Friday, March 12, 2010

Skew Sock & Broken Glass

The day started out strangely. I've become a real coffee person, especially mocha with frothed milk, etc., and I happen to have a coffee maker with a frothing wand. I never used it until recently, but it's great. I usually use a smallish straight-sided glass for the milk, which works well. This morning, I made my coffee, frothed the milk, and put the glass in the sink after I poured the milk out of it. Then I unthinkingly ran water in the glass. The bottom of the glass immediately popped off.



I had forgotten what my Grandmother told us years ago. She told us that when handwashing crystal, especially very thin, delicate glassware, never put the glass into the hot water bottom first. Always put the side in first, so that the glass has room to expand and not crack. I had just proven that it also is true for non-delicate glass. It probably just takes more applications of the hot/cold cycle to break it. So, be careful, and don't do what I did.

A couple weeks ago I talked about an unusual sock pattern I've been knitting, and Claire S.asked if it was Skew from Knitty, and yes it was. I have a photo of the first sock, and I'm actually pretty close to done with the second one.



I used a not-wonderful yarn since I didn't know how it was going to go, and I needed a striping sock yarn which I didn't have. It's Bernat's Satin Sport, which is acrylic. I'm not sure how it's going to hold up, but it's nice to knit and kind of pretty, and okay for a test. I've already bought a nice sock yarn to try another pair. That's the plan anyway.



Finally, I had a really nice lunch at the National Gallery that was kind of a crackery-type base with feta, grilled asparagus, artichoke heart, etc., on caesar salad. I thought I could do something similar, and settled on lahvosh as a good choice for the base. I found a recipe and made some. It turned out really good, but it seems like a lot of work for something that doesn't last long. I've been experimenting around, and I've found that a flour tortilla toasted in the toaster oven works just as well, maybe better, as it's not quite so brittle. Anyway, here's the result of my lahvosh baking.



And thank you all for the very kind hair comments!

9 comments:

Ann Made Studio said...

Very pretty socks.

Your salad sounds delicious!

Aminat said...

Haow..those are really cute socks....

gwensews said...

I've never heard about putting the glass in water on it's side. It makes sense though. I saw Claire's Skew socks, and I want to make them too. Looks like they would be interesting to knit.

ACorgiHouse said...

My mom told me to always put the glass in the water sideways, but I had no idea why. Now I know. Imagine.

Love the socks, and the salad/asparagus/tortilla thingie sounds good. Going to try it myself. K

Claire S. said...

Great socks ! My attempt at the 'skew' is still on hold, sort of. I like socks for the bus/car ride to and from work and I'm sure these need to have alot of concentration so I've cast on another pair from 'Socks from the Toe-Up' instead.

Just caught up your last couple of posts. The aqua lingerie is just beautiful, and the new haircut too (I've been growing mine out for a year and yesterday it was all chopped off !)

Tina said...

Liana, great to see your first Skew Sock! I also saw the knitty pattern and was intrigued, but as it's still hot summer here, it will have to wait a couple more months. Interesting what the colours do on the diagonal like that. Did you find the pattern easy to knit?Looking forward to your "nice" pair!

Karin said...

I stopped knitting socks since I don´t wear them and maybee that´s not so bad since it keeps me out of buying sockyarn...and aren´t there some great yarns out there....The constuction on these are so cool that I´ll probably have to knit a pair!
I liked the hair too and I recently joined the "cut hair force" too and chopped of my long hair. I tried to sell it to the girl putting on extensions next to me...

Mardel said...

The socks are so pretty. When I first knit socks I never wore socks and thought it was pointless, but now I know I love them with boots, and yard-work boots especially. It is that season again and I find I need more socks.

The lahvosh are pretty. Flour tortillas sound good too. The whole thing sounds good. I'm going to have to experiment with that.

My mom told me that about the glasses too but I didn't know why.

Roy A said...

Thhanks for sharing