Project Wibble

Hello again.  Christmas over and new project flying not-so-stealth on the needles.  I dub it Project Wibble, because how else do you pronounce WIBL?  Observe: hat and mittens for Grandpa in China-->"Warm face, warm hands, warm feet" (sort of)-->"Wouldn't it be loverly"-->WIBL.  Yeah, my brain works in mysterious ways.  Sometimes even G-rated.  It's actually kind of boring (Project Wibble, I mean, not my brain), and I'm suffering from second sock syndrome like you wouldn't believe.  Does anybody besides my mother care precisely how many rows of 2x2 ribbing I crank out for the (pick up and knit bottom stitches to form double-thickness) cuff or where I start the thumb gusset or how long I make the stockinette section?  Maybe I should've started with the hat.  "Manly" beanie with ribbed edge?  OK, maybe not.  At least there's a deadline...which unfortunately means my lace projects (auction shawl, 30s-inspired tunic sweater) are relegated once again to the metaphorical back burner.  And again with the Tetris game that is my mental to-do list.  Really need to do a memory dump one day, reorganize my priorities, separate the wheat from the chaff and figure out what I actually want to do with that traveling shovel.  I think a STL Nano might have groaned at that one.

By the way, what in the world have I done with my "Procrastinate" cross-stitch?  Dalek on the loose?  Run for your lives.

"I'd be lost without my blogger!"

So...the good thing about being corporate (I mean, a private pediatrics practice is, in financial terms, a business) is the company-provided phone (for all those frantic parent calls on nights and weekends).  I got a new smartphone as a Christmas perk, and it's really quite nifty.  But that brings me to the bad thing about being corporate: I can't actually activate it.  Which means that for the next 14 hours or so, my smartphone functions as a camera and a computer, but not as an actual phone.  Which also means that I've been snapping pictures of my recent projects like there's no tomorrow.  The following comprises a (not exhaustive) list of finished projects that would very much like to proclaim the above statement, now that they're (finally) seeing the light of day.

This is the shocking pink dress challenge, completed for C+A's wedding (#3?) in August.







 I'm wearing the hat to commemorate my actual reception ensemble, which included said pink straw hat, extra-long pink "quartz" necklace, and large earrings.





There would have been pictures from the reception...if I hadn't been having too much fun at the Children's Museum...

Next, Laminaria shawl, pattern courtesy of knitty.com, which did not get done in time for CMC auction.  Oh well, nice Christmas present for Mummy then.  She likes blue, right?  Right?

And last, but not least, mushroom fingerless gloves.  Well, of course, my dad has to have a knitted present too, right?  These came from the superwash merino I would've made a pair of manly gloves from to sell to random stranger at Starbucks.  Instead, I'm picking on certain computer geek tendencies (you can type while wearing them!) and old-school video game tendencies (it...almost looks like a Mario mushroom?).  Pattern courtesy of...me.  Don't ask which end it came out of.

What next, you may (not) ask?  Recreating Claudette?  Lace shawl #???  More dress designs?  Stay tuned, and try not to get too impatient!  (Or something.)

ch-ch-ch-changes!

Oh dear, has it really been almost 3 months?  I can explain.  Actually, maybe not, but this is a recap of the past 3 months, crafting projects and otherwise.

September: 1st day at new job, first call night, first call weekend--lawsamercy, is that really what life in the real world is like?  And to top it all off, mortgage applications, etc., for buying a house.  I really hate being a grown-up.  Highlight of the month: coming up with lace shawl projects for the Carolina Master Chorale gala auction.  Trusty knitty.com provided 2 excellent candidates in the form of Laminaria and Omelette.  While looking for yarn for said shawls, I discovered Knit 'n Purl, the local awesome yarn store of awesomeness.  Yes, people do drive over from as far away as Florence (about 2 hours away).  No, that's not uncalled for.

October: More 10-hour workdays, more call.  Choir concert (whoo, Mendelssohn's "Elijah" makes Mozart's Requiem seem like a cake walk) on the 28th.  Started Laminaria on extra-long dpns and lost a dozen stitches off the back (taped) end halfway through the blossom chart (insert creative cursing here).  Started back over on circulars.  Closed on house and had to move stash and everything else the day after the concert.  Misplaced camera batteries in the process, but finished Laminaria...1 week after the auction (see below).  Also, costumey fun with the girls at the Longs office.  I recycled green ren-faire gown, obtained a tiara, and used leftover gown fabric to make ogre ears: "instant" Princess Fiona costume.  And the NMB Walmart is just a little ghetto sometimes: 1/2 slightly used roll of larger-gauge jewelry wire?  If you don't want to maintain a crafts section, please just be honest about it and don't put one up.  Anyhoo.

November: Substitute auction item: Claudette scarf and gloves, which I'd worn there simply because it's gotten a little chilly on the Carolina coastline.  Also got propositioned for a pair of men's fingerless gloves the same day I was persuaded to auction the clothes off my back (so to speak, and so to speak).  Incidentally, if you're the person I spoke to at the North Myrtle Beach Starbucks, I have yarn picked out, so get in touch if you still want those gloves.  I'm charging $15 because the yarn cost $8.50 and I have to work on it during overtime hours (i.e. over and above my 50-60 hour work week).  Also, 1-1/2 weeks without internet?  Wha?  HTC, if I had to put up with that back in St. Louis, I'd be demanding a refund on my installation fee.  Just sayin'.  But I have to say the highlight of the month so far has been geeking out about Victorian/Edwardian costumes with the proprietor of the As They Sew In France booth at the Dickens Christmas market.  New challenge: procure recommended pattern book and make dress to wear to next year's marketplace.  Challenge so accepted.  Now I just need to sneak in some quality time with the sewing machine....

