Some spinning has taken place this week - dark and pale bobbins are done - to be closely followed by number 3.
The moosie has made progress with the merino/silk (mostly while waiting at music lessons)
But by far the greatest amount of time has been taken up by the costume for K. Oklahoma is the play this year, and she needed a calico dress. (never mind the cat, who was only doing her best to help, obviously). The dress is done, the blouse (not pictured) is done, and I can go back to spinning. And knitting. And whatevering, before class starts on Monday.
Housework, perhaps? Nah. We still have 3 weeks before the hordes arrive to observe their darling grandchild.

It's funny how you can jog along in a little rut and then suddenly pick your head up and go "hey - when did that happen". I find that this happens to me particularly with books. Being the bibliophile that I am, I have enough books that I can get in a rut of just re-reading the things I have with occasional jaunts to the library for supplementary material. Increasing those jaunts was the purpose of tackling the 50 book challenge - I'm not allowed to count the books I've read before. Consequently, the only books I expose to public view are the new ones. This accounts for the long period of time between additions to that list, NOT I assure you any lack of reading going on chez nous.

However, being in that rut means that I get hit with that jolt referred to above. A couple of days ago, I was at the bookstore and suddenly realized that on of my favorite SF authors, Spider Robinson, has escaped from my radar long enough that not only has he written a bunch of Callahan books I haven't read, it was long ago that they aren't on the current shelves and I'm going to have to order them. abebooks is my friend.

That was one jolt. The next was stumbling across the books by Michelle Sagara, Cast in Shadow and Cast in Courtlight. Very good reading - the first was a little difficult to get into, but worth pursuing. Blurb on the cover mentions her 14 or 15 prior books. Hmmm... never run across her before. In double checking her name at Amazon before I updated the Books Read list, I find that not only does Michelle Sagara pop up, but Michelle Sagara West does as well. Why does that ring bells? A search on Michelle West gives me the answer. Hunter's Oath, Hunter's Death - favorites on my shelves. The Sun Sword series - I started reading those and then got annoyed because it was going to be a multi book series with divagations in all directions. I bought and read the first two, set the third aside to wait for the whole series, and lost track of them. It turns out there are six altogether now, and probably well worth waiting for. I suppose that acquiring 3 more hefty books just before starting a new class is not the best idea in the world.

Whiteout

What is there about owning a white car that makes one want to drive in a whiteout with no headlights on? Of the 22 cars I passed on my way home from work, 7 had no headlights on. Six were white. Of the 15 cars I passed that had their headlights on - one was white.

Come on, people - unlike that polar bear, you don't even have a little black nose to show in the swirl of white!

What does one do with a bump of dark beast? Add two bumps of pale beast...

Spin...
Spin some more...

And yet some more to go - then three ply and see how much you get.

Thanks for the kind words about the blue-to-red with pink and purple thrown in. I don't know exactly what I'm doing with it yet. I'm thinking rectangular shawl, possibly in a waffle pattern. I want to preserve the color run from one end to the other.

Today looking out the window is picture postcard quality. The trees all have a light dusting of snow. The temp has been hovering just about and just below freezing. Just above, and everything drips. Just below, and all that dripped is now frozen.

Thursday, we're supposed to get rain during the day (33 degrees F), and rain during the night (31 degrees F). What are the odds that Friday will be a frozen rain day from school? I haven't mentioned that to the offspring - I don't want to hear them calculating those odds every 10 minutes until then.

I finished the last of the yarn from the dye experiment. I really like how it came out. Now to decide on a pattern...

This is one of those cases where washing the yarn after spinning makes a huge change.

I didn't get my closeup for the after shot as close as I should, but you can still see the difference it makes.

Six inches of snow on the ground plus 20 inches of new powder equals snow that's fun to go xcountry skiing, but also snow that requires paths for the dog to get out, and for me to fill the bird feeders.
The dog is enjoying the snow, although not too much at a time. The cat is trying to figure out what the heck is going on. He goes out (when he zips past us), slinks along the trenches, and then scurries back in. I keep sort of expecting him to try to jump onto the white "table", and I'm afraid he would rather consider that a disaster.

Perspective is a wonderful thing. I remember an episode from many years ago, when I first moved from Maryland to California (Bay Area). I'd been there about a month (this was in March) and I went into the group administrator's office just before lunch one day. She said "Oh no. It's raining - now I can't go run my errands." I rather looked at her as though she had two heads - can't go out because it's raining? It wasn't even raining hard, just a drizzle. If one couldn't go out because it was raining in MD, one wouldn't go anywhere in March.

I was reminded of that episode yesterday when I was talking with my mother (who is still in Md.) They were bracing themselves for 1-3 inches of snow. People were going to have to stay in, schools might close, they were going to get snow. At the point in time that I was talking with her, I was getting ready to go run my lunchtime errands. Here, it was drizzling snow, our daily forecast was for 1-3 inches, just like yesterday and the day before, and the day before that.

We, on the other hand, are currently bracing ourselves for the "first real winter storm of the season". Not just the daily 1-3 inches (we've had over 30 inches since mid January), but Real Snow - 12 inches or more. This may actually be enough to close school here for tomorrow, although we'll have to wait and see.

On the other hand, Oswego and Mexico and a few other towns on the shores of Lake Ontario have had more than 120 inches in the past two weeks. They've been getting 2 feet at a time, while we've been getting our 1-3 inches daily.

It's all a matter of perspective.

It's 9 degrees F at 9 pm. Wind chill is -21 F. K and S had school off today because the busses didn't have the right mix of diesel for the cold and ran erratically on Monday. Tomorrow, they're scheduled to be back at the grind, which is a good thing since I need to be back at my grind as well. Project 2 due Friday night.

