Episode 26: Granola, it's not just for hippies!
Bossy's granola is the perfect blend of healthy grains and delicious fruits. She recently discovered, thanks to her husband's not so stellar physical, that you can cut the sugar by quite a bit and not even miss it! Bootie and the rest of the family look forward to receiving the granola every year in her Xmas and birthday packages and now that she knows how easy it is to make, Bootie looks forward to making it herself. Wait a second, this is exactly what happened when Bootie encouraged Bossy to knit! Bootie has been had! Oh well, she can now console herself with a bowl of granola and it makes so much that she might even share with her friends. Seen here as part of a complete breakfast. Here's the recipe.
For Bossy's granola, you don't have to respect the proportions (unlike Nana's Ratatouille), but you do need to respect the process. When knitting, gauge swatching is part of the process and it must be respected. As much as we would like to skip this step, we have learned the hard way that as Patty Lyons says in her book, Knitting Bag of Tricks, "If you don't have time to swatch, save time to rip out your sweater." Patty Lyons is such a believer in swatching that she has an entire chapter devoted to it. We highly recommend her book for the many pearls of wisdom, not just the swatching advice.
Bootie swatches because she does not wish to recreate the mesh crop top she bought when she was 10 and in fact never actually wore. For the record, when Bootie and Bossy had to hoof it home in the early '80's, it's actually almost 6 miles from the Plymouth Meeting Mall to our childhood home in Chestnut Hill! Good thing that crop top didn't weigh much.
Here is proof that Bootie believes in swatching:
This is the swatch that Bossy talked about. She didn't get too far into the swatch before she realized that the blanket would be great for a very cold whale (and she probably didn't have enough yarn for that). A small child could also hide in its cables.
And here is the finished blanket which was a big success!
"Faith is a powerful thing, and anything done with love is never wasted."
--Angie Chatman, "A Knitted Peace," recorded as part of The Moth Radio Hour, WBUR, Boston, April 10, 2019
And speaking of proportions and process, we came across this lovely, inspiring story about ignoring gauge, and yet it all comes out okay--in blatant defiance of Patty Lyons' dictum that "If you don't have time to swatch, save time to rip out your sweater!" We know Patty is right, but check out Angie Chatman's four and a half-minute tale on Youtube--it's a beautiful tribute to her mother, the needle arts and their healing power, and a deep faith that anything made with love--no matter what the size--will always find a home.
And whatever you do, don’t knit like my sister!
