Laurabelle’s Blog

I have a ton of catching up to do on this blog. I'll start out of order, with Christmas.

I spent the fall in a frenzy of gift-knitting. This was part of the reason for my hiatus from blogging; I felt I couldn't blog these projects for fear of giving away the secret. Not that most of the recipients read my blog, but one never knows.

The first-finished (way back in August) was a lace shawl for my sister-in-law. Jeff helped me pick out the yarn, a nice peachy-pink alpaca. The pattern is Miss Lambert's Shetland Pattern for a Shawl from Victorian Lace Today. I dropped one stitch in the whole shawl, but I picked it back up later and sewed it in. I can find the mistake, but I bet no one else will see it even if they're looking for it.

I finished two long-waiting knitting projects today. These weren't particularly big projects; one of them was quite small. They had just been sitting for a while.

The smaller project was a steering wheel cover that had been sitting for a few months; I knit it in a week or so at the beginning of July but never quite got around to sewing it onto the steering wheel. (I usually knit at home or during lunchtime at work, and the steering wheel is sort of stuck to the car.)

Today I went down to the car with Jeff before he went out on errands, and he kept me company while I stitched it on. He says it was very nice to drive with, so yay! No good photos yet though; the garage where I stitched it up is dark and less than photogenic. I caught a nice photo in the car after work.

The other project I finished is about 21 months old: a baby blanket for my cousin's first baby. I knew she was having some trouble, so I started a blanket as a sort of prayer that everything would be fine. I would make the blanket, and the baby wouldn't come until it was done, and the blanket would be beautiful, and it would all be right in the end. My faith was unshakable.

I finally finished my Zara Cabled Tunic. This is a free manufacturer's pattern, using Filatura di Crosa Zara yarn. The yarn is lovely, but in this case I got what I paid for as far as the pattern is concerned.

For the first installment of the Zara saga, see my Knitting and Ravelry post.

I finally finished my Bonsai Tunic, which was supposed to be a summer project. I got hung up on (what else?) the sewing-up phase. Just before our last hiking trip (blog post forthcoming, I promise) I finished my newest project (which I can't blog because it's a Christmas present), so this week I decided to finish up some of my lingering works-in-progress.

The first to fall was the Bonsai Tunic, which I had started on July 14. I finished the sewing on Sunday afternoon and then got it completely wet for blocking. Unexpectedly it took three and a half days to dry, so I couldn't wear it until today. It possibly wasn't even quite dry when I put it on, but I wore it anyway.

I thought it turned out pretty nicely, though the yarn was a little annoying. I probably won't knit with Berroco Bonsai again.

If you're wondering how my barbecue brisket turned out, take a look at this:

The meat was falling apart; I used an electric knife so it wouldn't disintegrate completely under the blade. The Bone Suckin' Sauce I used is to the left of the meat; you can just see Jeff's cole slaw behind the jar of sauce.

The cole slaw was just a stroke of luck. I hadn't thought about sides, and we just happened to have an Eatwell cabbage to make into slaw. Jeff used a little bit of sour cream for some of the mayonnaise, cider vinegar, a handful of raisins, and some crumbled bacon. It went very well with the brisket.

For a few weeks Jeff and I have been thinking about making pemmican. Last week I rendered beef fat, which I got from our regular butcher (you want to buy beef fat? we'll give it to you for free!), and yesterday we started drying beef.

The recipe I have calls for brisket, so I bought one. Note that I didn't say some brisket; I bought quantity one (1) brisket, 10.38 lb. That's the only way the butcher would sell it to me; they didn't want to cut into it at all.

The pemmican wanted three pounds (now drying in the oven), and Jeff trimmed off a little over a pound of fat (which we also rendered). That leaves six pounds of meat, which I marinated last night and set in the slow cooker this morning to turn into barbecue brisket.

Since we needed to eat last night as well, we made chile verde (with Eatwell tomatillos, though I had to supplement with some storebought). Mmm, that stuff is good, and surprisingly easy to make.

And for the final touch on the evening, Jeff whizzed up the hot sauce he was planning with whatever was around: smoked peppers from Eatwell (sitting in our fridge since the med fly crisis last September but still good), leftover onion, and I don't know what else. I'm not sure I'll dare to touch the stuff, but Jeff is looking forward to trying it.