I got the lace mailed off today and hope to have a picture of the finished product at some point. Possibly not until after it goes and sits for judging.

I'm getting some spinning done while I ponder programming questions, but knitting is just not happening at the moment. Maybe after Friday...

Also - if anyone has a clue as to how Blogger keeps track of email addy's for comments, please let me know. I've checked everything I can find to be able to get something but noreply-comment@... but that seems to be all I get. If it's something that individuals have to set on their end, I guess if people leave comments that have it set that way, I just won't be able to answer them directly.

5 inches of snow in 1.5 hours. J and S left for S's soccer and there was no snow. They tried to come home 1.5 hours later (eventually got here creeping along at 10 mph), and we had 5 inches of snow. K and I were peering at the house across the street, which did have a light on in our direction, and we couldn't see it. One of the stronger bands of lake effect snow we've seen since we've been here.

ETA: Hah! I finally found the right option to set to allow me to answer people directly when they leave comments as opposed to eventually saying something in the blog. I may regret setting the field that way for other reasons later, but I'm happy at the moment.

Spinning is coming along - this is the better part of the fourth skein. I haven't done any spinning in about four days, but maybe today. It's a nice way to sit and zone while I think about programming. This is the finished lace, all 16.5 inches of it. It needs to finish drying and then will head off to Gramma's house.
And this is my mindless knitting, soon to be "knitting I have to pay attention to, at least a little bit". Wool peddlar's shawl, done in handspun, and for the first umpteen rows, garter stitch with increases every other row. Unfortunately, it's now at the stage where we start adding the lace border so I have to pay at least some attention to it.

How can it get more cozy than a box that's too small in front of a warm fire?

So... How is it I can notice that this post is 101, but didn't have a clue that the last one was 100? The last time I noticed it was 96. Blank haze last week is definitely the word for it.

These are the first three skeins of the top I dyed . There will probably be five skeins total (minus the two dark ends which I took off and spun separately on the spindles). You can see the progression of colors from one skein to the next. I can't wait to see all of them. And then of course I get to figure out what I'm going to do with them. Next problem.


I've been involved with several joint projects with my family this winter. Sometimes it just works out that way. This is a lace border intended for the bottom of an embroidered and quilted wall hanging my mother is doing for my son. This is three repeats (24 row repeat); I think I'll need six repeats. Just about half done.
I've decided that these are just about the perfect needles for knitting cotton lace. Too bad I've only got one set, I don't remember buying them or using them before, and don't have clue what kind they are. Inox grey? I guess I'll have to go window shopping and figure out what they are.

It's snowing again. Having been mostly like spring for two weeks at the beginning of the month, we're finishing the month with a bang. We've had an inch or two of snow a day for about a week now and it's forecast to continue this way for the next week.

S has a snowfort mighty to behold - the sort of snowfort I would have killed to be able to make when I was his age in Maryland, which may get snow, but not the cold that lets it stay and stay. He still has no friends in the neighborhood to use it with him (they hurry from the schoolbus to their warm sofa to play their PS2 or gamecube, ignoring the delights of the outside. This differs from summer, because then their sofa is airconditioned.) but he has now acquired friends from a wider area who are deeply enthused and there have been at least two major snowball wars.

I finished the project that had me panicky - it was sent off Wed. at 11:45 pm, due at 11:59. I did notice that just over half the class was still logged in at 11:30. This is the closest I've cut any of my assignments and I really hate it. As I told J, I should have started panicking about that project about four days earlier and I'm starting on panicking about the next one today. This class is just a killer in the amount of complex detailed stuff expected in a short period of time. I've no idea how I'll get graded on that one.

There is knitting happening here, but only the mindless sort (peddlar's shawl - straight garter stitch for the first umpteen rows) and there is spinning, but I haven't had the oomph to get pictures taken. Yesterday I felt like I was waking up from a fever - the last few days are just a blur.

My classwork this quarter has me feeling a bit panicky at the moment. Lots of work and seemingly not much time.

Weekend cooking did happen

Mushroom Soup, modified from Mushroom Soup with Parmesan Cheese from Bernard Clayton's Soups and Stews

The local grocery had mushrooms; I had fun.

1.5 pounds mushrooms, rather evenly divided between Shitake, Golden Trumpet, Crimini and Oyster.
2 c thinly sliced scallions (including greens)
2 cloves chopped garlic
3 T olive oil
4 c beef stock (I used the "Culinary Beef Stock" which included the red wine)
2 T butter
3 T flour
3 egg yolks
1/2 c grated parmesan cheese
2 T parsley

Roughly chop the mushroom stems, thinly slice the mushroom caps. Heat pan to medium; add oil, mushroom stems, scallions and garlic. Sweat the vegetables, alternately covering and stirring frequently, for about 15 minutes. Puree mix in food processor (not a blender, you don't want a paste). Put back in pan with a little beef stock to keep from sticking. Add butter, stir til melted. Add flour, stir til thoroughly mixed. Add rest of stock. Stir and simmer for 2 minutes. Add salt/pepper to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp salt, 3/4 tsp black pepper). Add mushroom caps, simmer, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, thoroughly mix egg yolks, parsley and cheese in a separate bowl. Add gradually, stirring well. Serve immediately.

It was good the next day too.

