Mortaine’s Blog

First up is a lace shawl I knitted. It’s a one-skein wonder, in that the pattern only calls for a single skein of yarn. The pattern is a little inaccurate, though. Not in the design itself, but in the amount of yarn I personally needed– I could easily have increased the size by another row of the feathery part at the bottom.

Edging detail:

Because I love beads, I used them in this shawl– they look silver, but are actually peach. The contrast with the teal makes them brighten to look silvery.

And I participated in the tatitandsee tat-along. The finished product is a hippo:

Mine is… well, it’s beginner art, yes?
I’ve also been working on a wrist cuff bracelet for a swap. Things were going along pretty well, I thought, and I was about 90% finished, with the swap deadline closing in FAST.

Well, sure enough:

Yep, right there in the middle of the bracelet, my knots came untied and one of my rings came unraveled. I’m going to start over with a more robust design (I was freeforming this one), and hopefully it will come together quickly so I can send it to my swap partner.

In the midst of these projects, I decided to tackle the Queen Kahuna Crazy Toes and Heels toe-up sock method on 2 circular needles. My first pair using this method:

This is using hand-dyed KnitPicks bare sock yarn. I dyed it back in August, and only now got around to knitting with it. I liked the yarn, and am glad I have two more balls of it in different colors. This pair of socks, which only goes partway up my calves, used exactly one half of the yarn I had for it. You know what that means, right? Yep– another pair of socks is in my future. One thing I don’t like about the socks is the heel– it is a bit “pointy.” I understand from the book I’m using that this pointiness can be adjusted for, which is why I cast on yesterday for another pair of socks in the exact same yarn, using the same needles and gauge:

More next time, on our trip to the Kennedy Space Center this weekend, meeting an astronaut, and learning how to drive a 16 ton vehicle.

#1:

Another Stephanie Plum mystery novel. This time, Stephanie quits her job, but the job won’t quit her.

#2:

A sardonic look at the Social Security system. Buckley is a political satirist, so the story comes off as over-the-top sometimes. There’s a lot of humor in this one, though, and the audiobook is read by Janeane Garofalo, which gave it a great bite.

#3:

I seriously, seriously, seriously don’t get it. One of my friends loaned this book to me, telling me it would completely change how I read Jane Eyre. Um. No. Maybe if the story had been coherent enough, it would have changed how I read Jane Eyre, but since it was that awful, flowy, not-quite-said, overly dramatic style that drives me nuts.

#4:

A book of knitting for plus-sized beautiful women. As the intro says, these patterns won’t make you look skinny, but they will make you look good. Lots of great advice. I’d say that this book and Figure it Out by Geri Brin, Tish Jett are my two “must reads” recommendations for the sized-16+ crowd.

#5:

Another wonderful Stephanie Plum adventure. In this one, danger lurks close to Ranger’s home, and Vinnie’s crew gets a new team member.

#6:

A history book about the Regency era. This was very readable and enjoyable. The author is a natural storyteller who didn’t skimp on details or primary sources, but who also told the story of the Regency very well.

#7:

“The Sprawl” was rejected from Inkwell Magazine.

“Baggage” went out to Plougshares today. Keep fingers crossed.

An interesting local dish down here on the Atlantic Coast of Florida is “Gator tail.” Along with frog legs, gator is the kind of dish you really only see in bayous and rural wetlands, like the Intracoastal Waterway, which runs up the East Coast of Florida.

The first time we tried gator tail (before I started my diet) was in St. Augustine. It was deep fried and very tender and juicy, and I must confess my little Yankee white girl tastebuds sat up and said “YUM!”

More recently, we’ve gone to a local airboat and fishing haunt, known as the Jolly Gator. It’s basically a fish house sitting in a boat launch, and during our meal we’ve had the pleasure of watching airboats take off to fish and hunt gator in the swampy wetlands, while egrets and similar water-living birds fly by.

At the Jolly Gator, your gator can be served fried, deep fried, or blackened (grilled), and in a variety of spices and hotness. We typically get it blackened and mild, because I am a consummate wimp when it comes to foods and spices. The appetizer looks like little hunks of cooked, barely identifiable meat and yes, it does taste a little bit like chicken. Sometimes it’s a bit tough– after all, this is alligator meat we’re talking about. In a 1/4 lb. appetizer plate (the smallest you can get), there are about 8 little hunks of gator meat.

Today we added some side sauces– honey mustard, ranch, and horseradish. The horseradish was mine– despite being a wimp, I can tolerate wasabi and similar non-lingering hotnesses, and tasting this particular variety reminded me to toss out our old horseradish from the fridge, because it’s obviously lost its kick.

We never see gator in the grocery store (probably because we haven’t tried the non-chain butcher in shop, whose store sign just says “MEAT”), and we never see it in anything but small chunks, presumably because gator doesn’t lend itself to filets. The gator was a bit gristly today, but I still maintain I’ve never eaten a gator I didn’t like.

I wouldn’t mind trying it in a gumbo, though.