Friday What's on my needles

Lots of projects, of course.

The usual sock.

A mitered scarf knitted for my Chabad knitting group for a charity donation. 

A new scarf/shawl whatever for me.  I found this pattern on Ravelry.  Frankie is the author of the 10 Stitch Blanket, which I also have in progress (for at least 3 years now).  The yarn is Boboli Lace ( a fingering wt yarn) that I bought on the Cape.  

A growing wide scarf for me, using a pattern in this book, but adapted to how I like to make mitered scarves.  The yarn is some Jojoland that I've owned forever.  I only have 3 skeins, so it won't be very long, but it will be squooshy and comfy, I hope.  Needless to say, it's messy, and will look just fine when blocked.

And what's off the needles?  Ta Da!  Yet another Baby Surprise Jacket, this one knit in Encore DK and for a brand-new baby boy.  It will fit him in a year, I think.

What am I not showing you?  The vest for the Hubz that just needs neck and armhole borders, a sweater for me that is in process and is, at the moment, totally boring stockinette, a pair of socks for elder DD's friend.  Ya think I have enough knitting projects?  Hah!

What's in my frame Wednesday

After many years of not embroidering, I'm back doing it.  Alas the eyes are not what the eyes were.  Now I need magnification and light.  I'm due for an eye exam in a couple of months so I'll ask the eye doc about new glasses just for stitching. 

28 count linen, which is now as fine as I can go, but it's fine.

I started this maybe 8-9 years ago?  I'm retired over 7 years, and I know I started this well before I retired.

What got me started again was my rummaging through a closet.  i was cleaning out that closet and there at the bottom, each in its own pillow case, were about 8 stitching projects.  So last week I hauled them out and decided to work on this one.

Second row:  Yes, it is not even, but I've got a ladybug charm to go there.

I skipped a row because I didn't like it. But since you don't know the row, it doesn't matter.

Last row:  There is some back stitching going on in the flowers.  I just haven't gotten to it yet.

I forgot just how much I loved embroidery, especially anything counted.  I love anything that involves graph paper (knitting charts and I love each other), and counted thread is all charted.

Quilt and Cheese

Quilts and Cheese!  A strange combination, but it is what it is.

Inspired by Jenny Doan's Half-square triangle quilt.

 Ignore the wrinklies, please.  This is the flimsy on top of my bed, and it is not smoothed out.  Any real wonkiness will be quilted and crinkled out.  Yay, washing and drying quilts and getting quilty crinklies!

I liked doing this very much, but had trouble with my seams not nesting in certain spots.  Some of them were going in the same direction.  I have to work on my pressing. 

That's the quilt part of this post.  Here is the cheese part.

Home made ricotta cheese.  A soft, spreadable, creamy white cheese.  (Ignore the parts that look yellow.  It's my photography.  The real cheese is creamy white color).

I've been making paneer, a simple Indian cheese for decades.  Mindlessly easy to make.  Milk with lemon juice as a coagulant.  The other day I found  One-Hour Cheese: Ricotta, Mozzarella, Chèvre, Paneer--Even Burrata. Fresh and Simple Cheeses You Can Make in an Hour or Less! at the library and checked it out.  Holey Moley!  What a book.  Incredible photographs describing every step of making simple cheeses at home.  Not the kind that need to ripen, just the stuff you make and eat within an hour.  

So yesterday I tried a ricotta.  It looks crumbly, but isn't, even after being refrigerated for 18 hours.  It is creamy, spreads well, and is so delicious, I don't have the words to describe it.  The best soft cheese going.

I used lemon juice as my coagulant, but the process is different from making paneer, and I think that changes how the cheese comes out.

In paneer, you bring your milk to a boil.  Shut off the heat, and add in lemon juice.  You can substitute vinegar or lime juice, or even yogurt (which gives a lot of milk solids).  Strain it and let the whey drain off.  And there you have it:  a lovely crumbly cheese which you can then press to make nice firm shapes.

In the ricotta, you add the lemon juice to the milk before cooking it, and then you have a slow cook until it hits 190 degrees.  The curds form much slower than in paneer.  Drain, etc, etc.  It's an awesome cheese.  

I used 2 % milk.  Didn't want all the butterfat of whole milk, but wanted a certain creaminess that skim milk doesn't give.  A total of 6 cups of milk produced about 2 oz of cheese.  

I can see me experimenting with this cheese.  How about putting in a cheesecloth bag of rosemary, simmering it along in the cooking process, then removing it, this giving the cheese that gorgeous rosemary flavor.  Mmmm.  Yummy.

So that's it:  a quilt and a cheese.  Not half bad.

The Inept Quiltarian finishes the I Spy quilt

 

 I cannot tell you just how much fun this was to assemble.  I think my favorite part of quilting is selecting fabrics and then arranging the blocks.  I can play around with this for hours.  Each little block took 3 fabrics, 243 fabric moments.  I put fabrics together, changed my mind, did it again and again, and just loved the entire process.

Since I am an Inept Quiltarian,  my cutting was off, my seams were never uniform.  Didn't matter.  Bias is my friend, and these little guys came together reasonably well.  Most of my points match!  And where they didn't, eh, who cares.  It's cute and fun.

Now I need to find some cute kid fabric for the back and the binding.  I might have to force myself to do another one of these in batiks.  It's tough having to pick out fabrics, but someone's got to do it.

I Spy a Design Floor Quilt

Whew.  81 blocks all made.  9 rows of 9 blocks to be sewn together.  That should keep me occupied for a year or two.  Here are some pics of the thing all laid out on my flannel sheets.

 Some more (some of which are upside down since that was the only way I could photograph them)

 And some more.

Is that enough?  Are they not the goofiest, silliest, most adorable I Spy blocks?  Now to sew the darn things together!

I Spy even more blocks.

Such silly fun.  Everyone needs to do an I Spy quilt just for the fun of it.  And if you can't use it, then donate it.  Some kid will love it.

My 2 faves in this batch are the froggie and the chicken, of course.

I Spy - more blocks

Here are some completed blocks.

And some more.

More

I love these little blocks.