The Broken Dishes

Happy Easter...The Easter Monster is here!!!

2011-04-24T07:10:00.000-07:00

And look what he left --

The Color Purple

2011-04-17T03:00:00.000-07:00

Weeks ago, a friend asked if I would spin some yarn for her from some fleece she was given by an alpaca farmer. She gleefully handed me a packet of about 8 oz. of purple fleece.

It is beautiful but not ready to be made into yarn -- alpaca by itself isn't the greatest yarn because it doesn't have memory like wool does. So, a knitted item will just stretch out of shape...and stay that way.

I ordered a little bit of white shetland wool fleece and finally, yesterday, I had a chance to color it purple by dyeing it on the stove with pleasing results:

Also, I got a chance to use an Xmas present from SO -- a fleece drying rack that he made for me. The fleece is still drying but soon I will be able to make my friend's yarn. Yay!

Season Opener

2011-04-10T16:42:00.000-07:00

While baseball stadiums start till fill with fans, certain other folk are jumping in their cars to hit their favorite antique stores the close for the winter. We went to one of our favorites today: the Gatchelville Store. For a change, I didn't buy anything, but SO did buy a couple of things. Instead, I snapped a few photos to share:

Yummo! A big pile of bark cloth at reasonable prices!

Look! 800 Proved Pecan Recipes...800?!?!

Piles upon piles of vintage and antique buttons - I have been known to get lost in these piles:

Pretty starched vintage tablecloths!

SO asked, "You're taking a picture of that???" Yes, because I love the aqua color and the shabby chicness:

Let the games begin...flea markets, yard sales, estate sales...!!!!

New Site Launched!

2011-04-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

Come on over and check it out!

http://www.spinartiste.com/

It's live and launched...and I'm tired. I made so much progress on this yesterday and knew I was so close, that I was up half the night...

The feedback from the fiber arts community has been tremendous -- so encouraging.

I've hired a developer to help me with the finishing touches because I never set out to become a wordpress developer. They can get me finished up in a few days and I will be on my merry little way.

Meanwhile, back in crafty-land, I knitted a hat on Saturday:

I needed it!!! SO and I were at an artifact show and it was freezing so in the morning, I knit a hat and before lunch, my head was covered. The yarn is called "Razzle" and it's a "vegan" yarn -- no animal fibers -- made by an up and coming fiber artist named Compassioknit that I met a couple of weeks ago. We are working on a story for Spin Artiste to be published in the next two weeks.

Fun!

New Project in the Works

2011-03-28T04:41:00.001-07:00

For a couple of months, I've been slowly working on a new project: a new blog that focuses on the making/using of "art yarn". I've got a lot of pieces in place including this sporty logo:

I've got a lot of ideas, notes, etc. scattered around and now time for me to really focus on getting this launched. It's exciting and scary (a lot of times those two seem to go together, right?) and I'm curious to see where it will lead me. Of course, a lot of the time, it crosses my mind that it might be an utter flop...but, so what? What would a flop be in this case? No one reads it but myself, SO and a few friends that will read it because they're good friends. And, the good part is, that would be enough to keep me going.

Spin Artiste is going to tell the stories about the artists making the beautiful yarns that I am completely in love with and hopefully there will be some good patterns and great "yarn porn".

I've got my work cut out for me over the next month as one of the most amazing fiber festivals in the country is at the beginning of May and happens to be in my own backyard. I'd like to be up and running with a post or two by then and a small readership thanks to my fiber-facebook buddies. It's highly doable...I know I will get it done.

This is the heavy lifting stage though so forgive me if I am not able to keep up with my twice weekly posts here!

Grand Opening!

2011-03-24T04:45:00.000-07:00

It was a bit of work, but I managed to get my Etsy shop opened!

Paste this address into your browser: http://www.etsy.com/shop/BelladonnaYarns?ref=pr_shop

Tell me what you think!

Finished Object Alert: Chocolate Mint Scarf!!!

2011-03-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

I wish you could see this in person and feel how yummy and soft this is!

This is made with my own handspun yarn and in person the colors remind me of chocolate chip Mint ice cream. The yarn is really squishy and soft because I plyed the wool single with mohair for that fuzzy, halo effect.

It's going into the present stash and it's already spoken for!

Tuli Gets a Hair Cut!!!

2011-03-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

My dear little sheep, Tuli, had to endure the indignity of being sheared on Sunday.

I actually recorded it with my flip camera and got it saved on my computer and as of now, cannot get it to upload. So, I will need to spend some more time on figuring that out.

Luckily, I was able to snatch out a few pics from the video --

In the beginning, Emily, the shearer, props Tuli up in her butt. For whatever reason, the sheep (including rams) are incredibly docile.

Now, we are almost halfway done. I saw "we", but I'm sure Tuli felt very alone at this moment!

It's all over and you can see what a beautiful fleece I will be getting soon!

From here, Tuli received a shot and got a dose of worm medicine orally and then was cast back into the pen. The funny part is that after the shearing, the other sheep don't recognize their former pen-mate and treat the "newcomer" to a lot of aggressive behavior. But, they all end up getting their turn to that treatment as the shearing progresses.

Finished Object Alert: Namaste Farms Poncho!!!

2011-03-14T03:26:00.000-07:00

Ah, the thrill of a finished object! Finally, finally, finally, the Namaste Farms Poncho is finished and hanging in my closet.

The fiber is all from angora goats -- the shepardess does everything to produce the fiber: raises the animal, shears it, then washes, dyes and spins the mohair into a very lightweight and strong yarn.

It was a little tricky to work with at first, but after starting and ripping it out several times, I got into the groove.

I'm so excited that I have it ready to wear for spring!

Now, we need spring.

My New Baby: Belladonna Yarns

2011-03-10T04:19:00.000-08:00

So...the yarn line is out! And, I've sold some yarn already which was a great feeling.

And, now I have to get back to the wheel!!!

Here's something I did from last weekend that hasn't been tagged for sale yet:

It's very busy at work right now so I've been coming home very tired at night and have not had it in my to make more yarn. But, over the next few days, I should be able to get something done as we approach the weekend.

Today it's going to rain all day and it would be a perfect day to spin and watch old movies on TCM, BUT, I have a J-O-B to do.

In the meantime, I have a lot of wool that is going out to be cleaned and in about a month, I will be a dyeing fool. I did the math and it really pays for me to dye the wool myself. In the meantime, I'm at the mercy of others.

Ethel Cotton Needs No Introduction

2011-03-07T14:03:00.000-08:00

Do you want to have more wit, poise and charm in your communications???? You do, don't you? Well, here's your answer:

Behold! The Ethel Cotton Conversation Course! published in 1950 (Purchased at a yard sale last weekend for 50 cents).

You probably can't tell from the picture, but according to the marketing materials, "Ethel Cotton needs no introduction!"

According to Ethel, "Never say, even to yourself, that you have a poor memory!" -- I'm taking that advice right now!!

Lesson 8 -- Colorful Description: "Hampstead Heath! What a romantic name! It made me think of privet hedges, climbing roses, and thatched cottages." I can't wait to work that into a conversation.

Alas, my twelve lesson set is missing two lessons: 4. Too Tired to Talk and 7. Discussing Books and Plays. I shall avoid those two scenarios!

I predict my career shall skyrocket as a result of these materials.

Lambing Time

2011-03-03T04:52:00.001-08:00

The farm where I adopted the sheep has several expectant mothers right now and a few new borns so we went out to see them on Sunday.

This is a "bottle" baby that does not have a momma to feed him:

Many times farmers do not want bottle babies because of the cost to feed them, but this little guy will have a good fleece, so an exception is being made.

It's hard to get sheep to sit still while you take pictures, but this is Maggie with her new twins -- one is toward the back, nursing:

And, at last, my sheep, Tuli -- she is the one in the middle enjoying the afternoon sun:

Tuli will not have a baby this year. She is too young. But, she will be sheared in two weeks and the fleece will be coming my way.

Yay! More fleece...I have about 25 pounds right now and just arranged to have a processor come pick it up and wash it for me. I had every intention of doing it myself but now, I have too much really to contend with. If all I have to wash is Tuli's, I can handle that.

I Want to Be Under the Sea

2011-02-28T04:45:00.000-08:00

At last!!! A finished knitting object...

These are the Octopus' Garden Socks. The yarn color so named because of a picture of a coral reef.

These seemed to take forever. Maybe they took two months. Sheesh. I can't get my sock yarn stash under control at this rate. I have been very busy MAKING yarn instead of using it. And, that is not helping stash control either. So, I'm getting ready to sell some of the homemade yarns. Wish me luck!

Memory Lane

2011-02-25T04:14:00.000-08:00

You know how TV shows sometimes don't know what to write so they do some kind of trip down memory lane? Well, dear blog readers, I hope I am not "jumping the shark" here but I was really stuck for a second post this week because my dear SO has been out of town and between taking care of things like car emissions inspections, doctors appointments and tax season, have not been having much fun this week to share.

But, still I'm pretty wedded to my publishing schedule, so I'm offering up a little retrospective of some early knitting projects.

(Note: if you see any typos in this post, I'm blaming the cat who is obsessed with walking over the keyboard this morning)

Here are the socks that launched 1,000 socks:
These are the now-famous socks that travelled back and forth to Buffalo several times so that my knitting mentor could turn the heel and then later graft the toes. Both socks made the trip twice. These socks took forever! But, the turned out nicely and spurred me on to learn how to do it myself. Now, it's second nature but then, it was hard!

Here is "the Italian job". I fell in love with this yarn which is Trendsetter and from Italy. Not cheap at all. In fact, it might have been the first sort of expensive project I took on. $75 for a scarf seemed like pure insanity to me at the time. I even had to track down another ball of it off of eBay because my local yarn store was all out...and I kntted and knitted...and then when it was done, I found out that stockinette stitch is so completely curly that I should have bordered it with garter stitch or something else to make the thing lay flat.

Yet, of course, no amount of blocking would cure the evil stockinette curse. I wore it with my camel colored coat all that first winter...and it pilled.

And, then, finally, the first step to sock freedom:

My first independently made socks made in a class. These were made from the toe up. I would use this pattern a number of times before I decided I then needed to learn how to make socks top down and really contend with the heel and the toe. I actually had to rip them out and knit them several times as I recall (I think that was over an April Florida vacation one year).

Sadly, I hardly ever wear these. I am out of love with the color and the cuff is shorter than I like.

These projects all hail from about four years ago...not that long ago but it's gratifying to see how far I've come!

A Day With the Drop Spindle

2011-02-20T04:11:00.000-08:00

Woman spinning. Detail from an Ancient Greek Attic white-ground oinochoe, ca. 490 BC, from Locri, Italy. British Museum, London.

Recently, I spent the day with my drop spindle at one of my favorite places, The Mannings. I love my spinning wheels, I do, but wanted to know more about the capabilities of this old technology.

We first start with fiber:

This is fleece from good, old Jacob sheep that the teacher had washed the day before and dried in the sunshine.

Here's a close up of the fiber after we'd teased it out a little. For me, I would have rather just grabbed lumps of fiber and started making nice chunky, funky yarn, but we weren't there for that. We were there to make nice, smooth yarn for regular knitting and weaving.

So, next, we carded some fleece and made rollags to spin with using hand carders. I appreciate the hand carders, but too slow!!! I can only think of how laborious textile manufacture was using this technology.

And, after lunch, we started to make yarn on our spindles. It was fun and I can see that I'm getting to be a much better spinner, regardless of the technology. I filled my spindle and when I came home, I plyed the single with some hand-strung pearls and here it is:

I'm pretty happy witht he finished product and wished I had about double this amount!!!

Miss Celie

2011-02-17T03:13:00.000-08:00

"I may be ugly, but I'm here..." from "The Color Purple"

Here is the result of my Intermediate Spinning class. This skein contains a little bit of everything: wool, silk, cotton, flax, ingeo, silk noil, etc. The other students wanted to spin everything fine and smooth and perfect for knitting shawls. Shawls...? Not that I don't appreciate them, but that kind of spinning and knitting is a snooze fest for me. The teacher kept pushing me to spin smooth, fine thread and was somewhat surprised that I can do that now, but I much prefer my chunky junky stuff. Actually, when we were practicing with cotton, he said, "cotton just wants to be fine" as he spun a thread as fine as any a spider would produce. Me, on the other hand, I grabbed a wad and started making cotton balls on string! You can see them in the finished product -- they are the light brown wads. That might be the world's first art yarn spun from cotton -- I agree, it didn't come naturally to the cotton.

I'm getting ready to do a lot of spinning so more yarn porn to come on the blog.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T04:20:00.001-08:00

In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm bringing you color! SO and I spent the better part of Saturday dyeing some of the suri alpaca yarn I bought last weekend.

Here's what we started with. This was a Craigslist purchase and while the seller didn't know how much she really had, it turned out to be 52 skeins of undyed suri alpaca/merino mix. Very smartly, SO pointed out that we should separate a few skeins into smaller amounts to experiment with for the great dye project so I didn't cut too deeply into my stash.

In anticipation of this great day, I had previously bought about a half dozen commercial wool dyes in red, blue, yellow, green, pink and black. To get the hang of the process, we mixed up some of each color except black. I did mix up a dark purple too just to try mixing the colors. The first go round involved making solid colors of what we had mixed:

Pretty!!!

