Knitting A Dress In The Round - Flaring the Skirt

By now, if you were getting really bored of this project, you could safely call what you've knitted a 'top'; if you wanted to leave it there, I suggest another two evenly-spaced picot rows at the bottom.  Cast off, and fold the last few rows back along the picot holes, making a nice even scalloped edge.  Hem, and follow the instructions on my 'Finishing' post (in the future) to decorate and fit your garment.

If you're not bored, hooray!  We are now going to very gently flare the lace pattern out over your hips and keep going.

N.B. I have realised while writing this that I keep saying 'your' all the time, as though this blog was directed exclusively at knitting women/dress wearers.  Knitting trouser-wearers: if you are with me on this project, please make sure you measure the intended wearer carefully and at all the relevant points - over-bust, under-bust, between busts, waist, hips, and down the middle.  This presumes a certain intimacy with the person concerned.  Good luck!

Flaring the Skirt
You Will Need your stitch-markers back.  Using your gague, work out how many stitches you will need to add to make up the difference between your waist and hip measurement.

My waist =28ins, and hips=31ins, so I need 3 ins of increase.  At 8 stitches to an inch (or thereabouts) that means adding 24 stitches.  I don't intend to do this all in one go, as it will deform the garment.  Instead, the stitches will be added gradually over a series of rows.

Count the number of lace repeats (groups of 9 stitches) you have on one row.  Divide this number by your gague count.  The result will be the number of repeats between stitch-markers, and between bands of increase stitches.

The red triangle surrounds the purled increase stitches in front of the stitch-marker.  

Follow the pattern below for a smooth transition.  Continue knitting the lace in bands with purl-bands between until you reach nearly the length you want.  Then go to Finishing...

Knitting a Dress in the Round - Main Lace Pattern

Diagonal Lace 2
Here's a link to the lace pattern which I have been using for the body of my dress.  I realised that I personally would go much faster if I used right-leaning decreases (k2tog) rather than left-leaning ones (ssk) so have actually turned the pattern inside out.  If you'd like to do this:

1) Read the pattern 'backwards,' right-to-left when it's written out.
2) Remember that in an instruction '(yo, k1) twice' you will still be reading right to left, so actually (k1, yo) twice.
3) Substitute right-leaners for left leaners, and vice versa.  This is much easier when there's only one kind of decrease in your pattern - e.g. I simply replace every instance of 'ssk' with 'k2tog'.

Here's a further link to the TECHKnitting post where I checked that this would work!  Scroll to the last comments.

Knitting Lace in the Round

It can be done - it just takes a little thought.
When reading your pattern,   if stitches are marked off for the beginning and end of rows - leave them out.  Just do the main lace repeat section for each row all the way round.  E.g. in my pattern, I do not knit 1 at the end and beginning of each row as described.

The lace pattern which I'm using uses multiples of 9 stitches: to create the pattern shown needs a minimum band of nine stitches wide and 36 rows long.  You must knit to get the correct measurement for you according to your gague - if your eventual under-bust stitch-count is not a multiple of 9, fear not.  Start each row with the lace repeat, and at the end of the row knit any stitches which won't fit.  Since the beginning and end of the row is at the back of the garment, this will leave a long strip of plain stockinette down the back which can be decorated with false-pearl buttons as a feature of the dress.

Knitting the Torso

After your decrease rows, do another 2 rows of plain knit stitches, then another picot row - *k1, yo, k2tog*.  Finish this feature with another two rows of plain knit stitches; as you go, remove all of your stitch counters except that which reminds you where the beginning of the round is.  

Measure your torso down to where your hips start to flare out, from your bustline to under your bellybutton.  Follow the lace pattern (plus knitting any odd stitches at the end) until you have the correct length. 

Next I will work out and blog how to flare the skirt gracefully, and choose a different lace or fringe for the hem.  See you soon!

Knitting A Dress In The Round: Lower Bodice

The decreasing section of this dress is more fiddly, as I decided I wanted to have darts down under the busts for subtle(ish) shaping.

The diagram (hooray feeble MS Painting) on the right represents your finished frock.

