Hungry Knitter

First of all, I checked their ravelry page and it looks like it took me nearly a year to finish these socks. OOPS. I zipped right through the first one and then the second one stalled and stalled and stalled while I knit Christmas gifts, and then once I picked it up again I ran into some major problems. I’ll go into greater detail on that in a bit.

These socks are knit in Nestucca Bay Yarns Superwash Merino, which is a lovely hand-painted sock yarn I picked up at Nestucca Bay Yarns in Lincoln City, OR (on the coast for those who aren’t familiar), and although I don’t normally love variagated yarns and I had to fight fight fight with the pooling throughout these socks, I *love* this yarn. It has a great sheen to it; it’s soft; the colors are nice and bold and right up my alley. Sadly it doesn’t seem they’re producing it anymore, but I bet next time I’m on the coast I’ll hit up the store again.

I mean, just look at how well they match these shoes! These shoes I didn’t even own when I bought the yarn! Unbelievable.

To get a little bit more seriously here, I have some things to say in the way of pattern critique. There are some major pros to this pattern and some really major cons (that apply to the book more generally). The pattern is called Bartholemew’s Tantalizing Socks and it’s from Cat Bordhi’s book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters. First, the pros: I have somewhat oddly shaped feet, and most hand-knit socks don’t really fit me very well. See, my feet are completely flat:

Yeah, that’s the inside of my foot you’re looking at there. No arch whatsoever. So it makes sense that across the top of my foot your typical hand-knit sock would be kind of tight and the stitches would pull and look a little bit misshapen. Really, most people’s feet probably need socks with more shaping around the arch than is usually allowed them, but mine really do. In New Pathways for Sock Knitters Bordhi is thinking about the structure of socks in some very new ways, and the reason this pattern fits me so well is that for once there is an area of arch expansion. In this next picture, you can see that as it descends over my “arch” that area of linen stitch is getting bigger, making more room for the top of my foot, above where there would be an arch (if I had one).

The socks feel great on my feet – better than any other socks I’ve ever made, actually, and I’m sure it has a lot to do with this arch expansion.

There are some serious cons to these socks, though, and the book overall. First, about this pattern in particular: the top of the sock is knit in linen stitch, working back and forth flat for a little bit before you join in the round, so that there’s a slit in the top back of the sock. Linen stitch curls. I had to freaking iron these socks this morning, which I can absolutely guarantee you I’m never going to do again, and even after that they’re still curling. I guess I could try wet blocking them, but it really feels like the curl would come right back, and I never wet block socks anyway and I’m not going to start now. Take a look at any of the pictures I posted above to see the curling.

I have a few issues with this book in general. Like I mentioned before, Bordhi is completely rethinking/reworking the structure of the hand-knit sock here, and it’s great. That said, although she has some great ideas, I’m still going to use other sock books and patterns. But this book is organized around the rethinking so that you might conceive of each of the new elements or building blocks of socks separately and use them yourself in new and interesting contexts. It’s meant to be more of a workbook that you progress through, page after page, reading and knitting along. And I was actually doing that for a while. I read the introduction, looked at the techniques she introduces, even knit the first few little practice socks, and this was the first real grown-up sock pattern I got to in the book. So using the book in the manner she intends, I should have all the tools I need to knit these socks (and then some, since I’ve knit a few other socks in my day and I’m familiar with a variety of techniques and approaches, and I’m not half bad at it). Trouble is, because of the way the book is designed, you have to flip between 4 or 5 entirely different sections just to knit yourself one sock. The heel for these socks was particularly problematic since I had to flip to the very back of the book to find the heel called for, and then one step within those instructions sent me to another heel entirely, and then back to the original heel, then when you’ve finished that it’s back to the sock. This is irritating on a basic level because I just want to knit the damn sock, but it pretty much caused me to make huge mistakes on the heel the second time through that led to me tearing the thing out several times and eventually just putting in a lifeline for insurance, and then finally getting it right. Now I knit the heel fine on the first sock, but like I said, it had been a while since I did that, and so I was just following the directions as best I could. Clearly I’m human and I screw things up sometimes, but these could have been preventing by better editing. Here are some specific editing issues I noticed, besides the constant flipping of pages: there are a lot of diagrams, and the diagram that corresponds to a specific written direction may or may not be on the same page as the write-up. Instructions for simple decreases and increases are extremely wordy, and in my opinion it would be better to keep those things concise. There are places where she could have included stitch counts but did not. Finally, instead of referring to the different sizes in the way we normally see (numbers in parentheses 36(45,63,89,102) for example) she says things along the lines of “fourth size, knit this set-up row,” so that I have to flip back to the beginning of the pattern to see where my size falls with respect to the others.