Next we tried a technique that was supposed to give gradations of color but that didn't work out so well and we ended up with yarn the color of blue jeans -- ok, but not what we were trying for!

And, then we accidentally cooked some yarn to the point where it was crispy, crunchy and burnt. So, we learned that we needed to have more moisture when applying heat to set the dye.

Finally, yesterday, I switched gears and dyed 7 mini skeins with KoolAid which actually worked pretty good. Below is my Valentine's bouquet and if you look at the yarns on top (light blue, orange, light cherry), that's the Kool Aid yarn. Dyeing with Kool Aid was fun and very safe and less stinky!

The Surprise Darling of the Sourdough Experiments

2011-02-10T05:28:00.000-08:00

This being the Winter of Sourdough, we've been exploring things we can do with the starter beyond regular bread...in fact, so far, we've only made one loaf of regular bread -- instead, we took right off to raisin bread, pancakes, and pizza crust...AND, the surprise best thing of all: Banana nut bread!!!

It's light, it's got a little tang, and the banana flavor is just right!

SO is now stockpiling bananas to be ripened for the freezer so this putting this together is not far off at any time.

Now, we've got another weekend coming up and right now we are planning another new adventure so stay tuned for the early blog post for next week because I will be reporting on that.

In the meantime, I'm going to do something I don't do very often, but sometimes I can't help myself...yes, it is another dreaded cat pic!

Don't you love how she tries to take up the whole couch? Of course, the demon eyes are her means of warding off anyone and everyone except for yours truly.

Takes My Breath Away...

2011-02-06T05:01:00.001-08:00

We are nursing auction "hangovers" this morning. The weather is lousy so it was a perfect time to spend the whole day at an auction. We got there at 7:30 AM, checked out everything, and were ready when the auction went off at 9:00 AM.

Mid-afternoon, I indicated to SO that while there were a couple of things left I wanted, I was willing to leave at any time (I'd spent enough!). SO convinced me to hang in there...

At the end, I scored a bag of old lace for $4. It looked old and ratty....but, when I got home and took everything out of the lace bag, I couldn't believe my eyes: it was all hand-made using a tatting shuttle...and the tatting shuttle was included! The workmanship simply took my breath away. I just wish I knew who this person was...assuming it was a woman, what was her life like?

Look how tiny! How much patience this took...

I was thrilled to see the colored cotton thread too.

And, here is her shuttle with a little bit of lace still attached that she was working on before she set it aside the last time.

In Which I Become a Shepardess

2011-02-03T04:15:00.000-08:00

Last night we saw "The Black Swan" in which a woman descends into madness while trying to be a perfect ballerina. I'm not sure I liked the movie although the Black Swan's eye makeup was certainly interesting. Don't we all question our sanity at times though?

For example, I decided to make the winter "interesting" by taking a class to make the sweater from the Lillehammer Olympics -- it's all color work and not knitting that you can just sitting around doing while you are chatting it up with other people. This is cavewoman knitting where you have to go off and CONCENTRATE. Now I have to get all the knitting done to the armpits within a month. That might not sound bad, but this is fine yarn with a small needle and four colors...

I guess during all the snow and ice in between classes, I kind of forgot about that commitment and last Sunday, I agreed to adopt a sheep this year and went out to the farm to meet and name my girl. This will take just a few hours on a Sunday once a month throughout the whole year -- it's heavy on the animal husbandry info but I do get the whole fleece of my sheep which was the hook.

I had two choices of sheep (all the other unnamed sheep were already spoken for).

First up was this beauty:

Her fleece will be nice and fluffy and very light. This is what I wanted but the other woman I was competing with really wanted her also.

This was the other choice -- a fat, brownish Shetland who, on top of her appearance, was very, very shy.

They are all cute, but if my end game was to be able to dye this fleece any color I want, this is not the sheep for me.

In the end I was able to persuade the farmer to put another sheep in the program that will have beautiful white fleece -- her name is Tulip and I didn't get a good picture so her internet unveiling will have to wait till another time.

But, in the interest of having at least three pictures for this post, I snapped off this shot of some dudes hanging out on a tractor at the farm:

They, like all of us, are just wishing and hoping for Spring!

Cauldron Bake and Cauldron Bubble

2011-01-31T03:02:00.000-08:00

I have long harbored the desire to get the sourdough thing right. Last month, amongst other objectives, I decided to put fermented dough back on the list. Luckily, I managed to get SO interested in this project since he's much better growing things than I am. About three weeks ago, we got going with a batch of starter and unlike my prior attempts, we did not end up with a big bowl of badly smelling glue. Instead, as of yesterday, we have this:

As soon as we could, we baked up a couple of test loaves and they were good, but our socks weren't knocked off. SO likes to make pizza and I suggested that he use the starter in his pizza dough.

And, a star was born!!!

SO has been producing some awesome pizzas with the sourdough crust. It is indescribably delicious! Saturday night, we put together a BBQ Chicken Pizza:

Another smashing success!!!

But, of course, I am never one to leave well enough alone. The existing starter, named Glenville, now has some competition brewing:

This is San Fran -- which came from a box of starter I ordered that is supposed to be real San Francisco sourdough starter. We'll see. SO already had to give San Fran a boost of honey to get her going. Right now, they are both living in the kitchen, but I wouldn't say it's peaceful co-existence. They have to be separated by several feet at all times so they don't inbreed.

Do you think SO would kill me if I ordered a box of Alaskan sourdough starter too?

Spin-O-Rama!!!

2011-01-26T16:42:00.000-08:00

I have been a bad, bad blogger! I've been doing stuff and taking pictures and not blogging. Like everyone else, I sometimes get a little behind. But, this evening, the snow if falling like crazy and the good thing about that is, I am getting a little caught up.

So, what the heck have I been doing??? Spinning art yarn. Or, rather learning how to spin art yarn more competently. And, I am getting better although the pictures that follow don't necessarily reveal that.

First, we have a brown single that I plyed with a otherwise useless sock yarn remenant:

Now, this doesn't look like much but I took the picture anyway. It's a very difficult technique involving mohair. If I could execute the technique better you would be oohing and ahhing...at least I would.

And, here we have a combination of techniques involving some crazy carding and then another very difficult technique that I actually got the hang of by the time I was done spinning what I had prepared.

Finally, here are some of the results of the other spinners from my class. As you can see, some of these gals are pretty talented...I am envious!!!

Ok, now go back to watching tv or reading Facebook...

Now Presenting: Miss Scarlet!!!

2011-01-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

Isn't she beautiful?

She's one of the animals we met over the holidays when we went to a large alpaca farm.

And, because we formed a personal relationship, I bought some of her fleece.

And, before washing, her fleece looked like this:

Now, onto washing...in Dawn dish soap, of course!

So, so dirty. The first round of rinsing was literally mud. It was a labor of love to get the water to rinse clean.

It gleams!!! The farmer told me, "you can never dye something the color that this is naturally." He is so right. It is like a shiny blue-black and ultra-soft. By tomorrow, it will be dry and ready for my class this weekend. Yay!!!

Weekend Wrap Up: Peanut Butter Cup Bars and Childhood Toys

2011-01-16T18:14:00.000-08:00

Sheesh, busy weekend. I need a day off from my weekend before I go back to work, but ah...that's not gonna happen.

Sunday we smoked a pork roast which turned out rather nicely and to finish off the meal, SO whipped up a batch of peanut butter cup bars:

Really yummy and although we had a recipe, there was some improvisation on some of the ingredients. I suspect this will not be the last we've seen of the peanut butter cup bars.

Saturday, we drove to see my grandfather who is preparing to move and trying to lighten his load of what has to be moved or sold. I brought back a number of things that were mine that he'd been storing for about 35 years or so. Amongst the stash was a dollhouse:

I am told this was my dollhouse -- I remember playing with it, but I don't remember knowing it was mine which I find strange. I'm sure the lack of ownership feeling was due to the fact that the dollhouse was in the attic a lot of the time. It wasn't in my room, as I recall...I remember having to climb into the attic to get to it. I also think it's odd that the bathroom was so prominently featured with a raiseable toilet seat. As you can see, the man of the house is perched on his throne in the picture. Unfortunately, time was not kind to some of the furnishings and a number of the chairs are missing legs.

I also came home with a box of my old Barbie's -- complete with tons of outfits from the 70's -- expect to see some of those fashions in a future post.

Run, Run Rudolf!!!

2011-01-11T07:59:00.000-08:00

What are the chances that I'd find not one but two of these cuties over the past few months?!?!?

A little research over the internet reveals that these are from about 1950. I got the one on the left for $5 at a yard sale and the one on the right for $12 in an antique mall. According to some of the write ups on ebay, they are hard to find.

I especially like the black one!

And, of course, since one things just leads to another, once I got the first pot, I started liking little cartoonish deer-things and I found these original watercolors at a yard sale for a couple of dollars:

I love blue animals, don't you?

I think this is true prancing.

Yes, I am starting to have too much "stuff". On the other hand, someone's got to help the economy!!!

Put de Lime in de Coconut

2011-01-10T10:05:00.000-08:00

I have been craving young coconut so I ordered some from the grocery store by my office and picked them up at lunchtime today:

Makes me want to sing, "Put de lime in de coconut"...

I had to order them twice before they came in, but it's worth it because this store sells them for 33% less than anywhere around me. I can't even order them over the internet for their price. And, now I find out that the grocery store is closing!!!! My primo source for these little beauties will be gone, gone, gone very soon. Ugh! And, it makes me sad to see another store close. So, that was kind of a downer on Monday, no less.

Back into the Groove

2011-01-08T05:35:00.000-08:00

It's Saturday and I am finally feeling a little peaceful. It's been a wild week. After being away for 10 days, I had a lot of digging out to do: a mountain of wash that took all week to get squared away, day job very hectic and busy, a half a day (again) at the dentist's, a whole night of dealing with my finances -- how is a girl supposed to pursue her hobbies and blog about it with all this junk going on?

This morning I got up early and did a few things in the kitchen and even took pics because I knew I had left my blog unattended all week.

So, first up -- a lovely bowl of Cafe Gratitude's "I am Great" Granola with blueberries and homemade almond milk (cutting back on cow's milk). Yummo.

Now, to display my regular photography skills with a pic of Sarah Kramer's Raunchy Red Lentil Soup that I wanted to try all week and finally got around to at 6:00 AM today...it will be a yummy lunch with some homemade guacamole and corn chips!

I love being in my kitchen -- I missed my own cooking as I always do and am glad I found a few minutes to put some things together!

Time for a shower and to start the weekend.

2010 Knitting Goes Out with Style

2011-01-02T19:02:00.000-08:00

What a picture, huh???

I hope you love that my suitcase was the background. No, I'm not making a resolution to be a better blog photographer this year!!!

Yes, this was the last of the 2010 completed knitted projects. Finished them on or about 12/30/10. I'm deep into finishing my first sock of 2011 with the goal of 12 pairs this year. As you know, I fell a little short this year, but that's ok. Ten pairs is still ten pairs.

In a few days, I have bags and bags of fleece coming and promise that the pictures will live up to my usual standards!

And, I'm thinking about making a knitted coat. Yes, I've gone crazy. This ambition accompanies a few other ambitions I have for the year which include mastering sourdough bread, candy-making and a circus tent. All would be easily accomplishable if I didn't work.

Let the games begin...

Yummy Food and a Yarn Crawl

2010-12-29T13:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we had a little adventure -- a little yarn crawl followed by a yummy lunch at a raw vegan restaurant (105 Degrees). The yarn crawl included two stores which actually turned out to have very nice selections and yes, there was some buying done. I swear I am swearing off buying sock yarn next year but since there are still a few days left till next year, I bought some more. I also got some cool odds and ends.

Well, all that shopping works up an appetite and we headed over to what was a special treat for me: a return visit to 105 Degrees. I neglected to get pics of everything we ate, but did manage to snap a few:

This is the "BLT" salad -- instead of bacon, they season coconut and dehydrate it. Maybe if you've never had real bacon, you'd think it was bacon. But, it did taste good and as you can see, it was a big salad.

I spaced out and didn't take a picture of my first course or my lasagna, but remembered in time to get pics of dessert. This is the chocolate tart that I ordered and took home half of -- and it was very good.

And, this is the brownie sundae that SO had. He said it was good but the brownie was hard.

We also had a couple of alcoholic beverages which were very nice and overall, it was a great lunch...except for the embarrassing part where I threw my gum out in the bathroom into the can of dirty cloth hand towels instead of the trash can.

Later, we went out with the fam for a birthday dinner and then to see "True Grit". Here is SO holding my hand in the movies -- notice the spiffy gloves he is wearing. They are made from buffalo yarn -- we bought them at the second yarn shop where they had a nice selection of yarns from bison, yak, etc. What a treat to see the yarns in the stores instead of just drooling over them in magazines or online!!!

Exciting News!

2010-12-22T03:51:00.000-08:00

It was a year in the making, but our little book of illustrated recipes arrived last night!!!