Weekend cooking

I swear the best thing about having kids is when they show glimpses of the independent and self-sufficient people they someday will be most of the time. J and S are off on a skiing trip with the scouts, so K and I are home. K has been inquiring, with less and less patience, about when we could have seafood. No sooner did the car leave the drive than she was diving into the recipe box, hauling out the Roast Salmon (fish - not J) with Salsa (spicy - not S) card. A little to my surprise, my contribution to the meal ended at the grocery store. She was quite simply pleased with herself - I fixed it All By Myself with No Help. I basked in the knowledge that when she's on her own, she can feed herself well (assuming she can afford the ingredients).

Roast Salmon with Salsa
Green Beans Almondine
Key Lime Cloud

Roast Salmon with Salsa
1 clove garlic minced
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp chili powder
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
1/2 tsp slt
1/2 tsp cumin
2-4 drops hot sauce (she used the chili sauce - the tobasco might have been better on second thought)
1-1/2 lb salmon fillet

Preheat oven to 400F. Place everything but the salmon in the food processor and chop until finely diced. Place salmon in large roasting pan, spoon salsa over top. Roast until flaky on outside but still pink inside, about 15 minutes. Serve warm

Key Lime Cloud

1/2 c cold water
2 (1/4 oz ) envelopes unflavored gelatin
3/4 c sugar
1-1/2 c boiling water
2 tsp key lime zest, divided
1/2 c key lime juice
1/2 tsp cardamom
4 pasteurized egg whites (she used the powdered, reconstituted kind).

Place cold water in large bowl, sprinkle gelatin over water. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in sugar, mix well. Add boiling water; stir until completely disolved. Add half of the lime zest, all lime juice and cardamom. Let sit for 10-15 minutes.

Beat egg whites until stiff. Gradually add gelatin/sugar mixture. Beat until soft peaks form. Spoon into dishes. Sprinkle remaining zest across top of each serving. Chill about an hour.

This makes the most wonderful lime flavored gelatin with lime flavored meringue floating on top.

And best of all? I didn't lift a finger until it was time to do the dishes.

It's snowing. I can't find the camera. I've got to shovel the drive again. J did it once, but it's been snowing constantly ever since and there's another two inches to be removed. One offspring is home with the stomach bug.

/* delete a long rant about throwing up - you don't really want to read it */

In knitting news, I've finished knitting but not finished two more red scarves which need to get mailed soon. I've finished two hats, which have become J's and mine. I lost my hat since last year's wearing. I've been busy knitting hats for various causes, but I found myself eyeing hats in the store because, dammit, I NEED A HAT. Preferrably non-acrylic, because the wind here goes straight through acrylic as though it wasn't even on my head. I actually put my hand up one time to feel where my hat had blown off and the confounded thing was still there, not that my head could tell.

So. J and I now have fraternal hats (pictures coming soon, as soon as I find the camera). His has wool around the forehead and alpaca for the crown. He put it on inside and we were delayed a moment going out, and he whisked it off again - That's WARM - he says, and I nodded, Yep, that's why I gave it to you. Even with his hat and coat, he shivers when we take the dog for a walk and the wind is blowing feels-like 20 F. Not that night. And I didn't wind up with the muscles in my back all clenched up either.

This you may have seen before. It's a bump of Rosemary Falkland wool (Dunnose Head Farm), which I dyedup. It's been sitting for a while, waiting its turn at the spinning wheel, and waiting until I muddled through how I wanted to spin it. You must admit there's a bunch of different possibilities. I pinched off the solid ends and spun them on the spindle.

The rest of it, I've been spinning up working from one end to the other (blue to red) and then Navajo-plying it. (yes I know that they've come up with a PC name for it, but I always forget. Chain plying?) It's going to be interesting.

New Year

I made all my resolutions back in September. Most of them are perking along happily - one or two still to be implemented.

One goal I had this year - the 50 book challenge - almost got there. #48 - Sincerely, Andy Rooney by Andy Rooney. It might have been 50 had I not gotten sidetracked by Librarything. I've started cataloging my books there and this of course has lead to a great deal of re-reading. Counts as reading but not for the challenge, where I specifically was only counting new books.

I think I'll try again for the 50 books this year. At the least, it's a push to break out of my rut. I'm been feeling like I've been in a whole bunch of ruts and breaking out of any of them is a good thing.

In other news, the weather is being completely unlike itself. Still in the 40s and 50s, with the grass green, we are not yet suffering from an excess of white which is striking other areas. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Christmas has been interesting. We've seen just about everyone, gone just about everywhere, and eaten just about everything in sight. And a few things that were under wraps. We've left things everywhere, causing other people to have to scurry after us waving them wildly. It's almost time for a new year. whee!

And I've almost finished two hats.

** Edited to take the map out - it's too cumbersome. Cool, but cumbersome. Suffice it to say that I've visited all but 5: Alaska, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, and Rhode Island. Hard to believe sometimes, but there you go. 48 years of traveling, and all that.

create your own visited states map

Sheri posted this one, so of course I had to run off and get my list of states made up. Can you tell I've taken innumerable trips cross country? Hawaii was a deliberate trip and Alaska will have to be also. Actually, at this point, I may have to make deliberate trips to get any of the rest of the ones I need for a full 50.

Jenna's post today is wonderful. Go check out her pattern - it's a riot!

Weekend cooking

I made chocolate chip cookies, which is part of my rut, so no recipes here (standard Hershey's recipe, using semisweet chips and almond slices) [I have the recipe memorized. Hush.]

I did spend some time looking for recipes for Buffalo Wings Sauce and finally decided to just go buy the stuff. Recipes for that are all over the map, or consist of "hot sauce" and nothing else. Since I don't eat Buffalo Wings, I have no real idea what sort of sauce I was looking to make.