These editing issues are a major problem with this book, and once I started searching around online I say I wasn’t the only one noticing them. Take a look at some of these reviews. Several of them mention the same problems I had. All this said though, I really love these socks. They’re my favorite hand-knit socks, actually. They look great; they feel great. Now that I’m aware of the idiosyncrasies of this book I feel like I might do a little bit better with these patterns in the future. Are the patterns in this book worth the frustration of knitting them? Maybe, just maybe. Not necessarily yes, not necessarily no.

We eat a lot of English muffins in our household, and while in my opinion they make a great accompaniment to any meal, walking to the store to buy them every couple days was becoming a real hassle. I’ve baked a fair amount of bread in my day, so I set out in search of a relatively easy and effective method for making them at home.

The cookbooks I have around the house were, on the whole, not a big help. Most of them have a paragraph on English muffins that basically says, “make any bread dough you want, form into small rounds and cook for 5 minutes on each side on a heavy skillet.” This is fine if you want a hamburger bun. It’s great for a sandwich at lunch time, but it’s way too dense for my taste at the breakfast table. There are no nooks and crannies. I did find a helpful tip in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, however. He says that for English muffins your dough must be extremely wet. This reminded me of another Bittman recipe, the much-blogged No-Knead Bread.

I have a real love-hate relationship with the no-knead bread recipe. I love the convenience, and it does make a fantastic crust and overall texture. But made as-is it’s just the blandest bland to ever bland a bland; it just doesn’t have that developed flavor you get from kneading. I find adding more salt and olive oil (and using some whole wheat flour) improves things considerably. But for our purposes it’s the moisture that’s important. This dough is very, very moist – to the point that it looks like a total disaster when you put it in the oven. And when you add olive oil, it’s a little moister and obviously a little oily and more prone to bubbles when it’s baked: perfect for English muffins. So here is my modified version of the No-Knead Bread, adapted for English muffins. (The recipe is included below with pictures, but I’ve also made a nice printer-friendly pdf for you.)

No-Knead English Muffins

Recipe by Lauren Osborne, adapted from Mark Bittman in the New York Times, who originally adapted the method from Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery

Makes about 12 English muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, more for dusting
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (you may adjust this flour ratio to suit your own taste)
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
cornmeal

1. In a large bowl combine flours, yeast, and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water and the olive oil and stir until blended. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest 18 hours at about 70 degrees. (The inside of my rarely-used microwave is the perfect place for this.)

2. After about 18 hours your dough will be bubbly and goopy looking and smell vaguely sour. This is what it will look like – not particularly pretty:

Lightly dust your work surface with all-purpose flour and pour/turn out the dough. It will be so sticky that you may want to dust the top of it with more flour, and also flour your hands. If you wear rings it’s best to take them off. Give the dough a couple of gentle turns and shape it into a relatively uniform round, cover it with a tea towel (NOT terry cloth) and let it rest for 2 more hours.

This is pre-rest dough:

And this is post-rest dough. It has swelled and moistened considerably:

3. Sprinkle a baking sheet generously with corn meal.* Divide your dough into small rounds about 3-4 inches in diameter. I make 12 English muffins out of this amount of dough by dividing it in half, then in half again (so you have quarters), and then dividing each of these pieces into thirds. Gently shape your rounds into little patties, without too much squishing and squashing, and arrange them on your baking sheet. Cover with the tea towel again and let them rest 15 more minutes.

4. While they are resting you may begin to prepare your cooking area. I prefer to use a seasoned cast-iron pan to cook my English muffins. Something very heavy like this is ideal. Whatever you do, do NOT use non-stick because keeping it hot and dry with burning corn meal stuck to it will probably ruin the coating. I let my cast-iron pan warm up for a few minutes over medium heat.* Cooking your muffins will produce a fair amount of smoke, so I usually run the kitchen fan and have the back door and a window open. Unless you want to set off your smoke alarm, you should ventilate as well as you can.