Probably for twenty years I've thought about writing my own cookbook. You know what? It's harder than I thought! Our little book has a recipe with a drawing for each month of the year -- recipes by moi and drawings by SO. We will be distributing them as little gifties this season.

We have lots of ideas for a sequel, too!

I guess this is my last post before Christmas...so Merry Christmas to my faithful blog readers! XO, TBD

You Better Watch Out...

2010-12-19T16:04:00.001-08:00

You know who is coming to town!!!!

Who knew Santa liked to tool around on a chopper on Saturday nights in Baltimore? Take that, West Coast Chopper!

We braved the cold Saturday night to embrace a local tradition of going to see the lights on the homes of a short city block in downtown Baltimore on 34th Street. I'm not sure how many years this has been going on (I've gone for the last seven years), but it's really quite the scene. From Thanksgiving till New Years, this little street hosts thousands of people who walk the street to see the Christmas lights. It's hard to do it justice in the photos and there's no conveying the true ambiance, but this is pure Baltimore: kitschy, sentimental, and do it yourself. No money for Christmas lights? No problem -- build yourself a Christmas tree out of hubcaps or tin cans -- no problem for me -- after all, I'm the girl that has a crocheted tee pee!!

This year it was about 35 degrees out for the the outing -- no too bad-- and there were a group of Mennonites singing Christmas carols and a burrito truck.

I will have very exciting news in my next post...just in time for Christmas, but you better watch out, you better not pout...

Knitted Gifts: Blessing or Curse?

2010-12-16T03:07:00.000-08:00

I can't decide what people really think when I give them something I've knitted. I'm gaga for it, but I haven't lost complete touch with reality so I know that maybe these treasures feel like traps to some people.

But, I still can't help myself. Here's another Xmas gift ready to go:

In fact, I'm now officially done knitting for the holidays. The self-imposed pressure I put on myself about these gifts makes me want to start immediately in January stock-piling finished objects so there is no crunch come late in the year. I actually do start fairly early, I think, in August but maybe it's better to start right in January...or maybe it's not. Why change?

This scarf was knit on huge size 35 needles and I was finishing it up on Saturday while sitting at an estate auction. I plodded along till the end. After a short break, I took out something else I'm working on that's brown/pinks/reds and on much smaller needles and after about an hour, the man in back of me asked me what happened to the large needles. He thought I was still working on the same thing. I thought it was funny that he noticed it at all -- he noticed the change in the needle size but not the difference between the green scarf and the brown/pink/red shawl.

Starting next week, I will be travelling and in sock mode till the New Year. I'm looking forward to having a couple of new pairs of socks to parade around in.

Cookies Ka-Pow!

2010-12-13T04:20:00.000-08:00

Presents, done.
Decorating, done (ok, that consisted of pulling out SO's wooden Xmas tree and hanging a wreath on the door).
Therefore, yesterday was dedicated to COOKIES.

This year we kept it simple -- just four good sturdy, but yummy types: Peanut Butter Balls, Lemon Bars, Chocolate Chips, and Iced Butter Cookies. Still, it takes all day and three people to pull it off, especially when there was a double batch of chocolate chip involved and the peanut butter balls seem to go on forever. But, of course, yours truly has a system for such things and I'd made the butter cookies the day before so they were perfectly ready to receive their icing and put together dinner in the slow cooker in the morning (Beef Burgundy -- pretty good).

And, I've decided that I may possibly be the world's worst food photographer. Frankly, it's the last thing I think of and I do it at the end of the whole process when I'm tired, but still I push myself to click the button because, afterall, Monday does come and there is need for a blog post. Now, onto the cookie pics --

First up, here are some peanut butter balls. Don't be fooled by the scant number. We made a big pile of these because, well, what is Xmas without chocolate and peanut butter?

Here are the Lemon Bars and some of the Chocolate Chips. This year and last, I used a recipe straight off the flour bag for the chocolate chips and I think they are as good as they come. Also, I treated us to some new cookie sheets a few weeks ago when they were on sale and it made life pretty nice.

Now, the Butter Cookies series of pictures featuring the festive designs of myself and my two cookie elves: SO and Daughter of SO.

These are my "creations". Personally, this proves I should stick to the cooking part. I believe these look like they were made by a first-grader or possibly kindergartner.

These are Daughter of SO's. I think they look very nice.

And, finally, we have SO's. Notice they are works of art. I fancy myself as his muse...:-)

Christmas on a $1!

2010-12-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

Hey, calling all you budget-minded readers, let me introduce you to Christmas on a $1! Yes, you heard correctly: one dollar!!

This year, SO and I started the tradition that one of our gifts to one another had to cost a dollar or less. This sort of started out as a little joke, but then turned into a competition to see who could come up with the most spectacular $1 present.

The history of this goes back a few months ago when we went to an estate auction and I bought a set of three paint by numbers paintings for $1. There were two small ones and one large one -- all winter scenes. I knew immediately that I wanted to small ones for my guest bathroom and that I was going to set aside the large one for SO because he's been aiming towards decorating one of his bedrooms with a winter theme (old skis, ice skates, etc.). I figured it would be kind of funny to hide it away till Christmas and then spring it on him. Unusually, he forgot all about the third painting when he was hanging the two little ones for me.

Then, before Thanksgiving, we were putting up all the winter stuff and there was the need for the picture. I said, "OK, I guess I will give you one of your Christmas presents early." SO protested, thinking I was giving up something of great value before the big day. I sheepishly replied that he was getting his 33 cent present and reminded him of the picture.

At that point, we looked at each other and decided that there should always be a present for a $1 or less at Christmas.

Here is SO's 33 cent picture:

Now, SO was not to be outdone! Yesterday we were at an auction and he scored my $1 Christmas present:

This mirror is huge!!! It hardly fit into the Mini. I don't know how I will top this next year, but luckily, I can get started hoarding a year in advance.

Chipping Away at Projects

2010-11-29T14:44:00.000-08:00

How can a mountain of yarn be called a "stash"? Isn't a stash supposed to be something that you can kind of hide??

My so-called stash isn't hideable at present. Perhaps it's the six antique suitcases piled up in my spare room that is the giveaway. In any event, any completed project feels like such a triumph because it feels like I'm getting the stash "under control". Ha. Ha.

I recently completed this cute hate out of Cascade Magnum.

It's a Christmas gift for SO's sister who rescues turtles -- thus, the pin.

One more down. When I look back over the photos of what I completed this year, I do feel that I accomplished a lot, but still there's so much to go...and of course, many beautiful yarns yet to be produced and bought...and then there's the yarn I'm now slowly producing myself. To be a little more specific, so far this year, I've completed 25 items. Not bad and 9 were pairs of socks. My goal was to complete 12 pairs of socks this year and I've got a pair on the needles right now that I'm sure I will finish this year and certain that I will finish another pair before the end of the year as well -- so, that will make 10. So, I will wind up a little short of that goal unless I stop everything else in my life and knit 3.5 pairs of socks in the next three weeks. If I manage to do that, you will have to scrape me up off the floor by the end. I may not even be able to stomach putting a pair of socks on my feet.

One of the people I follow on FB had a goal to knit 12 sweaters in 12 months and is coming pretty close. BUT, she works in a yarn shop. OK, I don't feel like a slacker given that.

Creative Cloudburst

2010-11-29T14:43:00.000-08:00

All of a sudden...after weeks of no spinning...a microburst of activity...

Any guesses where the fabric strips came from???

Wish I would have used brown thread. There's always next time, right?

Time to start working on some new ideas.

How to Work Off Your Thanksgiving Dinner

2010-11-28T11:01:00.000-08:00

You know how the fitness magazines always tell you to take a long walk after Thanksgiving with your family instead of sitting around watching football on tv? B-O-R-I-N-G!!!

Here, at The Broken Dishes, we have our own form of family bonding after a big, heavy meal -- we skip the stupid walk, wait till late, put on our dark clothes, gather up the flashlights and go yarn bombing.

As we headed out the door, I recalled a line uttered by Michael Corleone towards the end of the Godfather: Tonight, we settle all family business.

Without further ado, presenting our 2010 post-Thanksgiving neighborhood yarn attacks:

We've originally hit this sign in the summer and it was looking pretty lousy. We've been waiting for help. SO's son and daughter removed the old items and helped me put up the new ones. SO's son had to climb the sign to get the hat taken care of -- it was nerve-wracking...tons of cars going by...we had to keep ducking down into the weeds. We even got sore legs from all the ducking

We finished up the attack with a much less difficult installation:

Ah, the beauty of the hooked rug! I've been saving this one for a long time. We had scoped out the spot months ago.

Now, about the Christmas-themed attacks...

Is it OK to Eat Pie for Breakfast?

2010-11-25T05:30:00.000-08:00

Pumpkin is a vegetable and apples and blackberries are fruits...so, I think it's ok.

These are the pies I made yesterday:

Coconut
Pumpkin
Blackberry (Cobbler)
Apple

Around here, it's one pie per person. Everyone gets the pie that they want.

Even though there will only be four of us today, we will have the whole enchilada: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy, smoked turkey, cranberry sauce, etc. If there's something that makes it "Thanksgiving" to someone, I make it.

And, I've been cooking up a storm otherwise. Tomorrow some other folks will join us to help clean up the leftovers. Plus we are adding smoked salmon into the mix just for good measure. And, did I tell you we made some smoked cheddar cheese the other day? Yes, the smoker is getting a lot of use.

Little Green Suitcase Renovation Project

2010-11-22T19:15:00.000-08:00

Can't explain it but I love old suitcases. I don't need anymore of them for stashing yarn in, but still when I find a bargain, I can't resist. So, last weekend, we happened upon the stray yard sale and I found an old Samsonite that was green with a putty colored trim. The seller wanted $4 but we hammered her down to $1 because the inside was atrocious.

The next day, we ripped everything out from the inside and found that the suitcase was stamped with "1950" on it. I had a small quilt someone had given me and we decided that would make a good lining and now I have a cute little suitcase for...I'm not sure, but I find something to put inside.

The pics:

Here's the inside after we stripped it down to the bare wood and went over it with bleach.

And, here we have the new lining!

And, now, the newly cleaned outside!

I'm most pleased with my $1 investment...

The CSA Chapter Closes

2010-11-17T04:40:00.000-08:00

The farm shares are now over for the year (sigh of relief).

This did not work out very well this go round -- oh, sure, there were moments of culinary heaven when I had the time to really prepare the food well...but overall, the farm shares created a lot of problems.

For starters, I got bok choy fifteen times. I've still got three heads of it in the fridge as I type this. Contrast this to only getting broccoli four times. And, remember I was in two different farms...I guess the bok choy is super easy to grow and really pest resistant and the broccoli is not. I got very little corn and that is not surprising because the yield is very low when you don't use chemicals to grow it.

I love to cook but I like to be in more control of what I have to cook. When you've got three heads of bok choy and over a dozen sweet potatoes on your hands, you've lost control.

Three times between June and now, I've been out of town and had to give the shares away so I have to factor in that there was some money down the drain there.

I also will not miss having to figure out every Thursday when/how I was going to get the stuff picked up. Sometimes that was a problem too.

Probably the worst of it was that I had to throw so much stuff away. I'd say I threw out at least 30%, if not more. I just cannot use a dozen cucumbers in one week or even over the course of two weeks. SO doesn't eat them at all so cucumbers are all on me.

I've considered cutting back to a half share from the farm that stood out as the better of the two but there will still be the problem of too many cucumbers, eggplant, kohlrabi, swiss chard, etc. There will still be the problem of having to make sure I find time to go pick it up and there still won't be enough of the basic stuff like carrots, onions, and celery (no celery at all this year).

One thing I failed to notice is that my cooking guru does not have a farm share. She used to but because of all the reasons I mentioned above, she does not. I should have paid attention to that!!!

If I want to support the farms, I think I will just make a donation next year!

New Local Finds!!!

2010-11-14T09:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday in our travels, we finally had a chance to stop by a winery that is within a stone's throw from SO's house. I say "finally" because finding it open has been rather elusive. The wine store has very limited hours but I happened to check the winery's website recently and saw that they were going to be open every Saturday afternoon for the next several weeks.

We made it just in time. The winemaker's father was working the store counter yesterday and he was just about to close when we walked up to the door.

But, we made it worth his while to stick around. This little place is pretty amazing. See here for the list of wines they produce. All these wines from a little estate of only two acres (of course, they do supplement with grapes they purchase). We tasted a good portion of what they offer and bought a case so we could get into the "case club" (= 10% discount). The wines for the most part are not very expensive and we got a nice variety which will be useful with the holidays coming up either for serving or giving as gifts.

This morning I decided to make a pork roast in the slow cooker and since the recipe called for red wine, it was a good reason to crack open a bottle of their Chambourcin:

After we finished the tasting and selecting our purchases, emboldened by the wine tasting, I asked for a tour of the wine-making operation and we were given the tour. It is a very small operation and the yield on each production is only about 500 bottles so this is truly a labor of love.

After the winery stop, we stopped into a farm that raises cattle without hormones, etc., and got their prices for beef which we will order after the holidays -- by then we will be mostly out of the beef from earlier this year. This farm has beef available more often so we won't have to order as much which I think will work out a little better.

