My Teachers.

This time I would like to honor the very special teachers I have had in my life. Since a tender age they helped me become the woman I am now and they also taught me the joy and appreciation of handmade objects like knitting and crochet. The above picture shows the very first crochet piece I did at age 7. It is a little tea carpet I crocheted under the patient and loving guidance of my maternal grandmother. It was such fun to see how magically my tiny hands were able to make something out of a hook and a thread! I believe that since that moment an important part of my life was decided: working with fibers.


The above and below pictures show a bit of my maternal grandmother's ability with crochet. She did this pair of gloves that have such a romantic flair and they fit my hands.


The following is another example of her crochet. I think she loved crochet more than knitting!


On the other hand my paternal grandmother was very good at knitting and eventhough she did not teach me how to knit she inherited me the first ever knitted baby sweater she did for my dear father when he was just born. Isn't it lovely?


Now comes my mother who happens to be an excellent crocheter, knitter and was amazing at needle point. I say was because now her eyesight prefers knitting. Here is a little example of what she used to do as a young girl. It is a crocheted carpet (1 of 4) with incredibly tiny cross-stitching.

I hope I will be able to carry on this tradition as sometimes unfortunately it seems to be escaping from the attention of the newer generations. Now it seems there is less time to dedicate oneself into working with a needle or a hook and a thread. This makes me feel even more compromised into making sure that what was inherited to me will pass on and will not stay as "things our grandmothers used to do".

Now to finish honoring the women in my family I baked a very easy and homely cake, one of my mom's favourite: Maple Cake.

Ingredients:

- 16 Tablespoons of unsalted butter, room temperature plus more for pan.
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for pan.
- 2 teaspoons baking powder.
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.
- 1/2 teaspoon salt.
- 3/4 cup pure maple syrup.
- 1/2 cup sugar.

- 2 large eggs.

- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract.

- 3/4 cup sour cream.

Preheat oven at 350oF. Butter and flour a 9-inch square baking pan; set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

With an electric mixer, beat butter, maple syrup, and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; mix in vanilla.

With mixer on low speed, alternately add flour mixture and sour cream, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Transfer batter to prepared pan; smooth top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of cake comes out clean, 30 to 45 minutes. Cool ten minutes in pan. Turn out of pan, and cool completely on a rack, right side up.

From Food Everyday/ Holiday Baking 2007.

Enjoy!

Full Bloom!

Yes, it is oficially spring and it is wonderful to see everything in full bloom in Mexico City. Together with the warm weather and ocassional showers it is time to finally finish the winter projects and start the spring ones, especially since winter in my city is almost non-existant.

For this difficult task it is always good to have the help of dear friends like my little "Dolce" :)

He is a good sport and always likes to test proof yarns, finished knitted objects and everything with fiber......the fuzzier the better! We are now trying to decide which new crochet project to start since it has been a while since I have done any. I was thinking of perhaps an easy scarf or shawl.....any suggestions?

So here is a picture of my black foulard that I renamed "Blackwidow" :)........oh, it took ages to be finished and I have already worn it. Actually while ending the ribs of this project I remembered how enjoyable crochet can be, so now I am hooked again!

Also, I have finished the body of the "Jacaranda" sweater. Yes! I am glad and now I will start the sleeves. Did you know that the name "Jacaranda" comes from a tree native from Brasil? It was brought in the XIX century to Mexico by the Matsumoto family, the best florists in my country. The tree adapted perfectly to the weather in Mexico City and it only blooms once every year, in march, by replacing all of its green leaves with lavender color flowers. Many parts of Mexico City are at this moment colored by these "Jacaranda" trees just like the sweater below.

And now to the recipes part! No desserts or cakes this time, actually a favourite recipe of mine. The classic "Pomodori Ripieni". I know two recipes but have found that this one in particular is quite good and non complicated, just in case you do not want to spend hours in the kitchen because you prefer to knit more! :)

Note: For each tomato use two tablespoons of raw arborio rice. This way you will not end up with a ton of unused rice.

Ingredients:

8 large ripe but firm tomatoes
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup minced parsley
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup raw arborio rice
1 teaspoon saffron (optional)
2 cups hot chicken consomme
salt
pepper

Cut a slice from the top of each tomato, under the stem and scoop out the pulp carefully without breaking the shells. Reserve the tops. Strain the pulp through a sieve and reserve (you will use very little of this in the recipe). Place tomatoes side by side in a shallow baking dish with olive oil. Sprinkle each tomato with olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper in the inside.
Heat the 1/2 cup of olive oil in a pan and cook parsley and garlic for a few minutes and add raw rice -without previously soaking it in water- and cook stirring constantly 3 to five minutes. The garlic should not burn. Stir saffron into the consomme that should be hot. Add hot consomme to the rice, and lower the heat. Cover and cook for ten minutes stirring frequently to avoid the rice to stick in the pan. When the rice is "al dente" remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.
Fill 3/4 of the tomatoes with the rice and with a spoon pour just a bit of the strained pulp and cover with the cut slices. Sprinkle on top with a bit of olive oil and season with a bit more salt and pepper.
Bake in a preheated moderate oven (350oF) for no more than 30 minutes without covering. Check that the tomatoes do not break. If necessary cut down the time in the oven.
A plus: if possible use the "roast" in your oven to give the tomatoes a nice color on top. Allow them to cool down prior to serving.
Enjoy!

Hasta Pronto.

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!

Finally some peace.

It's been a while since I have made a post here, but now I am back!

These past months have been quite hectic basically because I moved. OMG! it was exhausting having to move again in less than a year and anyone who loves having yarns around understands my frustration when everything had to be packed again.


Oh, but soon enough I have started unpacking and while setting things up around my home I managed to finish a scarf made to match with the cherry beret I did some months ago.

Too bad days over here are so hot, I will have to wait for the next winter to use it!

See you soon!

Life is a Celebration.

I find it amazing having to wait an entire year to see a plant bloom like this. It is a much awaited celebration for me as this little plant, my Wheinachts cacti, have come a long way together. Born in Switzerland and now living in Mexico it reminds me that many wonderful things in life are worth waiting for!

Just like my little cacti that starts blooming whenever the temperature goes down I have started to knit winter hats. Besides the Cherry beret, last week I decided to knit another hat of a "Zhivago-esque" style from VK that was fast and fun to do. What do you think?
Oh! and I finally finished my "Granny Smith" top! It took me more time than it was supposed to but I am happy with the results. It was knitted in a 100% cotton yarn and it will be among the first things I will wear as soon as the weather goes up again.

And to end up another week of celebration I baked some pear & granola muffins to accompany a nice cup of espresso (Lavazza please!), Twinings English Breakfast tea or a hot coco.

If anyone cares for the recipe feel free to ask for it.

Hasta Pronto!

Getting ready for Winter.

Hello again! This time I want to share with you a small project that took less than 3 hours to knit and helped me put my mind a bit away from the other knitting projects I am currently working on. I do not consider myself to be a fast knitter, but I am also not that slow. It depends on the project, still, this one was so much fun to knit!
It is from Vogue Knitting Holiday '06 issue and it has already setup my mind for the coming winter season. Gosh! I wish there would be snow in Mexico City.



On other more delectable things I finally learned why we name peanuts in a particular way in Mexico. We call them "cacahuates" and more than once people abroad would find it funny that they were called that way as, for example in italian they are called "arrichidi" and in french "arriquides". Spanish being also a latin language I never understood why we would call them with such a particular name, but now I know. It is because of the aztecs and this fact made me smile. The aztecs language, the "mexica", was very interesting. All words were composed of particular roots with a unique meaning. In the case of peanuts the aztecs would call them "tlalcacahuatl", tlalli meaning "earth" and cacahuatl meaning "cacao bean", resulting in "cacao bean from the earth". Nowadays we just call them cacahuates!

Rita, this one is for you,

Chocolate Glaze
(from Margaret Fulton´s "Encyclopedia of Food & Cookery")

Melt together 60 g/2 oz (4 tbsp) butter and 60 g/ 2 oz (1/3 cup) dark chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water. Gradually beat in 2 tbsp boiling water, 140 g/ 4 1/4 oz (1 cup) icing (confectioners) sugar, sifted, a pinch of salt and 1/4 tsp vanilla essence (extract). Use as a glaze over chocolate cake.