I’ve been hiding her from you for a few weeks now, mostly because I’ve been too overwhelmed to blog coherently. But here’s a picture of my new precioussss:

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She’s a double treadle Schacht Matchless, and although she’s somewhat temperamental, when she’s in a good mood she spins like a dream. I haven’t yet named her, other than to occasionally call her a Bitch Goddess. In any case, I can already see a vast improvement in the quality of my spinning with her. I’m able to spin much more evenly and for much longer stretches of time, and when I do need to stop, she stops on a dime. (I’m not sure if that’s due to the Schacht’s sensitivity, or if it’s simply due to the fact that I’m trying it out in double drive mode at the moment - I’ve heard improved consistency and longer spinning time listed as virtues of double drive before.) Right now I’m mostly frantically knitting on my 8,265,394 WIPs. I have had a little time to play with some really soft and nice BFL. I’m spinning it semi-woolen, with the intent of knitting socks (with stronger, tougher Wensleydale at heel and toe).
Just to make sure this month was a “Hooray for Me” bacchanalia, I also swapped the lovely Melissa for a drum carder:

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It’s an older Pat Green - it looks like a Deb’s Deluxe but it’s not; it has the fur drum, though, as far as I can tell, and it seems to work nicely. I also got a burnishing tool from Susan’s Fiber Arts (and Susan is a nice lady!), and it vastly improved the quality of my test batts. Coming up, my first for-reals victim: one of the two Icelandic fleeces that I picked up last month from Woolambia:

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I’ve gotten it into my head that sock yarn made out of these fleeces could be really lovely - but who needs four pounds of sock roving? So perhaps I will end up with a sweater and a couple of matching pairs of socks. I just think that the stong tog and the soft thel would make a wonderful combination for socks. There’s one hitch, though. The traditional way of making lopi yarn out of unseparated Icelandic fleece is to very loosely spin it, with barely enough twist to hold the yarn together. That can’t make for the strongest of socks. Any thoughts on what to make with this?

I’ll leave you with a pretty photo of the gorgeous Stargazer lilies that are scenting our entire house - they’re amazing when they’re fully open:

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and now, back to our regularly scheduled knitting programming (cupcakes are just one post away, though, so don’t deprive yourself if you’re in a baking mood):

Lacy Scarf

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from P&B Luxury in Fuzzy Wuzzy Angora - date published unknown
Materials: Fuzzy Wuzzy Angora, 2 - 1/2 oz. balls. Two #5 knitting needles. (From the looks of it, a sport or light DK-weight angora yarn was used. Anny Blatt Angora Super, Bouton d’Or Angora 70, Lorna’s Laces Angel, or Maggi Knits Angora could be used as a substitute.)

Tension: 4 1/2 sts and 6 rows = 1 inch. (Note: I don’t think tension is particularly critical on this one.)

Cast on 34 sts.

1st row: K2. *YO, Sl 1, k2tog, psso, YO, k3. Repeat from * to last 2 sts; k2.

2nd row: K2, purl to last 2 sts, k2.

3rd row: K2. *K3, YO, sl1, k2tog, psso, YO. Repeat from * to last 2 sts; k2.

4th row: K2, purl to last 2 sts, k2.
Repeat these 4 rows until all the Angora except about 1 1/2 yards have been used. Cast off. Press lightly.

A brief interlude from knitting:

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the Kitchener Bitch’s Margarita Cupcakes

These are the decidedly non-vegan bastard stepchild of this admittedly already delicious-sounding recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and the White Velvet Butter Cake recipe from my favorite baking book, The Cake Bible … with a few added tricks of my own. I’ve been reading blogs about baking and specifically about cupcakes lately, and I fear I will gain 756 lbs just by thinking so much of exotic sweets. But I had to make first chocolate cupcakes, and then these. The coconut is an optional touch, or you can use colored sugar or jimmies as your sweet tooth dictates.

