Magnus' Homebrew Knitblog

Man does not live on bread alone...

2006-05-22T23:50:00.000+01:00

I realised today with some shock that it's well over a month since I last blogged anything. It's been quite a busy time, with moving to my new flat and then going away to visit my parents last week, but things are now beginning to settle down a bit.

Today I became the proud possessor of a new bread machine - something I've wanted to do for several years but had to put off while I was still sharing a kitchen. At the moment it's working away at my first loaf of bread - I've gone for a plain white loaf this time, but hope to get more creative soon.

I also got a steamer so that I can cook vegetables in a more healthy way. This is just one of those little metal basket contraptions that sits inside an ordinary saucepan, but it's perfectly adequate for my current needs. Tonight I had steamed cabbage, carrots and onion for dinner, together with boiled potatoes (mainly because I couldn't fit them in the steamer too) and a tin of fish. I was particularly pleased with the steamed onion. Very tasty.

Not much to report by way of knitting. I'm nearing the end of my first sock - about an inch to go before I have to start work on the toe. At this rate the first pair should just about be ready to go by the time it gets cold enough to merit woolen socks again. I've just borrowed some knitting patterns from my mum, including several for Aran jumpers/cardigans. I'd like to have a go at knitting one of those soon too.

Tags: bread, cooking

LANs and lines

2006-04-11T17:36:00.000+01:00

I'm slightly confused at the moment (even more so than usual). Here's why...

On Friday we had new windows fitted. Proper, double-glazed ones. All very nice, but unfortunately the workmen seem to have bashed the exterior phone cable while they were at it, leaving us without a working phone line - and hence no home internet connection. I mentioned it to them this morning when they came back to tidy up round the windows, and they promised to have a look at it. On returning home from work a few minutes ago, I discovered that my internet connection is back up and running, but we're still without a working phone. I assume that they tried to fix the broken wiring but didn't do a very good job and somehow only the component of the signal that makes up the broadband connection (I forget whether it's the high or the low frequency bit, or I could be completely wrong about the technology) has been restored. For my immediate purposes it's good, as I tend to make much heavier use of the internet than the phone in any case, while my housemates both use their mobiles quite a bit. However, I guess I may have to call out the BT engineer in any case.

Also on the subject of networks, I had my first LAN party last Saturday. It was hosted at my house, largely because I was the one with the network hub (aka my broadband modem - which still functioned as a router even without the external phone line). There were four of us in total, with 3 desktop PCs and one laptop. The main downside was that we had to use Windows (as that's the only OS the other three run, and I've not managed to get my games working under emulation in Linux) and virtually all my (limited) networking experience is with Linux. After quite a bit of fiddling we managed to get the computers to acknowledge each other's existence. That's when we discovered the other problem.

Initially the idea had been to play a 4-way multiplayer game of Civilization III, given that we're all keen players of Civ (to varying extents - I enjoy it now and then, while my friend Phil is almost fanatically devoted to it). Unfortunately we only had 2 copies of the Conquests CD needed to play a multiplayer LAN game. In the end we set up a game on two computers and used the other two to play a different game - Shogun: Total War. That's also a fine game but had the distinct disadvantage (for me) that I've only ever played it a couple of times, a long time ago, while my opponent was quite an expert at it. Still, I didn't lose nearly so comprehensively in the second battle as in the first. I was still completely massacred, but it showed progress, at least.

It was good fun and I hope to do something similar again, but next time we'll have to make sure that we have enough copies of the same game.

Freecycling

2006-04-04T18:50:00.000+01:00

I think I first heard about freecycling a few months ago on Wulf's blog. It struck me at the time as being a great sounding idea, but I didn't get round to pursuing it any further.

I'm now gearing up to move from my current (shared) house to a flat of my own (well, still rented, but no more housemates with conflicting ideas about stuff like washing up) and have had to start thinking about getting rid of some of the surplus junk I've acquired over the last few years. What better than to freecycle it?

Checking out the Freecycle homepage, I found a reasonably active group in my local area and signed up. That was about 3 days ago. Fairly quickly , I posted my first offer - of an old 1-row melodeon that I'd picked up on eBay in the vain hope that it would be reasonably playable. I had a good crop of responses, with about half a dozen people showing interest. The first person I offered it to changed her mind, as she'd found out that the person she'd had in mind to get it for had just got one of their own. The second person called round this evening to collect it, and he seemed delighted with it. It gave me quite a warm glow.

I've now offered some bits that I salvaged from my old car before I scrapped it, which I've realised I don't actually need, and I have a few other things I'll probably offer soon too. I'm going to try to resist the temptation to get any new things until I've moved to the flat and found out whether I'll actually have any space for more stuff. Unless someone happens to offer a washing machine, as I'll be needing one of those.

Tags: freecycle, recycling

Turned on

2006-04-03T19:21:00.000+01:00

Rejoice with me, for my computer which was dead is now alive again!

(If you missed that episode, you can read all about it here and here.)

The new PSU I ordered arrived today, so I fitted it this evening. A pretty straightforward job, involving no more than taking the cover off the case, unscrewing the old PSU, unplugging the various cables from the motherboard and disk drives, taking the unit out, putting the new one in, plugging in the relevant cables (the new PSU has a couple of extra connectors, but I'm pretty sure I don't need them as the machine worked fine without them before), putting the screws back and refitting the cover. I then plugged the machine in, hit the switch, and ...

... was very disappointed when nothing happened. Fortunately, before defenestrating the PC in my frustration, I remembered that the new PSU had an on/off switch on the back of it. On checking, I found that this was indeed in the off position. After switching it, the machine started beautifully.

Tags: computer, power

Socks and scarves

2006-04-01T01:15:00.001+01:00

Unfortunately the temporary power failure on my PC I wrote about yesterday seems not to have been quite so temporary after all. It appears that the power supply unit is dead, so I've ordered a new one. I'm hoping that once that is fitted the machine will work ok, and no other damage was sustained in the power cut (assuming it's not just a coincidence that the PSU failed then). As a fringe benefit, hopefully the new one will be a bit quieter than the old one, which had a particularly noisy fan.

More positively, I've managed to get a bit more knitting progress done recently. I finished my garter ridge scarf several days ago (but didn't get round to blogging it before now, mainly as I was awaiting a photo). I still prefer the ribbed scarf (which I wore on a canal boating trip last weekend, where it proved to be very useful - lovely and warm even in wet weather), but I'm quite pleased with this one too. It has a definite tendency to roll up into a tube, which isn't necessarily a bad thing as it's a one-sided design (fortunately it rolls with the ridged pattern on the outside). Here's what it looks like on me:

In addition, my first sock is now coming along quite nicely. After 6" of 2x2 ribbing fo the leg, I've started to work the heel flap. Unlike the test heel I did earlier, where I switched to straight (single pointed) needles for this, I've stuck with my dpns for this one. Half the stitches (i.e. 30 of them) are left sitting on one needle, while I work backwards and forwards in stocking stitch on the remaining ones, with 3 stitches of garter stitch at each end (and starting each row with a single slip stitch and finishing it with a purl). I'm still following Elizabeth Zimmermann's sock pattern from Knitting Without Tears very closely (I can't remember if I already mentioned that). At the moment it looks something like this:

The first time I tried to upload that picture of my sock, I accidentally put up this image instead:

I guess that's something like my sock looked a few months (or years?) back. In actual fact, that's some sheep I photographed on a hillside somewhere near Llangollen during my aforementioned canal trip last weekend.

Tags: canal, knitting, scarf, sheep, socks

Fried chips?

2006-03-30T13:49:00.000+01:00

This morning while I was at work, there was a momentary power cut which caused my desktop PC to reboot. I was working on my laptop at the time and I assume that it must have switched temporarily to battery power when the mains cut off. Unusually the desktop PC, which was running Windows XP, didn't complain too much about not being turned off properly, like it usually does.

However, on reaching home I discovered that my desktop PC here was also affected, despite being turned off at the time. Nothing happened when I hit the "on" switch. I've checked the physical connections and also tried swapping the PC and monitor cables to check that the fuse was ok (the monitor was getting power). The rest of my system seems to be fine - e.g. I'm able to connect my laptop up to my modem (otherwise I wouldn't be posting this just now) but the actual PC is unresponsive. I seem to recall that it did something similar one time a couple of years ago when there was another momentary power cut (I was actually using it at that time). On that occasion the PC seemed dead and, since it was very late at night, I went to bed instead of trying to fix it. When I tried it again in the morning it worked fine. Perhaps there's some kind of slow-resetting fuse inside? Anyway, I'm inclined to leave it for a few hours before I start to worry too much about it.

It's especially annoying as I have the afternoon off work (using up the last of this year's annual leave allowance) and was hoping to spend the time tweaking my new Ubuntu installation. I'll just have to read a book or something instead!

Tags: computer, power, Ubuntu

I need a blogroll

2006-03-21T23:41:00.000Z

I've been blogging for a while now, mostly on this (my original blog) but also on two other blogs, both accessible via links from the sidebar. These are both in different languages and are mostly to give me a chance at writing practice (or an excuse for free composition in the relevant languages). One is in Welsh, a language I've been learning and using for almost seven years now and in which I'm reasonably fluent (the fact that I live in a moderately Welsh-speaking area of Wales helps a lot). The other is in Spanish, which I actually started learning before Welsh (I first had a look at it at least 12 years ago) but have only been studying reasonably seriously for a fairly short while. In fact, that blog started out in Esperanto, but switched to Spanish when I decided to focus my language learning efforts there instead.

I've also recently joined a communal blog on the subject of creating tote bags. This blog, the Tote-along, is for people who like making bags in any style although my interest is essentially in knitted ones. I've so far made one small bag (which I've already blogged about at the Tote-along and on this blog) to hold my knitting accessories (tape measure, crochet hooks, pins etc.), I'm in the process of knitting another, larger bag to use for holding future knitting projects, and I have one or two more ideas for bags I'd like to knit when I've got another one or two of my current projects finished.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, my relatively new interest in blogging has also led me to start reading other people's blogs. There's a fairly small number that I check out regularly (mostly using Rojo - a web-based blog reader recommended to me by my brother). I think I should probably set up a blogroll at the side of my blog to list some of them. (Not tonight though, as I want to read a few more chapters of the Silmarillion before bed.)