Dotted lines = picot rows.  Note the under-bust picot row after the decrease rows.

Strong black lines show the direction of increases and decreases.  Measure yourself along the long red line before beginning your decrease rows.

Measure the length generated by your increase rows (short red line).  This will be mirrored by your decrease rows.  If between them they do not add up to the length of the bodice total, you will need to add an appropriate number of plain knit rows between increasing and decreasing (as shown on diagrams).

To locate your darts, measure the distance between the centre of your chest and one of your *ahem* most pointy areas.  Using your gague (stitches per inch), count back an appropriate number of stitches from the centre of your garment and place another stitch marker.  Mirror this pattern to find the beginning of your second dart on the other side of the garment.  As the distances will vary, stitches between the darts are not marked on the chart.

The chart below should be followed from RIGHT TO LEFT and includes a pattern for the increase rows.

Knitting a Dress in the Round: Upper Bodice

N.B: the working edge is nearer the bottom of the garment, so this  is 'upside down'

After all my protestations of feebleness after (barely) knitting the Hurricane Hat, I've begun to knit a dress in the round.  My logic was as follows:
1) a dress is just a very wide tube with sleeves.
2) some dresses do without sleeves, making them even more of a tube.
3) My mother just showed me how to do a 'picot hem', which produces an even row of holes all the way across/around a garment.
4) A picot hem makes an excellent way of threading colourful ribbon around an edge, to gather and tighten a garment at the bustline or waist.
5) If I measure myself, and work out where to increase and decrease at the right points, I could make a widening and narrowing tube which gathers ribbon-taut around ma bazongas.  This would be impressive, and warm.
6) If I did the lower half in lace, it would be less warm and less stuffed-caterpillar-looking, and have more give in the fabric to get a good fit.
7) TO KEMPS!

I have never swatched so much as I have swatched to design this project.  Swatching is when you make a little square of fabric with your chosen wool on your chosen needles, and measure how many stitches per inch you come out with.  This is your gague.  If it's too many compared to your pattern or the count on your ball of wool, you need bigger needles; too few, smaller.  I also used my swatches to test different kinds of increase and decrease out, trying to find the most appealing.  The incredible TechKnitting blog (linked at the sidebar) has been an invaluable help with this.  I recommend you follow it, for the diagrams alone.

Picot and Lace Knitted Dress - Upper Bodice

To generate my dress, I swatched out my white fingering-weight yarn on 3.5mm needles.  I measured myself at key points (vital statistics etc.) in inches, then multiplied those numbers by my gague to find my cast-on number, and targets for increasing and decreasing to.

The first part of the project is the picot hem.  Cast on as above according to your (measurement under the armpit x gague), adding stitch-markers every 20 stitches.  Knit round 3 rows.  On the fourth row,

*knit 1, yarnover, knit two together* - repeat between the ** until you reach the end of the row, and knit any remaining stitches.

Showing two lines of 'picot' and the increased and decreased central diamond

Identify the centre of your garment, opposite the beginning of the row.  Place a stitch-marker there as you knit your next row.
To identify the number of increase stitches you need, calculate the difference between your under-armpit and bust measurements.  Multiply this by your gague.  I came out with 2 inches, or 15 stitches, because I have no bust.
The increases form a triangle at the centre of the work:
1) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit;
2) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit 1; increase 1; knit;
3) knit; find marker; increase 1, knit 3; increase 1; knit;
4) knit; find marker; increase 1, knit 5, increase 1; knit;
5) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit 7; increase 1; knit;
6) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit 9; increase 1; knit;
7) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit 11; increase 1; knit;
8) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit 13; increase 1; knit
etc. for larger busts.

That's enough for now - I'll continue these posts as I work my way down the dress.  The decrease rows are a little more complicated.

Belted tunic dress

This isn't something I can really claim as my own, it's a New Look dress pattern (below) but the bead detail is mine.

It's made of the electric blue silk which the Man brought me back gosh, how long ago? many months... and I hadn't finished it yet because I suspected that turning the belt inside out would be an arse.  I reckoned without the smoothness of silk though, and in the end the fiddly little tie-ends were the biggest doddle of the whole project.

