Month: June 2008

iPhone Detective Work

iPhone speculation has hit a fever pitch. People are talking about mysterious shipments of oddly labelled shipping containers, the increase in Steve Job’s airline expenditures, the leaked AT&T employee memos, etc. It’s pretty amazing that still nobody’s got an actual photo of the actual device. Only six days to go…

Syrian Chicken

Syrian ChickenSyrian chicken with ginger, lemon and saffron
Wow, this was good. My friend Sharon sent me a link to the recipe last week. It uses a lot of spices and aromatics, but once you’ve done all the prep the actual cooking is pretty painless. I used four thigh cutlets and two drumsticks since I couldn’t be bothered cutting up a chicken myself. Other than that, I followed the recipe pretty much exactly. (Well, except for using an entire bunch of coriander at the end. I loooove coriander.) I served it on some couscous and ended up with enough for three more meals. Highly recommended for a cold winter’s night!

Ribbed Socks

Ribbed SocksRibbed Socks
These basic-yet-functional socks were a quick project I whipped up for the Snook. The yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit Cotton Fantasy, and I was hoping that the additional cotten content would make them less itchy for his feet. (We’ll see.) I used 2.75mm needles and a single ball was plenty long enough.

The pattern is basically just one that I improvised. I knitted them toe-up at the same time on two circular needles. I used Judy’s Magic Cast-on for the toes, but I decided to try an experiment. Instead of making the toes symmetrical, I decided to do make them more pointed on one side (mimicking the outline of the Snook’s toes). So on each toe, I increased every row on one side, and every few rows on the other side. I don’t know whether it’s going to make them any more comfortable, but it was fun to try. Of course, making separate toes meant that the socks aren’t interchangeable. You have to wear the “right” sock on the right foot. To make it easier to tell them apart, I knitted in an L or R on the back of each leg against a background of reversed stocking stitch. The gusset increases and heel turns were taken from Widdershins. I like doing the reversed turned heel, and I think it fits better and looks nicer than a short-row heel. I did an “eye of partridge” heel for added strength as well.

He put them on first thing this morning so I guess that’s the seal of approval! (More photos on Ravelry and Flickr.)

Heroes DVD

Aussie Heroes fans: I was just about to order the Season 1 DVD from Amazon yesterday when I thought to check ezydvd first. Good thing I did! It comes out on Wednesday and they’re pre-selling it for less than AUD $40 (which is cheaper than Amazon). They’re also giving free domestic shipping.

Also, lately I’ve been obsessed with The 10th Wonder podcast. Definitely the best Heroes podcast out there…

Whither my weekend?

Where did the weekend go? No, seriously, WHERE did it go? It was over so quick. Did I sleep through it all? I don’t feel like I did anything. I went for a spectacularly bad run today, one where the rain was pouring down and my back was killing me and my stomach acid was trying to eat holes in my esophagus. That sucked. I started work on a new knitting project (Cookie A’s Rhiannon socks) and quickly got stymied by the worst increase I’ve ever seen. I just can’t do it. It’s still raining. Maybe I should just go to bed.