It takes a little time to ferret out little places like this but they are worth their weight in gold to me -- These little operations take a lot of passion on the part of the people that own and run them and it shows in what they produce. They deserve our support.

Sick Day from Blogging

2010-11-11T04:23:00.001-08:00

Dear All,

No fun posts today...have to take a break till my tooth gets better. Root canal yesterday and still in a lot of pain. Time to take enough pills to be able to go to work. :-(

Special Sunday Post: Double Knitting Issue!!!

2010-11-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

I have a little time today and probably won't have much tomorrow so I'm getting a jump on the week and posting now instead of my regular Monday publication.

I have two special knitted treats to share!

One (lousy picture) is the cream wrap I finished up recently:

Made from some beautiful un-dyed Rowan wool -- very soft and squishy. This is a picture of the wrap while it was drying from its post-finishing wash. It's made using four strands of chunky yarn at a time...heavy!!!

And, now, finally presenting: The Zombie BBQ socks! At last...oh, man, it seemed like I've been working on these forever (6 weeks). Way too much sock yarn to knit in my stash to be taking so long on one pair. Bottom line is I need an extra pair of hands that does nothing but knit. That would be really, really helpful.

I had to hurry up and take a pic of the socks because I needed to wear them today as they totally match my outfit. This is important even though I am wearing boots and no one can see my feet. But, I know.

My New Pride and Joy

2010-11-04T05:05:00.000-07:00

I feel like a proud parent that is about to bore you to death with pictures of my newest offspring! But, I couldn't help myself by taking several pictures and then couldn't decide which one was the best for the blog. Why choose????

So, here it is -- art yarn that is inspired by spending a lot of time at the beach:

I don't know the yardage and it's not important cause it's not for sale!!! It's mine, all mine...

Now, what next? I have an idea for mixing cream colored fleece with some vintage blue fabric and beads -- but not for about a week or so cause I will be focusing on knitting for the next few days.

Happy Halloween, 2010

2010-11-01T04:56:00.000-07:00

Medusa, on her way to a party, in all her reptilian glory!

The Beach in Progress

2010-10-28T04:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lousy pic, but on the wheel you see the yarn I've been working on this week which has little elements of things from the beach in it: scraps of blue silk, shells, little pieces of rope, irridescent beads and nice big fat fake pearls from an old necklace. Spinning the base yarn was not a big deal but stringing all the add ins is taking a lot longer than I expected. I can't wait to see the finished product!!!

Spinning Under the Influence

2010-10-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

I was dreading it. For a couple of months, I have known I had to have some dental work done -- Ok, I call it "oral surgery" and SO laughs at me -- but after, a horrible experience with getting my upper wisdom teeth out by a woman I call, "The Butcher", I've avoided anything other than routine cleanings like the plague.

So, Friday was the big day to get fitted for the crown I needed for a very painful cracked tooth and three other fillings scattered around my mouth. I dutifully took the pre-procedure medication Thursday night and it wasn't calming me down so on Friday morning when I was supposed to take some more...I took more than instructed just in case. I had had too many visualizations of getting in the middle of the whole thing and deciding I wanted things to stop and throwing the dentist and the assistant off of me before I ran out of the room.

With the additional help of laughing gas and my iPod to drown out the sound of the drill, the morning passed by while I laid in the dentist chair. Later in the day, all the lovely numbing medications wore off and the pain started and that necesitated some painkillers.

I'm not a fan of taking stuff like that. I don't like that wooziness.

But, I fought off the urge to fall asleep so that I could make some more art yarn:

Because I was spinning under the influence of Vicodan, this little batch took all night. Actually there were times, when I sort of dozed off while putting together the add-ins (beads and fabric). But, so worth it!!!

100th Post Anniversary!!!

2010-10-19T04:56:00.000-07:00

Geez, in less than one year, I've posted 100 posts to this blog!!!

You know how it is when you hit a milestone. It makes you scan your memory bank for earlier times. I looked back to a blog I had a few years ago that was rather short-lived. I snagged this post from January 30, 2007 to repost here in honor of this blog's big birthday.

The title was "Belly Flops" and reading it now, I can only imagine how much time all of this took with very little to show in the end:

Not just little flops...major flops in the kitchen on Sunday.

(1) Broccoli, Cauliflower and White Bean Soup. The concept is that you cook the veggies in broth with white beans such as cannellini beans and then puree. Ate half a serving. Threw out the rest.

(2) Algerian Fish Soup. Seemed like a good use for some fish I had in the freezer that I wanted to get rid of. Called for potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, celery, broth, and saffron. It was marginal at best. Ate one bowl. The rest goes out tonight.

(3) Cheese Grits. In endeavoring to make life more interesting on the WW Core Program, I ventured into the territory of garlicky, fat free cheese grits. Might have been ok without the garlic. Ate one tablespoon full. It was not true that the leftovers were better. Threw out the whole pan.

(4) Roasted Cabbage. Compliments of Mollie Katzen's "Vegetable Heaven" cookbook. Seemed like a good way to use up a head of cabbage that was getting ready to head south. It was not. Next time, I will just make coleslaw and forget about creative ways to use cabbage. Two bites and into the trash.

(5) Fried Bananas. Finally, a winner!!!! And, it was a big winner, at that. Yummy.

So, there you have it. All the food I planned on eating this week, down the tubes. Ended up making a big batch of hummus last night to tide myself over.

Wow...what was I thinking back then...this was before knitting captured me.

Hot Ghetto Mess "Art" Yarn

2010-10-18T04:56:00.000-07:00

Somehow this year, I've been fitting in learning how to spin yarn. I've taken some classes and bought all the stuff. I don't care to learn how to spin yarn to knit a sweater -- I'm only in this to spin visually interesting and electic but not highly useful art yarn.

Finally, things have settled down enough that I was able to spend some time last night to further this new passion.

I first organized a bunch of beads that I've accumulated along the way. I couldn't just spin without having all my supplies organized first...otherwise, known as a delay tactic.

Then, I looked at the pile of little bits and clumps of free fleece that I had -- none of it combed so not easy to spin and decided I had to run all of it through the drum carder first to smooth it out. Drum carding is fun anyway and my little drum carder is very light and easy to set up.

So, the fleece was ready, the beads were organized and without anymore reason to delay, I got going.

To my most delightful surprise, I was able to spin a continous strand without much trouble even though I haven't spun anything for about a month and a half and it was iffy then.

After I spun all I had of some muddy grey/brown fleece I'd carded, I went back and plyed it with some bright orange beads I threaded onto some yellow cotton thread. You have to know I was not going for beauty or any visual appeal -- just practicing with junk I had on hand.

This was the result:

So, there's maybe a 1% chance you are thinking, "Wow!!!! What are you going to make with that unique, one of a kind, designer yarn? A hat, a scarf, a hat and a scarf, mittens, a bag?? The possibilities must be endless!"

All good questions, however, in the interest in full disclosure, I have to show you this picture taken at SO's suggestion:

Yes, after a night of devoting myself to doing this, I end up with a very small ball of yarn. I offered it to SO who wasn't quite sure what to do with it and suggested that I might regret gifting away my first successful solo attempt. I asked if he said that to his kids when they brought home their art projects from school. We then agreed that the first art yarn would look good in one of his jars of little odds and ends that he collects.

So, mark this post and let's see how my work looks a year from now.

2010-10-15T04:07:00.001-07:00

There they sit.

Staring at me.

Peel me.

Dehydrate me.

Make me into applesauce, apple pie, apple dumplings, apple pandowdy (what is that anyway?), etc.

Now, in the aftermath of the Teepee Quest, it's time to get back to regular business. The apples, for example, were acquired at the Apple Festival a couple of weeks ago and though we did manage to get through peeling and dehydrating a half a bushel, the other bushel and a half are sitting in my den waiting for attention. I managed to get most of the den under control otherwise and back on track with getting some knitting done (wait till you see the next project that is coming off the needles!), but I'm still in a pretty big hole -- the produce coming in from the farm shares is still eating me alive...but not that many weeks left for that and in fact, yesterday I had two bags instead of three to sort through.

Oh, and let's not forget work -- the place where I go five days a week and can be a little demanding. The fall, in particular, is my busy time as I'm getting everything ready for next year (budgets, review process, technology projects).

And, yet, at the same time, my mind keeps wandering off to the land of trying to decide which next large item needs to be covered in crochet -- I think it must be some form of sickness.

At Last...Mission Accomplished!

2010-10-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

The weekend of THE BIG Project has come and gone...

Many months ago, we conceived the idea of combining our two favorite hobbies -- for me, something involving yarn and for SO something related to Native American artifacts. The resulting idea was to create a teepee covered in crochet to take with us to an arts festival (Playa Del Fuego) last weekend.

I'm very proud to say that we pulled it off and it was a success, but getting there was quite the journey.

At the outset, because of our yarnbombing experiences, we knew that buying pieces from yard sales would be much better than me trying to manufacture the knitted/crocheted outer layer. So, we went on a three plus month tear buying things at yard sales. We learned a lot along the way -- for starters, don't pay more than $3 for large afghans! They are to be had for $3 or less.

We had no idea how much would be needed so I kept buying and buying and buying and I think by the time we entered the construction phase, I had accumulated something like 70 pieces or so -- afghans, baby blankets, some hats and scarves and some other odds and ends. In the end, we needed about half of what we had. Yes, there is enough leftover to make another one.

Then, it was time to deal with the poles. SO figured out that bamboo would be a good material to use and we knew where some was, but that involved going up to some one's house and asking to cut it down and I couldn't imagine trying to explain this to a stranger. Luckily, the universe intervened and someone I was taking a class from back in September mentioned their backyard was overgrown with bamboo. I blogged about the adventure of getting the bamboo last month as you may recall.

With the bamboo under control, we were onto making the base skin. We had decided to sew together sheets and then attach the afghans. This was quite a bit of work also. Rather haphazardly we'd gathered sheets from yard sales too (they cost about $1 each). But, when we went to work with them, we discovered that there are good, sturdy old unfitted cotton sheets and then there are flimsy, stretchy polyester/cotton sheets. Luckily, the worst sheet ended up being only a small section of the skin.

From there, SO scaled up a small pattern from a book and built a paper model to test the design. After some modification, we marked up the sewn sheets, cut off the excess and then I hemmed the base skin for miles and miles.

Finally, it was time to attach the afghans! We started with the largest one and positioned it in the center of the back. This ended up being helpful later when we wanted to match the erecting pole to the center back. From there, we continued to apply and attach the afghans from largest to smallest. This was fairly time-consuming work and we worked on that step alone on and off for over three weeks. Poor SO had no dining room table during all that time! We attached the afghans like a tied quilt, using heavy, thick cotton thread which we tied in knots. Originally, we were taking the time to tuck the ends inside, but let that go in the interest of time.

We wanted the whole skin covered, but the bottom edge is round and the afghans are not -- what to do? Originally, I was going to piece in small things like hats, scarves, etc. However, one night, pretty late when we were toiling away, we discovered that the granny square style of afghan made in blocks could be taken apart and fitted pretty easily without compromising the integrity of the crochet.

Then, it was onto the raising of the teepee. The first time it went up so easily!!! But, the next day we had to rush and rip out down because of rain. A week before the event, we put it up again, but this time it took TWO HOURS and that discouraged us a little.

But, luckily, after getting to the festival, we had a relatively easy time of raising it and even slept inside of it two nights!

The teepee was a hit. We received many compliments with my favorite being, "there's just so much grandmotherly love in it!" How true!! We were so gratified that our project was well-received.

Besides the magnificent teepee experience, the highlight of the festival was Saturday night which included amazing fire performances including burning hula-hoops and bull-whips

and then, the burning of a wooden winged horse. The pictures cannot do this justice, but we offer up a few shots:

So, if you read this blog often, you know I have a bit of a crazy streak which leads me to think that we should now tackle a Circus Tent! We'll see.

First Project of October

2010-10-07T04:19:00.000-07:00

Ta-Da!

Finished this last night. It is a large cowl/scarf thing that extends down over the shoulders and made from 50% wool and 50% alpaca...soffffftttt. This was super easy and would be a great beginner project -- or a break from sock knitting and other somewhat complicated delights. I'm not keeping it but halfway through I was loving it so much I ordered more yarn!

Starting out the October knitting pile in grand style!!!

Love Letter...

2010-10-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post is gushy and schmaltzy, you may want to skip this one.

I've been blogging at this and other blogs for some time now and have to resist the urge say to a lot about my dear SO. Early on in blogging, he indicated that he didn't want me to pour it on too thick about how great I think he is.

But, after all this time, I thought maybe I could slip in a little post about the one and only.

OK, so for starters, he gave me these boots:

How great is it that our feet are almost the same size and I can wear a pair of his cowboy boots that were a little tight for him? AND, he even took them to the fancy boot-repair guy in Texas and had them spiffed up for me on one of his biz trips last year!

Second, he'll wear a costume on occasion:

SO is on the left in case you were wondering.

Third, he tolerates me taking over large portions of his house for my crazy projects:

Fourth, he once helped me get home a green coconut we found in the streets of Miami. This involved negotiating with the TSA officer at the airport to let me take it on the plane and then hack-hack-hacking away at the thing to open it -- only to find there wasn't really much inside.

