography? I had finally made it to the part of the book where all the author wrote about were dinner parties Dinesen had attended and whom she had been seated near, what they had eaten.  Dinesen at this point was old and ill from syphilis and perhaps attending dinners was all she could do. Either that or a mediocre writer was making a mess out of good material.

I put the book down and never finished it.

But therein lies my problem with Twitter.  My daughter selected people for me to follow, and apparently all of these people tweet many, many times a day.  I felt obligated to read everything because that’s what readers do.  I would be scrolling down through all the tweets, noticing how long ago they had been tweeted, and OMGah, 2 minutes ago???  And there’s a whole 24 hours left?  Maybe even days left???

The only solution was to delete the account.  I hated to disappoint my two followers (who are a mystery to me since I had never tweeted anything. What on earth were they following?) but I clicked on the delete account key.

I haven’t resorted to shouting in the streets yet.  I’ll save that for when I’m senile and confused. 

Which I don’t plan to be.  

Lilacs

I love lilacs.  When I lived in the north I used to cut huge bouquets of them for my bedroom. The same varieties of lilac don't grow here in the heat of the south,

but I'll settle for these:

The flowers are more delicate than those in the north, and the aroma isn't quite as strong, but still, they are beautiful and I'm quite happy to have these instead.

Gauge

So far, so good.

I have made more gauge swatches for this sweater than I have for any other project.  I have discovered the joys of making sweaters that FIT, so now I understand that swatching, no matter how boring, how mundane, is something I should do.  

So I did.  And I even wet-blocked the swatches.

I am getting gauge with size 4 (instead of 6) wooden needles for the cuff of the sweater, and with size 6 (instead of 8) metal needles for the sleeve itself.  Whew.

I have been warned, though, that gauge can change during the course of knitting. Maybe because of the phases of the moon; maybe not enough chocolate; maybe bad hair days vs good hair days?  Who knows?  So I will keep checking gauge and hope that I can continue getting it correct.

But if all else fails, I will tell myself what I told my daughter when I mailed her sweater off to her:  

1.  If it's too small, lose weight.
2.  If it's too large, gain weight.
3.  If it's too short, wear higher shoes.
4.  If it's too long, wear flats.
5.  (Or 3 and 4 the other way around.  I'm not sure.)

Now I do know that numbers 3 and 4 won't actually work, but it's all I've got.

Oh, and for the record, it turns out that UPS does not let you insure packages for a million zillion dollars.

I insured the sweater for something less than that, and I am hoping for the best.  

(Please, get the sweater to LA safely, UPS.  It will not fit Tom Hanks.)

Finished!

I started working on this sweater last August, and I have now finished it.  

I am thrilled.  Maybe even more thrilled than my daughter will be to get it---Finally!

(And no, she won't keep it on a hanger.)

Here is the back:

After it is properly introduced at knit night this Thursday, it will go in the mail, insured for a million zillion dollars.  

Because I'm not making another one.  

Do You See a Seam?

No, you do not see a seam.

Because....I haz the skillz.

But mostly--- because I watched a Craftsy class on seaming and finishing and because I took off my cast in order to sew.  (Shhhh...)

The entire sweater is now sewn together and ready for the button bands.  And I even have the buttons.  

They do match.  The colors aren't showing true.

See?  They match.

I started knitting this sweater last August and it may actually be finished tomorrow.

Except for final blocking.  It seems as if there has always been an "except."

I Have Learned

that wearing a cast means

not having to empty the dishwasher.  

Rats.  (about the plate, not about not unloading the dishwasher!)

However, with the permission of my PT, I am allowed to take off my cast to knit (which I had been doing without permission...shhhh), and I have now finished both sleeves.  I was almost finished with the first one when dH said Let's go ride bikes and we all know how that turned out.

I am so happy to be able to work on this but not so happy that now I have to rip out about four inches of the right front.  All I can think is that in an apparent bout of misplaced optimism, I decided to work the last few inches without the chart.  

Now I will rip back and knit using the chart.  

And those little white feet?  Baxter, my supervisor, checking my work.

Shhhh.......

Don't tell anyone.

Especially my surgeon, his PA, or my PT.

But I've been knitting.  

Without my cast.

My New Toy

Aren't you glad you tuned in?

Five more @#$%^&* weeks.

Progress

Really and truly, this is progress, because two weeks ago today I broke my wrist and last Friday, I had this:

installed in my wrist.

The surgeon told me that once the cast and stitches were removed (on Monday, two days from now), I could try to knit.

Hah! said I (to no one in particular) and I just finished my second Sundry.

I even put on the picot edging!

What I have learned from all of this is that exercise is bad for us.  I was riding falling off my bike when I broke my wrist and to add insult to injury, I fell into a swamp.  I was covered with mud and muck and I might hold the record for the dirtiest person ever to arrive at our local emergency room.

But now I can knit, and on Monday, I bet I will be able to work on finishing younger daughter's sweater, the one I started in August.  

I hope.