Yeah, I, uh, haven't been idle.

Do not attempt while bored

...unless, that is, you can afford to kill about 24 hours in the span of 2 days.  OK, actually more like 16, but I haven't done the ironing yet and need to re-acquaint myself with the process.  Yeah, ironing, wet-blocking, all that finishing stuff I was too bored to learn before plowing ahead to the next project.  Still, 2 yards of less-than-40-inch-wide silky print, couple yards of lining, an invisible zipper (still hate those), and a few sessions with a measuring tape and a mirror.  Result: dress!  Wotcha think?

 I'd show you the original pattern, but, um, I don't have one.  Basically I cut the top out of lining first by using crude measurements (shoulder to natural waist for length; shoulder, bust, and waist measurements for widths).  My first piece barely covered at the bust, so I cut a second piece that was about a half-inch to an inch longer at either side.  Then I cut those same pieces out of the patterned fabric.  (The collar, by the way, is actually just a shallow curve from shoulder to shoulder, with the depth of the curve adjusted after fitting the lining pieces.)  Whatever was left over (about 50 by 36 inches of the silky print) became skirt (fold or cut to two 25x36 rectangles, fold rectangles along long edge, and use your waist measurement--or I suppose 1/4 of your waist measurement plus extra for seam allowances--for the top of the trapezoid, using the full width of the fabric to form your skirt hem 'cause, you know, I like to be able to move).  Repeat process on lining but make slightly shorter.

 The sewing's pretty straightforward.  You know, sew lining to main fabric at collar and armholes, sew fronts and backs together at right edge, leaving left edge open for zipper.  Sew skirt front and back together, leaving about a foot of left edge open for zipper.  Sew skirt to bodice, using gathers or pleats (or I suppose darts, depending on fabric) as needed to match widths.  Also, do avoid my fairy-hat-level mistake and fit the dress before you sew in the zipper.  Also, again, if you shorten the bodice, you will need to readjust width to fit properly around your waist.  Attach zipper and try not to punch anybody while struggling with trying to make it "invisible" (*snort*).  Where zipper meets armhole, consider clasp, snaps, or actually sewing together about a centimeter of fabric up there.  Now, here's the other important thing: try it on before you add finishing touches.  If you can put it on without assistance and it doesn't look like a grocery bag, hem and iron away!

Here I just wanted to show off the front of the dress and the lovely lovely pattern of the fabric that somehow convinced me it was a good idea to work with silks (@#*^!).  Because showing off is what I do (yes, intentional reference to at least 2 Steven Moffat heroes, damn them).  And yes, I know my mother doesn't read my blogs, but I should tell her that her challenge is now complete...ish.  Oh, crud!  Forgot to take pictures of pink party dress!  Eh, that's a problem for another time.

It's a bird, it's a plane!

It's a Cylon raider!  At least, that's what I thought Aeolian looked like on the blocking mats the evening after an afternoon of stretching and pinning and scrutinizing and re-pinning.

The crimson adds to the effect of something just slightly alive, and the shape, that sharp-pointed curved wingspan, well, you be the judge.  (PS that teddy bear in the corner is Vincent--brother to Theo, of course!--version 1, whom I scrapped 'cause I ran out of yarn.  Version 2 in progress now.  Also, can somebody remind me whether bears and/or pandas have thumbs?  I want to say bears no/pandas yes?  Something tells me I should've taken Comparative Animal Physiology during my Bio major in college...)

 But back to Aeolian, I do have to admit it looks rather gorgeous when worn, and the pattern is inspired.  But is that really how tiny it is?  Good thing I'm living in the Deep South now and don't actually need wraps and things for warmth.  Otherwise we might have a slight problem.  Now, I'm only sometimes a glutton for punishment, but if I ever make one of these babies again for a gift, I'm going to have to go big (full-size shawl) or go home.

 And this concludes Shawl-block 2012.  At least for now.  It's true what they say out there: lace is an addiction.  There may have to be more of this.  Gulp!

Showing off

What, you think I'm not going to post pictures?  This was part 1 of Shawl-block 2012, wherein I take my lace shawl projects of the past few months and do the right thing, i.e. wet-block them into submission.  Shown here is TARDIS shawl stretched out on foam sheets, available in the crafts section at the local Walmart, apparently.  I was looking for the foam puzzle-piece thingies that lock together, but the toys section was oddly disappointing, so foam sheets and magic tape it is.  Unfortunately it's less mobile than my original brilliant plan, so if you're going to do it this way you may need to plan ahead, space-wise.  Great thing about this project is it actually shapes pretty readily, no wires or fancy manipulations required.

 By the way, y'all are gonna get very familiar with the insides of my bathrooms because strategically placed mirrors are my friends.  Also, new apartment, new mirrors, new rules.  Took me forever to line up these shots properly, and if you hallucinate, you might actually be able to see some of the detailing.

