Cable Chart Psychology

How can it be the last day of July already? That's a little sad, but we still have some of our best summer plans ahead for August, so I'll try not to get to down about July's demise.

It has been a good July for knitting. Hot and humid weather can be a deterrent to picking up the needles. With the cool temps we've had, a growing cardigan on my lap in the evenings actually feels good.

This morning I decided to lay out my sweater to double check that I'm still on gauge and that all of my cables are going the right way. As long as it was on the floor and my camera was nearby, I snapped a picture.


At this point in a project--when I've become very familiar with the pattern and am sailing along--I've learned from past experiences, to do some quality control. Familiarity breeds stupidity, if you know what I mean. It's no fun finding out that you zigged when you should have zagged about twenty rows back.

As I was knitting along the other day, I also got to thinking about cable chart psychology and wondered if anyone else experiences similar thoughts. Here's the thing. On most cable charts, the wrong side row is generally just knitting the knit stitches and purling the purls, so I always think of those rows as my "brain gets a rest" rows. Then I also tend to have rows in the chart that I like to knit--row 9 is quite exciting in this pattern--and rows I tend to dislike (even dread)--row 1 is the dull one in this bunch. Isn't this sad? I am probably exposing my own simple mind. I'm sure other knitters contemplate world affairs or read "War and Peace" while they work their craft.

Homemade Yogurt

Snooping around on different food blogs over the years, I came across a few people who insisted that homemade yogurt is not only the best tasting, but was easy to make. So, after reading what I could about the process, I decided to give it a try. As long as I was typing up my results, I thought I might as well share.

I settled on a recipe that started out with scalding one quart of whole milk. Using the candy thermometer, I brought the temperature of the milk to 180 degrees--following the directions exactly--but it probably isn't necessary to get it that warm. How much bad bacteria can there be in fresh, pasteurized milk? (If you know, please don't answer that hypothetical question.)

The next step was to stir in 1/3 cup of non-fat dried milk. Not everyone adds the dried milk. It boosts the protein, and I know it's weird, but I like the taste, so I went with it.

Now the mixture needs to cool off before you stir in the starter. If the milk is too hot, you'll kill your culture, and if it's too cool, nothing is going to happen. Once the milk mixture is cooled off to about 100-110 degrees, stir in a tablespoon of plain yogurt. You don't want to add too much, or the finished product could get sour. We always have Dannon's All Natural yogurt on hand. There isn't all the junk that's in most yogurts. And for this, I made sure that I used a fresh container.

At this point, I added a step of my own. I noticed that there were some solids floating around in the mixture. (Probably from when I impatiently turned the burner up to expedite the first step. Ooops.) I strained the whole works through a sieve, and you can see that was a good idea.

Now comes the fun part. I poured the mixture into two canning jars, one of which I had punched a hole in the lid to allow for the use of my thermometer.

The key at this point is to maintain the temperature of the yogurt-to-be at approximately 110 degrees for two to five hours. My first plan was to use my bread raising technique, which is to put them in the microwave over my stove with the door shut and the stove light beneath it left on. This is the perfect temperature to encourage the growth of yeast, but it turned out to be too cool for yogurt. Within a half an hour, the content of the jars had cooled to 102 degrees.

Plan B was the crock pot, and this worked great, but don't wander too far away. On low, with a semi-damp towel on the bottom as a cushion, the jars quickly came back up to temperature. By checking back periodically, I was able to maintain a fairly even temperature by turning the heat on only one more time.

From start to finish, the whole process took about five hours, but most of that time is hands-off. And now that I've done it once, I won't have to waste time working on the heat source.

Was it worth it? No question. Homemade yogurt is creamy--of course, it doesn't hurt to use whole milk--and not tart at all. It is definitely a far superior product than even the best yogurts that I've bought at the grocery store. Next time I'm going to try it with a lower fat milk, but I think I'm sold on making my own.

Breakfast this morning? Yogurt with fresh raspberries drizzled with honey. Mmmmm.

Still in the Garden

When the weeds are under control and the deadheading has been done, there's only one excuse left to linger in the garden, and that's to snap a few more pictures.

Photographs help me remember what works and what doesn't in the garden. P.D. (pre-digital) I used to take notes and make drawings of the garden, which worked to a point, but there's nothing like the real thing.

Over the years I've learned a few things. I'm a sucker for pink and blue flowers. Petunias are worth the sticky job of picking off the spent blossoms. Not everything has to have flowers. (For instance, hostas are beautiful; their flowers usually are not. I tend to cut a lot of them off before they bloom.) You should plant flowers where they want to grow. And vegetables and herbs are pretty, too.

Every year I learn something new about gardening. Mostly I've learned that it's a darn good thing I don't have to live off of what I grow. If I did, I'd have to plant a lot less flowers, and I'd be darn sick of rhubarb and lettuce by now.

Even though there are all these outside distractions, I'm still making progress on my Cable Band Cardigan. I've never knit a sweater like this before. The yoke band is knit first and then you work your way around knitting front, sleeve, back, and the other front. The yarn is great even though it has the tendency to split. It makes me look down at what I'm knitting once in awhile.

My biggest gripe about the pattern would be the lack of cable charts. I didn't want to draw them by hand, so I hit the Internet and found a program called Knit Chart Maker. It was just what I needed. A few minutes work saved me having to look back through all those written instructions. I'll have to try making my own cable designs with it some day.

Finally, last night we went and saw the latest installment in the Harry Potter series. I'd highly recommend the movie, and a bonus was all the knitted items, and Dumbledore's excitement at finding new knitting patterns!

Mother Nature's Fireworks

My thistle plant is in full bloom, and full of bees. And you know what? They're busy. Huh.

These perfect globes of color come from a plant that has to be over a hundred years old. I took a division from my Mom's, who took it from her Mother's, who probably took it from her's.

This is a plant that gives twice--once with the blossoms and again when the goldfinches come later and devour the seeds.

Another old reliable, the echinacea, is blooming, too. The birds would like me to leave this to go to seed with the rest, but it self-sows like crazy.

The garden is saying mid-July. The weather, however, feels more like early fall. It's been a cool summer. That keeps the lettuce from bolting, but my tomatoes and beans could use some heat. So could I.

It looks like the weather is going to cooperate for a family picnic we have planned for the weekend. The whole gang doesn't get together too often with lots of busy schedules, so this is a rare occasion. We're covering two birthdays and our 25th Anniversary. That quarter of a century flew by!

Enjoy the 4th!