I had a mental taste of what I wanted to make, but wasn't sure how to get from here to there. I went with a recipe I found for Buffalo Wings Chicken Dip and used bottled Anchor Bar Buffalo Wing Sauce in Original and Hotter. It worked. Not quite what I wanted, but it worked.

Buffalo Wings Chicken Dip
1 lb chicken breasts, simmered in water in the microwave for 15 minutes (til done), then shredded. Reserve water for chicken stock for some other recipe.
3 oz Buffalo Wing Sauce (up to 2 times that, depending on taste)
4 oz cream cheese
8 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded

Mix cream cheese and sauce together. Add chicken and stir thoroughly. Put in 8x8 dish, sprinkle mozzarella on top. Bake in oven (350F) until mozzarella is melted and lightly browning on top.

Serve in bowls beside Olive Waffles - each person spreads on waffles just before eating.

The Olive Waffles is what started this all off. From M. Katzen's Vegetable Heaven, I wanted the olive waffles with something besides sour cream or the other condiments she suggested.

Olive Waffles
4 eggs, divided
1.5 T olive oil
2 c flour
.5 c whole wheat flour
.75 c chopped Kalamata olives
2 c buttermilk
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder

Beat the egg yolks and olive oil together. Mix flours, baking soda and baking powder together. Add dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk until just wet. Stir in olives. Beat egg white to firm peaks, fold into batter. Bake in waffle iron.

I think this is a little light on oils, so I spritzed the irons with olive oil spray - my iron tends to stick, even though it is technically non-stick. Getting used every Saturday for years tends to do that to them, I guess.

I actually made two batches, one with the Original sauce and one with the Hotter. The one with the cast iron mouth complained the hotter wasn't hot enough and the one with the tender tummy complained that the Original was too hot. Can't win. We have just about half of it left over, so it's going on baked potatoes later this week.

I think I'll try it again with just shredded chicken and sauce - no cheeses. It was yummy, but a. we don't need all that cheese very often, and b. I think that would be closer to what I had my mouth mentally set for.

I can't do it. I just can't do it. I gave up many years ago on trying to do "Holiday Knitting". Or any other kind of "Holiday Needlework". The problem probably stems from the fact that I like to do large-ish pieces. Large ccs projects. Large items in knitting - shawls, sweater, blankets. These may not seem large to some people - after all if you sit down and do nothing else, you can whip them out in no time. Look at Miriam with her Icarus design - someone said she did one in 12 days. Look at me - 3 months later I finished it?

A common complaint (look anywhere in knitting blogland right now) is that projects get abandoned for the holiday knitting. Right - that would be me, setting aside some large project for something small. Then, after the holidays, do we jump right back at our abandoned project? Oh, no, something else pleases our eye or catches our attention and off we go. Then, some people (Juno for example) eventually go back to their abandoned projects. Sometimes that's me and sometimes it isn't.

A major problem that I have with unfinished projects is that if I leave them alone for a long enough time, my state-of-the-art advances to where I can't finish them. I have learned some new technique, some new ability, that I can't abandon because it is better, but which is totally incompatible with the old project. It's far better to start and then finish a project without running the risk of improving past it within the project. Consequently, I hate abandoning projects even for a while. I have too many projects that I can't let go of because they were seriously wanted, but which I can't finish because I can't get past my increased technique. I wouldn't hate the project if I had finished it and then moved up a notch; that would just be an acknowledgement that I had grown as a crafter. But I can't finish a project in what I now know is a lesser technique, even if I really wanted that project as a finished piece.

Consequently, I try not to abandon projects, even for holiday knitting. I still make things for people, if they want them. They get them when the pieces are done, regardless of the season. And for Christmas? A nice gift from King Arthur or Harry&David.

Weekend cooking

The cooking was very basic, but out of my rut, and definitely tasty. I started with a 4 pound boneless chuck roast. Brought it to room temperature, added Worcestershire sauce and Montreal steak seasoning. Oven at 550 F, then down to 350 F when the roast went in. 1.5 hours later, it was done for me, but a bit rare for the family. We have about 2/3 left for beef burritos later in the week.

A side dish of baby peas.

A side dish of banana fritters. This recipe originally came from the Pearl S. Buck Oriental Cookbook. I use 1/2 banana for each person and 1/2 banana more ,i.e. for my family of 4, I use 2.5 bananas. Unless of course the bananas are smaller or larger than usual, or I feel like more bananas, or...
1 T flour per banana, 1 tsp sugar per banana, a sprinkling of cinnamon or nutmeg.

Mash the bananas together, then stir in dry ingredients. Heat a nonstick skillet and melt 1 T butter. Drop spoonfuls of mix into the skillet (I like approximately 1 T at a time, but more is fine.) Brown on one side, flip and brown the other. Serve as is, or if you want to be fancy, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Whine...

(you've been warned and I don't want to hear any complaints if you keep reading.)

I had a cold, then J had a cold, then S has a cold. K is waving all of us away from her and hiding in her room; she doesn't want to be next.

It snowed last night and some this morning. All lake effect snow - coming off of Lake Ontario. It was still snowing this morning and I saw that there was one single band of snow still coming off the lake - right over our town. We have a momentary burst of sun but I suppose it's time to go shovel the drive again.

The camera is not talking to the computer; I'm not sure why. It really doesn't matter as I seem to have hit a slump with the ending of Icarus. I have too many projects to start a new one, but none of the old ones immediately appeal. I'm tired of spinning silk, but I still have 3 oz to go. I started flicking corriedale fleece which is always fun, but not very pictureworthy. I'm almost finished with another red scarf, which is fun because I'm playing with different techniques and trying stuff out, but it isn't terribly in-process pictureworthy. I'll post a picture when I get it finished and the camera is willing to cooperate.