Look how blue!

Cross-stitch sampler update

I managed to injure my leg while skiing at my mother's recently (all better now thank goodness) and was laid up for a couple of days.  This proved an excellent opportunity to get on with my sampler, which I had brought with me as a pastime for the long winter evenings.

The borders as you can see are taking shape.  I worked inwards from the corner to find the first leaf-point; now I will work right along the top of the tree until I know how wide the piece should be, and then go back and finish the blue border.  I think that my mother's parents' names will be enclosed at the top edge.

I am actually now further along than shown in the photo, with one stag-roundel finished and another begun; there will be four in total.  Stitch-counting in the red and brown border has been a problem, and one section got messed up a bit - but the long diagonals which you can see beginning at the bottom left of the piece provide a good place to restart and set things on the right path again.  This is the joy of working in independent sections - as long as the corner is OK, the tree and its surroundings can't affect each other.

I also hemmed the cross-stitch fabric crudely all the way round, to stop it from shedding fibres everywhere.  The trouble with bought squares of it is that the edges are never quite square to the weave, so there are short lengths which peel off the sides all the time.  Hem yours before you start is my advice now - just a simple fold over and running stitch all the way round.

Also at my mother's I found the goldfinch which I embroidered ages ago; I sent it as a birthday present the year I made it.  And at my father's this weekend I found the flower-press and pressed-flower pictures which I made of the remnants of my childhood garden.  I've added new, decently-lit pictures of these to the appropriate posts, so do go back and remind yourself of those Simple Things of yesteryear.  I do love my new digital camera!

Scrumptious Pancakes for Pancake Day - rather late

Left to right - first cock-up, second recovery, third perfect!  Blueberry sauce top left

Ok, so I should have had this up on Monday probably so that you guys were all set to follow the recipe on Shrove Tuesday.  But given the number of people on my Facebook bemoaning that they missed Pancake Day, or are planning a binge at the weekend, and the fact that there is a Pancake Day every year - here is what we ate this year.
One batch of the Simple batter makes a 'round' to serve two people.  I recommend making one plain round, then having a rest while you make a sweet round for pudding.

Simple Pancake Batter - adapted from the GoodFood website
You Will Need: Scales, two measuring jugs, spoon, whisk, frying pan, trusty spatula with fine edge, kitchen roll, plate.
1 egg
100g plain flour
pinch salt
300ml milk
glug vegetable oil (about 1 dessertsponful)
butter for frying

For sweeter pancakes
1 dessertspoonful caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence

1) Turn the hob on, and begin to get your frying pan really hot.
2) In the larger measuring jug, stir together the  flour and salt.  (If making sweet ones, add the sugar at this point as well).  Make a 'well' in the flour by pushing it to the sides with your spoon; break in the egg.
3) Measure out the milk in the other jug.  Add half of it to the flour and egg, and whisk well.  Mid-way through, scrape around the bottom edge of the jug with the spoon to pick up any flour which is sticking there.  Whisk this in.  Whisk in the rest of the milk, the vegetable oil, and the vanilla essence if using until really smooth.
4) Cut a little knoblet of butter and put it on your frying pan.  It should froth almost instantly.  Get a bundle of kitchen roll, and use this to smear the butter evenly all around the pan.  Save this bundle for the next pancake.  When the fat is smoking, pour in a good measure of batter - this will depend on the size of your pan.  Too little is more fiddly to deal with than too much, generally.
5) Swirl around carefully to get an even circle.  The first one is always a cock-up - don't panic, it will still be edible!  Wait until the batter has turned a matte, beige colour rather than cream, then work your spatula around the edge.  Shake the pan gently to loosen the middle.
6) I will not advise you to attempt throwing your pancakes, as in my experience this always results in wasted food and mess.  Instead, shuffle your spatula right in under the middle, and if necessary grab the near edge with your (clean) fingers to pull the pancake over.  The second side only needs about 10 seconds.
7) Slip the pancake onto the plate, and put a sheet of kitchen roll or a piece of greaseproof paper on top of it.  Wipe the buttery  kitchen roll over the pan to coat it again, and splosh the next pancake in.  Repeat!

