Autumnal oil concoction

For the transition from Summer to Autumn, and before I need to turn completely to the spiced yumminess of my Winter Oil Concoction, how about one to ease us in to this frostier time of year?

The cool weather we're experiencing in NYC now means gloves and an easier subway ride for germophobes like me—so nice to not play the balancing game I do to avoid touching anything in the subway during the nasty, muggy hotness of the city from April to September.

I mixed up a batch of this Autumnal Oil last weekend, trying a few new blends together, and applied liberally before heading uptown to meet friends for brunch and a stroll to see one of the gal's new apartment on the Upper West Side. As we walked off our massive (and delicious) meal I kept getting a whiff of something mysterious and toasty, but I chalked it up to the lightly-spiced nip in the air. Imagine my delight when I realized it was actually me!

But before I share, I have to tell you how nice it is to rediscover something charming close to home. I always wrote the UWS of the city off, but meandering around its brick townhouses with honest-to-goodness front "yards" (okay, stoops), with gardens and harvest bounty displays, and peeking through windows to see fireplaces and chandeliers and bannisters wrapping around and around was so foreign and homey and intriguing, all at the same time. And now that I have a friend living on the top floor of one of those townhouses (complete with mahogany wood paneling, window boxes, a skylight and a view over the sidewalks where children are skipping), I'm sure I'll indulge in its neighborhoody goodness a bit more.

Autumnal oil concoction: lovely as an after-shower moisturizer, face wash, perfume, and/or massage oil
+    1 1/2 cups of coconut oil (or your favorite carrier oil)
+  20 drops vanilla for warmth, comfort and fresh-out-of-the-oven coziness
+  15 drops germ-fighting/thieves (lemon, clove, cinnamon, eucalyptus, rosemary) for spicy cleansing
+  10 drops orange for zest and freshness

Melt together and store in a glass container.

P.S. Previous oil concoctions: Winter and Lullaby
P.P.S. My essential oils are all from Plant Therapy—love their quality and value!
P.P.P.S. Why I use coconut oil and how I use it

Autumnal things: walks and more knits

I know it's been a bit quiet over here. Everything's okay—just working through a few things. But, I haven't been too busy to enjoy my favorite season of the year. I'm practically giddy with the weather right now. Well, the theoretical weather. The leaves have changed colors and fallen a bit in some places, but the temperatures keep fluctuating between mid-50's and low 70's. No matter, though, because the air smells fall'ish and the foliage looks it, so I'm happy!

Last week R and I explored the nether regions of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, a place I'd only skirted around the edges of after brunch in Caroll Gardens. Turns out, if you wend your way deeper toward the southeastern borders, there are wooded paths, lakes and ducks and swans swimming in formation.

Like the North Woods of Central Park, the Ravine section of Prospect Park has lots of opportunities for "off roading". Meandering through woodsy paths, hopping over fallen trees, kicking through piles of fiery leaves. Nothing makes me happier than stomping through the underbrush and taking huge gulps of air in before whoooshing them out. I'm like a child with a rain puddle.

I've also been reserving pockets of time for my ever-calming knitting habit. The last few things I've finished are another Purl Soho Pebble Tank (same as this one, but more flowy/loose-fitting), a few more knit goodies for "Dante", including a matching set of mittens and booties and another hat, plus a little coffee/cell phone doily from leftover yarn. I hate to have scraps hanging about, so I used the very last bits of coral cotton from my myriad of napkins to crochet something Downton Abbey'esque (albeit much more colorful) to rest my coffee cup and saucer or phone on while typing away on my computer at the dining table.

After all that crafting for the baby and selfish knitting for myself, R finally insisted that I make something for him again. He has a whole drawer full of socks, scarves, ties, and pocket squares, but now I'm (gulp) starting a full on sweater for him with a fancy collar and stitch pattern. The biggest, (he's 6'4"), thus scariest thing I've tried so far. I've already started and re-started a few times, so you might not see any pics of it until next year.

