SpinWeaveKnitandCake

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Kitty says, "They're coming to get me!"

Turkey Frying 101

Tonight the Man of the House wrote up his turkey frying procedures for me and you can check them out here:
Download guest_blog_20071030.txt

And yes, he is an engineer and I am a Math-a-phobe with a clue.

If you are curious to know what kind of equipment turkey frying involves check out this website, but lots of places sell them.  I'll get more pictures of Mr. Man's rig as it gets closer to T-day.

Countdown to November 10th

I forgot to say that we're frying the turkey this year on November 10th and the picture in the previous post is from last year.  I'm going to have Mr. Man guest blog tonight about his mad turkey frying skillz.  He gets all scientific on the turkey, in fact, do you know what the coefficient for  thermal expansion of peanut oil is?

If not, here you go:

"The coefficient of cubic expansion amounts to: g = approx. 0.000675°C^-1

As a rule of thumb, oils may be expected to increase in volume by 1% of their total volume for each 15°C temperature increase."

This is actually important because when you heat the cold oil it expands and then when you stick the bird in the oil it can overflow causing serious problems.  Mr. Man, prior to frying, will stick the bird in some water and measures the water displacement and then calculates that in oil terms.  Yeah.  My man is all methodological and stuff. 

'Tis That Time of Year Again -- Fried Turkey!

We alter the space-time continuum around here to celebrate Thanksgiving, one of the worst travel holidays in this area.  One year I spent over SEVEN hours in traffic trying to get back home from my mom's place, which normally is a 4.5 hour ride.  Ever since then my family gets together on an agreed weekend before or after Thanksgiving and since Mr. Man and I have been together we have had the family down for Fried Turkey.  Yum, yum, yum! 

Fried Turkey Safety Tips:

• Make sure that little beastie is not frozen!
• Make sure you air dry it in the refrigerator for a day or two, moisture causes the oil to boil up
• Take out the giblets and don't stuff it.  I'm just saying.
• Do it away from the house and not on or under a wooden deck.  Again, I'm just saying.

Every year our local news station shows a news clip where the firemen are THROWING a FROZEN turkey into a pot of boiling oil on a WOODEN DECK.  Of course the thing is going to go up in flames.  Der.

Now what in the heck was on last year's menu?  I thought I blogged about it last year, but I looked back and nope.  We were so busy repainting and ripping out carpet the days leading up to our family gathering I haven't a clue as to what we served besides fried turkey and mashed potatoes.

This year we're not going to be painting, but I do need to get some cleaning done.  I think the OCD cleaning gene skipped this household completely.  We're  clutter bugs and mess enablers.  Downright lazy even.  I can hear my sister laughing as she reads this.  She got that neat and tidy gene.

Halloween Kitty says:

"Get off of your duff and clean, I want back up on that mantle to survey my domain!"

Clearly This Isn't An Emergency

 This came in the mail yesterday and yesterday was October 27, 2007; right?  Good thing I don't have any  "specific health concerns".

The City of Fairfax is shelling out lots of dough to make our downtown a traffic nightmare.  Let's squeeze two-way traffic on formerly one way streets.  Excellent.  The space usually designated for gutters is now where you are forced to drive.  The city is also down ten police officers and word is there's a hiring freeze, per our little neighborhood group.  Hmm, town growth means more crime; right?  I'm not a member of MENSA, but hey I'm not stoopid either.

So the icing is now our timely notification of possibly unsafe water comes through the mail.  Right on!  You go City of Fairfax government with your bad selves.  I'm sure the developers have given you lots of money, but it sure isn't going to where it needs to go.  Their terms expire next summer, trust me I won't be voting for their lame asses.  Grumble, grumble, grumble...

What's New With You? Koo-koo-ca-choo!

Halloween is right around the corner, I've already stocked up on treats.  I've discovered that the kids around here prefer those disgusting sour candies over chocolate, so I scored a big bag of sour worms to feed the heathens.   I also scored a bag of decent chocolate for me!