 Yes, I'm in my jammies, and yes, that is a Hogwarts tee.  Why do you ask?

Quick note about the pattern if, like me, you plan on wearing it into the outside world when it's finally not 90+ degrees and more humid than the Jurassic period: it does end up very long and not particularly wide, especially at its ends, so expect it to cover essentially the same areas in back that a somewhat generous shrug might do.  I think you can probably get a bit more up-and-down with some strategic stretching during the blocking phase, but we're talking maybe an inch or two, so plan accordingly.


This concludes Shawl-block 2012 part 1.  Next up: Aeolian, or possibly a somewhat larger-than-intended teddy bear.  We shall see whether legs or more blocking strikes me as more annoying.  Till we meet again....

Detour for a good cause

In the process of packing/shipping my entire life over to North Myrtle Beach, I decided to put the complicated lace projects on hold for something a little cuddlier.  A friend of mine's mother is a nurse who works with (or possibly runs?) the bereavement program at her local NICU.  Part of that is something called the Empty Arms Program, which gives a teddy bear to each mom who's lost a baby.  They're currently low on bears, and since I happen to have a metric crap-ton of Lionbrand Jiffy and approximately as much stuffing, a new project idea was born.  I don't know that much about the program itself or the logistics of donation, but if my readership of 2-ish (besides the Desultory Knitter, of course ;)) would like to contribute (you don't have to make the bears yourself--I'm just doing it 'cause I'm a little cuckoo), I just Googled Chandler Regional Hospital Empty Arms Program, and I think there's people you can contact.  In the meantime, I'm going to knit some bears.

Adventures in lace knitting, part 3-1/2

I have to hand it to the lace-knitters out there: it's not for the faint of heart (or clumsy of fingers).  There were moments in this shawl where I was almost certain I'd screwed it up irreparably and would have to start all over again.  Imagine my surprise and immense relief when I found my dropped stitches and forgotten yarnovers and somehow, miraculously, managed to recover from a couple of botched nupps.  You almost can't see them, and probably won't once it's all blocked out.  I fully intended to leave all nupps and beads out of my future lace endeavors, but at the end of the day (or fortnight, or possibly month), they do add a little to the pattern, don't they?  Oh, bother.  Take a drink for every one of my knitting taboos that I've now officially set to rights.  If you're still sober at the end, um, whatever you do, don't tackle Estonian lace.  Go knit a pair of socks or something.  Or wrist-warmers.  Anything involving long stretches of knit or purl and no small parts that can fall into a glass and get aspirated and have to be removed bronchoscopically.  Yes, I went there.  As for the rest of my remaining time in St. Louis, I'm going to go sort my hunter green merino laceweight and study for the Boards.  Possibly at the same time.  Because it's how I roll.

wtf and other loose screws

Oh, the joy of moving, especially halfway across the country.  Definitely puts a damper on projects of the sewing/knitting persuasion when you're trying to pack up your crap and/or find somebody else to pack up your crap and ship it on its way and you uncover stashes of things you didn't remember existed and, honestly, at a time like this, really kind of wish had stayed that way.  (Oh, the Asian print tunic top I was going to make.  Oops.)  Then there's trying to find a box big enough to accommodate the cutting mat I never use.  Or the nest of shredded paper I found under the--now emptied out!--drawer of my sewing table.  Actually, I can see why the cat tries to get in there all the time now.

And then factor in trying to balance a long-term task like lace-knitting with *important!* chores like cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming the floors (a losing battle at best when you have a long-haired human with a long-haired pet, both of whom shed like the dickens), and finding a legitimate moving company that ships cars.  The bathroom saga is proof that nobody should ever have to put up with me as a roommate.  Also, my brain seems to have decided that the reason why my ideal schedule this week seems to be staying up till 2 and sleeping in till 10 is that it thinks it's the summer hols.  Its words, not mine.  Seriously, what's up with that, brain?  That paired with a sudden craving for Indian food and beer.  Honestly, I should get back to knitting, or Dalek cross-stitch, or editing a poetry collection, or whatever it is one does while procrastinating.

Adventures in lace knitting, part 3

OK, I admit it: I'm a glutton for punishment.  No, really?!?  But sometimes, just sometimes, you find that one seemingly insurmountable challenge that truly spurs you on to bigger and better things.  This was one of those challenges.  Yes, the Aeolian shawl.  Subject of at least one knit-along that I know of.  Its inventor is considered in more...seasoned?...circles to be a master of her craft, a magician with Estonian lace, a priestess of the sacred order thereof.  Or something like that.  What do I know?  Well, I do know that, worked up in a deep crimson true laceweight alpaca with matched beads, the pattern is breathtakingly beautiful.  I intend to adapt it to the round for sweater sleeves one day.  By the way, in case we've never met before, that is probably the highest compliment I can pay to someone in the knitting world.  After all, imitation--or shameless reproduction, as the case may be--is the sincerest form of flattery.  So take it for what it is, and enjoy the lovely pictures that should follow.  You know, eventually.

Oh, all right.  Here.

Adventures in lace knitting, part 2-3/4

And I think that's actually quite possibly the last of it.  "It" being awesome TARDIS shawl.  You know, I never thought I'd say it, but this could do with some blocking.  I officially eat my metaphorical hat.

I said "hat," not "cat," Raiden!

