Russell Yarn

My Dogs Poop Gold!

Ok, well kinda not really, please do not come kidnap my Russells.  But I will say these dogs seem to have a nose for valuable stuff...they've found cash in the park a couple of times.  And you've heard of truffle-sniffing pigs, right?  Well apparently we have morel-sniffing dogs!  On their walk this morning, Jerry and Mickey led JP to a patch of morel mushrooms!  In Metro Detroit suburbia!  Who knew?

He picked about $60 worth, took some to work to share with the other chef, and we'll be having these with dinner tomorrow night!  Yum!  I figure with a little training, we'll have the dogs sniffing out gold bars in no time!

Today was also the first day of my two-week vacation from the EDJ, aka Julip Bags full-time, aka Project Secret Squirrel Test Drive!  It felt so wonderful, following my own schedule, crossing items off my to-do list, and making bags without feeling exhausted, rushed, or stressed!  Of course, in honor of my morel-sniffing dogs, I made poop bags!

Maybe I should start marketing these for 'shroom hunters too?  Ok, maybe not.

YES I CAN!

I SURVIVED PILATES!

Thank you to each and every one of you who left me supportive comments and e-mails...I've now had two Pilates sessions and tomorrow is my third private lesson, before I start the regular group matwork and reformer classes.  My trainer has made it clear that I'll have to do adaptations of some exercises, and avoid a couple others, until my core is much stronger.  She also informed me that my left knee/leg was extremely unstable and is most likely contributing to my continuing back problems.  Very, very interesting! 

Now for your I-swear-it's-not-a-Russell-turd pic of the week:

JP mentioned the other day how much he loves soft pretzels, so I did some Googling and used Alton Brown's recipe (who, incidentally freaks me out, but the pretzels came out great).  I think they would taste delicious (and look less like a pile o' Russell poo) in bagel incarnation too, so I may try that next.  (Oh, and don't feel like you have to leave me comments assuring me that they don't look like poo in the pic...my officemate said they look like "part cinnamon roll, part artistic rendering of dog poop!")

New bags over at the Julip Store...Trinket Bags!  Didn't someone famous say something about a great bag and a great piece of jewelry making the outfit?  Stuff your knitting in it and you're good to go!

Did you watch/listen to the inauguration today?  I did, and for the first time in a long time I'm feeling optimistic about this country's immediate future, seeing so many people rallying behind the new president (whether they voted for him or not) because we as a country HAVE TO if we want to get back in business! 

Babies, Bunnies, and Lambs, Oh My!

Shoot, sounds like Easter around here or something, huh?

Yesterday we drove over to my brother's to see my parents off on their trip home to Kentucky.  It's always wonderful when I can see so much of my family together, especially this little one:

She's the sweetest, prettiest almost-one-year-old I've ever seen!  And she loves her Aunt Amby, but I think she loves her Uncle JP just a little bit more...she absolutely adores him!

From my brother's, JP and I drove up to Romeo for the Sheep and Wool Festival at Mt. Bruce Station.  We really only went so JP could get his "happy lamb" (more on that in a minute), and believe it or not, I didn't buy a single thing.  Not an ounce of fiber, not a skein of yarn, not even a babydoll sheep (although I'm sorely tempted every year).  We did check out Wiley's Woolies, who had a bunny just sittin' and chillin' out front, no cage or anything.

I would LOVE to have a nice fluffy bunny to hug and squeeze and pluck fiber from, but somehow I think the Russells might view it as lunch.  We also caught my favorite event, the shepherding demonstration:

...and laughed at the fact that although every year, the farm puts up more and more warning signs, there were still people grabbing/leaning up against the electric fence and getting zapped.  I'm willing to bet in a year or two we'll have to sign a waiver to get in, stating Mt. Bruce Station is not responsible if you're too dumb to realize electric fences will, y'know, SHOCK YOU. 

And yes, JP got his two racks of happy lamb, which is the only kind of lamb I'll eat.  They were pasture-raised and grain-fed before meeting their end, which makes me feel a little better about eating baby anything.  So that night we had our annual Happy Lamb Dinner:

Grilled whole rack of baby lamb with scallion potato cakes and satueed spaghetti squash, accompanied by one of JP's precious bottles of 2005 Kosta Brown pinot noir. 