Frankie's Shaken Pancake Mix For Students
An alternative mixing method, first shown me by my friend Frankie, is suitable for those celebrating in a less well-stocked kitchen.  Save an empty 2-pint plastic milk carton.  Peel off the label so that you can see all the markings easily.  Making sure that the bottle is clean, carefully break in the egg.  Add plain flour level up to the quarter-pint mark.  Add milk up to the half-pint mark.  Put the lid on hard and shake as though making cocktails! This makes pretty thick batter which is more drop-sconny and easier to handle.

Fillings
Soggy Duck Pancakes
YWN: chopping board, knife, frying pan, small plates, ramekin, teaspoon

1 pack mini Gressingham duck breast fillets, cut into 1cm wide strips
6-7 spring onions, white sections of, cut into quarters lengthwise
plum sauce / Hoi Sin sauce
Fry the duck pieces until tender but not chewy, only a few minutes.  Serve the components on small plates with sauce in a ramekin, to assemble at the table.

Spinach, Asparagus and Goat's Cheese Pancakes
YWN: Oven, oven tray, tinfoil, dish/Pyrex/bowl and clingfilm, chopping board, knife, frying pan, plates

Bag of leaf spinach
bunch asparagus
packet goat's cheese
3-4 rashers unsmoked streaky bacon
Before you make your pancakes: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.  Line the oven tray with tinfoil.  Cut the hard ends off the bottom of the asparagi and lay them in the oven tray; drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.  Jam in the oven for about 20 minutes.
Make the pancakes (as above).
Steam the spinach in a little water in the microwave, for about 7 minutes until mushy.  Chop the bacon into small pieces, and fry until crunchy.

When ready, take the asparagus out of the oven.   Put them on a plate for now.  To assemble the dish, plop a line of spinach down the middle of a pancake.  Add 2-3 stems of asparagus.  Sprinkle with bacon.  Roll the pancake around this assemblage, and put the tube into the oven tray.  When you have run out of ingredients, cut the goat's cheese into slices and lay over the tubes.  Bake cannelloni-style for a few minutes, until the cheese has melted and the panakes are warmed through again.

Blueberry Pancake Filling
YWN: Wooden spoon, small saucepan
Packet of fresh blueberries
Hank of butter
Splash of water
Heaped dessertspoonful of caster sugar

Bang all of the ingredients into a small saucepan and heat on a high heat.  Simmer until all of the blueberries have exploded, the sugar has dissolved, and the liquid has become a purple syrup which dribbles pleasantly off the spoon.  Serve with vanilla icecream if desired.

Cross-stitch sampler: Inspiration and design

You Will Need: Inspiration, sharp pencil and ruler, graph paper (light grey is easier to 'read' than green), eraser, coloured pencils of many colours.

A friend who knows my love of Vikings and embroidery brought me a book of Icelandic tapestry motifs.  In combination with this background, I have a good, largely happy, large family.  Less and less unusually as trends continue, I have been blessed with a pair of amicably divorced blood parents and a pair of hugely amicable step-parents, balancing the books rather til my cup of responsible adult company runneth over.  For most of my young life I was able to visit all four of my grandparents, and only recently has this number decreased by one.  My younger brother is the apple of my eye, and a talented maker and doer of Simple things in his own right - notably odd DIY and fire-starting.

The first chapter of the book encourages you to make a sampler.  Traditionally often made to commemmorate a new marriage or a birth, I was inspired to design a rather monumental one in memory of my current family setup, which has served me so well.  I used further designs from later in the book to help me design the borders.

The central motif is Yggdrasil, the World Tree and everlasting Ash; it endures despite being nibbled by four deer, a goat and Ratatosk the squirrel.  Notice that the design of the leaves has four entry- and exit-points around the square, so that they can be rotated and joined onto each other and still look naturally growing without having to redesign every organic possibility.  The circular design allows the roundels to shelter the animals, who can nestle in without me having to design around them.