Mostly I have been playing with LibraryThing which may be the best thing yet for trying to get my books catalogued. It makes me happy.

Sombody's already pining for spring... Guess what I bought at spinning guild.
This is what happens when you pull your silk top apart just right after the heat has been turned on in the fall. You can't quite see it in the picture, but the little silk tendrils are in a hollow spheroid shape - lots of static electricity going on. Couldn't get a good picture of it, but right after they all lost contact with each other, the ends that are currently reaching toward each other were suddenly snapped back in cocoons around my hands.

And then we have an unwashed, unblocked, un-ends tucked in as of yet contribution to the red scarf project. Sort of a maroon-y burgundy red scarf. Twoxtwo rib all the way.

A meme I can get behind

Because it's all about a scientific experiment. Bloggers mention the experiment in their blogs (that would be here), beg others with blogs to participate (that would be you, in your blog), and ping technorati to register that fact.

He's tracing the path of the meme through the internet. He'll probably wind up like that child in England who requested the most postcards ever because he was terminally ill, wound up recovering and was still getting postcards 20 years later. The chain letter that would not die.

Wearing Icarus
The offspring, wearing the Icarus shawl. She's 5'3" and we took a generous tuck at the neckline when she put it on. Not a glamour shot, but if I wait for sunny days to take a pic, it may be a few at this time of year.

Icarus is Done Not just done, but done done. Washed, blocked, dry, ready for unpinning.
Pictures with the flash on a brown bedspread notwithstanding, this is burgundy colored, not brown.

I need blocking wires. Maybe on my Christmas list...

Icarus

The knitting is done. The casting off is done. The sewing in of end and washing and blocking? Not so much so. Tomorrow after we get home. Then pictures, I promise.

Well! The feed definitely isn't working. Blogger's help is somewhat less than helpful - "yes we know we have a problem and we haven't been able to figure it out so here's a work around". Unfortunately their instructions on how to put the work around in are not exactly complete, so it's going to take me a few days to resolve the problem.

Struggling down the homestretch of Icarus, I've got one row and the bindoff to do. Will I finish today? Possibly - I was banished from the kitchen as there was serious grandmother/granddaughter bonding going on over the turkey gravy and sweet potatoes, and I got a bunch done while watching the parade on tv, followed by the Dog Show. The Pyr should have won. Dinner, a brisk walk, a nap and a cold drink of ice water later and I'm ready to tackle Icarus again. But not blogger just yet. One knotty problem at a time.

Well. I've switched over to blogger in beta and I can't tell if the feed is working. It doesn't seem to me that it is. Any opinions, yes or no?

There's something about leaving my immediate family for a week and going off to help my extended family clean out a garage and tidy up part of a yard that doesn't lend itself to cooking intentionally. In fact, with the exception of setting out coldcuts for one meal, I did nothing that remotely resembled feeding anyone. We did have fun, for the most part. And the garage and yard look a lot better.

Home again, I've been picking up the reins in my own household. I was informed by S when I got home that I needed to hurry up and a. do some laundry and b. do some grocery shopping. I told him he looked neither hungry nor naked, but I have done both of those things.

Today's meal was soup and bread; a fitting meal in my opinion for a day which was overcast and gloomy, with fits of hard rain, up until sunset when the sky cleared off and let the setting sun shine through.

Healthy Sisters' Soup and Bean Works is a local group that teaches women with no business experience of any kind how to run a business of their own. They make darn good bean soup mixes. This one was Simone's Sumptuous Bean Soup . I soaked the beans overnight. I then put them in the crockpot with
1 7oz can of tomato sauce,
1 15 oz can of tomato chunks,
1/2 pound browned pork sausage,
1 pound browned ground beef,
the spices from the soup mix,
2 cups water and
3 cups vegetable bouillion.
This cooked on low all day and left a wonderful aroma. It made a wonderfully hearty almost stew.

This afternoon I put the ingredients for the bread in the bread maker (on dough setting).
Honey Whole Wheat Bread :
4 T butter
4 T honey (buckwheat for a dark rich flavor)
2 T wheat germ
1 C water
1 egg
1 1/2 c white whole wheat flour
1 3/4 c bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 T steelcut oats
1 T wheat gluten
2 T powdered buttermilk
1 T yeast

After the dough cycle ended, I let the dough rise again for 25 minutes in the bread pan and then baked at 350 F for 50 minutes.

Cooking with intention

Answer to previous question: Lemon Garlicious is sold at Wegman's groceries and its full name is Salamida's State Fair Lemon Garlicious. Salamida's sells at least two other marinades, but I don't care for those.

This time, it was for a potluck, so it's not a complete meal. However, the meat lover's lasagna must have been a hit since I didn't get to bring any leftovers home.

Meat Lover's Lasagna

1.3 pounds meatloaf mix (my grocery makes it 80%beef, 15% pork, 5% veal)
1 pound pork sausage (you can use turkey sausage)
1 package lasagna noodles
1 pound mozzarella cheese, grated
.25 pound provalone cheese, grated
.25 pound asiago cheese, grated
2 15 oz cans tomato sauce
1 15 oz can tomatoes
1 cup cottage cheese
2 tsp Penzey's Italian seasoning
1 can black olives, sliced (if you use presliced olives, use two of the little cans)

Heat the oven to 350 F. Put the tomatoes and the cottage cheese in the blender with the Italian seasoning and give it a whirl. Brown the meats, rinse and reserve. I like to layer the lasagna in the 13x9 pan in the following order: Lasagna, beef mix, blended tomato/cottage cheese, lasagna, half the mozzarella, olives, 1 can tomato sauce, lasagna, sausage, half the mozzarella, lasagna, 1 can tomato sauce, mixed remaining cheeses. Cover with foil and bake for 55 minutes, then uncover and bake for 5 or 10 minutes more til the cheese is lightly browned and bubbly.

