COMFORT FOOD FOR THE FINGERS
As folk following along here know, I like to keep busy. I need the comfort of fiddle-food for my fingers. Waiting is particularly annoying without it. Just before heading off for my second diagnostic procedure, I had started an experiment in Buratto, on a chance find bit of cloth that mimics the weave of that Renaissance era open mesh ground.
I am not pleased with it. I’m using some of the leftover Ciafonda faux silk I got in India. Nice enough thread, but not lofty enough for this. Even stacked, the double running stitch fill is too sparse. I supposed I could pick it all out and begin again, but right now I don’t have the patience to do that. I’m going to set this small wash-cloth size bit aside and get back to it later.
As you can tell from the bit of hospital tray shown, I had been working on this during my stay there. But I also brought knitting with me, and bargained with the various specialists installing the needed lines and monitors to leave my “bendy parts” clear, including inner elbows, wrists, backs of hands, and index finger tips. They were kind enough to work around all that. As a result, here’s last week’s finish. Yet another pair of socks cast on in pre-op, and finished during the ensuing week and a half of recuperation.
Since these are pretty much done on autopilot – toe up (Figure-8 toe), double wrap German short row heel, and something improvised on the ankle, such socks are “procrasti-knitting,” a fill-in project done while I contemplate other more involved efforts.
And I have arrived on the next one. It will eventually be fine-tuned to honor my Resident Male’s latest book-in-progress, but he’s at an early part of that journey. Themes and significant bits to be illustrated are still in the developmental phase. So I will do something of broader appeal, and add the book-specific bits as they become evident.
But what to do? And how to “future-proof” the project in case therapies affect short term acuity of vision? While such a thing is far from a probability, being a proposal manager has trained me to think in terms of identifying and managing possibilities, no matter how remote. Always.
Thank goodness for a deep stash. I vastly prefer stitching on finer count linens, and consider 40 to 70 threads per inch to be my sweet spot. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have linen of other counts squirreled away. I have unearthed a lovely piece of 28 count. Big as houses. Very easy to see. So I grabbed it, cut a healthy piece, hemmed the edges, basted my edge and center guidelines, and mounted it on my largest width Millennium scrolling frame.
And for thread – how about REAL silk? I adore the stuff. I have two large hanks of Au Ver a Soie’s Soie d’Alger in a lovely cranberry red just sitting there staring at me. And some Tied to History Alori Silk divisible in a couple of colors, also in a parking orbit. If I am going to indulge myself, why not?
The overall style of this one? I will take inspiration from the casual research I’ve done into the Azemmour Cluster. This is a well represented group of embroidered fragments that made their way into museums via wealthy donors who collected bits and bobs of what was sold to them as “Authentic Renaissance Embroidery” in the era of the European Grand Tour, roughly from the 1870s and ending around the time of Word War I. There are lots of snippets formerly labeled as being Greek, Italian, or Spanish that are now being reclassified to their true point and time of origin – Morocco in the late 1700s through 1900. I wrote about some of them in my Second Carolingian Modelbook, and in this 2018 blog post. And then I revisited the cluster in 2023, when a group of eye-popping multicolor pieces documenting concurrent usage of many of the style’s key design tropes was pointed out to me during the Zoom-based group meetings for participants in the Unstitched Coif Project. We had a lively discussion on the obvious Renaissance roots of some of those tropes, and why the museum attributions of so many of them are only now being updated.
I’ve stitched up a couple of the Azemmour group on previous pieces but I’ve never done a deep dive. Not sure which of them I will work with voided grounds, what colors or combos I will use, or what the rest of the piece will look like. But here’s the start. As I said – big as logs.
This armed against boredom and the as-yet-unknown, I march ahead.
ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF ANOTHER
Just because things are a bit in the air here at String Central right now, doesn’t mean that our dedication to Relentless Forward Progress has been put aside. There are things to do, things to make, and accomplishments waiting to be notched and acknowledged.
First, we did have a wonderful weekend of low key celebration here. The Resident Male (and Executive Chef) outdid himself. He did homemade gravlax (the Jacques Pepin overnight cure version); grilled boneless lamb with garlic and rosemary; and roasted cauliflower and red onions. I pulled my weight by baking four small chocolate pound cakes, one of which we split for dessert, stowing the other three in the freezer for future treats. But I have promised to detail my adventures in low carb baking, so I will elaborate here a bit.
Low Carb Chocolate Pound Cake
I started with this recipe – Keto Chocolate Pound Cake, from the All Day I Dream About Food blog site. The thing was pretty straightforward if you happen to have the ingredients in the house, which we did. Note that this recipe uses almond flour, monkfruit-based brown sugar substitute, butter, baking powder, eggs and sour cream in addition to the items mentioned below in my summary of deviations.
First change, instead of one standard size loaf pan, I used this one – a four mini-loaf thing I got years ago when I was a regular contributor to school-based fundraising bake sales. It takes a standard size loaf cake recipe and turns it into four more saleable and storage friendly smaller units.
I am pretty sure I found this pan in a yard sale, but I do see them sold in cooking supply and on line sources. And yes, I buttered each little loaf hole and lined it with a piece of buttered baking parchment to make removal easier. From prior experience I know that this pan in my convection oven bakes faster than a full depth loaf pan. To compensate I did my bake at the recommended temperature, but only for 50 minutes – not the 60 to 75 cited in the recipe. I tested the cake with a skewer for doneness.