Hopefully will be back soon with some updates for you on that, though, and things in general. Until then, get outside (if you're in the same hemisphere) and breathe in some smoky, spicy fall air! I also highly recommend crunching through a few piles of leaves—it does wonders for a stormy soul.

End of summer pullover

I think what I love most about knitting, when I don't have a ton of redo's to do, is the crazy transformation of a ball of fiber into something I can wear out into the world. I know it seems from my scribbles here that I watch a lot of TV/movies, but in reality, 95% of the time that there's something playing, I'm doing something else. The only times I'm ever really solely watching a screen is if it's a specific movie with R. Otherwise, it's usually a program or documentary on in the background, while I do something with my hands. For a long time they were hovering over a keyboard of some sort, but for the last few years they've been immersed in a fluff of woolen bits. Stitch by stitch, from a lap full of yarn, alongside a mug of Sunday morning coffee or weeknight glass of fizzy water (or...wine), to a drawer full of sweaters and tanks.

While I used to stay up late to finish a good book, now almost every time I pull an all-nighter, it's because I made a mistake in whatever I'm knitting and want to redo it, or I'm just on a roll and have to keep on rolling, or I have a ball of yarn to wind—which takes concentration so I don't create a tear-inducing snarled mess. Granted, now that I share my bed, I can't really stay up late snuggled between the sheets immersed in a good book (and late-night page turning on the couch just isn't as good), but I'm pretty sure that it'd be the case, regardless.

Unlike sewing, knitting requires quite a bit of forethought—which of course isn't something I always excel at doing because I'm so impatient to get cracking. You can't just rip a seam and redo. Knitting requires that you plan ahead, unless you want to unravel all your work and start over. It's not nearly as forgiving as other crafts, and maybe that's why I like it: you have to work (really) hard for it, especially when it comes to something to wear vs. something to use, and it forces you to either love it or hate it. I don't think there's really an in-between—I suppose you could say there are some parallels with that sentiment and with how people feel about me, but we can talk about that later.

Knitting is addictive, too. As soon as I bound off that baby set, I cast on for this (literally, the same evening). And, when I bound off these stitches, I cast on later that day for another project.

It can be a little daunting to have multiple pieces of a knit creation floating around, because any time you hold stitches aside and pick them up later to knit (as you would for a sweater when you start at the shoulder and continue down the body, holding stitches aside for the sleeve), you (well, maybe not you, but certainly I), risk that you might pull at the structure and inadvertently muss up the lines.

Which is why I'm crazy for projects that are either worked in the round (as you would do a sock) and / or worked flat, and then seamed up at the edges to create something wearable. The latter is how this pullover was created.

Do you see those diagonal seam lines? The way this is constructed, you knit one long rhomboid, with a hole in the center for your neck and funny batwings hanging off either edge. Then, because this stitch creates a diagonal pull like a bias-cut dress, you have to wind the flaps around themselves to create the tubes that become the body and sleeves. So those seams you see across the arm and midsection aren't design elements, but the foundation for turning a misshapen blob of fiber (both R and I were thinking that I had just wasted a whole week when we saw what I was left with before seaming) into something that actually resembles a sweater.

I could have stood to make this a wee bit bigger at the hemline so it lay flat instead of that little foldover, but, as usual, I worried that it was going to be too floppy, so I erred on the smaller side and luckily it juuust fits. Any fewer stitches and it would probably have been too uncomfortable to wear.

And: a few more vanity shots, just because. Now, what to knit next?

Dante's layette

In a few months a couple will descend from a plane for the holidays here in New York and after a handful of weeks they'll board another to return to their new home in Italy. Only on the flight back across the Atlantic they'll be a trio, instead of a duo.

Rather than welcome their firstborn child on their new-found expat soil, they've decided to come home and birth (another!) American. Lucky for me, as things are a bit too crazy at the moment for me to jet there for the wee one's arrival and baptism (that's right, you're looking at a first time godmother here!).

I'm sure it will be surreal when the day comes for R and me to grow our own little family, but for now, I can't imagine anything more surreal than someone I grew up with creating another little someone.