Note: I don't pre-cook the lasagna noodles and I don't bother with the "no boil" noodles. It comes out fine.

Intentional cooking

Carolyn started a topic of "cooking on purpose", having gotten in a rut with family meals. My rut is a trifle less narrow than hers by description, but according to my family, not much less. I have certain easy favorites* that can be fixed quickly for those hectic evenings when 4 people are going in 5 different directions and as things get more hectic during the school year, we wind up eating these favorites more and more frequently. As complaints occur (as complaints will) that we have had something too often, I eliminate it from rotation for a while, but without replacing it with something else. This narrows the rut even more, to yet further complaints. Last year I instituted a rule that he who complained about a meal would cook the next one. This not only slowed the complaints down but improved the variation, so it wasn't all bad.

Last week I went to the farmer's market and bought a variety of things. One was a bunch of cranberry beans. I shelled them and then looked for something to do with them. Enduring Harvest had a recipe calling for cranberry beans specifically, but also 33 other ingredients which I didn't have on hand. Pffft. Maybe next time.

When K was toying with being a vegetarian this past summer, my mother sent her Vegetable Heaven. There's a recipe in there for Roasted Beans with Garlic and Olives. It calls for lima beans (which J won't eat), but says fresh fava beans can be substituted with good effect. I decided to try cranberry beans.

Roasted Beans with Garlic and Olives
3 cups cranberry beans, shelled, fresh (perhaps parboiled?)
3 T olive oil
1 heaping cup sliced green olives (I used italian giant unstuffed olives)
6 cloves garlic, slivered
2 tsp dried thyme

Put 2 T olive oil in the bottom of a 9 inch pan. Add beans, olives, garlic, thyme and remaining oil to pan; stir. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake in preheated 375 F oven for 50 minutes. Serve hot (or cold).

I wasn't entirely happy with the way the beans turned out which is why I may try parboiling them next time. The flavors were wonderful, but some of the beans were hard and crunchy. This may be because I shelled the beans a day before using them and they dried out a bit. Looking over some of the other bean recipes available, cooking briefly in water before adding to some other recipe seems to be a recommended procedure.

The total meal was:
Grilled chicken in Lemon Garlicious marinade (a marinade seemingly local to NY, think lemon and garlic in an oil base)
Roasted beans with garlic and olives
George Lang's Potato Bread with Caroway seeds from Beard on Bread, made with Yukon Gold potatoes, baked in a cast iron skillet.

I like to add just one new dish to a meal, so the chicken and potato bread are old favorites but ones we haven't had in quite a while.

* Favorites is defined by "my family will eat them and I can cook them without thinking about it, in 40 minutes or less"

Reading, reading

An Incomplete Education: 3,684 things you should have learned but probably didn't by Judy Jones and William Wilson. Wow. It took me two passes to finish this one off (I started it last spring) but it really isn't the sort of book you read cover to cover. Full of all sorts of trivia (my favorite kind of non-fiction book) about things that have danced on the periphery of my awareness for many years but on which I have never previously focussed my attention. Lots of fun, and somewhat educational. Although, except for those bits of trivia that really sunk in, it really only gives me a place to go find a piece of information again.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Scary Stories 3, by Alvin Schwartz. Part of my new decision to read more of the "challenged books". When I looked over the list, I realized that 1. I've only read 21 of the books on the list* 2. I've only given my children 11 of the books on the list and 3. many of the books on the list are children's books written more recently that I have been reading children's books for myself**. The Scary Stories books are compilations of folk stories, urban legends and campfire tales. Some of the stories are ones I remember being told in camp before the counselors banned ghost stories as leading to inability to sleep and nightmares. The biggest objection on a personal level was to the illustrations - I can take a verbal description much better than the pictoral. It's not a book I would have enjoyed as a child, but some people like being scared. Not a book I would discourage my own child from reading unless it did give them nightmares.

Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite. A picture book. An obvious magnet for those who would sweep people with differences under the rug. I suppose it has its place in some people's lives, but it struck me as being too much like early feminist fiction for girls: no particular point to the story except the point being hammered in. In Mr. Willhoite's defense I will say that it is difficult within the scope of a picture book to get much subtlety involved. Only the very best author/artist combinations seem to manage it well.

The Chocolate War by Richard Cormier. A "did not finish". A type of fiction I just can't deal with. I read the first two chapters and the last one. I don't like mean sadistic people and rarely manage to read books about them all the way through. Unfortunately, a lot of YA fiction seems to be based around this. I didn't like it as a "young adult" and don't care for it now.

The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce. An excellent addition to the Circle of Magic books. Probably destined to hit the "challenged books" list, but, too late, I've already handed it to my son to read.

Young Warriors: Stories of Strength, ed. by Tamora Pierce and Josepha Sherman. Short stories by some favorite authors and some new ones. Some were ok, some were good and a couple were great. My opinion about which were which would probably be different from anyone else's. Another book to hand to the offspring.

'Ware Hawk, by Andre Norton. How did I manage to overlook this one? Addition to the Witch World books. Not my favorite but fun.

The Mirror of Helen, by Richard Purtill. I had read the first two books of what are now labelled "The Kaphtu Trilogy" but not this one. Very enjoyable rendition of the story of Helen. I'll have to look into the "Lost Tales of Kaphtu" that seem to be new books by the same author.

