Heart shaped wholegrain

I am going to a wedding tomorrow.
I usually dread those, feeling less like a welcome guest than like a hired extra in the staging of the Big Day.
But this is a small and relaxed and rather informal one.
Very early ceremony at the city hall followed by brunch, prepared potluck manner by the friendly crowd.
Before the happy, beautiful newlyweds take off to Bolivia in the afternoon.
I have been asked to bring crackers and fruit.
The crackers are nearly all done.
And I think I'm now getting there with perfecting the recipe. And thus feel safe to share.

Crackers:
250 g wholegrain rye flour (or graham flour or wholegrain wheat, it all works fine)
200 g wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
- mix before adding:
150 g butter (if you grate it in cold, it is much easier and faster to crumble)
Then add
1 dl wheat bran (or oat bran)
1 dl sesame seeds and
1-1,5 dl water.
Knead into a soft but not sticky dough.
Roll out thin (2-3 mm), and cut into any shape you like.
You may sprinkle with salt or herbs before baking for 15-20 min. at 180 degr. (celcius).

And Elizabeth I has not been ignored.

PED and WIPs, but no FOs

I have been tired.
And wondering if there is such a thing as Post Exam Depression.
I have enjoyed the past week of having nothing to do other than go to work, eat, sleep, knit, and play with the cats.
But I have felt like a flat tire. A pretty worn down flat tire.
I have spend as little time as possible by the PowerBook, although I have been playing around with Ravelry, which is a dangerous place.
Not only does it confront you (that is me, actually) with your bad case of castonitis but it also makes you want to knit everything, looking at and admiring the many wonderful and inspiring FO's.
And reconsider your own.
I honestly don't think I want to muck about with short rows and things in order to make the Waist-cincher top wearable and so I have more or less just given it up as a bad job.
But for now I've just put it aside.
Instead I have come quite close to turning the heel on the second Monkey Sock, and I have started my second attempt at the Elfin Bride, this time in a wonderful, luxurious black cotton.
And I have given Elizabeth I a bit more attention.
So far I've actually finished the sleeves, and have come nearly halfway through the back, and it all looks terribly dull in photos. But I have made stitch markers.
Using cheap split rings and beads from the Big Box of Things I once meant to use for something and then forgot about.
And maybe, just maybe, I have finally figured out how to use my bad, old camera.
The laundry room is still a big hole in the ground.
But I'm getting pretty good at doing the laundry in a bucket.

We all need someone to lean on

I have turned the heal of the first Monkey sock.
And I have such a crush on this yarn.
I don't know if it reminds me more of water over rocks or of pennies at the bottom of a wishing well. I rather prefer the latter.
Deadline for exam paper is Friday.
The Powerbook still shows all signs of being willing to work with me until the end. Humming happily and healthily.
Still I upload the paper to Google Docs every few hours.
But, oh, do I need to do a lot of checking and rewriting and .... thinking.
I'm slightly afraid that I have once again have jumped in at the deep end.
Trying to be brilliant mixing Cezanne and neuro-aesthetics may not have been such a good idea, after all.
I should just have done a nice, simple summing up of things.
But this is more fun.
In spite of the slight panic.
And I really shouldn't be knitting.

We very nearly have a curtain

I've lived here for two years.
Still I have not managed to do something about the curtain situation.
Mostly because of the windows being as they are - and for the non-existing need to keep out prying eyes.
However the "garish sun" is something entirely different, and it hits my favourite working-spot for a few hours around noon making it unbearably hot and nearly impossible to see the screen (not to mention my fear of an overheated PowerBook) - and I'm sweating over this paper already as it is.
But take an old Kenzo shawl and four pins and voila - you (almost) have a curtain.
Or at least some shade from the sun.
Very colourful shade, that is.
And now I can go back to work.

How Vincent spends the afternoon

Monkey socks and .... cats

It's just too bloody hot outside these days.
And our little home under the roof is also just too bloody hot these days.
Luckily, or maybe not, the last exam paper is to be handed in Friday, and so I have an absolutely valid reason for sitting in a heap of books and paper on the floor in my pajamas all day, working and eating strawberries, while the cats take turns napping in the chair when not stepping across the keyboard.
And after the Waist-cincher/Boob-enhancer top fiasco (read: challenge I have yet to take up), I desperately needed a quickish knit with guaranteed success (more or less).
Monkey socks!
The pattern reminds me of water falling over rocks more than monkeys, though.
And the Opal Party has finally found its calling.
(Lured by the glamourous life of Linnea's travelling Jaysocks, The Party first wanted to become Jaywalkers, but since trips to Florence and German castles are not part of the pattern and could not be promised, becoming Monkeys was the next-best thing)
I have, of course, chosen to ignore the twisted rib, as I cast on for them at work yesterday, and somehow the word twisted escaped my attention.
Ordinary rib is good enough for me. Much less work.
(The Party first had a short stint as potential Pomatomus, which may or may not be spelled like that, but THAT was too much hard work, and not enough fun. For me. They are beautiful though.)

OMG!!!!!!!80081ES!!!!!

I'm afraid that this Waist-cincher top is not really a good look for me.
To put it mildly.
It may be because I feel bloated and sweaty, and tired and a bit grumpy but .... no!
I would have posted a photo of the before-finishing-the-second- sleeve-trying-on-session.
But it is practically obscene.
If the lacy part is to stop right under the boobs, as I think it's meant to, .... there really is not enough fabric in the part above that to cover my boobage adequately.
They just suddenly look ..... huge, trying their best to stay inside.
(Sorry)
But I do think keeping it around for a while will help keep me away from the chocolate. And the ice cream.
While I wonder just how much short rows can do.
Or if I should just let it be transformed into the lovely bed jacket.
And pretend nothing ever happened.

And so, instead of a photo of me in the role of the rare red-faced humpback whale, we have Vincent insisting that stripes will have a slimming effect.
And that he will gladly take care of the ice cream for me.
(I could of course let the cats keep the waist-cincher/boob-enhancer top and knit sleeves for the kitty pi, and see how that fits. G knows the bad cats have slept more on the top than in the pi.)

We're nearly there with the Waist-Cincher Top

I have finished the front and the back and one sleeve.
And I am now in the dreaded process of stitching it together, so that I can try it on before I knit a second sleeve, which may need adjusting.
Well, actually anything and everything may need adjusting.
The fake bust darts are ... fake, and serve no other purpose than decoration, and as I don't feel a strong need for holey decoration in the boobage department I have omitted them.
There is no actual shaping of the front top, and I'm slightly excited to see how that will fit. Well, hopeful more than excited, but still prepared for frogging and figuring out a way.
I gladly admit to being pretty impressed with my sewing it together. Except for the lumpy shoulder.
(I have to figure out how to do a not so lumpy one.)
And I wanted to show off the progress, if for nothing else, then at least to show something other than Laurenz sleeping.
But the cats are such camera bugs.
And I barely caught Laurenz before he dozed off.

First Vincent stepping around. (He has unusually long toes)

Then Laurenz suddenly getting sleepy. Again.

And then me giving up.

Mmmm, wool

Sleeping cat. In wool destined to become the City Coat from Domiknitrix.
The rest of the City Coat that is. I already have a finished sleeve. Somewhere.
And the ring of trouble.

Sleepycat

I love watching Laurenz sleep.

He would prefer I didn't.