Food Truck Bazaar ... oh my!

The girl running the Crepe Company food truck had a knitted hat on, so this post qualifies as random, and yet also knitting-related. And I bought a lot of yarn today, so there's another tie-in to this mostly-knitting/spinning-blog-which-sells-itself-as-"random".

Sooo many choices here at the Food Truck Bazaar in Orlando, Florida. The mall sucked, so we came out to the parking lot to watch the trucks roll in ... an hour early. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Look for details about what we bought after the pictures of the trucks.

As I said, these were all food trucks based in the Orlando area, and there may be sister trucks of the same name in other places. I won't provide links because they're all Googlable and the more you dig, the more you'll find.

Star-rating system:

***** AWESOME!
**** Pretty rad
*** Good
** Meh
* Boooooo!

Wicked Wiches (we saw them on the food network) ... Pamanti Brothers sandwich ****
Beard Papa (we've seen the in-mall version) ... Cookie creampuff with raspberry cream *****
Pupusa ... pork pupusa (el salvadorian) *****
Island BBQ ... jerk pork on coconut rice and beans with habanero sauce ****
La Empanada ... beef ****
Firehouse BBQ ... brisket sandwich *****
the batter bowl ... banana bread pudding *****
the batter bowl ... chocolate peanut butter push-pop cake (you have GOT to see this thing - it's ridiculously cute, and unfortunately, the kid popped it right onto the ground) *****
Melissa's Chicken and Waffles ... chicken and waffles with gravy AND syrup *****
Gourmet Flatbreads ... smack my swine flatbread pizza *****
Saigon Sizzle ... giant pork banh mi with extra veg (so nice of him to provide extra!) ***
The Crepe Company ... banana and nutella sweet crepe *****
Gastro Truck ... macaroni and cheese ****
Fork in the Road ... fried pickle spear ***
Yum Yum (they take pictures of all their Canadian customers, so look for our friends on their Facebook page) ... the dough-dough bird, s'mores please, peanut butter choco-rama, vanilla with butter cream ****

OH MY GOD, BLOGGER, HOW DID YOU EAT THAT MUCH!?!?!?!?   Well, I didn't. I had six friends along with me and we did a lot of sharing. We bought from a total of 15 trucks and it was all money well spent. Don't go to a Food Truck Bazaar on your own, dear readers.    :O)

Nanna's Toque

I needed a hat pattern and found one using the browser on my BlackBerry, but I found the small screen annoying and didn't like repeatedly having to zoom to read the pattern ... so I gave up on it and designed the toque myself. Yes, I could have solved the problem by going to my computer, but I had a couch tied to my butt and I couldn't move. Plus, designing the hat was fun.

I used wool/silk homespun in worsted weight. I used 4mm needles and sized this hat for a grown-ass woman, to quote the February Lady Sweater description. Gauge ... hmmmmm ... since it's homespun, it's not exactly even and I wouldn't want to guess. Maybe just follow your ball-band's recommended gauge.

It's a fun jaunt through a few stitch patterns, keeping things interesting on this quick knit.


The Stitches:

k - knit
p - purl
bamboo stitch - yarn over (yo), knit two, then pass the yo over the two knitted stitches
k2tog - knit two stitches together
p2tog - purl two stitches together


The Pattern:

Cast on 96 stitches and join to work in the round, placing a marker at the end of round.

Each round's instruction is for the entire round - e.g. Round 1 - purl all stitches in the round.

Rounds 1 - p
2 - k
3 - p
Rnds 4 - 7 - k
8 - 11 - p
12 - k
13 - bamboo
14 - k
15 - bamboo
16 - k
17 - 20 - p
21 - 25 - k
26 - 29 - p
30 - bamboo
31 - k
32 - bamboo
33 - knit
34 - bamboo
35 - *k10, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
36 - bamboo
37 - *k9, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
38 - bamboo
39 - *k8, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
40 - bamboo
41 - *k7, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
42 - bamboo
43 - *k6, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
44 - bamboo
45 - *k5, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
46 - p
47 - *p4, p2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
48 - p
49 - *p3, p2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
50 - k
51 - *k2, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
52 - k
53 - *k1, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
54 - k
55 - *k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)


The Finishing:

Cut yarn and draw through remaining stitches.

Weave in yarn ends.

