starting in the middle

 I have a bad cold and spent the whole weekend at home doing domestic stuff (knitting and cooking) in order to get better.  Actually, its too cold to go to Mardi Gras parades so I am glad to have an excuse not to go.

I have had this pin wheel blanket all lined up and ready to go for some time. I made a circular blanket once before and distinctly remember the figgity part at the beginning. You start by casting on a very small number of stitches in the round at the center of the blanket and increase from there. I had no help back then and I had not gotten on Ravelery yet so I just kind of fudged it. It didn't look great.  This time around I had the advantage of everyone's past experience with the famous pin wheel blanket to go from.  (As of this writing, 2378 Ravelery members have knit this blanket!). 

To start I used the umbilical cord method recommended by techknitter in order to get an even non-puckering center for the blanket.  Techknitter and others have other ways of doing it but this one seemed interesting and made the most sense to me.  Also the instructions on how to start the small tube were actually a good lesson in what I think is called magic loop.  I didn't have any US10 double points so I knew I would have to split the small number of stitches over a circular and the splitting concept is nicely explained when working on a small tube. And it worked.  I practiced making the tube a few times and once I had it down along with the magic loop method the blanket got going pretty fast.  Here is the little tube sticking out of the work:

 

And here is the result after removing the little. tube: 

Its not perfect but that may be a function of the yarn, I think.  The yarn is Sprout, organic cotton, and quite chunky.  It is nice to work with and, on size 10 needles, this rather dull knit is going pretty fast.  Its washable, too, so it is a good yarn for baby stuff. I am striping the beige and blue (periwinkle) with the red.  The red was a single skein at 50% off so I had to buy it and work it in to the design.    

 

The stripe pattern is 13 rounds of beige, 1 round red (without the yarn overs) then 13 rounds of blue.  Depending on how much yarn I have at the end I would like do a seed stitch border in the red. 

Reggie thinks knitting is a blast.  Which means I can't get much done if he is awake. He is also growing very quickly, likes to complain if he is hungry or wants attention, and likes to chew of stuff.  Lots of stuff, but mostly Seymore, whose patience is amazing.  

I cooked for V-day with my new John Besh cookbook.  John Besh is a genius of food.  Restaurant August is my favorite, of course.  His new cookbook definitely does the man credit.  The photography is super and the writing is interesting and completely in touch with the recipes and what fans like me want to read about.  There's even a chapter solely devoted to chantrelle mushrooms and blackberries (two little recognized south Louisiana crops). Sheesh.  Steve recently loaded us up with large shrimp from his last trip to the Westbank so I made Besh's version of shrimp and cheese grits.  Insanely delicious.