Do you always swatch? Do you always wash and block your swatches? True confessions time here: I don’t always swatch, and when I do, I don’t always wash and block it. This has come back to bite me several times. Lesson learned! I’ve modified my approach: If the yarn is familiar to me, I might dive right in. A new yarn? It’s best to do my homework.
This is Knit Picks Galileo in a deliciously plummy color called Urchin. It reminds me of these shield urchins I saw last December.
But I digress.
This ia a new to me yarn. It’s sport weight, a 50/50 blend of Merino and Bamboo viscose. Two ply. It’s deliciously bouncy and round to knit with. Occasionally I’ll split the yarn with the Hiya Hiya Sharps that I’m knitting with, but I want that pointy tip for the lace stitches I’m working. It’s a reasonable trade-off.
The ballband recommends a size US 3-5 needle. I started with a 7, just for grins, because it’s going to be lace. Definitely too floppy. I swatched with a 6, and it felt pretty good, but I thought I’d push the envelope and swatch with a 5, too. It felt a little full on the needle, but surprise! It was my favorite of the three blocked swatches. It relaxed a lot from the bouncy knitted piece, but it also had more of the structure it needed to make this lace behave. So glad I swatched AND blocked in this instance. I’ve been knitting like crazy, and I’m halfway done with the project. No pictures; it’s a secret for now.
Speaking of plummy, my friends offered me plums from their super-productive tree again this year. I picked two colanders full, which was enough for two batches of jam.
I thought I’d come up with my perfect plum jam last summer. That was before I had some plum bourbon jam on a mini-doughnut at Pip’s Original Doughnuts. And over the year I’d also decided that I like a more traditional pectin set for plum jam. (Pomona’s is still my go-to for strawberry, and no pectin at all for raspberry.)
After the first batch, I went for the trifecta of favorite things: Plum, bourbon, crystallized ginger. Heaven. Not particularly boozy, but a extra depth of flavor that plain plum jam doesn’t have.
Notes for myself:
6 cups chopped plums
1/4 c water
Bring to boil, simmer 5 minutes. Add 1 box Sure-Jell pectin for less sugar (pink box) mixed with 1/4 cup sugar. Bring to boil.
Add
4.5 cups sugar
1/4 cup bourbon
1/4 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
Boil 1 minute per pectin package drections, water bath process for 10 minutes (sea level).
Yum.
I must be an extravagant measurer, or maybe I should re-measure my plums after the first simmer, which I don’t, but I always end up with a bit more jam than I’m expecting. I can only process 8 jars with my stockpot/orange silicone trivet setup, and that’s my expected yield. Maybe it’s the added bourbon, ginger, water? Anyway, the extra jam goes into a jar and into the fridge. I had extras from 2 batches in the fridge, so I did this.
Plum bourbon jam ice cream. It was a good reason to use the ice cream maker the kids gave to me a couple years ago. And they were coming for dinner!
Tastes as good as it looks!
Inspired by Erica’s recipe, but I doubled it and adjusted it for sweetness:
2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup plum bourbon jam
up to 1/4 cup sugar, to taste
Mix milk, cream, jam. Taste! Adjust sweetness as desired. Process in ice cream maker 25-30 minutes. This is a soft set; I put the ice cream in a storage container in the freezer for a couple hours before serving for a firmer set. Delicious. In a perfect world I might make a custard base for a smoother texture, but that would mean more work. I wonder if I’d like it with half and half instead of cream? This is like swatching, with food! But I’m guessing that laziness will win out, and this simple version is probably how it will always happen at my house.
I think this would be spectacular with strawberry balsamic jam, with some additional sugared strawberries thrown in. Just sayin’.
So, extravagant swatching, blocking, measuring, eating! What is your extravagance this summer?
PDXKnitterati 
Thanks for the motivation. If I come across a post by someone who doesn’t always swatch (and more), but talks about how it helps, I’m more likely to listen and start doing it. Crazy, but true. So, yes, your post was a motivator.
Jo
That’s true for me, too. If it’s a dogmatic, “Always do this,” you know the rebel in me won’t! But in this case I have a couple sweaters that are now completely useless to me, and that was a lot of work for something to not fit any more.
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Smart clues about swatching (ssshh – which I very seldom do)! I guess I’ve been lucky so far.
The plum jam sounds wonderful, and the ice cream even more yummy!
It partly depends on what you’re making. Sweaters, yes, I’d swatch always. But shawls and accessories? Not so much. At least not with familiar yarn. This new one definitely needed swatching, though!
More plum jam for dinner tonight; it made more than I was expecting!
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Looks like some good eatin’ at YOUR house tonight.
It was actually last night. DH had been in Omaha on business, so he brought back Omaha Steaks. We grilled those and had lemon orzo pasta salad with it. And ice cream. The meal was an ode to saturated fat, at least the steaks and ice cream. Please pass the statins!
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Looks delicious!! Thank you for the blocking inspiration.