Thanksgiving

Ah, Thanksgiving has come and gone and tomorrow is the beginning of Advent.  But before I start focusing on all the activities that come with Advent, I’d like to take a moment to remember Thanksgiving and to share with you the things for which I am thankful.

The first thing that I am thankful for is The Husband and the rest of my family.  Despite the hard time I sometimes give The Husband, I dearly love him and I am so grateful that he is who he is and that he is part of my life.  The past couple of years The Husband and I lived a long way away from my family and that meant less visits with them; I’ve missed seeing them.  So, the second thing I’m grateful for is that The Husband and I have moved closer to my family.  It is a real joy to live so close to my sister and to be within a several hours’ drive of my mom.  This means that I was able to spend Thanksgiving with all of them (more about that later).  My brother and his family still live a ways away, but they are still closer than they were before and I can meet with them at Mom’s house this Christmas.  Finally, I’m grateful for the many blessings I enjoy every day – good health, a warm home, food to eat, clean water to drink, and the ability and means to express myself creatively through writing, knitting, spinning, cooking, baking, etc.

As I said above, I was able to spend Thanksgiving with family this year.  My mom came down to Texas and spent the night with us before we took her down to my sister’s place on Thanksgiving Day.  We spent the afternoon and evening together and enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving meal of smoked turkey (organic, pasture raised), roasted sweet potatoes with rosemary and onions, steamed kale, cranberry salad, Ezekiel bread, and finally a cheese platter with fruit and individual ramekins of pumpkin brulee.   We had a good evening talking and playing cards.  There might have been a football game on and The Husband might have fallen asleep on the couch at some point, but I’m really not sure.  =)

We met up again on Saturday to go to a local fair demonstrating various homesteading activities.  There were demonstrations of soap making, blacksmithing, spinning, and cheese-making.  There was a booth selling hot cider and apple cider donuts (yum!) and a nearby tent with the cider press (shoot, missed that demonstration).  There was a working stone flour mill that was running (very cool and not nearly as dusty as I had expected) and there was a tent explaining bee-keeping with a case full of bees.  And there were wagon rides drawn by horses.  There were so many things to see and do that we didn’t get to see or do nearly all of them.  We’re definitely going to have to go back next year.

We spent the evening together and were joined by my niece who had just returned from a trip to Belgium with her orchestra (lucky girl!).  We got to see several of her pictures and the dear sweet girl brought back loads of chocolate for us to sample!  Have I mentioned how much I love my niece?  =)

The next day (Sunday), we drove my mom back up to the city where she was catching a ride with some friends back to her house.  It wasn’t as hard to say goodbye to her knowing we’d see her again in a couple of weeks and knowing that she was so close.  Then we drove home and sat in a suddenly quiet house with nothing that needed to be done, nowhere we needed to be, and no one but each other to talk to.   Ah, nap time.

So, that was my Thanksgiving.  How was yours?  I hope it was as wonderful as mine was for me; full of good food, good friends, wonderful family, and lots to be thankful for.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Emergency Meal Preparedness

Wow, 2 blog posts in as many days!  The idea for this post came up last night and is entirely due to The Husband.  Let me explain.  Last night, around 9:30 pm, The Husband informed me that he had a change in work schedule and would be leaving in the morning for an overnight trip.  There weren’t supposed to be any overnights this week, so this was something of a surprise.  After a few moments of , “Really?  Do you have to?” my next comment was, “Wait!  I don’t have any suppers cooked ahead for you to take along!”  The Husband’s response was that he just guessed he’d have to eat out.  Right!  I could practically see a neon sign screaming “TACO BELL” in his head.  Now, I’m not saying that I’ll always be able to cook meals ahead for his overnights, but I wasn’t going to let it happen this soon!  So I started scrounging around in the kitchen for something healthier than Taco Bell for him to take with him, which really shouldn’t be that difficult if there is anything at all in one’s pantry or fridge.  Luckily, I had cooked off a whole chicken in the crock pot on Sunday and hadn’t used it yet.  The chicken was an organic, cage-free, hormone-free, antibiotic-free chicken, so that definitely is healthier than anything on the menu at Taco Bell.  A nice single serving of chicken went into a sealed container ready for his cooler.  Then, for a vegetable, I remembered that I had a sweet potato down in the storage bin and that was quickly grabbed and placed beside the cooler.  The sweet potato was really good sized, so I figured that and the chicken should be all that he needed for supper.  Now for the two lunches.  I had made up the Quinoa Taboulleh for our lunches on Monday and there were easily two servings of that left, so there were his lunches.  A quick look around the kitchen turned up a couple of apples should he still be hungry after the salad or need a snack.  Finally, I couldn’t possibly send him off without some kind of extra treat.  I remembered that I had bought the supplies for rice crispy bars weeks ago but had never gotten around to making them.  I quickly grabbed the brown rice crispy cereal, natural style peanut butter, and honey and got to work.  Now I know that rice crispy bars don’t sound healthy, but it depends how you make them.  The recipe I use for rice crispy bars comes from the So Easy cookbook by Ellie Krieger and are marshmallow-free.  They taste just as good (if not better!) than regular rice crispy bars.  The honey sweetens them and the natural peanut butter even gives them a tiny bit of protein.  The brown rice cereal is better for you than the regular rice crispies.  The recipe also calls for dried cherries, but lacking these I threw in some raisins instead.  I quickly pressed the brown rice crispy/peanut butter/honey mix in the pan and – voila! – I was done.  The Husband had a supper and two lunches plus possible snacks for his overnight road trip!  It might not be the most exciting supper of his life, but at least it’s healthy and filling and there is even a rice crispy bar for dessert! 

