Cooking & Knitting

[neadods]

I think I've posted this before, but they're such good (and arguably goodish for you) summer treats:

Slice a pitted dried date open along one side, stuff with cream cheese, and top with a smoked almond.


The Sudoku afghan is starting to kick my ass, but I am determined to win. Lessons learned, for those knitting the home game:

I like to do all my thinking up front, so I can just relax and do when it's time to start actually knitting (...writing, designing, sewing, etc.) And I want the individual blocks to be portable. Therefore, as I ball the yarn, I've been dropping individual balls and putting them in sandwich bags with a business card that lists the location in the larger afghan, the color (in case it falls out), and full directions for the stitch. The cards are blanks from my computer; I printed them out and then hand-filled in the location and color according to my main chart.

Unfortunately, as I was doing that today, I realized for the first time that too many of the blocks repeated both color and stitch. (The key to color is the answer to one puzzle; the key to the stitches is another.) Therefore, I'm going to have to put the master grid on the computer too, so that I can do searches and make sure that there isn't too much overlap before I start filling out the rest of the cards!

ETA: I have now tried a dozen variations of keys mapped on each other, and there are always a surprising number of repeated blocks. I've finally put one down and then *mirrored* another over it... and still there are about 9 repeated blocks, including one that gets 4 goes.

I give up. Or maybe what I should give up is this wild idea of pattern AND color and should just do one based on color and one later based on pattern! (Many of the afghans for the putative book can be done in both color and blind intaglio, and I should probably make at least a small demo in each.)

Comments

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

OT to this but I have to say it and you're the only one who'd really appreciate it.

I only today just realized that "the sound of drums" (the tapping rhythm itself) is the underlying bass notes in the Dr. Who theme itself.

It didn't stick out with the Gold arrangement since that version buries that note under the high brass, but I was tapping it out over and over when I turned on a Big Finish Dr. 8 (Minuet in Hell - strange one, that) and my tapping fit it on the nose.

I was quite guilty at how long that took me, considering my musical experience...a serious "d'oh" moment.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better, someone had to *tell* me that before I got it!

Minuet in Hell! Why are you punishing your eardrums? I've been relistening to quite a few BFs following persiflage_1's joyous discovery of them, but that one, I think, will languish.

At least the latest one has an actual American playing one of the Americans. (And a Canadian, which lingually counts.)

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Why? Well, I have to hear each one at least once. I can ignore the bad american accents (having endured overdone southern accents in a set of movies about the south during the civil war). It is, however, getting very slow to get to the point of getting the doctor connected with the crisis.

Besides, I like the Brig (and his skepticism here).

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised - I would have thought you'd long since heard that one.

The Brig is always wonderful, although I like him in some other adventures much better, like Spectre of Lanyon Moor.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

there's a lot in my collection i've not found the time to hear yet. i can only do it in the car and in that it's competing with music and other things (like traffic reports) for my attention.

and yes, Spectre is (already) better than this, and remains one of my favs as it shows that 6 could handle storylines that were traditionally 3 and 4's domain - in short, that 6 is a Doctor like every other. my only gripe is the "Battlefield the sequel" ending. :)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Big Finish was in many ways the saving of Six. They've given him a companion and stories that really work with his incarnation.

[not-hathor.livejournal.com]

Slice a pitted dried date open along one side, stuff with cream cheese, and top with a smoked almond.

Heh. That's the healthy version. The SCA version is to stuff it with almond paste and stick the almond inside.... we called them 'crunchy cockroaches'. Then there was 'June Bug Chili' -- gad, we had a sick sense of humor back then!

Cloved lemmings.... roast rat on a stick....

Ah the good old days!