Every weekday morning, I get up at 5:30am with my husband. While he's in the shower, the cats get their morning feed, and I fumble around the kitchen half asleep, putting on the coffee and finding fixings for a lunch to go. At his office (a trailer adjacent to an open pit coal mine, on the side of a mountain), he has access to a microwave, but not to a fridge. So, lunches must be room temperature safe, or on hot summer days, hot summer day safe.
DH's solution to lunch my making dismay? PB&J. Yup, that's right - peanut butter and jam sandwiches. His mother keeps us in homemade jams and jellies (his favorite and most requested right now is the '04 blackberry), so all I need to do is keep us in peanut butter (crunchy) and bread (whole grain).
Yet whenever I prepare another PBJ sandwich, I cringe. PBJ was what the poor, neglected kids got at school. PBJ is like the crappiest of crappy lunches. I feel like I'm sending him off to work with a big giant "screw you, I couldn't be bothered" kind of bag lunch.
However, PBJ is his absolute favorite, so every time I send him yet another PBJ sandwich, he is all happy and thankful when he gets home. Some mornings, he actually asks for PBJ, and it goes something like this:
DH: How about PBJ?
Me: Don't you want something nice, though?
DH: PBJ is nice.
Me: But I have some nice pastrami...
DH: But I want PBJ.
Me: But all the other kids, I mean guys, they'll think I don't love you enough to make you a nice lunch!
DH: All the other guys think you make the best PBJ in the world. In fact, you'd better make extra, so I can share.
Me: grumble futz
So I've been staring at this yummy skein of 100% Merino Superwash goodness now for over a month. I wanted to make something spectacular with it. Something brilliant. Something awe-inspiring. You know the drill.
Instead, it kept whispering to me quietly "PBJ. I'm peanut butter and jam. Really, I am." I ignored it, and swatched for brilliance. Trinity stitch and a lace panel for fingerless gloves. Cables and double moss stitch for fancy socks. Traveling stitches on a reverse garter background for a hat. Nothing worked. Nothing satisfied. They all left me with a hollow feeling that maybe, just maybe, the yarn was right.
It was right. It is a simple, easy, predictable scarf. It combines garter stitch predictability (equate to whole grain bread) with the world's simplest lace patterned 4 stitch repeat (k1, yo, sl1, k2tog, psso, yo, purl back). Even the back side looks great.This stunning hand painted 100% Merino is now the peanut butter and jam sandwich of scarves. But boy oh boy, does this most simple of scarves feature the colours well. PBJ. Noting satisfies like it.
10 comments:
The scarf is gorgeous! If something that pretty is PBJ, I'm not quite sure what that makes the ones I make with just one stitch and I don't even know what the stitch is. Toast maybe. Yeah...I think I make dry toast scarves! :-)
I'm illiterate in KnitSpeak, so here, for your entertainment is my interpretation of your instructions for the "world's simplest lace patterned 4 stitch repeat (k1, yo, sl1, k2tog, psso, yo, purl back)":
Kick 1! Yo!! Slide 1! Kick 2 Take On Gas! PiSS Off! Yo! Purl back. Word. (I know there was no "w" there, but it just seemed like it needed "word" at the end.)
So, was I close?? :-)
I am so loving your blog and this scarf is delicious. I have a love affair going on with Merino. Anything in merino sets my fingers aflame. Yummamente.
I just ordered Lanaset wool dyes and will be adding my colorways to all the white merino etc. in my stash.
"But Mum, I LIKE peanut butter, honey, and sultana sandwiches!" <---- me, aged 4 till 34, when I found out I have coeliac and can't have bread anymore. Sometimes the simple things....
The scarf is AWESOME - looks much more complicated than you're describing it (and DebR's comment caused "a major cola/screen interface incident"... - that's what they wrote it up as last job I had!)
That scarf is great! What yarn are you using and where can I find it (if that's possible considering that you live in Alberta and I live in Texas)?
I'm a PBJ fan as well, though I prefer PB and honey to the jam/jelly.
Ahh, comments. Comments rule. People that comment are the best kinds of people!
The yarn is a hand pained sock weight, not commericially available (sorry, Jody).
DebR - you always get my giggle factory going. Thanks.
Peanut butter is good food. I had it for breakfast. It's only crap if you have no other choice. Het the scarf is good too?
Now, of course, I must comment, knowing that you think people that comment rule.
I like pbandj too. In fact, at the Detriot airport there is a shop that sells only pb & j. Choose your bread: white, wheat or cinnamon swirl. Choose your jelly: various berries. Choose your pb: creamy or chunky. Choose your add ons: marshmellow fluff, honey, chocolate chips, bananas. These sandwiches were certainly not for the poor kids.
Love the scarf. What's up next?
Oh and hey, I forget to add... love the new glamour shot!
RE: Screw-you lunches :-)...I have to tell you. A friend of mine made a hot lunch for her hubby every day. One day, she ran out and made him a cold sandwich, and a nice one at that. He complained. Bitterly. The next day, she put two slices of bread, a can of tuna and a can opener in his lunch. He doesn't complain any more! Ha ha.
Oh, this post made me LOL. So true, sometimes the most lovely yarn looks its best in a simple simple pattern.
Lesson learned - listen to the yarn
Post a Comment