So what next for this yarn warrior (or weakling)?  Well, the Aeolian shawl, for starters.  I am now officially past the first 4 Yucca repeats, and I've only irretrievably lost 2 beads to the great void and had to fudge about 4 stitches or non-stitches where they didn't belong.  And the lace is, well, lace, and surprisingly forgiving.  Could even get used to this.  Let's not push it.

Also joining the project queue: new stash of heavy lace-weight (actually I'd probably put it about fingering or sock weight, but what do I know?) hunter-green merino that really wants to be a sweater.  Have I made a sweater before?  Prob'ly not.  Since when has that ever stopped me?  Now, ideally this will be a 1930s-inspired tunic-length deal with lace sleeves...assuming I don't run out of yarn while literally covering my behind.  Only time and knitting will tell.  Which means you'll just have to stay tuned.  You know, only if you want to.  Till we meet again!

Progress tweets to the rescue!

It's midnight the night before the night-float stretch of pain, and I have a bunch of pictures in search of a post.  Well, not a bunch, precisely.  My craptastic camera was quite willing to take gorgeous photos in the Old-Hollywood lighting of Comrade's wedding venue...assuming you turn the flash off and have the hands of a neurosurgeon.  Shall I mention my impatience with this utterly unpredictable action tremor?  But if you don't mind the smudginess...

 This was the dress I made for the wedding.  Turns out Old Hollywood was a decent way to go.

 This was one of the wedding presents in progress.  Note the lack of chart by this time 'cause I've given up and started pulling it out of my head.  Or other regions.

And this was the finished product.  Crammed with much cursing into a standard picture frame.  I fully expected to get a "Goddamn it, Comrade!" when this was opened.  The fact that I haven't yet means that either they haven't opened it or it didn't get the reception I intended.  Either way...?












And now I'm going to get back to my goal of finishing TARDIS shawl by the end of the night.  If it kills me.  I'm tired of 311-stitch rows, especially of purling.  Why couldn't I pick up a normal hobby again?  By the way, if you're in the same boat I am (the monotonous knitting, at least, if not the night schedule) and are a "Doctor Who" fan because of the awesome storytelling, check out Steven Moffat's other series "Sherlock."  Season 2 available for viewing through June 19 on the PBS website, for those of you who, like me, live on the wrong side of the pond.  Sheer brilliance.  And I will never make a plug on a blog again.  Promise. At least...not when I'm not in braaaaains mode.  Ask the interns about braaaaains mode, aka me at 6AM at the end of a night shift.  It really does happen.  And you can go back to St. Louis Children's Hospital in 15 (?) days.

Adventures in Lace Knitting Part 2-1/2

Did it really take me this long (about 5 pattern repeats) into the Time Vortex section of the shawl to realize 1) it does indeed make logical sense and 2) it's worked sideways?  I think I need 1) more caffeine, 2) a remedial course in pattern recognition (or perhaps arithmetic), 3) a sabbatical.

Meanwhile, fire bad tree pretty?  Tree bad fire pretty?  Ooh, pretty!

Adventures in Lace Knitting Part 2: Casting on

Last Saturday one of the girls at knitgroup somehow convinced me to tackle lace.  By lace I mean the real deal, with teeny tiny spiderwebby yarn made of such forbidden pleasures as silk and baby alpaca, and intricate stitch charts so thickly plotted they're the stuff of complex migraines.  Before that could get going, though, I thought I'd warm up with something just slightly less daunting.  Enter...Bigger on the Inside?  Don't get me wrong, I've been a fan of knitty.com from the start, but seriously?  Must...make...TARDIS...shawl.

You might have thought I'd left the "Doctor Who" projects behind for good.  Not bloody likely.  In my possession: a pair of my trademark unnumbered extra-long bamboo dpns and 2 skeins of Simply Soft Light in Riviera.  OK, not quite the blue I was looking for, but as this is my first foray into lace charts, am I gonna frak up a custom laceweight?  Didn't think so.  Ten points to the BSG fans that just groaned.  And please forgive me to the Whovians who now know without a doubt that I in fact was never around to watch Four in action, and that my favorite Doctor is Eleven (you never forget your first, right?).

With that, it's time to begin.

It's been one hell of a...

There's a scene in the 5th season of Babylon 5 where Vir and Lennier are sitting at the bar and comparing whose day/year/5 years/life has been more troublesome.  My current rotation is kind of like that, and it's driven me to baking cookies.  That's right, cookies.  For an example, over the past 2 weeks, I have 1) cinched a diagnosis, 2) talked one of my interns through a lumbar puncture, 3) pushed Ativan, 4) seen various rooms on my floor get shut down due to hot water issues, 5) exchanged inappropriate jokes, 6) sent a med student to the ER, 7) received an origami star from a talented patient, 8) gained some gray hairs arranging a blood transfusion, 9) won a gift card.  I think that's a fair sampling.  So, to help the team that has seen all of this with me to celebrate or drown their sorrows, I got out the spatula and elbow grease and concocted...