The pops is a bit of a professorial sort: academic, studious, down in the weeds when it comes to history, a penchant for pontificating—all of which make him an excellent lawyer. And, all of which helped me decide to make a collegiate cardigan for his newborn son, instead of a baby blanket or onesie.

It's probably also why in my head (and on my Ravelry project page), I've been referring to this set of handknit goodies for the babe as Dante's Cardigan, Hat, & Booties.

When picking out colors I was dead-set against anything blue (I like to be unexpected, plus my mom was whipping up her own blue set), nor did I want to use burgundy (as suggested to me by the father-to-be—?!). But, a creamy white and soft heather gray seemed the perfect combination for this winter baby boy.

As usual when it comes to me creating wearable knits, this too required a reboot. I suppose I approach every area of my life: from cooking, to falling in love, to knitting, in the same way. Jump in and adjust later. Which is odd, given how much of a planner and organizational nutcase I am. But then again, I am an impatient gal, too. So, quite the combination, indeed. And, to be fair, I did plan this out—I just planned pretty poorly.

The pattern for this was for a newborn, but I wanted this to last my little godson his whole first winter, so I purposely knit it bigger. Only thing is, my calculations were a bit off and the shoulders looked like a Meg Ryan blazer from the 80's. But being stubborn, I thought I could just even it all out at the end, so I kept knitting. Once I bound off the last stitch, it of course still looked just as wonky as it did at the beginning. As R watched in horror, I ripped the whole thing apart and started over. The idea of gifting something that I wasn't 100% proud of was worse to me than the idea of redoing the cardigan.

So, back to Row 1, this time with newly calculated measurements. Much better.

Thankfully the hat and booties were good to go after the first attempt. Here's hoping it all fits him—and that he, and his parents, approve!

Lavender-Peppermint muscle relaxing & boo-boo balm

I can hardly believe it's September already—my favorite month of the year! The air's getting crisper, I'll need to refresh our tea selection soon and long weekend rambles are about to get ever so much more comfortable.

We've had a good summer, though. Yes, the usual citizenship shenanigans were definitely the lowlight, but in the midst of all that, so much to be grateful for. We kicked off the season with a bang on the Riviera Maya, had our fill of lazy weekends, Mexican fiestas, after-work picnics, and woolly knitting sessions. And while I concentrated on rediscovering cocktail culture, R decided to concentrate on some-might-say worthier pastimes, like taking up mixed martial arts again.

When he lived in Stockholm in his 20s he trained with one of the founding families of jiu-jitsu, but when he went back to Sicily and then came here, he couldn't find anyone that taught the same style that he grew up with. I found that a little suspect, especially when he moved to New York, but he doggedly went up and down and across the isle of Manhattan (and even into Brooklyn) to try out all the ones he found and pronounced them all not quite right.

Then this spring we noticed lots of construction on a corner a few blocks from us. There's always something going on, especially downtown, but wouldn't you know, a brand new gym specializing in Brazilian jiu-jitsu opened up two minutes away from our apartment.

R signed up for a membership as soon as we returned from Mexico and has been going by after work a few times a week since then. Afterwards he's completely tuckered out, but with that post-boxing, post-sauna soak blissed out look on his face that makes me so happy. You know I'm all set with my own DIY training, so I always felt sad that he hadn't found the right niche for himself. But now he's coming home with nicked knuckles and hardcore hand wraps and enjoying himself silly.

Until I walked in one night recently and saw him sitting in the corner of the couch with his gym gear on (so already I was freaking out at the thought of sweaty clothes on cream couch), but when my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw he had his foot propped up on our blanket-stacked footstool with a dishcloth-wrapped bag of ice on top. He was sporting a forlorn look on his face and he said to me in a 6-year old voice, "I hurt my foot".

I immediately switched from annoyed hausfrau into Florence Nightingale, bent to look and yep, his left foot was swollen and a not-so-pretty color. Nothing was broken or sprained, but through some combination of someone holding a bag wrong and the wrong angle of his kick, there was a mighty nasty bruise getting purplier as I stood and stared.

