First Knitting Post!

So I know you're all thinking "the blog is called The Knitting Llama, but there aren't any llamas, and there isn't any knitting - I want my money back!"

Besides the fact that you're not paying for this, and never will have to pay for this, it really is time to say something about knitting. I knit. I taught myself about 7 years ago, when I started grad school, because I decided I needed some sort of portable hobby. I started pretty much where most knitters start: a scarf. While not the ugliest scarf in the world, since it was just off-white, it was too short and inconsistent in width, plus I had knitted it in stockinette stitch, so it would constantly curl up. Worst. Scarf. Ever. I still have it somewhere, though I'll never wear it. It's a symbol of accomplishment now, nothing more.

I stopped knitting for a time after that, mostly because classes and working got in the way, but I eventually started again, armed with this book of dishcloths. If you're using them to wash dishes, who cares if they look bad, right? The book got me started again, gave me confidence in my knitting ability, and taught me new skills; I now give this book to anyone I know who wants to start knitting. Making a dishcloth is relatively quick and easy, the yarn needed is thick enough and not fuzzy so you can see your stitches, and this book even has some relatively intricate cabling patterns - great for learning how to cable without running the risk of ruining something expensive and large. Plus, they make fabulous gifts for anyone, and for relatively cheap (depending on how much your time is worth, I suppose). When else can you essentially give your practice swatches as gifts?

My first full afghan was a present to my husband's grandmother. Not knowing any better, I knitted it with very cheap, not very soft acrylic yarn (Red Heart, I believe). The pattern was simple, just a diagonal stripe. It seemed like it took forever, as I had been making tons of dishcloths for the last few months, and I realized that a boring afghan pattern makes it really hard to want to work on said afghan. I think the only reason I finished it was because it was a gift; it would have been easy to give up on something for myself, since I didn't really like the colors all that much in the first place, and it wasn't soft in any way.

Since then, I've knitted socks, hats, baby afghans, full size afghans, and baby booties. Unlike this post, my future knitting posts will focus on types of projects, ideas, things like that. I just wanted to get some of the history out there, and let other beginning knitters know that it does get better than that first oddly-shaped scarf we all have hidden in our closets!

Homemade Advent Calendar?

After reading this post on the beloved Tomato Nation, which led me to this article on Advent Calendars (and the crap that is called "chocolate" held within said calendars), I have decided to embark on a mission: Create a (relatively) easy-to-make homemade advent calendar.

The requirements:

• Must be reusable or recyclable. One of the things that always bothered me was the waste involved in advent calendars. If I'm going to make one and take that much time and effort, it better damn well last more than one holiday season. Otherwise, if I can recycle it fully, so be it.
  
• Must be able to hold good chocolates or small toys. None of that "heartwarming picture behind the little window" crap here. And by good chocolate, I mean good chocolate. Truffles, Lindt balls, etc. There will be no cutesy Christmas-shaped chocolates unless they are exquisite to eat as well. Toys would mean it's adaptable to children who should keep their mitts off my good chocolates.
  
• Must not involve more than maybe 30 minutes to 1 hour to assemble, barring standing in line at the craft store during the holidays behind that woman who has 15 different silk plants, none of which have tags, and who wants to haggle with the poor cashier. Go shopping in May to make this stuff, I tell ya.
• Must be easy to assemble. Not Martha-easy, I'm thinking more along the lines of "developmentally challenged monkey" easy.
  

This may not get done this year, but if you have any ideas or suggestions, I'm all ears!

Craft Night

This last Friday was our monthly Craft Club. It's kind of a stitch-n-bitch, but with a broad range of crafts. We've got the requisite knitters and crochet-ers, plus some sewing, quilting, cross-stitch, scrapbooking, card-making, and even a remote-control helicopter. Someone set up a project for her elementary-school level class at the natural science museum once. It's all friends from college, though it covers a broad range of ages, but we're all childless, which in some ways makes it easier to get together.

Anyway, this month we also did a dessert potluck. I made this recipe for Chocolate Mousse, which I love, though you do already have to kind of know what you're doing to follow the recipe. I don't bother with heating the egg whites because I don't worry about Salmonella, but I do heat the egg yolks and beat them until they "ribbon" (basically, you lift up the whisk, and the yolks should fall in a thick ribbon against the yolks still in the bowl before being reabsorbed). I figured out a way to use less bowls: beat the whipping cream in the bowl you beat the yolks in after folding the yolks into the whole mixture. I also melt the chocolate in the microwave, since I use semi-sweet chocolate (Callebaut, if you're interested) and it's less likely to burn.

I don't think this makes it into "my" recipe, which is why I linked to the real recipe. Clarification of directions isn't really changing the recipe, and I certainly didn't come up with the whole thing on my own. It's nearly impossible these days to credit the real original recipe for anything; everyone makes their own changes, albeit tiny, and then can call it their own. Of course, trying to protect "your" recipe is also impossible; cooking isn't about citing sources, it's about satisfying physical and/or emotional hunger. I recieved praise for the mousse even though it's not my recipe, because I took the time to make it.

And that's how it should be.