At Yggdrasil's roots are the Norns, who tend it; its roots draw water from three sources, which are echoed in the watery blue border; lurking underneath it is the dragon, who forms the outer ring of the design.

Hanging in its branches is Odin, undergoing his quest to gain ultimate knowledge; sheltering at its heart are Lif and Lifthrasir, Life and Striver-for-Live, the last human beings and the first human beings who will survive Ragnarok and repopulate the new world. Each of these scenes is designed independently, by first making a rough 'normal' sketch lightly in pencil and then 'pixellating' it manually until the desired effect is obtained.

The design is the Family Tree, and the names of the people most important to me will be embedded in the blue border using the alphabet design from the book.  I expect this piece will take me several years to complete, if I ever do, as the sheer number of stitches involved is immense and I am bound to make counting errors and have setbacks.  Nevertheless I intend to make a go of it alongside my other projects, coming back to it whenever I have nothing else going on, and leaving it out to reprimand me on my work-sofa whenever I come home.  I will have to start from one corner of my fabric rather than the centre (as recommended by the tapestry book) because I cannot know how big it will end up being, and want to join any more required fabric to an edge with a border for accuracy.

There is no reason for you to attempt such a ridiculously huge project of your own, but I do encourage you to design your own cross-stitch patterns on graph paper by pixellating sketches.  Fabric can be cheaply acquired in relatively large quantities from online supplier www.cross-stitch-centre.co.uk.  They are the Kemps Wool Shop of cross-stitch, or it looks that way to me.

Winter-flowering Cherry Cake / Black Forest Gateau

A friend (the owner of a promptu and excellent specialist liqueur business Alchemist Dreams) had a Winter Foods Party this weekend where everyone had to bring something comforting.  'You make very very tasty puddings,' she said (no word of a lie) so I decided to bring a cake.  At first I thought of Nigella's chocolate marmalade cake, which keeps forever and is very easy to construct indeed as it is all made in a big saucepan.  However although tasty and warming it is not exactly the most flamboyant thing in my repertoire, so as usual when entertainment is called for I decided to make something up.

The following would probably be called a Black Forest Gateau anywhere else.  The last time I tasted home-made BFG was when my mum made one for my brother's forest-themed 5th birthday party.  There was a lovely hand-drawn (by Mum) red squirrel on the invitaitions, and we played many traditional wolf-themed party games.  The cake was I think the most luxurious, foreign and sqodgy thing Mum ever made, and due perhaps to the faff never made it again that I recall. She did save one of the invites from great pride though (it was a brilliant squirrel).

Dark cherries have been at the front of my mind recently for a reason I can't recall, and so this cherry-chocolate concoction with vanilla creamy filling was inspired by Culinaria, Muse of Baking, rather than any one gateau recipe.  By happy chance the combination has already been tested by Germans everywhere for decades, so I couldn't go far wrong.


Winter Flowering Cherry Cake
You Will Need: 20-23cm Springform tin (baking paper and scissors if not non-stick); sharp knife and chopping board, small plate; large bowl, wooden spoon, scales; small saucepan, medium bowl; mug, whisk, fork, breadknife;  serving plates.

200g dark cooking chocolate
70g sugar
100g butter
6 eggs
2 tins pitted black cherries in syrup
100g self-raising flour
dried black cherries
300ml extra thick cream
1tsp vanilla essence

