Sweater knitting time

Even though it was a busy day in a busy week (seriously: three meetings in one day on top of class, grading, writing stuff....), I did finish the first sleeve of the Ropes and Picots cardigan before I had to run off to AAUW meeting.

I had some time remaining before I had to go, but not enough to wrestle with the complication of casting on for the second sleeve (this sweater uses a provisional cast-on, with a lighter weight yarn for the first however many rows, then you do a picot row to make the turn-back, then you unpick the provisional cast on and knit the cast on stitches together. So it's something you really need to have a block of time, like maybe a couple hours, to mess with).

So I pulled out the long-stalled Basketweave pullover. Wait, I have an old photo that I never got around to posting:



This is the back of the Basketweave sweater. (I had to mess with the brightness level of that photo, so if anything looks a little odd, that's why - I used "Aviary," which is the free editor in Flickr).

I'm still not very far on the front - not much farther than I was back at the point when I took this photo. (And yes, I've been keeping it in my Derpy messenger bag from We Love Fine).

I'm hoping I can make time to work on both this and Ropes and Picots this weekend. Saturday there is a memorial service for a man at church (I did not know him well. I know his wife, but he was not very active in church and was quite unwell for the past 3 years or so). There's a lunch beforehand but as of this morning I've not been asked to serve. Part of me says, "Just go down there and see if they need another pair of hands" but another part of me says, "They probably didn't call you because they know how busy you are and want to give you a break." I think I will listen to that second part of me. Because Sunday afternoon, we are having a youth type event. (For the little kids. As I noted with some bitterness last week, we no longer have any teens, or at least we don't currently have any). We're going to hold a mini-Olympic games.

(Yes. At the meeting where we planned this, I had to clap my hands over my mouth to keep from saying "Watch out, if the USOC hears of this we'll be in trouble!". )

So I'm going to help out at that Sunday afternoon, and I also have to bake a batch of British flapjack. The snacks are going to be from "around the world" - egg rolls, taquitos (I guess that counts as South America, more or less?), meatballs....and they wanted something from the British Isles, where the games this summer were hosted, so I proposed Flapjack. No one else had even heard of it but they thought it sounded like a good idea when I explained what it was. (I have no idea how widespread Flapjack is, even in the British Isles. It may be largely restricted to one region, like the Midlands or somewhere). I first learned about it in one of Jane Brocket's books, and then later, my mom found a less gooey and caramelly recipe on the Lyle's Golden Syrup website - and interestingly enough, that version of flapjack is low enough in carbohydrates (I suppose it's because of the oatmeal being a complex carbohydrate) that my father can eat it in his diet. (I'm going to make the less gooey kind of flapjack, because it's less messy and also a bit more healthful.)

The nice thing is that flapjack is really easy to make: one saucepan to melt the butter and syrup together, and then it's baked like a bar cookie. And it has no eggs. And no nuts. And if you use the certified gluten-free oats, a person on a gluten-free diet can eat them. (Presuming the golden syrup is gluten free, I think it is)