Friday night, we went with Square and Tara to see the Wiyos at the Lyceum.  Hot damn, that was a good show.  I knew I’d like the band as soon as I saw their name–they take their name from the Whyos, one of the most terrifying Irish gangs ever to stalk the streets of the Five Points.   Me, I like a side of Irish history with just about anything.  Also, washboards don’t hurt.  Their performance was great, and I was absolutely blown away by both their musicianship and their songwriting skills.  So go buy their CDs.

Saturday, Scott and I went to see some Steeplechase races in Middleburg.  I was worried at first that we’d be in the midst of the (holds hands tight to chest as if holding reigns in prissy fashion) horsey set, rather that the (mimes shoveling stall) horse folks I’m used to spending time with.  Well, I needn’t have worried.  The folks who invited us out were great fun, and they forced us to eat tons of delicious food and drink Kir Royales and good wine and beer.  AND several kind folks were deeply and sincerely interested in my knitting.  Sniff sniff.  They liked me.  They really liked me.  And, well, a few of them started maneuvering towards demanding hand-knits.  Smart people, those.

A lot of the horses scratched, apparently because it was ridiculously hot for October and because our ongoing drought makes the course much harder on the horses and the jockeys.  So most of my photos had three riders at most.  Ah, nothing like a good gray horse.

Thankfully, there are always good bits of rust and lichen for me to catch with a lens.

Sunday, my Mom proved to be the very Cinderella the socks needed.  We met up to go to the fiber festival at Montpelier.   It was terribly hot, so I ended up only buying one skein of sockyarn.  And it was even commercial sock yarn (Trekking with bamboo, which I’ve been needing to meet in person for nearly a year).  Though, there’s a distinct possibility that I inched closer towards ordering a ton of yarn from Jen at Spirit Trail.   She offered to deliver things to me at the Knitters Review retreat if I can make up my mind about yardage.  Hubba hubba.  I did plot running off with some particularly fetching camelids and sheep, but since I had the Toyota, I couldn’t follow through.

Next, we went to Culpepper for lunch in nice cool AC and a quick trip to the store that wants my whole bank account.  One hand-painted skirt later, I headed home to knit and plant rhododendrons and azaleas on the silliest of Federal holidays.

The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone translated by Seamus Heaney

Heaney’s introduction explains that his decision to translate this particular play was largely a reaction to the accusations that those opposed to the Iraq war were unpatriotic.  In the current political climate, this version of the play is particularly keen and striking.  I always love Heaney’s translations.  It’s a great read, and I wish I’d had a chance to see the original production.

Celtic Myth and Legend by Charles Squire

This is a book from another era, and it shows.  Squire gives a good overview of Celtic mythology, but includes a bit too much synopsis and too little direct quotation of the source material.  Still, an enjoyable read.

Brokeback Mountain audiobook by Annie Proulx, read by Campbell Scott.

This is an astoundingly good audiobook, made from a fantastic story.  I listened to it a few times through and hated returning it to the library.

Into Thin Air audiobook by Jon Krakauer

This is Krakauer’s account of a tragic 1996 Everest expedition, during which several climbers and guides perished.  Krakauer joined the expedition as a journalist writing for Outside magazine, and he continued recording as much as he could as tragedy struck.  I found the story absolutely engrossing. 

Before the baking, a minor knitting update.  I’ve tweaked the Lady of the Lake pattern so that the sleeves are knit in the round from the shoulder down, because that’s how they should be knit, dammit.  I am also making an absolutely lovely pair of Hedgerow socks* out of Spirit Trail sock yarn in a simply sublime green mostly solid.**  I am a very happy knitter.  And since I’m heading to the Fall Fiber Festival of Virginia with my Mom next weekend, I have a sneaking suspicion that I may be able to secure the yarn needed to finish the blanket.  Who wants to bet that, having spent no money making the blanket so far, I can blow a bajillion dollars just on the edging?  Anyone?

* Thanks Jane.  This is a great pattern!
** Thanks Jen.  You are  the queen of greens.  There were two skeins of this yarn at Maryland sheep and wool, and I grabbed them both and threatened to bite anyone who came too close to me.  I did let Ruadhan buy the other skein, since she taught me to knit, but watching her knit a pair of socks in this yarn before I started mine made me whimper.