And, despite the fact that my cat is so jealous of him, she's often grouchy towards him, he's nice to her because he knows how important she is to me:

And, he makes amazing pizza!

I hope he will always be beside me...

The REAL Broken Dishes

2010-09-30T03:15:00.000-07:00

One of the most interesting aspects of quilt collecting and making is understanding the association between quilts and the lives of the women who made them. The old names assigned to quilt patterns show us some of the connection.

Unfortunately, research done on the earliest quilt pattern names and where they came from have not been very successful.

When I was learning to quilt, my teacher encouraged us to sign the back of the quilt with our name, who the quilt was being given to (if applicable), the date made, the city and the pattern name. It's wonderful to imagine that someday a historian might find that on a quilt I've made and be able to use that information. However, as you might expect, that information is rarely to be found on an old quilt that you might buy at an auction. I have a few, particularly my red work quilts, where the year was included, but that is all.

The first known quilt pattern published in an American magazine was a honeycomb pattern, now commonly known as Grandmother's Flower Garden, published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1835. Often when patterns were published, they were printed without a name and just simply featured as "patchwork". Imagine a magazine today printing a recipe for chocolate cake and calling it "Baking"!!!

Thankfully, the ambiguous pattern publishing issue cleared up by the 1880's and things were off and running for the next 50 years or so and by the 1920's to 1930's, there was a big quilt-making revival.

The Broken Dishes pattern, for which this blog is named, is a pattern that reflects home life along with Cake Stand, Basket, Attic Windows, Baby Blocks, Tumbling Blocks, Puss in the Corner, Chimney Sweep, Dove in the Window and Dresden Plate. You might have read the post about SO's quilt -- that is a Dresden Plate pattern.

I had always wanted a Broken Dishes patterned quilt -- so much so it's part of the reason for this blog's name. I finally scored one at a yard sale recently and to top it off, I paid only $5 for this sweet little crib quilt.

It was a little stained, but cleaned up nicely. It is sitting in my spare room where it doesn't quite go, but I haven't figured out a better spot yet.

I hope to either find one or make one some day that's a bit bigger!

Coming Soon...

2010-09-27T04:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a teaser of an upcoming post...THE BIG project is nearing completion:

She stands about 12 feet tall or so. She was up on Saturday (a week earlier than I expected) and then, down yesterday morning due to rain.

Last Weekend's Cooking Marathon - Update

2010-09-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned earlier, I knocked myself out on Sunday cooking a lot of food for the week. But, I am enjoying the fruits of these labors. It's pretty nice just looking in the fridge and seeing a few appealing options already there staring me in the face when I am too frazzled to think! I am really appreciating the dessert items because I'm staying out of junky stuff and eating small portions of things made with healthier ingredients...and so is SO. He was away last weekend and the food wasn't so great so he's glad to be back eating Broken Dishes style.

So, today for lunch I packed some of my homemade goodies and, although I'm not much of a food stylist, I took a few snaps for the blog-er-roo. Here's part of my avocado sandwich -- I almost forgot to take the picture so I have to apologize that it's half eaten:

I also had the yummy, yummy Bean Soup with Tomatoes and Greens.

The tomatoes in this were super good ones from the farm share last week -- the greens were too.

One thing I learned is I probably only needed to make about half of what I made for the lunches and dinners -- so I will be cutting back to one soup, one dinner entree and one lunch entree...but I think we need both desserts: one type of cookie and one other pie/cake type thing.

Sock Fest 2010!!!

2010-09-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

My sweet cuz and I had a Sock Fest and Yarn Crawl down at the beach and I have a couple of pics to share.

Getting to the appointed rendezvous involved making a turn down an obscure unmarked road -- the best way to locate the proper turn is to use this landmark:

Within minutes, my cuz had established her knitting nest on the porch!

Of course, all knitter's approach the craft differently. I'm very strict about only having one big and one little project in process at all times. I'm afraid I will have a lot of Unfinished Objects (UFOs), if I let myself loose on a bunch of things at once. Cuz has no such fears -- in fact, she has at least three pairs of socks where only one sock is done. I can sort of understand taking a break in between because I do find it torturous to do the second sock as I've noted as recently as last week.

In honor of the occassion and because Halloween will be soon upon us, I chose to start the infamous Zombie BBQ socks:

As of right now, I'm 2/3 finished the first sock. So, that will get done this week...and then, the dreaded second sock will be upon me with a deadline looming, no less.

Our little yarn crawl took us to two yarn stores -- I bought just a little more yarn -- Just stuff to make quick scarves. My cup truly runneth over right now with yarn and I'm trying to take advantage of all opportunities to get caught up.

Once I got back from the Sock Fest, I set upon a mighty mountain of cooking. I'm trying a new approach this week -- I cooked everything for the whole week this afternoon. It took WAY longer than expected. But, I have two soups, an eggless egg salad, eggplant parm, cookies and a blueberry crunch ready for the week. I will hardly know what to pick from tomorrow! And, the kitchen is pretty well put back together.

The Color Purple

2010-09-14T05:57:00.000-07:00

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it." -- The Color Purple by Alice Walker

In appreciation for the color purple, I've been knitting and knitting a mostly purple pair of socks. They are done. Phew! Lately, it feels like I'm knitting in mud -- knitting but nothing is getting accomplished.

Wow...second sock syndrome is really something else! It feels like I was slaving over these socks for the longest time but probably only about three weeks or so. In any event, they are done and now I have something purple-ish for the fall!

As you can see, I used the flat panel yarn which I love, love, love for traveling (no rolling balls of sock yarn down the airplane aisle!). And, truth be told, I thought the socks would be prettier because the panel was so pretty. I still like them, but I had higher hopes. But there will be other socks to fall in love with...

So, I give you the classic before and after shots:

Right after I finished them I immediately cast on my next project because the casting on takes a little more concentration. I'm onto knitting the yarn known as "Zombie BBQ" which is greenish/grey/reddish in color. I confess I've already cast it on twice and not been happy with the results. Ugh!!!! Hopefully, third time will be a charm.

Crimes Committed in the Name of Crochet

2010-09-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

We are getting closer to the structure being built for the defense and preservation of the crimes that have been committed in the name of crochet.

Saturday night, we tackled the project of getting some bamboo poles to support the structure:

On one hand, we were fortunate that we came in contact with someone whose backyard is overgrown with bamboo and was glad to get rid of part of the "Ho Chi Mihn Trail". On the other hand, it was a lot more difficult (physically) than was anticipated and took a lot longer. We were running out of daylight at the end of the harvesting and our benefactor had to hold a flashlight up while SO lashed the bamboo down. I drove back home and had a few good chuckles over how my car looked with a bamboo snout. The bamboo came from almost an hour away so the ride back felt pretty long. But, at the end of the whole ordeal, we were glad that we got this part done.

In the meantime, I found time before it got rainy to put together the draft layout of the afghans on the shell:

I confess, even though this was kind of taxing physically, this was the fun part I've been looking forward to! Finally, I can start to see the realization of this vision a little better.

I would like to direct your attention to the small granny square piece in the lower right-hand corner -- that is actually one of four chair pads that SO rescued from an estate sale. I'm trying to work all of those in and really hoping that I get them mostly in the front.

The piece that looks bluish-grey towards the far right has a little story too. We were coming back from Arlington on a Sunday afternoon, feeling somewhat exhausted from a full day of crocheted item hunting the day before and stopped at a large yard sale. I ferreted this piece out of a pile -- the picture does not do it justice but it is HORRIBLE. I inquired about the price and I think the man said a dollar or fifty cents, but the smallest bill that either of us had was a twenty and I only had a nickel in my change purse. The guy took the nickel!!! I think this wound up being the least expensive piece we saved from doom.

Now, we are making the mad dash to get the abused crochet pieces onto the shell. It's fun -- a lot like quilt-making -- but time consuming. I'd estimate that we are at least 30% done now. All but one of the big pieces are on...so I'm hoping that dealing with the smaller pieces will feel like rolling down hill...:-)

What I Did On My Stay-cation

2010-09-11T05:00:00.001-07:00

I've been on stay-cation this week because (1) the office was closed on Monday, (2) Jewish holidays, and (3) early in the week, I took classes on preparing fiber for spinning it into yarn. It was pretty nice to be off for a bunch of days and not pack a suitcase for a change!!!

I took plenty of pics from the classes -- Without further ado:

This, my friends, is not an ancient instrument of torture or a prop from the "Saw" movies. This is called a picker and it gives a big loose combing to crunched up fleece. It actually works very nicely to prepare fleece for more fine combing. However, it is important not to get your hands in the wrong spots or wear loose clothing.

Here is some fleece before and after the carding process. The carding greatly helps to prepare fleece for spinning. Theoretically, the more combed out the fleece is, the easier it is to spin a nice smooth fine yarn. I say "theoretically" because I can chunk it up no matter what I start out with.

This picture is an example of the different effects of color blending that one can get from using different approaches when carding fleece.

Now, we move onto some of the stuff I prepared using my own drum carder. This was a mixture of green and yellow fleece:

Here's my drum carder in action! You feed some fleece loosely onto one side, turn the handle, the drum turns and as it turns, it combs the fleece!

Here is an example of a batt I produced with red, coral, yellow and brown to get a fall color effect going:

And, finally, some yarn...this yarn is from fleece I prepared and then spun using some art yarn techniques. All along my path to learn how to do this stuff, this is what it is all about for me. I'm off and running now!!!

New Orleans, Part 2

2010-09-03T03:29:00.000-07:00

The signs we ordered when we were in New Orleans arrived!!!!

Mine is hanging in my hallway from the ground floor leading up to the main floor right off the kitchen:

I picked this one because I love the song "They All Asked For You": Oh, I went down to the Audobon Zoo and they all asked for you...the tigers asked, the monkeys asked and the elephant asked too..."

SO picked this one because of his love of growing plants...really anything...sometimes we will be out somewhere and he will see a little plant and take a little piece to try to grow at home.

And, finally, one to honor our joint love of the jalapeno! We've been known to push the use of jalapenos a little -- I even snuck some into potato salad tonight. The snake is actually made from beer bottle caps -- the artist is partial to Heineken.

SO Puts His Foot Down

2010-08-30T03:33:00.000-07:00

SO is very supportive of my "creativity". But, come to find out he has his limits.

Last Saturday we were in the middle of a triple whammy pickin' day -- yard/garage sales first, antique stores second and finishing up with an auction. Mid-morning we ended up on a total wild goose chase when we got hooked into following for signs for a moving sale way out in the country. We followed those signs for miles and found the road, but never found the sale. I will say the person put a lot into the signs though.

I had a feeling that the next sale we found would yield pure gold!

The next thing we found was a big sale in some type of mechanics parking lot. I saw a big, white, metal birdcage that I liked but could not decide where I would put it in my "storage shed". We went back and forth talking about how much to offer, what I would do with it, etc. As we strolled along and looked at the other things for sale, I spied something pretty unique in the world of crocheted/knitted objects.

I started to shake for I have never encountered anything like this before; yet, SO finally said, "NO...I'm not going to negotiate the price..." Here is the now-fabled item:

I'm sure you are wondering: it includes plastic nipples that seem to be from baby bottles.

And, while SO wouldn't haggle over this lovely item, I couldn't leave without trying. It was marked $5 and can you believe they wouldn't come off that price???

The Rebirth of the Frogtowne Fairie Patch

2010-08-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

So, it's like this...one of today's projects was to work on the Frogtowne Fairie Patch. I had a basket of goodies sitting by SO's back door for a few weeks and planned to build up the wall around the patch and maybe make another fairie house...so, we went out to the "FP", but when we got there, we quickly realized something was seriously wrong.

I'm sorry to report that some person(s) had been in the fairie patch and vandalized it. Things were ripped out of the ground including a whole plant that SO had planted a few weeks ago and one of the ferns was somewhat ripped up. It was very distressing. Maybe it was a couple of kids playing back there, but we couldn't understand what the deal was with the damage to the plant.

After some discussion, we decided to build a new FP closer to the house to discourage this activity. I gathered up the small items and we scouted a new location. In a little bit, we had it cleared out and began executing a new vision.

Behold:

The entrance

A little further down the path

The focal point of the FP is a sun mosaic made out of shells and stones
These are the shells that came from a yard sale - $2 for a whole basketful.

The entrance to the fairies' treasure vault

Another shot of the entrance.

Close up on the vault doors -- can you see the treasure???

Another treasure shot!

What is the moral of the story? I think the whole experience emphasizes that when something you dreamt of doesn't work out the way you thought, you have to construct a new dream. Nothing else makes sense.

Getting Back into The Broken Dishes Groove

2010-08-26T03:14:00.000-07:00

Not much creativity going on here this week as I'm up to my ears in digging out from being away. First, there was the insane amount of wash that had piled up: 10 days out of town, half a week's worth at home and then even some at SO's. Turns out I really do have more than two week's worth of underwear, apparently.

Then, the fridge -- scary situation there too. I had farm share stuff in there from way before I left and it was kind of on its last legs then...so imagine what an extra couple of weeks did to some cucumbers. And, since I use those green bags to store them in, I then had to wash those and find place to dry them all over the kitchen.