5. When your pan is warmed, slide a spatula under your English muffins and place them on the pan one at a time and then cover the pan with a lid. (I can fit three on my pan without crowding them. With regards to the lid, it doesn’t have to fit the pan exactly, since not many cast-iron pans actually come with lids. I use the lid of a stock pot. Set a timer so you’re not constantly taking the lid off the check on them.) After 4 minutes they will have puffed up considerably, and you will be able to see the edges beginning to harden.

This is what mine look like when they’re halfway done:

Flip them over and cook another 4 minutes on the other side. Set them to cool on a rack. I scrape the burnt corn meal off the bottom of the pan and into the sink after each round so things don’t get too terribly smoky and burny.

Happy muff-ing! And as always, if I appear to have screwed something up please let me know.

* I tend to go really heavy on the corn meal and then re-use what is left on the baking sheet to make polenta for dinner.

** Cast-iron pans get very hot. I keep the flame on the lower end of medium for the duration of the cooking.

It seems I’ve been absent from this space for a while. I promise you there are plenty of other areas in my life in which I’m fully engaged at the moment. Sadly, they’re taking their toll on the blogging. There’s the preparation for qualifying exams (I’m a ways out still, but people in my division typically take a year or a bit more to read and study); there’s the photography; there’s the maintaining personal relationships (barely); there’s been wedding planning… I’ve got a little bit too much on my plate at the moment, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m most productive when I’m insanely busy. So let’s just look past this for a moment and get on with this post, which will be the first of a couple of topically oriented catch-up posts. First up: crochet.

In my last post I’d mentioned that I’d joined this swap of crocheted pot holders and hot pads. I taught myself to crochet right after I graduated from college and was looking for my first grown-up job in Madison, WI (otherwise known as spending a lot of time on the couch). Well, the grown-up job never really happened (although I did spend the year working at a great bookstore, made a ton of friends, and had a total blast) and my relationship failed in the most spectacularly depressing fashion, so needless to say I associated crochet with a pretty bad time in my life. After a few years off and a little bit of inspiration I was ready to pick the hook up again. Seriously, check out at least that first link, because Maryse’s work is gorgeous and she’s planning on writing up the pattern for those pot holders (see her blog post on them here).

I tried a few different things and ultimately settled on this pattern. I posted about my initial prototype last time:

This potholder (or topflappen, if you prefer) was my initial attempt at translating this pattern from German. Honestly, since it’s not my pattern I don’t feel right about posting my translation, but I did write about the tools anyone could use (regardless of their German language abilities) to work this up on their own in my last post.

The prototype makes a great dishcloth, but to really function as a pot holder it needed a little help. There are some pretty sizeable holes in there, and I don’t want to send anyone a hazardous pot holder! The pot holders I sent off for the swap were crocheted with Knitpicks Wool of the Andes (100% light worsted weight wool) on an E hook, which tightened up the holes somewhat, but not enough so that I’d feel comfortable putting the pot holder between my fingers and a hot pan. They needed backing, so I made some simple circles of double-crochet (and stupidly did not take any pictures of these before I sent them off). I also made some changes to the topflappen pattern to make it more amenable to having a liner/back. In my final version everything that is pink in the prototype AND the outermost orange scallops are in one color. Then I made the liner big enough in diameter so that it stretched straight across the front piece, minus the outermost round of scallops. Then I attached the back (crocheted in a contrast color) by slip-stitching around the edge of the front piece, joining the back at the point between each scallop, and slip-stitched in to the center. I realize this is a profoundly confusing write-up, and having a couple nice visuals would help immensely:

Clear? I hope that helps at least a little bit.

In the end I managed to crank out five of these sucks in a pretty short period of time and sent them off just in the nick of time.

I’m so pleased with those color combinations! It was especially hard to let go of the turquoise-brown one. I may have to recreate that one some time, but I think I’m a little burned out on crocheted pot holders for the time being. Word on the street is that the pot holders will be going out in the mail tomorrow, so hopefully by the end of this week I’ll get five little surprises!

Next up in the catch-up marathon: knitting!

Get it? HOOK? Crochet?? OMG! I recently joined a hot pads and potholders swap and I’ve been crocheting up a storm!