Tags: bags, blog, knitting

Celtic Cheese

2006-03-21T00:19:00.000Z

Recently I've taken to browsing the "reduced to clear" items on the cheese counter in my local supermarket. That way I can get a variety of more interesting (and usually more expensive) cheeses at a lower price. What's more, they are usually nearing the optimum age for eating once they approach the sell-by date (the usual reason for clearance) so I don't have to either hold on to the cheese for days or weeks (nigh-on impossible for me) or eat it before its prime. As an added benefit, it makes cheese shopping more exciting, as I never know what (if anything) I'm going to come home with.

Last week I picked up a block of Cheshire - not particularly exciting, but good for cheese on toast (the Welsh national dish, apparently). Today was even better, as I got not one but two varieties of augmented cheddar. The first was (still is, as even I don't eat cheese that fast) called Harlech and is a Welsh cheddar flavoured with horseradish (described on the label as "hot", but I disagree with that assessment) and parsley. The other one is Scottish, and is called "Highland Honey and Herb cheddar". I'll leave you to figure out what that was flavoured with. :-)

I'm hoping they'll have some green cheese on offer again soon, as I haven't had any for a while.

BTW I haven't done quite so much knitting lately, but my sock and other projects are still coming along slowly. My first scarf is definitely proving its worth in the cold weather. I'll try to get some more pictures posted soon.

Tags: cheese

Haiku

2006-03-20T15:06:00.000Z

While waiting for a website to load this afternoon at work, I wrote a couple of haiku. I decided to blog them straightaway, to avoid losing them when I inevitably misplace the scrap of paper they are on. One is written in Welsh (mainly to see how it would work) and is on my Welsh-language blog (my first post there for nearly two months). The other one, inspired by the chilly weather we've been having lately, runs thus:

Chilly March morning
gives way to an afternoon
that is colder still

It occurs to me that I don't know the conventions for capitalising Haiku. Obviously that wouldn't be a problem in the original Japanese, as they don't distinguish capital letters, but I don't know whether each line in an English haiku is usually capitalised (as in most traditional verse) or not. I've gone for the latter option in this case.

I find haiku a very satisfying form of poetry to write, and also good to read. For my birthday last year, a friend gave me a book entitled something along the lines of 100 Great Books in Haiku. Essentially what it does is take 100 books (ranging from Beowulf to Lady Chatterley's Lover) and summarises each one in a single haiku. Some of the ones for which I've actually read the original (and am therefore in a position to judge) are actually extremely perceptive (and often very funny) summaries.

Tags: haiku, Welsh

Ribbed for my pleasure

2006-03-18T21:39:00.000Z

I've finally finished another knitting project! As I suspected the first one of the current batch to get finished was the Ribbed for her pleasure scarf that I started just over a month ago. On finishing the fourth skein of yarn (bringing it up to 200g), the scarf measured 56" long, which is plenty. The width was about 4.5" wide. I say was because I've now had a go at blocking it (made difficult by the fact that I didn't have anywhere sufficiently large to lay it out flat, so it's currently drying, carefully folded, on my windowsill) and I suspect that the dimensions might change a little after that (I didn't measure carefully).

I was going to include a photo of me wearing the scarf, but the Blogger photo upload thing seems to be playing up at the moment. Instead here's a link to the same photo on Flickr. While you're there, you could have a look at some of my other photos too.

Tags: Flickr, knitting, scarf

Happy Pi Day!

2006-03-14T23:46:00.000Z

I don't know whether it's officially celebrated at all, but I always think of today as pi day. That's pi as in π, the Greek letter, or more specifically the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, rather than pie as in what you eat. Although, it must be said that my main way of celebrating pi day is to eat at least one pie. Today it was steak and kidney, for dinner, and I also had a slice of lemon torte (sort of lemon meringue pie sans meringue) at a friend's house this evening.

Anyway, back to π. It has a numerical value of roughly 22/7 or 3.14159.... I can't actually remember any more decimal places, although to be honest five is plenty for most hand calculations. Even with a powerful computer program you'd probably never need more than twenty for the most accurate of calculations. Still, if people want to spend their time calculating π to billions of decimal places that's fine by me. They will, of course, never be able to calculate it completely since it is an irrational number - or more specifically a transcendental one (it doesn't appear as the root of any algebraic equation, if I remember the definition correctly).

That's enough going back to my mathematical roots (algebraic or otherwise) for now. More knitting to follow soon.

Tags: mathematics, pi

Update: I've just checked out the Technorati tag for pi and discovered that pi day is indeed widely celebrated, if not official. Also, if you're wondering why today is pi day, notice that in the American system of writing dates (which I think in general is far less logical than either the ISO or British systems as there's no clear progression from larger to smaller time units or vice versa as with the others), 14th March is written numerically as 3/14, or 3.14 if you use a dot separator. QED.

How many projects?

2006-03-12T00:45:00.000Z

I'm pondering the optimum number of knitting projects to take on at one time.

At the moment I have 4 on the needles and one more (a wedding present, so I'll need to get a move on as the big day is rapidly approaching) in planning. I've also got several more ideas for projects I'd like to start, but I'm inclined to finish at least one of my current projects first. On the one hand, having several projects means that I can switch between them for a bit of variation (e.g. my tote bag is quite long rows of stocking stitch, so it's very straightforward but not the most exciting thing to knit) to suit my mood or the available time (if I only have time for a quick burst I'll probably do a row or two of my ribbed scarf). On the other hand, having too many projects means that progress is slow at all of them.

I think it's probably good to have at least two contrasting projects at once - and I suspect that I'll usually have at least one sock on the go as well as something non socky. Probably having too many more than 4 or 5 would get too much at once, so I'll probably try to stick between those limits. For the moment, then, I'll aim to get one of my scarves finished before I start on something else. I want to have a go at a Tam o'Shanter soon, but I'll need to finish my tote bag first as it uses the same yarn (a 400g ball of aran weight acrylic/wool, which should be big enough for both projects). I also want to get the bag finished as soon as possible so that I can use it to hold my next project.

By the way, I've decided on the next few books I'm going to read. First up will be John Wyndham's Stowaway to Mars (one of his early novels (c. 1935) and probably originally published under a pseudonym). Then The Silmarillion by Tolkien, followed by Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov and after that The Hobbit. I'll probably then choose something a bit different before tackling The Lord of the Rings (for the third time - I've also read The Hobbit at least twice before, and The Silmarillion once, but they are all good enough books to sustain multiple readings). Of course, I may change my plans entirely, but that's the idea for now.

Tags: books, knitting,

Need to read

2006-03-09T23:27:00.000Z

While tidying my room this afternoon (a rare occurence and not one I particularly enjoy, although it's nice to be able to move around unimpeded for a few days afterwards) it struck me that I've hardly read any books so far this year - at least not in the way of fiction. I've read (or am reading) a number of knitting books and other factual things.

Over the years I've observed that my reading tends to come and go in bursts. Sometimes I'll read avidly for several months and do hardly anything else with my leisure time, while other times I'll go for weeks or months and hardly touch a novel or short story collection. This time my low-reading phase corresponds fairly well with my new found knitting passion. While knitting goes very well with watching films, and even better with listening to music, I find it doesn't blend so well with reading, as I need hands to hold my book open as well as to knit.

At some point soon I want to reread The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings (and probably also The Hobbit while I'm at it), but I think I'm in the mood for some science fiction first. I'll probably start with the fourth book in Asimov's Foundation series (I forget the exact title, although I was looking at it earlier today). I've also got a novel by John Wyndham (one of my favourite authors) that I picked up from the library recently (it was on sale for 25p), and plenty of other books of all kinds waiting to be read.

The question is, do I start my book (whichever one I choose) before I've done a spot of work on one of my knitting projects (whichever one I choose), or leave it till afterwards, by which time it will probably be past bedtime. Life would be so much easier if it wasn't for stuff like sleep and work!

Tags: books, knitting, reading

Techno makes me ratty

2006-03-09T01:18:00.000Z

In case you're wondering about the Tags thing that's mysteriously appeared at the bottom of my last post, it's because I've recently discovered the joys of Technorati. As far as I can make out at the moment, it's essentially a system for live searching of blogs across the web. In particular, it enables you to set keywords for your blog entries so that people can do keyword searches on blogspace.

Along with blogging itself, and other things like wikis (such as the venerable Wikipedia and photosharing via Flickr (and doubtless other similar sites, but that's the one I use - under the name of magnuscanis), this is part of the current generation of web technology, sometimes dubbed Web 2.0, that is replacing the more passive web browsing experiences of the previous generation. The main hallmarks of this stuff seem to be interactivity (allowing people to publicly comment on, if not change, the content of webpages), searchability (largely via tags) and a reliance on XML as the main underpinning technology.

All very interesting stuff.

And, in case you're wondering, my first sock is now about 2.5" long!

Tags blog, Flickr, technology, Technorati, web2.0, Wikipedia,
XML

The sock of 1000 feet begins with a single stitch

2006-03-07T23:09:00.000Z

I've finally started my first sock!

I wrote about it here with details of the yarn, needles and number of stitches, but I don't think I mentioned that the calf part of the sock will be in 2x2 rib all the way down. I'll then turn the heel using Elizabeth Zimmermann's conventional heel and continue to do 2x2 rib down the top while using stocking stitch for the bottom. I'm planning to use the same yarn throughout on this pair. Doubtless I'll try out some different ideas for later socks. I'm already thinking along the lines of one using stocking stitch for most of the body and confining ribbing to the very top, one (possibly the same one) with stripes (probably horizontal ones), one with contrasting colours for toe and heel (and probably the top ribbed band), and perhaps a cabled one. Obviously I mean one pair each time, although it is alarming how many of my pairs of socks seem to end up as single socks.

Anyway, all that's in the future. I'm enjoying sock knitting perhaps the most out of all the knitting I've done so far (it's challenging enough to be interesting without being impossibly difficult, and provides a very practical and useful end product) and I'm sure it will form a large part of my knitting activity, but so far I've only got 1" of the first sock done!