He asked if we had any Bengay. We don't, but I had something better.

Summer woolens

{  After taking these pics I re-blocked to make the top longer / acceptable to wear to work  }

Sure, it's technically summer, but if I managed to make and wear one wool knit top and survive,  why not another? I dug into the same stash of Peruvian wool that I bought earlier this year, choosing a pretty, hazy gray skein. It reminded me of the way the sky looks before summer lightning strikes, so it seemed the right choice for a knitted tank for this time of year.

{ Neckline / armhole detail  }

I finished 85% in one weekend, and then I hit a wall and took another two weeks to finish up the straps and block it into shape. Meanwhile, I kept my hands busy during Netflix-fueled evenings filling up our wicker dining table basket with these.

{  Rear detail—excuse the crazy hair...and bathroom shot  }

Now after all the napkins and tops, I need to switch gears to some wee baby bits. Perhaps a cardigan? A winter cap and bootie set? R has also taken to reminding me that it's been a long while since I've knit him something, so there's that to consider, too.

This is the best part—choosing what to make next. Although, strutting around from mirror to mirror when I'm home alone to check out all the angles of a finally-finished piece isn't so bad, either.

Rituals

{  Freesia, orchids + stack of new, handmade knit cotton napkins  }

Do you know what does make me happy? I mean, really ridiculously happy? When my weekends include a hearty dose of polishing-the-home and gently-taking-care-of-myself rituals, plus lots of creating-of-things with my hands, like:

• Freshening up our vases with new, vibrant blooms after a trip to my flower guy
• Unpacking groceries and filling up bowls with onions and garlic and stacking washed tomatoes and lemons on platters across our countertop
• Making an "old-fashioned" type of Sunday dinner with chicken soup or a roast birdie, and then packing up the leftovers for lunch
• Dusting all the surfaces and sweeping the floors (and wondering every week how two very tidy people can create so much dust—I blame NYC, of course)
• Adding drops of essential oils into glass pots of melting coconut oil and cacao butter every few weeks to make my lotions and potions
• Pulling off the bedsheets and snapping on crisp, fresh new ones every other week
• Giving some love to the plants on our windowsills
• Knitting up a storm of useful things
• Baking up some nutty, dense muffins and cakes

{  Refined-sugar/Gluten-free Raw Cacao Torte Muffins from two weekends ago  }

{  Something successful from last Sunday's baking session  |  Coco-Carrot-Buckwheat Muffins  }

{  Refined-sugar/Gluten-free Almond + Blueberry Brunch Cake from yesterday morning  }

I don't think I'd have any trouble fitting in Laura Ingalls' Big Woods or Lucy Maud Montgomery's Avonlea. Or 1950, I suppose—which involves a larger discussion. Home or business world? Creativity or analytics? To-do's or status sheets? Grocery lists or punch sheets? Creating with my hands or popping open PowerPoint? Staring at a screen or starting at, for-the-love-of-all-that-is-good-in-the-world, just about anything else?

{  Hazy gray summer tank, in progress last week  }

Of course, the point of all that fluffing and buffing is to settle back with a book on the couch to admire my handiwork. While sipping on a tumbler of tequila or a glass of wine, depending on the season and mood. And some enjoyable show that doesn't require too much brainpower to follow along with on in the background to keep me company and because I don't enjoy silence.

And then Monday morning comes and back to the corporate world I go. So long, Little House.

I think it's time to stop knitting napkins

{  Stack-o-handmade-knit-cotton-napkins  }

Three sets of 4 napkins each, all ready for company. I think of the two styles, I'm leaning more towards the fluffy, brioche-stitch ones. The linen-stitch ones, which make a nice, flat, woven piece are more "napkin-like", but I like the tactile quality of the brioche ones. Plus, it's just fun to say "brioche".

