Yes, yes I am back so soon. I’m planning a couple rounds of posts on Christmas gifts, partially because there are a lot of them, and partially because, well, I’m still starting some. I’m a classy gift giver like that. But to be fair, some of the people I give Christmas presents to are fellow grad students and they are away over break, so what do they care when I start knitting. That’s what I’ll keep telling myself anyway.

This first post will be on the stocking stuffers I made for my parents and Peto – they’re cute little packages of knit washcloths and handmade soap. Washcloths- thrilling, I know. But actually, they kind of were thrilling. I’d just come down from a long stint of crocheting, and I was really ready for some knitting. I keep jumping back and forth between these two crafts in such a weirdly manic fashion, when really, I don’t have to be such a nut about it. At least for now it’s working. Nothing feels better than getting back to a craft you’ve neglected for a few weeks/days/hours.

The first washcloth you see here went to my dad. It’s so satisfyingly sturdy and squishy that I think I’ll have to make more for my own household. I bet this baby feels great pressed up into your face. The pattern is called Circle Cloth

Next up was a simple pattern, and I decided to give this one to my mom since it seemed like a shade of green that she would really love. This pattern came from the Purl Bee – Wedding Washcloths. That page pictures both seed stitch and seed stitch-bordered washcloths, and as much as I would love a nubby seed stitch cloth I just didn’t have it in me to knit that much of it. Sad, I know, when we’re only talking about a freaking washcloth. That’s how much I hate knitting seed stitch.

And this last one has what may be the most bizarre name for a washcloth I have ever seen: it’s called the DW Darrell Waltrip Cloth. I absolutely love the texture of those floats over the fronts of the slipped stitches.

In case anyone is curious, I did queue up a few other washcloth patterns that looked nice, so here are some links. Some of these are knit; some are crocheted; some are intended as dish/washcloths; some are not:

knit:
lion brand dish cloth
the squidge cloth
waffle knit dish cloth
grrr – I mean come ON, we all know I need this. Trouble is my family members don’t really need it, so it didn’t make the cut for stocking stuffers.
and the always classic ballband dishcloth

crochet:
crazy cloth dish cloth
wool eater blanket – *yes I realize this is a blanket pattern, but I was so in love with Julia Vesper’s wool eater potholders that this might be a good opportunity to try out the pattern in a new way. Just look at her use of color! Fantastic.
waffle weave dishcloth -*I love the look/feel of crocheted waffle stitch, but I just finished a stealth crochet project involving a LOT of it and I would have gone bat shit crazy if I’d crocheted a single other post stitch.
crochet dishcloths
easy crocheted dishcloth
granny dishcloth c
crochet dandy dishcloths – the name of these completely freaks me out, but I am such a sucker for that color/texture combo on the rav page.
noro catherine wheel scarf – inspired by Adrian of Hello Yarn’s potholder
pretty petals potholder – so frilly! so pretty! it just makes me want to wash my face!

This was my first year celebrating Christmas in Chicago, and boy did we ever celebrate.

I absolutely love Christmas – I love decorations; I love giving gifts, snow, surprises, fireplaces, and all those other idealistic seasonal pleasures.

I visited Chicago’s Christkindlmarket twice this year – once for lunch with my friend Matt, and once again with my parents.

Both times there was weather so awful it was hilarious. It was a beautifully clear day when Matt and I went, but the high that day was something like 8 degrees. We silently ate our brats in record time, and after the 2 minutes it took me to stuff the whole thing down my gullet I thought I might never feel my fingers again. I spent my second visit (with Peter and my parents) with ice pellets flying into my eyes. And yet, I wouldn’t miss the Christkindlmarket for anything.

Finally, Peter and I had the most amazing surprise when we happened upon the CTA’s holiday train! The holiday train is one el train that is completely and utterly decked out with Christmas decorations (let’s be honest here, it’s really just a Christmas train, but I don’t see any reason why every can’t enjoy this ridiculous festive-ness) that runs on a limited schedule on a different line every day of the Christmas season. The CTA posts its schedule on their website, so people normally wait to catch it on purpose, so when we walked off the stairs of the Garfield red line station to see a train completely covered in Christmas lights flying into the station, I lost all control of myself and started screaming with glee right there on the platform. Yes, that really happened.

I hope you all, dear readers, had wonderful holiday seasons.

Coming soon – reports on handmade gifts!

Over Thanksgiving I had the good fortune of being treated to a meal at Reef in Houston, Texas. You can see on their web page that they’ve won a number of awards, and from what I’d heard the place would not disappoint.

