First Fingerless Mitts

I finished the fingerless mitts a few weeks ago but never posted in hopes of making a pair. That never happened! I was excited about doing cables for the first time, and they came out right! I used a lot of help from the discussion board on Rav. I'm not sure what I would do without that site. Unfortunately the photos of the cables were all blurry so I posted the best one.

There is only one mitt though. When I started I knew I didn't have enough yarn for the project, but I really just wanted to get started on the mitt. I used one pink and one grey skein of yarn. It was incredibly simple but somehow I made a mistake on the thumb. Where the hole is, I have a strand of yarn going across the middle. I figure it must be the way I cast back on to create the hole. I suppose I have to learn a new technique.

I am having a difficult time finding simple fingerless mitts with a thumb for my daughter so I think I'm going to try and make it as I go along. Here is my sole, fingerless mitt.

Sticky Brown Rice

I have been dying to have sticky rice. I LOVE sticky rice. It's really simple to go to any number of Chinese restaurants in my immediate area and order some rice. I could even solve my craving by going to Wegmans and buying some sushi. I decided to eat a little healthier so my new rice of choice happens to be brown.

All the joy of brown rice. Not only is it healthier but it also takes almost twice the time to cook. And apparently, not many people get creative with brown rice. Perhaps I should add a segment to my blog, "Creative Brown Rice" and share what will be many blunders in making new dishes with brown rice. BUT at some point, I will get it right. Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.

Any recipes I have found for "sticky brown rice" pulled up sushi dishes, one recipe large enough to make 8 cups of rice and one that had NO recipe. The recipe for sushi required 1 cup of rice and 6 cups of water. I have come to the conclusion that sticky rice requires more water and although brown rice requires more water than white rice, I am not going to jump off this bridge and use 6 cups of water for 1 cup of rice.

Instead, I used 1 cup of rice and 2.5 cups of water. The recipe on the bag said to use 2 1/4 cups of rice. I know it's not a big difference but worst case scenario, I have normal brown rice. If it's wrong I will increase the water by half a cup each time.

THE RESULTS:
My sticky brown rice turned out mushy, with just a tiny bit of recognizable rice grains. It was a bit watery after 45 minutes so I left the top off to let the water evaporate, only then did it become sticky. Sticky, mushy brown rice. I didn't know what to do with it so I fell back on the sweet rice that the kids love. I added some milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and butter. There you have it, sticky, mushy, sweet rice. I'm glad I did not use the 6 cups of water. I will have to work on non-mushy sticky rice the next time.

My first Frog, ribbit ribbit

I recently (ok well probably not SO recently) began knitting my first non-scarf object. They were Sarah's Arm Warmers from Ravelry. I knit the first 16 rows properly. I was confused about my first time cabling so I asked around. I thought the pattern that read "repeat cable pattern 5 times" meant I should repeat the last row which included the cable 5 times. After about 3 rows of repeating the wrong row, I realized my knitting was inside out. Shortly afterward, I realized that I wasn't supposed to cable every row, only row 8. :(

It was at that moment when I realized that I could not simply pull it apart stitch by stitch on DPN's (or could I?) and I had to pull it all apart. :0(
RIBBIT, RIBBIT, RIBBIT
I will start again soon. I'd post pics of my frog but who wants to look at a gray skein of yarn?

Tele Health

TK hasn't been feeling well over the last several days. Her throat has been hurting which means she's barely eating and she's lethargic. Today I called her doctor to make an appointment but I couldn't get in before they closed at 4. They offered me an appointment tomorrow (Saturday) or this evening at a Tele Health Clinic. That didn't sound great but I wanted her to get in to see someone.

Tele Health Clinics are set up in random places and open after hours. You call them and let them know the problem and set up an appointment almost immediately. Since they are in a lot of small places they are close. One was 5 minutes away from us, and closer than the hospital. It didn't look attractive. It appeared to be the break room of a small company that is known for it's participation in the community. It reminded me of something you would see in a poor country who managed to get some supplies. I was introduced to two assistants who told me how this worked. They would take our information, do the basic check up type of stuff, take some pictures, then email the pics to the doctor who is on call. The doctor takes a look, calls back and does a phone conference with all of us and we have a diagnosis.

Everything went well until the laptop did not want to work. So the conference was off but I did speak with her on a cell phone. She confirmed the strep diagnosis that the assistants gave us. She'd sent the order for the prescription in to our pharmacy and gave the normal doctor's advice. Fluids, meds, rest AND popsicles, lol. TK loves the last part. I let her pick out the type of popsicles she wanted.

The staff was efficient and very nice. I love the concept but as all good things do, they may not be around after the end of the year because it's paid for by a grant. People don't know about these places and are not showing up. Too bad, I really like it. It's convenient, they even wrote the letter that the school will need to know that she has been treated without my asking.

Where will technology and medicine take us next? Perhaps Skyping with your physician or nurse for a diagnosis?

Christmas Scarves

It took a little longer than I planned but here are the pics of the scarves I made the kids for Christmas. I took these pics on Christmas Eve in a mad dash to get everything together. I gave them their gifts early. Since everyone has begun knitting, they each received a tote bag that contained several skeins of yarn, three pair of needles and a scarf that I made them. They're knitting like crazy so it won't last long. I have to figure out how to satisfy all of our yarn cravings soon.

The pink and red scarves are simple drop stitch scarves. It is the Instant Gratification Scarf pattern on Ravelry. The grey scarf was the Scrunchable Scarf from Ravelry. The pattern was k,k,p in threes which I understood. I did not understand the extra stitches on either end meant for "selvage" so I just knit them. It looks fine to me.

Almost forgot, that is my youngest daughter modeling someone elses scarf before I got it packed up. I still have to make her a scarf, I feel bad that I have knitted one for almost everyone else except her. She's next (after the fingerless gloves I just started).

Happy New Year

It is New Year's Eve. I spent the better part of an evening, washing, blow drying, flat ironing and curling my hair. Why? For no particular reason. I'm not going anywhere. It's so rare that I do my hair that the kids asked if I was going out. NOPE. I just decided it should look nice for a couple hours. It will be puffy by morning and not so straight by the middle of the night :(

I'm still knitting scarves. I knit the kids scarves for Christmas. I gave the girls a drop stitch scarf, it was cute but mostly because it didn't take too much time. I gave R a ribbed scarf. I found both of the scarves on Ravelry. I have to figure out how to put a Rav link here.

Now, on to the rest of my boring night. I think I'll knit a drop stitch scarf for my mom. It was supposed to be a Christmas gift. I'll post pics later. Hopefully I can figure out how to get the pics to come AFTER the text.

Intro to Knitting

I decided to re-try my hand at knitting again in October. I tried a few years before because I ran across the knit a cap, save a life organization. A left handed co-worker made three caps in the process of trying to teach me. I managed to knit about one inch of nothing before I gave up.

I saw the website again recently and thought, perhaps I should give it a try but I gave myself a goal of completing at least one object by the end of the year. I used one of the "I taught myself to knit" packages from Wal-Mart that I purchased the first time around. Then I remembered seeing Ravelry so I decided to join. Someone suggested Debbie Stoler's Stitch N Bitch series, so I borrowed it from my library. I also ordered copies from Amazon. I used YouTube for visuals, that works better for me. There was also knittinghelp.com which was even better.

I made a scarf with some acrylic yarn from Wal-Mart. I wasn't even aware of LYS' before then. Now I know and will have to visit them at some point, and of course the closest one is at least 15 minutes away. I made the "Ribbed for her pleasure" scarf from Stitch N Bitch but I decided to goof around with wide stripes, they look more like blocks.