web-goddess

Category: Photo Post

Images and videos that I’ve taken on-the-go

  • Road to Golden

    Road to Golden

    This past Saturday, the Snook and I drove out to Homebush to drop off my entry for the 2008 Royal Easter Show. I knitted “Road to Golden” from the Fall 2007 Knitscene. It’s a modern fairisle jumper knitted on circular needles. I substituted Filatura di Crosa Zara for the yarn and had some fun playing around with colours. I’m still not entirely happy with the way the neckline turned out, but I figured I can always pull it apart after the Show. Now I’m just waiting for the results to come in… (More project details are over on Ravelry.)

  • Glib Socks

    Glib Socks

    These are my fifth completed pair for the Southern Summer of Socks, and I think they were the fastest to knit. Less than two weeks from start to finish! I’m still well on track to meet my goal of one pair per month.

    This was my first time using the Cascade Fixation. It’s a really weird yarn: 98% cotton, 2% elastic. It’s thick and sproingy and I know a lot of people use it for bathing suits(!). I bought it because the Snook hates wearing wool on his feet, and I figured he might be willing to wear this. All the patterns I could find were either girly or boring though. I mentioned my frustration to Bex, and she remarked that she was working on a simple sock pattern at the moment. She e-mailed me the stitch pattern and it was perfect. (She’s since put the pattern up on Ravelry as a free download.)

    For the needle size, I looked at the Flame Wave Socks from Interweave’s Favorite Socks. They use 3.5mm on the foot for a women’s sock, but suggest to use a larger needle to make the sock larger. I was also worried about my tension with knitting with such a sproingy yarn, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to go up to the 4mm.

    I used Judy’s Magic Cast On for the toe, and then increased up to 50 stitches. (26 on the instep for the patterning, 24 on the sole in plain stockinette.) I knit both socks at once on two circular needles. I had him try them on constantly so I could work out the length of the foot. This stuff stretches A LOT. I used a basic short row heel, and then I picked up an extra two stitches in each gap when I started the leg again. (There’s still a bit of a hole there, but I’ll live with it.) So that brought me up to 55 stitches in total for the leg. Then I just kept going until I was nearly out of wool, when I switched to a 1×1 rib for the cuff.

    Very happy with these! Now we’ll see whether they can stand up to the Abominable Feet of Destruction. (Cross-posted to Ravelry and the Southern Summer of Socks.)

  • Happy Thanksgiving. Smell my finger.

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    Settlement day is here, and everybody’s excited. The Internet is unplugged at the old place though, so we are OFF THE GRID, folks! Moblogging is my only outlet til I get to work…

  • Crikey!

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    This is a children’s ride at my local shopping center. Somehow Steve Irwin’s face really creeps me out.

  • Allez cuisine!

    This week was our highly-anticipated dinner with Iron Chefs Sakai and Chen at the Observatory Hotel here in Sydney. I was kicking myself the whole time that I’d forgotten to print out the photo of me and Snook dressed as Sakai and Kaga. (And of course, I couldn’t print it out at work because the site was down. *grumble*) But that niggling annoyance aside, I was excited and rarin’ to go. We met up with Toast and Shan and headed in. We had a small table for four in the back corner of the Globe Bar with a big TV screen right beside us (for watching all the kitchen action). Shan and I took photos of every course, but I’m not going to bother posting them because Not Quite Nigella has written it all up way better than I ever could. Seriously, if you want to see and read about what we ate, go over there. I will say that my favorites were definitely Chen’s mud crab soup and his signature mapo tofu, but that my least favorite was the soup that went with the mapo tofu. Afterwards, we all rushed out into the lobby for a chance to get autographs and photos.

    Me, Snook, and the Iron Chefs

    Neither of them spoke English very well, so I chose my words carefully. “Chef Sakai, do you know ‘Halloween’?” I asked as I approached. “Halloween, yes!” he said cheerfully. “I WAS YOU!” I blurted out. “And him,” pointing at the Snook, “he was CHAIRMAN KAGA!” They laughed and laughed.

    Final tally of weird/unfamiliar stuff that I ate that I never would’ve eaten five years ago: salmon mousse, braised carp, caviar, jellyfish, calamari, sea urchin roe, foie gras, kinugasa mushrooms, mud crab (with roe), lobster tail, and shark fin (we guessed there was some in the soup I didn’t care for). And while all that sounds really exotic, the dishes weren’t really “out there.” It’s not like I had a pile of any of those things; they were mostly used in tiny amounts as interesting flavours or textures. I had the definite impression that the Chefs were toning down the weirdness factor for Western palates. (Case in point: Sadly, no fish ice cream.)

    Pre-dinner

    Here’s an extremely blurry shot of the Snook and I enjoying our champagne cocktails at the start of the evening.

    Snook guesses

    Halfway through the night, we played a game where everyone tried to guess where a mystery wine was from. The Snook made it the furthest out of the four of us. Here he is contemplating his next answer. (He didn’t win.)

