Category: Goofy Stuff

Happy New Year!

So, what’s everybody doing tonight? John and I actually have plans to celebrate! Well, I guess we usually celebrate, if you can call staying home and trying to stay awake till midnight celebrating. 😉

I just realized this is actually the first year since we’ve been married that we’re actually going out for NYE. (16 years, if anybody wants to know.) We have friends with an apartment in the Big City (Seattle!), and we’re joining them for the evening. Dinner out, then rooms at a hotel with a view of the Space Needle and the fireworks. I’m hoping we don’t embarrass ourselves and fall asleep before the champagne gets opened.

For those of you who are on the edges of your seats over the sauerkraut saga, we did survive. It was a little saltier than I’d like. I just rinsed it in a colander this time. Next time, I think I’ll actually soak it in a big kettle of fresh water for a bit. It was pretty good though. Here’s what it looked like.

Next time we’re going to try a pork roast with it. I know you can hardly wait.

While we’re on the topic of food, don’t forget to get your black eyed peas lined up for tomorrow. Here are mine, ready to go.

Here’s how I make them, for those of you who don’t already have your favorite recipe.

Next up, some exciting photos of holiday acquisitions! Have a happy and safe New Year!

How Do You Know When It’s Done?

Sauerkraut, that is.

The correct answer, of course, is “when you have to hold your breath walking through the garage because of the stench”. It reached that point last week, but I put off dealing with it until today. It’s an icky, rainy day in the northwest, too nasty to do much else, so I figured I might as well put this in jars and in the refrigerator. At first I thought I’d put this up in quart jars, but it appears to be the wrong time of year to buy canning jars around here. Currently John is out foraging for a gallon glass jug, but here’s the interim solution:

I’m pretty sure that storing this stuff in plastic will doom the plastic containers to smell like sauerkraut forever, but so be it. I never really talked about what you do with this stuff once you get it in your crock. Periodically during the brining process, oh, about once a week when I remembered, I took the rock out, then scooped out some of the nasty liquid on top, along with whatever yucky stuff had started to grow, then the plate. I mixed the kraut up a bit, added a bit more fresh brine, mixed again, then washed the plate and the rock and replaced. I haven’t tasted it yet, since I’m a bit of a stickler about food poisoning, so I’ll plan on heating it up as I use it. It looks and smells like a fine batch of kraut, however. It’s just that a gallon or so of it is a bit overwhelming all at once. Tonight’s dinner is sausages and kraut, I’ll report back if we survive.

OK, John just sent me a photo from Target. John and Tar-zhay save the day!

On the knitting front, I’m still working on the Passionately Pink Surprise Baby Present. (I’m going to have to pick a name and stick to it at some point.) I better get on it, since the recipient was born earlier today! I have a new grand-niece, Rowan Annabelle! I don’t have a photo yet, but I hear tell she is gorgeous.

I hope everyone’s holiday season is going well. We had a fairly low key weekend, since I had to work. I was pretty grumpy about the whole thing, but to put a positive spin on it, at least I have a job and don’t have to live in a box under the bridge. Where the hell would I ever keep all the yarn?

We did have the annual Solstice friends and neighbors gathering this year. It was quite a festive event. I made cassoulet, which I’ve never done before. Rather than putting up a billion photos here, I’ll just link the Picasa photo album that John put together. Let’s just say that our coronaries all probably took a hit from the duck fat and sausage load.

Well, the guy with the kraut jar is home, so I’m off to finish that project. Next time, maybe some actual knitting!

What’s Playing At Your House?

OK, I admit it. This is a “filler” post, one of those things you put up when you’ve got nothing in the knitting department. I’m knitting the same stuff, the only thing that I’ve made any big progress on is a gift, and it’s mostly Shocking Pink Garter Stitch, anyway, so photos really wouldn’t help.