Now, to the baking.  I’ve made several batches of these muffins now, and have tested them on people who have not encountered corporate coffee’s version.  These are not identical to corporate coffee’s (crack-laced) muffins, but my baking consultant Etaine declared these were just right and demanded that I stop tinkering.  Frankly, I’m relieved.  I can’t eat another muffin or I shall perish.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Recipe makes 24 muffins

Cheese filling:
8 ounces of cream cheese or Neufchatel (use the Neufchatel—it doesn’t hurt the end product)
¼ cup sugar

Toasted Spiced Pumpkin Seeds
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds (either from a store or from inside a pumpkin)
1 tablespoon white sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon ginger
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon water

Muffin batter

1 and ¼ cup melted unsalted butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
4 eggs
2 cups pumpkin
½ cup pumpkin butter
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon freshly ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon cardamom
3 ½ cups unbleached all purpose flour
3 tablespoons cinnamon sugar, for garnish

Prepare cheese filling:

1. Blend cheese with ¼ cup sugar.

2. Place cheese mixture on foil or plastic wrap (I use the foil the cheese came in), shape into a log, and freeze for an hour or more.

Toast and spice pumpkin seeds:

1. Toast seeds in a dry pan over medium heat until lightly browned.

2. Toss toasted seeds with sugar and spices. Add water, and continue pan toasting until seeds are dry and spices are clinging to seeds.

3. Set aside to cool.

Make the muffins:

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Prepare muffin pans with baking spray. Set aside.

3. Combine pumpkin, pumpkin butter, melted butter, and sugars.

4. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing until incorporated.

5. Add salt, baking soda, and spices.

6. Fold in flour one cup at a time until just blended.

7. Check and adjust seasoning.

8. Evenly fill muffin tins with batter (I use a 2 ounce scoop)

9.Remove cream cheese from freezer, unwrap, and cut into 24 pieces.

10. Place one cream cheese disc in each muffin and press down into batter.

11. Sprinkle toasted pumpkin seeds onto muffin batter.

12. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with cinnamon sugar.

13. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean from the muffin (not the cheese)

14. Cool the muffins in the pans for 5 minutes, then remove the muffins to cooling racks, allow to cool completely.

Note 1; I use organic pumpkin and pumpkin seeds from Trader Joe’s.

Note 2: I made my own pumpkin butter because there was none in my local grocery store.  To make pumpkin butter, put some pumpkin puree, water, sugar or honey if you want, and typical pumpkin spices in a pot and cook it until the mixture is significantly darker and thicker.  Do not leave it alone while cooking–fruit butters are so reduced that they approach a form of candy, and are thus analogous to sweet, delicious lava.  Left unattended, a fruit butter will scorch, then make a huge mess, and possibly burn someone pretty seriously.  Treat fruit butters, caramels, and candy with respect in the kitchen or buy them from someone who does.  If you can’t find pumpkin butter and don’t want to bother making any, use 1/2 cup more pumpkin and you’ll get something almost as good.

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot’s Guide to the Land of Knitting by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Do I even need to tell you I liked this book?  Because I liked this book a lot.  It made me laugh on the metro.  And really, that’s a double-bonus, because if you laugh out loud on the metro and you’re not talking to anyone, then people move away from you and you can sit alone on a two person bench, reading about knitting while laughing and holding knitting.  Ask me how I know.

Rome: Season II

This show is amazing.  The second season isn’t quite as good as the first, because two of the best characters are no longer around.  BUT it’s still better than anything anyone on network TV has produced in at least a decade and it makes random people learn about ancient history, so I love it.  Also, Atia proves herself to be a true alpha bitch at the end, and it’s one of the best payoffs I’ve ever watched.  Damn good stuff about damnable tyrants.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows  by J.K. Rowling

I liked it a lot.  I won’t say a darn thing about the plot, on the off chance that anyone who reads my blog and reads the series hasn’t read this book yet.  But I will say that I think Rowling has gotten to be a much better writer as the series has progressed, and that she clearly likes both children and teenagers.  I hope she really enjoys rolling in her piles of money.  And if she wants to send an agent my way, I won’t complain one bit.

And the Goat Cried: Southern Tales and Other Chance Meetings by Henry Buchanan

I just could not get through this book.  Buchanan himself is apparently a really great guy, so I’m annoyed that I couldn’t get into it.  But I’m putting it down because there are just too many books I’ve never read.  Onward.