(Not Yo') Grandmama's (Double) Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Ingredients: 2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, 2 sticks unsalted butter, 1 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar, 1/8 cup dark spiced rum, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 large eggs, 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips, 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt.  In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth.  Beat in rum, vanilla extract, and eggs.  Add flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time to butter mixture and mix until dough forms.  Add chocolate chips and stir gently until evenly distributed.  Drop approx 1 tbsp sized dough balls 1-2 inches apart on cookie sheets and bake 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned on bottom.  Remove from oven, let cool, and remove from sheets.  Makes approx 2 dozen cookies.

 Notes on the recipe: this tends to make for a very cake-like cookie (almost like a muffin top), and despite the spiced rum it comes out very light due to the lack of brown sugar.  That being said, I have requests from the team to bake again next week.  Well, we shall see....

Blackberrying

No, I don't mean the portable electronic device.  Growing up in the vegetation-rich Georgia suburbs, this time of year my sister and I would sometimes go with my chemist mother to the industrial park where her "office" was and pick blackberries off the bushes out back.  Apparently I and my geographic quirks were not the only ones with a berry thicket past (my favorite is P---'s story from knitgroup about berrying among the discarded toilet bowls).  In any case, 'tis the season, and two of my latest pursuits have to some extent at least revolved around the titular fruit.

The first was an impromptu recreation of blackberry pie, with a standard 3-2-1 hand-shaped crust and a filling that involved--well, blackberries, of course--splashes of ginger ale and whipped cream vodka, flour for thickening, and just a tiny pinch of thyme to cut the syrupiness.  It comes out a bit tart to start off but mellows beautifully.  I'd offer you a taste, but, alas, technology hasn't advanced that far yet.

The second is the promised lace beret, pictured here:

It's a bit tricky to start the way I did it, but there aren't many top-down beret patterns, at least not that I've seen recently, so it might be worth testing out on the ol' double-points (or, *sigh,* circulars).  You cast on 5 stitches and increase in the round by knitting 1 into the front and back of each stitch (10 sts total, might actually help to start like you're doing an I-cord) to form the first row of the Arrowhead pattern.  Increase by a factor of 10 stitches every fourth row until you reach a desired diameter (for size 8s and worsted weight, knit into front and back of every stitch to double every 4th row until you reach 80 stitches, then knit into the front and back of every other stitch on your next iteration to make 40 stitches for a total of 120).  Repeat Arrowhead pattern approximately 4-6 times or until you get bored or start to run low on yarn, then decrease by a factor of 10 stitches every 4th row (k2tog to decrease) until you get to a reasonable head circumference (in my case, to 90 sts).  Finish Arrowhead repeat for that number of stitches, knit 1-2 rows, and bind off.  And there you have it: 1 piping hot totally cool blackberry beret.  Bon apetit!

Or perhaps you prefer the pie?

Adventures in Lace Knitting

If tangents were spiderwebs, I'd be up there with Charlotte for world's most prolific spider.  Actually, just pretend I never said that.  After hours of seam-ripping on self-designed dress number...1? 2? whatever...my mind started wandering to the upcoming RenFaire.  I'd made that apple-green faux-satin gown back in the fall but kept procrastinating on headgear.  Enter a few green additions to my yarn stash, left over from wedding presents.  Must...make...hair ornament.

So, remnants of a fairly smooth cotton-based green yarn, I'm thinking snood/caul/whatever-you-call-those-hairnet-thingies.  Since I don't happen to have beads or the patience/coordination to work with said beads, my next best option was an open lace.  For that I chose Arrowhead.  Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, my rough draft in worsted yarn (the only stuff I'm willing to part with on a lark) and approximately-size-8 double-points would go on to produce...a doll's beret?

Options here?  Well, I could make the decreases a bit more gradual and knit more loosely (plus my green yarn of choice is a slightly finer gauge).  Or...time to break into the stash for more gorgeous hats?  This could get dangerous.  Anyone want a beret?  I promise I'll make it human-size next time.

Anatomy of a Design

During one of the rare free moments I found during my "vacation," I happened to notice I've been a bit derelict on my blogging.  Actually, does this count as blogging?  To this day I have no idea if I'm doing it right or not.  But, to paraphrase Charlotte Bronte, Reader, these have been the busiest two months of my crafting life, and here's why.  During the months of February and March, I've been honing my draftsman skills on wedding presents whose characteristics I'm forbidding myself to reveal until June and August, respectively.  I've also been designing dresses (well, only two at the moment, since I'd finished one at the time of my last post and just started thinking about the most recent one after my mother, raising her eyebrows at my latest venture, bestowed upon me about 2 yards of a leaf-patterned cornflower-blue silk that had been moldering away in her closet since a relative gave it to her on a previous trip to China).  So, as a motivation for me to get started on my more challenging dress project, this is how it started.

 OK, technically, my inspiration was a set of luggage ads on the subway, 'cause a person's gotta look at something during the long ride from Brooklyn to the not-quite-Upper West Side.  For each piece of designer luggage on that ad there was a model wearing a variation on a simple sundress.  Between one of the dresses and my memory of upper-class 1930s fashion, this sketch was what ultimately emerged from the vestigial design centers of my brain.  But what to make it out of?

So, after a bit of boredom and online fabric-browsing, I discovered cheap satin and chiffon to play with.  The hot pink was specifically a dare from my sister, who's probably the one person you'd be less likely to see in hot pink.  My deadline for this project is, unfortunately, August, so there's bound to be a lot of procrastination before it's all over and done with.  But I do have all the requisite ingredients procured, so all it takes is a few cat-free moments with a wee bit of floor space, scissors, and a handful of straight pins, and then maybe a weekend of sewing like I mean it.  I'll take bets now on what happens first: the dress or the lifting of my do-not-reveal taboo on wedding presents.  There will need to be knitting charts...does anybody know the easiest way to do those on a computer?