A Return to Posting

Yes, I do believe we’re settled in enough now that I can return to posting on occasion.  You’ve probably already noticed that the banner across the top has changed.  I wanted a new banner since we’re living in a new place.  I had originally intended to place a picture of Texas bluebonnets up there, but I haven’t been here long enough to see the bluebonnets.  Yes, there are plenty of pictures of bluebonnets on the internet, even some free ones, but I’d like to put one of my own photos up there.  So, I guess we’ll just have to wait until spring for that picture of bluebonnets.  In the meantime, I thought I’d use a picture of a couple of skeins from my stash.  I think the contrast of colors is nice, don’t you?

So, yes, we’re settling into our new home here in Texas.  The first couple of weeks were definitely on the warm side, but we have cooled down nicely in the last week or so.  The evenings are down right chilly!  (I will be able to wear my sweaters!)  Most of the boxes have either been broken down and put away or have been put in their permanent places.  We’ve done a lot of sorting since we moved into our new home.  We’ve discovered that we don’t need to hang onto as many things these days.  Several boxes of books have either been sold or donated to the local library.  Several boxes have also gone to Good Will.  Lots and lots of papers have been either shredded, trashed, or recycled.  It feels good to have gotten rid of unnecessary things and to have some room to breathe.  Of course, the craft room is as full as ever!  =)

In The Kitchen

Now that the house is basically put together, I’ve been back in the kitchen and cooking and baking again.  There for a while there were waaaay too many meals out or made from processed foods.  Blech.  So, I’ve already made a couple of loaves of Ezekiel bread, a batch of cookies (peanut butter cookies), and a German Chocolate cake for The Husband’s birthday.  There’s been plenty of cooking too.  Last week I cooked all of our meals, including those meals that The Husband took with him on his 2-night, 3-day, road trip (lunches and suppers)!  I wasn’t sure how much he’d appreciate that, but when he came home he said it had been nice not having to look for a restaurant and to be able to eat whenever he liked.  What he didn’t like was that some items got a bit soggy in the ice chest – especially the wheat wraps for a Waldorf Chicken Wraps (from So Easy by Ellie Krieger) and the romaine lettuce for the same wraps and a salad.  So we still have a few details to work out for him to pack his meals.  He also had with him some Curried Chicken Salad on a bed of lettuce from the same cookbook and Quinoa with Sundried Tomatoes from The Eat Clean Diet Cookbook by Tosca Reno.  Quinoa is my new favorite grain.  It apparently has the most protein out of all the grains – and it tastes great too!  =)  I had originally thought it didn’t taste good, but it turns out that you’re supposed to rinse it in warm water for a minute or so to rinse off a bitter coating that the grains naturally have.  Here’s a picture of The Husband’s and my lunch today.   It is Quinoa Tabbouleh from The Eat Clean Diet Cookbook.  Tabbouleh is usually made with bulgur, but the quinoa tastes just as good.  I think tabbouleh traditionally has more parsley in it than what I added.  The recipe doesn’t say how much parsley to add, so I just guessed and used most of one bunch of parsley from the grocery store.  It tastes great with the one bunch, plenty of parlsey flavor but not too overwhelming.  The dressing is lime juice, lemon juice, and soy sauce.  There are amounts listed in the cookbook, but I just kind of eyeballed it.  There are chunks of tomato and cucumber in the salad as well as edamame for some additional protein.  I’d definitely make this salad again.  It can be eaten either chilled or at room temperature, which is nice for The Husband while he’s on the road.