The interior was modern and festive; the dining room was large but neither too crowded nor too loud. We were a large-ish group so we were seated at the back of the room in a tall booth with the most fantastic quasi-deco fabric. The only downside to the booth was that it was a little dark back there for picture-taking. It was great for a enjoying a nice dinner, but some of my food shots are pretty grainy.

Those of us who arrived early started out with the 3rd Bar Plateau, which is a sampling of “all things salty and raw.” I was most curious about the raw oysters and clams, since I had never had either one of these. The oysters tasted ocean in a shell, which was a unique experience, but one I don’t really feel like I need to repeat. I did eat several clams, however. The biggest surprise on the platter was actually the seaweed salad. Until this point I had never had one that wasn’t slimey and underwhelming, and somehow this one had a much more appealing texture with a strong sesame flavor. Fantastic.

My remarks about the raw platter bring me to the only problem I had with Reef – while our waiter was extremely knowledgeable, particularly about wine choices, his explanations of the food were confusing. First off, I had trouble hearing him, and the place wasn’t loud. So after he brought the raw platter to the table we had to keep asking each other what the various things were. And there were 3 or 4 sauces on the bottom tier that were not explained, and nothing on the platter seemed to require a sauce. So I’m not sure what they were or what they were for. Jumping ahead a bit, there were a couple other service issues that bugged me. Perhaps I’m old and cranky, because these are minor details, but they are things I notice in a lot of restaurants and they should be easy to avoid. First off, it drives me crazy when waitstaff takes some people’s plates while others are still eating. I’m a slow eater, and I eat kind of a lot, and when everyone else’s plates are taken away it makes me feel not only rushed, but also self-conscious about how much I eat, which is not how I should be made to feel in a nice restaurant. Second, my wine glass was taken away before the wine was finished. If I’d noticed there was more wine I would have stopped whoever took it. But for whatever reason about half the glasses in our group were taken away when we still had quite a bit of wine, which put those people who still had glasses in a strange situation. Why would this even happen in the first place?

For the entrée I ordered the Thai Style Whole Fish, which was roasted, yes, whole, with spices and vegetables. If you don’t like picking through bones, this dish isn’t for you. Personally, I enjoy the challenge. The fish had a great sour-spicey flavor that really crept up on me, so by the time I was finished eating my lips were tingling. They weren’t shy with the vegetables, either, which I always appreciate.

Finally, the highlight of the meal for me, after eating an entire fish that is, was taking a peak in the open kitchen. It was orderly and efficient, with a lot happening at once in a small space – impressive!

If you’d like to see the whole set of pictures from the trip, they’re right over here.

Good morning, dear readers! I’m just popping in for a moment before heading off to the library to let you know that I have a new published design out there, called the Snowy Day Hat! It’s in the Jan/Feb issue of Crochet Today, which is arriving in subscribers’ mailboxes right now, and should hit newsstands any day. There’s a page for it on the Crochet Today website, and if you’d like to queue it up it is now on ravelry as well. The above picture is of the version I worked up for the magazine, as expertly modeled by Peto.

The Snowy Day Hat is a crochet ski-style earflap hat, worked mostly in the sturdy old single crochet stitch, with a band of textured “ribbing” in the middle. It is designed for Red Heart Designer Sport, which is actually a DK weight yarn, held double. This makes a nice structured fabric. I imagine it could be made single-stranded with an aran or light bulky weight yarn – something that would make a dense fabric when crocheted on a USH/5.0mm hook.

Sorry if the RSS feed for my blog is going a bit berserk today. I’ve been working on some major site changes in the way of design and organization! I recently found this incredibly sexy wordpress theme, which is called AutoFocus and is designed by Allan Cole. The theme really makes it easy for me to execute some site changes that I’ve been considering for a long time. I’d like to be able to include bigger images, and I need a design that not only supports them, but features them tastefully without being too overwhelming or distracting. AutoFocus is just the ticket.

In addition to the new design I’ve started working with wordpress’s pages feature a bit more, and I created a small about page (just for my bio and email info, really, although I’m sure eventually I’ll think of something else to put on there) and I’m working on a page with links to my designs. Beware, though, the designs page is still more of a work in progress than the other pages, and at the moment it is absolutely heinous, but I need to have that information somewhere.

At any rate, I hope you like the new concepts I’m working with here. If you clicked over to this entry in particular, do take a moment check out the look of the home page because it is damn fine if you ask me.