Last night I slept straight through, from 11pm to 7am this morning. Those of you who sleep like I do, give me a hallelujah! And amen, sisters.

When I was getting out of bed, my husband shouted from the living room — something like “oh, you’ll want to take a picture of this!” So I scurried in and grabbed my camera in an effort to capture the brilliant morning sun on the tree outside my window.

it's like the tree was the light source

Really so much more breathtaking than the photo reveals. Cameras are great for some things, but they miss so much.

Fragment #2: I eat very well, and mindfully. I’m trying to eat for my bones, eat for my muscles, eat to minimize inflammation, eat for general health. I don’t eat white flour (at all, really) or sugar (much), I don’t eat processed stuff. I eat a lot of vegetables and fruit, which is easy because I love it. We have so much wonderful food available in our neighborhood, with fresh markets on the corners and fruit vendors on the street. And a bite of very dark chocolate every day — it’s for my health! REALLY!  (No, really.) But now and then life also is enriched by a treat…..made into a ‘treat’ because it’s special and unusual and rare. This morning I had to go to the Post Office to pick up a package (restraining myself from going off on a rant here), and I passed the new Crumbs Bakery that just came to my neighborhood. I passed it on the way to the Post Office and it registered hmm…maybe on my way back… So yes, on my way back home I decided today was a good day for a treat. If you’re going to do it, do it right!

treat for me, as a reward for having to deal with the US Post Office.

this ain't no hostess cupcake.

It was DELICIOUS. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and slowly, and with lingering relish.

Fragment #3: Silt wash. My Audrey in Unst will be brown, the gorgeous silt wash colorway. Today I am doing a manuscript evaluation, which means I can knit while I read. I won’t be doing the swatches for Audrey while I read, that’s too focused, so I’ll finish the back piece of my Laurayana and get going on a sleeve. Back, sleeve, front, sleeve, that’s my plan. Then tonight I’ll swatch Audrey. Yippee!!

Happy Friday y’all. Here’s to sunlit trees and chocolate treats. And a good night of sleep.

Never make babka when you’re upset.

And its corollary:

Never ever make 2/3 of a recipe of babka when you’re upset.

For some reason, babka recipes make 3 loaves (these are good: one, two). Well, we’re just two little people, even though one of us (hint: not me) eats on the scale of a small family, especially where sweets are concerned. But anyway — we don’t need three babkas. So I put the list of ingredients in an Excel spreadsheet, multiplied each line by .66, and bingo: the ingredient amounts I’d need for 2 babka instead of three.

Would’ve been great, it was a smart plan, blah blah blah, but then, inside the recipe would be a statement like “using 10 T of butter” which did not represent the entire amount of butter. So I had to figure out what portion of the 3-loaf recipe 10T counted for, then try to take that portion of my butter. You can see the nightmare. I’m sure.

in case you don't know, this is chocolate babka (not the lesser cinnamon babka, cf Seinfeld). it's a very eggy, buttery bread wound up and twisted around a filling of chocolate, sugar, and cinnamon. RIGHT?

I was not having a great morning, after a bad night of sleeping/not sleeping, and my nerves were shot from too much coffee. Shaky hands, brittle mind, the whole “you shouldn’t be making babka, Lori” shebang. Which, of course, I stupidly ignored.

Hence, this advice post, in which I hope to spare you the similar anxiety and angst and absolute abject…running out of A-words here…failure. (Unless it’s not a failure, in which case I’ll post later.)

slice and bake - so easy - and pecan brown sugar shortbread, so delicious

Next up on the delicious hit list – looming yarns and their associated projects:

next on deck

MAN THIS IS KILLING ME. I want to grab needles and cast on for the five projects that will use these glorious yarns. Let’s go around the circle:

• top left, that pale, pale pink? That’s madelinetosh’s tosh merino light, in the porcelain colorway. I’m going to make the Austin Hoodie, designed by Connie Chang Chinchio – designed especially for this yarn, I believe. I’ll have a lot of new experiences with this one, including set-in sleeves and a hood.

• that red, on top? That’s my new Okay Knits Sena, in the sweetie-pie colorway. I’m going to knit the LaReine Shawl, designed by Angela Tong. No new experiences, but loads of pleasure with the fun design and gorgeous yarn.

• that brown(ish), on the right? That’s madelinetosh’s pashmina, in the silt wash colorway. I think I’m going to make the Katrina Ballerina Lace Layering Cardigan, designed by Nicole Feller-Johnson, but I’m not sure on this one, like I am on the others.

• the red, on the bottom — of course that’s my new Spirit Trail Fiberworks “clotho” in the dragon’s blood colorway, which I’ll use to knit Gudrun Johnston’s beautiful little Laar sweater. Thanks for your thoughts on that one! Right now this one is the most fun to think about.