I was called for jury duty today. I don't know if other counties do this, but in Alameda, you "report" online to see whether you have to go in physically (after 5pm the previous day for 8:30am call, after 11am for a 1pm call). Twice in the past I haven't needed to go in; today I did.

I took the bus in (which was much more convenient than driving, since it was a quick ride, and I didn't have to park) and arrived at about 8:15am. I brought a book and knitting to keep me occupied, and I used them for a couple of hours. At maybe 9:45am, about twenty names were called out of the room.

Twenty or thirty minutes later, the roll call started again, and this time it went on and on. At least three-quarters of the room was called, I think; I was one of them. We climbed upstairs and filled a courtroom (I was one of the last in, so I got to sit in the jury box).

It turned out to be a murder trial, with multiple counts. I have to admit I was a little fascinated by the idea of being a juror at such a trial. Unfortunately, the dates didn't work for me (I have a hiking trip planned, with friends coming from the east coast), so I had to ask for a hardship excuse, which I got. The judge wished me a good trip.

So ended my brush with the jury box. I hope I get another chance.

If you’re seeing this post, my blog is now on a new server — a virtualized server of my own, in fact. In spite of a server switch and a Wordpress upgrade, I think I’ve been able to bring everything over correctly. Let me know if not…

Due to the way I migrated (servers and Wordpress versions at the same time), I couldn’t take my Wordpress database whole-hog. So some things might be a little funny, like post #6 is right after post #689. I did manage to bring over users from the original database, so let me know if they don’t work.

Having our own server is going to be interesting; we will be able to do things that we couldn’t otherwise (such as setting up our own IRC server). I’m looking forward to it. Wish us luck!

On the last weekend in July, Jeff and I went backpacking in Lassen Volcanic National Park. It was a good trip (much better than our last few), but the adventure started early this time.

I had planned everything carefully in advance; we had our wilderness permit and everything ready to go. But at the last moment, Jeff wasn't sure he could get the time off after all. This was doubly frustrating because the reason he couldn't have the time off was the same reason he needed some time away from work. It was rather poetically ironic, but irony isn't much comfort. He did end up getting a half-day off on Friday and a full day on Monday, which was enough; we didn't have to cancel the trip.

So Thursday evening we packed the car, Friday morning I drove him to the train station, and at about noon he caught a train to meet me at work in the early afternoon. Of course we had forgotten something at home, but that was just a brief stop and then we were on our way.

On I-505 (between I-80 and I-5 west of Sacramento), we saw a minivan stopped on the side of the road, with people standing behind it waving their arms at the oncoming cars. We stopped; it turned out they needed a wrench because their passenger-side front tire had more or less exploded, and they needed to put on the spare tire. They had a wrench, but it was old, and one of its corners was split so that the socket wouldn't quite grasp the nuts. Our wrench was unfortunately too small. After substantial non-progress with the old broken wrench, Jeff hopped the barbed wire and went to knock at some nearby farmhouses to see if anyone there could help. This produced a nice ex-Navy chap named Billy with a lot of tattoos, a truck, and a rugged T-wrench! Jeff and myself now having served our purpose, we got on the road again.

The rest of the drive to Lassen was uneventful. Due to our late start and delay on the road, we ate dinner on the road and arrived at Summit Lake South Campground at about 9pm. (It was not even quite dark yet.) Happily, I had reserved a campsite online, so all we had to do was find our spot and set up the tent. Squatters had their stuff at the site we got there (a big group had overflowed from a nearby campsite after the campground host told them they had too many people for one site), but they left politely when Jeff told them we had the site reserved. Apparently they had entered from the other side and hadn't seen the signpost.

Since I finished the lace shawl, I needed a new project. (Two works-in-progress aren’t enough, especially if they involve sewing-up. I dislike stitching my knitted pieces together.) Therefore, I started a steering wheel cover.

The good thing is, it’s small and will be finished pretty quickly. It’s also a cable (which I like) and an intarsia cable at that (which I had never tried before). It was fun at first, but unfortunately it became boring fairly quickly.

I made a mistake in the cable a few pattern repeats back (I twisted after 10 rows instead of 8). I spent a while thinking about whether to go back and fix it, then decided I couldn’t bear not to (now that I’d noticed it) and ripped it out. Still, I’m at least two-thirds done, and it won’t take me too much longer to finish.