Second, and this is a personal preference – I detest coffee flavor in my chocolate. The recipe calls for two kinds of cocoa – regular and “black”, chocolate flavor whey protein powder, plus espresso powder and a quarter cup of room temperature, strong coffee. We had the whey powder on hand, no problem. I used just one kind of cocoa, combining the specified quantities for both together – a Dutch Process, known for its deeper/stronger chocolate flavor, and the only one on my pantry shelf right now. I skipped the espresso powder, and in place of the coffee (clearly needed to hydrate the rather thick batter) I used the same quantity of very strongly brewed unsweetened black Assam tea, also cooled to room temperature.
Third, I tossed two large handfuls of coarsely chopped toasted pecans into the batter before spooning it into the pan.
Fourth, I omitted the chocolate ganache glaze entirely. I knew I would be freezing the three extra cakes, and I know from experience that ganache can get chalky when that happens. Given that the four little loafs were moist and tender, and we would be eating one right away, I didn’t see the need. I can always whip up a little bit of glaze when we defrost a survivor if I think the extra moisture is needed.
Here is the end result. A definite do-again. Moist, dense without being heavy, with a deep cocoa flavor. The toasted pecan bits were a welcome addition for both flavor and texture. Each little cake makes two very generous portions. Perhaps next time I will also add a handful of zero-sugar chocolate chips. But that would be truly decadent. Based on this result as opposed to many truly dismal Keto baking experiences I have had, I may explore the site of origin to see what else is up there.
Booties
I had a special request to knit some booties for a the sister of a friend of a family member – the first of that particular friend circle to have a baby. My favorite bootie pattern is a quick knit. I can do a pair in about four hours, so why not.
These are from the same pattern I used easily thirty times over a few decades to make items for my own spawn, plus baby gifts for friends, family, and co-workers. The original pattern was posted by Ann Kreckel in 1995, to the ancient email based KnitList mailing list back in the days when the Internet was still climbing out of primordial seas. It can still be found via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine utility – Click here to retrieve it.
In the past I’ve posted a mini-tutorial on making these, and invented and shared a hat to match.
Reading over the instructions it occurs to me that even with my mini-tutorial many knitters today might have a problem following the pattern as Ann originally shared it. Not that there are mistakes, but I do note that the level of comfort with written instructions in the general knitting community has declined sharply in the video era; and the terms and logic of the thing might challenge a newer knitter. I think I could make the pattern more accessible with a simple re-write and merge with my mini-tutorial. But it’s not my design, so I am not comfortable just doing so.
I have tried tracking down Ann to ask about updating and hosting her pattern as a free offering, but so far I haven’t gotten a response. If any of the old KnitList gang reads this and knows how to find her, please pass along my sincere wishes for happiness and health, and my request for pattern editing and republication permission.
Socks
Hating to just sit there, no matter where I am, over the past two weeks at home, waiting in doctors’ offices, and after my last procedure I kept busy knitting a pair of socks. They are going to be a present for someone who went above and beyond during a regional emergency – not to aid me, but to help someone near and dear. I won’t spill the beans because there is a remote chance that they might see this post. But I did do a whole pair, start to finish, and will be casting on for another before the coming hospital sojourn. Sanity before all other things, and keeping busy keeps me sane.
Stitching – Playing with Faux Buratto
Another bit of sanity-preservation. I wanted a stitching project to bring with me, too. Something small, easy to see, and easy both to follow and to stitch. Something I can slap in a small hoop and support with minimal kit. Yet something that holds interest, and would be enough of a challenge to tempt me to curious activity. I have teased this on Facebook, but here is the full story.
A while back I -lucked into a curious bit of textile. A sieving/bundling cloth used in traditional Korean kitchens as part of food preparation. HMart had it on a rack in the housewares section, and I noticed the weave immediately. I did a blog post on the discovery a while back,
I want to try out a few designs on this cloth. The first step of course was to establish a normed edge. Like most textiles the retail cut rarely aligns with the weave structure, so I basted the largest possible rectangle I could, and added guidelines for vertical and horizontal centers. Then I just started in on an outline. I’m keying off the use of deep red and yellow-gold in a couple of museum artifacts. I’m going to try out establishing my outline for this strip and then do one of several possible fill methods. This style is later 1500s into the 1600s. Then I will try one of the monochrome type designs. from the earlier half of the 1500s. After that probably another multicolor but using a different scale and fill style. It’s a small cloth and there isn’t room for a ton of strips on it, but I will use the available real estate to best advantage, picking on the fly as I usually do.
What you see here so far is simple uncounted basting in blue, marking out margins and centers. Those skew cut edges and the amount of area wasted does annoy me a bit, but this piece of cloth was never intended for the purpose to which I am putting it. Just above the center line you can see my start – double running in crimson faux silk (rayon). The design is already 100% established and from this point I can go left and right “off book” just by copying what I’ve already laid down. And I will have T2CM with me, electronically, just in case.
General Health Status Update
Yes, I know I alarmed a lot of you yesterday, for which I deeply apologize. But obfuscation has never been my strong suit. To clarify at this moment, aside from the facial numbness that triggered the hunt for the Danger Lentil, I feel pretty good. I have bounced back from the prior biopsy with no ill effects. I am back to my regular exercise routine. I am pretty much day-to-day advancing the new normal as I have been for many months now. Stamina is excellent, and I have no problems sleeping or eating. I have no headaches, nor blurred vision, auditory or balance problems. In general given my past year’s journey I am in excellent health.
I have every confidence that the team will figure out what’s going on, and that a treatment plan will be devised AND that I will weather that, too. So I do thank you for your words of support and comfort. I have both battle fury and the strength to put it to best employ. Know I keep all of you in my thoughts, and I do appreciate that you are thinking of me, too.
String-Or-Nothing 