 

In The Garden

Okay, there isn’t actually a garden at my current home.  We decided to live in a complex for now while we look for a house to move to later and the complex doesn’t have garden plots for each home.  I asked for permission to create a small garden space and the landlord was incredibly kind and said yes.  So, this past weekend we went to a greenhouse and bought several small plants appropriate for fall planting here in Texas.  We also went to a typical big box hardware store and bought supplies to make a very small raised bed and the cutest little cold frame kit I’ve ever seen!  Oh, and of course we bought dirt as well.  The original plan had been to make sure that all the plants and materials were all organic, but, well, I wanted a garden immediately (that first freeze is coming fairly soon and I needed those plants established!) and the plants at the greenhouse looked healthy and I’m pretty sure the dirt, compost, and manure said they were organic.  There certainly weren’t any chemicals added to the dirt (like fertilizer).  And I’m not intending to spray my plants with anything.  So, I think we did good enough on this one, at least for now.  After much hauling of heavy material, moving things around, an hour of putting together the cold frame, and getting dirty up to the elbows, we have:  a raised and cold-framed garden!  It’s not the best picture, but you get the idea.  The frame around the raised bed is made of 8 cement blocks.  The cold frame is made of heavy-duty plastic and plexiglass.  We pushed up some dirt around the base to seal off where the frame meets the cement blocks and last night we could see moisture collecting in the frame, so it is apparently sufficiently sealed.  What, you may be asking, is planted in there?  Well, we have herbs including thyme, oregano, and two different kinds of parsley.  We also have some vegetables including Swiss chard, broccoli, and cauliflower.  The Swiss chard and broccoli should produce several times, but the cauliflower will only produce one time.  Once the cauliflower is done, I will probably plant a couple of lettuces in spring and then maybe a tomato plant once it gets warm enough to take the cold frame off.  We also got some catnip and rosemary plants and they are planted in pots and placed up front near the front door where they’ll get lots of sun and some heat bouncing off the driveway and brick wall of the garage.  Now all I have to do is sit back, watch the weather for frost and freeze warnings, water, watch my plants grow and wait for the first harvests!

Swiss chard in my garden

Changes

Things have been really busy here at our place.  The house is turned upside down and inside out and we all, pets included, are feeling the stress of living in chaos.  I’ve knit a ton of socks simply to deal with the stress (wink, wink).  Why are things so crazy here?  We’re moving!  And I don’t just mean a little move from one side of town to the other.  Oh no, we’re doing one of those really big moves where you put everything you own in a big truck and drive through several states to get to a new home.  Sigh.  I thought we were done with those moves.  Ah well.  At least this move is taking me closer to family!

So, what does this mean?  Well, I’ll probably not be blogging very regularly for a while as we will be very busy with packing, moving, unpacking, etc.  Also, we’re moving someplace that does not have gardening options, so no gardening for at least the next year.  We chose to move into a temporary apartment so we’d have some time to get used to living in the new city (and state!), determine where we needed to be for jobs and family, and where we want to be in terms of a more permanent home.  The new place has neither a garden space nor a yard for the dogs.  These are both things that we will really miss, but I think it will be worth giving up temporarily so that we have the time to find the “perfect” place to live.  Personally, I’m crossing my fingers for a house out in the country with room for a garden and some chickens!

I’d like to say good-bye to all the great friends I’ve made while living here in Utah.  In particular, I’ll miss my knitting and spinning friends from the guilds and those I met in the local yarn shops.  I’ll really miss those great local yarn shops too!  =)   We’ve really enjoyed living here in Utah and certainly enjoyed the beauty of our surroundings.   Last Saturday we packed a lunch and drove up the Big Cottonwood and had our lunch by the mountain stream.  It was cool and the sound of the stream was such a lovely backdrop to our lunch.  It was soooo beautiful!  Of course, we forgot our cameras and binoculars, again.  We could have kicked ourselves for forgetting them.  I’m hoping to take another trip up, this time taking them along so I’ll have some pictures, maybe a video and sound file, to help remember one of our favorite places here.  Take care Utah!  Hopefully, we’ll be back for a visit soon!

Summer Report

Summer is almost done, so I thought it might be time to look at some of this summer’s projects.  There might also have been a few hints from friends and family that my blog has been eerily quiet.  =)  So, time to get back to posting what’s been going on in my everyday life.

