Our first Thanksgiving meal was a surprising success. I managed to only miss something on a recipe once and realized it before it was too late so the pumpkin pie was delicious and not overly pumpkin-y due to a complete and utter lack of cream. This is seriously a big deal for me because I'm terrible when it comes to reading directions and have screwed up more than one recipe by skipping something or adding too much or too little of something.
We had one other near mishap that was quite funny. I had bought double cream to make whipped cream but realized during dinner that not only do we not own a mixer but we don't even own a whisk! Just the other day a contestant on Come Dine With Me had spent an hour mixing his whipped cream by hand. We were in trouble because pumpkin pie - especially 'hard to come by in England' pumpkin pie - really needs whipped cream. We tried using a fork for a little while but thank goodness my husband has a bit of MacGyver about him. After a few minutes of rummaging through the utensil drawer, he came up with a tea strainer (not a tea ball but one like this) and attacked the bowl of cream again. It worked! So if you're in a pinch - no mixer, no whisk - we can attest that a tea strainer works.
That night I also realized something a little upsetting when, thinking I would knit a few rows before bed, I picked up my Gooseberry Cardigan. It wasn't that my glaring mistake was still haunting me either - I finally ripped that back. It was the discovery that when I knit, I hurt. The muscles below my thumb start to burn after only a few inches of knitting. It wasn't a sudden discovery - there's been faint pain for a little while now - but it had gotten to the point where I had to force myself to finish even one row and that was a real worry. I cast on a Thorpe hat for my dad yesterday (because Christmas knitting stops at nothing) and knitting on large bamboo dpns didn't seem to bother me as much as I was able to get about a third of it done before I had to stop. Thankfully it also seems that it doesn't effect crocheting at all. It does effect typing on a keyboard, though, because it aches enough now that I'm not going to type much more.
I'm knitting the cardigan on size six/4.00 metal needles and I know that metal needles have given me a little pain in the past - enough that I remember replacing a metal circular with bamboo on a project - but nothing like this. I don't have a bamboo size six circular but ordered one yesterday because I'd really hate to send the cardigan to the UFO pile. And, damn, I'm afraid of not being able to knit anymore. I'm also going to watch some knitting videos and see if there's something I can change about my technique that might help. It might be a really good reason to finally learn how to knit continental.
Hope that those of you who celebrate it had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
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