I rarely post twice in a weekend, but having written some knitting content yesterday, I feel compelled to show you these cookies. I had a craving for peanut butter cookies yesterday, and these more than hit the spot. They are super delicious.
I followed almost exactly the recipe for Classic Peanut Butter Cookies from the 1997 edition of The Joy of Cooking, by Irma Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker. I made two substantive changes: I used gluten-free flour, and I added some ground almonds. (Plus, I left out the salt, and sprinkled sugar on top before baking). I used my standard GF flour mix, Dove’s Farm, in the self-raising variety (it is a mix of rice, potato, tapioca, maize, and buckwheat flours), but use your favorite all purpose GF flour mix. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of flour, and I used 2 cups of GF flour and 1/2 cup of ground almonds. I also suggest being choosy with your peanut butter. I used one made by a local small batch producer:
Here then is the recipe, slightly modified from the one in the cookbook. Be forewarned that this recipe is written using standard American measurement conventions.
Gluten-free Peanut Butter Cookies
Preheat oven to 350F/180C.
Mix together in a small bowl and set aside:
2 cups gluten-free flour
½ cup ground almonds
1 ¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
In a larger bowl, beat together the following ingredients on medium speed until very fluffy and well blended:
¼ cup vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
2/3 cup peanut butter
12 Tblsp unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
Add and beat until well-combined:
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 ½ tsp vanilla
Stir the flour mixture into the peanut butter mixture until well-blended and smooth. Let the dough stand for 5 minutes to firm slightly. Pull off pieces and roll between your palms into generous 1-inch balls. Space about 2 inches apart on the sheets. Using the tines of a fork, form a crosshatch pattern and press each ball into a 1 ½ inch round. Sprinkle with sugar.
Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until the cookies are just tinged with brown at the edges, rotate the sheet half-way through baking for even browning. Remove the sheet to a rack and let stand until the cookies firm slightly. Transfer the cookies to racks to cool.
In my experience, gluten-free cookies often spread like crazy in the oven and turn into an unsightly mess; these behaved beautifully and produced a very classic cookie:
I hope you like them! I found them to be even better the second day. I have spent the morning knitting, watching great tennis, and eating peanut butter cookies. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.
I was reading along in a Ravelry forum this morning when I saw the following quote from Ann, one of my on-line knitting friends (Rav name AnnGustard):
“When I was a child knitting, from the UK Woman’s Weekly mainly, you always went down 2 sizes for ribbing – everything was either 4ply, where you’d use a size 12 for ribbing and 10 for the main part; or DK where it was size 10 for ribbing and 8 for the body. Four sets of needles – straight of course – was pretty much all you needed. How times have changed!” (quote used with permission)
This made me laugh! That’s exactly what it was like for the first few decades that I knitted. My needles were straight, and I had very few of them. I needed very few of them. I mostly knitted with DK or worsted weight yarns. (Note that Ann is referring to UK needle sizes; the US sizes are different.) How times have changed indeed: there are knitting needles in every corner of the house! And, in a knitting corollary of Murphy’s Law, they are always the wrong needles for whatever I am planning.
After reading Ann’s comment, I decided to see how many knitting needles I could gather in 2 minutes and take a photo. These don’t include any needles currently in use, or any needles that are sitting in a project bag with the leftover flotsam from a finished project not yet re-distributed, or any needles buried in one of the boxes I couldn’t dig out in 2 minutes.
I grabbed all of those at hand, and ran outside in the blustery wind, where Doug helped me snap a few photos (and after which, I ran around the garden picking up all of the knitting tools which were blowing around in the wind).
There are quite a few sets here: my lovely and reliable ChiaGoo interchangeable circulars (in the black and white case), my HiyaHiya circulars (in the blue case), my KnitPro Karbonz (in the box at the back). There is a large plastic box containing my limited sets of straight needles and an enormous tangled mass of fixed circular needles in all sizes and lengths. There are two project bags stuffed full of needles, including some very nice fixed circulars of various makes and models.
Also not included are the knitting needles I inherited from my grandmother. I wrote a post about these in 2012 (!) which you can find here, but below are photos of her needles:
Grandma certainly had more than four sets of needles, but she was knitting up till the 1990s, and her collection spans about 70 years of knitting (plus, she worked in a yarn shop). Nonetheless, all of her knitting needles, together with the entirety of her other knitting tools, fit into one small carpet bag.
