balls & biscotti

my life so far

Because I'm knitting for various shows coming up,  I've had to gather yarns for my palette. These are current leftovers from finished mittz. So what does one do with dozens of small balls?

One year, new grandmother and fellow crafter Beth, excited about a pattern for a knitted toddler poncho that used numerous colors of leftover sock yarn in small amounts, imagined her beautiful little granddaughter wearing it and  asked if I know where she could find yarn for it. aha! said I...and next day presented her with a heavy, lumpy pillowcase filled with hundreds of balls. I didn't ask, the next time we met, if she'd actually made the poncho. I had a sudden shuddering fear that she'd return a  thousand or so unused balls. 

I plan to donate current leftovers to the Craftistas (as they call themselves) who have yarn bombed Taos Plaza for the Wool Festival this weekend and planning similar (town sanctioned) high jinks for future events.

ahh, the wool festival! 
Missed it last year because I was staying at MBF's Pacific beach house (yeah, I know). We knitted together in the evenings and drank good wine. Daytimes were spent beach-walking and taking photos of the socks I was working on (same color as the blue-gray sea) draped over lovely seaweedy driftwood. This year my knitting pals are out of town, there's no driftwood or ocean wind to distract me (just flying yellow cottonwood leaves). I'll be on my own. All the better to contemplate (or ignore) an over-scheduled life and disappointment in someone who let me down. Don't ask.  Or why I woke up this morning at 3:30 and furiously wrote 2100 words into the mac, at the kitchen table, in the dark, ate breakfast at 5:30, and then, spellbound, began baking a double batch of Italian biscotti I promised to bring to the SOMOS Storied Recipes cookbook launch party tonight at the La Fonda Hotel. I vowed to take a nap this afternoon, but it's nearly 5 and it's not going to happen.

Some ahtful sprinkles of XXX sugar, a fresh paper doily, and the biscotti will be dressed and ready to go. This recipe was not the one I included in the cookbook (Zeppole), but is a traditional Italian recipe that doesn't have a story (required) -- except that they're baked three times and are excellent coffee dunkers. While I waited for each batch to be done (slowly, laboriously), as the room filled with delicious smells and warmth, I knitted in the dawn's early light, thereby waking up Ron and Spike who followed their noses to the newly ordained Zen Kitchen Early Morning Knitting Bake shop. The recipe page is old, faded and splattered. Just the way I feel. We're kindred spirits. Be kind.