Tags: knitting

Learn by doing

2006-03-06T23:15:00.000Z

For several days now I've been putting off turning the heel of my practice sock because I didn't feel that I understood the instructions in the book (Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears, which I was beginning to feel was inappropriately named) at all well. That's had the knock-on effect of stopping me from making a start on my real socks too. I'd got as far as finishing the heel flap and then ground to a halt.

Tonight I finally decided to bite the bullet and have a go, and I found that once I got started a fair amount of puzzling over the written instructions, a small amount of lateral thinking and a quick peek in Montse Stanley's Knitter's Handbook (which, despite being a pretty comprehensive reference work doesn't have much to say explicitly about socks, but does have a useful section on picking up (or knitting up) stitches - just what I needed to make sense of EZ's rather terse instructions).

The actual turning of the heel, which consisted of knitting various short rows (the first time I'd tried that technique), was actually very straightforward once I realised that I was supposed to work back and forwards across the centre of the row, gradually bringing in extra stitches from the edge and decreasing the total number of stitches. It took a bit longer to figure out the next bit, where EZ referred rather cryptically (at least for a knitting newbie like me) to knitting up stitches. From the photo in the book, and a small measure of common sense (about all I could muster), I was able to figure out which direction I was supposed to go in, and intuitively knew (or at least thought) I had to pick up stitches along the edge of the heel flap. It was only when I consulted Stanley for how to do that (since EZ didn't seem to talk about that technique - or perhaps it's just that the index is rather skimpy) that I discovered "knit up" to be more-or-less a synonym for "pick up" and was able to make sense of the instructions at last.

I hit upon one more small problem when I'd worked round to the bottom again. I'd transferred from double pointed needles to single pointed ones while doing the heel flap, and I suddenly found I needed to get my stitches off the wrong end of the needle. It was no great problem, as I could simply slip them across to a dpn and get to work. However, when I do the socks for real it will be easier if I remember to switch back to dpns the row before I start to work up the edge, or even if I just stick to dpns throughout.

Also, while I was using 5mm needles for the test piece (partly to make it bigger and slightly easier to see what was going on, and also so that my 4mm dpns would be free to start the real socks, as I intended to do before finishing the test heel), I'll be using 4mm ones for the real socks and I only have a set of four of those, while I have a set of five 5mm ones. Most of the time that won't be a great problem as I've only been using four anyway, but there was a point when I was starting to work in the round again after the heel that I needed to bring the fifth needle in to play. I'll have to be a bit more careful with my needle management next time.

Because I'm so chuffed about cracking the heel, I've decided to upload two photos of it. One is (or should be) at the top of the post and other one right here:

As well as my sock knitting, I've done another 16 rows of my garter ridge scarf today (including 2 rows before work this morning, as I decided to break away from having to do it in 8 row blocks) and a handful of rows of my tote bag. I may start the new skein going on my ribbed scarf before I go to bed, but I'll probably start my first real sock instead. I reckon to have at least one of my scarves finished by the weekend - it's just a shame that the snow round here has already more-or-less melted!

Backwards and forwards

2006-03-05T23:47:00.000Z

Yesterday morning I had a very frustrating knitting experience. I'd knitted about 7 rows of my tote bag (at 68 stitches per row, that's 476 stitches, or a fair amount of work) and before I noticed that about 4 rows back I'd somehow managed to purl nearly half a row instead of knitting, which broke up my beautiful smooth stocking stitch with a random purl ridge. If it had been a whole row, I'd have been tempted to leave it in and call it a pattern variation, but as it was I decided that it would look too odd in the finished article and would bug me far too much in the long run, so I decided to rip out to the offending section and fix it. The net result was that I had only about 6 rows to show for my morning's work, but at least it's all reasonably neat stocking stitch. At the moment the piece is just over 3" long. It's got to go on for a total of 11" stocking stitch and 1" garter stitch. After that I have to do another identical panel for the back, a gusset (only about 10 stitches/row but going on for nearly 40"), a pair of straps (112 stitches on each, but fortunately only worked for about 7 rows) and a smallish panel in a contrasting colour to make an inside pocket. So it will probably be a while before this one's finished.

On the other hand, my ribbed scarf is coming on nicely. I've just finished my 3rd skein, and I reckon that one more should take it up to a good length for the finished article. I've been doing a lot more work recently on this one than my garter ridge scarf and I think the ribbed one will probably be done first (although the other is only about 3 pattern units away from the end too, so shouldn't take long to finish). There's two main reasons I can think of for this, with a possible third. First of all, although the ribbed scarf combined knits and purls in a single row (it is, after all, 2x2 rib on straight needles), rather than the same stitch for a whole row, each row is the same and therefore it's my preferred scarf to work on when I only have time for a couple of rows. Although I have a row counter to help with the other one, for some reason I prefer to work in whole or half blocks of the 16 row pattern. The second reason is that the yarn I'm using for the ribbed scarf is a lot nicer - both in colour (muted grey/blue with white, rather than sky blue) and texture (it's a wool/cotton/mohair blend instead of acrylic), and gives me more tactile pleasure to work it. Thirdly, I think I prefer the look of this pattern, especially the fact that it's reversible (useful for a scarf), which is another psychological reason for wanting to get on with this one when given a choice of the two.

I'm still putting off working on my heel, which is holding back attempts at making socks. I'm certainly not going to get any finished for this winter but I'm hoping to get some done by next year.

Not dancing for pancakes

2006-03-02T23:01:00.000Z

Scottish dancing tonight was cancelled due to the snow. Instead, I stayed in and finished off yesterday's carrot and chile soup, accompanied by homemade garlic bread (ok, I cheated with the bread and used a partially baked baguette from the supermarket, but the garlic and herb butter was homemade - at least in so far as mixing the garlic and herbs with the butter). After that I had a go at making Scotch pancakes, aka. drop scones. This was largely inspired by a conversation I had with some friends while making (ordinary) pancakes on Shrove Tuesday (a couple of days back, in case you missed it), when we were talking about the consistency of batter. The main differences between Scotch and non-Scotch pancakes are that the former have a higher flour/liquid ratio (6oz flour to 1/4 pint milk and one egg in the recipe I used (from Philip Harben's Grammar of Cookery) as opposed to 3oz flour for one egg and 5 fl. oz. milk (roughly 1/4 pint, IIRC) for the standard pancake batter from the same book), the flour used is self-raising (or in my case, plain with baking powder added, for lack of SR flour), and there's a small amount of sugar in the batter (1 dessertspoon). That makes for a rather thicker batter that stays put more-or-less where you pour it out, rather than running to cover the base of the pan. I found they went very nicely eaten fresh (and piping hot) with butter, sugar and cinnamon. I think my housemates agreed with me.

I've also taken the opportunity to do a bit more knitting. My tote bag is now well underway, with about an inch and a half of stocking stitch completed for the front panel (which is roughly 15" wide, so not too bad for about an hour of work). I'm also progressing quite well with my ribbed scarf, although I do wish it were ready to wear for the current snowy weather (I also wish we still had a subjunctive mood in English!). Here's a picture of it, so that you can see the general effect of the pattern:

What the picture doesn't show is the length of the scarf, which is currently about 38" (and nearing the end of the third skein). In the background you can just make out my knitting bag - this one is the maths conference one I mentioned yesterday (courtesy of Springer Verlag publishers) and far nicer than the carrier bags my other projects and knitting stuff are currently housed in. You can also see one of my first (and probably still favourite) pair of knitting needles (5mm diameter, 14" long) - not that they are that exciting.

Incidentally, the name of this post was inspired partly by tonight's cooking activities (instead of dancing) and largely by my favourite album title by Steve Lawson - Not Dancing for Chicken. I'm not sure it's necessarily my favourite of his albums but it's easily the coolest title.

Of peppers and pipes

2006-03-02T00:46:00.000Z

I had a go at making soup tonight for the first time since my home economics lessons at school about 17 years ago. I found an interesting looking recipe for carrot and chile soup in Spun Magazine, an "online stitch and bitch lifestyle magazine" I discovered while browsing for knitting websites. I made a few changes, principally omitting the celery and mayonnaise (which I didn't have in stock) and halving the quantity, but otherwise followed the recipe reasonably closely and was very pleased with the result.

I've spent most of the evening at a concert, sitting about 10 feet away from the wonderful Northumbrian smallpipe/fiddle player Kathryn Tickell who was giving the concert along with a Scottish harpist called Corrina Hewat. I've not previously heard of the latter (and she wasn't actually mentioned in the promotional material I saw, although they were definitely performing as a duo rather than as one star with a support musician), but she was great too. Afterwards there was a traditional music session in the bar, which I took my fiddle along to. Sadly neither Kathryn nor Corrina joined us for that, but it was fun nonetheless. The whole evening was really excellent apart from the point where I went to buy a CD, had Kathryn poised to sign it, and then discovered that I'd just used up the last cheque in my book (paying for the ticket which a friend had collected for me) and was onto my paying-in slips at the back. Not a great problem as I've been able to order a copy online anyway (for the same price), but I did feel ever so slightly silly, and of course it means I'll have an unsigned copy (not that I'm too worried about that, really).

Snow for St David

2006-03-02T00:31:00.000Z

Happy St David's Day to you all (actually, that was technically yesterday but since I haven't yet been to bed it feels like today still)!

This morning it snowed, which is quite unusual for this area. It's one of those occasions when I'm even more than usually glad that I can walk to work and don't have to drive - although the hills are a bit treacherous on foot in the snow and ice it's nothing compared to trying to drive on them in the same conditions. I managed to get out into the garden briefly with my camera at lunchtime to take a few photos. Sadly there were no daffodils showing (I don't think they've come up yet) but here's one of a couple of snowdrops, which seems quite appropriate:

Of course, I dressed up appropriately to go out in the snow. That included wearing my walking boots and two pairs of knitted socks (unlike most modern walkers, I've continued to wear the old fashioned doubled socks). Neither pair were knitted by me as, in fact, I still haven't got round to casting on my first real sock (and I'm still procrastinating to avoid turning my test heel), but while I was putting them on I did reflect that a fringe benefit of learning to knit is that I can now tell at a glance when my socks are inside out (both pairs, like virtually all other knitted socks I've seen, have at least some parts in stocking stitch, which is clearly non-reversible).