Spinning

Spinning has been on my mind a lot lately, so I guess I’ll start with that.  Tour de France was this past month and those in the fiber world know what that means – Tour de Fleece!!  Basically, the Tour de Fleece is the spinner’s version of the Knitting Olympics.  Every day that the bikers cycle their way around France, those of us who spin – well, spin!  I was a member of two teams this year – Team Sasquatch (where people who listen to certain podcasts join together and form a spinning team) and Team Raw Power (a team made up of those who enjoy working with raw fleece and wanted to incorporate that into the Tour).  So, my goal for Team Sasquatch was to simply spin for at least 30 minutes every day.  My goal for Team Raw Power was to start with a pound of fleece and process it and spin it.  There was some discussion about starting with dirty fleece, but due to some of the team members living in very humid conditions where it can take a week for fleece to dry, it was decided that the fleece could be washed before the Tour started.  Here is the pound of some lovely Cormo wool that I decided to tackle for this Tour.  It was a lovely mocha brown, but the staple length was about an inch (unstretched) so I had been spending a lot of time trying to figure out the best method of processing the fleece.  I finally decided that simple carding made the most sense since getting the short staples onto my large combs would have been a bit more of a challenge than I was prepared for.  In the end, I did try combing about an ounce of the fiber.  I loved how that skein turned out, but it really was just too much work for the amount of time I had.  The rest of the pound (minus 2 ounces, more on that later) I carded on my carder.  As for the final 2 ounces of the wool, well, that got carded with some lovely silver gray angora I purchased while at the Snake River Fiber Fair!  The picture to the left is of my drum carder.  The picture below is of the wool batts I made on the carder.  The round piles of wool are rovings I made after combing the wool.  These were all spun up into 2-ply yarns.  The combed fiber turned into a finer yarn (maybe DK weight) and the rest were spun into a heavier yarn (probably a heavy worsted weight yarn).  All yarns were spun with a long draw, or woolen.  The darker skein that you see in the middle is an extra skein I spun during the Tour of a blend of alpaca, wool, cotton, and some other fibers (lost the band) that had been sitting around since October.  I had already spun 2 ounces, so I figured it was past time to finish up the last 2 ounces.  That particular skein is destined to be knit into some lovely, warm, and incredibly soft gloves!

Knitting

Speaking of knitting …. I have been doing quite a bit of knitting this summer.  I started knitting a shawl in spring for a knit-a-long that was themed around The Fellowship of the Ring.  The first pattern in the series was a mystery knit-a-long in which one section of the pattern is released every 2 weeks or so.  The pattern was the Evenstar Shawl (designer’s blog here) and I posted a picture of the gauge swatch probably back in March.  There’s a picture of the finished shawl as it is blocking below.  I know you can’t see much detail from here, but you can kind of get an idea of how huge it is!  I’ll post a better picture of it later (when I can convince someone to model it for me!). 

Today’s Project

Finally, here’s what I’m working on today – fleece.  I got two Shetland fleeces from a lovely shepherd out in Oregon (there farm here).  These are some of the loveliest fleeces I’ve ever seen!  One was a white with bits of gray fleece and the other was a mostly gray fleece.

Here are pictures of the process of sorting and dividing the fleece into manageable pieces, soaking, and drying.  After the fleece has dried, I’ll be pulling out my carder again and processing the fleece with that.  

Our poodle, Bailey, is helping, with picking over the fleece and dividing it up, as you can see below!   

Okay, so maybe Bailey isn’t really helping so much as sunbathing!

The next picture is of the fleece soaking in the utility sink.

And, finally, there is a picture of the fleece drying on two old window screens that I found under our deck. 

I hope you all are having a wonderful summer!

Creativity Challenge – The Results

Several weeks ago I told you all about my spinning guild’s challenge to do something creative with an ounce of wool.  I promised that, once the challenge was done, I’d post about the process.  Well, the spinning guild met last week to share about the challenge and to return the finished project to the person from whom we had gotten the wool.  I made sure to journal during the process, so I think I’ll just post some journal entries and photos that I took of the project along the way.  Enjoy!

April 25, 2010:

Received 1 ounce of white alpaca for my creativity challenge.  Oh boy.  This is not good since I’m not the most creative or artistic person in the world.  I could, I suppose just spin a very fine single and knit a small scarf and call it good, but this somehow feels like me chickening out.  It’s safe for me to spin and knit something, but jumping into the pool and going for something artistic or different?  Now that’s a challenge.  Time to look through my spinning books for inspiration.

Later:

I was looking through the book Intertwined by Lexi Boeger and was inspired by a picture of a sea anemone.  It was white, dark to pale pink, with hints of yellow and green.  I decided I wanted to use that color palette and to let the sea anemone/sea theme inspire me.  Oddly, this photo also reminded me of Japan, maybe cherry blossoms?  So maybe I could include some Japanese ephemera in the piece.  Later in the book, there was a technique involving spinning coils around a wire core.  Cool!  I then had the idea of what the finished project might be:  a coil bowl, maybe a sort of jar with lid, in the colors of the sea anemone.  It might be something interesting to put on a dresser and hold jewelry, change, tickets from a night out, whatever.  So, the next step is to start dyeing the fiber.

April 28, 2010:

I’ve gone through my dyes and picked out the color that most closely matches those I saw in the photo of the sea anemone.  I’ve also calculated the amounts of dye needed to make a pale shade, a medium shade, and a dark shade of the pink.  Just need to get a bucket to pre-soak the fiber in Synthrapol.

May 2, 2010:

Dyeing day!  I wound the fiber into a circle of about a 2-foot diameter and tied it to help it stay together and soaked it in a solution of Synthrapol, water, and citric acid for 30 minutes.  I then placed it on plastic wrap and painted the fiber using a sponge brush with the pale, medium, and dark shades of pink and left some white.  After I made sure that the dye had soaked in, I wrapped the fiber in the plastic wrap and put it in an electric roaster with some water in it at a temperature of around 250. I left it in there for about 40 minutes or so.  This helps set the dye.  I took the fiber out of the electric roaster and let it sit in the sink to cool down overnight.