Finally, I was notified by the fabulous Nia that the Julip Bags Gabrielle Lace Keeper was named by Jess (the co-founder of Ravelry!) as one of her favorite knitting items on Etsy!  Wow! 

Mise-en-place, aka Tips From a Chef's Wife

So, there is no way in hell that the Anice Shawl is going to be done by Tuesday, due to the lack of knitting time over the past week, but that's ok.  I'll take Birch instead.  But in the meantime, oh the loveliness...

I always think of unblocked Kid Silk Haze as being like a newborn baby as soon as it pops out of mom...wrinkled up and ugly, potential unknown.  But just like (most) babies unwrinkle and start looking cute, I know the pattern of this shawl will be beautiful once I'm done.  I'm 2/3 through the first pattern repeat, you can see it a bit better here:

The finished shawl is WICKED long, six feet or so, so I'm thinking about leaving out one repeat.

Now today in the Crock Pot...Italian Pot Roast!  Two days ago I made Provencal Chicken Stew, both recipes are from Lynn Alley's "The Gourmet Slow Cooker."  This is her first book (remember I have the second one too) and I have to say it's a bit rougher around the edges than the second one, but still very good. 

Since all my favorite knitbloggers are blogging about cooking lately, I thought I'd share a few Tips From a Chef's Wife (since I find asking the Chef means he will just want to do it himself...ahem).  What is mise-en-place, you may wonder?  It's a culinary term that basically boils down to "everything in place" and refers to the prep a chef does before getting to work.  That means a stack of dishtowels, all your knives sharp, a clean workspace, all utensils and appliances ready, and your ingredients lined up nice and neat.  Not having your mise-en-place ready to go at the start of the work day in a professional kitchen means you will have a very stressful shift.  Messing with another chef's mise-en-place may result in him/her coming after you with a meat cleaver.  Even with home cooking, JP has definitely taught me how important it is...I have NEVER seen him start cooking willy-nilly.  And trust me, it makes a big difference when you're making a recipe that comes from a cookbook with "gourmet" in the title.  Here's part of mine today:

The stewmeat was still in the fridge at this point, but notice how everything is chopped, minced, freshly ground, measured and ready to go (including that cup of wine which went into the saute pan, not down my throat).  In the Amby-kitchen, ingredients that will be added at the same time can share a bowl as long as they don't taint each other in the meantime.  Yep, that's my very own French knife since JP's is too heavy for me (oh, and YES it is true that a dull knife will cut you worse than a sharp one!).  As soon as you empty a bowl/dish, rinse it and put it right in the dishwasher.  And when you're done with the pots and pans, wash them right away ("soaking" them is just prolonging the inevitable, in my opinion, and you have to listen to your spouse's bitching in the meantime).

So, try your own mise-en-place and see how much more streamlined your cooking is.  Impress your friends by using the phrase "Don't fuck with my mise-en-place!"  And a final tip...don't ever try to rob a chef's house, because we've got more knives than Williams Sonoma and plenty of heavy saucepans to beat you senseless with!

Weekend Roundup

Okey-doke...for the morbidly curious among you, here is a picture of JP's holey sock:

As you can tell, it hasn't been darned by EITHER of us as of yet.  I'm sure you can understand why I would rather knit him a new pair than try to fix that mess.

In the Crock Pot today...Brunswick Stew!  It's from the same book as the artichoke and onion soup and the Yankee Pot Pie..."The Gourmet Slow Cooker, Volume II" by Lynn Alley.  I have her first book on order from Borders, and I can't wait to try a few recipes from that as well.  In explaining to people why I, a confirmed anti-cooker (as opposed to a can't-cooker, I can, but why should I since I married a chef?) am doing fancy-dancy recipes instead of easy ones...well, I like a challenge.  If I'm going to do something it had better be interesting, and tossing canned peas and mushroom soup over a pot roast just isn't interesting to me.  Plus I'm seriously spoiled by excellent food.  Which is why I'll be sauteeing chicken and carmelizing onions today...and probably burning myself again on JP's big pans.  War wounds, y'know.

Now I also have proof that I've been knitting:

The Modular Tomten Jacket from Elizabeth Zimmerman's "Knitting Without Tears."  It's a gift for my work officemate, who is having her second baby in mid-April.  The yarn is Cascade 220 Superwash, my favorite go-to yarn for baby stuff.   Machine washable, but spares me from knitting icky squeaky acrylic.