Cake
1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.  If necessary, line your tin with baking paper and grease with a small amount of butter; set aside for later.
2) Take a block of chocolate smooth side up, the sharp knife and chopping board, and small plate.  Scrape the knife towards you gently over the flat surface of the chocolate block to make curls of chocolate.  Set these aside on the small plate and put in the fridge for later. 
3) Melt the remaining chocolate in the medium bowl over a pan quarter-full of boiling water.  Cut the butter into small chunks and add that.  Stir very very gently to melt.  Add the sugar and mix gently.
4) Take four of your eggs, and whisk them in the large bowl until well blended.  Slowly add the chocolate-butter mixture and whisk as you go until well mixed.  Drain the tinned cherries of their syrup; check for any which have been badly pitted, remove any stones and stir them whole into the mixture.  Gradually sprinkle in the flour and mix gently.
5) Pour the lot into the tin and bake at 180 degrees C for about 35 minutes, or to clean-skewer.
6) When the cake is ready, allow it to cool in the tin.  Remove from the tin when cool, and peel off any paper.  Flip the cake onto its serving plate.  When it is compeltely cooled, very gently saw the cake in half with a breadknife.  Shuffle the top half carefully onto another plate - don't try to pick it up, just pull an edge round until the halves separate and you can get the plate underneath the lip. 
Vanilla Filling
6) While the cake is cooling, make the vanilla filling.  Take your remaining two eggs.  Separate the yolks into a small bowl, and the whites into a mug or other container to use for something else (probably meringues).  Add a good heap of caster sugar to the egg yolks, about a tablespoonful, and the vanilla essence.  Beat with a fork.   Whisk in the cream a half at a time until stiff and smooth.
7) Spread the bottom half of the cake with half the vanilla cream.  Plop the other cake half on top gently (you may pick it up with both, widely-spread hands).  Add the rest of the cream to the top in a big central heap  and spread out with a dinner knife until it looks nice and even.
8) Sprinkle the top with the chocolate curls from the fridge.

 Cherry Blossoms
9) Take about 20 dried cherries.  Flatten them out on the board until round.  Make five cuts about 2mm long evenly around the edge of the circle.  Take the sections thus formed and pinch them apart and into points with your fingernails.  Add to the cake decoration.  Store the finished cake in the fridge until half an hour before serving.
10) Serve in 'ooh just a slither' sized pieces to the admiring throng (she said modestly).

Lace Knitting - Purl Two Together Through Back Loops

After finishing my first real piece of lacework, I wanted to have a go at a more complex pattern.  I eventually produced the following, which is probably the biggest test-swatch ever:

I'm probably going to send this to my mother to make into a kidney-warmer as she is always complaining of having cold kidneys.

For the pattern I had another quick look on Ravelry, didn't find anything I liked, then simply Googled 'leaf lace kntting' or something.  This pattern for a scarf looked lovely and claimed to be simple.  I can verify both!  Instead of casting on 39, I initially cast on 120, did a knit-3-purl-2 ribbing border to start, decreased one every twenty stitches, and then repeated the pattern across in three sets.  When I'd done nine sets in total I did another knit-3-purl-2 rib border, and cast off.  My holes are a lot bigger than others who have tried the pattern, as I am using the wrong size needles for my wool. 

Stiches learned in this pattern included two different kinds of decrease stitch.  The SKP (slip knit pass) or skpsso (slip, knit, pass slipped stitch over) speaks for itself; it's a mini cast-off essentially.  The p2tog tbl (purl two together through back loops) is more complex.  As I mentioned last post, it was my granny who showed me what the back of a stitch was, and now that I have my new camera I can show you!

This is the front of a stitch:

And this is the back:

To start a p2tog tbl, find the two back loops by turning the left needle round towards you and scooping up the backs right-to-left (purlwise).  Then purl them together as usual.

Casting on in large numbers without losing count, and making sure that I started each of my sets in the right place, was greatly helped by the use of these little stitch-markers.

Stitch Markers
You Will Need: Medium-sized beads with large holes, yarn of a contrasting colour to the working yarn, scissors

Pass the end of a bright yarn through the bead, and make a triple granny-knot across your index finger to preserve the loop.  To use, slip a marker onto the needle at a landmark point  or every 20 stitches when casting on.  As you come to them in your knitting, simply pass the marker from left needle to right and ignore them, carrying on with your pattern.  They will follow you up the work.  If they occur between two stitches to stitch together, pass the first stitch to your right needle, remove the marker, pass the first stitch back, make the k2tog or p2tog or whatever, and replace the marker on the right needle.