May 3, 2010:

Soaked fiber in room temperature water for 20 minutes.  I didn’t see any extra dye in the water.   Squeezed out extra moisture and draped on a drying rack to dry.  This is a really fine roving, so it shouldn’t take long to dry.

May 4, 2010:

Spun up the fiber today.  I spun it semi-woolen and left thick and thin spots.  Also, left a bit of the alpaca undyed and unspun to be available for additions.

May 6, 2010:

I plied my single with a copper-colored thread today.  I also plied in some strips of green and dark pink fabric.  I’ll leave other bits to spin in when I’m coiling it around the wire.  I’m still not 100% sure how this will turn out, but I’m just going with it.  The plying of the fabric didn’t go well.  The fabric was too stiff to ply in easily.  I may have to fiddle with that later.  Also, the fabric didn’t feed through the hooks on my wheel very well and kept getting caught on things.  ARgh!  Frustrating.  Need to get wire from craft store.  Wonder what gauge to get? 

Maybe 11, 2010:

I spun the yarn onto the coil yesterday, lots of difficulties.  The wire (it came on a spool) gave me all sorts of fits.  It sprung off the spool and acted like a slinky toy.  Then, as I spun, it got all twisted up and started tangling itself up and tried to tangle the yarn in the mess too.  I finally had to cut the wire in order to untwist it.  It was easier to control after that.  So, I kept measuring off 5 feet or so and work with it that way.  Of course, it flew all over the place as I spun.  Luckily, there were no injuries!  I ran out of wire though, so will need to get more.  Will also try to figure out a way to control the wire better.  Oh, I’ve also decided that the thick and thin nature of the yarn isn’t ideal for a coil pot.  So, scrap that idea.  Maybe I’ll try knitting it into a scarf shape and then it can be a piece of wall art.  The needles could be left in as a way to hang it.  Interesting shaping of the wire could add some interest too.

May 12, 2010:

I finally got to the craft store for more wire.  I think I forgot to mention what gauge I ended up with (at the advice of a craft store person):  24 gauge.  It’s most typically used for beading.  Hope it works.  This time I wound the wire around a paddle of cardboard and held it in place with a rubber band.  This worked much better.  It could spin as it needed to without flying around and hitting me in the face.  So, it’s all spun up now.  Just need to set the twist in hot water for a few minutes and let it dry.  Then – what will it be?

May 15, 2010:

Frustration, again!  The gauge of the wire is too stiff to let me knit it or intricately shape it in any way!  It just keeps bouncing out of control and wildly waving around.  ARgh!    Must put away until temper is under control (stuffs project on shelf on buffet).

May 16, 2010:

Enlightenment has arrived.  The project does not want to be anything other than what it was always meant to represent/be:  a representation of a sea anemone!  It’s shape is full of movement and curves all on its own without me trying to force my will upon it.  So, it shall remain in its current shape and I’ll just tame it a bit by hanking it up and putting some ties on it so it doesn’t take up as much room while I’m trying to get it to the spinning guild meeting.  I think it would look nice as wall art or a center piece or maybe just a piece on a dresser that one can hang jewelry on.  In the end, I decided to leave off the Japanese ephemera and let it be the sea creature it wants to be.

The Garden

You know when you read a book or see a movie and it sticks with you for days?  I recently had that experience with a documentary entitled “The Garden.” The film opens with views of South Central Los Angeles.  You can see the skyline, the buildings, cement everywhere.  Then, in the middle of the monochromatic grays, a sudden burst of verdant green.   In a previous life, this 14-acre plot of green was the scene of the Rodney King trial riots.  After the riots, and billions of dollars of damage, those 14 acres were left to sit.  Some bulldozing was done, but the site was definitely not fertile or garden-ready.  In July 1994, the land was sold to a private, not-for-profit, food-distribution network to use the land as a community garden.  This community garden eventually became South Central Farm.  The idea was that a low-income family could receive a plot of land on which to garden and provide food for themselves.  The South Central Farmers cleaned up what was left behind by the bulldozers, brought in soil to cover the cement and packed dirt, and began to plant.  On a land once rife with violence and destruction, a garden was grown.  Then, in 2001, the ownership of the land came into question and the South Central Farmers were threatened with eviction.  The film is charged with racial tension (most of the farmers appeared to be of Latin American descent), political corruption, and the South Central Farmers organizing to fight for their rights.   As these farmers struggled for the right to remain on the land, and later to outright buy the land from the owner, I kept hoping for justice to prevail.  Unfortunately, greed and prejudice was the order of the day.  Even though enough money was raised to meet the owner’s asking price, the owner then refused to sell to the South Central Farmers, who then had to watch as their gardens were bulldozed in front of their eyes.  At the end of the film, several years after the conflict, the land was bare of all green and no buildings had been built – it was an empty and unused plot of land.  This film really makes one think about individual rights versus the rights of a community, greed, corruption, and racism.  It made me wonder what kind of person refuses to allow people to garden on an otherwise unused plot of land in order to feed themselves.  This documentary was gripping and I can easily understand why it was an Oscar nominee.  I give it 2 thumbs up and highly recommend giving it a try.