So, I was having that ongoing problem with socks just plain not working out that I mentioned.  I did some soul-searching, talked to some other sock knitters about possible solutions, and decided on a plan.  The plan involved some frogging, some math, and some generosity.

Now we’ve reached the generosity segment of my recovery process.  I purposely made a pair of socks that are far too small for me, using some of my nicest yarn, Silkie STR in Lunasea.  I purposely made them too small so I’d be forced to give them away–I’ll scale down too-large socks to fit my feet without even realizing I’m doing it, or talk myself into viewing them as a second-layer sock for hiking.  Hence, small socks.

These are truly too small for me:

See, a sock that fits me is like an elder sister to this diminutive charmer.

Now, I have to make sure they fit the person I intend them for.  If not, I guess I’ll go searching for their one true foot.  Er, two true feet.  Right and Left.  I hope they fit someone I really like, because these are soft and warn and itchless.  And yet, they are not, nor will they ever be, mine.  Sigh.  Godspeed, little socks.

Also, Lady of the Lake is burning on the needles. 

Body–check.  Collar–check.  I’d have started a sleeve last night, but I forgot to bring a shorter needle with me when I went to knit with the girls.  I’m still struggling with its muppetiness, but it is lovely to work on.  Which is good, because we just got another shipment of Geeklactica DVDs and I’m also obsessively listening to Into Thin Air on CD.  A girl needs something to do with her hands when she’s alternately fretting over imaginary wars in space and tragedies on Everest that have already happened and are thus un-fixable.  I can’t intercede in either, but I can certainly knit warm things while demanding that my loved ones neither climb mountains nor get wrapped up in intergalactic wars with cylons.

Man, I am a GEEEEEEK. 

I cannot currently reply to any email coming in through my old email address, and since we’re firing our cable/internet provider in a matter of days, they’re not going to be terribly inclined to help.  Soooooo, if you’ve emailed me in the last few days and I haven’t replied, that is why.  I am also guessing some messages have been lost to the ether in the confusion,  so please try again if you have anything important, amusing, or at all interesting you want me to hear.  From here on out, please use crazylanea at gmail dot com (replace words with symbols where appropriate) to reach me.

I’m off to knit night, where the web can’t mess with me.

(Before I begin an actual post, I just want to point out that the fact that so many people mistakenly say “worldwind” when they mean “whirlwind” makes veins pop out on my forehead, and may eventually result in my death from aneurysm.  So if I do pop a vessel and kick it, please honestly list my cause of death.  Maybe it will help people learn the word.)

Thursday, the charming and witty Stephanie Pearl-McPhee gave a reading nearby, so a bunch of us met up for some big knitterly fun.  I saw Noreen and Jayme as soon as I showed up, and soon ran into Mapgirl, Elizabeth, Lu, Nicole, Lynn, and a whole bunch of other wonderful folks.  We snaked through the stacks waiting for our line tickets and knitting, and a bunch of wonderful folks asked me about my knitting bag and about the blanket, so I was blushing like mad.  Knitters really are very kind.

And then Stephanie gave her reading, which was really more of an extemporaneous comedy act.

I don’t know if you can get the sense from this little photo how many knitters came out, but there were hundreds.

Then there was a signing, and I was caught pushing sheep-themed beer on a known Canadian.  I won’t bother to deny it.  Jayme, Mapgirl and I ended up going out for some food and hanging out for an hour or two.

Friday, morning, I needed to be available for a worker to come by and set up our new tv/web/phone cables, so I decided to start experimenting with the pumpkin muffins.  I used this recipe as my jumping-off point.  Take one was passable, but not quite good enough:

Take two got some additional spices, including cinnamon sugar on top and many more spiced pumpkin seeds.

They’re still not ideal, but Etaine suggested something brilliant, so take three will be even better.

Next, I headed out for the Watermelon Park Festival to meet up with the Celts.  I couldn’t swing the whole weekend this year, but I had to make it to the park to see the Carolina Chocolate Drops.  I knew they would be amazing because Brooke and the gang vouched for them, both as red hot musicians and as wonderful people.   So I could not wait for their show to start.  But I had to wait for their show to start.  So, you know, beer, guffawing, force-feeding muffins and pumpkin seeds to my friends, etc.  Somehow, we got Jer to not only put on Aes’s pink cowboy hat but to let me photograph him.

