You may remember from last week that I only had 5g of the bright lime green yarn left and was afraid it wouldn't be enough to make it through the last two rows of green in my The Love of Spiders Shawl, so I ordered some Knit Picks Stroll in a color I thought might work. (It's hard to tell online.) Well the yarn came, and it's lovely, but a much lighter shade than what I was trying to match. I decided to have a go at using what was left of the original yarn. I worked halfway across the first row and weighed what I had left: 4g. When I got to the end of the row, I had 3g left, so I knew I would have enough. The tiny ball of yarn in this photo is what I had left. Next to it is the skein of sock yarn I ordered from Knit Picks.
The designer had explained in the pattern notes that it would take 5 g to work those two rows. Because I tend to knit loosely, I thought it would take more. I remember hearing in a Knit Picks Podcast episode that yarn could weigh more or less and still be the same amount, depending on the humidity of the place it was in. We live in a high desert, so the humidity tends to be a bit low. Drier yarn would weigh less, so the 5g was plenty. I should have thought of that, but now I have this lovely yarn to do something with.
Here's what it's looking like with the next row partly worked.
The quilt is coming along well. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the third corner is just to the left of the quilting hoop. We'll be camping this week, so I don't expect to get much done on it, but I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
Tuesday we had another Madroña pop-up meeting/party. It was fun seeing everyone.
I discovered a couple of weeks ago that I only had two copies of Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook left. I decided to order some extra copies. On Friday ten copies arrived. They're now assimilated into my stash of books.
While getting ready to vacuum the family room, Charlie stacked the beanbag chairs, one on top of the other. It didn't deter Sandy from snuggling down with his Lamb Chop in the one on top. I didn't see how he got up there. It must have been interesting.
The air quality has been excellent since the fire to the north of us was completely extinguished. We managed to walk every day. I took the dogs out right after breakfast each day if it was going to be hot. Several other people have either asked if the dogs are poodles or poodle-mixes, but no one else has asked what breed they are. This was our usual route.
We've started having thunderstorms in the afternoon. Saturday the power went off for several hours, late in the day. I had some pulla rising on top of the stove, when it went off. Even our gas oven won't work without power! I didn't want to have the Pulla dry out while it was waiting for the oven, and the big plastic bag I use to keep it in while rising was open at one end, so I covered it with a damp dish towel. By the time the power came back on that evening, the towel had stuck to the loaves. They were also broader and flatter than normal. They weren't pretty, but it was too late in the day to start over, knead them and let them rise again. So I baked them as they were, and this is what I got! And this is the pretty one!
The towel was a mess, too. I picked off all the dough I could. Then I put the towel into the laundry. Fortunately, the rest of it washed out.
More difficulties: I was baking a carob cake on Sunday and forgot that, while we don't live high up the in the mountains anymore, we also aren't at sea level, either. I should have used less baking powder and an extra egg, but I didn't, and the cake spilled out of the pan and onto the bottom of the stove. The middle sunk in. Not pretty. I hope it tastes good, though. It's sort of a pudding cake. The little bits I picked off the edges of the pans were delicious.
I made a butter cream frosting for it. It's been a long time since I've baked a layer cake.
This was Sunday afternoon's storm. We've had hail here before, but some of these little balls were over an inch in diameter. I had just finished loading the R-Pod with our clothes and other things we wanted to take with us, other than filling the refrigerator, which I always do at the last minute.
We're leaving today to go camping at La Pine. Next week's blog post should include lots of photos of our adventures (hopefully not too exciting) with the two Oregon grandkids, their parents, Charlie and Charlie's brother, Jim.
I have plenty of the dark blue sparkly yarn, A Skeiner Darkly's "The Infinite," so I don't expect any more yarn chicken games.
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What's in The Doll's Storybook: Emil finds out that The Writer's car isn't working, so she can't take him to the store to buy a birthday present for Mandy in Making Do.
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