Snake River Fiber Fair

This past weekend The Husband and I decided it was time to get out of town for the weekend.  Lucky for us, there was a fiber fair in nearby Idaho Falls, Idaho.  We left town on Friday afternoon with the intent to travel to Idaho Falls, drop off our stuff at a hotel, and then head up to Jackson Hole to snoop around.  I think we forgot what it’s like to sit in a car for several hours on end.  By the time we got to Idaho Falls (which isn’t really that far away, 3-1/2 hours maybe), we decided that getting back into the car was not an option.  We had thought that Jackson Hole would be another hour away, but it turned out it was more like 2 hours.  Somehow the thought of sitting in the car for another 2 hours there and then another 2 hours back was just not appealing.  So, we spent the evening in Idaho Falls just hanging out in our room and then a brief trip through town to make sure we knew where we’d be going on Saturday for the fiber fair.

Saturday morning we took our time getting checking out of the hotel and heading on over to the fiber fair.  There were signs directing us to the correct building.  Since I’ve never been to this particular fiber fair, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I’ve been to a fiber fair in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas and the Snake River Fiber Fair seems to be about the same size, maybe a bit bigger.  It was held in a building on a college campus and the classrooms were used for classes and the hallways were packed with vendors.  Several vendors were familiar friends from Salt Lake City, including Three Wishes, Fiber Optica, and Greenwood Fiberworks, Wasatch Watercolours, and Judy’s Novelty Wool. 

I had a particular target when we headed off to Snake River Fiber Fair and that was Notlwonk Springs, or the Knowlton’s, and their Corriedale cross fleeces.  The Knowlton’s hold their Spring Trek every year on the first weekend of May and I had planned to go to this year’s trek, but ended up getting the flu.  Seriously disappointed at having missed this event, I was determined to visit their booth at Snake River Fiber Fair.  I didn’t take pictures of them or their booth and I really wish I had thought of doing that.  I did, however, remember to take photos of the fleeces that I bought from them!  If I remember correctly, this first fleece is from a 6-year-old Corriedale cross ewe.  I love the color variations in the fleece.  The crimp was lovely as was the staple length, which was probably around 3 inches without stretching.  It was also seriously sooooft!

The second fleece I bought from them was a dark brown fleece from a lamb’s first shearing, or a hogget fleece.  Look at those golden, sun-bleached tips!  Gorgeous!  As you can see from the picture, the fleece is sitting between two other bags of fleece.  This picture was taken in the fleece judging room as my fleece had been entered into the fleece judging contest.  I’m happy to say that my fleece won a third place ribbon!

Speaking of fleece judging, once we heard that the fleece I was buying was entered into the contest, we decided to stay for the judging so we could listen in and watch the process.  The judge, Ingrid Painter, was an incredibly generous judge, sharing her thoughts with those of us in the room and taking questions.   She checked through each fleece and talked about what she was finding and what she looked for.  For example, while she was judging my fleece, she mentioned that the staple length was a bit shorter than she would want.  However, she also showed that it measured from the tip of her thumb to the base of her thumb, a way of measuring staple length to check for minimum length for spinning.  She said it was a lovely fleece that would be a pleasure to spin.  She thought it might be a bit tippy with those golden tips, but they didn’t seem to break off.  Also, she commented that there was some debris in the fleece, but it was generally clean. 

In general, she shared that when looking at fleeces you look for consistency in the fleece, look for breaks in the locks and tips.  She also mentioned that you could take a lock and hold it the tip in one hand and the base in the other (about 7 pounds of pressure)  and then flick the lock with your fingers and listen to the tone it made.  If there were crackles in the tone, the fleece was brittle and would break apart…not something you want!  There were approximately 4-5 divisions of fleeces:  Navajo-Churro fleeces in the first division, the Corriedale crosses and a Rambouillet fleece in the second division, Romney crosses in the third division, Romney fleeces in another division, and Alpacas (both Huacaya and a Suri) in the last division.  It was fascinating listening to Ms. Painter talk about her thoughts on each fleece and I learned a lot.

After the judging was finished, I went to look at some of the fleeces that hadn’t been entered into the judging since they were owned by the judge!  They were mainly Navajo-Churro fleeces, but there was also a Jacob fleece that was simply gorgeous and, of course, it had to come home with me too!  Notice that both dark brown and white fibers are included in the fleece.  Both colors grow on the same animal.  We talked with a gentleman who had assisted Ms. Painter in the judging and he told us about the various characteristics of Jacob sheep.  They are, apparently, great meat animals as well.  They have horns which you can use to make buttons.  He also mentioned that they way between 90-120 pounds and are very agile.  Hm.  Their point of origin is in the Middle East.