While on the subject of knitting, I've had a fairly quiet few days in this respect, mainly as I've been too busy with other stuff to do more than a few rows of my ribbed scarf. Tonight, though, I finally got round to casting on the 68 stitches required for the front panel of my new bag project. I've spent the last few days pondering whether to do this or my Tam o'Shanter first, as both will want to use the same yarn (a 400g ball of Wendy wool/acrylic (25%/75%) blend aran weight in dark blue and green). I decided that since I already have plenty of hats but am lacking more glamorous things than carrier bags to hold most of my knitting projects (I did (re)discover a cotton tote bag this morning that I picked up at a maths conference several years ago, and that now holds my ribbed scarf) I'd start with the bag project. That will also give me time to decide whether I want to do the whole hat in one colour or to try a more decorative version.

It's not the length that counts...

2006-02-23T18:02:00.000Z

I've now just finished the second skein on my ribbed scarf. Like the garter ridge scarf, this is chunky yarn, but it's in 50g skeins instead of 100g so I've actually used the same weight of yarn in both scarves. The garter ridge one, as I said yesterday (or in fact, in the wee hours of this morning) is 40" long and 7" wide, while the ribbed one now measures 27" x 5" The yarn is possibly a little thicker and denser (being wool, cotton and mohair instead of acrylic), and also the ribbed pattern stretches to at least 9" without straining, so it's effectively got a surface area of 240ish square inches compared to 280 sq. in. for the other scarf, i.e. there's not quite such a discrepancy as first appears.

With the garter ridge scarf, I intend to take it to more than 5', given that it will almost certainly stretch a fair bit in use. That should give me a reasonable amount of spare yarn which I'll probably use on a hat (I'm considering adapting the hot head design from Stitch 'n Bitch - a ribbed watch cap knitted flat on fairly big needles with chunky yarn - to use cold colours (blues and white) instead of warm ones (reds and yellows). For the ribbed scarf, I'll probably use up 4 skeins and see how it's looking then - it should be over 50" by that point. I may use a fifth skein on it, as I'll still have 6 skeins left to use for other projects (my eBay bid was for 10 skeins but the seller included an extra one in the package as it was another one she found of the same dye lot).

At the same time as the yarn for my scarf, and from the same seller, I got 10 skeins of yarn (no bonus ones this time, alas) to make socks with. It's an acrylic/nylon/wool blend DK yarn (Sirdar Country Style) in a rather interesting purple colour with multicoloured flecks in it. I've knitted up a quick test swatch in 2x2 rib on 4mm needles, to get some idea of gauge for my socks (although I probably should have knitted in the round to be more precise, and it looks pretty good to me. (I must get round to taking some more photos soon.) As soon as I can stir myself to do it, I'll cast 60 stitches onto my 4mm dpns and get cracking on the first sock. My test heel (which is on 5mm needles so that I could keep my 4mm dpns free for the real sock - 5mm ones are my only other size so far, although I've actually been using straight needles for the heel itself) is now ready to start turning - the bit which I've been dreading.

I'm off out tonight to Scottish Country Dancing (my regular Thursday night activity) but if it's not too late when I get back I might have a go at either the heel or the sock. Or I might just continue with one of my scarves. Or my left hand yarn tryout (which is actually European Pic style rather than Continental, according to Maggie Righetti's Knitting in Plain English). Or my coasters. Or the tote bag I mentioned the other day. Or the Tam o'Shanter while I'm in Scottish mood. Or any one of a number of other project ideas - so much to knit, so little time! Or maybe I'll just go to bed and read a good book (possibly even one not related to knitting!).

New balls, please

2006-02-23T00:36:00.000Z

I've been working on my garter ridge scarf this evening while watching a DVD (the interesting, if somewhat gruesome, film The Hollow Man). I've finally reached the end of my first skein of yarn, and the scarf is now at a length of 40". It's just under 7" wide, for a total area so far of 280 square inches. The gauge is 15 stitches to 4" or 3.75 stitches per inch. A single row takes approximately 26" of yarn - not quite as much (compared to overall width) as the ribbed scarf, but not far off. (that was measured on a knit row - I suspect the figure might be a bit different for a purl row - indeed, you'd really need to take the average over several rows to get a useful figure, but it's much easier to measure the amount of yarn when you're nearing the end of a skein). This is using chunky acrylic yarn on 6mm needles. I have just joined in the second, and final, skein and knitted the final row needed to make up a pattern unit (I always prefer to knit 16 rows at a time where possible).

While I'm on the subject of this scarf, I'll just mention that I started out by keeping track of my rows on the back of an envelope and then I got round to getting a row counter, and I'm finding that to be much more convenient. I have it on the end of one needle (the one that was free at the start of a pattern repeat), and I increment the counter by 2 every time that needle becomes free again, resetting it to 01 when I start the pattern block for the next time. That way if the counter is on the right hand needle it has the relevant line number, n, and if it's on the left hand needle it has n-1. Either way, I then know whether to knit or purl, having memorised the simple pattern. To be honest, by this stage I could probably figure out what to do just by looking at the knitting itself, but it's good to have the row counter to confirm it.

For most of the things I've knitted, I've not bothered with counting the rows as I've been more interested in absolute lengths (mostly in inches) if at all, but I'm sure my row counters will come in handy when I knit other things having a multi-row repeating pattern.

On the needles at the moment I have two scarves (garter ridge and ribbed), a test swatch for continental (left-hand yarn) knitting in stocking stitch (it started off in garter stitch and may yet evolve into some form of ribbing or perhaps moss stitch in the next few rows), and a tryout sock heel (based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's instructions from Knitting Without Tears so that I know what I'm doing when I come to make my actual socks (since it will take several hours to knit the 6" or so of 2x2 ribbing before I reach the heel, I don't particularly need to wait to finish my test heel before I start on the real sock, but I haven't yet got round to casting on for it).

Projects I'm hoping to start soon include my socks, a tote bag (based on a pattern from Stitch 'n Bitch) to keep my knitting in (rather than the plastic carrier bags I currently use) and a tam o'shanter hat (from Zimmermann). I've got a few other ideas too, but those are the main ones I want to get done. I've decided not to start on another scarf until I've got at least one of the current ones finished. I'm also considering knitting a set of coasters (or if I'm feeling ambitious, maybe even table mats) for a wedding present for some friends, using a similar idea to the last wok holder I knitted up - I've just realised I didn't blog that one, but it was a simple stocking stitch rectangle using two strands of (DK acrylic) yarn simultaneously (red and blue, in that case) on 5mm needles, making for a nice thickish fabric - but probably incorporating a garter stitch or moss stitch border (more likely the latter) for decorative effect and to stop them curling too much.

Continental knitting and all that jazz

2006-02-22T21:05:00.000Z

I didn't get much knitting done yesterday as I had a gig. I was playing bass at a jazz café at church. It's the first time I've played jazz properly for about 7 years and I enjoyed it immensely. Unfortunately the drummer who was supposed to be joining us didn't turn up (he may have been delayed in Ireland, where he'd been at a wedding) so we played as a quartet consisting of trumpet, trombone, keyboards and bass. One of my highlights was the slow version of the Flintstones theme tune we did (my idea). Another was our rendition of Amazing Grace. I got to take a few solo slots, including one extended unaccompanied one when the rest of the band stopped to eat some toasties! I hope it will be a lot less than 7 more years before my next opportunity to play jazz.

Today I decided to have a go at the Continental style of knitting, i.e. holding the yarn in my left hand (I've previously been doing it English style, with yarn in the right hand). So far it feels a bit awkward, particularly for purling, but I think when I get used to it it will probably be a fair sight quicker, so I'll persevere. I'm intending to keep going with English style for the current projects I have on the go, as the change of yarn tension would probably be too obvious if I switched in mid-flow, but I'll probably have a go at my next project (a knitting bag) with the Continental style. I'll wait till I've had a bit more practice at the latter before deciding which is going to be my main style. I gather that it's useful to be able to do both when you're doing stuff like Fairisle knitting with 2 separate yarns at once, so it won't be a waste of effort, whichever one I opt for.

A cubit and a half

2006-02-19T23:32:00.000Z

I've no idea how long my scarf currently is in cubits.

In fact, I'm not particularly sure what it is in centimetres either. But it's about 36" (so I suppose it must be 90cm, as a 12" ruler is the same as a 30cm one - isn't arithmetic wonderful!). BTW it's the garter ridge scarf I'm talking about - the ribbed one is about half the length, at 18" - not bad considering I started it considerably later. I suppose I prefer patterns where you don't have to count rows, as you can just get on with knitting and watch the stitches to see whether to knit or purl next.

I've been thinking lately about units, particularly for length measurements. I recently came across a website (whose URL I sadly can't remember) devoted to a campaign to scrap all non-metric units in the UK. In principle, I think that's a very logical, sensible idea as it makes a lot of sense to stick with one system and, as measurement systems go, the metric system has a lot going for it. For example, it's much easier to remember that there's 1000g in 1kg and 1000mm in 1m (or 1000m in 1km) than that there's 16oz in 1lb, 14lb in 1 stone, 12" in 1' and I can't remember how many feet in a mile (which goes to prove my point, I suppose). Feel free to disagree with me on that score, but I will think you strange.

However, when it comes to actually visualising measurements I find I can often think better in imperial. For instance, I've already mentioned that I remember the length of my scarves in inches (if at all) and convert to centimetres if necessary. Interestingly, though, I'm quite happy with using the metric measurements for knitting needle diameters (which are relatively small and more easily expressed in millimetres than fractions of an inch), although I tend to think of the needle lengths in inches (e.g. 8" rather than 20cm for my dpns).

