Full Circle.....

Once, long ago.... in late October to be exact.... there was a humble, but lovely, ball of silk, lace-weight yarn. This yarn was destined to be something grand (it had been purchased on a trip to Vancouver Island), something wonderful, something knit while on a journey to the exotic country of Egypt. A pattern was chosen. It was perfect. A beautiful shawl called Nefertiti. Very apropos, given the location where the yarn would, inevitability transform.

It was not long into the journey, however, that the creator of this fabulous knitted masterpiece, determined that perhaps.... just perhaps, knitting a lace shawl with 18 different charts is, NOT a great travel project and the yarn was put aside for a less exciting, less complex, less.... Egyptian , but infinitely simpler knitted project.

The yarn was picked up occasionally, once the travel adventure was over, but the original lustre and excitement of the feeling of destiny that yarn and project had, was lost. Finally, in mid July, the knitter stalled on her endless queue of projects... nothing on her list really called to her... and so... the yarn,  once again, found itself the centre of the knitter's attention. The knitter quickly worked through charts 5, 6, 7 and 8.... the end of chart 8 was the half way mark of the shawl. It was lovely and flowing beautifully off the needles and the knitter started to feel very excited about the finished project.

She began chart 9 and in the third row of that chart... she discovered a problem... a really big problem... there seemed to be 10 stitches missing...... She somehow missed a whole chart.... way back at chart number 3.......  and now the yarn is......

back where it started.... a lovely ball of silk, lace-weight yarn... yearning to be something beautiful.....

Win some and Lose some....

I had an idea.... I thought it was a great idea even though various gauge swatches told me it wouldn't work....  I ignored my intuition and the, rather, solid evidence of my swatches and cast on, deciding that "you never know" ..... The idea was to have some ruched panels around the bottom of a tee and then have wide open short sleeves (sort of a cross between a Dolman sleeve and a Batwing) and an open neckline. Well, I finished it last night and tried it on... It was ugly.... I decided to wash/block it to see how it turned out..... The top is close to what I had envisioned, but the bottom is still ugly.... Now, what to do.... do I rip it out and try again, hopefully with a pattern at the end?? or do I cut off the ruching and fix it so that I can wear it... and call it a day??? I'm going to sit on it and decide later... I'm leaning towards a total re-boot.... there is a great top in there, I can tell...

and yes, I know... it looks pretty good laying flat on the ground... it loses it's appeal when worn, however..... looks a bit like a mushroom, masquerading as a shirt.....


On a more successful note... I thought I'd share my recipe for phyllo wrapped salmon.... I'm not a fabulous cook, but I get the job done.... this recipe is pretty darn awesome though...... If you've never used phyllo before it's not difficult. Just make sure it's thawed (you buy it in the freezer section of the grocery store... near the other types of pastry).

You need:

a couple of filets of salmon with the skin removed (not huge thick chunks..... )
about 3 sheets of phyllo pastry per filet
some melted margarine or butter... I used about a tablespoon per fillet
Last night I added some fresh dill and a splash of lemon  to the margerine, but usually I add a clove of mashed garlic... I left it out because of the garlic on top of the salmon.
Boursin cheese to taste. (I use garlic and herbs and tried the "Cuisine" version last night... it was great because it's spreadable).

Preheat the oven to 350F

On a cookie sheet (you can do this on a counter and move the finished package to the sheet, but I don't like having to clean up the counter afterwards so I do it on the cookie sheet) spread a single layer of phyllo dough  and using a pastry brush, wipe a layer of the melted butter combo all over the phyllo. Add a second and third layer and repeat. Place a fillet of salmon on the phyllo and spread about a tablespoon or two of the Boursin cheese on the top of the salmon. Wrap the salmon in the phyllo adding the margarine to any of the phyllo that does not already have some.

Repeat for as many fillets as you choose....  bake for about 20-30 minutes or until the phyllo is golden brown.... They are a bit of a PITA, but I think they're worth it... YUM!












Finally, here are a couple of pictures of Chey playing with her new umbrella in the rain.....

If at first you don't succeed....

Bummer... I really hate it when I make stupid knitting mistakes. Then to not catch them until I am over half way through the body of the sweater REALLY sucks. Short story, long. The sleeves of Eli's BTSS (Back to School Sweater) are too narrow (by half) because *I* measured them incorrectly. Instead of taking the measurement of half the sleeve at the bottom of the raglan seam (which is the measurement I took of the sweatshirt I'm copying), I measured the entire width of the sleeve, ergo; it's too small. I thought the proportion looked off, but I kept knitting. I even had the sense to start knitting the sleeve to double check. I had Eli try it on (it fit, sort of), I knit a little further and had him try it on again (it still sorta fit), but finally my brain kicked in and I made the difficult decision to frog it and start over. I was halfway done the body, but still had the sleeves and the hood to finish, so I was less than half done the whole sweater, at least that's what I'm telling myself....  Here it is before I frog it.

It was looking good, no??? The positive part of starting over is that I did not do a short row back collar, which I should have done... so now I can.... :)