I learned so much while I was at the Snake River Fiber Fair and I had a wonderful time talking with vendors and friends.  I would love to go to another fiber festival this year, maybe the Black Sheep Gathering or the Estes Fiber Festival.  Everyone I meet at these things has something in common with me and I love that!  The people are so friendly and just as excited about fiber as I am.  It’s a community that’s spread around the world and these fairs or festivals give us all a chance to get together and realize that we’re part of that community.

Creativity Challenge – or challenged?

Last Wednesday was the spinning guild meeting.  We were told to bring 1 ounce of fiber in a brown paper bag for a challenge project.  I dutifully packed up some fiber I had dyed and headed to the meeting.  We all exchanged fiber (via a passing game) and I got 1 ounce of alpaca, white.  We were then issued the challenge to spin the fiber and make something from it, to be creative.  Yikes!  The very word sends a little shiver of anxiety up my spine.  I’ve never seen myself as being adequately creative.  I know, sad, right?  So I’ve decided to take this challenge seriously and really try to stretch myself, maybe prove to myself that I’m more creative than I give myself credit for.  I’ve also decided to keep a journal for this particular project to both help the project along and as a reminder of what I did.  Since I want the finished object to be a surprise, I’m going to wait until I’ve made the object and given it back to the person who gave me the fiber in the first place and then I’ll blog about it here.  I might even make a special page for my creativity challenge.  =)

In The Kitchen

I’m back to cooking from cookbooks again.  My sister turned me on to the cookbooks by Ellie Krieger (So Easy and The Food You Crave) and my sister-in-law told me about a cookbook by Tosca Reno called The Eat-Clean Diet.  So I’ve come up with a few menus and snack ideas from these three books.  I’ve actually already made two recipes from the So Easy cookbook, the Spicy Egg and Avocado Wraps and the Peanut Butter Crispy Rice Treats.  The wraps were a nice healthy lunch for The Husband and myself (mine being minus the avocado since The Husband stole all those for Himself!).  The wraps include lettuce, tomato, avocado, hard-boiled egg and cucumber plus other ingredients.  The Peanut Butter Crispy Rice Treats were an excellent sweet ending to lunch.  They’re like the rice crispy treats we made as kids, minus the processed sugar/marshmallows and with the addition of peanut butter and dried fruit (or chocolate chips or just about anything else one can think of).  I made mine with dried cherries.  Seriously yummy!  I did have to put them in the fridge a bit longer than suggested to firm them up and I made my typical mistake when making rice crispy treats – I didn’t press them down hard enough.  Shoot.  Oh well, I just pressed them down again after they had chilled enough so they weren’t quite as sticky.  I would give this recipe a double thumbs up.  More recipe auditions to come.

In the Craft Room

I’m still working on the Evenstar Shawl.  It’s coming along really well.  We’ve received the second-to-last clue and closing in on finishing this thing.  I’d put in a picture, but it really does look like a pile of snarled yarn at this point (well, maybe not that bad).  Believe me, when I’m done and it’s been blocked, I’ll probably be posting pictures everywhere!

Another project I’m working on is learning to darn socks.  I asked my sister to send me her hand-knitted socks that had holes in them so I could learn how to fix them and she kindly obliged.  I was all ready to go until I saw that thread, not just yarn, was involved.  Hm.  What you have to do with the thread really isn’t that hard, it just means I have to go find it in the craft room.  Hrmph.  That might require some excavation and several days of wandering in the jungle of yarn and fiber.  Never fear, I’ve a flashlight around here somewhere.

On The Bookshelf

I’m currently reading a book by Warren Fahy, “Fragment.”  So far, it seems to be one of those novels that means to scare you with what nature can, does, and could come up with.  Think along the lines of “Jurassic Park.”  Hm.  Not my favorite type of novel since I’m generally not in favor of making nature seem like our enemy.  I’m going to stick with it though.  I’m hoping that there’s some redemption at the end of the novel and that the apparently scary aspects of nature and evolution are being misinterpreted.  I’m crossing my fingers here.

Also on the bookshelf, are “Villette” by Charlotte Bronte and “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde.  I’m still reading both books, but they’re a bit on the back burner as “Fragment” is a library book and needs to be read first.  I love “Villette” but have been frustrated with the huge amount of French in it.  The French is not interpreted in footnotes and I’m one of the few who didn’t study French in school.  So, I’ve taken to using an interpretation program on my computer.  This does not make “Villette” a particularly portable read.  I pretty much have to read it while sitting at the computer.  It may take a while to finish it.  I’ve just started “Dorian Gray” for a book group, so I don’t really have too much to say about it so far.