The house got cleaned yesterday and the woman who helps me with that called me at work to let me know that the five gothic dolls I bought for $1 at a garage sale were creeping her out and she was having trouble cleaning the spare bedroom they are in.

SO came over last night and helped out too -- six more lovely paint by numbers pictures that I bought weeks ago are now part of the gallery.

I got through all my credit card receipts, etc. and paid the bills last night which always makes me feel free and clean -- a feeling that lasts too briefly.

Then, we have the matter of the cat. She hasn't helped out with one single thing. What a bum! Such a mooch -- all she wants is stinky, wet cat food. And, to top things off, she's decided that she wants to hang out in the recycling pile:

And, of course, I'm still behind at work but today I should make some good progress on that front.

By the weekend, I will have things back in order and be back to my usual high jinx. Actually, I sent SO a few yard sale links for sales starting today so let's see what he's able to scare up!

Giraffe Socks

2010-08-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

Have to apologize for these pics...I was on the road and just putting together blog posts on the fly. The first picture was actually taken in the car on the way to the airport:

Since I'm traveling, I using Flat Feet Socks yarn which comes in a panel -- this prevents a ball of yarn from roaming around on an airplane. Also, I am using two circular needles instead of four double points -- the double pointed needles have such a habit of wandering off, especially on an airplane that once I learned how to make socks with the circs about 8 months ago, there was just no turning back. The whole set up looks odd, but it's really practical.

I had one sock done for quite awhile and before going on the road last Friday, I had only a couple of inches done on the dreaded second sock. There's really nothing like a trip to help me bust through the boring-ness of the second sock.

So, now these are finished. I'm an eentsy-weentsy bit farther to getting my sock yarn stash under control.

Of course, I set up the next sock on the needles right away and I think they are going to be the most beautiful socks I've ever knitted...until the next pair comes along....

Shh....Fairies...

2010-08-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

Look closely to see the wee folk in my sweet friend, Debbie's front yard:

This photo came out looking like an old-time sepia toned tin type -- a total accident! The sun was just incredibly bright and since I'm not much of a photographer, it turned out like this. If you look closely, you can see a little goblin-like guy behind the little barred door.

Here's a better shot of the whole house.

Debbie is super lucky to have such a great fairie house like this!

SO's Quilt!!!

2010-08-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

Almost a year ago, SO said he wanted an old quilt...I knew I had one that needed a little work and thought I'd fix it up for him. When I went to find it, in the same garbage bag was an old quilt top crunched up into a ball. I had no idea where it came from, but I showed it to SO and he would like to have it.

The quilt top was in excellent shape -- as you will see below, it is a Dresden Plate pattern made with feedsack probably from the thirties -- but it did have some brown stains that needed to be removed. One weekend back last fall, we took our first plunge into cleaning vintage textiles and got the stains out.

I found a quilter...but because of her work backlog, she couldn't work on it till last month.

At long last, I picked it up last week and when I first saw it, it took my breath away. I put the binding on and here's the finished product:

As it turns out, I had gotten the quilt top from a dear friend who had bought it at an auction for a dollar about 40 years ago!

This Ain't No Disco, This Ain't No Country Club

2010-08-12T04:36:00.000-07:00

Long day yesterday -- up early to the gym, then work, then met a friend for dinner, then dance class, then stopped by another friend's house to see a renovation project on my way home of 35 miles...Had it my mind to go right to bed when I got home.

BUT...

I forgot that the granola bars I was attempting to make were sitting in the dehydrator waiting to be packaged up for our trip tomorrow...

I thought, "Oh, come on, you can do it. This won't take long. Don't let it sit till the morning." So, I took the granola out of the dehydrator and they looked like this:

And, then, they didn't. As I went to flip them onto a cutting board, half of the "bars" went sailing onto the floor and suddenly there were many piles of sticky oats, dried fruit and nuts all over the kitchen floor when what I wanted most was to go to bed. To make matters worse, the cat wanted to eat the stuff on the floor so I had to get her disinterested fast. Something tells me that while she might like the taste, her system would not be so about crazy it. Realizing that I might have further spillage, I got up the big stuff and put off the vacuuming till I was done with the packaging.

Next, came out the vacuum sealer which had to be unearthed from the depths of the cabinet in my butcher block island. Then, it wouldn't work -- it's old and has gotten quite fussy and based upon last night's experience, I believe it's high time for a new one. But, in the meantime, over and over I messed around with that thing to get the granola "bars" sealed up.

I keep writing "bars" because they aren't really bars -- this stuff is more like big chunks of granola -- it didn't hold together enough to be deemed a "bar".

I'd gotten the idea to vacuum seal them from some internet post I'd read (of course) and thought it might be good since I wanted to take these with us on the trip. The internet post failed to mention that the vacuum sealing process sort of affects them like a ham-fisted man crushing a beer can.

Oh, well, I know they will still taste good.

Glad I didn't try to tackle the beef jerky project too!!!

Pre-Construction Photos

2010-08-08T16:36:00.000-07:00

I hinted last week that I'm preparing a project to honor all the ugly crocheted items I started buying at yard sales for yarn bombing. Below are pictures of the major pieces that we had accumulated as of last weekend.

After laying all this out, I realized I didn't need any more baby themed items and still needed a bunch of large, colorful pieces. I also measured and inventoried what I have.

Not telling yet what we're making...

The Broken Dishes Art Gallery

2010-08-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

My poor attempts at art curation have led to a broken heart! I was trying to clean a precious paint by numbers painting and ruined it by using alcohol to try and remove some of the dirt...It was a stupid idea for starters and not sure why I didn't see that coming:

OK, the good news is that the painting with the frame only cost $3, but it's not the money, it's the finding of another small piece at a cheap price that's getting me. I saw a lot of paint by numbers (PBN's) last weekend and they were much more.

So, this tragedy got me to thinking that I've been accumulating these but not necessarily sharing them with my blog readers. Now, without further ado, I present The Broken Dishes Art Gallery!!!

I have shown these before but I couldn't bear to exclude them in case you missed that post and your art gallery tour wouldn't be complete without them!

Now, we are moving to a small bedroom upstairs -- this room has sort of become the space to put larger pictures of animals.

First up: Lassie

And, here we have "Big Buck" who came complete with his gold colored frame!

Now, onto one of the bathrooms...I've got pairs of pics in here. First we have the kitties:

And, here we have the other pair of pics in this room: The Black Swaying Palms Series:

And, finally, to conclude our tour, at last I have obtained a religious-themed pic!

This concludes your tour of the current items on display at The Broken Dishes Art Gallery. Enjoy your day!

The Current Quest and a Few Side Quests

2010-08-02T03:46:00.000-07:00

I'm in the middle of planning a large project which is in honor of all the ugly crocheted things I find at yard sales. I have about two months till it's time to put it out to the world, so I'm on a mad quest to find items to incorporate. So, Saturday, out we went into the yard/garage sale world to find things to add, but you have to be flexible about buying other things because yard sale-ing is a completely opportunistic thing.

So, first up was this dandy box of shells for $2:

What you can't see is that there were two large clam shells with decoupage of the three wise men first going to the nativity scene and then at the nativity scene -- sorry no pic of that. I went through and sorted them out so I know what I have and a couple of the large shells already made it out to the Frogtowne Faerie Patch. More shells will be used for faerie dwellings later.

Now, isn't she a beauty? But, why did I buy this?!?! Frankly, there were two other things I wanted at this garage sale: (1) a sofa in the shape of a set of lips covered in red velvet. I knew that was asking for big trouble so I didn't even start discussing a price; and (2) an end table that would have been great in my bedroom which I thought the price was $5 and didn't see the "0" after the "5". Good thing SO caught me on that one before I started trying to get the thing for $5! So, to appease myself, I bought this weird thing instead for $7. It came with the dress which is handsewn and quite old (from the 30's?). I will put it in the corner in my sewing room -- where I'm rapidly running out of room due to my love of old suitcases.

Now, here is the main event. These piles were culled from countless stops along the way on Saturday. This represents a lot of tracking down. There were more to be had but the sellers wanted too much. I say that now, but after some more thought I believe I might have passed up a few things that I should have taken. Oh, well, there will be more.

We did go out yesterday as well. Originally in search of a mythical yard sale that promised some unusual items, but we got side tracked. The diversion yielded some fruit but no crocheted items. There's always next weekend.

Crunchy Granola

2010-07-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

I made granola on Sunday. Why didn't I ever do this before?

And, it was good and I'm gonna make it again.

If you want to follow along with me, here's the next recipe I'm going to try:

Granola

5 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup liquid sweetener (maple syrup, honey, molasses, or agave nectar)
1/3 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup powdered milk
1 tsp salt
3 tsp cinnamon
Choice of nuts and/or dried fruits

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly greeze 2 13 x 9 pans. Whisk together wet ingredients. Combine dry ingredients. Mix wet and dry ingredients together except for fruits. Spread into pans. Bake for 5 to 10 minutes or until toasted. Cool and add dried fruits.

So there you have it: inexpensive, easy and fun to make. What more can I tell you?

Now, most people would be satisfied and stop there but I have to crazy things up by scouring through many cookbooks to see if there are granola possibilities I haven't even contemplated.

Back to Back Peach Cobbler Weekends!

2010-07-26T04:56:00.001-07:00

Last weekend a friend brought me some peaches and knowing that any form of cobbler is a big hit with SO, I made a cobbler.

After looking on the internet and comparing some recipes, I combined a couple of recipes and changed some things around and my own little version of peach cobbler was born. And, it was good and SO liked it very much.

However...we both thought of things that could make it just a little better...so I bought more peaches on Friday and Saturday morning went at it again. Here's the finished product right out of the oven:

And, this time, it wasn't just good -- it was very, very good...Now, I'm going to try to formula on some blueberries and see how that works out.

Late Week Variety Pack

2010-07-23T03:03:00.001-07:00

Oy, what a week! It was a toughie at work for starters and then I got caught up in a fever thinking about buying a little internet yarn business for a couple of days. In the meantime, SO is doing his best John Henry imitation and has been hauling paving stones around in the backyard. So, yay for the weekend!

Last Saturday in between lots of tasks in the kitchen to get the farm shares under control, I drove out to Feederbrook Farm to pick up some roving for spinning. The owner, Lisa, was the teacher for the cheese class the week before and had mentioned that she was having a big sale if you brought some items for the food bank. Since I needed some roving to practice with, it seemed like a good excuse to go to the farm and check it out. Lisa gave me a great tour -- I got to meet all the animals (sheep, mohair goats, alpaca and peacocks!) and tried to get some pics for this blog, but my darn camera phone decided not to work! Can you stand it? When it finally came back to its senses, I got some snaps at home of the bags of roving:

The blue/green roving is called "Fairy Garden"!

On Sunday, we were out doing a little end of the weekend yard-saling, when we saw this funny sign:

I admit I had to look several times before I noticed that someone had taken the "e" off of receive. It gave us a little chuckle anyway.

Don't know what the weekend holds, but tomorrow is supposed to be 99 degrees so it could be a good day to watch the copies of "Dark Crystal" and "Labyrinth" that came in the mail this week and spin up some of my new roving.

The Frogtowne Faerie Patch

2010-07-18T17:16:00.000-07:00

Come with me down a pretty little path through the woods....

Look to your right...What do you spy?

Do my eyes deceive me???
No, it is a faerie house!!!
You know what that means -- there might be a real live faerie patch around here.

And, lo and behold, shortly thereafter, you see the entrance to a faerie patch that is under construction:

Oh, yes, the little people have been at work here...

We can't reveal the secret location of this spectacular discovery but we here at The Broken Dishes will update you periodically as construction progresses.

The Yard Sales of the Seven Valleys...

2010-07-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with the Dance of the Seven Veils...SO and I set out for some yard-sale-ing last Saturday and ended up in the town called Seven Valley(s?). As luck would have it, it was a town-wide yard sale and for a good part of the adventure, we were able to walk from sale to sale. In addition, the town Fire Hall had a large in door yard sale going on complete with concession stand and bake sale. The bake sale part ended up being important as we needed a cake for that evening -- the cake turned out surprisingly delicious!

Here's a snap of our consolidated findings:

Yes -- you see fairy wings which were purchased for the princely sum of $3!!! Here I'd been looking at them on the internet for $75 to $100 a pair or making them...
The cute little chair was only $6 and now sits in a little alcove near my kitchen. There was plenty of knitted/crocheted items to be had and they are all stashed in the little doll crib on the left of the picture. It's hard to see, but there are even two handmade yarn dolls that will be part of some yarn grafitti some day. Total yarn grafitti investment was less than $5! SO got a brand new router, an electric clock, some bottles, a meat plate and a charming picture of a deer on a slice of a tree (bottom middle). The only thing that slowed us down a bit was some rain, but that just meant less competition.

Yard-sale-ing is on haitus for this weekend, but we will be back to fine picking form in short order!

Cheese, Glorious Cheese

2010-07-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

Taking a little break from collecting things and knitted objects, I had a cheese making class in my kitchen today for a friend in honor of her 40th birthday. A local shepherdess who conducts cheese making classes came and walked four of us through the world of basic cheesemaking. Enjoy the pics!

