Fiberly progress

This past week I tried two new recipes and both turned out "meh". Both were consumed when they first came out of the oven, but the leftovers have been ignored and will, most likely, get dumped. I made this pseudo-cassoulet and it was acceptable, but not memorable. And then I baked these spicy ginger muffins with currants and toasted pecans and they too, did not live up to their promise (the baking time seemed way off and they turned out pretty dry. Dry is not a good quality for gingerbread.)

So I have quit the kitchen and retreated into fiber-ville. I got a little of the completion satisfaction I was craving by finishing a baby sweater before said baby is walking:
It's the Elizabeth Zimmerman February Baby Sweater pattern (Lion Brand Cotton Ease yarn) that a lot of on-line knitters seem to love. I'm glad I finished it but didn't find it so transporting a pattern that I feel I have to make it again and again. Sure it's nice not to have to sew a lot of seams when you are done with the knitting, but really, the seams on any baby sweater aren't such a big deal to be a deterrent to me picking a particular pattern.

I've also plugged away at another Branching Out scarf that I'm making for my kids' music teacher. Ian started going to her classes when he was 18 months old and Fiona started at birth (coming along with her brother). This spring finds Fiona and I taking our last class with Angela and to say we will miss her is an understatement. Out of gratitude for all the stages and phases she has (patiently) seen us through, I thought I'd make her a good-bye present.
This one is made out of a double strand of kid silk haze and some other black and purple silk yarn that I found in my stash.

The wrap cardigan I've been making is now starting to look, well, wrap-ish:
And I still have the Urban Aran cardigan to work on, though now that the weather has turned warm and this one is knit in a chunky yarn, the soonest I'll get to wear it is next autumn:
I'mrelieved that my fibers have been treating me well when my skill in the kitchen is at a low point, but here's to hoping that I can turn the latter around and consumption of fiber of the vegetal variety becomes a little more pleasurable...