zigzag stitch

I like to bake.

I don’t often blog about it because I like blogging about knitting and yarn more. Not that there haven’t been bloggable things that have happened while baking.

There was that time with the banana bread. I was walking across the kitchen with a warm loaf pan just out of the oven, holding it with a kitchen towel, when it slipped out of my hand. Miraculously (and thanks in part to a well greased loaf pan) the bread actually left the pan and floated through the air before I somehow managed to catch the entire loaf back in the pan unharmed. The pan (and I) landed on the floor as if nothing had happened. If Jerry hadn’t witnessed the maneuver I would swear myself that I imagined it. We laughed and laughed about The Amazing Flying Banana Loaf!!

Then there was the time I made a cardamom cake from an old mailorder for the first time. I’ve since learned to either halve the recipe or at least use two loaf pans. That first time I made it, boy, everything went wrong. I had to put a sheet pan under the tube pan during cooking because the batter was spewing over the edge to the bottom of the oven. Not only that, but when I went to remove the cake from the pan (after the requisite cooling time) the whole thing collapsed because I hadn’t cooked it enough. I turned the oven back on and put the cake back in! It was a huge disaster. A yummy disaster, but still.

Earlier this week, I made a practice batch of cupcakes for Jerry’s birthday tomorrow. I don’t know why, but I’ve got pretty bad luck with cupcakes. Of course, the practice batch came out undercooked. I figured my biggest fault was that I had over-filled the cups. So today when I made the for-real batch of chocolate cupcakes, I filled the cups much less than earlier in the week. Everything was going so well!

Since I had made two pans of cupcakes, I was directed by my cookbook to rotate the pans halfway through the baking time. After 10 minutes in the oven (they were looking good! yipee!) I pulled out one pan, set it on the door of the oven, moved the other pan to the top rack, and…I watched the pan that was sitting on the oven door slide slowly to the floor.

I had to laugh. And then I thought of the blog and ran to get my camera.

Cupcakes are supposed to be easy! It’s like some sort of cupcake curse around here - Scooby Doo and the Curse of the Undercooked Cupcakes. I love that black and white, scene-of-the-crime photo above, but here’s what it really looked like.

In the end, everything worked out okay.  I had to make a whole second batch of cupcakes but I had all the ingredients on hand.   And for the record - half-baked cupcake batter is mega-super-yummy.  I did not eat it off the floor.

The best news is that Jerry will have his cupcakes to share with his classmates tomorrow.  He’s gonna be 6!

There’s a woman in my knitting group who is always commenting about my color choices. She often says something like, “I would never think to put those colors together.” I can’t really tell if it’s a true compliment of my sense of color or a veiled insult. One time she said those exact words while I was knitting a swatch of a dark blue color pattern on a heather brown background (below, from a while ago, never became more than a swatch). Nothing monumental or out of the ordinary, but she felt compelled to point out my “interesting color choice.”

Huh?

The way I see it, I don’t care about color that much…and at the same time I care about it deeply. I will try anything, I will push boundaries if I feel like it, but if it’s not working color-wise, I will rip it out. No biggie.  I spend a lot of time at yarn stores and with my stash throwing balls of yarn around to see what works.  My favorite thing to do is to find the color that is most repulsive and throw it in to the mix.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

The other day my local yarn store was having their annual sale and they had a bunch of bags of yarn marked at a deep discount. Many of the bags were kits, but when I saw the bag of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed (see it on Rav), I snatched it up just as quick as I could, caring more about the price than the fact that it was purple. When I got it home I realized that 1) it was purple 2) it was purple and 3) it was purple. I never wear purple! In my haste to purchase I also disregarded the fact that there were only nine balls - not enough to make a proper sweater for myself.

So I went back to the yarn store on day two of the sale. My goal was to find more purple (I knew that they wouldn’t have it) or find some contrasting colors of the same yarn for a yoke design (I knew that this, too, was a long shot). Of course they were out of the Silkroad Aran Tweed, but with the help of the lovely employees at the store, I decided that I could use some similar tweedy yarns: Donegal Aran Tweed from Debbie Bliss and Plymouth Tweed. These yarns don’t have that cloud-like feel of the Jo Sharp Tweed, but they have the same look. I got down on the floor and threw a bunch of balls around.  When I got home I tested the colors together on a swatch.

“I likey,” I thought to myself.

So I cast on a sleeve.

Purple as a main color mixed with gold, brown, blue and oatmeal.  Perhaps an atypical color palate; perhaps even butt ugly.  But for reals, every time I look at this sleeve I love it more and more.  And more!

For the record, I am going to flaunt this the next time I see that woman at our knitting group and I cannot wait to see what she says.