Also, in honor of National Poetry Month, I'm going to leave off this post with the first decent poem I've written in, oh, probably the past 2 or 3 years (no, the February set make the don't-completely-suck category one or two tiers below that).

"Mr. Eliot's Easter Service"

Ten o'clock Eastern: another day
Laps somnolently past like the silty river
We strolled by in the last cool
Of morning.
The heat, early afternoon,
Tarring roads and cars, settling
Anesthetic-like on bones, sinews,
And, if they exist, souls,
That swim through the shopping din,
Babel of cooking smells,
Cacophonizing in the complacent air.

Easter idled in, saddling
A rare breeze, a penitent cloud-wisp,
Sighed out on less: a degree drop,
Neon digits on a clock display.
Would a fanfare of carillons
Suit more to start, a chorus
Of nightingales to mark its passing?
Then would we remember
This spring, stagnantly early,
This cruelest month,
This whimper?

Hello again, old friend!

I'm talking about my camera, guys.  What else?  All kinds of fun and exciting projects while I was in NY (some of them actually blog-related), and, not being able to fit my digital camera in my carry-on or possessed of a smartphone, I couldn't just say, "Hold it right there while I get this shot!"  Pity.  The cranberry pie was fun to look at, and the mini molten chocolate cakes (see Beau McMillan's recipe from the Food Network website, courtesy of season 1 of "Worst Cooks in America") didn't fall apart too much as I was plating them.

But now that I'm back in St. Louis (*sigh*) and back to the up-before-dawn work week with no weekends (*double sigh*), I am able to pull up these pictures taken before my month of journaling/subwaying/pastrying/eating.

Behold Claudette.  That's what I'm calling this pattern because of the slight punkiness to it and the Monet's water lilies colorway.  Mentioned it earlier, probably around January when I was doing the wristwarmers.  The scarf is basically a garter stitch border around a 1x1 rib that collapses into what looks like double-thickness stockinette, finished off on the ends with a couple layers of chain-stitch (the only crochet stitch I'm actually capable of faking).  The wristwarmers are a 1x1 rib cuff and fingers with a stockinette body; you make the thumb gusset increases by making 1 stitch on each side of a designated central stitch and then making 1 stitch on either side of that section every other row (increase a total of 2 stitches every other row).

There.  Now it's time to make more things.  Dinner would be a start.

Four and twenty blackbirds...

Or about 400 cranberries baked into a pie.  OK, probably more like 100, whatever makes up a roughly 1-lb bag.  Herein I record the dessert-making adventures of The Crafty Doctor and her comrade-in-arms, aka her sister's roommate.  Last weekend, while the sister was away at voice lessons or classes or studying for the bar or whatever ridiculously difficult accomplishments said sister is in the habit of acquiring, her roommate and I decided it was our afternoon/evening to cook.  Since sister dearest is allergic to practically everything that carries the name of fruit, we knew our options were limited.  C---- has been threatening to make pie for ages but hadn't gotten himself psyched up enough to do it.  I'd made pie from scratch once before (ever) and rather enjoyed it.  Recipe?  We don't need no stinkin' recipe.

The following is an exact recipe of what we made.  Do not follow it to the letter unless you want your pie to be sour--SOUR, I tell you!  In parentheses are changes I'm probably going to make to the recipe if I ever make it again.  Assume American standard terminology.

Pie crust:
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour (generally I do 3, since the 3-2-1 rule's easier to remember)
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into approx 1cm slices
1 cup water
1/2 to 2 teaspoons sugar or salt to taste

Cranberry filling
approx 3 cups fresh cranberries
2/3 cup sugar (make that 3/4 cup in the revised version)
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 lemon (please decrease/leave this out for your poor tongue's sake)
1 teaspoon ground ginger (alternatively, 1 tablespoon ginger simple syrup and decrease sugar back to 2/3 cup)
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 to 2 tablespoons corn starch for thickening

Combine flour, butter, and sugar/salt for pie crust in food processor and pulse until small balls form (I prefer to hand-mix my dough, which makes a tenderer, less flaky crust probably due to larger fat particles but can be a little harder to roll out later).  Add water approximately 1 tablespoon at a time and mix until dough forms.  Divide into 2 balls and refrigerate, approx 20 min to 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (Fahrenheit.  Y'all can calculate Centigrade by subtracting 32 and multiplying by 5/9 if you really want to).  In a large mixing bowl, combine cranberries, lemon juice (if used), lemon zest, sugar, ginger, and cloves.  Toss until cranberries are well-coated.  Add corn starch and stir until mixture starts to thicken.

Roll out pie dough onto floured surface.  Spread 1 round evenly onto bottom of pie plate.  Pour in cranberry filling.  Place second pastry round over the top, shape edges as desired, and trim off excess pastry.  Pierce top of pastry with fork or knife.  Try a decorative pattern, or a joke (pi!).

Bake in oven approximately 1 hour, checking periodically.  If pastry browns too quickly around the edges, cover with aluminum foil.