It is a bit of a running joke in my family that any time I need a specific size needle, I won’t be able to find one. (They, at least, find it funny.) Every time I start a project, I spend lots of time pawing through this:
The question remains: If I have so many knitting needles, how come I can never find one in the size I need?
Thank you so much to everyone who commented on the Caravay sweater I knit for Emma. I received so many lovely comments, both on here and on Ravelry. I am really pleased to be able to share knitting projects with this community. Knitters are the best!
When I decided to knit Caravay, I realised that I had a firm deadline, and I put everything else aside in order to finish it on time. So, now that I’m done, what’s next? I am trying to find something new and exciting to cast on, but in the meantime, I should probably start by looking at my WIPs.
I had four projects on the go at the time. Here are progress photos I took of these projects before putting them aside.
This is an absolutely beautiful shawl design. But what on earth prompted me to knit this with a fingering weight yarn when the pattern calls for sportweight? In order to get the right dimensions with the fingering weight, I had to add a bunch of pattern repeats, so there are more stitches on the needle and more rows to the inch than the original. I cast this on in April 2020, and fear that I will never finish it. Part of me wants to give up and make it into a cushion, but it would make a very striking shawl.
I cast this on in April 2021 (hmm, there seems to be a trend with April cast-ons that go nowhere). I started it in order to have a quick knit – it takes one skein and makes a small pretty shawl. I got half-way and stalled. The sad thing is I could probably finish it in a few days, but I’m just not feeling it now.
i adore this summer-y version of Kate’s pattern. I am definitely going to finish this, but….it’s a short-sleeved lace tee shirt and its zero degrees out now. I’m not feeling the summer knitting vibe.
My family bought this kit for me as a birthday gift in September. The design is really pretty, and I love the bright colours set against the white. I had just started it when I had to put it aside to concentrate on Emma’s pulli.
I am so pleased to be able to show off finished photos of the beautiful Caravay sweater which I knit for my daughter, Emma.
As regular readers will know, we flew to Vancouver to spend a month with our daughters over the Christmas break, and I took the half-finished sweater with me, which absolutely, positively had to be finished before we hopped on the plane to fly back to England. It was very, very close! Family members might even say that I became a bit obsessed and, shall we say, cranky, as I rushed to finish it.
The Caravay sweater is designed by the talented Linda Marveng, whose work I have long admired. The impetus for knitting this particular sweater came about last fall when I won the pattern and yarn in a prize draw! Many hours were spent debating which of the four available patterns to choose, who to knit the sweater for (me? Leah? Emma?), and which colour of yarn to choose. You can read more about that in this earlier post, but I will mention again here that at that time there were 1628 projects on Ravelry that used this yarn, and that Emma and I looked at each and every one of them (more than once) in order to narrow down which colour we wanted.
The yarn is Tinde pelsullgarn from Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk. It is described as a DK-weight, but feels lighter to me, comparable in feel to a fingering weight wool. It blooms beautifully in the wash, however, which probably accounts for its rating. I had never tried this yarn before, and I was slightly suspicious that it would be rough and itchy. It has surpassed all of my expectations, and behaves beautifully. Emma wears it with a tank underneath and says its comfortable next to the skin. This definitely won’t be the last time that I knit with Tinde pelsullgarn. I would like to thank Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk for providing the yarn for this prize.
I have since found a local – London, England – provider: Knit with Attitude. Here is part of the description of this yarn from Knit with Attitude’s website: “Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk AS is a traditional Norwegian family owned wool spinning mill founded in 1898. It has been in the same family for four generations, and some of the machines that are being used are over 100 years old. The exclusive Hillesvåg yarns are made out of Norwegian wool, and are handcrafted with love to bring further joy to knitters and wool enthusiasts all over the world. Tinde is a DK weight yarn spun from fibre from the Norwegian pelssau breed which has a lustrous, curly fleece with a quite soft, fine hand.”
The absolute best thing about the yarn might very well be its colour. This is Burgundy #2104, and is probably the best red I have ever knitted with. I covet this red. Next project in this yarn is for me!!!!!!
The design is beautiful. The textural stitch, the Domed Check pattern, is intricate and eye-catching. I did think I was crazy knitting a tunic-length cowl-neck sweater with tons of ease in an all-over cabled pattern; if I hadn’t won this in a draw I don’t think I would have ever considered it. It is a LOT of knitting. It is an AWFUL LOT of knitting. Now that it is done, I would do it again in a heartbeat. It is absolutely gorgeous and worth every stitch.