It’s rainy - very rainy - here today. All the wet is pretty nice actually. Last year was just so dry that it feels like a miracle to have a bit of rain. Luckily, while the weather was nice last week I took a butt load of pictures of my latest sewing projects: Dresses for Maggie.

I seem to have trouble picturing what a fabric will look like once it’s all cut up and sewn back together. I’d say this is one of my weak spots in sewing: Picturing the final product. I like the cherries, I really do, but it’s a little too too. You know? The ruffle really puts it over the top.

If anyone can pull it off, though, it’s The Mag.

Hello, baby.

The Cherry Dress is from McCall’s Easy Stitch ‘n Save M5020 although I can’t seem to find it online (even in their OOP section). It’s very similar to McCall’s Easy Stitch ‘n Save M5606.

Then there’s the Lemon Dress.

Again, too too. I love the collar though. To the point of distraction.

This one is Simplicity 7201, and I’m searching and searching but can’t find the pattern online. These patterns sometimes come from my mother-in-law who may or may not have made them back when she only had one grandchild about eight or nine years ago. So yeah, no link.

In other news, we now have a tire swing…

…and Gerald is probably going to win parent of the year for this one. They love the tire swing. Jerry loves the tire swing.

He’s even got routines and stuff.

But back to sewing because I made one more dress.

This is the Apple Blossom Dress. I like this one a lot. Not only is the fabric great, but the pattern is a proven winner (I made a bunch last year) and I can even find it online. It’s the Kendall pattern from Karen’s Art & Stitchery. Note how the picture from the link looks a bit different from my version.

I left out the collar and the sleeves, and the result is very informal. The perfect play dress. I also hemmed it only three inches - the pattern calls for a four inch hem. This pattern is so easy and the construction is perfect - the yoke is all lined, leaving no mess on the inside. If you can believe it, I even used french seams and hemmed it by hand.

I always try making other patterns (like the first two pictured above) and nothing ever comes out as cute as this simple, old-timey pattern.  I’m telling you, it’s even easier than Simplicity! Everything about this pattern is sweetness, and I am going to make Maggie wear these little baby dresses just as long as she’ll let me.

Yes, that’s mud. My fruity sweet girl is covered in mud.

The Very Good Thing and the Very Bad Thing that I talked about in my last post have had my complete attention over the past few days.

The first Zigzag Garter Stitch Sock is done.

But, taking a turn in the Very Bad Thing department, I decided to knit the second one with a short-row garter stitch toe.

I will either have to live with a pair of socks that are fundamentally different, or I’ll have to nip off that first toe and knit a new one. For some reason, I am not bothered by either outcome. The plan right now is to write up the pattern, so I want the socks to be how I want them. I find that my ideas sometimes take some time to catch up with my knitting.

The Very Bad Thing from the other day is on it’s way to full recovery. I’ll give you a tiny reminder of how bad it was: Now I will show you that I have committed myself to repairing it.

That little safety pin on the instep is showing where I started my toe shaping the first time. After unraveling the sole, I added 1.75″ of length to the instep, and have already started the sole again.  This pattern is very, very fun to knit, and I can’t wait to see whether this time it’ll fit my foot.  Fingers crossed.

Please note:  When I said I was committed to repairing this sock, I did not say that I’ve committed to a whole pair.  I think that the desire to complete this fascinating pattern might be fulfilled by completing just one sock.  I’m not sure yet.  Pairs of socks are much more useful than just a sock, but maybe I have a golf club around here somewhere that needs a cozy.  Now that would be useful.

Knitting! Glorious knitting! How I love thee!

I, Mandy Zigzag Stitch, have been blogging for three years. What do the people call this? Blogiversary? Of course, it didn’t start as a knitting blog. It was more of a “wow, mothering is fun most of the time, and geez I’m bored” blog. But it eventually became the knitting blog and I’m so happy to be here now, with all of you out there; making me feel happy about knitting day in and day out. Thank you. If I had prizes*, you would all get one. Yes, YOU!

The best thing about today is I feel like I have some great fodder for my blogiversary. Something really good, and something very, very bad.

The Really Good Thing probably isn’t the totally-awesomest-bestest-forever-and-ever thing, but it’s good. It’s a sock that I’m working on using a little stitch pattern called Zigzag Garter Stitch from Barbara Walker’s Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

It’s zigzag and garter stitch and green. Sigh and swoon. And see that short row garter stitch heel? I totally did it on the fly! There’s a funny thing about this sock, too. I spilled coffee on it and so I washed it with the pins still in it. In the picture above you can see that right before I started the heel it looks smoother. That’s because half the sock has been blocked!

Now for the Very, Very Bad Thing. I’m probably exaggerating; knitting can seem horrible at first only to be fine in the end. But this is not fine.