The series of photos below depict making mozzarella cheese from raw cow's milk:

So, what would fresh mozzarella be unless it was combined with juicy, ripe tomatoes and basil???

The mozzarella was gobbled up in a flash...since the feta cheese takes a lot longer, we couldn't pig out on that and there was some left and some to give away.

Then, I find out that the teacher also teaches a cheddar making class...can you see where this is headed?

A Little Giftie

2010-07-07T04:54:00.000-07:00

I'm sure it's my insane love of knitted objects that has me thoroughly convinced that everyone is dying to receive some little hand-crafted woolen item from me at some point. At the same time, I confess there's a sliver of my personality not inhabited by my obsession that realizes this isn't necessarily true.

However, as I said, it's a sliver and rarely wins out in the occassional discussion in my head regarding gift-giving and potential gifts to be given.

In my saner moments, I will often buffer the knitted gift by giving it with something else so if the person wasn't experiencing deep-longing for the knitted object, there's something else to fall back upon.

So, recently I've been thinking about pedicure socks -- this is where you make all of a sock until you get to the toe and leave off the toe. This way, the sock can be worn with a flip flop. And, I have a birthday gift to come up with, so I plunged into making a pair of pedicure socks. See below:

I know they look a little short, but they fit my big size 10 foot so I think it will be ok. These are made out of a chunky yarn and should be pretty warm and suitable for those fall pedicure excursions.

Now, I want a pair.

Happy Independence Day! From StitchFace

2010-07-04T03:34:00.000-07:00

Children running loose in the streets of Moldova are benefitting from my purchase of this cute, patriotic piece from a yard sale yesterday ($2).

This little 4th of July tribute is actually pretty well-knitted and I think looks rather nice tucked into this spot.

Happy 4th!

The Way to Glennville, Part 2

2010-07-01T04:36:00.000-07:00

You have to look close, but the sign is now wearing a hat and two scarves...

At this time, the original scarf at the bottom has remained in place for about a month and the hat and additional scarf are going on about two weeks.

The hat was a particularly ugly crocheted item. It was saved from the jaws of yard sale death two weeks ago. But, I will say that the pompom on top (which is hard to see in the picture) was very well made.

In other news, I'm almost through the veggies from the farm from TWO weeks ago and have to go pick up this week's shares today. Of course, it always exciting to see what you get.

The Gulf of Mexico -- Before the Oil Spill

2010-06-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

OK, not the greatest picture because you can't see how beautiful the colors are but I was on the road and the best background for the pic was the white sheets on the bed...So, I bought this yarn before the oil spill and it was advertised as having been hand-dyed to match the colors of the Gulf of Mexico...so for those you are having a hard time remembering, I present the colors of the Gulf Before the Oil Spill as knitted into socks by yours truly.

What is travelling for if not for the knitting of socks???

These are the fifth pair of socks I've knitted (so far) this year -- I like to average one pair a month so I'm falling behind! Luckily, I got a jump on the next pair due to a very long stint at the St. Louis airport because of weather delays. We finally got in to Balto at about 1:30 AM and back to our cars at 2:00 AM only to discover that SO's battery was dead! Ugh! Luckily, one of the drivers at the parking lot was able to come to our assistance. After all was said and done, a very long day of travelling but since I love being with my SO under any circumstances, I really didn't mind.

NOLA - The Broken Dishes Way

2010-06-24T06:17:00.000-07:00

SO and I have been in New Orleans all week. It is my first time here and he hasn't been here in a few decades. It's been hot, sticky and a bit rainy the whole week. This is not my kind of weather and don't see myself getting used to it.

Even with the hot stickiness bearing down on us, we've made our way around pretty well.

Our first day, we took the street car to the northeast corner of the French Quarter to go to an aquatic gardens nursery where there were many cool things to buy but they were large things like fountains and pottery and the store didn't have the resources to get it back to us and we couldn't figure out a way to do it ourselves. RATS! All I got was a cool hat.

After that, we walked and walked and walked through the French Quarter and stopped to do a few things on our wish list which included a couple of tours, Jackson Square and beignets. When we were almost back to the hotel, we stopped into a bar on Bourbon St. for a frosty alcoholic concoction. Thinking I am still 22 years old, I ordered "The Jester" which contained a couple of different very strong liquors and tasted like strawberries and kiwi. Turns out, I'm no longer 22 and within an hour of drinking it, the world was not such a pretty place...but I eventually rallied and we were able to go out to dinner that night to one of the restaurants I have always wanted to visit, K-Paul's -- which did not disappoint.

The next day, we headed off to the Garden District and took a self-guided tour using my trusty AAA guide book. About half way through, we got caught in a hellacious rain storm and hid under a tree for the better part of an hour. After we emerged, we found ourselves one tiny block from this home:

It was Trent Reznor's home of Nine Inch Nails fame!!! This is one of SO's favorites...now it's John Goodman's home which could be exciting if you used to be a fan of the Roseanne show. It was hard to get a good picture. The home is actually pretty large.

From here we went over to one of the old cemetaries -- spooky! We ended up chatting with a couple of people who were taking care of one of the crypts and they warned us that the cemetary is a little dangerous. Actually, the man we were talking to was carrying a gun, so that tells you something.

The afternoon was spent rummaging around on Magazine Street which has a number of antique stores -- unfortunately, stores close early (5:00 PM) so our rummaging was cut short.

During the course of the days we were there, several times we saw these cool signs that were signed by "Simon" -- we wanted to buy a couple but felt the price was a little high...imagine our surprise we stumbled onto the artist working in his studio during our last afternoon of scouting around. Here's a little sample:

We ended up commissioning a couple of signs that should be ready in a couple of months.

But, all good things must come to an end and sure enough, after chowing down on sufficient amounts of red beans and rice, gumbo, fried oysters and catfish, sweet potato pecan pie, blackberry cobbler, corn maque choux, crawfish, fried green tomatoes and beef with debris sauce, it was time to hit the road. We left few things left to do on our list though...

Stairway to Quilt Heaven

2010-06-18T03:54:00.000-07:00

As a nice surprise, SO brought the quilt ladder he made for my birthday to my house. He stashed it up in one of my spare bedrooms so I didn't know it was there until it was almost bed time. Even though I was longing to go to sleep, I couldn't resist moving the furniture around and setting this up:

The toughest part was figuring out which quilts to display. The second toughest part was getting them arranged and I know it still could be better.

The quilt ladder is great on a couple of levels: (1) I get to see the quilts more now; (2) I have room to collect more because the spots where these were stashed are now empty!

I love it!!!

Spinning Soothes the Savage Beast

2010-06-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

Did I mention that I got an old spinning wheel at an estate auction a few weeks ago? Here she sits in my living room:

It's old...Two hundred years-ish...and if we put a drive band on it, it would work.

In the meantime, I waiting for the new wheel to come and practicing with my drop spindle every day and knitting when I can and I'm so thankful for all of that because it is so soothing. Last week we had a death in the family and the funeral was Tuesday and still life goes on -- chores to be done, bills to be paid, a job to be handled...so, thank god for the things one finds soothing no matter what is going on.

Big Day O' Spinning

2010-06-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

Near SO's house is a large store specializing in weaving and spinning -- with plenty of good stuff for knitters. Each year, in June, the store hosts a whole day of demonstrations. Yours truly spent several hours there on Saturday. The weather was perfect and all the demonstrations were great!

For starters, there was an antique spinning wheel demonstration using a walking wheel -- this is the type of wheel a lot of people associate with spinning and would probably be surprised to learn that it was actually used while standing:

I was surprised at how interesting the raising of silk worms and cottage silk production could be. If you look closely in this picture and the next, you can see the silk worms!!!

Of course, the day would not be complete without some actual sheep shearing! Behold in the series of photos below the little guy getting his haircut:

Another happy surprise was how fascinating the discussion on old textiles was -- the talk centered around hand woven items...now, I'm wanting to collect a few old pieces, of course...

Who knew how many colors can be produced from dyeying with mushrooms!!

The next two photos feature spinning flax to make linen. Wow, it was amazing. This was like spinning hair! Linen isn't easy to make:

After everything I've just shown you, I'm almost embarrased to show you plain, jane drop spindle spinning, but this was one of the big things I went to see --

And, now, the most amazing thing of the day -- the spinning of dog hair into yarn! I assumed it was be scratchy and nasty, but it was nice and soft and very pretty. My long-haired cat is now on the radar screen...

Ah, the cotton spinner -- again, I thought the yarn would be kind of rough and yucky but it was beautiful and soft and I want to try it!!!

Here we have a group of spinners happily spinning away under a tree in the beautiful summer sunshine -- I actually got a lot of good help for a couple of women there and my spinning is already better for it.

Desparate Times Call for Desparate Measures

2010-06-10T03:54:00.000-07:00

I left my bag of current knitting projects at SO's house on Sunday -- this includes the Gulf-of-Mexico-Before-the-Oil-Spill Socks and the knitted blanket squares. That meant that in order to survive my business trip to Chicago on Monday and Tuesday, I had to put another project into play. I selected a simple hat that I'd meaning to make for about a year and a half. I figured I could knock it out during the two plane rides to Chi-town.

To simplify things further, I decided to say "screw the directions" and take the needles I thought would work best. Pride goeth before a fall best describes what ensued.

So, I knitted happily on the plane ride to Chicago. I was loving the way the yarn was looking as I knitted along. By the time I went to bed that night, I had very little left to do -- thus, the first problem: I underestimated the amount of knitting required for the trip. This virtually never happens with socks which take a pretty long time.

The next morning, I decided to finish up the hat and realized the folly of my needle selection. I really did need double pointed needles to finish the crown. I do know this...I just didn't really think when I was packing.

Now. I could have let the hat sit till I got home. But, really. I am far too obsessive to do such a logical thing.

Therefore, I made do with what I could find: an assortment of pens. You can see the hat and the improvised tools below:

All I can say is the it worked but I wouldn't recommend it and it was dirty because I had to use the pen points to stab through to the yarn and the ink got all over my left index finger. I think I will write to the "Dirty Jobs" show about that.

Now, back to the regular projects and contemplating the next move for StitchFace and picking out something to make this weekend from the three new cookbooks that arrived this week.

Yarnbombing and the Emergence of StitchFace

2010-06-06T17:28:00.000-07:00

As defined by Wikipedia: Yarn bombing, yarnbombing, graffiti knitting or yarnstorming is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted cloth rather than paint or chalk. While yarn installations – called yarn bombs or knit bombs – may last for years, they are considered non-permanent, and, unlike graffiti, can be easily removed if necessary. The practice is believed to have originated in the U.S. with Texas knitters trying to find a creative way to use their leftover and unfinished knitting projects, but it has since spread worldwide. While other forms of graffiti may be expressive, decorative, territorial, socio-political commentary, advertising or vandalism, yarn bombing is almost exclusively about reclaiming and personalizing sterile or cold public places.

A group of yarnbombers known as StitchFace left their mark in Glenville, Pennsylvania this weekend:

In this first picture, the yarnbomb is a bit difficult to see -- it blends in with the background and the sign from a distance.

Here, we have a closeup. The yarnbomb looks smashing!

When interviewed, representatives from StitchFace commented that they believe it will be quite some time before the county removes the installation.

My Lucky Charm

2010-06-03T04:15:00.000-07:00

I make no secret on this blog that I'm completely head over heels crazy about knitting and all things related. But, my passion doesn't always translate into actually producing the most beautiful things.

There have been flops -- Like the time I thought I could save money on sock yarn and bought cheap cotton yarn from a craftstore to knit some socks. Now, I do have a big foot, but the socks would fit Bozo the Clown. Such experiences are the worst because of all the time invested.

The fact is that you can knit a swatch to check the holy trinity -- the combination of the yarn, needles and your hands and trick yourself into thinking that you've got the gauge correct only to find at the end of the project that you once again flung yourself into the abyss: the item doesn't fit the way you want. Now you are out potentially a lot of cash and time and to complete the experience, another dashed dream!!!

But, I now have the perfect talisman to ward off such occurrences. For my birthday, my insightful and sweet SO gave me an ancient canopa carved in the shape of a llama:

Here's the history:

Ancient Pre-Columbian stone "canopa" or votive offering from the Inca culture. Ca. 14th-15th century from Peru or Bolivia. Canopas fell into two categories. Ones with hollowed out holes on the back were used as offerings by the Inca to insure fertility and good crops by filling the opening with tallow and burying in the field. Those without the holes were prized personal items and carried with the owner as a good-luck talisman.

I believe that now as I pursue my might mission to fill the world with knitted objects, I am safe from the harm of the Flop-Demon as long as I pray before the canopa before I cast on.

Another Day of Pickin'

2010-05-31T11:52:00.000-07:00

The plan was to paint the fence. However, before we set out, we checked and re-checked the weather and thunderstorms looked likely. We went to run an errand and on a whim, decided to check out an estate auction at an old farm...and you probably know the rest of the story. We ended up being at the auction for most of the day.

The mini was pretty stuffed:

And, we had a first:

Yes, we finally had something sticking out of the roof. This was a coat rack that SO bid on. In order to sit in my seat, I had to twist myself around the coat rack. Luckily, we did n't have far to go to get home.