*It's actually more than 21, but the list condenses series' by a single author into one entry; e.g. All the Harry Potter books are one entry.

** I have been reading children's books, but very selectively, mostly by particular authors; this is in contrast to my younger days where I pored over the entire children's shelf and was at least aware of most things even if not interested.

Comments on Rhinebeck

It's still a long drive over there. J's brother lives on the other side of the Hudson and down a ways. Their winery is looking better than ever. The small tasting room is open and we had fun admiring everything. We then scooted out of their way and headed over to Rhinebeck. I saw a few people I knew while I was there, but not many. It was a total zoo.

These pictures actually make it look like there was space between the people but that's only because I'm claustrophobic enough that I can't think about taking pictures in the middle of a mob; I'm too busy trying to breathe. Some of the trees had glorious color to them.

We admired alpacas and llamas.

We bought some soap, and a sheepskin ear muff for K. I admired some handpainted cashmere and silk but resisted. I just have too much stuff at the moment to add any more.

I did get a bunch of knitting done on the way and on the way back. Icarus has progressed through the second chart:

Yeah, I know. It's lace and you can't really see anything until it's blocked.

Good news and bad news

The good news is the two mince pies and 10 pounds of potatoes (mashed) are ready to go to the Harvest Festival dinner tomorrow. The bad news is we won't get to help eat them.

The bad news is I can't count and the good news is that I have discovered this before I went overboard with going to far on Icarus. Some two or three weeks ago I got it into my head (about the time that I had too many stitches to want to keep counting them over and over) that Icarus had a 10 stitch repeat in the top pattern. Well, it doesn't. It's a 12 stitch repeat. Which makes the picture just fine, all repeats present and accounted for. And I fortunately figured this out when I had only two extra rows, not rows and rows of extra rows which would have made me very sad. On the other hand, I now have the question of whether I would want it bigger or not. But given that (as already demonstrated) I can't count, particularly with a two week headache, I'm not messing with it. On to the border.

And on to Rhinebeck. I'm not a square because I didn't think we were going to get there and if we did get there I thought it would be on Sunday, but if we get there, and we probably will now, it will be on Saturday. Sometime. We're also going to visit the new winery that my husband's brother and wife just had their grand opening for. I've seen it in various stages of incompleteness, but they're open and we get to see it in all its glory. Stoutridge Winery in the Hudson Valley.

The cat had a good time.

This weekend's weather was different: Rain. Clouds. Rain with snow. Blue sky with puffy clouds. Rain out of a blue sky. Clouds. More rain with snow. The weather changed on average every half hour. Not wonderful for S who spent the weekend camping in tents, but he only came home tired, cold and muddy, not discouraged or upset.
The weather this week appears to be about the same (maybe 15 degrees warmer) but spread out more. Yesterday was sunny, blue sky with puffy clouds. Today is flat grey light, a sky with no hint of blue, and a drizzly sort of rain that promises to last all day. The camera is not at all happy with the lighting, and even with its flash is giving me dull out of focus pictures.

This blob is Icarus. Moving into the homestretch of the plainish knitting, the rows are getting longer and longer. Only 300 stitches or so, but it's noticeable that I'm only getting a few rows in at a time. I was trying to cheat get a ballpark figure of how many repeats were needed before the border started. I counted repeats in the picture, counted my repeats and had to recount each several times. I finally came to the conclusion that the model was shorted by several repeats from the instructions; each repeat takes 10 stitches, there are apparently only 28 repeats shown on the model and the instructions call for 375 stitches before moving into the border. No big deal except that the finished shawl will be bigger than the model which is a good thing in my opinion. And yes, all of this fussing and calculating did take a good deal longer than just looking up the stitch count in the first place. You be hush.
I'm still making progress on the silk on the wheel, but it looks just like the silk on the wheel from earlier. This is silk/merino (50/50) which my sister gave me for Christmas last year. This is the first bit off the spindle and is going to a. take forever and b. be gorgeous. With shifting into winter mode, the spinning can go a little faster since the silk isn't sticking to my hands with humidity.

Procrastination

This is the rework of the previously mentioned Dale-in-progress. I ripped back to the top of the ribbing, added the row of 3x1 ribbing to encourage the transition to be a little more smooth and then proceeded onwards. I've given no hint of scale, but the ribbing was about 3 inches deep. I had about 2 or 3 more inches of knitting done originally, and as usual, the sight of knitting going in reverse is deeply painful to J. I assured him that I don't think this bit will be done in reverse again.

I am, however, procrastinating on recalculating the raglan seam lines. I realized when I was looking at the schematic that while the overall measurements of this sweater as designed are the same as the sweater I'm supposed to be replacing, the underarm cuts 3 inches higher. Somehow I don't think that this is going to be acceptable. He likes the way the old sweater fits and I am pledged to try to reproduce it. (In new warmer yarn and with a different but equally subdued pattern across the chest, of course. And the addition of a short zipper at the neck, which he thought was a cool idea but not cool enough to go to a drop shoulder model. ) This means I'm going to have to recalculate the raglan seam decreases. Well, maybe not today. After all I don't need those calculations until the acres of stockinette on the body (and the bottom part of the patterned bit on the body) and two sleeves are done. Why I've got loads of time.

And in the meantime, we can admire what's left of the bit of snow that dropped last night. The lone remaining sunflower looks sort of ok from a distance, but it has that fragile ragged look about it that I think means "frost damage". I haven't dared to look at the mums and the zinnias in the front yard since the sun hit them this morning.

Opinions wanted...