This is a Moccasin Sock. If you have EZ’s Knitter’s Almanac that’s where you’ll find the pattern; November I think. As you may know, Elizabeth Zimmermann often gives guidelines for a pattern, rather than line by line instructions. I don’t mind this in the least and actually I really love it because it allowed me to knit this sock at a different gauge than she did. Everything in the pattern was really clear….all except the notes about how long to knit the top of the foot.  The sock does not fit.  Not even close.

Even this unflattering picture of the sole is technically correct:

As ugly as the sock looks, I think I could have made it work had I knit for about two inches more before starting the toe shaping. But that part comes very early in the pattern and with the way the sock is constructed it’s hard to tell what’s going on until it’s done. You can’t really try it on the way you can with a “normal” sock, not that I didn’t try.

I had faith throughout the whole process of this sock that it would get off my needles and fit my foot.  But I was Very, Very Wrong.  I’ll try the sock on a smaller foot (Lisa! Anne!), but I think this is something I should unravel and try again.  I like the yarn and the pattern is still genius.

In honor of my blogiversary (I like typing that word, like thinking it in my head, but dislike saying it aloud a great deal) I thought I’d share with you the reason behind the name of my blog.

Jerry was littler, Maggie was nowhere yet, and we were in Myrtle Beach at the hotel swimming pool. I sat on the edge of the pool, watching Jerry swimming with my Mom and they were doing something silly and singing “ZIGZAG MOMMY!” and laughing and laughing. It was the cutest thing in the world; the kind of mommy moment that melts your heart into a puddle and you get all wistful. I went home and changed my old blog (don’t go looking, doesn’t exist) to Zigzag Mommy.  When I decided to start a knitting blog, it logically became Zigzag Stitch.

*If you’re looking for prizes, check out RAVELRAISER! I’ve given. Have you?

First off, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has bought my hat pattern!! I’m pleased you all like it so much. I’ve been urged by my mother - grandmother of the cutie pictured below - to show you the other sample I knit.

Maggie is happily modeling the smallest size (18″ - which fits a surprising range of head sizes) and I knit it using a bunch of leftover yarns. The main color brown is Paton’s Classic Wool in the Chestnut Brown (231) color. I never really liked that particular shade of brown - I blame a yarn sale for it ending up in my stash - but it works really well with the pinks and purple that I paired with it. The purple yarn is also Paton’s Classic Wool in Royal Purple (212). The bright pink is Cascade 220 in the shade 7803 and the other pink is leftover from a pair of mitts I made my sister-in-law a few Christmases ago. It’s Crystal Palace Creme in Magenta (2013). Not really a worsted weight yarn, but since I only used it for a few rounds here and there it doesn’t really matter. [ I have added this version of the hat as a project in Ravelry so you can see all the yarn info.  And I just noticed today on Rav, you can add a stashed yarn to a project.  Sa-weet.]

I think you can see the colors better in this picture:

If I felt like knitting more of my own pattern, I would try every color combo I could think of. For those of you who have bought the pattern, I can’t wait to see what you do with it!! And thank you again!

Lest you think the title of my post refers to Maggie, I am actually referring to the Harlot that we all know and love who was in Charlotte last night. My Mom and I left the kiddies with their father and grandfather (the first time Maggie went to bed without me!) and drove the 1.25 hrs to see Herself in person.

As I suspected, it was a fabulous time. My Mom got to hold the sock, hopefully giving her the mojo she needs to get her first sock on the pins.

I met Stacey again, who I had previously rubbed elbows with at a yarn sale (rubbed elbows with is a euphemism when we’re talking knitters at a yarn sale, but I digress). She came running over saying, “Zigzag Stitch!” which freaked my Mom out a little, I think.

She was wearing the most beautiful handknit top, and it was her birthday! Happy Birthday, Stacey!

I also saw Susan, who I have been “friends” with on Ravelry for some time now and finally got to meet in person; and Amanda who was wearing a most impressive Sunrise Circle Jacket. Super-fun time all around!!

Today is the day I step out and try something new. I’m excited (and honestly, a wee bit terrified) to offer my very first pattern for sale!

It’s a hat and it is made entirely with corrugated ribbing. Poor corrugated ribbing; it gets such a bad rap. But look how cool it is! The purled stitches play so nicely in the background that the trouble of a new technique is soon forgotten and you’ll experience the joy of a beautiful fabric coming off your needles.

You’ll need about 150 yards of worsted weight wool for your main color (I used Cascade 220) and smaller amounts of at least three contrasting colors. Everything you need to know is included in the 3-page pattern. There are instructions for three sizes: 18″ (20″, 22″) to fit a child (medium adult, large adult).