The pattern calls for lots of ease. In the photos accompanying the pattern, the model wears it with + 53 cm/20.75” ease. (This means that the sweater is 53cm/20.75″ wider at the bust than the model’s bust measurement.) Emma and I determined at the beginning that we didn’t want that much ease, but getting just the right amount of ease without Emma being nearby was challenging. And of course, in a drop shoulder sweater like this, changing the ease will have consequences for the sleeves, both in length and width, so there was a bit of guesswork on my part to make sure it all fit Emma perfectly.
I ended up following the pattern for the Extra Small (except for length instructions, for which I followed measurements for the size Small). Because my gauge was a bit narrower than the pattern gauge, the sweater ended up with a bust measurement of 46″ (instead of the 50.75″ called for in the pattern for the XS). This means that on Emma the finished garment has an ease of 14″ which I think is just perfect.
One thing I didn’t do, which I should have, was to cast on more stitches for the sleeve, as my gauge was narrower, but I forgot to do this. It meant that I had to do some serious blocking of the sleeves at the end, and we were worried until literally the last minute that the sleeves would be too tight. I also added length to each sleeve, because the sweater was narrower than called for (so the drop shoulder would sit higher on the arm), and it turned out that I added too much, which led to much last-minute drama.
I spent Friday painstakingly and super carefully sewing the sleeves into place, picking up the neck stitches, and starting the cowl. I then spent Saturday cursing and groaning while painstakingly ripping out the seams, which had clearly been sewn far too carefully, after which I ripped 10 rows from each sleeve, and then sewed everything back in place (much less carefully than before). Saturday evening we had a last dinner with Doug’s sister and family, and I dragged the sweater with me (it is quite a lot of knitting to carry around) and worked furiously on the cowl (it is doubled and then folded over and hemmed, so I needed a good 20cm/8″ of broken rib.). Sunday, I took up the whole table, finishing the cowl, hemming, and then weaving in ends, desperate to get it finished so that I could take some photos while there was still light before rushing out to meet up for some final family good-byes. Can we all say: “No, Kelly wasn’t cranky at all, was she?”
But I have to admit: it is worth every bit of effort. This sweater is fantastic! It has panache. I would like to thank Linda for designing such a beautiful garment and for hosting the prize draw on her blog. The pattern is well-written and easy to follow. I am now busily planning which Linda Marveng pattern to knit next.
Given that the knitting went right down to the line, I had only about 30 minutes to grab some photos of this garment before the sun set. I adore the below photo of Emma and her dad. Doug is wearing a sweater which I knitted for him ten years ago. I promise to write a Wearability Wednesday post about it soon, and give lots of details about how it has held up.
We are back in England, missing the girls, but so grateful that we had the chance to see them. I woke up this morning and found this photo in my inbox:
It’s lovely to see that Emma is wearing and enjoying her sweater. It does a knitter’s heart proud. Best wishes, everyone!
I am racing to finish Emma’s Caravay pullover before we leave Vancouver. I have 4.5 days left. I am also back at work (working from home), so even less available knitting time than that implies. I finished and blocked the front and back before we got here. Below, the two pieces are pinned together to check the size. I think the width and length are both great. Knitting these pieces without having Emma around to check it against was nerve-wracking, but it seems to have worked out.
I have now finished knitting the two sleeves. We are all camping out in Emma’s apartment for the month, which doesn’t provide a lot of room for blocking (plus no carpets or foam blocks), so I have had to use creative methods. I ended up blocking them on Emma’s sofa cushions:
Here, you can get an idea of how we’ve tried to cram this into the small apartment:
I now have to sew in the sleeves, sew the sides together, pick up the stitches around the neck for the cowl, knit the cowl (which is doubled and hemmed), and finish off all of the threads. Oh, most important: I then have to photograph it!
It is absolutely beautiful here. It keeps snowing. We took a short drive on New Year’s Eve up to Horseshoe Bay and Whytecliff Park, and had such a great time.
The day was so clear and bright. It felt like you could see forever.
I like this photo of Doug being silly:
Here is Emma at Whytecliff Park. She was the only one of us to brave the icy path down to the edge:
It was a lovely way to end the old year (and good riddance too!).
It was super frosty cold near the water. Good thing we all have warm knitwear. (Leah is wearing the cowl I knit her for Christmas 2016 in the above photo; blogged here. Doug’s hat was blogged here, and my scarf here.)
One last photo of Horseshoe Bay:
Yesterday, it snowed some more. We are expecting another 15-20 cm tonight (6-8 inches). Wish me luck on the knitting. I am going to need it!