John and I are trying to do a gradual dredging out of all the crap in this house. We’ve been making progress in weeding through the gazillion books around here. Anything that’s already been read is going, and anything that we both look at and shake our heads at goes as well. The music collection is the next frontier. We have a bazillion (is that more than a gazillion or less?) CDs also. We finally have our home music system set up so we play music from ITunes straight to the stereo system, so there really is no need to keep the actual CDs once they are burned to the computer.

As part of this, the whole CD collection is in paper bags sitting next to my computer, and every time I’m up here, I burn a few of them to the hard drive. It’s a pretty eclectic collection, even I must say. One of the things I discovered recently is that you can sort your music by how many times each song has been played. Here are my top 10 or so played songs.

1. Memories Are Made of This, by Dean Martin

2. Set ’em Up Joe, by Vern Gosdin (I know I’ve mentioned him before, the greatest country singer of all time)

3. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, by the Andrews Sisters

4. If Wishing Made It So, by the Subdudes

5. It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere, by Alan Jackson & Jimmy Buffett

6. Cuando me enamoro, by Andrea Bocelli

7. I’m Gonna Be Strong, by Buddy Miller

8. Blues Stay Away From Me, by Jorma Kaukonen

9. Blue Moon, by the Mavericks

10. Smoking Panatelas On the Blue Mediterranean Sea, by the Aqua Velvets

11. Running From Mercy, by Rickie Lee Jones

12. Bird On A Wire, by Leonard Cohen

There you have it. Speaking of the Mavericks, we’re headed to the big city today to hear Raul Malo perform at the Tractor Tavern tonight. Here’s a video of him singing Let It Be Me.

And another one of him singing Blue Moon, with the Mavericks.

I’m pretty sure that I’m going to enjoy it. I’ll report back next time. What’s on your playlist?

Another Happy Weekend

And, a bit of randomness.

First, spinning. I bought some cotton fiber a while back to try to learn to spin it. My first effort was with a very lightweight drop spindle, and it was a total disaster. Cotton fiber has a very short staple length, less than an inch, so unless you get a ton of twist into it very quickly, it just drifts apart. I’m not easily discouraged, however. After a bit of research, I found an Akha spindle. It sat here for the past few weeks, staring at me, and yesterday I decided to try to conquer it.

Here were my first few attempts at cotton yarn.

Um, yes, I know. That didn’t go so well. I downloaded an “e-book” from the Bellwether, and in no time, I had progressed to this.

Still a little uneven, but much better. It doesn’t look quite so much like dryer lint at this point. I’ll keep working on it.

Next up, knitting. I’m still working on that big-ass cabled sweater project. I’ve done more rows, but the photos don’t really look like it. I have started another mystery project that will take up all my knitting time until it’s done. Unfortunately, since it’s sort of a surprise, I can’t show photos here. Remember this? That was the very pink Wallaby for my niece Angie’s first baby, Riley. After I sent her that, Angie asked for the rest of the yarn, since she wanted to learn to knit, and loved the color. Off it went to her. Apparently it’s been marinating as stash for the past few years. Angie is now expecting their second baby, another daughter. I got an email from her a few weeks ago. She asked very plaintively if I’d knit something for the new baby if she mailed the yarn back. Here it is.

The Pepto Pink Cotton Ease is very happy to be back in my stash. I have an unreasonable love for the old colors of this stuff. The newer colors are OK, but just not as screamingly vivid as the original colors. You’ll just have to wait and see what this becomes. I will say it won’t be another Wallaby. That’s all I’m spilling for now.

Here’s another random photo.

My Christmas cacti are clearly confused again.

Last, but certainly not least, today is a very special day. Somebody in my house might just be having a very significant birthday. John and I went shopping yesterday, and came home with a cool present for him to celebrate. It came in this box.

The television that came in this box replaced an ancient TV that was so old I’m surprised it had color. The birthday boy is very happy. We’re doing up the day properly. We’re off to Seattle today. We have tickets to the symphony tonight after a swell dinner here. Tomorrow we’re going out for brunch, then we have tickets to see the Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. He definitely deserves a special celebration. It’s not every day, after all, that you qualify for Medicare. 😉

Wish him a happy birthday, we’re off for the party!