There's nothing new going on here.  I spent the day making veggie chili, you know avoiding cleaning the craft room.  Mmm, chili.  I love to mix dark red kidney beans with black beans in tons of tomatoes products.  Mmm, lycopene.  My recipe is here:  Download cchili.txt

Zippy is in the kitchen filleting six pounds of tomatoes.  He removes the seeds and then roasts them in the oven, from this he makes an excellent soup.  I need to make room in the freezer for this uber batch.

He's got a lot more to get through.  Tee-hee!

Knitting Progress

You totally can't see the cable, but trust me it's there right in the center.

The Boyfriend and Costco Strike Again

You'd think I'd learn by now that when Mr. Man calls and he says he's swinging by Costco on the way home from work and do I need anything that I should be more cautious how I answer.  Yesterday I said, "Sure Honey, I need some tomatoes.  We only have a couple of cans left." 

Since canned tomatoes are a staple here at Chez Fairfax and at Costco you NORMALLY can by a six-pack of 28 ounce cans for a decent price, they are a good bulk item to keep on hand.   I will not begrudge the space that they take up in this tiny house.  We eat them like candy.

But this is what he brought home:

Now let me put this in perspective:

He said:  "They only had #10 cans in the whole tomatoes."  That's 6lbs, 6ozs worth of tomatoes.  In one shot.  I guess we will be freezing them. 

Fiber stuff is on the down low here.  See:



After convincing the boys to nap elsewhere, Pesky Loom cat asks:  Why is the loom still empty? 

Chillin' with the Knitting Crew

Today I drifted into D.C., far away from the protesters, to hang out with the knitting ladies.  There were only a handful of us and a new face.  I made mini-pumpkin cheesecakes to take over, lots of them it seems.   Forty-two to be exact.

Of course, I haven't taken a picture of my knitting -- it just dawned on me that I hadn't, but between stuffing my face and gabbing, I managed to get a couple of repeats done on it. 

B's been working on the Morehouse Baby Alligator Scarf for her grandson.

One half of the Just Our Yarn team was working on her free form knitting.  There isn't enough disk space on Ravelry's server to accommodate her stash.
 
And this is Iggy, she likes toes -- a lot.

Why Nice Matters To Me (For Ms. Woolybuns)

Ms. Woolybuns is running a challenge of sorts on her blog and you have to answer why nice matters to you by 11:59 tonight. 

Here's my answer as to why Nice Matters to me:

Nice matters to me because nice is the knot that binds society together.  It takes more time and effort to NOT be nice, you have to remember who you don't like and have a grudge with -- it's just junk.  Forgive and forget, you'll be happier and a lot nicer to be around.

Simple everyday nice tips:

• Don't be afraid to say "Thank you", "Your welcome", "Excuse me", and "Please"
• Open the door for somebody who has their arms full
• Open the door for somebody just because
• When you're grocery shopping don't stop short in the aisle, pull over to the side to look at your list or talk on your cell phone
• When you're driving, pay attention to what's going on around you
• Smile, I know it's cheesy, but an honest smile makes others feel good
• Lend a hand, we all know when a person is feeling overwhelmed and needs some help.  Roll up your sleeves and get in there.
• Get enough sleep

Being polite and respectful is not a chore, it's sort of a way of life.  And I'm not saying to let the world come on in and walk all over you, we definitely need a balance in our lives and there are people who know no limits and take advantage of others.  But if we were all nice then maybe that wouldn't happen. 
Hmmm...

Crappy Diets

I think all of the stupid headaches I've been having may be due to the change in weather, but to be honest my diet this past couple of weeks has been crap.  At my mom's this weekend, I realized as I was eating a banana, that it was probably the first piece of fruit I had eaten in two weeks.  Whoopsie!   So tonight I am making a decent dinner instead of ordering pizza.  Granted the place we order our pizza from is a local joint and isn't a chain, but no matter how many portobello mushrooms you stick onto a pizza it doesn't cancel out all of the cheese or the sausage.  Ha-ha. 

Last night, over a dinner of Chipotle rice bowls, I promised Mr. Man I would make dinner tonight.  So I give you tonight's menu:

• Homemade Ginger and carrot soup (if I don't muck it up)
• Lemon-caper chicken
• Spaghetti squash

Well, I'm off to look up spaghetti squash -- I know you bake it in the oven and scrap out the good stuff,  but at what temp do you bake it?

