2013 - Week 3

I think he is happy with his new scarf :) 

I finished my scarf :) :) :) That is really the big news for this week. I worked on it for a long time on Sunday, and didn't stop until I was finished. Then I gave it to my husband (his belated Christmas present) . . . I think he is pleased with it :) It's huge . . . it ended up being 7 feet 8 inches long by 8 inches wide. I really enjoyed knitting it, and I can't wait until I finish all of my other projects so I can start a new knitting project . . . I think I have two more picked out already :) I am just amazed that I made it through that whole pattern without dropping a single stitch, or having it end up all different widths . . . it is actually pretty even throughout, I love it, and I think he does too :)

Seven feet eight inches long, by eight inches wide

I put the CD next to it for a size comparison

All that was left of my 2 skeins of yarn

A closeup of the texture

If you are interested in recreating this scarf, here is the pattern that I started with: RedHeart Basketweave Scarf. Then I changed it a bit . . . I didn't think that twenty stitches was wide enough, so I doubled it to 40. I did four rows of knitting and then began the pattern. It went something like this:

Row 1: K2 (K4P4)x4 K6 

Row 2: K2 (P4K4)x4 P4 K2

Rows 3-6: Repeat Rows 1 and 2 alternately

Rows 7-12: Repeat Rows 1 and 2 alternately, starting with Row 2. 

Continue alternating Rows 1-6 and Rows 7-12 blocks until the scarf is long enough for you. 

(I've never written a knitting pattern before, so I'm sorry if this is confusing. Please correct my format if it is wrong and feel free to comment if you have any questions about it). 

At the end I finished up with four more rows of knitting and then did a simple bind off, tucked in the ends, and voila, it was done :) 

So that's that . . . as for everything else (dream journal, Bible reading, daily highlight journal), that's all going well too. Since my scarf didn't take me five hours to finish this week, I have incorporated my weekly exercise into my weekly task. As if I didn't get enough of it during Rock Climbing Month last year, I am back at it. I got another month-long membership and went three times this week. I'm a bit out of climbing shape, and I was a little discouraged when the V1s weren't as easy as they were a year ago, but I'm getting back into it. I think I've gotten all the V0s already, and most of the V1s. Since I'm not going to be going every day this month, I doubt I'll get in as good of shape as last year, but it is fun to get back in the gym. Maybe this year I can convince some friends to go with me :)

For my new thing this week, I learned how to make danishes. I've had this recipe bookmarked in my Betty Crocker cookbook for years and never got around to it (mostly because it requires an overnight rest period), but I think it turned out pretty well . . . not that I didn't have my scares during the process ;) 

My first scare

 After I "cut in" the butter, I was expecting it to look like a strudel topping, which it definitely didn't, and then after I added the milk and egg yolks, it was much more runny and clumpy (from the cold bits of butter) than the smooth bread dough that I'm used to.

Filled in with jam

 I went forward with them anyways and even used a good amount of my homemade black raspberry jam (thanks again to my friend who let us pick tons of his black raspberries and blackberries last summer) to fill in the ends. They took much longer to rise than I thought they should have, but again, I just hoped for the best (while not expecting much).

The finished product

Surprise, surprise . . . they actually turned out pretty good :) The hard, lumpy butter turned into a really nice, croissant-like dough and the jam was really tasty. It was a learning experience, that's for sure, but I think they were a success.

In other news, after ten years, I finally decided to update my iPod (since I couldn't load any new music on my old one because it ran on firewire cable). Kind of fun how technology has evolved in ten years huh? (Thanks Mom and Dad for the Christmas present ;))

I decided it was time to update my iPod :) 

What have you been up to this week? Did you learn anything new?