Remove from oven.  Serve warm or chilled.  Consider adding a dollop of cream-like substance (ice or whipped).  Enjoy.  I dare you.  Makes one 9-inch round pie.

There, I've done it.  Bwa-ha-ha!  Kitchen experiments FTW!

more wedding plans and a letter

I went to my first wedding when I was, what, 7?  8?  Some age where if you're not the flower girl or ringbearer or something importantly cute like that, you pretty much just stand around and try to avoid scoldings for looking too bored.  Maybe that was a sign, because I went 20 full years with not a wedding to come by, only to culminate in...2 in the same summer?  Friend of the bride in June, bridesmaid in August, and lots of fun presents to plot in the meantime.

Alas, I can't tell you what the presents are going to be.  Spoiling surprises is not something I ever do...knowingly.  All I'm gonna say is since they're my former med school classmates, there's gonna be too much science/fantasy nerd to be contained in words.

I can mention the dress I'm making for wedding number 2.  Technically, I have a dress, or will have, since the bridesmaids are all getting custom-made saris.  But C--- told us to bring reception dresses for when the saris fall off or get too restrictive, so again, mental catalog of my closet, shudder, to the fabric store.  This time experimenting with a light satin with chiffon overlay.  Oh, nothing floofy (blech!).  I was thinking spaghetti strap and almost camisole-ish top.  For reference, see Kiera Knightley's dark green evening dress in the movie "Atonement," but think shorter and swirlier on the bottom, maybe knee length.  Also, considering what was going on in the joann.com fabric sales, think hot pink.  Yeah, I'm a little apprehensive too.  It might declare war with my hair, now that I think about it.  Or it could be really pretty.  I haven't drafted my own pattern from scratch since "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," so I'm actually kind of pumped.

I mentioned a letter.  That...may be the product of a very long subway commute.  See, my sister used to be a lawyer with an interest in copyright.  She's also only slightly less of a die-hard "Doctor Who" fan than I am.  We're both surly Americans who want to be able to stream our favorite shows from across the pond, thanks much.  So here's what we came up with.

Dear BBC,

Had a really good idea to help with the budget issues.  A number of us across the pond really love your shows (ahem, "Doctor Who") and really dislike having to wait to either stream/download episodes illegally or buy the adulterated BBC America versions when they come out on DVD.  Unfortunately at the moment there does not seem to exist a mechanism to stream your shows legally from the internet.  I have no objection to paying $1 per episode to watch legally the day after air time.  I will probably still watch episodes repeatedly even if I have to pay.  High quality a plus.  Think of it as an economic investment.  Please and thank you.

Yours, etc.

Greetings from sunny New York!

Yeah, I said it.  I'm writing this at a window in my sister's apartment, and it is in fact a sunny day in Brooklyn.  In February.  And 50-odd degrees outside.  What is the world coming to?

The reason why I'm writing this at my sister's apartment window in Brooklyn is that I felt the intense desire to write something and really couldn't think of anything story-like or poetry-like to work on.  So, blogs it is.  I know you feel blessed and favored.

The fact is I've been feeling a lot of pressure to write since I got up here.  Medical journalism may not be my cup of tea, precisely (Sanjay Gupta I ain't), but with all the slogging through scientific journals and figuring out how to make medicine accessible and even interesting to the lay public, I'm actually having to think about things like grammar and style and subject-verb agreement and all that English-teachery goodness I haven't touched since college.  It's really rather refreshing.  It also opens up the floodgates so that I keep wanting to write poetry on the subway.  Wanting to, not being actually able to either mentally or, well, physically: this is the Q we're talking about here.  Hypergraphics of the world unite and grab your pens/laptops and don't stop till you run out of words?  Somehow that just doesn't have a nice ring to it.

Well, in any case, because you may not care but I believe in the sharing-is-scaring principle, things I've accomplished so far in the Big Apple:

1.  Finished the TARDIS washcloth.  Picture below:

2.  Made my sister a Regency gown with sash.  Only took me about a gazillion tries to get the top to actually fit.  I don't remember the pattern giving me that kind of issues the first time around.  What a difference a thicker/stiffer fabric makes?
3.  Discovered I need gray embroidery thread for awesome wedding present.
4.  Covered the Whitney Houston story for 2 hours on a Sunday and compiled expert quotes for a flu season update.
5.  Sat on the set of ABC World News and watched the back of Diane Sawyer's head.
6.  Wrote a poem.  Yeah, and it doesn't totally suck.  Few more weeks of this and I might actually get back to college level.
7.  Started a Twitter account.  To be more accurate, my boss made me start a Twitter account.  When your boss is the chief medical correspondent at a major news station, you get your arse on a computer and start twittering.  Tweeting?  Whatever.
8.  Made hot buttered rum without a recipe.

Actually, maybe I'm proudest of that last one.  Think if the pediatrician thing doesn't pan out I might have a future as a bartender.  No, I'm not serious, you can go back to the bars now.

Let it not be said

...that I avoid keeping my New Year's resolutions by avoiding situations where I'd be forced to keep them (i.e. posting new entries).  This is the tale of too many projects and not enough time/willpower in the world.

