CMS/Colloquium - Socks finished!

I finished Taylor's socks just at the end of colloquium on Thursday, but she had to run off right after and I didn't want to let her take them or post until I had a picture of her wearing them. So I gave them to her at our TV last night, and took this picture of her wearing them and one of my feet in my handknit Koigu socks. Lovely and cosy!

My next CMS/Colloquium project is going to be this tea cosy. I started it last summer and was thinking about it for quite a while before that, but I have so many other projects that it hasn't been worked on much. And it may not get worked on much now - I donated a pair of custom hand-knit socks to my church's auction again this year, so as soon as I find out who buys them (hopefully next week) I will probably have to start knitting like a maniac on them, since I promised in the listing that they could be done by Christmas.

CMS/Colloquium knitting

I'm working my way down the foot! I think there is a possibility that it will be done next week, but for sure the following week!

Fingerless mitts from my handspun!

I finally got around to finishing the yarn I was spinning on my birthday (except for a bit of singles that I still need to ply). I put it on the niddy-noddy and washed it in Eucalan ...
... then hung it in the shower to dry.
The yarn looked pretty balanced when it was hanging on the hanger, but when I went to wind it into a ball, it seemed woefully underplied in a lot of places. I'm really not sure what is up with that, but I guess when I ply the rest, I'll try to put a bit more twist in it. Maybe it means my singles didn't have enough twist?

Whatever the cause, I'm not that worried about it. I'm a new spinner, so hopefully I'll get the hang of things as I do more spinning. I decided to use the yarn to make fingerless mitts to wear during symphony rehearsals. The hall we rehearse in is absolutely freezing cold, and I feel like I need something to keep my hands warm. I'm kind of making the pattern up as I go along, since I didn't really know what my gauge would be, and I didn't love any of the patterns I saw online for handspun mitts. Here's the first cuff:

CMS/Colloquium knitting

The heel is turned, and the gusset is finished! I think this will be finished in the next three weeks, and then Taylor can wear her new socks.

Last week's CMS knitting

Last week there was no colloquium, but this is what I got done in CMS. I'm more than half way through the heel flap!

Adventures with Rudy - and a recipe!

Robert and I spent last weekend taking care of this wonderful, sweet, and energetic dog. Rudy's owner, Taylor (who is one of my office mates) was at a conference, so we stayed at her apartment and walked and fed and played with Rudy.

We almost always have a "special" breakfast on Saturday mornings - usually it's pancakes from Robert's mom's recipe (which I veganized with a flax egg and soy "buttermilk") or vegan french toast with our own home-made breadmaker bread (Robert puts pecan bits in the bread to make it extra delicious). So I brought the more unusual pancake ingredients with to Taylor's place, but to my great surprise, the only flours she had were whole wheat flour and vital wheat gluten! So here is Robert's mom Lynn's oatmeal-buttermilk pancake recipe, adapted to be vegan and whole wheat, and scaled for two people:
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups "soy buttermilk" - a splash of white vinegar to cover the bottom of the measuring cup, and then the rest filled up with soymilk
1/2 cup oats - not the quick-cooking kind
1 flax egg - 1 Tbs flax seeds ground up and mixed with some warm water
2 Tbs canola oil
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tbs vital wheat gluten (this keeps the pancakes from being too whole-wheat heavy and dense. Don't leave it out)
2 1/2 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
a few dashes of cinnamon

Method:

1. Mix the soy buttermilk and oats and let them sit for 10 minutes or so. Then add the flax egg and oil.
2. Combine the dry ingredients in a medium-small mixing bowl, and whisk them together to mix.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry. I always have to add a few extra splashes of soymilk to the batter at this point to make it the right consistency. Even so, the batter should be pretty thick.
4. Fry up the pancakes. I usually scoop the batter using a 1/4 cup measure. (Lynn's recipe recommends using a 1/3 cup measure for this, but I like to have more pancakes, even if they're smaller.)
5. Serve with margarine and real maple syrup!
   

The whole wheat version was a success! They were fluffy, not heavy, and they had a nice nutty kind of whole wheat flavor.