I bought a spinning wheel which dates from sometime around 1800 to 1825 and is buried at the bottom of the pile in the Mini. I was very excited to get it. And, very excited to get a nice quilt made out of feedsacks:

This was THE one I really wanted out of about 8 available at the auction. I was very excited to get it -- it was the best one there.

Siesta Key Socks

2010-05-23T13:54:00.001-07:00

Finally, finally, finally, after what it seems like forever, I finished this pair of socks:

I bought the yarn in Florida and it had been dyed to matchthe shells and sand from the beach where I was staying. So, they are really like a souvenier, right? Not just another pretty pair of socks...

As Promised...

2010-05-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

I finally took a picture of the infamous blue hoodie:

I apologize for not being a very good photographer. I see great pictures all the time on other blogs and wonder how...

Must say, this wore me out on knitting a sweater for a little bit.

How to Do Boring Things

2010-05-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, we should all be so grateful to have each day and for what we have...BUT, sometimes things are B-O-R-I-N-G. I believe this falls under the heading of "Human Nature".

Such is the case with embarking on what seems to be the most exciting project in THE WORLD and then after the initial splash, you have to settle down and start slogging away.

I really want to give a talking to that person who said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".

Right now, I'm battling boredom with this project:

It's going to be a knitted blanket -- As you can see the squares look very quilt-like. But, man, this is slow going. One of these squares takes a lot longer than I expected. Maybe I will have a knitted blanket by Halloween for scary movie-watching.

So...I've made a number of large knitted projects and have come up with a couple of strategies for dealing with the in-between time. Here they are:

1. Alternate chunks of the tedious project with other things so that it stays fresh or
2. Do at least a small amount each day
or
3. Consider the project a meditation and decide it doesn't matter how long it takes.

I seem to like approach #1 for knitting the best.

I use #2 when I'm in total overwhelm mode.

#3 is for the worst of all: re-doing something, ripping something out and large cleaning projects.

So far, I've made two of these squares and now I'm on break finishing a sock before going back to make square three.

Sit and Spin!!!

2010-05-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

The knitting addiction grows...like rust that never sleeps...I've ordered a spinning wheel to spin my own yarn. Since my last blog post, I took a whole day spinning class in preparation for the wheel. I got more than I bargained for -- in a good way. The instructor started out with, "So, you've just shorn your sheep..." Yes, we started right from the point of washing the dirty fleece and progressed from there which included dying some fleece as well.

Here are a few snaps from the day:

Here we have some carded fleece ready to be spun -- nothing fancy.

Here is a little bit of yarn I spun from some fleece I already had. As you can see, it is a very bright green. The other women in the class kept pointing out how bright the color was. But, the bright green of my yarn went along with my bright purple toenail polish and hot pink flip flops, glitter on my shirt and Nine Inch Nails hoodie sweatshirt -- contrast that with the many shades of brown birkenstock shoes worn by my classmates and the cream colored yarn they were spinning.

Now, we are getting somewhere! This is the result of two different yarns I spun -- one the bright green in the previous photo and the other from some the fleece dyed in class. I call this Mint Chocolate Chip!

I was so excited after I got the yarn made that I immediately whipped out a pair of size 10 needles to knit with it. I didn't know I was supposed to learn how to put it into a skein...rats! But, I just couldn't wait. The other students looked at me like I was crazy, which I am...Now, as to the yarn, yes it's a little bit slubbed and not really supposed to be, but the good part is that I love slubbed yarn and in fact, ultimately, I want to spin lots of textured yarns.

Two more weeks before the wheel arrives. It's coming from New Zealand!

Food & Fellowship

2010-05-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

I randomly grabbed a book titled "Food & Fellowship" out of the box of cookbooks I bought at an estate auction a few weeks ago -- If you want to see more details about that, see the post titled, "Marie's Recipes".

It's a church cookbook from Rockville, Maryland published in 1982. On the surface it seemed unremarkable...I'm not a fan of self-published community cookbooks because they all seem alike to me and certainly wasn't expecting what I encountered.

Marie, the owner of this book, had heavily annotated the recipes, but not in the usual way of making comments about whether the recipe was good or whether she had changed anything when making it. What makes this unique is that she annotated the book with comments about the people who contributed the recipes!

Here are some of the recipe titles and the annotations:

Recipe - Dinny's Country Cheese Ball from Lois Harris
Comment - "Lois is Daniel's Washington "grandma" and an incredible cook"

Recipe - Favorite Cheese Ball from Peg Sherman
Comment - "Peg is a former member who is the American Baptist's "official observer" at the United Nations"

Recipe - Authentic French Onion Soup from Dot Root
Comment - "Dot is a lovely, joyous Christian who is waging a fight against an unusually incurable form of cancer. She's been a real inspiration."

Recipe - Minestrone Soup from Lois Nuse
Comment - "Lois was the church secretary and the one who really ran the church. They just moved to Florida to retire."

Contrast the last comment with this one:
Recipe - Vichysoise from Ruth Taylor
Comment - "Ruth is the new church secretary" (but no notation that she is now REALLY running the church)

Recipe - Copper Coins from Sharon Harris - Ewing
Comment - "Sharon is an American Bptist minister in Boston. She was first in her seminary class -- a brilliant scholor. She was the first person who grew up in Twinbrook to go into the ministry. The recipe is good, too."
The comment about the recipe cracks me up!

Recipe - Stir Fried Spinach from George Zachariah
Comment - "George was church moderator for two years. He came to America from India 25 years ago. He is a philosophy professor."

Recipe - Spicy Apple Muffins from Emily Kinnamon
Comment - "My brother's some-time girlfriend -- she's like a sister to me"
Now, Marie is getting a little gossipy. Was Emily a friend with benefits???

Recipe - Jello-Cheese Salad Mold from Paul McGrath
Comment - "Paul was blinded by diabetes and has undergone 2 kidney transplants. Still, he works -- as an accountant."
I did not add the punctuation. I think Marie was wondering about a blind accountant.

Recipe - Forgotten Cookies from Sherry Haire
Comment - "Sherry has a 21 year old sister who is retarded and now Sherry teaches handicapped kids."

Recipe - Kang - Pao Chicken from J. Bennett Easterling
Comment - "When he isn't making spicy oriental food, Ben works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He also likes Bill's jokes, which says a lot about the man..."
Again, I did not add the punctuation. I believe Bill was Marie's husband.

I've gone through the whole book and yet, I cannot determine who she was writing these notes for???

In Defense of Paint By Numbers

2010-05-02T18:36:00.001-07:00

As you know, SO and I have been making the rounds for the past several months at a fair number of antique malls. When this all started, I was only interested in a couple of things, but interestingly, as times has passed, my list of things that I hunt for has grown. Oddly enough, that list now includes paint by numbers pictures.

I won't pretend that I don't still see that they are cheesy, but I'd rather view them as SO observed: "they are impressionistic, it brought art to the masses..." I prefer that romantic view.

They are also inexpensive to collect -- Over the weekend I found several framed pieces and spent less than $50. Amongst the purchases were these two that I'd eye-balled several weeks ago and went back to claim:

These poor things were so dirty...which led to an exploration on how to clean them...which led us down the path of trying squished up white bread...which didn't work...so I left the white bread at SO's cause I don't eat it...which resulted in my getting a text message that I left my bread...no one wants that bread!

We ended up cleaning the paintings with fair success with just a damp paper towel. It was crazy to see how much prettier the colors were once we cleaned off some of the dirt. These two beauties were just $12 for the pair. My kitchen has a bit of a Mexican decor so that's where they are going once framed.

Now, I'd just love to find a paint by numbers featuring some type of oriental scene...

Still Taking a Break...

2010-04-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

...from sock knitting or any other kind of big, difficult project knitting.

So, I dashed off this scarf:

It's made out of a new yarn called "Knit Collage". The pictures don't do a great job of showing this, but the yarn has little bits and pieces of things woven into it -- you can see the flowers -- there are also pieces of gold thread, beads, sequins, etc. The colors remind me of a mermaid.

We did a fair amount of antiquing over the weekend -- pictures on that another time. And, yes, there were quilts involved.

And, I haven't really been cooking at all and in fact, there is no hope for any serious cooking for awhile between work and things that are already planned. I miss it, but the farm shares will be starting up around the first week of June so plenty of cooking will be happening then.

A Post To Tide Things Over

2010-04-23T06:04:00.000-07:00

I've been out of pocket due to being away on vacation and now trying to get caught up from said vacation so this is just a quick little post until I have time to really write.

On vacation, I did some serious sock knitting. The pair pictured are quite possibly the worst knitting I've done in the past three years. The project was just jinxed. But, they still provide what I needed which was socks with some yellow in them.

OK, so the sock knitting was really a BINGE. I knitted three socks in about five days. That is a lot of knitting when you consider that each sock is like ten thousand stitches or something crazy. It was raining, I had yarn and needles, what can I say?

But, I was pretty conked out on sock knitting, so I took a break and made this:

Another scarf out of Cascade Magnum. I love this stuff. In a couple of hours, bam, a scarf! It's a beautiful red. I suspect it will be a gift. It's nesting with the hot pink cabled scarf I made earlier this year. There are some May birthdays to contend with so it will be nice to have a couple of gifties waiting in the wings.

I know, I know -- I still owe a pic of the blue hoodie...I promise to get that posted in the near future!

Marie's Recipes

2010-04-14T17:33:00.001-07:00

The fact is, I have a LOT of cookbooks. I'm not going to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records or anything, but still, I'm closing in on 900...And, over the last twenty years, I've sold off a lot and given some away and threw some out accidently in 2001.

And, yet, I'm not jaded. I can still be entranced and seduced into plunking down my credit card or parting with some cash and adding to my collection.

So, at the Wheeler auction last weekend, when I saw two boxes of cookbooks, my first thought was, "You don't need anymore...there's nothing there that you want." Actually, those thoughts became somewhat of a chant...and then, I saw it -- a metal box that clearly held the handwritten recipes of the woman who had lived at this house. And, the box was big and it was STUFFED. I could feel the madness taking hold.

When the second box came up for bid, they placed the metal box of recipes on top and the whole lot was on the block. It was mine for $10. I could have cared less about the books (although there are some interesting tomes in there) for I now own Marie Wheeler's recipes.

What can I say? Marie's recipe box is totally spiff.

I just picked one recipe out for you at random -- A little hand-written scrap titled, "Tuna Supreme":

I know you are dying for the actual recipe, so here goes:
1/2 lb. cubed cheddar cheese
13 oz. tuna fish
5 oz. chopped stuffed green olives
1 cup mayonnaise
8 hamburger buns
6 hard-cooked eggs
1/4 c. chopped green pepper
1/8 c. chopped onions
1 1/2 tsp. salt

Spread in split buns. Place under broiler till cheese is melted.

OK, I can't vouch for whether this tastes any good or not. Actually, with all of those hard boiled eggs, I can't even test it for you because I don't eat eggs like that and SO wouldn't go for the olives either. But, it gives you a little feel for what Marie liked.

What I can tell so far about Marie is that she loved to cook. The box is crammed with little scribbled recipes on all sorts of paper types. You can tell that she must have been the type to go somewhere, taste something and say to the cook, "I have to have this recipe. How did you make it?" and jot it down on the spot. We are figuring that Marie is either deceased or has gone to a nursing home -- in either event, I found some recipes in her collection printed from as recently as a few years ago with her notes -- like one for prime rib that had a note of "perfect" printed out from allrecipes.com in 2006.

The books that came in the box are worth more as collectibles, but I have to rescue things like this. It's my mission.

The Wheeler Auction

2010-04-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, SO and I went to an auction not far from his house.

We got caught up and...

The Mini was stuffed!!! Hardly anywhere for a passenger!

Yes, you see quilts! Yes, there are old hand-made baby clothes...and dishes...and a vise...and a set of green suitcases (3 for 6 dollars)...and old cookbooks...and a fleece and deer hides...and a whirly-gig!!!

After the auction, we went to a barn/yard sale and picked up a few more items -- one thing that was really neat is a picture dated 1956 that is an original oil painting painted to look like paint by numbers.

Fun, fun, fun! Especially at the end of the auction when we were trying to get the quilts. I had to let SO go for those -- I was too emotionally attached and a bunch of women were hovering. He got them for me!!!

Now it's time to start decorating!!

Coming Soon...The Blue Hoodie

2010-04-08T09:33:00.000-07:00

All the knitting is done!!!

Last night I stitched up the sleeves to the fronts and the back.

In the next day or so, I will get the hood on and then crochet the edge all around.

I had to custom order a zipper so I could get the right color and length -- only cost $10, so I was glad.

I know you are dying to see what this project is -- I offer the picture as the sweater appeared in Vogue Knitting, Fall 2009.

The color is a pale powder blue and as you can see, we are talking 100% seed stitch! I think I started around November. There was a complete re-do of the back so that slowed me down. The sleeves are a bit full, but at this point, I can live with that. This is the first sweater I've made since I learned how to "really knit" instead of whatever that stuff was that I was doing previously.

I will post pictures of my finished version but that's going to be in another couple of weeks. I was hoping to take this on vacation so I could wear it on the plane and looks oh-so-kicky and cute, but I fear the custom zipper is going to foil that plan.