Part of the trouble is that people who grew up with the imperial system tend to find it more convenient for use and they in turn teach the next generation, who also get familiar with it. I suppose we'd probably need to make a conscious decision to stop using imperial measurements if we were to be successful in converting completely to metric (the obvious alternative of ditching metric and sticking with imperial only wouldn't bear contemplating, IMHO). I'm sure I could discipline myself to measure my knitting in centimetres, and even to think of distances (and speeds) in the car in kilometres (per hour) rather than miles (I managed that feat ok when driving across Europe a couple of years ago, but quickly reverted to miles on returning to British roads), but I'd certainly miss having a pint of beer (although if the alternative were to quaff it by the litre, I might be pursuaded.)

The scarf must go on

2006-02-17T22:23:00.000Z

I've just reached the end of the first ball of yarn in my ribbed for her pleasure scarf (the blue/white wool/cotton/mohair one). It's a fairly chunky yarn and they are only 50g skeins. I managed to get just over 13" out of the first one, and the scarf is about 5" wide, so the total surface area covered is roughly 65 square inches - or slightly more than one square inch per gram. That's on 6mm needles in 2x2 rib stitch. As the yarn was drawing to the end, I was able to measure it with my tape measure. There were 57" remaining, and when I'd knitted the next row it was down to 28", so a 5" row of 2x2 rib in this yarn evidently takes a staggering 29" of yarn! The most annoying thing is that the remaining length of yarn was just too short to do another row. Still, I have 10 more skeins of the stuff and at just over 1' per skein I should need slightly less than 5 to complete the scarf. I might then do a matching hat with some of the rest - perhaps there'll even be enough for gloves too (although I suspect this yarn is probably a bit on the thick side for gloves).

A close shave

2006-02-16T22:50:00.000Z

If you know me, don't worry - I haven't shaved my beard off :)

I had an afternoon off work today, trying to use up some of my annual leave before the end of March, and was able to get quite a lot of knitting done (as well as a spot of gardening - mostly tending my compost heap and mulching round the raspberry canes).

I've now finished my mobile phone caddy (picture to follow), which I did by alternating K2Tog (knit two together) and SSK (slip slip knit), interspersed by normal stitches, over the course of several rows until I had 3 stitches remaining on each of the 3 needles (leaving the fourth one empty), then trimming off the yarn, threading it through the stitches on the needles and pulling it nice and snug. I'm pretty pleased with it, especially as it's my first successful project knitted in the round. I think I'm more or less ready to tackle a pair of socks now.

The close shave I referred to in the title for this post came when I set about knitting a few more rows of my garter ridge scarf. I was fine for the first three rows but then was merrily knitting away at row 4 and got about three quarters of the way along it when I realised that I'd been knitting when it was supposed to be a purl row. I decided that a minute or two spent ripping out the row and doing it again in the correct stitch would be far preferable to carrying on and having a mistake that would haunt me for as long as I keep the scarf. I only did 8 rows total on that scarf today, but it's now reached 32" (unstretched) and I've nearly used up the first of my two balls of yarn for it. I'm planning to take it to about 5' (60").

I've also started a second scarf. This one is a 2x2 rib pattern (i.e. knit 2, purl 2 repeated along each row, always knitting the knits and purling the purls) taken from Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'n Bitch, where it delights in the glorious name of Ribbed for her pleasure (which inevitably makes me think of Wayne's World). I'm knitting this one in a chunky wool/cotton/mohair blend yarn (approx. 73/17/10% respectively), mostly a muted grey-blue but with a twist of white running through it, that I picked up from eBay the other day. It's the first time I've tried knitting non-acrylic yarn (apart from a brief test swatch with some wool/acrylic (or is it wool/nylon?) 4-ply stuff I'd got for darning my gloves) and I'm enjoying it so far. It keeps on shedding fine white hairs all over me, but it feels much nicer to work with and should make for a warmer scarf. I'll probably offer that one to my dad when it's done (or perhaps offer him the choice of this or the garter ridge one - I know which one I'd choose ;)). I started it last night and it's now almost one foot long. As with the other scarf, I'll probably take it to about 5 feet. It's roughly 5 inches wide, too, and is being knitted on 6mm needles (12 inches long - one of a set that I got cheap on eBay).

At the moment the scarves are the only serious projects I have on the needles, but I've also just started a test swatch with two strands of yarn (acrylic DK in red and blue) knitted together. So far I've only cast on (20 stitches) but I intend to knit about 4" of stocking stitch. It's really just to see how knitting two strands together works. I'm planning to have a go at another mobile phone caddy soon in a slighly modified design, particularly if my housemate wants the first one. I'd also like to knit a biggish bag to use as a knitting bag (there's a good basic tote bag design in Stitch 'n Bitch that I'll probably use, but I might need to get some worsted/aran weight wool first), and I want to try a hat before long, as well as some socks. I'll certainly use circular knitting (on double needles) for the latter, but I'm still trying to decide which hat pattern to try first (I've found several for both flat and circular knitting).

Stuffed marrow

2006-02-15T21:51:00.000Z

Just to prove that I can still blog about things other than knitting, and to further expand the scope of this blog...

Several months ago a friend of mine gave me some beans and a marrow from her dad's garden. I used the beans fairly quickly but put the marrow in the back of my cupboard and forgot about it. I came across it again today. While it had gone somewhat yellow, it seemed to be in reasonable condition still so I decided I'd better do something with it while I thought of it. Looking through my recipe books I came across a promising recipe (in my favourite cookbook - Philip Harben's Grammar of Cookery) for stuffed marrow, which proclaimed that it was good for the "not so young vegetable marrow" (or words to that effect - I'm too lazy to go into the kitchen and check up the exact wording). I've previously done stuffed peppers based on the same book and they worked really well, so I decided to give the marrow a try too. The recipe is fairly vague, only suggesting the sorts of things you could stuff it with (such as minced meat, onions, garlic and herbs) and giving a cooking time and temperature (Farenheit only - the drawback of an older book).

I'd already been shopping today and got some vegetables and turkey (diced thigh - about the cheapest meat I could find) with the intention of doing a stir fry, so I decided to use some of those ingredients for the stuffing. I took a couple of small onions and about half the turkey (which I sliced a bit finer than it already was) and fried them up in my wok, then added a chopped carrot (it's only been three hours and I've already forgotten how I chopped it), a red pepper, two cloves of garlic, a generous dash of soy sauce (actually, some light soy followed by some dark) and a hefty pinch of mixed herbs. Once they were nicely cooked up - vegetables still slightly al dente but turkey more or less done - I cut one end off the marrow and scooped out the innards with a sharp knife. I then stuffed as much of the stuffing as I could into the marrow, covered the end with foil and put it on a baking tray in the oven at about 170°C (I've no idea how close that is to the recommended 375°F) for an hour. While it was cooking I diced the flesh of the remaining marrow end, tossed it into the wok with the remains of the stuffing, fried it for a few minutes and then ate it.

When the actual stuffed marrow was done, I ate it washed down with a 25cl bottle of Italian merlot. I was pretty pleased with the result, although the seasoning was perhaps a little heavy on the garlic (very tasty, and I'm sure I'll be safe from vampires for a few days, but perhaps this is why I'm still single?).

Inspiration

2006-02-14T23:37:00.000Z

As well as completing another 8 rows of my scarf, I've been working away at my tube on the double needles today. After completing nearly two inches in blue (I think I forgot to mention the colour yesterday), I had a go at swapping to white (the first other colour of the same type of yarn that came to hand - although to be fair, I only have those two and red anyway).

When I came back to my knitting after being out for the evening, I realised that my nascent tube was just about the right size for my mobile phone so, rather than being merely a test swatch with no practical application, I could turn it into a phone caddy. That's what I'm now intending to do with it. I had originally planned to switch to red after another inch or so, but have now decided to stick to blue and white stripes (or, blue with a white band round the middle) instead. I'm going to try decreasing the number of stitches and possibly grafting the end, much like I believe is usually done with socks. I'll leave the other end open. At the moment it looks something like this:

It's about an inch or so too short at the moment. I think I'll probably decrease a few stitches in the next row or two so that it begins to taper slightly, and then take it down quickly once I get past the end of the phone.

On reflection, I might offer this particular caddy to my housemate, who has a phone just like mine (purely by coincidence, or more accurately the fact that it was the cheapest model in the shop both when he lost his previous one and a bit later on when my old one died) and is a West Bromwich Albion fan (I think blue and white are his team colours - I take just about no interest in football). I'm already thinking of some possible refinements for the design - probably incorporating a buttoned flap - and think I'll probably knit the next one in the same variegated yarn I used for my knitting bag. I'd also like to make a few tin whistle cases at some point, but I've got to figure out how many whistles I want to store per case - i.e. should I make a thin one for a single whistle, or a bigger one to store several at once?

Not so much round as pear shaped

2006-02-13T22:15:00.000Z

Perhaps unsurprisingly, once I finished typing my last blog entry I didn't do the sensible thing and go to bed but I picked up my double needles and had a go at my wristband project. I read somewhere that ribbed stitches should be knitted on slightly smaller needles than stocking stitch, to make them a bit tighter, so I decided to use 4mm needles instead of 5mm ones. Having cast on 42 stitches (and then scrapped them and started again as the tension was haywire) I decided that it didn't look like it would be big enough to fit round my wrist, so I cast on an extra 6 stitches for a grand total of 48. I then proceede to attempt to knit 4x2 rib (starting with 2 knits).

Suffice it to say that my attempt was not an unqualified success, but I did learn a few valuable things from it:

Starting a new project after midnight is not a brilliant idea, especially when it requires a new technique such as circular knitting.

If a project gets off to a bad start it's better to stop, rethink, and start again than to just plough on regardless.

If a project has gone wrong and needs to be prematurely terminated, it's not necessarily a good idea to unravel it and reuse the yarn - you can learn a lot from examining your flawed work.

48 stitches (of DK yarn on 4mm needles) made the band too loose - in fact the original plan for 42 would probably be about right at the gauge I was achieving (or even slightly fewer stitches).