I think banjo-picking makes a young man particularly confident.  When we were young, weren’t teen-aged boys jerks?  Because Jeremy is really wonderful, as is another friend’s son Dominick.  Maybe their parents won the kid lottery . . . Anyway, you can’t really tell from the photo, but there’s a river right behind where we set up, so in addition to amazing music, good friends, and lovely weather, we had fishing and swimming right there.

The Chocolate Drops took the stage at dusk.

My photos are all terrible, but we had a great time.  Most of us were dancing through their whole set, and Nessa, Rona, and Lily learned several new traditional dance steps and moves.  Nessa officially wants to be dipped all of the time.  I personally can only dip even a beanpole of a girl 30 or 40 times before my shoulder attacks me back, so I may need a dipping minion.  We also gave some serious thought to monthly dance classes for several of the Celts who want to learn some clogging steps and figures from me.  Just the thought makes me giddy.

I had to head home Friday night to retreat from allergens (very bad symptoms right now).  Saturday was taken up primarily by knitting (proof soon), setting up our new DVR, and dinner with Bodwin and Ruadhan.  Sunday, more knitting, some gardening, and roast pork burritos.  All told, I feel like I’ve had two weekends right in a row.

(How’s that for a musical allusion in a title, eh?  An old friend of ours joined HR’s band recently.  I’m sure this makes sense to no one, but that’s never really hindered my blathering before . . .)

Right, posting with the quickness, because I need to get back to Battlestar Geek-lactica’s old seasons on DVD I can watch the newest season with Scott.  Also knitting with the quickness.

I’m feeling comfortable enough with my new dead simple socks-in-process to show them to you.  See–Socks:

That’s Silkie Socks that Rock in Lunasea.  I wish it was more blue and less grey, but the texture of the yarn is absolutely lovely.  And I’m not even going to keep them–I intentionally made them too small for my own feet as an act of contrition at the altar of the Sock Gods.

In other news,  Jayme, who has already proven herself to be fabulous, gave me a really cool gift.

Her family has many of these, and some number of them were apparently made by her Grandfather (correct me if I get any of this wrong, Jayme).  Anyway, they have enough to go around, so Jayme was kind enough to give me one.  This is it folded up, and once you open it:

Ta-daaaa: free-standing thread rack.  When it’s closed, the spools don’t come off the pegs, so it’s great for toting around.  I have to decide which spools get to live in this new place of honor.  So cool, this contraption.

The astute among you probably noticed a box in the background.  It’s full of this:

Which is Fleece Artist’s Celtic Cardigan in Rainforest Morning.  It’s mostly greens with a bit of blue and a bit of yellow.  I think it will be stunning.  So I have to rush through Lady of the Lake so I can start this, because I think I’m going to love working this yarn.  Love.  Also, I have to rave to you all about the folks at Colorsong.  I ordered two kits (unusually extravagant of me, that), and they were on my doorstep in two days’ time with no extra shipping charges.  I opened the box and realized I’d screwed up my order and gotten the wrong colorway, and still they got me the replacement yarn, well, with the quickness.   To top it off, they have been very nice to deal with throughout.  If only all web-shops were so good, I tell you.  I’m so impressed, and I’m sure my wallet will hemorrhage out my gratitude for years to come.

Speaking of Lady of the Lake, it’s coming right along.

The back is basically done.  Though it has a particular problem associated with wool in these parts.  Yarrow is stalking the sweater.  You can see him entering the right side of the frame.  I’m going to get myself ready to go to a lovely book signing tomorrow.  You all can ignore the bad focus and make yourself a flipbook with which to watch the would-be massacre:

And that’s when he started trying to eat the wool and I had to intercede.  Don’t worry–no knitting was actually harmed, though it was scary.  No cats were harmed either, because I am amazingly forgiving when cats act like cats.

The last of the ends are woven into the sockyarn blanket.  I spent some time over the weekend discovering that I actually can crochet, sort of, but that crochet doesn’t seem to be fixing the curling around the edges.  I’m giving some thought to a seed-stitch border, or perhaps some really burly crochet edgings.  I’d welcome any brilliant ideas you all come up with.   I really don’t want to settle for a blanket that’s great except for the edge–no good, that.