Weird Things

Ok. I should be in bed, since I have to be at work in some semblance of sanity eight hours from now. But I had to check the blog search stats before I headed off to sleep.

“My yarn is a knotted mess”

That one I can understand. My sympathies. I’ve been there, honey, I can’t fix it for you. There isn’t enough whiskey in the cabinet for that.

“how many stitches are in a 1000 meter spindle”

If you can spin with a 1000 meter spindle, I really want to see the video.

“carolina blue sock yarn”

My husband would be very, very happy if you found this for him (he’s a Tarheel).

“squashed frog spinal cord”

I’m sure that made sense to someone. I think I need more whiskey to figure that out, and decipher why it got you to my blog.

“geoduck knitting pattern”

Now really, people. Have you ever seen a geoduck? Why would you want to knit one, never mind eat one??

I am really off to bed. I should know better to check these things at near-midnight.

Knitting Doctor Vacation, The Lake Edition

We’re not quite home yet, but I’ve finally found a relatively clear tabletop surface to fire up the computer. The train trip east was a hoot, and if you happen to be either my friend on Facebook or my husband’s, you’ve followed the progress of the Family Party through the week. One of my sisters has a place on a lake, and most of the family made it to the party. We’re now back in town, and get on the plane  tomorrow to head home. Here are just a few highlights;

That would be Larry, my brother-in-law. It’s a family tradition to celebrate the emptying of a bottle by playing taps while everybody stands and salutes. Let’s just say that Larry got the chance to perform this many times over the past week.

As you can see, nearly everybody was wired in some fashion. That’s me in the foreground, being a Luddite and spindling.

That’s a sign in my sister’s kitchen.

The family!

A little expedition out on the lake.

Sock on the lake!

Sisters! And an honorary sister!

Sunset over the lake!

This is the primary mode of transportation at the lake. Because God knows, we wouldn’t want to have to walk 100 feet to the bar.

Lake food!

More lake food! And a bonfire!

I even found a yarn shop. The closest little town to the lake is only about 14,000 people, but by God, they have a yarn shop, and a nice one at that. The photographic proof is on my camera however, not John’s, and I quite inexplicably forgot to bring the camera cord.

That’s enough for today, since John is threatening to revoke my laptop privileges. We head home tomorrow!

Here We Go Again

The Tour is winding down, I’ve been spinning like a madwoman, but not much knitting going on. That pretty much sums up the days since my last post. Though I’ve enjoyed the challenge of trying to spin every day, it will be good to get needles back in my hands.

I also need to report back on the allergy thing. I haven’t taken the camel out of the bag since I decided that it was what was making me sneeze and wheeze. I’m not sure if this is good news or not, but my theory of camel allergy was blown all to hell. It’s not nearly anything that exotic, but just good old-fashioned seasonal grass allergies. It’s a bit surprising, since I haven’t had much trouble with it in years past, but I’d have to admit that this has been one of the wettest, weirdest summers we’ve had since moving here. The symptoms are now under control with prescription junk, but still there despite quarantining the camel. Good, in that I can still have my camel fiber, bad, in that I can’t quarantine the grasses nearly as easily. Oh well.

I tried a new spinning technique yesterday. Here’s a photo.

We went to the dog park with the mutts, and I took my spindle bag with me. I need a little more practice at spindling and walking, but it worked OK. John was a bit horrified, but I’m already considered certifiably weird by most people anyway, so what the hell. It worked OK, that is, until I stepped in dog poop because I wasn’t watching what was under foot. That is a little problem I’ll have to work on.