And I'm spinning:

The colorway is called "Field of Violets" and it's 345 yards of 100% Romney, purchased at Heritage.  (I'm not sure what that gnarly string is sticking out right in the middle, or how I missed it while taking the picture, but I don't think it's Russell hair this time.)  I find I'm becoming more and more of a singles person...I would say this is a fingering weight (I haven't measured the WPI) and I plan to leave it unplied.

Next up on the wheel (and I'm VERY excited about this):

My first Etsy roving purchase, from Freckle Face Fibers.  100% merino and I LOVE the jewel tone colors.  I've got to clear an afternoon for this stuff, though, because I think once I start spinning it, I won't want to stop!

To Darn or Not to Darn...

So, I know there's been a severe lack of knitting content here lately...I've been in one of those extended funks where I just don't wanna knit.  Or rather, I WANT to, but I can't summon up the will to actually do it.  Pathetic, I know.  I've pretty much been working just on socks for JP lately, I finished a pair for him yesterday that were a (belated) Valentine's Day gift.

Speaking of JP and socks, over the weekend I heard an almighty scream come from my husband in the direction of the bedroom.  The kind of scream that immediately makes me panic and think RUSSELLS! BLOOD! FIRE! SPIDERS! (roughly in that order too).  JP came running into the living room holding aloft the first sock I ever knit him...with a half-dollar size hole in the heel.  "Honey!  Honey!  How could I have not noticed?  You can fix it, right?"

In case you haven't figured this out, JP loves his handknit socks second only to a stiff drink at the end of a rough workday.

I took one look at that gaping hole, its ragged edges and much-worn heel, and said "No dear, just throw it away and I'll knit you a new one."  He immediately became indignant, shielding the sad sock and said "NO!  These are the first ones you ever knit me!  PLEEEAAASE fix it!"  I said okay at the time, but when he caught me later trying to bury it in the garbage can, he retrieved it and declared HE WOULD FIX IT HIMSELF.  Yeah.  I'll keep you guys updated on that one.

One thing I HAVE been doing more lately is cooking...my boss gave me a $20 gift card for Target and I bought a SmartPot CrockPot...the kind that turns off the heat and kicks over to warm when it's done cooking.  Not being the type that takes the easy route, I bought a fancy-dancy snobby Slow Cooker cookbook and have been experimenting with CrockPot meals that require sauteeing ingredients in advance.  This weekend I got REALLY fancy (involving sauteeing AND pureeing with an immersion blender) and made artichoke heart and onion soup.  Delicious!  And it feeds my poor ass for a week!  (No fancy pics right now, unfortunately, I'm at work trying to kill the last half hour.)  This weekend, I'm going to make Yankee Pot Pie with garlic mashed potatoes substituting for the pastry crust!

Lastly, think good thoughts for my little Bear (Jerry)...yesterday he and Mickey were playing with their tennis balls.  This is always a dicey situation because sometimes they'll randomly start fighting over toys and such, and when they fight, they FIGHT.  It's always Jerry that starts it too, and poor little Mickey (being fifteen pounds lighter) ends up on his back, snapping and screeching until one of us pries them apart and inspects them both for blood or loose fur. 

Well, yesterday Jerry jumped on Mickey, and I pulled Jerry off by his collar while JP snagged Mickey.  Evidently while I was pulling Jerry away, Mickey managed to chomp down pretty hard on Jerry's front right leg.  He started screaming and holding up his leg and KEPT screaming until I was literally in a hysterical panic trying to determine if Mickey had bit his leg OFF,  or what.  After he calmed down a bit, he started walking around putting weight only on his toes, then as he stiffened up he wouldn't walk on it at all.  According to JP, he's doing much better today, but DAMN!  I feel bad for him, but part of me can't help but think maybe that'll teach him not to pick fights with his brother!

Can I get an AMEN from all the other Russell-owners out there?!?

Snow and Eggs Bennie

In the spirit of looking forward to a great 2008 and forgetting about 2007, I'm vowing to be more appreciative of what I DO have!  Positive energy is a good thing!  As Amanda pointed out in the comments for yesterday's post, I DO have a wonderful husband, so that's where I'll start.