I decided that rather than starting again straightaway with the same project again (this being Sunday afternoon by now) I'd have a go at an even simpler project first to get the hang of knitting in the round on double pointed needles. I'm now working on a simple stocking stitch tube on 4 needles (4mm again), with only 30 stitches. The reason for the reduced stitch count is to maximise (or at least, increase) the proportion of "corners" (i.e. places where I change needles) compared to stitches from the middle of a needle. That's because the latter are effectively like flat knitting and it's the former which are giving me more trouble, and require more practice. Also, I'd like to be able to get it up to a reasonable length fairly quickly. I'll probably try a couple of colour changes while I'm at it.

The only other project I currently have on the needles is my scarf. I've done another 8 rows on that tonight and will probably do at least 8 more before bedtime (together with some more work on my tube). It seems that my either my knitting is loosening up or the stitches pull together as they settle, because the 16 row pattern blocks measure about 2 1/2" near the start of the scarf but 3" closer to where I'm now working. Interestingly the width has stayed more or less constant (and yes, I have just about mastered the art of keeping my stitch count constant - I must do some more work on deliberate increases and decreases soon).

Which side of the pond?

2006-02-11T23:38:00.000Z

My mum has recently been reading my blog (hi, Mum!) and commented that several of the knitting terms I'd used were American ones - perhaps not surprising since the books I've been learning from are mostly American. It seems that knitting terminology is not universally standardised and, in particular there are British/American differences for some of the main stitches. The two main ones are what I referred to in these pages as stockinette and seed stitch, which I gather are more commonly called stocking stitch and moss stitch over here. They are, respectively, the standard knitting stitch of alternating knit/purl rows (except when knitting in the round - a pleasure I am about to sample - in which knitting every row produces the same effect) and the stitch obtained by alternating knits and purls on a stitch by stitch basis. I've seen the name moss stitch applied to a variation of the latter in which you take 2x2 blocks of the same stitch and alternate those - essentially a larger scale or coarser version of seed stitch, but I think the usual British practice is to use the name moss stitch for the 1x1 version. I'm not sure which of those usages I prefer, but I like stocking stitch more than stockinette stitch, largely because it's a bit more succinct, and also because it's stockings rather than stockinettes that we wear (well, I don't wear stockings myself, but you know what I mean). Doesn't really matter though.

On the other hand, one American usage I do prefer to the British standard is the use of the word yarn as the generic name for what we knit, reserving wool for the stuff that comes from sheep. By contrast, in Britain we tend to call it all wool, which leads to odd situations like having a 100% acrylic wool!

I've spent all afternoon today helping some friends move house (they enticed me with the offer of pizza), but I managed to get some knitting done this morning. I had a go at a little test piece designed to see the effect of needle size on knitting. I cast 24 (or was it 25?) stitches of DK yarn (100% acrylic :-)) onto a pair of 3mm needles and proceeded to knit about 2" of stocking stitch. I then swapped to 4mm needles, and changed the yarn colour for good measure (so that the needle size change would be easier to locate) - going from red to white, did 2 more inches and then changed to 5mm needles and blue yarn (all the needles are aluminium, 30cm (12") long). The effect can be seen in this picture:

You can definitely see the size increase (going from right to left) and it's even more pronounced on the purl side (I pinned the swatch down for the photo to try, with limited success, to curb its tendency to curl, but I took care not to stretch it unduly to distort the results). When examined closely, the (roughly) inverse proportion between needle size and stitch density (i.e., as one increases, the other decreases) is also readily apparent. By the way it's just a coincidence that the finished swatch resembles the French flag, as those were the colours I happened to have of cheap acrylic yarn. I suppose it also demonstrates that I'm not bitter because les Bleus beat us (Wales) in the rugby last week, but that wasn't the (conscious) intention.

My next project plan, other than to finish the scarf (which is still 2' long at the moment) is to have a go at knitting in the round, using a set of double ended needles. I've had a quick blast at a small piece (30 stitches or so, for about 1") in stocking stitch and am ready to cast on and try a slightly larger piece in 4x2 rib, which may or may not be suitable for a wrist band. I'm intending to cast on 42 stitches (a multiple of 6(=4+2)) and knit for a couple of inches, using blue acrylic DK yarn on 5mm needles (20cm long) - I'm not yet sure whether to use 4 or the full set of 5. Since it's just past midnight, I'll probably leave that project for tomorrow. After this one's done, I'm hoping to be able to get started on a pair of socks, or maybe a hat.

Magnus and his amazing technicolour knitbag - part 2

2006-02-10T23:49:00.000Z

My knitting accessories bag is now finished:

Having finished the knitting I put off sewing it up for several days but finally got round to it last night. This evening I sewed on the button and ironed the bag, the proceeded to fill it with the alarmingly large collection of accessories I've collected in the short time I've been knitting (including 2 crochet hooks, 1 pack of darning needles, a box of safety pins, a box of dressmaking pins, a row counter (I have two, but the other one's currently in use on my scarf project), a knitting needle gauge, a pair of scissors and a tape measure; to be fair, the last two were things I already had for other purposes). It's very exciting to have this project finished, and it is very useful for keeping my stuff together - and much nicer than the small plastic bag I was using - but I fear I'll have to make a bigger bag if I get any more accessories!

Another exciting knitting landmark today is that my scarf has now reached the grand length of 2' - almost halfway there. I've also discovered that knitting and listening to jazz make a great combination, as the knitting occupies my hands and eyes and leaves my ears and (for the most part) my brain free to enjoy the music.

Lest you thought that the homebrew aspect of this blog had been entirely supplanted by knitting, I'll mention that I mulled another lot of ale tonight. This time I didn't use rum and, since I didn't have my computer on and hadn't got round to printing out the recipe, I made a guess at the spices. I used (for one pint of slightly past-it wheat beer) a hefty pinch of cinnamon, a generous grating of nutmeg, about half a dozen cloves and a dollop of brown sugar. I didn't heat it up for too long this time (just as well, since I was drinking from a pewter tankard) and it turned out pretty well. I think I'll leave further work on my scarf until tomorrow just in case, as I think the mulled ale packs a reasonable punch, even without the addition of rum.

Block and stitch - but which first?

2006-02-07T23:45:00.000Z

As predicted, I got the knitting part of my multicoloured knitting accessory bag project finished last night. I had a bit of hassle with the buttonhole (including having to rip out a row and a half of stitches and make a second attempt) and didn't manage to make it look as nice as the one I'd made earlier on a test swatch. Perhaps it was a difference in yarn tension caused by being part of a much bigger piece of work? Anyway, it seems to be reasonably ok in the end, and I might stitch round it to see if I can tidy it up a bit later on. The 5 or so rows of garter stitch to finish the flap seem to have worked very nicely.

It's now fully bound off and awaits stitching, but here I hit a quandary. One of my knitting books says you should always block your knitted pieces before stitching them up (so that you're stitching them in their final shape, presumably), while the other says that you might just as well sew them up first and then block later. For this simple project, at least, I'm inclined to go for the latter option. I'll probably block it before I attach the button, though, so that I can make sure that goes in the right place. I've already got a nice little wooden toggle button lined up ready to use.

More pictures will probably follow once I've got the project finished.

Magnus and his amazing technicolour knitbag - part 1

2006-02-06T21:50:00.000Z

Firstly, a progress report on my garter stitch scarf. It's now roughly 18" long after 6 times through the pattern, and looks something like this:

My other main project at the moment is a small bag to hold my knitting accessories (scissors, tape measure, crochet hooks etc.). This is a simple bag of my own devising, although it's fairly similar to a bag pattern I subsequently discovered in Knitting for Dummies. My design is for a bag about 5 x 7 inches with a small flap and no handles. The idea is to make a 7 x 12 (or so) rectangle in stockinette stitch, then fold over (parallel to the short side) and sew up the edges for 5 inches, leaving an overhang of about 2.5" at the open end to act as a flap. I'm using DK thickness multicoloured acrylic yarn on 3.75mm needles, and I started by casting on 36 stitches (using the 2-strand cast-on method). I've now reached what's going to be the flap and am intending to add a couple of refinements. The first is to be a horizontal buttonhole (worked by binding off 4 stitches in the middle of a row and then casting on (using the cable cast-on method) again in the next row. I'm ready to work that as soon as I pick up my needles again. The other thing is going to be a few rows of different texture to finish off the edge of the flap (starting a row or two after the buttonhole and proceeding for another 1/2" or so until I bind off finally). I considered using either reverse stockinette (i.e. knit/purl alternate rows, but the opposite way round from the rest of the pattern) or seed stitch (knit/purl alternate stitches), but I've decided to stick with my original plan of using garter stitch. It's partly intended for decorative purposes, but also to try and counteract the curling tendency of stockinette stitch. Anyway, here's how the bag looks at the moment:

I reckon I stand a good chance of getting the knitting finished this evening, and then I can get started on the fun of sewing it up and fixing the button.

Scarves R Us

2006-02-03T23:20:00.000Z

Having successfully completed a scarf for my panda (see yesterday's post), I decided to try one for myself. My knitting book has several patterns for scarves, including one mostly in stockinette stitches, with rows of garter stitch for textural variation, imaginitively entitled a garter ridge scarf. I decided that this would be a good one to try first, as it would give me plenty of practice with both knitting and purling, but not require me to change stitches within a row (except to make a selvedge by knitting the edge stitches of the purl rows). It would also have the benefit of not requiring too much precision over the gauge. A quick trip down to my local sewing shop furnished me with two skeins of chunky acrylic yarn in an electric blue colour and a set of 6mm needles, which were the size recommended on the label. I'm hoping that will give me enough to get about 5' worth of scarf. I cast on 24 stitches, not wanting to make the thing too wide (mainly because I wanted to be able to get to a reasonable length quickly).

The photo shows the scarf after the first few rows. I've now progressed to nearly 10", representing 4 repetitions of the 16 row pattern. It seems to be about 6 1/2" wide. At this rate, it will be a fair while before I get the thing finished - probably in time for summer! I have got several other projects on the go at the same time though, and I'm not in desperate need for a scarf as I have the one Jane knitted me - which I mentioned yesterday - and at least a couple of others. Nevertheless, I'm sure I'll probably make several more scarves fairly soon, as they are useful things to have and seem to offer plenty of scope for knitting creativity without being too difficult. Another simple scarf pattern I'm considering is a ribbed one (the pattern Ribbed for her pleasure from Debbie Stoller's book Stitch & Bitch - the second knitting book I bought and, like Knitting for Dummies, a lot better than the name might suggest). I'll probably finish the garter ridge scarf first though.

