Spring.

Today I received a gift from my nephew, his first Easter eggs done by him. He was so excited in giving something he created on his own. I decided to start my post with a picture of such special gift. Gracias Juan Carlos!

So now we are almost at Spring and almost at Easter. The weather in Mexico City has been quite hot and my winter projects are now kept deep in my drawers. I decided to start a new project for this coming season. It is inspired by a downloaded pattern at the Vogue Knitting website from Vladimir Teriokhin, a very good designer. Although the original pattern is quite nice just the way it is I decided to add a little something to make it a bit more "coquete". Something simple really: a set of lace hearts that I will keep on knitting on all the project vs. the simple St st suggested by the designer. Here a picture of Teriokhin's "Off-The-Shoulder Pullover".


And here is a picture of my version with my favourite model posing -he loves to sleep on top of my stash!-. I am following the lace heart pattern from a book and think it looks quite nice. In this project I am trying to improve my "lace" technique.
Aside from the lace pattern I also changed the color to make it more vibrant and "loud" and as always I am not using the type of yarn suggested because I already had a very nice french cotton. Hope to finish it before Spring ends!



Still on the Lace theme I an trying to finish a very old project, my own design......oh how difficult it is to retake a lace pattern! It is a long foulard and I am glad that I left some notes and so I must finish it soon. Its starting date? well....March 2004. :)


Some news: I am now at Ravelry!

Finally all this hot weather has put in season oranges everywhere so I baked an orange cake to celebrate. From Margaret Fulton's "Encyclopedia of Food & Cookery":
Ingredients:

- 1/2 cup of butter or margarine.
- grated rind and juice of one medium orange.
- 3/4 cup caster sugar.
- 2 eggs, separated.
- 2 cups self-raising flour.
- pinch of salt.
- 2 or 3 tbsp milk.
- sifted icing (confectioner's sugar)

Cream butter with orange rind and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, one at a time and beat well after each. Sift flour with salt and fold into creamed mixture alternately with strained orange juice and milk, beginning and ending with flour. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form and gently fold in. Spoon into 20cm round or square tin pan greased with melted butter, bottom lined with greased waxed paper and dusted with flour. Bake in a preheated moderate oven (180 oC/ 350 oF) for 35 to 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in centre comes out clean. Turn out on to a wire rack and when cool dust with sifted icing sugar.
Enjoy!

Hasta Pronto!

Special Things.

I love to knit, but I also love to sew. Before I ever took a pair of needles sewing was already a very active part of my life, especially because my grandmother's sewing machine was left at my home. This Singer sewing machine (pictures above and below) was bought by my grandfather in the early 50's and it still works like brand new. Of course I have a modern sewing machine now, computerized with the latest technology, but I can't help having a special feeling towards my grandmother's sewing machine. It reminds me of her and enjoy using it.

My grandmother never knew how big her influence would be in my life but knowing her I am almost sure she saw in my early years of age a shared love for certain things. She left her Singer at my home perhaps with the plan to tempt me into sewing one day only to see that designing clothes became my profession later in life. Perhaps she saw something when she taught me how to crochet. I was about 7 or 8 when I crocheted a little carpet for the first time. All the patience I took to finish it, the many hours seeing how the work would grow...... finally discovering how I could create with my hands something. Sewing came natural to me.

Unfortunately she was not around anymore when I started getting curious about knitting although I was always amazed of the beautiful things my aunt would knit -it was like magic to see the many things she could knit-, so if I already knew how to crochet I self taught myself to knit. Of course, I made mistakes and now I am trying to fix one of them!

Here is a picture of one of my first knitting projects. It is a pullover knitted with three strands of mohair. It had very little to do with what I wanted to achieve and then what resulted was a very bulky and very warm piece!
I always liked the yarn (100% New Zealand mohair) so I have decided to unravel it. I am amazed as from one sleeve I got 3 skeins of 100grams each. No wonder it was warm! I will wash it and then use all the yarn for a nice pullover that I will later post about here.

I am still trying to finish my first project knitted in the round from the neck. I have discovered that it was voted by readers to be one of the few projects included in a compilation of the best knitting projects by Interweave Knits from the past ten years. I like it, I have now started knitting the waist (still missing the sleeves).

And last but not least, I have finished another scarf for the chilly nights. It is from Robin Melanson, a Canadian knitter whose sense of style resembles mine.

It is from Interweave Knits Winter 2004 and as usual I had to replace the yarn but I do like the results. I used Katia's "Azteca" (50% wool, 50% acrylic) -funny name for a yarn with colors never liked by the Aztecs!

See you soon!