Knitting Reblog: Lace Bolero by Kelly Maher

For Christmas, among other things, I was sent a hank of wool from Routt County, Colorado by my mother.  It was so colourful, and so local to her area, that I wanted to make something entirely from it in one go to show it off, rather than do many mittens with it as she had intended.  A quick search on Ravelry turned up this pattern for a bolero or shrug - bolero is to cardigan as fingerless gloves are to normal gloves I reckon.

http://kellymaher.wordpress.com/2007/07/04/ribbed-lace-bolero/

It took a lot of blocking to get it not to stretch quite so hugely across my shoulders, but I'm satisfied with the effect; the blocking also made it felt a little, softening the fibres.  N.B. 'Blocking' is the process of making a piece the right shape, evening out the stitches and stopping all-stocking-stitch pieces from curling at the edges as they do naturally.  Hand-wash the knitting in warm, soapy water; rinse it out; squeeze out as much of the water as you can, then lay it on a towel on a flat surface.  Stretch, weigh down and/or pin as necessary into the correct shape, and allow to dry completely.

The lace pattern is particularly easy and beautiful, and I hope to learn more about how lace works as I do more projects.  Yarnovers, which create a single loop of wool and leave a hole in the finished article, puzzled me at first but my grandmother was able to show me what the 'back' of a stitch was.  Another useful skill gained from this pattern was the maths for working out inches-to-stitches - this was the first thing I've knitted where I bothered to do a 'swatch' first to work out my gague, but it was worth doing as my yarn was significantly thinner than recommended.  I think I could still probably have made it smaller, as is usual with my clothes, but we live and learn.

Skills I couldn't pick up included the mini-cable row to transition between the lace and second set of ribbing rows, so I just missed that out.  I also didn't switch back to smaller needles for the second rib set because I'd left them at my dad's place, but it doesn't seem to have made too much difference.

It's nice not to have a huge amount of wool left over from this project; with stuff so cheap at Kemps Wool Shop I always over-buy and end up with masses and masses hanging about.  No worries - one of these days I will be arsed to make a jumper out of my leftovers, and then I will probably not have enough.

N.B. Photography for this post, and hopefully all future posts, was taken by the boyfriend for me with my own cheapo point-and-click digital Nikon, so I can stop stealing things from google image results and abusing the photography skills and generosity of my stepmother now.    Look out for much more photo-ridden and hopefully more helpful posts in future, and I'll probably go back and update a couple of things from the archives as well!

Horseradish

It takes some amount of work to turn these:

into this:

but somehow, over the New Year bank holiday, my man managed it.  Just occasionally he becomes obsessed with an idea, a Make or Do, in the same way that I will - and is determined to Make or Do it.  Advice will be sought from the internet, his mother, brother, and indeed all and sundry who wander into his line of sight, and he will panic about doing things 'properly'.  This is a man who will look up the 'correct' salad dressing for cucumber sandwiches.  The vagueness of advice available about dealing with horseradish did not perturb him for long, however.  Having once grasped the idea, and then the root, from his father's garden, and got said roots home, nothing would do but that homemade horseradish sauce was made. 

You will need a food processor of some sort.  Obviously in the old days this stuff had to be hand-grated, but even using the supergraters mentioned in my Orange Cake post this would take forever and be dangerously eye-watering.  He used his mother's Magimix to pulverise roughly chopped pieces of peeled root.

Having crumbed up your roots, you will need a saucepan and some creme fraiche.  At this point any mixture of the two will be either too mild or mouth-scrapingly hot; the best way we think to get the flavour correct is to very gently cook the mixture, taste-testing as you go.  Adding vinegar, a small amount of icing sugar and/or flour is also an option, although not one which I saw the application of in detail.  The key thing is correct flavour balanced with correct texture.

Once done the sauce will keep in the fridge for a few weeks, slowly getting milder and milder.  We've been eating it with cold cuts and smoked mackerel on toast.  Dyed green it's also a cheap substitute for wasabi.  Added to mustard it forms Tewksbury mustard.

Real horseradish is apparently very easy to grow in Britain; the leaves are also edible, although they have the typical popularity of tuber-top greens at the moment.  The boy's second rapidly-grasped idea was to grow our own, although he would have to indulge in some guerilla colonisation of his mother's garden to make this happen.  Maybe one day ... but for now, another seasonal jarred thing to Make and Do has been created which I'm sure will become a traditional part of our culinary year.