Before I go though, check out Chris' blog.  Ms. Woolybuns has a little challenge that ends this Thursday one minute to Midnight.  Let her know why nice matter to you and maybe you will score a little fibery goodness along the way.

Oh, and thanks for all of the comments, I'm sorry if I haven't gotten back to you yet.  I like to respond to everybody, but my Yahoo account keeps sending the Typepad comments into my spam folder.

Cake Decorating Crash Course With Mom

I'm in Pennsylvania this weekend helping my Mom hone her cake decorating skills. 

Those are all hers, made by her hands.  Her internal cake decorating light clicked on for her today.  I am so proud of her!  She's got the rose, rosebuds, sweet peas, grapes, various borders, spiders, and carrots down; next up are pumpkins and simple tombstones made from Hershey bars. 

I did manage to score another migraine.  Three in one week.  Yuck.

Two Years Old!

Two years ago I started this blog as a motivational tool for myself.  I needed to finish more projects than what I was starting.  I think I'm still not focusing enough on any one project.  So as of today I will try to prioritize my projects and make an honest effort to get them done in a timely manner.

WIPS:

Weaving:

• Horoscope Baby Blanket a la Bonnie Tarses
  

• Doubleweave project for class -- I'm going to use my handspun as a supplemental warp.  This is due for November's class (17th/24th?).  I'm going to give Doubleweave Plus a whirl -- with modifications, of course. 

• Christmas gifts -- I'm still working on ideas for this one.  It's a tad late in the game, but I do this every year.  I can't think of Christmas until it starts to get chilly. 

Knitting:

• One Baaad Poncho (modified, of course) - Just for me.
• Scarf on needles
• Felted bowls -- they aren't going to felt themselves!

Spinning:

• Finish the bobbin of single-ply mohair for the Doubleweave project.

Cake:

• This weekend I will be giving my mom some decorating lessons.  She's hellbent on making a rose.

Craft Room:

• Clean and declutter!

Oh, and please feel free to share your ideas for a quick woven or knitted Christmas gift.  Thanks!

Nice Matters

Jackie of One Thread, Two Thread, so kindly tagged me with this award:
 

"This award is for those bloggers who are nice people; good blog friends and those who inspire good feelings and inspiration. Also for those who are a positive influence on our blogging world. Once you’ve been awarded, please pass it on to 7 others who you feel are deserving of this award."

So now I get to tag seven other people.  Excellent.  October 10th will be my second blog-iversary and since then there have been a few blogs that have become constant reads for me.  Of course, Jackie's is one of them but I don't think I can tag her back.

• First up is Chris of Woolybuns fame.  I met her last year at Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool.  Here is a shot of her felted work. It's the Rhinebeck Blogger Bingo Sheep, Dolores.
  
  
  Chris spins, dyes, felts, teaches felting, and raises some gorgeous bunnies. She also has two Irish Setters who keep her very busy and having the name Chris doesn't hurt either. 

• Another constant blog read has been Charleen, of Charleen's Fiberblog.  She has gone into quilting mode right now, but she is root of the Weave Ring.  She does it all. Spins, weaves, knits, dyes, quilts, you name it, she’s been doing it “a long time”.
• There's also Cheryl, of Seed Stitch fame. She just celebrated her birthday and rocked her local fair by scoring a blue ribbon for her spinning. She’s has a gorgeous Reeves Norwegian wheel and has the tendency to drive around with five pounds of alpaca in her trunk.

• Geekweaver, has only been blogging (intermittently) for a year. She was one of the knitting ladies from my local knitting group. She recently moved to Canada and we miss her. She is a whiz when it comes to fiber, if she puts her super-duper  mathematical mind to it, she can whip any WIP into shape.  She spins, weaves, dyes, knits and she also taught a variety of fiber-filled classes to support her fibery addiction.
• Bonnie Tarses of Weaving Spirit, has been a great influence for me this year. This summer she endured my downtown Baltimore driving skills in search of crab cakes. She isn’t afraid of using color and is helping me explore my own color skills. She weaves using horoscopes and her hand dyed Ikat. I’m going to be weaving one of her projects for my friend’s baby. You give her the date, time and location of the birth and she will create a threading order out of that for you.