• and last but certainly not least enticing, the fawn-colored laceweight wool on the lower left is the Jamieson & Smith Shetland Supreme, which I’ll use to knit either the Madli’s Shawl mentioned in the previous post, or the Tree of Light Shawl. Still pondering that one, and don’t want to give short shrift to the gorgeous yarn.

I’m just going to put all these yarns away, out of my sight (in the hopes that my age-related memory loopiness will help them slip out of mind) until I finish the Eve Shrugged and the Lace Ribbon Scarf. I want to finish the shrug, and I need to finish the scarf, and that’ll only happen if I give them both all my spare time and attention.

Do you continually massage your ravelry queue? Mine is extremely organized, and I regularly go through and reorder the items on the individual tabs (e.g., socks, sweaters, shawls), and then reorder the top items on the queue as a whole, matching them with stash yarns. In a way, this keeps my obsession going (the downside), but in another way, it gives me a way to play with projects without actually casting on too many at once (the upside). The top of my queue is now dominated by sweaters, a fact that tickles me.

A downside issue that warrants my attention…..I’m getting knitter’s elbow in my left elbow. It hurts, a lot, and I know I’d better slow down and do something about it before it gets so bad I can’t knit. THAT WOULD BE AWFUL. Since I spend so much of my day hunkered over the keyboard with long hours of focused attention, and then much of the rest of my time knitting, I hold my elbows in one position for long periods. I’m trying to stop very regularly – predetermined intervals so I don’t forget, like every page, or every couple of rows – and stretch out my arms, flex my hands up to further stretch the muscles and tendons, and breathe while I’m at it. [I forget to breathe.] This part is not so delicious.

Making pizza for tonight’s dinner

pizza

Since I’ve been dying for cake: yellow cake with chocolate frosting

AND cutting out a linen dress, cleaning the floors, doing some knitting — because it’s so springy outside, and tomorrow we’re heading out to Astoria, to our favorite Greek restaurant for a leisurely afternoon.

Happy happy spring!

So, WOTN! Item #1, the wedding shawl. Nupps are “fun.” I won’t show the shawl in its entirety, to preserve the surprise, but little bits here and there seem ok. Case in point: nupps.

nupps (unblocked, of course)

Next up on the needles: socks for my youngest daughter (nonrav link), whose dorm floors are very cold. I want to finish them by the time she comes home for spring break in a couple of weeks, so I’m alternating these with the shawl. (Doesn’t that gusset look mighty huge to you? It does to me.)

A's socks

While not technically on the needles, these are destined to be on the needles very soon – sock yarns chosen by my oldest daughter. Katie, which one do you want me to use first?

Lorna's Lace Shepherd Sock: Beverly

Knit One Crochet Too: Meadow

And finally, in this brief period between snows, I walked over to Riverside Park – my back yard, kind of – and I took a picture I take over and over, in all seasons. Here it is today:

winter view

And here it is a few months ago, and a few before that:

November

May

Seeing the park blanketed with snow, and ice in the Hudson River, made me think about Lent. I didn’t grow up in a church that focused on Lent (ours focused on the fun combination of both fire and brimstone), and I’m not religious in that way, but the idea of it struck me. There’s a longing for life to come – the life that’s pent up in the trees and plant life buried under the snow. The wheel turns, it’s bleak now, but rejuvenation is coming. It’s coming. The world will begin again, as it always does.

On the knitting front, I made it through the entire part of the shawl chart with the big set of nupps. And they were fun! I definitely learned how to do them better by the last row of them, but I was happy enough. Then, knitting the last set of lace rows to complete the chart, and *clunk*. Something was way wrong. After each row – partly due to overweening pride – I’d stopped, stretched out the lace, admired it, looked for problems, found none. After each pattern repeat, I rechecked the stitches. If each pattern repeat was correct, and each row was correct, I’d be in good shape, right? And yet I’d really screwed up something, somewhere. How hadn’t I seen it in all my looking?! Too much pride, too much “look, isn’t that cool what I did?” I guess. And so I had to pull that whole section out. Had I put in a lifeline? NO.

So I held my breath, got out a small tapestry needle and a roll of dental floss, and tried to put one in, below the nupps chart. A tiny little stitch at a time, through the cobweb-weight lace. plink. plink. plink. plink. plink. Across the row…..and then pull pull pull pull, unknitting. It worked, and so now I begin again. At least this time I’ll do the nupps pretty well from the very first row. So with the shawl too, I’m back where I started.

My sweetheart and I have been dieting – him on Atkins, me on low-cal – but here it is, Valentine’s Day (tomorrow). We’re going out for dinner at our favorite Ethiopian restaurant, Awash, and then we’ll come home for something sweet. He really loves blueberry coffee cake, so I just popped one in the oven. Photos of a slice tomorrow, but for now, The Making of the Coffee Cake, followed by its recipe.

rich batter chock-full of blueberries

sprinkled with a yummy streusel topping, ready to bake

Want to make it yourself? Here’s how: