Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Death and destruction to my latest knitting. Hacksaw. Hobnailed boots. Little dolls wearing a copy of it and being killed in black magic ways.

I hate knitting. Hate. Hate. Hate.

Here I was, I’ve done the back. The front has only a row or two to go. That’s it. Summer, so no sleeves. And.

And I haven’t done the neck shaping for the front. Now, that doesn’t matter, does it? Just unpick a few inches, right? But the whole thing is knitted sideways, so it has to be unpicked to the very start.

Let me just say that again. I hate knitting.

Suppose you have a pattern written for 18 stitches/4 inches gauge and your preferred yarn is 22 st. And suppose you are a small size. In a general sort of a sense you might find that one of the larger sizes is exactly what is needed.

I have a way of working this out, but it is so complicated that whenever I try to explain it to anybody, they automatically assume that I am good at maths and that I’m explaining something difficult. When in actual fact what is happening, is like this….I’m hopeless at maths and there’s bound to be a simpler way.

So, I asked a friend recently who is good at maths and upon explaining what was required, he immediately came up with this:

Number of stitches. Eg I use some number at the main part of the front/back which is straightforward knitting. I figure borders, edgings, different sized needles, all those sorts of things that come into play at the start of a bottom up piece, are likely to be unreliable. Maybe this is completely wrong, I don’t know. Let’s say 90.

Gauge of the original pattern yarn gauge. Let’s say 18.

Gauge of the substituting yarn. Let’s say 22.

Take the number of stitches, divide by the original gauge, multiply by the substituting gauge.

Ie 90 divided by 18 multiplied by 22.

Look at the answer you get. If you can find the equivalent number of stitches (or close) in a larger size, you have arrived! That size should give you exactly what you want.

NB: if row gauge is important, I guess you do it the same way???? I didn’t ask.

Sue Loci, if you are reading this, you probably know the answer. Fill us in please!

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I dare say one could write a book about Vindaloo but for now, having been standing and cooking one for the last hour, just this: there are two critical elements to any of a thousand vindaloo recipes. One is the cut of meat. The other is the colour. It must be a gorgeous gleaming brown of great depth. If it isn’t, then you have failed, no matter what it tastes like. Sorry, but there are cuisines and dishes where looks matter and this is one of them.

I will update this post with a recipe or two tomorrow.

Mrs Moon by Roger McGough

Mrs Moon
sitting up in the sky
little old lady
rock-a-bye
with a ball of fading light
and silvery needles
knitting the night

This is an old-fashioned Australian recipe for feeding farmers. That is, it’s a recipe for men who do physically hard work all day and need food to match. So we are not talking delicate. On the other hand, when I was invited to afternoon tea today, ‘you don’t have to bring anything, nobody else is, but if you wanted to make cheese rusks…’

The gist of this is dried out scone mixture. It is time-consuming as a consequence. You can make a double mixture – they keep well as long as you are diligent about the slow-drying process.

Rub 75g butter into 225g self-raising flour until crumbly. Add 100g-150g grated cheddar cheese – I use Coon, it’s an excellent cooking cheese – and a little cayenne. Stir an egg into maybe one-third of a cup of milk. Add and mix to the dry ingredients. You want it DRY, but not so dry that you can’t roll it, so add a little flour if necessary. Knead into a ball.

Roll and cut into thick fingers – they need to be thick as you will later be breaking them in halves. Maybe three-quarters of an inch high. Put on tray in a hot oven, about 220C. When they have risen and started to go a little brown on top, take out. This usually takes me about 12 minutes, but for the first time in my life I’m using a good quality oven and 12 minutes was too long, so keep a watchful eye. Turn oven to as low as you like, maybe 100C. Cut open the rusks longways, of course. Put back on a low shelf and wait. And wait. And wait. Until they are really quite dry.

Take out, wait some more until cool before putting in biscuit tin.

Oh, these can be eaten at any time during the process. The parts you break as you are cutting them in half? Eat. The one you poke with your finger when you are later checking how dry they are? Eat.

The quantity you will end up with is a ratio of your original ingredients to your lack of discipline along the way. It can’t be helped.

I couldn’t resist making sweet biscuits as well. I don’t eat sugar, so living alone now, there aren’t many opportunities to bother with baking biscuits. The ones in the oven as I write are pecan and chocolate, universally loved. I’ll give you the recipe tomorrow.

I love this cartoon from Questionable Content:

Theoretical knitting

Heat an cast-iron griddle until it is smoking. While this is happening, toast strong white bread – a good sourdough mostly likely or something like Philippa’s Pane Toscana. Have ready beetroot, tinned, of course, sliced tomato, onion and tomato sauce. While you are assembling these things onto the toast, which you will first butter, you have put a little ghee into the griddle and then straight away thinly sliced fillet steak. It needs just a moment on each side.

What is thinly sliced? To taste. We are Australian. We do not want one of those American style sandwiches that are too fat to eat. A lot thinner than one would slice fillet steak for, say, pepper steak, where one might wish it to be a couple of inches thick.

Please don’t put rocket on it. There is nothing green about a steak sandwich.

I have to admit numinousness is a term I have come across only recently. It should be used in a religious context, but it has been taken over by sci-fi and fantasy. As far as I can see that community – sorry, maybe those communities? – don’t have any very clear idea on what it means. It means whatever it means at the time. It’s a fuzzy word. Still, read enough people using it, and even though you sort of feel like they have no idea what they are talking about, nonetheless you start to get a sense of it. I’ve got a sense of it now. Don’t ask me to define it because I can’t.

But one way or another, however, as I’ve been reading about it here and there, it did occur to me, based on a recent observation, that it has an urgently needed application: hard-core pornography. Whoever makes that stuff, please read this. Numinousness will make what you do better.

I decided to follow this one to the letter: Twisted V-pullover by Alice Halbeisen. It is available free from Interweave Press, though their site is so irritating to use, I can’t readily find the link.

V-neck pullover by Alice Halbeisen

Like others I added a little to the length…also like others, I still wish I’d added more!

Twisted-V Pullover

I’ve never knitted something with so much negative ease – too much???

Twisted-V Pullover

Pattern Twisted V-pullover by Alice Halbeisen
Yarn Zara. It’s not as good as Karabella Aurora 8, but still, I’m more than happy to use it.
Modifications Added length and really, unless you are a complete exhibitionist, you have to do this.
Thoughts Well written out pattern, fun to knit. I’ve spent a couple of years avoiding the purl part of twisted rib, but it is only on the sleeves and you could do these in the round as well. I found, however, that it wasn’t the drama I was expecting. I accepted the advice about negative ease and, although a super-tight sweater isn’t really my thing, I’m not unhappy!