Shrimp socks February 15, 2009

I was eating some leftover shrimp cocktail today, and it occurred to me that the socks I started last night have the same color theme.

This is my third ongoing project. I started it because I need a movie theater plain stockinette project. It’s some of the first Koigu I bought and it’s been dwelling in the stash for a few years. I think Koigu is probably still my favorite sock yarn. They have amazing colors, it’s superwash, and it feels amazing. If only the price was a bit lower…

Yesterday I had started socks out of Cascade Mini Mochi yarn in a beautiful rainbow color. It is extremely soft, but is unfortunately single ply, so it won’t wear as well. I was splitting some of the stitches, and realized it would not make ideal movie theater knitting. Then, to top it off, there was a knot in the strand followed by an abrupt color change in one ball where there should have been a slow fade as in the other ball. I was disappointed and will rewind the balls to study the color changes and look for knots before I embark with that yarn again.

I did not set out to make a pair of socks each month, or at least 12 this year, but I may get there anyway. Exciting!

Happy Valentine’s Day! February 15, 2009

Shown above is my first every attempt at chocolate torte. The recipe is this one, minus the blackberry coulis because I wasn’t up for that much effort. I’ll let you know if it’s tasty. We’re going to pair it with some Rogue Chocolate Stout that I love. We’re spending v-day cooking and playing games with our neighbors. I also made stuffed mushrooms with pepperoni, cream cheese, goat cheese, gorgonzola, and parmesean. And beer cheese dip inspired by the dip at Deschutes brewery in Portland with havarti, gruyere, cream cheese, swiss, Sierra Nevada Torpedo beer, with a rim of Sierra Nevada Stone Ground Stout mustard around the edge. The neighbors made melt-in-your-mouth salmon with lime butter and a spinach salad. Yummy!

I have a looooong post in the works all about Portland and the kazillion projects I’m working on or recently finished. More to come soon.