That pretty specimen up above is from a German pattern, actually. I’m putting that “German for reading” course I took last summer to good use! Well, passing the exam was a good use too, I guess. But crochet is obviously better.

Here’s my topflappen on rav, and here’s the German pattern. I’d rather not post my translation without talking to the author of that pattern first (which I’ll try to do, actually, but it doesn’t look promising given the format of that site) but I can point everybody to some good resources if you’re interested in working this one up for yourself.

LEO is a great online German-English dictionary.
And as comical as the initial results might be, it may behoove you, if you know no German whatsoever, to just run some sentences through google translator. It’s not going to be pretty, but it’ll get you started.
Next step – figure out some of those technical crochet terms. I used a combination of three sites to figure this one out. They are here, here, and (for the least ambiguity between American and British crochet terms) here.

I knit my topflappen with lily sugar n cream, which is a great workhorse worsted weight cotton. I used an F hook, and as you can see the results are a little holey. This would work under a hot pot on a counter but I definitely wouldn’t stick my hand in the oven with this. If I do this one again for the swap I’ll definitely test a couple hook sizes down first.

And finally – public service announcement! If you’re going to make any kind of hot pad or potholder you MUST use 100% cotton or wool. NO synthetics. Not even superwash wool is a particularly good idea. Synthetics will melt and they will HURT you.

I have to admit, I’m kind of a selfish knitter. If I put a ton of time, money, and effort into something I want to wear it when it’s done. It’s rare that I knit something very complicated for a gift. But my friend Becki, she’s worth it. She knits herself (I taught her!), so she *gets* it. She really, really appreciates a hand knit gift. I mean, really. This winter I realized that it had been over a year since I knit her anything (this my so-called scarf!). She was overdue for a hand knit present, I tell you! So I made her these fiddlehead mittens:



I know most people may look at mittens involving colorwork AND have a separate knit liner and think it must have taken forever to knit them. Truthfully, it took me a little while from start to finish (distractions! school, life, whatever.) but the actual knitting time was surprisingly fast. A lot of this has to do with the pattern – it is incredibly well-written and really thorough without being wordy and confusing. At $5.95 for the pattern, it’s a freaking steal. I can only imagine how much work went into it, and I’m really grateful for it.



Some technical info about these mittens (or just head over to their rav page):
I knit the outside out of two colors of cascade 220. The darker color, even though it looks pretty dark in these photos, is more of a medium heathery green. (It was incredibly bright out when I went out for these pictures!) The liner is misti alpaca worsted, which worked perfectly. If anyone is looking to knit these mittens and is curious about a yarn combo, the cascade and misti worked great for me. I knit them up on US 4s, magic loop style. One really helpful tip in the pattern is that the best way to get gauge for a mitten is to just start knitting on the size needle you think will be appropriate for you (say, sizing up or down a little if you’re a tight/loose knitter) and measure your gauge when you’re a couple inches in. I cannot tell you how much frustration I went through with gauge when I was trying to write another, not as well-written mitten pattern this winter. (That pattern will remain nameless, because the internet is a small place.) This tip saved me SO much time and frustration. Gauge on a swatch is just not the same as gauge in the round with colorwork – not at ALL, at least for me.



As for the “presentation of the mittens,” I had one big issue to deal with. Becki is severely, as in deathly, allergic to cats. Now, the cats aren’t allowed to come into contact with my knitting because they really want to tear it to pieces, but we all know how it is with animals. Their hair gets eve-ry-where, and the allergens from the dander tend to float around in the air and stick to everything. I really would rather not kill Becki, so here’s what I did to de-allergen these mittens. First, I took them over to her house for blocking. I went over every inch of them with a lint roller (the masking tape kind) to get off all the hair and hopefully some allergens as well. I picked off more hair with my fingernails while holding my face about an inch away from the mittens. Then I washed them – GASP! – in really, really hot water, with actual laundry detergent. I was careful not to move them around a whole lot and they were fine. They went through several hot baths in the sink until I was sure all the soap was out. Now, in an ideal world I would have left some of that fancy allergen-reducing febreeze with Becki, but on the day I went looking for this product, which the internet says great things about, it was nowhere to be found. I left the mittens to block in her apartment, far far away from kitties. Of course, I’m a little resentful that it suddenly became 70 degrees in Chicago today, but I’m really hoping for another surprise cold snap so she can try these suckers out before next winter.