How many is that?  Five. 

Next up are Ann and Annie.

• I also met Ann at Rhinebeck last year.  She is a very nice, out-going, and honest person who has lots going on and is just hours from finishing her beautiful Kauni sweater.  She seems to have taken the plunge into spinning. 
• Which is funny because Annie, too, seems to gotten a taste of it while she was at Spin Out in Central Park a few weeks ago.  She is also a new mother exploring her weaving prowess and is trying to get her baby's sweater done in time for Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool. 

Again, thanks Jackie!  There are at least four ladies on this list who will be at Rhinebeck this year.  Hopefully, next year I will get to go again.  I would move there in a heartbeat, if the opportunity ever reared its head.

Buggers...I Didn't Measure Them Before I Washed Them

After washing the Waffles are 14.5" x 21" and the Spots are 14.5" x 23".

Now that the loom is bare, I need to wade through the craft room, clean it up a bit and then get working on that Horoscope Blanket. 

Okay, I cut the towels apart.

The Spots:



The Waffles:

In 1492, Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue...

I remember being in some crazy play as a kid when I was still in public school, wearing a sailor shirt, holding a mop and bellowing at the top of my lungs "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue..."  Of course, that's all I remember of it now.  Man, I was a dork.  (Was?)

So what are we celebrating on Columbus Day?  Christopher Columbus was born to a family of wool weavers (who knew?), he wanted to explore and prove his crazy "Round Earth" theory, his government needed a new source of income, he hit land, the native people were oppressed (to say the least), there's mutiny, he's sent home and imprisoned.  His feet never touched North America, but hey here we are.  He opened the flood gates to the European exodus.  Granted, I'm all about the Vikings being the first explorers of America.  They seem like a more interesting group of people to me.  Plus, they actually landed in North America. 

Instead of Columbus Day it should be National Pillage Day and we should wear nifty hats with horns.  Now that would be more interesting than watching fourth graders on stage wearing sailor shirts, holding mops and bellowing:  "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue..." 

Good Stitch, Bad Stitch

Yesterday I pulled the finished towels from the loom.  I just love them!

Although definitely with that "Spots" structure it helps to use a lighter weft or else the spots aren't so visible.  Oh, well.  This is one of the reasons why I weave, to explore and learn.

Just as I started this post, I managed to score a second migraine.  So now I'm back.

This is the "Bad Stitch" portion of today's post.  Yesterday before I put the whole project into the wash I wanted to sew the two ends.  So I dragged out the sewing machine and sewed the first end and just as I started on the second end, my sewing machine took the above towels and tried to eat them.  I got a hands on reminder how to clean and oil my Kenmore 07, model # 385.11607 as I pulled a wad of thread out from under the feed dogs with tweezers.

This poor machine has been abused through the years and yesterday I was ready to chuck it for a cute Hello Kitty number.  I was so frustrated.  I could sew five stitches on scrap fabric and the whole thing would seize up, jam up, and I would swear.  But it came down to my man diagnosing it as a tension problem and my mother giving me a lesson in bobbin case tension.

I have never tweaked the bobbin case tension before.  Who knew a funky little screw could cause to much trouble?  But in the spirit of learning, now I know.  If you don't know and want to learn, go here and for other maintenance and repairs check out here.  It's a good start.

I'm off to rest my head for another 30 minutes.  Blah.  I think Fall is officially here.

Memo to Self

Trim the knots after you've tied on.  Mm-kay?  Thanx.

The last few inches of weaving took forever because I had to pull those blinking knots apart every time I treadled. 

Yesterday's migraine went from right side to left side over night, so this morning I decided to not drive up to PA to see my mom.  Next weekend.  My coordination and reflexes are pretty poor this morning, so I'm safer to stay home than to be behind the wheel of Bea.

In fact I wanted to post about something else, but I can't quite remember.  Oh.  Right.  Duh!  Guess what just came off of the loom!

Now I'm off to sew some ends and wash the towels en masse.