Velvet Lime Cake

Have at room temperature:

4 1/2 egg whites (about 4 full liquid ounces/135g)

1 liquid cup milk minus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces/+/-242 g)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (18g)
1 teaspoon lime extract (4 g)
1/2 teaspoon orange extract (2 g)
1 teaspoon vanilla (4 g)
1 tablespoon grated lime zest
3 cups cake flour (10.5 ounces/300g)
1 1/2 cups sugar (10.5 ounces/300g)
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder (19.5 g)
3/4 teaspoon salt (5 grams)
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (6 ounces/170g)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tins with twenty-four paper liners. In a medium bowl, lightly combine the egg whites, 1/4 cup of the milk, and the vanilla. Set aside. Mix the remaining milk with the lime juice and the lime and orange extracts. (The milk will thicken and curdle a little; don’t freak out, this is okay.) In a large mixing bowl, combine the zest and the dry ingredients and whisk together to combine. Add the milk-lime mixture and the butter. Mix on low speed until combined, then on high speed for 1 1/2 minutes to build structure and aerate the cake. Scrape down the sides. Add the egg mixture in 3 batches, scraping the sides of the bowl down and mixing for 20-30 seconds after each addition. Scrape down the sides. Fill paper liners two-thirds full. Bake 12-14 minutes or until tester inserted near the center comes out clean and cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center. The cakes should start to shrink away from the pan edges only after removal from the oven. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to a rack. Frost with Margarita Frosting.

Margarita Frosting

1/2 oz. tequila

1/2 oz. Triple Sec or Grand Marnier

1 oz. lime juice

1/2 teaspoon lime extract

1 tablespoon lime zest, grated

1 oz. milk

8 oz. butter, softened

Confectioner’s sugar

Cream the butter using a hand mixer. Add the milk, liquors, lime juice, zest, and lime extract and blend. Start adding in confectioner’s sugar until the frosting reaches a spreadable consistency. After the cupcakes have cooled completely, spread this frosting thickly over the tops. If desired, roll edges in colored sugar, coconut, or jimmies.

More unfinished flotsam and jetsam in my project pile, that is. These are the works in progress that have been rotating in and out of my knitting bag these days:

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The Very Late Baby Sweater. Intended for Zellie, CBear’s truly wondrous brand new baby girl; destined to arrive probably somewhere around baby’s Week 4 at this rate. This is based on a vintage surplice sweater pattern that I’m updating with new yarn, simplified stitch pattern, new gauge, and new closures (to make it easier to get baby in and out without unnecessary acrobatics.) The pattern will appear somewhere, once I finish writing it.

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The Even Later Birthday Stole. Yes, it was back in May that I told my friend Lisa that I was starting her stole. Fast forward eight months and this is how far along I am. Yikes! (I started over twice, in three different yarns, and I’ve only recently regained interest in making this project stop haunting my knitting basket - but still.) It’s coming along nicely, if a tad more slowly than the last time I made a stole from this pattern and yarn. Or maybe I wasn’t quite so flea-brained then as I am now. Who can remember? Not me, that’s for sure.
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The Furtive Sock Project. Now did you really think I wouldn’t have a sock stowed away someplace? This is my sock for riding in the car, for waiting at the auto body shop, for standing in line at the grocery store. It’s Great Adirondack Soxie - pros: it comes out awful pretty, and it makes a nice soft fabric; cons: it is DYEING MY HANDS PURPLE. I fear that I’m going to have Barney-colored ankles after every time I wear these.

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The Class Sample. I’m teaching a Beginning Lace class at Loopy right now, and all of the students chose Branching Out out of all the free patterns they could choose from. I had one I knit for myself to show them, but I wanted to be able to do it along with them so I could show them how stitch by stitch. Hence this sad little stub of a scarf. I think this one might never get finished - I might just pull it out to use as a demo whenever I teach this lace class again.
Who knows which project will get done first? And will I ever actually finish anything after all? Tune in to find out…

Doggedknits tells me that “today is National Pie Day, y’all.”

Mmm…. pie. Let’s all pause and reflect, shall we?
Nah. Beat you to the fridge. Ready? Set? GO!