{  Brioche-stitch, naturally-colored handmade knit cotton napkins, up close  }

{  Bright brioche-stitch, handmade knit cotton napkins, fanned out  }

{  Linen-stitch naturally-colored handmade knit napkins up close)

Knitty in the city

{  Blocked and folded!  |  22 June 2013  }

Over the last month I've shared little glimpses my "big project"—both starting and (sigh) restarting it and now I'm so, so happy (and shocked) to say that it's (finally) done!

{  Finishing up!  |  22 June 2013  }

I used to knit / crochet / cross-stitch / sew / and wield a glue gun as a little girl, but gave it up when I hit middle school. As a career girl (woman) I work at a computer all day and (used to) spend my evenings fiddling around online. A few years ago I decided this was insane, so I made it my mission to pick up handcrafts again to give myself something productive and non-screen-requiring to do after work (and before snuggling down with my book before bed).

In the last 3.5 years I've made socks, ties, pocket squares, washcloths, dinner napkins, scarves, cowls, armwarmers / wristers, baby booties / hats and blankets. Even though I've gotten better (and made less mistakes) with each project, I was still too nervous to make actual clothes for myself. I was scared it'd be a waste of time and money, that I would hate whatever I made and feel like I "had" to wear it after all the effort it took to knit. I also worried that the monotony of a "big" project would be too boring and that it would would never fit me correctly (knitting clothes is harder than sewing, not so easy to fix mistakes or "redo").

{  In progress  |  22 June 2013  }

{  All done!  |  22 June 2013 }

Which are all just ways of saying I was scared to do a big project and felt safer in my smaller ones. But, when I saw this sweet little top (with a wee hint of risqué-ness) on Purl Bee, Purl Soho's craft blog, I forced myself to go out and buy some fancy yarn and one month later, I can finally wear my first "bespoke" piece!

It's definitely not "perfect", but it's completely wearable (and I'm probably the only one who notices that it's maybe a smidgen too long and that I should have perhaps worked in one less decrease at the hips to make it lay better). But, despite the 91F temps earlier this week, I donned this little guy with (schvitzy) pride!

 Now comes the fun part—deciding what to make next!

{ Wore it to work...despite 90F temps  |  24 June 2013 }

Home linens

Hiya! I realized that in all the recent citizenship hurrumpus, I haven't shared my latest crafty doodads—humor me for a moment while I show these off. First up: a crocheted Christmas blanket.

{ Crocheting for charity!  |  May 2013 }

Yes, it's the middle of the summer, but I had 3 years of yarn scraps from various projects left over—too little to make something, but too much to discard. So I had an idea to put together all the remnants to crochet a blanket to donate this winter. All I had to do was purchase a few bundles of neutral, cream yarn to tie it all together and then I made a small "granny square" and just kept going around and around, working in scrap color after scrap color (with rows of cream in between to marry all the vibrant colors together). 

{ All spread out  |  May 2013 }

{ Another view  |  May 2013 }

It's the perfect size for a couch throw, so even though this isn't for us, I've stacked it up with our couch snugglies for now and I'll pack it up when our building has its annual collection for winter clothes and home goods in the Fall.

{  Folded up on our stack of throws for now  |  May 2013  }

And, I finally finished our set of handmade napkins, after coveting the stack I made for a friend. The first two came off my needles a few weeks ago and I debuted them during one of our Sunday suppers, but it took a while to finish the third and fourth. A bigger project intervened for a bit—which hopefully I'll f.i.n.a.l.l.y. be done with soon!

{ In progress!  |  May 2013 }

{ In action   |  May 2013 }

{ In situ |  June 2013 }

Long weekend

{ Nooks and crannies }

And when I say long, I mean really long—our boss surprised us with Friday off (in addition to the Monday Memorial Day holiday coming up), so I have four days to loll about lazily (again! I totally blame the weather...and the fact that R is working and all my friends are out of town). I considered trying to quickly put together some day trips to make the most of my time off if the rain let up...