I started a sweater last year from the Dale Heilo (100% wool) and only got about 5 inches done (ribbing up in the round) before the heat and humidity forced it to be set down. I was not very consistent in my knitting, apparently, and was having gauge worries before I put it down. (6 stitches to the inch gauge for the pattern, and I was getting 5.75 to 6.5, depending on where I measured). Having picked it up again, I'm now getting spot on gauge but the difference in the past two inches vs. the previous 5 was quite evident and annoying.
So, what was I to do? Rip, of course. The yarn I took out from the past two days knitting was not particularly kinked, but the yarn that's been sitting for six months was. I put it in warm water for 10 minutes and then hung it to dry and the kinks are mostly gone.
The question: Should I skein and do the rest of the yarn so it's all been equally rinsed hung and dried?

The Red Scarf Project is a subject dear to my heart, for no particular reason except that I was a very late bloomer when it came to wanting to leave the nest. Had I been in a position of having no back up, I'm sure I would never have made it. So, with that in mind, my first red scarf: Stats: Cascade 220 (superwash), 6 inches wide, 64 inches long, made up the pattern as I went along with help from BW Treasury 3.

Neighbors and Beginner Triangle

The neighbors are planning their lovely Christmas party again. It was a very nice party with the minor problem of The Gift Exchange. (Just for The Girls. I think I ranted enough about "The Girls" as a title last time.) Everybody has to bring a gift (Under $10) to exchange. They all (The Girls) whined about not being able to actually See the gift before they agreed to take it. All the gifts (mostly) were $30 to $40 which they had thriftily made Under $10 by buying them off the discount and closeout counters. Mostly at Walmart I think. I wasn't enthused.
I'm going to have to consider seriously what to take or if I'm going to bother. I was lucky and wound up with one of the few things I would have given house room to - a "purse" which makes a nice knitting bag. Most of them I would have had to ashcan - heavily scented stuff, guaranteed to give me a headache in 5 minutes or less.

The Triangle is finished

I started with two kinds of top. The multicolored is BFL that someone in the guild dyed. That was one ply, obviously variegated. The other ply was the cherry that I dyed, Rosemary top from the Falklands. The cherry colored solid is the same shade as the darkest red in the BFL.

I started knitting in late July, just before going on vacation. I ripped back quite a bit because I felt I wasn't going to have enough yarn and shortened the whole thing by one set of diamonds down the middle. Done side to side, the center set of diamonds I worked to, and which I removed, represented 3000 stitches. A wise decision, as the bit you see here is all that's left now that I'm done.

The Beginner's Triangle from Gathering of Lace is a very nice shawl, with an easy lace pattern which lends itself to mindless knitting. All but one of the return rows in the pattern are pure garter stitch. The pattern, once established, is easy to see and memorize. All in all, a good beginner pattern.
The only tricky bit was deciding where the middle was and starting my decreases, which were dictated not by the size of the shawl, but by the amount of yarn I had on hand. This is quite large enough. It relaxed quite a bit after washing, giving me another 4 or 5 inches of width and another 2 of depth. This is irrelevant in this shawl, but would be a matter of serious concern in a sweater from a similar yarn. Done vertically as most sweaters are, another 4 or 5 inches of length would be quite noticeable.
I finished the shawl on Saturday, washed and patted into shape to dry, and then wore it on Sunday. Several people at church had seen it in progress and were interested in seeing the final product.

I ran into my neighbor after church. "Why Elizabeth, that's just lovely. You should make another one and put it in the Gift Exchange at the party."

This skein looks sort of like the skein in the last post, but it's really a new skein. Honest. It's really the second skein of unknown yardage and grist, awaiting measurement and a plan. Sometime. Mostly I was just tired of looking at the stuff and wanted it spun up and into the next phase of waiting for attention.
I was asked recently whether I spun for spinning's sake or whether I spun to have yarn to use and actually used it. The answer sort of is "both". I spin because I like to - it is a different process and product than the rest of my fiber activities. I usually don't start spinning with a project in mind, but often by the time I have the first skein done, a project has come to mind. This project often has to wait for a while because I have other projects in the knitting queue ahead of it. As long as I still look at that yarn and see that project as one I want to do, I keep the yarn, but it's in the knitting queue not the spinning queue now. If I look at the yarn and no longer see that project as one I want to do, there's no longer any point in keeping the yarn. About once I year, I purge the yarn closet. Skeins that are left over from finished projects (I believe I did mention overbuying for projects once or twice before), skeins that were from interesting spinning projects but which didn't result in yarn that elicited a desired knitting project, and skeins such as these from overpurchase of fiber wind up in a box to Manhattan. These particular skeins may very well wind up in hats meant for Dulaan, but if I don't get to them within a year or so, they'll wind up in a box elsewhere. I don't see any point at all in cluttering up my closet and my mind with unplanned for yarn; someone should use it for something useful.

This is a yarn that has no particular project in mind. It's spinning project, meant to stretch in a different direction and has been a great deal of fun. This is a three ply 100% Bombyx silk (Chasing Rainbows). (Obligatory dime picture below.)

This skein is about 380 yards and is approximately 2 ounces of fiber, so should be approximately 3040 ypp. Ok - that's well into the laceweight range. The second skein is in the works.

And then we have "Homespun" (a product name I truly despise), my version of same. Mine is alpaca and leftover silk single. The silk single is from the three-ply above. The alpaca was ripped through as a fat single (one of these fill a bobbin with poorly prepped fiber in 15 minutes or less deals). Plying took another 15 minutes. But! I don't have to look at the single or the fiber anymore, it will make a nice warm thick-thin cap for somebody which I will felt a little bit (I'll do something with it - I wouldn't foist this yarn off on anybody) and it was a nice temporary change from the fiddliness that is silk spinning.