I've started, so I'll finish

2006-02-02T23:55:00.000Z

One drawback of having a relatively unusual name shared by the host of a popular TV quiz at the time I was growing up (Magnus Magnusson on Mastermind) is that I had to endure endless witticisms from people who thought they were being highly original in quoting catchphrases from the program at me. The main one I remember was "I've started, so I'll finish", which in fact is often quite a good principal.

The reason I mention this now is that over 20 years ago (at the tender age of something less than 10) I started to knit a scarf for my (toy) panda, and I finished it last week. Not the same scarf, mind you, but the same idea for my first knitting project. The first time round, I quickly became discouraged at my inability to knit the same number of stitches in any two consecutive rows and abandoned knitting altogether.

A few weeks back, I was wearing my favourite scarf - a 10' long striped one (inspired by Doctor Who) knitted for me by my sister-in-law, Jane, about 5 years ago (it wasn't quite so long when she knitted it, but it has pouches at the end which I often use for carrying books and things, so it's stretched a fair bit over time). Somebody was admiring it and happened to ask if I'd knitted it myself. I admitted that I hadn't, but it sowed a seed of inspiration and within a few days I'd nipped off to the local bookshop to pick up a book on the subject ("Knitting for Dummies" by Pam Allen - not (to my mind) a very inspiring title, but actually a pretty good book) and then down to the sewing shop at the bottom of my road for some needles and a ball of yarn, followed by several frustrating hours of trying to figure out what to do with them. Eventually I started to get the hang of it and have been happily knitting ever since. Having once started and failed to complete a scarf for my panda, I decided that it would be a good thing to tackle for my first proper project, after a few simple swatches to practise the basic stitches. You should be able to see the result in the picture accompanying this blog entry.

I've started on a few other projects since then, but I'll save mention of them for later as this post is already getting a bit on the long side.

Water, water everywhere...

2006-02-01T21:57:00.000Z

The boil notice has officially been lifted from our water supply, as of two days ago. I haven't had a chance to do any brewing yet, but it's nice just to be able to drink water from the tap again.

Apparently they've installed a UV light, which kills off any cryptosporidium present in the water. In an earlier letter sent out by the water board they stated that this would "remove the possibility that the cryptosporidiosis outbreak was caused by our water supply". So presumably they were intending some kind of time machine! The last letter restricted itself to the more modest (and hopefully accurate) claim that it would remove the possibility of future such incidents.

Mulled Ale

2006-01-02T17:50:00.000Z

While imbibing some mulled wine over Christmas this year (or rather, last year), I realised that I might be able to save the remains of my rather flat wheat beer by mulling it. I've never previously tried to mull beer, but I've always quite fancied giving it a try.

I had my first go at making mulled ale on December 30th, improvising from the basis of a few recipes I found online. I took a pint of beer, measured in my tankard, and placed it in a saucepan with a fairly generous dash of rum and liberal amounts of cloves (whole ones, slightly crushed with a pestle and mortar), ginger (powdered, and probably well past its sell by date) and nutmeg (freshly grated). This concoction was stirred while heating gently, my intention being to avoid boiling it. Unfortunately I got distracted talking to one of my housemates and did let it boil over briefly.

The result was not particularly outstanding, but it did improve the taste of the beer to make it at least palatable. Since I still have the best part of a gallon of the stuff, I'll probably mull the rest of it - doubtless trying out some different combinations of spicing. I've noticed that a number of recipes suggest adding some sugar, so I intend to give that a try next time.

By the way, happy new year!

Non-vintage

2005-12-02T22:54:00.000Z

Sadly it looks like I may not get any homebrew cider done this year. I left it far too late to go out into the garden to gather in my apples (I know, pathetic isn't it). I was finally going to do it last weekend and then I discovered that our local water supply has been contaminated with cryptosporidium (thanks to the BBC news website for that gem of information - it would have been nice to hear from the water board or the local council) and we need to boil it before drinking.

Even if I could be bothered to boil 5 gallons of water, I suspect it probably wouldn't do any favours to the ultimate taste of the brew, and I'm not going to risk making cider with contaminated water. Apparently the water supply probably won't be clean again until late January, by which time it will almost certainly be too late to get the apples in. I'm going to have to wait until then to do more beer too, but at least that comes out of a tin, so isn't going to present a supply problem.

DIY Seal Blues

2005-09-16T17:37:00.000+01:00

At first it seemed like the seal I'd fashioned for the outlet valve on my pressure barrel out of a length of green insulating tape was doing the trick nicely. However after only a few days and about as many pints, the pressure fell off rapidly and the beer is now fairly flat (although still palatable) with about two thirds of the barrel left to go.

I'm seriously considering collecting some more bottles and doing away with the barrel for my next batch.

A barrel of laughs

2005-08-10T21:44:00.000+01:00

I put my wheat beer into the pressure barrel last Thursday. At least, most of it went in there but I put about 3 pints into bottles.

Last time I used the barrel I discovered that it didn't keep its pressure so well, and eventually traced the problem to a perforation in the rubber over the inlet valve. I bought about 3 or 4 spare rubbers when I last had a chance to go into a homebrew shop (on the other side of the country, as our local one shut down last year). Unfortunately I can't find them now, so I had to improvise a seal using some insulating tape - fantastic stuff, but I don't know how well it will work here.

I have a beer float in my barrel, so I shouldn't need to wait quite so long for it to clear. I might give it the first taste this weekend.

I nearly forgot to mention it, but the final gravity of the beer was a round 1000. According to my calculation that should make it just over 6% abv, which seems to be pretty respectable. It's helped by the fact that I made a 5 gallon kit up to only 4 and a half gallons, due to my fermentation bin being a bit on the small side.

At long last

2005-07-19T16:45:00.000+01:00

I've finally got round to bottling my cider/perry that I started back in about January. There was just one demijohn so I've put it into a variety of containers ranging from 2L down to half a pint. It shouldn't need too long to mature in the bottles as it's been maturing in the demijohn for several months. From the taste of it today I think this one's going to be very definitely in the scrumpy camp.

I also started my next batch of beer brewing - a John Bull 40pt Wheat Beer kit. I'd intended to get it brewed earlier so it was ready for the summer, but as it is it will probably be an early autumn brew (should be about ready by the start of September). As my fermentation bin is a bit smaller I made it up to 4.5 gallons (36 pints) instead of 5 (40). The original gravity is 1044 and even without digging out the formula I'm confident that should give a good strong beer.

Facelift

2005-06-17T23:36:00.000+01:00

Flicking through a bunch of blogs, I notice a lot of them shared the off-the-peg green colour scheme of this one. So I decided to change the template I was using....

OK, so it's still green and off-the-peg but it doesn't seem to be quite such a common choice, and I think it's a bit more nice and mellow to boot.

Incidentally, I've just started a second blog in which to practice writing in Esperanto. Not that I have much to write about there, but I don't have much to write about here either, and when has that ever stopped me?

Пиво и вино

2005-06-16T21:24:00.000+01:00

I've decided that the level of my homebrewing activities isn't really enough to justify them having a dedicated blog all to themselves, so I'm going to broaden this out to cover my random musings on other things too.

Lately I've come across a particularly interesting website all about languages (or at least, interesting to a linguophile like me): UniLang. More language resources than you can shake a stick at. Since finding it I've been brushing off my Russian skills (the title of this blog entry, btw, is "beer and wine" in Russian, for the simple reason that I'm still celebrating having finally got my computer set up for keyboard switching, and I wanted to keep some link to the original subject of the blog) and started learning Esperanto to boot (mostly via the most excellent Lernu! website, which I discovered through UniLang).

BTW I tried another bottle of my homebrew red wine the other week and it definitely seems to be improving. Still, I think I'll probably concentrate my brewing efforts more on beer and cider.

Worth the wait?

2005-03-29T18:10:00.000+01:00

I've now tried a few bottles of my 2004 vintage cider, which is progressing nicely. My friend Phil, who's something of a cider afficionado, is visiting this week so I expect we'll get through a fair chunk more of the stock in the next few days. I still haven't got round to bottling my "spider" (haven't got used to the name either - I think I'll just call it cider, as about 95% of the fruit was apple in any case). I'm sure it's not being harmed by staying in the demijohn, but now I've freed up a few of my cider bottles I really should bottle this lot soon.

I tried the first of my wine the other day too. The white is ok, about on a level with cheapish supermarket fare - i.e. quite gluggable but nothing to write home about. The red is not even quite as good as that, and seems to have a vaguely unpleasant aftertaste. I'm hoping that they might improve if I leave them a few months longer to mature. Given that decent wines are available in the supermarket for not much more than the cost of homebrewing, I think I'll probably stick (at least for the most part) to buying wine. Beer and (especially) cider is a different matter though, as it's quite possible to brew very decent stuff, easily the equal of most shop fare and a lot cheaper (and more interesting than a lot of it).

Slow Spider

2005-02-16T17:37:00.000Z

Perhaps I have a particularly cold kitchen, but my cider/perry mix is still bubbling away quite happily in the demijohn over a month after I put it in there (it was supposed to take two weeks). Actually, it's going quite slowly now so I could probably bottle it any time now. It will probably be at least next week before I get round to it.

I tried the first small bottle of my previous batch of cider last Saturday, to celebrate the second successive Welsh victory in the 6 nations rugby tournament. It's not quite at its best yet (or at least I hope it will improve) but then it probably shouldn't be ready until at least the end of March anyway.

Spider and Sauvignon

2005-01-13T17:06:00.000Z

I've now bottled my red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, allegedly) in a random assortment of 6 red wine bottles I kept from wines I've drunk recently. The initial taste I had of it was not very promising - it definitely savours of vin de table at best. However, I'll leave it a few months to mature and hope that it improves. Since I've not previously made my own wine, I don't really know yet how the taste is liable to change over time, nor how to predict long-term behaviour from initial conditions. The hard part will be leaving my wine alone for at least the next 3 months.