But, then I heard something that stuck in mind—the word "planet" comes from a Greek word meaning "to wander". I love that idea—when people first noticed otherworldly bodies spinning about in the Universe they called them "wandering stars". And then I thought about how we wander and while I love to wander about, sometimes it really is nice to accept that: yes, I am a complete and total introvert and I am totally happy futzing around at home for long periods and I shouldn't feel guilty about that.

So I am.

I took the prospect of another indulgent weekend to heart and totally regressed to my inner 12-year old, staying up super late on Thursday night watching silly things and eating chocolate. Friday morning started with some brewed cocoa (good!) and ripping out my cap-sleeve-sweater-top-to-be (not so good!). I realized that because of the heavier weight of the yarn and larger needles I was using that it was wider than I wanted it to be, so back to stitch one I go!

{ Brewed cacao! Like coffee, but you can eat the grinds! }

{ My sad, fusilli-like remnants }

I also read a really entrancing book (The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton) that completely got into my head while in Mexico, so I picked up another of her works (The House at Riverton) and cuddled into a corner of my sofa for a nice long read, alternating with this week's Sunday Times (this article had my heart racing for another wander, well, actually a Wandering Walk).

There were bowls of cherries and grapes and choco-banana, coconut cream, yogurt concoctions in the morning, and later in the day: plates of farmhouse cheese and broccoli and glasses of cabernet.

How's your long weekend going?

{ Peonies ready to bud + cherries + grapes galore }

{ Throw-together-dinner }

Pitter-patter-y weekends

{  EEek! First big project!  |  May 2013  }

This weekend was one of those rare blocks of 48-hours that were entirely mine—all mine, mine, mine! With R working Saturday and Sunday, plus a nasty weather forecast, I gave myself permission to spend my weekend doting (almost) completely on myself.

On Saturday I cleaned the apartment, organized the fridge in anticipation of a huge grocery shop that I got to lovingly arrange the way I like (those first two might not seem very "dote-y", but I can't relax until everything is pretty and clean!), talked to my needy plants and fed them and arranged two huge new bouquets of fresh flowers (pink, lilac and white tulips in the living room and huge branches of stargazer lilies in our bedroom).

Then I spent a few hours of grumble-grumble-translating-grumble-grumble, followed by another few hours starting a new knitting project. This is my first "big" one (meaning, not a baby gift, winter accessory or home good), one that I had to measure myself for and poke at a calculator to figure out dimensions and gauge in order to not completely screw it up. I'm also finally starting to use the fancy yarn I bought back in March, but was too scared to use until now.

And that was basically the extent of Saturday.

Sunday I decided to completely give myself over to even more gluttony since I considered Saturday afternoon's annoying translating work to have infringed on my weekend of decadence, so I rolled out of bed and shuffled to the kitchen to concoct a ridiculous stack of almond flour + cacao pancakes, layered with alternating (so ridiculous) schmears of almond butter and cashew butter, with chunks of banana nestled in, too. A nice mug of coffee + cream completed the picture.

{  Almond flour, cashew butter, choco-banana pancakes + mug o'coffee  |  May 2013  }

Then, there was some reading of blogs, a little working out, talking with the family and more knitting (please note: the soundtrack to this entire weekend was nonstop episodes of an array of shows on Netflix + 1 movie). I also decided to make a nice dinner for R, which involved prepping a cute little chicken in the morning (I read that if you're roasting a chicken, you can get super crispy skin by salting the birdie and letting it rest uncovered in the fridge for as long as possible, up to 24 hours).

So I did that and set a proper table—baptizing the neutral-toned cotton napkins I knit for us after envying the fresh, nautical ones I made for my friend's birthday—and marinated some tomatoes and red onion for a burrata salad over mache.

When R came home I helped him out of his wet shoes and coat (totally unnecessary, but I figured he needed some decadence, too), shooed him into the candle-lit bathroom for a shower and then welcomed him to the couch for a cocktail (I had his whisky glass waiting) and chat before we sat down to dinner, and later, a movie.

{ Place setting with my new handknit napkins! }

{ Roast chicken + burrata salad }

Most definitely a delicious weekend—in every sense of the word.