Ptarmigan in Pneu Mexico

My travel was rescheduled, but here I am, finally, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Guess what I brought along to work on?

The Kirman fair isle sweater.  The bottom hem was done in a scheme I have never encountered before.  Cast on, knit 4 rows, reduce the number of stitches by 10%, knit 4 rows, purl a row, knit 4 more rows, add the 10% back in, knit 4 more rows and then start the pattern.  It will be interesting to see if, when blocked, this method cures the flip-up tendency of your average foldover sweater hem.  Bottom border is done and I'm most of the way through the first pattern repeat. Really pleased so far. The yarn is softer than your usual Shetland, the pattern has enough challenge to keep it interesting without making a knitter want to chuck the whole works into the nearest cactus patch (except for beautiful photographs, of course).

I also brought along the silver scarf for those times when I want to do something simpler. The pattern is easy to memorize and I can keep one eye on the tv.  Wish I had put more beads on the cast-on edge, though, but I guess I could add them later.

Anyway, it's a lovely vacation from the Alaska snow, and great fun to sit outside in the sunshine knitting on the warmer days.

A propos of nothing whatsoever, here is a batch of vegan cupcakes I'm very proud of.  The cake part is marble, frosting is ganache with a dab of vegan "cream cheese" frosting topped with heart sprinkles.  Recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World .  Made for Grandboy's day care valentine party so that the coolest goodie there would be something that he could eat.  Loved the amazement on the teacher's face after a bite.  "This is actually GOOD!"

What This Town Needs Is A Vegan Bakery

A brief detour, today, from the knitting to another household craft.  Background: my grandson has food allergies that include eggs and milk.  This makes him, in effect, a meat-eating vegan.  This also makes the bakery a very dangerous place for him.  Enter my heroines, the authors of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.  I've lately become so enamored of the cookies that I've wished somebody would start up a vegan bakery in Anchorage. (I can't do it myself. I just don't have time, energy, or desire for yet another career. Sorry.)

But on to the cookies!  The recipes are so good I probably will make my way through them all eventually.  Right now we're deep into the chocolate ones because the Grandboy adores chocolate, and he adores it so much that he picks chocolate chip cookies apart and only eats the chips.  You can imagine how long that takes and how messy it is, right?  Better to make them chocolate all the way through.

But pass the cookies, please, let's have a taste! 

These are Oreo knockoffs.  Cookie nerds would remind you that Oreos are already vegan, but when you make your own at home--WOWEEE!  And you can play around with the filling and make your own variations. I've tried cherry, mint, and peanut butter so far and all work out great.  Making your own also gives you an insight into what fat bombs these guys are.  An incredible amount of shortening and margarine involved here.  All the better for the Grandboy, however, whose doctor has advised calorie-dense foods.

And here are the cute chocolate pretzels and the Mexican snickerdoodles.

The pretzels are sweet; the "salt" is pearl sugar, although any big-grain sugar would do.  The snickerdoodles are cinnamon chocolate.  For adults you could include the little pinch of cayenne--for the kiddo it seemed better to leave it out.  I don't think preschoolers expect their cookies to bite back!

Ooops. I almost forgot. This is a knitting blog, isn't it?  Let's look at some knitting, then:

Up close and personal with the seasilk shawl.  I've got quite a bit more done, see?

Now it's a race against time because I have a serious chance of getting it done for my trip on the 3rd of July.  Done and blocked, that is.  And by the look of it, it's going to have to be, as they say, severely blocked if it's going to be as wide a shawl as its pattern.  That's it.  I've got to get off this computer and KNIT!