I made a mitten today. By request. It's rather spiffy. I've never made a mitten before, and I think it came off rather well. I tried a couple of shaping techniques that I don't use very often, and was reminded why I don't use them. I have the other mitten to knit along with a brief re-knitting of the thumb, but all in all I'm pleased. I also have a lot of time to finish, seeing that it's summer at the present. It was good.
I went to the farmer's market here today. It was rather nifty. I got a lot of cool eggplants. I foresee grilled/broiled japanese eggplant, and Baba Ganouj in our future.
In a culinary related note, I've discovered, much to my amusement, that I'm a somewhat adventurous eater. (I have historically been somewhat of a picky eater.)
I don't think that my palate has really changed much, but there are things that I think of as common place that aren't. Like greek food. I was standing in line at a greek stand at the aforementioned farmer's market (unfortunately for me, we entered from the wrong end of the line, which meant we didn't eat.) I said, oh I think I'll have the falafel, and the woman next to me who had just ordered a jeer-ro sandwich said "what's falfel?" So I explained, rather awkwardly that it was sort of like baked or fried hummus patties, only without the tahini (sesame paste, I think) and it's courser. So really, not very much like humus at all. Garbonzo bean base at the least.
The other anecdote, of note, is that I introduced this household to pinjur, a bulgarian dip with eggplant, roasted red pepper, garlic, maybe onion, and seasoned with hot peppers, vinegar, and a bit of sugar. So it's a tangy/zingy vegtable dip, that's smooth and almost a little creamy (the eggplant I think). Delightful. Didn't everyone grow up with a jar of it in the fridge?
In other knitting news, I have reached the gussets of the sweater. Three more inches until the "armholes start" from there, it's only two-two and a half inches till the first part of the neck starts (I'm doing an open neck) and that's really cool: the second part of the neck starts five inches later.
Other people might think, "the body of the sweater, not to mention the sleeves, is 26 or 27 inches long, and seeing that I've only knit 13 inches, I still have a hell of a way left to go.)
"Bah!" I say. From here on out, I'm no more than a day or two between interesting features. The five inches of the neck is something of a stretch, but it's nothing compared to the 10 inches of pattern that I just endured.
I've already planned the next seater. A black and white one that I knit last summer. Faroe. I think I've written about it here. I want to reknit it, in a version that I'm more likely to wear.
What I knit after that depends on where I am. If I'm still in Nashville or St. Louis, I might start on a lace weight merino pullover. If I'm in Wisconsin, I might start a grey sport weight sweater. Or, I'll start the browncoat, which needs some more thinking.
If anyone knows of a good source for nice (but still reasonably cheep) worsted weight wool in a number of good subtle brown tones, that would be particularly splendid. I'm thinking about Bartlett yarns' worsted yarn. It's nice, and I think I could do a coat for a pretty reasonable amount (40-50 bucks or so). That's generally what I consider generally a fairly reasonable price point for knitting a sweater that will take six to eight weeks of good knitting. If you have thoughts, send or comment them on in.
I've had this strange desire to watch the Star Trek movies again. I have fond memories, and even though all of the new generation of sci-fi shows (Babylon 5, Firefly, Battlestar, and Stargate to a slightly lesser extent) like to hate on Trek for being fantastic, overproduced, and overly technical I think that the show was wildly influential, and much of the material was at the very least passably good.
I've seen most of the original series and while I like it, I've not been that fond of it. I watched the New Voyages that have been released, and was particularly astounded by their quality. They even managed to get Walter Koenig and D.C. Fontana on board. It's good stuff. Really good stuff.
Having said that, I think the Wrath of Kahn/Search for Spock/Voyage Home trilogy is among the best Trek around, with the possible exception of some of the 4-5 season DS9 (the ones where the Dominon captured DS9 and the BDH* are stuck fighting on the Defiant). But I really liked a lot of what happened in DS9, and that might have less to do with the quality of the show, and more to do with the similarities to Babylon 5 and where I was in my life when I was watching it. Generations was cool too.
I recognize using the term "Big Damn Heros" to refer to Trek and not Firefly characters is perhaps a faux pas of Biblical proportions, I'm ok with it.
So I started out this post, with the notion that it would be shorter and include a segment on bad writing, and it did neither. So it goes.
Hope you've enjoyed.
Happy July.
Cheers, Sam