This morning, Metro Detroit woke up to this:

But this is how I woke up:
Mimosas...

And JP slaving over Eggs Benedict!

(I helped.  Which means I poured the butter into the Hollandaise sauce.)  Evidently at some point in the past couple of weeks I declared that I wanted Eggs Benedict on New Year's Day.  I don't know why...I've never had them, I had no idea if I'd like them.  But JP made them for me, supervised by our kitchen manager...

And they were PERFECT!  I'm very grateful for being married to a chef!

So what will I work on today (now that JP has done his manly duties by making me breakfast and snowblowing the driveway)?
Blaze:

Here's my Sheep and Wool...

Yes, at some point, when I allow myself to post pictures of my modest haul from the Sheep and Wool Festival (No seriously! Stop laughing! I was good!!!), you will see the lovely roving from Wiley's Woolies and Jehovah Jireh.  But being that I haven't finished the Pond's View Scotsman from the May festival (although my nose is seriously to the grindstone, er, spinning wheel), you'll have to satisfied with this.

Now, I normally don't eat lamb, pate, or veal.  I'm not a vegetarian, just picky about how my critters are treated before finding their way to my plate.  Therefore it's pretty noteworthy that the only lamb I DO eat (although veal and pate are still a no-go) is what I call "happy lamb"...free range lamb that I know was kicking up its heels in the clover for a while, not confined to a dark dirty stall during its short life.  (Seriously, did you know I used to be a member of PETA before they went all psycho-political?)  The only happy lamb I've found that satisfies my conscience is from Mt. Bruce Station, and although it's insanely expensive, it's worth it when you have a chef for a husband who knows how to do that lamb right.  This was our dinner Monday night, along with a $250 bottle of Kosta Brown JP snagged for $60 and had been semi-patiently waiting for the happy lamb to pair with.

Now, as to how I'm holding up my end of the insanely-expensive happy-lamb-and-crazy-wine bargain, here's a new batch of Julip Bags Dog-Walk Companions, swingin' in the breeze!  (Prior to me Scotchguarding the marigolds.  Loooong story.)

Cuuuuuupcaaaaakes.....

So I mentioned this shop while knitting at the 'bou last Wednesday, and figured it wouldn't hurt to share some Etsy love and pimp others' shops once in a while too. 

Fat Daddy Bake Shop.  Warning: do not view when hungry, PMS-ing*, or otherwise temporarily weak-willed.  These are gourmet cupcakes.  In jars.  So you can eat them with a SPOON!

I personally think they'd make a great gift item, especially for birthdays...you can knock out the cake and present in one fell swoop!!!  Or maybe as a Thank You gift, even!  The world would be a much nicer place if you knew you might get a sinfully-good cupcake as a thank you present!

*Oh hang on...it looks like she does have a PMS Cupcake!  Click away!

She's BAAAACK....

So now I am BACK from Nantucket, and I'm warning you this will be a long picture-heavy post, because I've got lots to tell!
First off, pics of the gorgeous cashmere scarf Rosalynn sent me as my One Skein SP project.  How gorgeous is it?!?  She tells me it will look great with a blue jacket, and being that I have bright blue eyes, I know it's going to look fantastic.  She also included these hot stitch markers, which she made herself!  So so happy with my first SP swap, thank you again Rosalynn!  In the other direction, my "downstream" pal Megan received her One Skein gift courtesy of moi...an Odessa hat just like the one I made for myself a while back.  Stop by her blog, Stash to Treasure, and say hi, she's got some great pattern suggestions and stash-busting ideas!!!

You might note that the scarf pics were snapped on the hood of a car.  That would be my current car, since my new car just arrived in Michigan TODAY!  Some of you may remember that the car was supposed to get here on the 11th, and be all purty and prepped for me yesterday morning.  We got back from Nantucket on Sunday, Monday morning I got up, dressed pretty, went to the bank whistling a happy tune (although I withdrew half my money market account, which gave me chest pains), came home and called AAA to switch the insurance to the new car.  JP asked if I was SURE the car was in.  I said of course, my buddy Chad and I planned all this out, he knew I was coming in Monday.  But I called the dealership and left Chad a voicemail, which he returned ten mintues later.  He told me he had bad news, that my car wasn't in yet.  Oh really?  And being that I took the day off work (pre-planned), why couldn't he have called and mentioned this change of events?  Well, he said, you were on vacation.  Now I can appreciate if he made a judgement call and didn't want to disturb me on my vacation, but I was MUCH more disturbed that I had taken a full day off work for nothing and had gotten some seriously crappy news when I was all dressed up and ready to fork over piles of cash for my Camry Hybrid.  There is more to the story (including me getting all Alpha Bitch over the phone with him), but suffice to say I called the sales manager today and politely complained, and he called me the second the truck pulled onto the lot with my car on it.  He said it'll definitely be ready (leather! moonroof! XM!) Friday, possibly Thursday evening.  So I'm still waiting, grudgingly.