One of my favorite food-related movies of all time is Tampopo. You meet lots of different people with all kinds of bizarre relationships with/involving food. In one of many bizarre scenes, a little boy meets a random hobo and they break into a restaurant at night and make this dish called omurice. Makes perfect sense, right? Right. But it’s wonderful.



Now, I’ve been to Japan a couple times but I’ve never had an actual omurice so I am making nooooo claims about anything involving “authenticity” here. But I’m not a half bad cook, and that food looks comforting as hell, so I set about making my own version. It’s been through a few different incarnations, and what I have finally settled on as “my” omurice bears very little resemblance to the original inspiration in the film. Here’s what mine looks like, and I’ve included the method below, and even with a little video I made on how to poach an egg.

There are two parts to the recipe: the rice and the egg. I typically get the rice started and a couple minutes later move over to make the egg so they get done at about the same time.

to make one omurice 9.0:
ingredients:

1 tsp. canola oil
3/4 c. leftover rice – I use Japanese short-grain brown rice, but whatever you have around is fine.

1/8 c. barbecue sauce
a dash of sesame oil
a dash of sriracha

1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. white vinegar
1 egg

for the rice:

Mix bbq sauce, sesame oil, and sriracha together.
Heat canola oil in a small pan over medium-high heat.
Add rice and saute for about 30 seconds.
Add bbq sauce mixture and mix to thoroughly coat the rice. Keep frying this mixture for another 5 minutes or so, until the rice has crisped up a bit.

for the egg:

Fill a large pan with straight sides (or a medium sized sauce pan, although this is easier in something with fairly low sides) with about 1.5 inches of water and place it over high heat.
When the water is steaming significantly but not boiling, stir in salt and vinegar.
Crack your egg into a small dish such as a small prep bowl or ramekin.
Carefully slide the egg into the water and immediately put a lid on the pan.
Leave it alone for 3-5 minutes. (It depends on how firm or runny you like your yolk. I’m a 4 minute kind of gal – some runnyness, but definitely cooked.)
Slide a spatula under the egg and carefully lift it straight up out of the water, and tip the spatula slowly and ever so slightly to each side to let any excess water run off.
Slide the egg carefully on top of the rice on the plate, and dig in!

If there’s any confusion about the egg poaching, don’t get frustrated – it’s hard. Here’s a little video I made that might help. My method is pretty much like what Mark Bittman describes in How to Cook Everything, but this may not work for you. If you find something else to be easier, please share! (Oh and don’t judge my video too harshly, please. I may take okay photographs but I’m a real crap videographer, and since I was the only one home when I was doing this I was not about to poach 9087 eggs to get just the right take. Oh, and I introduce myself at the beginning because I also made this video for the “Hi, I’m…” video group on flickr!)

I hope you enjoy the recipe!

I’m just cruising on through here to sing the praises of my friend Minty’s new mitten pattern, the Merion Mitts! It’s currently available as a pdf through ravelry.



I test knit the pair you see here – the pattern is very thorough, clearly written, and bonus – fun to knit. Mine are knit in malabrigo worsted merino, which, if you can believe this, was the first time I had ever worked with malabrigo. Ridiculous, I know. Well now I know what everyone’s always raving about. And the best part about it is that these mittens took about 2/3-3/4 of one skein, and I bought two, so I have a little more than a skein left. I’m thinking snowball hat with a comically large pom (because what other way is there to rock a pom, really), and it’s going to get started very, very soon. As soon as I finish up a very overdue gift I’ve been working on.



Back to the Merion Mitts, though, if you’re interested in the details about my pair, here they are on rav. The palm is in seed stitch, which, especially in the malabrigo, makes for some serious squishiness. And honestly, I find seed stitch to be a complete pain in the ass, and this was just the right amount. I get the benefits of seed stitch (you know, squishiness, interesting texture to look at and touch) without the extreme tedium.



If you’re looking for helpful hints about knitting these mittens, I strongly suggest finding a good tutorial on cabling without a cable needle. I originally learned from the ones over at grumperina’s. It’ll make the rest of your life a whole hell of a lot easier.



Don’t forget to twist those knit stitches to make em pop!

