Entrelac Distraction & Thanksgiving

I haven't been posting for a few weeks but I have a multitude of excuses, the first one being – entrelac! I've never been much of a knitter – every scarf seems to turn into a triangle and I never knew how to correct mistakes or go back and make adjustments. About one year ago, my dear (and VERY patient!) friend, Sue Whitmore was actually able to teach me to knit socks. I was hooked! I've made about 7-8 pairs this year. Then this Spring while in our local yarn shop, The Wool Company, (a wonderful shop and the owners are delightful), I saw this very unique scarf using entrelac technique. Entrelac is a knitting technique used to create a textured diamond pattern. While the end result resembles basket-woven strips of knitted fabric, the actual material comprises interconnected squares on two different orientations. Check out a tutorial for this scarf at http://knittyotter.typepad.com/otterknits/2007/03/entrelac_scarf_.html. After many read-throughs and a couple of false starts, I enlisted Sue's help once again. After a couple of afternoons of knitting and ripping out, I think we've finally got it! It's such fun but requires quite a bit of attention in the beginning. I haven't taken a picture yet but will do so soon. Just don't look too closely!

The main reason I have not been posting is that I returned to church – yep, sabbatical time is over. I attended last week for our annual Thanksgiving breakfast and Gratitude service. It's one of my favorites. Whoever wishes to do so is given the opportunity to express their gratitude or share a story. It is a touching and inspirational service. Afterward, we decorated the church for Christmas since tomorrow is the beginning of Advent. Here's my Board President…

Another reason I love Thanksgiving is that it is our wedding anniversary. From my wonderful husband:

  On Thanksgiving 1998, Takashi and I were married on the back patio of my childhood home in St. Charles, IL.  All three of Takashi's kids flew out from OR & CO, my brother and his family came from VA and my sister and her husband came from MN.  Fortunately Linda is Methodist pastor so we were able to be very relaxed about the whole thing.

This Thanksgiving was small in number but huge in food...just 5 of us.  The turkey with apple-cranberry glaze was brined using kosher salt, crab boil spice packet (yes, I use that for pickles too) & coriander and was the best ever. The brining was accomplished with a large plastic bag in the canner using two other water filled bags engineered to allow the bird to be surrounded by the brine.  The menu was rounded out with sausage-chestnut stuffing, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, glazed pecan carrots, pear harvest salad, Bandon cranberries, fruit jello mold, and Parmesan knots.  Then there was dessert - Dutch apple pie, pecan tassies, and pumpkin bread with cream cheese filling. 

Speaking of apples - here's one that was left on the tree - Takashi picked it on Thanksgiving and we had to weigh it - one apple = 1 3/4 pounds!

Here's an uninvited holiday visitor who has been driving Musashi the Wonder Weiner dog crazy!  He sits out on the deck bench and eats apples out of my bucket of apples to be used later...