Alpaca Show

Betsy talking to the critters.

The 2011 Blichmann / Bond Holiday Newsletter

Season’s greetings to family and friends!

We totally missed sending out our traditional Blichmann / Bond holiday letter in 2010, so let's rewind a little bit...

Bob's Bifurcated Life: Bob was out of official work for the first half of 2010, but late in the summer he found a job a Caterpillar plant making parts for big yellow digging machines. That's a good thing. The position is less pure metallurgy and more general engineering stuff, which can also be a good thing. The bad thing is that it's located in wonderful Sumter, SOUTH Carolina, which is about two hours south of our home. Sumter is in the SC midlands – essentially a big swamp. It's main claim to fame is an Air Force bombing range that is open to the public. You can go watch planes blow things up, if you like that kind of thing. Bob spends weekdays in Sumter, staying in a sort of crumby apartment we call the “Den of Squalor”. Weekends are mostly spent at home in North Carolina. Ah, the exotic double life

Bob outside the new modern

art museum in Charlotte.

Sumter, SC does have an active bicycling community, though. And it's as flat as a pancake, with the exception of maybe one hill. 2011 was a hot summer down in the swamp, and Bob really did get acclimated to cycling in the 99 degree heat. Hard to imagine for a Yooper, eh?

Some of the swamps are actually pretty cool.

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Betsy and the Various Rabbits: Betsy is still working with exotic metal alloys at Allvac, and holds down the fort during the week with help from the rabbits. Her extreme knitting activities have been somewhat held in check by a nasty case of De Quervain's tenosynovitis – think carpal tunnel, only in the thumb. But she's working that out, and has nonetheless managed to produce a good number of cool knitted objects. Betsy was even the winner of the Charlotte Knitters Guild 2011 Excellence in Knitting Award in the non-professional category. Go Knitbert!

It’s an unwritten covenant in our neighborhood that each residence harbor at least two yapping dogs.

We snub our noses at convention by keeping a pair of outdoor rabbits. Our current critters are anything but your typical quiet, sedate, sit-there-and-look-cute fuzzy bunnies. High-energy, athletic, curious,

friendly, and excitable are more like it. Mr. Skippy exhibits behavior more associated with a puppy than a rabbit. His female friend, Zeela II, is a little more aloof, but still enjoys tearing around the back deck,

sometimes bouncing off the railings and walls like a hockey player. Project for 2012: engineer a way to mount a little video camera on one of these creatures.

Automatic deck sweepers,

out on the prowl.

News from the Offspring: Nart (AKA Bart, Nathaniel, take your pick) is currently a junior at UNC Chapel Hill, studying various biology-related subjects, and holds the best job title of the family: Center Manager. This stems from a part-time job supervising the sundry activities at the campus gym. Last summer was spent ridding a Florida slough of invasive plant species.

Grad student life seems to agree with Paul. He's still at Clemson, studying biomedical engineering, looking to finish up his Master's in 2012. There have been several trip to conventions to give papers and the like, so we assume that's evidence of some kind of progress.

Mary and the kids at Paul's graduation, Clemson University 2010

Parental Units: Betsy's mom is doing well up in Livonia, MI, and is involved in a dizzying plethora of

book and cooking clubs.

Bob's parents are still in the U.P. Just before Thanksgiving they ended up in different hospitals, for different reasons, on the same day. Lorraine is now finishing up rehabilitation from an emergency hip replacement, and cheerfully putting up with the crazy nursing home world of early wake-up calls, relentless physical and occupational therapy sessions, and roommates who are retired World Professional Snoring Association champions. Dale's prostate cancer slowly is catching up with him, so he’s in hospice care at the VA hospital. But he's in great spirits, and enjoys reading, smuggled in beer, and having visitors in for Packers games on TV.

Travels, etc. We hadn’t been skiing for a few years, so in March we took a ski trip to Big Sky, MT. It was great to get away to someplace with real snow, big mountains, and hot tubs. That and a few enjoyable trips to Michigan to visit family effectively burned up our vacation days.

Our one 2010 ski outing: Pine Mountain! Bob and Betsy at Big Sky

Here’s to a happy 2012!

Bob and Betsy

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• Emails: bob.blichmann@gmail.com betsy.j.bond@gmail.com pblichm@g.clemson.edu nblichmann@gmail.com

• I think we’re all on Facebook in some way, shape, or form.

• Betsy’s knitting in chronicled on Ravelry, the big, honkin’ knitting database. www.ravelry.com. Her username is Knitbert.
• Bob’s musical stuff: www.facebook.com/RachelGarciaQuartet www.facebook.com/StevensMill

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Early 2012 P.S.

- Cancer finally caught up with Bob’s dad. He passed away just after the first of the year. The Blichmann family met up in the U.P. to celebrate his long, unique, and meaningful life.
- Lorraine is out of physical rehab, and has just moved into an assisted living apartment until she can gain enough strength to go back home.

And if we can keep the bugs and viruses out of our home computer, maybe our 2012 newsletter will actually be published in 2012. Imagine that.

Cooking Errors

Always a fun topic. In the kitchen, not everything goes right all the time, as even Julie Child could attest.

1) I made a pot roast in the Romertopf clay baker last week. I had really forgotten that we owned one. But I heard my cycling buddy George going on about how he had just gotten a Romertopf and how great it was. So I dug it out. I had a big, honkin' pot roast from Costco, along with the traditional potatoes, onions, and carrots. The first recipe that came up on Google said 425°F for two hours. Well, that was not quite enough time to tenderize that tough old hunk o' meat - the veggies were great, though! I had to run out to a band rehearsal, so Betsy was tasked with the rest of the roasting. Well... time kind of got away from her. (I suspect knitting was involved!) I came home to a clay baker that now contained seven charred, dessicated rectangles that had been pot roast in a former lifetime. Should have taken a picture!