Sorry for the unexpected downtime, folks. Everything should be good from here on out. I’ve been revamping the sidebar a little bit to include a link to email me, a new and improved link to the Herringbone Cowl pattern, and some Rav progress bars. Stay tuned for, hopefully, some big new changes within the next few weeks. I’m diversifying.

And to all, some belated Christmas presents!

So I may have bit off more than I could chew with the Christmas knitting this year. I still haven’t blogged a couple things I gave away, and there are a couple more I’m still working on. And um, I want to knit some stuff for myself, too? When is that going to happen?

Anyway, my first FO of 2009 is from another minty pattern. This is her roman earflat hat (pdf!):



As far as mods go, there’s a pretty obvious one – no earflaps. I took Minty’s advice and increased the number of rounds of straight knitting after the brim to a total of 15. I’m pleased with the look of the finished hat, but now it goes down low enough that earflaps are completely unnecessary. I may try the pattern again for myself (I’m really really in love with that squishy brim) and only do 12 or so rounds of knitting post-brim. This hat is a good size on Peto, but it was a tad loose on me, so I’ll go down a needle size in the future.

The deets are on ravelry, but here they are in brief:
The yarn is berroco pure merino DK and it feels like butter. I have serious issues putting any kind of animal fiber on my head (no idea why – I could wear a burlap scarf, but my forehead can’t handle anything even vaguely itchy) and I would really like to get some more of this for a hat for myself. I used a US5 circular needle and was done after a day or two of plane travel.



Happy new year, everyone!

Merry Christmas all! I’m still pretty much snowed in in Portland. My parents and I have made it out to the grocery store a couple times, but it’s been a complete ordeal! Fortunately I’ve had plenty of knitting to keep me busy. Specifically, this:



which I think may be be biggest thing I’ve ever knit, which is funny considering I’ve been knitting for quite a while now. Almost ten years? I guess I have a short attention span.

The full story here is that this lap blanket is a Christmas present for my dad. My grandmother (his mom) died about a year and a half ago. She was a tremendous mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother and took care of our sizable family in New Hampshire with humor and grace. Like most women of her generation, she also crafted a great deal and left behind basically an entire floor of a house full of supplies for every craft you could ever imagine. Fortunately my mother and I are the only knitters in the family now and we got full run of knitting and crocheting materials. In the end we each came away with a couple big boxes full of yarn and quite a few needles. There were also knitting machines – two or three of them, I think, and yarn that came with them. That’s where this blue yarn came from. One of the machines was from Germany, and there was a good deal of old Schachenmayr nomotta yarn of various weights and fiber contents. This blue yarn was the least dated and most masculine color available, so I thought it would be fitting to make something for my dad with his mom’s old yarn.



The pattern is the hemlock ring blanket, rediscovered and circulated by Jared Flood. I found a useful pdf of the pattern here on the Rainey Sisters blog that I worked with.



Like I said, the yarn is old and German. It’s by Schachenmayr nomotta, which is obviously still around, and it’s called beatrice. (Here’s the page I made for it on ravelry.) Since I had to enter it in ravelry myself I’m guessing it’s not something you see around a lot. I see another person has stashed it since then, and the label looks completely different (but the yarn is the same bright blue – ha ha). It says, in German “100% pure new wool,” but even with that description I had my doubts for a while. I suspect it’s heavily treated to be washable. It doesn’t feel wooly, and even when I dumped it in the sink at the end I wasn’t entirely sure I hadn’t just knit a blanket out of 100% acrylic. When I started laying it out to block it became apparent that it was not, in fact, acrylic, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

About the pattern – it’s a shockingly quick and fun knit for being a big piece of lace. I had one false start when I screwed up the feather and fan pattern in the beginning, but since it was pretty early on I didn’t have too much to re-do and I was well on my way once again. The only thing I’ll definitely change if I knit it again is the cast-off. I worked the knit cast-off described in the pdf I linked to above, and holy God is it ever a pain in the ass. They mention a crochet alternative, which I’ll probably use next time. The results of the knit cast-off really do look like crochet, so I suspect this will be basically the same thing but with no turning a big unwieldy blanket around over and over again (which is totally scrunched up on the needles by the end – not fun).

Here are the deets on rav in case anyone is looking for more info, and merry Christmas once again! I hope everyone is having a happy, safe, loving holiday.