You can get your pattern right now; I’m selling it as a pdf download exclusively through Ravelry for $5.00. Click here to buy it. And thank you so much for looking!

**EDITED to ADD**
You can now buy through Ravelry without being a Ravelry member!
Click this button.

Please let me know if you have any trouble downloading the pattern.

I can’t end without acknowledging my great pals Lisa and Anne who helped me to edit the pattern with their keen eyes and knitterly opinions. Please click through to their blogs; Lisa has an alarmingly cute baby-in-handknit picture, and Anne. Well, Anne and her clever husband have invented a giant, easy-to-use skein winder to facilitate winding big ol’ skeins to use for special dyeing techniques. With complete instructions and video! It’s ingenious and I know you’ll be happy you took the time to click over.

Wow! Big stuff today, huh?

Remember - click here to buy the pattern! Thanks!

Did you know that a few weeks ago I knit, blocked and mailed away an entire Hemlock Ring Blanket? I did! The worst part is that I took only one picture.

I must have serious blogger’s elbow or something because not taking a picture of a finished project? That’s just not right.

The computer was broken, and now it is not broken, but I can’t exactly say how it got fixed. It’s just a mystery to me.

“Well, if your computer is fixed than why aren’t you posting to your blog more?” you ask.

“I’m trying something new and it is taking up all of my free time,” I reply.

That something new is the pattern I’m writing to sell right here on the blog! This is a whole new world for me and something I hope to do a lot more of in the future. Here’s a peek.

Did you see that I added the “Patterns From Zigzagstitch” page up top?  I also tricked out the side bar a little bit.  You can have updates sent to you via email when I add a new post here.  Who knew?  And the “subscribe” button is new, too.  Just to make it a little easier for all you nice folks out there.

*Seward’s Day is today, and celebrates the day in 1867 that William H. Seward, as Secretary of State, purchased from the Russian Empire the 586,412 square mile territory that is known today as Alaska.  State employees of Alaska, like my sister Holly, have the day off.  In fact, they also have a paid holiday for Alaska Day, which if you were wondering, falls on my birthday and celebrates practically the exact same thing.  Gotta love that.

My home computer is broken and I’m posting from a top-secret location.  No really.

Having no computer is not all that bad, once I got over the shock of not being able to check email and blogs continuously throughout the day.  The result is more knitting time, and that is nice.  Until I get the situation figured out I won’t be around these parts very much.  Hopefully things will be back in order in a few days.

Here’s some good news.  The cardigan that I found at the thrift store does indeed have more of a life to live.

The sweater fits my mother-in-law perfectly and she will be it’s new caregiver.  Until it fits Maggie.

I can’t seem to get into knitting a sweater. I’m dying for a big, woolly, hand-knitted sweater, but it just seems such a huge project for my fickle self. Solution: vest. Look ma! No sleeves!

Pictured above is the yarn from a thrift store sweater. It was a women’s medium, Abercrombie v-neck sweater, 70% wool/30% nylon blend, that I bought for less than $4.00. It unraveled like a dream; you never can tell how it’s going to go until you start deconstructing. I have knit about 8″ of body on a vest for my sister. I know, I know. I promised Holly [on Rav] a sweater long ago, but that sweater was abandoned a while back with the intention of someday knitting her something else. So the sister gets a vest…eventually.

Yea, thrift stores. I try to pop in frequently to my favorite ones that are close to my house. Yesterday Maggie and I went to one just down the street. I’d been there before and it was a huge mess, but for some reason I decided to try it again. You never quite know what you’ll find.

Wow. Jackpot. Hand-knitted. In Norway. Steeked. Twisted stitch ribbing. Garter stitch button band. Pewter buttons. Picot neck edge. PICOT! This sweater is spectacular. It cost less than $2.00.

The Husfliden company has a website, but since my first (and only) language is English, I can’t decipher anything. Well, I’m pretty sure garn means yarn but other than that I’m lost. My brief search also turned up this New York Times article from 1983 (!) about hand-knitting as an industry in Norway. That’s cool.

The person who previously owned this sweater either never wore it or was a knitter herself and knew how to properly care for it. Other than one small stain on the bottom near the ribbing, the sweater is in impeccable condition. It has such a lovely feel; a good hand, if you will. Luck was certainly on my side at the thrift store yesterday.

For now, I have no plans for the sweater other than gazing at it occasionally. It doesn’t fit me and the yarn isn’t salvageable since it has been steeked. Not that I would even consider unraveling this beauty. The buttons are great, but removing them would ruin the integrity of the sweater, right?

The corniest thing: I feel like this sweater has a life ahead of it, and I’m just the keeper until the story unfolds. Told you it was corny.

In the mean time, I’ll keep this baby around for…inspiration? To knit sleeves? Yea, probably not.