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2) This is what happens when you are late at adding the chopped nuts and raisins to the bread machine. It was too far into the knead cycle to incorporate all the bits. They essentially stuck to the outside. The raisins kind of got a bit, umm, toasty. Kind of a short loaf, too, but tasted good once you plucked the burnt up raisins from the surface...

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3) The old waffle maker croaked back before the holidays. Fortunately, Santa gave someone - guess what? - a new waffle iron for Christmas! Go Santa! The first waffle didn't turn out so great, though. They did get better after that.

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4) And this is what happens if you deep fat fry a chunk of plastic by mistake:

Uncle Frank Hat

Knit Picks Ambrosia, 2 balls (110 yards, 50 gr each) 20% cashmere, 80% baby alpaca
Cascade Fixation, about 10 gr
Needle—4 & 5 or size needed for gauge
Gauge—8.75 st per inch unstretched (this stitch pattern draws in a lot—very stretchy)

Provisional cast on 140 stitches on larger needle with waste yarn, crochet cotton works well.

K one row in Ambrosia to prevent Fixation from showing through at the hem joining round.

Switch to Cascade Fixation and smaller needle, K around for 11 rounds. Keep the Fixation under tension while working.

Switch to Ambrosia. K one round, then P one round for a turning ridge. Switch to larger needle and begin Beaded Rib pattern:

Work about 12 rounds until outside matches hem length when folded along purl ridge. Undo provisional cast on and place released stitches on a second circular needle, a smaller size works well. Work an outer stitch together with an inner hem stitch in pattern around to join. Continue in pattern to a total length of 5.5 inches from purl turning ridge. Place markers every 20 stitches, between stitch 2 and 3 of pattern. *Work to 2 stitches before a marker, knit 2 together, continue in pattern repeating decreases around. Work a round in pattern without decreases.* Repeat these two rounds until 70 stitches remain. Then decrease every round, maintaining pattern. When 7 stitches remain, cut yarn, draw tail though stitches twice and weave ends in.

Domestic Activity

Grandmother W loved mothballs. She even loaded her cedar chest up with them. For decades. Eventually the cedar chest ended up with us. It was exiled to the attic for years, with the lid open through heat of summer and cold of winter. It was refinished, and sanded inside as well as outside. It was sprayed with products claiming to remove odors. The mothball outgassing has never diminished, decades after the last mothball was dropped in. So every fall the woolens get spread out on the deck rail to air out before wearing. And we remember Grandmother W.

Yesterday was also the day for round one of fig preserve making. Despite the drought we had a reasonable crop of figs this year. They all come ripe at the same time, and you don't want to eat that many fresh figs at a time--they have side effects. This year we got smart and prepped and froze the fruit until a more convenient time (like when it was less than 104F out) to make the preserves and do the canning. Batch one is complete--used this recipe. Have another load of frozen figs, but we seem to be out of half pint jars, had to press a couple of full pints into service... Guess they are all full of wild blackberry pancake topping that we thought was going to be jam. Fire up the griddle.

Sidewinder Sock #1

Before

Here it is at the completion of knitting, before the massive grafting operation has taken place. Is it really a sock? It reminds me of the skin taken from an animal, an oddly shaped flattish piece that's not quite the shape you would think it should be. I had concerns about how it was going to fit.

After

And a miracle occurs after 140 stitches of grafting! It fits perfectly, and is comfortable. Ya never know with unconventionally designed wearables. This one's a winner. Time to cast on for #2 as my left foot is jealous.

Yarn: Opal Hundertwassers in Silver Spiral

Pattern: Sidewinders by nonaKnits

Mods: added a third small short row gusset (16-20-16) just before last row to fit my generous calves. Also used K F&B increases as my lifted increases were tight. KnitPicks Options #2 needle, 32", 7-8 wide size.

How to turn a Rabbit into a Unicorn

N's little box was held hostage at the mailroom over last weekend, but first thing Monday he cashed in the package slip and got The Hat! Seems it was a hit, we think he wore it all day at NCSSSSSSM. The school mascot is a unicorn. Custom knit by BlichMa from 100% soy yarn, "Pure". Used most of a ball in garter rib stitch. Carried a fine clear elastic thread along for the first inch as the yarn had little memory. Ears and horn Caron Simply Soft.

Dill Pickle Socks plus an update from Roy

Embossed Leaves Socks from Interweave Knits Winter 2005, also in new book.


Yarn: Fleece Artist Merino in Moss


Started: 6/30/2007

I smell dill pickles when I look at this yarn!

In non-knitting news we finally heard from Roy. His group travelled to London last Friday, and stayed through late Monday, not the best timing from a parent's perspective. Here's what he had to say:

"Sorry, I didn't have any internet access in London. We saw Tower of
London, the Churchill war cabinets, three walking tours (Jack the Ripper,
National Gallery, Beatles). Spent a lot of time riding the Tube.

5 of us went to Wimbledon yesterday. They stopped play a lot, but we got
in and we got seats right on top of court 13, where we saw Ivanavok and
Davydenko play. We got back into the queue and got into Centre Court in
time to see Serena Williams play a set. She had a bad temper.

But the way back took 5 hours. We had to back to the hotel bc we checked
bags, and then get back into Victoria. When we finally got to Brighton,
the Falmer train had stopped running, so we had to walk down to the casino
to catch the bus. We got to see four and a half sets total, but it was
just cool being at Wimbledon."