Nantucket...I can't begin to say how wonderful our vacation was, we were so lucky everything went perfectly according to plan .  We drove all the way to Wooster, MA the first day, then hopped down the Cape the next morning and caught the 9:15 ferry.  The weather was beautiful, the first two days were VERY windy but warm, and then it rained the day we left, which made leaving a little easier.  

We lay endlessly in the sun, rented a Durango and drove all over the beaches, ate fabulous meals, and enjoyed the most beautiful scenery and views anyone could ask for.  We stayed at the Brant Point Inn, which was lovely and very quiet and private.  I won't post reviews for all the restaurants we ate at because it would take forever, but if anyone is heading out there and wants a heads-up, shoot me an e-mail. We had dinner at Oran Mor, The Lobster Trap, Seagrille, and the Straight Wharf.  Lunch at the Ropewalk, Brotherhood of Thieves, and Something Natural (twice). JP caught two fish, and we did visit Sheep to Shore, the only LYS on the island.  I was very impressed, they had a nice selection and the most beautiful colorways of Koigu I have ever seen...we each picked out enough for a pair.  I didn't get as much knitting done as I thought I would, but I started the Simply Marilyn sweater and the  U-Neck sweater from the Modern English collection in the Fall 2006 Vogue Knitting.  I LOVE the neckline, but I'm doing away with the fair isle and I'm knitting it in the round up to the armholes. 

Last but not least, how about a finished Audrey sweater?  I finished this two days before we left.  I love it, it's beautiful, I've gotten a ton of compliments on it, but it's not super-flattering to my body type.  Let's just say I look a lil' bit top-heavy.  But I'm pretty proud that I did an entire sweater in 2x2 ribbing! Here's a pic of me in it, knitting on the ferry ride back.  I pulled out my needles as soon as we sat down, and a native Nantucketer sitting across from us pulled out her knitting after she saw me. She must have been afraid of JP, though, because she would only talk to me when he wandered off to pace the deck (aka smoke break).  Details will be in the Finished Objects blog ASAP.

One last pic...before leaving, I finished spinning up some Gotland fiber from Heritage.  I'm not as rapturously in love with it as some spinners are, the staple length is a little long for my personal taste.  But I'm sure I'll knit up something special out of it. 

Finally, what you've all been waiting for, the winner of the Pimp my Camry contest!  Indeed there were two winners, one of which I was pretty sure would win: Summer, my roommate and dear friend from Georgetown College.  Georgetown College is in Georgetown, Kentucky, home of the Toyota plant that will begin churning out American Camry Hybrids in less than a month.  We often said if it were not for the College and the Toyota plant, Georgetown wouldn't exist (cue the hate mail from Georgetown councilmen and women), so I'm proud to buy a car that will ultimately help out my alma mater's hometown.  Funny how things come full circle, huh? Anyhoo, I knew Summer would automatically win, so both she and Marj are getting a skein of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk to do with what they will.  Summer isn't a knitter or a blogger, but she does crochet and I know she'll do beautiful things with the silk.  Marj you know, (oh, and please send me your mailing address in case I miss you at the Sheep and Wool festival this weekend!).  To satisfy everyone's curiosity, I got freaky at Georgetown in a Mustang, not a Camry (my boyfriend's), but those were good guesses too.  :-)  Yes, Summer, I'm talking about Dave (ick). 

P.S. - There will be more Nantucket pics to follow.  Too many for one post right now.

P.P.S. - Lorinda, the Camry's name will be Lola.  For more than one reason, but I'm sure all you Kinks fans will get it.  I'll spell it out later.