More updates later.  I’m hoping to have more updates on the garden in the next week.  It has finally warmed up and is sunny, so there should be more opportunities to plant.  I’ve planted three blueberry bushes in the backyard, but I’ll save that for later.  Oh, and I’ll also have to post pictures of Bailey, the poodle, and her new haircut!

Back in the Kitchen

Yes, I know.  It’s been a while since I posted.  Between the cloudy weather and it being Tax Time, I wasn’t particularly in the mood to blog.  It’s still Tax Time, but at least the weather has warmed up.  Today it’s a sunny 63 and it actually feels like spring might be on its way.  Daffodils have just started blooming and there are some trees in bloom too.  Some of the trees are just starting to show a mist of yellow green and the snow has begun to melt on the lower parts of the mountains.  So, since Mother Nature has actually shown some signs that she might actually consider giving us a spring, The Husband spent the afternoon out in the yard cleaning up the downed branches, trimming bushes, and getting two of the garden plots ready for planting.  He also planted the Arugula seeds and the Daikon Radishes.  Everything else either needs to be planted indoors or needs to wait until the end of the month or later.   Hurrah for Spring!!

In The Kitchen

Yep, I’ve been back in my kitchen and playing with my food (grin).  While listening to Stitch It, I heard Meghan mention a website that has recipes for people on a no gluten/no processed sugar diet.  I don’t have an allergy to gluten, but I do try to limit my processed sugars, so I headed on over to Elana’s Pantry.  She has a TON of recipes over there and some of them look really, really good.  The Lemon Kale Chips will probably be a future kitchen experiment at our house.  However, today’s recipe was a special request from The Husband.  He was craving chocolate chip cookies, so I made Elana’s Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They’re made with almond flour, agave syrup, and dark chocolate.  I had to go pick up the almond flour and the chocolate chips, but I had everything else on hand.  After I mixed everything together, I thought the batter looked pretty runny, so I went back to her recipe to double check my measurements.  And, there at the bottom of her recipe, I noticed a little warning about Bob’s Red Mill almond flour NOT being recommended.  Guess which kind of almond flour I bought.  Sigh.  So, I decided to try making some adjustments on my own.  I added probably another half cup of almond flour to the batter (I essentially used the entire bag of flour.  Hey, I didn’t want that little bit of leftover flour anyway.) and then baked the cookies longer than I normally would.  The cookies were still extremely tender after 2 minutes of cooling, so I let the cookies cool completely on the pan. This made it possible to get the cookies off the pan without them falling apart.  As far as taste, they taste pretty good.  They don’t taste like normal sugary chocolate chip cookies, but they’ve got a pretty good flavor.  The dark chocolate chips are a lot more noticeable in these cookies than regular chocolate chips are in normal chocolate chip cookies.  The texture is really different too, but in a good way.  These cookies are not crisp and light, like we were taught cookies should be and like we’re used to eating.  They’re soft, dense, and curiously chewy.  With this particular flour, you can really feel the bits of almond in there.  So, I’d say these cookies are a winner, I’ll just make sure to get the correct brand of almond flour next time!

In the Craft Room

There isn’t a whole lot of new stuff going on in the craft room, but I did finish a few projects.  I spun up some 1-ounce dye samples from last year’s spinning guild dye exchange and came up with this light worsted weight yarn.   I really liked the way it came out, but had no idea what I was going to do with it.  After visiting with Kristine at Three Wishes (one of my local yarn stores), I decided to knit it into a Gothic Revival Shawl.  I was concerned about the yarn looking too busy, but I think that it will be alright.  It will look more blended, overall, from a distance.  The shawl is knitted up but still needs blocking.  I’m hoping to get to that this week sometime, I just have to find someplace to block it that the cats will leave it alone.

Also finished in the last week is my Mondo Cable Pulli.  Finally, a sweater that came out perfectly!!!  Now, this does not mean that there aren’t mistakes in there, I’m sure there are some.  No, my definition of perfect is that it fits(!), I like the color, I like the way it feels, and I like the way it looks.  I’m soooo happy with this sweater!  It was a lot of fun to knit and the Malabrigo yarn is really soft.  I know it will probably pill, but I’m so happy with the sweater that I don’t care!  The only difficulty I had with it was the ribbing at the bottom.  I knitted it too loose the first time around and this made it flare out a bit.  So, I ripped it back and knitted it again with smaller needles.  It still curls up a little bit and, if I really wanted to, I could rip it back again and try a different rib pattern (a 4 x 2 rib as opposed to a 4 x 1 rib).  I’m not that upset by the curling.  I might try basting on some grosgrain ribbon to help hold it down or maybe baste in (very loosely) some elastic thread, but I’ll probably just try steaming it first, if I ever take it off!

Well, that’s it for today.  The sun is still shining out there and it’s still warm enough to sit outside.  I think I’ll go sit on the porch and bask in the warm sunshine and enjoy the smell of spring in the air.