I also started a new project.  I have crush on Canada, you know, and particularly on Nova Scotia.  I’m not going to Rhinebeck this year, which means I won’t be able to wallow in wool on my birthday unless I obtain the wool in advance.  So I bought myself some Fleece Artist loveliness as an (obnoxiously) early birthday present.  It’s Lady of the Lake in Arctic Waters.  I think I originally promised myself that I’d save the project until my actual birthday, but that immediately turned into WEARING the sweater on my birthday once the box showed up on Saturday.  I love the color, but am having a hard time both with the huge needles and the mohair boucle.  Also, well, my strong  connection between this color, this texture, and Grover.

It is a lovely thing to knit though, lemme tell you.  This yarn is gorgeously dyed and the Aran is soft and springy and everything else I ask for in wool.

When I’m not knitting lately, I’m giving some serious thought to baking recipes.  A kind person on Knitter’s Review asked me to share my recipe for Mexican Chocolate Cake.  I’ve been melding several recipes for a few years, and I’m trying to finalize them into one unified recipe that actually results in the cake I love so much.  Both the cake and the frosting (not shown above, obviously) are a bit unusual in their preparation, which is why it took me almost a decade to recreate the cake.  If other people can make the cake, maybe I’ll get to have some one day without dirtying this pan, which otherwise holds small tidbits in our pantry.

I think I may end up including ‘buy an x” by y” Polish ceramic baking dish’ in the recipe, and then password protecting the recipe to only allow people who can explain the reactions of chemical leaveners, acids, and bases in cake-baking to access it.  Or maybe the crazy talk just flows out of me faster when I’m thinking about cake.

I’m also giving a lot of thought to those addictive Pumpkin Muffins the evil coffee conglomerate makes.  Which requires roasting pumpkin seeds, and glazing them with spiced honey, and yet not eating them all while prepping a batter.   We’ll see how that goes.  I’ll either fail or end up making muffins I love so much that evil coffee conglomerate’s muffins become like poison to me.   I managed that feat with canoli, and now I bemoan the lack of canoli in my life for a couple of years at a time, because a girl can only make canoli so often, you know?

And it will all be over.  And, also, the sun will come out.

It’s done, so I can restart the second hose (sock?  I still need a singulative for hose) again once I befriend the math.  Again.  I may be in the midst of making some socks for someone else, but I may also just be practicing humility while simultaneously fuzzing up some particularly lovely wool silk yarn.  We’ll see what happens.

The sockyarn blanket is a few squares away from the last row.  Again.  But I am actually stopping once these squares are done, because I received an offer that I can’t refuse.  The lovely Jayme–who may just have been suffering baby brain at the time and absolutely won’t be held to the offer if she wises up–offered to crochet the edging if I edit some patterns for her.  I’ll edit the patterns no matter what, of course, because she designs really great knits and I am an editor who knits.  But if she does indeed decide she actually wants to edge the blanket, I may need to rejoin the Church of my birth and seek her canonization.  I guess I need to research how exactly that works, just in case.

In other news . . . remember that linen quilt I was working on?  I did some more work on it.  Scott’s Aunt Shirley and Uncle Bill came to visit us last weekend (big fun, crabs, museums, the works), and I was re-inspired.  Shirley and Scott’s mom Karen both quilt, and I’ve been meaning to make some progress on this project for ages.

When last we discussed the linen quilt, I had decided I wanted to add another fabric to the mix so that I could make a quilt large enough for a king-sized bed without waiting to have more linen scraps to make blocks with.  So I made a decision on a companion fabric.  I then unmade the decision after making a couple of trial blocks.  I decided last week that picking apart those blocks was nigh impossible, since the edges are all overcast.  So I made  a few more blocks and put a small top together.

Ok, it’s not that small, really, but I got a bit carried away.  It’s 42″ square.  I could put it on point, like I did here, and mimic an Amish classic, adding some solid fabrics.  But the figure in the black leaf print is so vertical–I don’t think I want this on point.  Hmmm.  I’m stuck again on this baby.

But at least I managed to re-bloom an orchid I thought was a goner.  So I’m going to think about the orchid, and maybe the answer about this quilt will come to me.