In other news, we’re off on an adventure again. We’re meeting my sisters and their families in Minnesota for a week for vacation. My older sister lives in North Dakota, and they have a summer place on one of the lakes nearby in MN. We’re all headed there for a little family reunion, complete with all the usual fun lake things: eating, swimming, drinking, Mexican Train competitions, etc. The other fun part is that we’re taking the train there. We get on the train early this afternoon here, and spend Saturday and Sunday riding the Empire Builder across Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. We get in early Monday morning. I think this should be a blast. We have a sleeper car, and John has the martini shaker and vodka packed, so I think I’m set. Of course I don’t have anything else packed, so I probably ought to wind this up. We will have internet access while there, so I’ll try to post while gone.

By the way, if you happen to be trolling the internets looking for an empty house to rob, go away now. We have someone who moves into our house when we go away. It works out well, since the dogs can stay here, and there’s someone to get the mail and water the plants. The pups are OK in a kennel, since we’ve found a good one, but they far prefer being here and getting to go to that dog park every day as usual. So if you’re thinking that the yarn and fiber stash are fair game while we’re gone, forget about it. It’s well guarded. I’m off to pack!

Dromedary Drama

I hit another little speed bump on the Tour de Fleece. As I’ve been telling anybody who would listen, I’ve been sick all week. I’m not one to suffer silently; rather, I whine loudly to anyone who will listen. I was pretty sure I had some modern version of the plague since last Tuesday: cough, runny nose, runny eyes, itchy, sneezy, wheezy, drowsy (sounds a little like the seven dwarves, doesn’t it?). I’ve been taking every version of cold remedy on the market, with little or no relief. Even the whiskey didn’t help, it just made me Dopey.

Today it dawned on me. This is the fiber I’ve been spinning on my new Moosie spindle for the Tour.

Here it is again being wound off the spindle onto a tennis ball.

The fiber is from Corgi Hill Farm. It is just lovely stuff, and spins up like nobody’s business. It’s a merino-silk-camel-firestar blend.

Damn. It’s the camel. The only other camel stuff I have in my stash is two things; one is a very small amount of pure camel fiber. It made me sneeze when I stuck my nose in the bag. The other is a bit larger bag of tussah-camel. It also made me sneeze when I stuck my nose in the bag. Fortunately I didn’t go nuts and buy boxes of this stuff.

The camel fiber has all been quarantined. When I’m feeling better, I’ll do a semi-controlled study and play with it a bit and see if the same thing happens. It just won’t take me a week next time to figure it out. If I start sneezing again the next time that bag is opened, the camel fiber will all be on the auction block for sale.

Here’s what’s replacing that fiber for the rest of the Tour:

The color on that is just all wrong. This is also from Corgi Hill Farm, it’s a merino-silk-firestar blend (no stinking camel!), color name True Blood. I’ll work on getting a better photo if our sun ever shows its face. The photo on my monitor looks pink-red. In real life, this has no pink, just deep blood red with shots of darker red and sparkle.

I’m off to find the allergy pills.

Flat Tire!

I was treadling like a madwoman this morning, trying to finish the sock yarn plying. We have an annual boat parade on our lake every July 4th, and it’s become a tradition that a bunch of neighbors and friends show up at 10AM to have Bloody Marys by the gallon and food by the ton. I wanted to get this finished before then. Then this happened.

I’m off to find the kitchen cotton to make a new drive band. Then it will be back on the road for the Tour!

Tour de Fleece

Well, yeah. I’ve disappeared from the blog again for 2 weeks. I have no excuse. It’s not even nice outside so I could blame it on summer. I think it got all the way up to the mid-60’s today, though at least there’s been sunshine this afternoon and evening. I think everybody in this neck of the woods is just sick to death of grey and rain. It normally doesn’t hang on this long, but there you go. And I have a nasty sinus infection and/or cold, so it makes it even worse. I guess if it was gorgeous outside and I was sick, I’d be even more pissed off, so there’s that.

