Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Red hot

It is unbearably hot and humid at the moment - neither my flat, or work are designed for temperatures in the mid 30's (nor am I really, I like it at around 18 to 20 degrees and not much more) so obviously this is the week I managed to finish another Kep, and finally got some sour cherries.


I've wanted to get my hands on sour cherries for a long time but have never seen them for sale. I found out by chance last year that a work colleague had a tree and they said they'd let me have some this year. Now I've wanted these because I swear I've seen recipe after recipe that calls for them over and above the jam I particularly wanted to make. On Monday when I was given just over a kilo of them it was already hot enough to take jam off any sort of agenda. Nor could I find a single other recipe that was any kind of use.

For now I've shoved them in a jar with vodka and a bit of sugar (unpitted) to hopefully use when it cools down. I've been promised some more so maybe jam will happen too.

Meanwhile I finished a Kep. I started this back in late may but wasn't totally happy with how it was going so lost interest a bit. I managed to finish it before the heat got out of hand though, and now it's done it looks better than I thought it would.

Every bit of fair isle I attempt is a learning curve, this one was a lesson to plan better - I'm happy with the red theme, but it's bitty - some contrast has worked better than others, and so have some of the motifs. I was using up left over bits of yarns so there and I think a few shades less would have been better as well as more rigid repetition of colours. Next time I'll know.

It's also been a really good lesson in how the different shades work together. There's a scarlet and an orange in there which I was really doubtful about, but the red especially looks brilliant against other red shades - glowing rather than garish. It's definitely encouragement to step out of my colour comfort zone and experiment with more swatches.

4 comments:

  1. Hot weather for knitting but those colours are fabulous

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  2. That was a good idea to 'pickle' the cherries, I expect that the resulting liqueur will taste rather good too.

    My eyesight is such, now, that I struggle to differentiate between colours on the same part of the spectrum so your kep looks fine to me - whereas patchwork quilts look like a blur of mixed colours.

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  3. We have two prolific cherry trees but the birds never leave us enough to make jam with - especially the magpies. Your Keep is lovely. You seem, to my eye, blended the reds beautifully. I'm sock knitting at the moment, my sister would like a pair, but it's too hot to keep at it for long.

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  4. Didn't Elizabeth Zimmermann believe in knitting hats in the off-season, so to speak? Those colors are absolutely stunning. I had to click on the picture to get a good look. I love fair isle to look at, but my skills (and willingness to weave in ends) are still at a rather... undeveloped.

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