It started with a dress.  Not just any dress, but a dress fit for a wedding.  OK, not my wedding, of course; my friend's wedding.  It's not a bridesmaid dress because she's not having bridesmaids (something about traditional Jewish weddings?), so basically I'm allowed to wear whatever I want.  I took one look at my closet, shuddered, and started rifling through patterns.  What I turned up was a lovely halter dress circa 1947, Butterick B5209 I think (double-check me on this one, because my dyslexia has definitely bitten me in the hindquarters before) and somewhere in the vicinity of 2 yards of leftover periwinkle-blue crepe-back satin from my costumes-mistress days with the med school musical.  Insert idea to mix it up with both sides of fabric--satin for the midriff and crepe for the skirt and bodice--and voila, fabulous not-bridesmaid attire!  Except there wasn't nearly enough uncut fabric to put together the 4-piece skirt in the pattern.  Necessity as the mother of inventiveness?  Would I have it any other way?  Apparently it's not only feasible but easy to turn the front of the skirt into a 3-panel affair and still maintain the delightfully swirly fullness at the bottom and enough fabric up top to do the requisite gathers.  And, while we're on the subject of alterations, do we really need to do side closures (a lot of the major pattern companies seem to be in love with those)?  Let's use the still-2-panel back as the launching point for a midline zipper closure.  After a lot of plotting, some straightforward cutting and sewing, and surprisingly few mistakes, a dress was born.  Whether it was successful, we'll have to see from the wedding pictures.  Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror.

Project number 2 also started with an upcoming wedding (same one, actually, are we seeing a trend here?).  My friend is a huge Lord of the Rings fan, so I'm going to do a cross-stitch that plays on her fantasy-devouring tendencies.  On second thought, perhaps I should wait till I've finished it and given it to her as a wedding present before I unveil it to the "general public."  You never know who's listening in, and I do still believe in surprises.  Only a few tantalizing details: 1) I spent an afternoon scouring Google images and have now drafted my pattern from screen tracings, and 2) somehow I managed to lose a skein of light gold embroidery thread somewhere between the Jo-Ann and my car.

As for project 3?  Nothing to do with weddings--I hear your sigh of relief now.  I've now done 3 Dalek washcloths in different colors.  The first (blue) I gave my sister and her roommate, the second (red) I gave to a friend back in St. Louis, and the third (yellow) I'm keeping as a souvenir.  My friend of the red Dalek told me the colors were different roles in Dalek society according to their new incarnation, but alas I don't remember what they are, so you'll have to ask someone else if you're curious.  I'm getting better at knitting off a chart.  And because I'm getting better at knitting off a chart, my brain automatically hopped to "I can plot knitting patterns on a chart now!"  I have blue yarn left over.  Of course I'm plotting a TARDIS.  Really must remember that graph paper is only a loose approximation of knitting stitches, and this thing's going to have to look as elongated as an El Greco painting on the chart in order to turn out the right proportions in real life.  Also I'm still cracking up at the wisecrack, "You should leave one at the Way Station for when Matt Smith goes to visit again!"  Heh, as if.  And yet...it would be amusing.

By the way, did I mention I'm still a little over 4 months away from finishing residency and am still tying up loose ends in the job-hunting game?  Eh, that's just a hobby.  Somebody have an idea repository I can borrow?  Dumbledore's Pensieve would be almost ideal.

New Year's Resolutions...or something like them.

The theme of my New Year's resolutions this year seems to be to get back to my roots.  While that could punningly refer to my hair color at the moment, it also refers to my educational background.  It means that henceforth I plan to write and, yes, even blog as if I were a former English major who once seriously considered burying myself in dusty tomes and stacks of papers for the rest of my poor but blissfully well-read existence.  This also from the person who would count her most influential book during her medical school years, while others raved over Gray's Anatomy and the memoirs of countless great physician-thinkers, to be a collection of Keats's poems and letters picked up completely on a whim from the undergraduate library.  Well, that in itself should be a bit of a warning sign, I suppose.

In any case, going back to my roots also involves revisiting a task I haven't really attempted, much less completed, since I first picked up Grandma's double-points (again) at the age of nineteen.  I've mentioned the fingerless mitts, of course, but this is--shall we say?--old-school: narrow 1x1 rib cuffs, stockinette body.  The yarn has some novelty to it, being some homespun-looking stuff that varies in thickness along its length and has a subtle metallic gold-colored thread running through it, and as one of my former college roommates once pointed out, somewhat to my surprise, the colorway is very...Monet?  Monet's water-lilies, in fact, if you wanted to narrow it down: this is Impressionist thread at its finest, but I digress.  The point is it's a pattern of very simple stitches and, hopefully, simple lines.  It's already teaching me a thing or two about the simple gifts of patience and foresight.  Someday, when they're finished, they'll complement my first truly independent "pattern," a 1x1 rib scarf with garter border (it actually ended up looking like a double-thickness stockinette that--miracle!--doesn't curl) made of the same yarn many years ago, like paintings in an exhibit.  And, after all, there are worse things in life than to have anything at all in common with an Impressionist.  Well, Van Gogh could be a bit problematic...

Oh yeah...

It occurs to me I haven't actually posted pictures of the finished Dalek washcloth.  It's now hanging on one of my sister's kitchen cabinets, where those in the know might hear a metallic voice droning, "Halt, you are about to be ex-foliated!"  Or not, but it still looks pretty neat where she put it.  Enjoy!