Block lightly to flatten out the horizontal ribs a bit.

Put it on your head.

Catch-up time...

There are lots of things I want to show you.

Let's start with spinning. I bought this fibre - bfl - dyed by a local gal who used to work with my Mum:

I haven't spun it all, but I did attack in with a Christmas deadline to get enough for my Mum to have fun with. Here's one bobbin. Seriously, the thinnest I've ever spun:

That looks a bit dark. Here's the three-ply yarn, which, at three plies, was an amazing DK weight ... the thinnest yarn I've ever made (I was previously stuck in the worsted zone). So proud!

I farted around with some small projects like this mushroom (weighted in the stem with pennies) from Ysolda's Smith pattern:

And I cast on and finished Haruni, which was my first lace pattern ever. I did it in the bfl/silk homespun, which was about a worsted weight (of course). I had a bit of a goof-up about 20 rows in and I stayed up super-late trying to fix it rather than ripping it back ... and I totally fixed it. None the wiser, either. I think I can actually say that it's error-free now. And I'm in love with it. And I'm giving it away.

I'll post a full shawl photo another time. Too much now would be a spoiler to the giftee.  :O)

December? How did that happen?

I have so much to do! My Christmas cards are but a not-quite-lucid thought in my head, child photos are not yet taken or printed (there was a failure on the submission of the school order), the house is not decorated (nevermind that it's also not particularly clean) and ....

I HAVE LOTS OF TIME!

It'll get done. No worries.

So I have a new picture of the wee babe in the sweater that I knit her. She's adorable, right?

And I was out four-wheeling on the weekend and of course took a project with me. The pattern is Chilly Podsters and that's one finger built. These things are HUGE! That's not because the pattern makes them huge, but because I tinkered with gauge to make them huge. They're made for a giant man and they've been checked along the way, but they still look way too big. They are a little floppy around the lower hand/wrist, so future mitts might be knit with less fabric there. They'll be warm so it's not a big worry. So anyway, this is a photo of podster number 1 at Harrison Lake. It's knit in Cascade 220 superwash.

Movember

Crazy, crazy life has gotten away from me. I've been up to some crafty stuff, fear not, but I haven't had much time for posting.

So the latest and greatest, to get your giggle on:

Yes, that's a finger 'stache. Super, right? Here's a close-up:

It was too big for me, so the guy with the moustache gets to keep it. I think his finger is distorting it because it was nice and even before his giant knuckle got into it.

Recently I finished this messenger bag in lovely Malabrigo worsted, and then I felted it (on purpose). I'm going to needle-felt on the flap, but I haven't decided on the design yet, so it's sort of in limbo at the moment:

It's more purse-sized than giant-bag-of-endless-proportions-sized, and I think it will be good for carrying around knitting projects. Do you think that's sort of a form of cannibalism? Using a knitted item to carry around future knitted items? It seems a little bit wrong. I'll do it anyway.

So I've had this BEEEEEEAUTIFUL roving for a while. Well, it's actually combed top, but it's lovely either way. It's a bi-bfl / silk blend and I've recently heard that it was a mistake. It was supposed to be a single colour of bfl, but when it was blended (a beautiful grey ... I don't know what the problem was), it was less desirable and the vendor didn't want it. So the distributor added in the silk and there you have it:

They aren't the best photos, but you can see that it was a pound. I think I've spun close to 600 yards now. I decided on two-ply. So that really means that I've spun 1200 yards. WOW! I'm not sure whether my first 400 and my third (and weeks later) attempt at 144 yards are the same weight, but I'm going to apply some basic math - if I have the yards and the weight, I can find the weight per yard, and figure out how close they are. If they're close, it's all good. If they're not so close, I have more spinning to do and I'll then have two-ply in two weights. Goodness me! That was a lesson in delayed spinning, then, wasn't it?

In other news, I am coming to the end of a work project, and to the end of a business. In both cases, there are people (okay, women) who want to see my wedding photos. That's not so easy. My wedding album weighs more than my leg and I don't port it around much. Back in the last century, when I got married, we didn't have an option to request digital files. So today I ventured into the box o' album and took pictures of the pictures. It didn't work out all that great, but short of inviting all these women to my house to view the massive album, this is the solution.

Still married. Still love him. Still think we'll be married forever.