Good Cookies

The weather's been almost cool, so I've been baking! Last year, my sister-in-law and nephew came out for a wonderful Spring-Break visit. We spent a lot of time at the beach, of course, and one of our discoveries was the Brown Butter Cookie Company in Cayucos. Their Brown Butter Seal Salt cookies were so good that we repeatedly shelled out a dollar for about two bites of salty-sweet deliciousness. I immediately went on a quest when I got home to find a similar recipe, which I did and had some success with. I was never completely happy though. The dough was a little dry, and they just didn't taste like the originals. A few weeks back, I did a little search again and found a new recipe from Yummy Mummy. I will buy cookies from Brown Butter Cookie Company again, but I really don't have to.

The weather here in Central California really has been wonderful for the last week or so, but still not wool-sock-knitting weather. I still finished my Friday Harbor Socks after my perfunctory re-knitting of the toes about three times since I forget once again to record my alteration of the original pattern. I shouldn't even post that admission since I seem to do it every time I knit socks, and it's getting kind of pitiful. I've resolved that next time I knit some socks, I'll keep a little notebook nearby to record those little changes that I never ever remember once I get to the second sock.

Ugh!

So...I thought I'd be posting my finished Nemesis socks this evening. For quite a while, I had been holding my breath, worried that I was going to run out of yarn since Nemesis does use a lot of yarn. I even went to the Loopy Ewe website, considering buying another skein of Gertrude Eberle 2 yarn, but reconsidered when I remembered that it was a little on the pricey side. Happily, as I neared completion, it looked like I was going to make it, by the skin of my teeth. Then, just as I was ready to start decreasing for the toe of my second sock, I realized something that I had been suspecting for some time. My second sock was nearly an inch longer than the first. Awwww! I hate when I do things like that. I've held them up next to each other, stretched them both to fit, but there's no way around it. They're totally different sizes. I have to unravel my second sock. I'm not positive where I went wrong, but I think it's in the pattern a good two inches above the heel. This is nothing new for me. I had to re-knit part of the first sock because I re-knit a part of the pattern twice. It's amazing that I complete anything. I get distracted easily and am constantly having to start over.

Great! I've had a bad cold since Friday and even stayed home from work today, and I feel just plain lugubrious. I do love the word "lugubrious," but I don't like actually feeling it. On top of that, I feel fat and matronly...and like a bad daughter because I was going to call my parents last night, but instead chose to watch TV all evening, hearing over and over again that Osama bin Ladin was dead, which is a good thing...but not a productive thing for me to spend three hours being "re-informed" about....even if I did watch Anderson Cooper most of the time, which I never consider a waste, ha, ha.

So, I'll unravel tonight, and get going again as soon as I get caught up with the grading I've gotten behind on being sick for three days. How's that for an uplifting post??

No Time Spent Knitting is Wasted

I'm rarely tickled with my finished knitting projects although I'm often satisfied with them. I think that is because I often enjoy the process so much that finishing is almost anti-climactic. That may also be why I don't mind quitting halfway through a project. I had fun along the way. This week I unraveled a sweater I had started for my nephew, which I had spent at least ten hours on. I finally realized that I just plain didn't like where it was heading. Then I started the Every Way Wrap from the fall issue of Interweave Knits. After working for quite a few hours on it this weekend, I accepted that my cables looked nothing like the pictures in the magazine. I don't know what I did wrong, but I was way off. Good thing that unraveling is so much fun. On the more successful note, I did finish one of my calendula socks. It fits perfectly.