The Internet and Our Mailman Think I'm Knocked Up

Look, I'm not with child, but I keep getting bizarre samples in the mail.  First it was flyers on saving cord blood and various other parenting literature, then a diaper sample came through the door.  And today, I got these:

That's right two 8 ounce cans of formula and $20 worth of formula coupons.  It's such a waste, you know, since I don't need it and all.  I'm taking it into work and handing it off to a co-worker who can find the stuff a home.

I suspect my Yahoo account magically signed me up for all of this crap after I had ventured to a baby name website to look up the correct spelling of a name.  The internet assumes many crazy things and now I'm sure our mailman is kind of curious.

I'm about ready to take the towels off of the loom.  I was going strong today until I got a stupid migraine.  My head still hurts, but it's not as bad as it could be.  I know my name and I'm able to see, I'm just groggy.

The loom cat is still being bad.

"Who me?"

Such a day, such a day...Waffles and Spots oh my!

It was so beautiful out there today, not very Fall-like though.   Last night I finished the fourth towel, but I did became a bit bored of the waffles and moved onto the Spots.

So here's a shot of towel number four of the six.  It's a bit blurry because I was trying to get back my Ikea measuring device from Ginger, the Bad Kitty -- but I guess she's not as bad as Molly and Gypsy. 

If you haven't been to an Ikea store, find one and go.  As a weaving freak I love to make off with a handful of the paper rulers they have strewn throughout the store for customers to use.  You can T-pin them onto your weaving instead of the calculator tapes to keep track of what you are doing.  Inches are on one side and centimeters are on the other.  Very international, eh?

Nertz...

I weighed my plastic bobbins for my shuttles and it turns out our scale sucks.  One way on the little scale platform they read 1/4 of an ounce and if I turn them 90 degrees they read 1/8 of an ounce.  Fantastic.  Stupid scale.  Oh, right.  Why does this bother me?  Because it really screwed up my yarn calculations.  I have some Soldier blue left over, so I weighed the bobbin with the remaining yarn thinking I would subtract 1/4 ounce from result.  The result?  1/4 ounce!  1/4 minus 1/4 is zero but there is yarn on that bobbin so zero is invalid.  So maybe the bobbin is 1/8 of an ounce.  Again, stupid scale.

Funny things (it made me laugh anyway) overheard on the news this evening:

• The weather guy was talking about space junk and said "Spoot-nik" instead of "Sputnik".  Tee-hee!
• Also overheard on the news while weaving, the Willard Hotel in DC is going "green".  That's cool and all, but I almost fell off of my bench when they said they were going to now use wind energy.  I immediately thought they were installing little windmills in the hallways up on The Hill to capture and better utilize all of that free flowing air. 
  

Weave, Weigh, Weave, Weigh...Waffles Part 3

Two down, third one has begun.  This time I'm going with the Soldier blue as the weft.  My only problem is that I only have 1 1/8 ounces left of the blue.  Hmmmmm......

You see, it's going to take more than that to complete the towel.  So I am using about one ounce of the Pistachio green to make up for the lack of blue.

Memo to self:  1/8 ounce of yarn equals two inches of waffle weave on the loom.

Weave, weigh, weave, weigh...  It's getting a bit close here.  Let's see how much blue I have left when I'm done.

Waffles, Part Deux

I didn't get out to see the alpacas, but I did make excellent progress towards finishing this warp.
 
One down, another started, and four more to go -- I think.  Why?  Because I may or may not have warped 5 1/2 yards.  I have a spreadsheet that says I did, but come on.  Did I do it in practice?  Project notes are very important especially when you walk away for a month (or two) and try to pick up where you left off.  A blog is a good place to keep and organize one's notes.  A cat can't shred them here!

Project notes:

• 5 1/2 yard warp (or maybe 5 yards)
• 5/2 Pearl Cotton in Ruby Glint, Soldier Blue, and Pistachio
• 360 ends (with floats 362), 2/dent in a 10 dent reed
• 18 inches in reed

Structure for the Waffle Weave Towels:

• 1 1/4 inches plain weave
• 26 inches waffle weave
• 1 1/4 inches plain weave