February, 2013 - The Seventh Sphinx

I have knit a few things, actually. Pretty much all scarves, but scarves of increasing complexity and (to me, though I give them away) appeal.

The beauty of knitting something yourself is that you can get (skill/fortune willing) just the design you want. Again and again I come up against this wall of knowing precisely what I want, and not being able to find it anywhere [ex-cerebrum]. Or perhaps it can sort of be found, but is not realistically purchaseable. This doesn’t mean I can’t have what I want, though…it just means I can’t have it yet. And that it may require a crafting adventure of no small effort/duration. [Possibly years. But I can be patient.]

This is the scarf I knit my little brother for Christmas. It was a kind of dry-run of the pattern, to see if I want it for myself. Which I do. In cream, and a slightly smaller gauge as this one turned out so wide as to border on editorial (I didn’t quite follow the pattern. Typical.).

[Though that’s going to take a year or more. This scarf is 6′ long, and I am only sporadically in the mood to knit.]

I like the simplicity of this pattern*; the end product looks kind of intricate but the pattern itself is all intuitive repetition and doesn’t even require consulting a guide.

*Lion Brand Harbor Scarf pattern, in Loops & Threads Cozy Wool in ‘moss’

I asked for a madeleine pan for Christmas.

Because, you know, Proust.

I defy you to read the opening chapters of Vol. 1 of In Search of Lost Time and not want a madeleine. Even or especially if, like me, you’ve never had one before.

They tend to be expensive to buy, so: literary baking! Turns out they are a bit laborious to make*, so I see why the expense. It also turns out that they are wonderful; a satisfying, delicate crunch of resistance yielding to a soft, lemon cake.

I’m amiably disposed toward them for turning out well on the first try. Curious to try some alternate flavors now, in which the butter is infused with earl grey tea or lavender buds.