I have been doing a little knitting, but mostly on my plain old sock. Sinus medicine doesn’t go well with complex lace knitting, so that’s pretty much out. If you think I do stupid knitting tricks on whiskey, you should see my knitting on antihistamines and decongestants (and cough medicine, and ibuprofen, and pretty much anything else in the medicine cabinet offering even a remote possibility of relief).

I do appear to be able to spin on drugs, however. The Tour de France started today, and the Ravelry Tour de Fleece started as well. I’ve signed up, of course. It won’t be too hard, since I spin almost every day already. The only rules are that you try to spin every day that the Tour rides, and to spin something challenging on the 22nd, the toughest cycling day.

Here’s what I’m doing. Though I have 7 spindles, all with something in progress on them, I’ve chosen one to be the primary Tour spindle. Hey, you don’t see Lance changing bikes every hour, do you?*

This is the spindle entry:

Pretty, eh? Click on the picture to see. That’s a Bosworth Moosie, made out of real moose antler. Of course he’s named Bullwinkle. What else would you name a moose antler spindle? I’ve had my name on the waiting list for this since last year, and got it this week just in time for the tour. The fiber is from Anna at Corgi Hill Farm. It’s a blend of merino, camel, silk, and firestar for sparkle. Sparkle is always good. And isn’t that a lovely color? You could get a lot of Corgi hair in that and never know it. The color name is really something like Sea Salt Caramel, but I think it looks a lot like Corgi.

And this is what I’m doing on my wheel.

Yeah, I’m mixing drugs and alcohol. What can I say, I live on the edge.

The fiber is Wensleydale, from Damselfly Yarns. I finished the spinning today, and can now wade into the plying part. The goal for this is a 3 ply sock yarn. I think it will be a little heavier than fingering weight, but I’m still pleased with how it’s turning out. Here’s what Wensleydales look like, if you’re interested.

And just because I learned how to do this today, one last photo:

Hope your 4th of July is full of great picnic food and fireworks tomorrow!

*I’m making that up, I have no idea about that. He might change bikes every hour for all I know. Humor me, I’m sick.

More Williamsburg!

We’re still here on vacation, and I’ve managed to take hundreds of photos. There is a ton of stuff to see and do here, and we’re making a grand attempt to take it all in. Today is our last full day here, then we drive back to the DC area for a day, then home.

I did manage to find the yarn shop, and even bought a couple of things. Now there’s a surprise!

I also found some lovely sheep. These are in Colonial Williamsburg. They keep them in the pastures around the old reconstructed town. They shear them every year, and you can buy their wool in the shops. John drew the line at me buying a fleece and trying to stuff it into the overhead bin on the plane, so I settled for some finished wool. I’ll show photos of the loot in a different post when I photograph them. The sheep are Leicester Longwool, an 18th century breed from England.

This next photo might be familiar to those of you in the medical profession who use digoxin in your practice. This stuff (foxglove) grows all over the place here.

The nice thing about having a timeshare is that we have a kitchen. Even I can get tired of eating out for every meal. We tend to have lunch out, then cook dinner at “home”. That way we can have wine with dinner and nobody has to be the designated driver. Here I am stirring the stew pot.

Notice that like any good Colonial woman, I’m doing two domestic chores at once.

Speaking of spinning, I found the weaving and spinning cottage in Williamsburg yesterday. John gets the award of the week for standing patiently while I took photos and asked the very knowledgeable women every question I could think of.

The last place we toured yesterday was the Decorative Arts Museum, which has a fabulous collection of Colonial (and some later periods) furniture, pottery, quilts, and other household decorative items. I could have spent days there alone. The museum is on the site of the former Public Hospital, which was an insane asylum in Colonial times. A corner of the museum has a display of some of the items from the hospital. Here is John, demonstrating that perhaps I have driven him crazy after all.

Today we take the ferry across the James to the Smithfield area. It’s supposed to be hot and humid. The weather here makes me appreciate the Pacific Northwest. If I don’t melt in the heat, I’ll be back again with more photos next time!