    Dessert

    The desserts really were something out of this world. Here’s the Snook checking out the pannacotta on top of the upturned martini glass. We were all a little unsure how to approach this. It was nummy though.

    Me and Snook

    Everyone wants to know whether we got enough food for the money, and whether we were stuffed at the end of the night. Well, there was plenty of food. The portions were a good size (given that we had seven courses) and I’m not sure I could’ve eaten any more at the end of it. It just took so long! We were there a good five hours. Five hours of eating and drinking wine is actually pretty tiring. Here’s me and the Snook at the end of the night, just wanting to get our photo and go home to bed.

    Toast, Shan, and the Chefs

    Here are our other two tablemates, Toast and Shan. Thumbs up all around!

  • Happy Halloween!

    Brains with Raspberry SauceI’ve finally managed to get my party photos up, and I’ve included links to all the recipes if any of you are still looking for last-minute ideas. To the right you can see this year’s centerpiece: Panna Cotta Brains in Raspberry Sauce. Disgusting yet delicious! Thanks to everybody who came along, and apologies for not getting more photographs of the costumes. We’ll see you all next year in the new house!

  • Socks and Monsters

    I’m happy to report some Finished Objects for October. First up are my Whitby Socks, which I started on the way home from knitting camp at the beginning of the month. I had to frog and restart once, as the number of stitches suggested just wasn’t working for me. (I actually went up to 67 from the 51 suggested.) It was an easily memorized pattern and the cables were fun without being bothersome. I also tried out an eye of partridge heel for the first time. The original pattern is from Knitting on the Road and the yarn is the last of my Colinette Jitterbug. I love the colours, but I don’t think I’ll be getting any more. (My Vinnlands are already starting to pill and felt from a single wear.) I knitted these at the same time on 2.75mm needles using the two-circulars method. I’ll be cross-posting these at the Southern Summer of Socks as well. I think a goal of one pair per month is pretty do-able…

    Whitby Socks

    The Monster

    Ghost and Pumpkins

    The other fun things I’ve been making are these toys from Jean Greenhowe’s Jiffyknits. I bought the book a few years ago for the Halloween stuff but somehow never remembered to make them before our party. So far I’ve made two pumpkins, a scary ghost, and Frankenstein’s monster. The patterns themselves are *extremely* simple. It’s literally just garter stitch strips with no shaping whatsoever. (You don’t even have to know how to purl to make these toys.) Construction isn’t quite as fiddly as I feared, though sometimes you have to cut circles of cardboard to reinforce the round shapes. And I’m not sure the whole “knit a boulder and sew Frankenstein’s legs to it to prop him up” worked very well. He’s kinda wobbly. I do love joggle eyes though…

    AND – I’m happy to report that by posting these toys to Ravelry, I’ve now jumped to #4 on the list of people with Halloween projects. (You can see it on the “People” tab.) Next year I’m aiming for #1!

  • Baby Surprise Jacket

    I’ve been slacking off on the first week of the Southern Summer of Socks, mostly because of all the babies y’all keep having! As previously mentioned, my cousin Tony and his wife Molly just welcomed their daughter, Bailey, into the world. As this is the first GIRL I’ve had the opportunity to knit for, I jumped at the chance to pull out my pink yarn. I was gifted some glorious hot pink Manos del Uruguay Cotton Stria by my Secret Pal last June, and I decided it was just begging to become a Baby Surprise Jacket. I had just enough to squeak it out. I also found the most perfect big pink button in my button box:

    Baby Surprise Jacket Baby Surprise Jacket Baby Surprise Jacket

    It’s all ready to send off, along with some pink Tim Tams!

  • Our New Gaudy Laneway

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    See? I told you it looks like Vegas. What a waste of money and electricity! None of the shops around it are even open at night.

  • Baby Yoda Costume

    It’s finished! I’ve got everything ready to send off to Alexander this week. After felting the hat last week, I then soaked the ears in watered-down PVA glue and propped them up on newspaper to dry. They took a lot longer than I expected (nearly four days), but they look great. I sorta pinched and pulled them to make them a little more curly and Yoda-looking. The pattern is here. I knitted it out of Naturally Alpine 14ply on big needles, and I had plenty left over from a single hank. I’m just making a bit of i-cord now to tie under his chin if necessary.

    Felted Baby Yoda Hat

    Baby Yoda Sweater

    Baby Yoda Socks

    The second piece of the costume is the Baby Yoda Sweater, which I knitted on 4mm needles out of some completely random yarn from my stash. (The two sleeves are actually different yarns, but they’re so close you can’t tell. I figure Yoda probably wove his himself, so any variation is probably a good thing.) There’s an i-cord tie on the inside as well as the outside.

    And the socks are just the pièce de résistance, aren’t they? I started knitting just plain socks out of the leftover wool, thinking Alexander would need something to keep his feet warm, when the Snook pondered aloud, “You know what you should do? Put three toes on the end!” BRILLIANT. So there’s no pattern here; I just made them up as I went.

    I can’t wait til Kristen posts a picture of him wearing it!