I'm in the middle of transferring my Spider from the fermentation bin to a demijohn so that I can begin the next stage of fermenting it - which is to leave it in the demijohn for about a fortnight with about 1lb sugar/gallon. This transfer involves straining the juice off to get rid of the apple pulp etc. I don't know if it's because the apples and pears I started with this time were riper than previously, but it's mushed down quite a bit and given a lovely thick sludge. It's taking longer to strain than my previous batch, but the juice is looking less watery, so I think this may turn out to be a good batch. I'd better get back to it now.

Which beer?

2005-01-11T17:23:00.000Z

My pressure barrel is nearly empty so it's time to start thinking about getting my next batch of beer underway (my fermentation bin should be free of cider by the weekend).

I have 3 kits in stock at the moment. IIRC these are a porter, a bitter, and a wheat beer. I think the last one will be best as a summer brew, so it's a choice of porter or bitter. My current one is a stout, so maybe I'll do the bitter next as it's likely to be more different. On the other hand, it might be good to do the porter first so I can compare it while the memory of the stout is reasonably fresh....

My pressure barrel has been acting up a bit. It's been better since I took the floatation hose out, but still isn't great. Of course, letting all the gas out while I removed the hose didn't help and now I'm below the tap level I'd expect the flow to be less smooth. Next time I think I'll leave the hose out in the first place and just wait the extra few days for it to clear. If that doesn't work, I'll get in touch with the brewing shop to ask for some advice.

Red wine finings 2

2005-01-06T14:35:00.000Z

I'm sure an extra two hours won't make a great deal of difference to the wine. I nearly forgot to put the Chitosan (the second half of the fining mixture) in, but remembered a few minutes ago and did it just before 2.30pm.

According to the instructions it should now take between 3 and 7 days for the wine to clear, at which point it should be bottled. Judging by my experiences with it so far, I'm expecting it to be nearer 7 days than 3, which suits me as I'm busy at the start of the week.

I've also just checked my cider, which seems to be steeping quite nicely. I'll probably move onto stage 2 of that process next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Red wine finings 1

2005-01-05T12:35:00.000Z

I've just added the first lot of finings (Kieselsol) to my Cabernet Sauvignon.

Following the instructions, I then shook the demijohn for 10s and am now leaving it 24 hours before I add the second component of the finings (Chitosan). Assuming I do that tomorrow lunchtime, the wine should be ready to bottle on Monday. Unfortunately I'll be away all day but I'm sure it will be fine until Tuesday or Wednesday.

The art of scrumpy

2005-01-02T20:21:00.000Z

Amongst the many goodies Father Christmas brought me this year was a small bottle of Cornish scrumpy with the funky name of Legless but Smiling. I drank it last night and, although the 250ml I had wasn't enough to make me live up to the first half of the name, I enjoyed it very much. It certainly was scrumpy, absolutely flat with a slightly sour undertone.

I'm under the impression that the cider recipe I use is supposed to give scrumpy, but my first batch came out surprisingly sweet. In retrospect that could be because (I'm fairly sure) I primed the bottles with sugar, which isn't in the recipe - it only calls for 1lb/gallon when you first put it into demijohns. The trouble is I'd just been bottling beer a few days previously so I automatically added a spoonful or so to each bottle. It remains to be seen how my two later batches will turn out, as they aren't ready to open yet.

That reminds me, I need to go and stir my spider (cider/perry) as I haven't yet looked at it today (I have given my red wine a few shakes though).....

Wine

2005-01-01T20:03:00.000Z

This morning I finally got round to bottling my white wine. It was actually ready several days before Christmas, but I was busy getting ready to go away, and then I was away. I've reused half a dozen assorted wine bottles which I had saved for the purpose (actually, one was a mead bottle) and the labelling is nothing more fancy than black biro on white address label bearing the legend "Chardonnay 1/1/05", but it should do the job. I'm planning to leave it to mature in the bottles until at least April (although it already tastes better than some cheap supermarket plonk I've had).

My red wine had stopped bubbling too, so I figured fermentation was probably finished (although the airlock hadn't balanced as I expected). Since it had been going for well over a month I didn't bother with a specific gravity reading but instead proceeded with the directions in the kit.

I had expected to have to rack the wine into a clean demijohn (as with the white) but it didn't say anything about that, so I decided not to - perhaps the oak chips will continue to work their magic? Today's task was simply to add the sachet of stabiliser (probably crushed Campden tablets or something similar) and then agitate the demijohn to let the gas escape. Apparently I have to keep agitating about 3 times a day for the next 3 or 4 days before adding the finings (in 2 stages) and leaving to clear for another 4 days or thereabouts. It should finally be ready to bottle either next Saturday or early the following week.

Watch this space for more information.

Cider/Perry

2005-01-01T19:53:00.000Z

My housemate offered me a punnet of pears last night, which he had been given and didn't want. Not being a great fan of overripe pears myself, I decided to put them with the leftover apples from my 2004 vintage cider and make up a small batch of perry/cider. The recipe my Dad gave me was for cider, but I figured that perry is essentially the same stuff made with pears instead, so the recipe should work the same.

Stage one of this recipe consists of cutting up your fruit and sticking it in a vat of water for about 10 days for the juices to steep out. It's perhaps not quite as good as using a traditional cider press, but has the advantage of needing no technology beyond a knife and a dustbin (OK, so it's a plastic fermentation bin but it looks a bit like a dustbin :-)). I added just over a gallon of water (to allow for some evaporation/spillage) so I'm expecting to get about one demijohn of cider/perry (maybe I should call it "spider" or something?) this time round.

Apart from stirring it daily, and perhaps giving the fruit an occasional squeeze, there's not a lot to be done for the next 10 days or so.

Past Brews (part 2)

2005-01-01T19:43:00.000Z

After much searching, I came across this website which seemed to offer a reasonable range of brewing supplies with as good a postage rate as I could find anywhere else:

EasyBrew Home Brewing & Wine Making Shop

In order to qualify for free postage, I had to get £50 worth of stuff so I bought 4 beer kits, 2 wine kits and some miscellaneous supplies. Delivery was very fast and the owner was very helpful regarding the handful of items which were not immediately in stock (even to the extent of supplying at no extra charge a more expensive alternative to the red wine kit I had ordered, which was unavailable). I've only used the place once so far, but I was impressed by the customer service and would be quite happy to recommend it.

By the time my supplies arrived in the post, I had just transferred my cider from the fermentation vat to the demijohns (I had a yield of almost 3 gallons, which used all 3 of my demijohns) so I was able to get cracking on the first beer kit (Young's Harvest Stout - a 30 pint kit), but had to wait a bit to begin the wine.

The beer brewed up quite nicely and I'm currently working my way towards the end of the barrel. It seemed to go flat very quickly and I had a few feed problems, which I thought might have been caused by a small hole in the outlet valve rubber allowing the gas to escape. However, I'm also suspicious of the beer floatation system I had installed into my barrel. It got to the stage where nothing was coming out so I had to open the barrel, and since I removed the internal hose it's been working much better (although it definitely is quite flat).

Once my cider was safely bottled, I started work on both wine kits. I had a red one (Cabernet Sauvignon - a Beaverdale kit) and a white one (Chardonnay - a Grand Maison kit, IIRC), both 1 gallon. Because my kitchen was a bit cooler than the recommended fermentation temperature (it was around 16°C - roughly the minimum before fermentation apparently ceases altogether) it took a bit longer than the recommended time before they were ready.....

Past Brews (part 1)

2005-01-01T18:35:00.000Z

From now on, I'm hoping to use this blog to keep notes of any brewing I do (BTW I'm using the term fairly broadly to include any alcoholic beverages, e.g. wine and cider as well as beer), but I thought it might be interesting to run through my brewing experiences to date.

My parents have been brewing their own beer (from kits) for years, and they also used to do wine and cider, so the idea of homebrewing has always been familiar to me. I first actually tried doing it myself in 1997 while a student at Nottingham University, when I helped my housemate Tim with a couple of beers he was brewing - a bitter and a chocolate stout IIRC (for the latter, we naively assumed that chocolate stout was just ordinary stout with chocolate added so we replaced some of the sugar with cocoa powder - it worked surprisingly well!).

After that I didn't get another chance to have a go at brewing until September 2003, by which time I'd moved into a house with a couple of apple trees in the garden and they had a sufficient yield to consider making some cider. My dad was able to find me a spare fermentation vat and a few demijohns etc. which I used to make my own first batch of cider in Autumn 2003.

The basic brewing process for the cider (I'll detail the recipe later, as I'm currently brewing another batch) is fairly quick but it needs several months to mature before it's ready to drink. Rather than waiting for the cider to be ready, I bought myself a beer kit (along with a hydrometer and the one or two other necessary bits of kit I didn't already have from the cider) and brewed that. It was a bitter kit, Cooper's Australian Bitter (I think), and worked pretty well. For storing it I decided to get a pressure barrel.

I forget exactly when I made my second batch of beer, but it was fairly early in 2004 and was a mild, mainly because they had that kit on special offer when I went to the shop intending to get a stout kit. By the time I was ready to brew another batch, i.e. when my pressure barrel was almost empty again, I discovered that my local brewing shop had closed and I had no other suppliers within easy travelling distance. Because of that, I didn't do any more brewing until nearly the end of the year when my next crop of apples were ready for making cider. Preparing this rekindled my interest in brewing, so I started searching around for a mail order supplier....

What's this 'ere blog, then?

2005-01-01T17:33:00.000Z

After several years of resisting the blog phenomenon, I've finally succumbed. Partly this is to satiate my curiosity as to what blogging is like, but also because I've finally thought of something worth blogging (I assume that "blog" can function as both noun and verb).

As the name suggests, this blog is intended to be mostly about homebrewing. It's really for me to keep a record of what I've been brewing, but it might be of interest to other people as well (so you're very welcome to browse around, leave comments and email me with questions or suggestions). Doubtless I shall occasionally indulge in the odd tangent as well - perhaps it's because I'm a mathematician but I've always had a penchant for tangents (and the odder the better :-)).