I Production Scheduling
A) Segments for this episode.
1) Production
2) What's In My Tea Pot East of Eden Superior Gunpowder Green Tea.
3) Materials Sourcing
4) QC Inspection
5) Shipping
6) Boneroom
7) After 5
II Production
A) Knit for Tibet Sweaters.
1) The two toddler sweaters have been seamed up and are ready to go in the mail.
2) I ran out of the brown wool for the teen size sweater. It's not looking promising that it will be finished in time to catch the flight to chine. I will probably finish this and send it for whatever their next initiative is.
B) Juno Regina By Miriam Felton
1) I finally took some time to tink back the Juno and now it's in QC. So I'll be sure to relate my tale of woe with the Juno a bit later.
C) Daybreak Shawl by Stephen west
1) The daybreak is clicking along. I'm loving how the Bamboo and Ewe feels! I find myself wanting to pet it in between repeats. The only thing that a bit grumbly about this pattern is that because it's for multiple sizes Stephen uses the Knit to halfway before the marker. I don't like when patterns leave things up to my interpretation. I would like to a have a stitch count listed so I can catch any errors quickly. I'm the same way with sweater patterns that say “decrease the sleeve every 3 or 4 rows.”
D) FLS - Still No Buttons. I've been sucked into my knitting all week.
III What's in My Tea Pot
A)Superior Gunpowder Green tea is a stronger green tea from China with a distinctive nutty/oak taste. It makes a darker green color tea & is more dense than other teas. You will only require one or two teaspoons for a teapot full. This tea is also popular in Morocco where it is mixed with mint and sugar
IV Materials sourcing
A) Plarn I'm still collecting bags to make plarn out of. This week at the DAR meeting one of the DAR Ladiesbrought in a handled shopping bag that had been crocheted in plarn. It was soooo cool!. I got to handle it and check it out for a few minutes. It was much less crinkly than I thought it would be. I also found out that this crocheter takes the thin plastic table clothes from parties and cuts them out into thin spirals and crochets plarn projects with those as well. With the upcoming wedding for my friend I may have a huge stock of plarn in no time! I asked my fellow DAR member how many much plarn was used in her shopping bag and she said that it uses approximately 60 shopping bags cut into plarn. I may use my plarn to mark the Girlfriend Market Bag by Laura Spradlin (which is a free download off of ravelry) or The fulled Lopi Tote by Adrian Bizilia, Another free ravelry down load.
B) Mohair kid fiber I got to spin a bit of the mohair Kid Fiber my mom gave to me. This has a tendency to want to spin very fine and when it get's fine it … it get's over spun. My wheel is a Babe's Fiber Garden double treadle production wheel. The ratio on this wheel is controlled by the bobbin size. To spin this fiber I switched to my smaller diameter bobbing since the larger diameter one’s were in use with the Corriedale. I think the difference in ratio may be contributing to the over spinning . I seem to be over treadling and since I sing to myself in my head (don't laugh It works!) while I treadle. I don't think it's my timing I think it's the ratio, I need to find a slower waltz to hum... Or maybe spin with a metronome?
C) I did some dyeing this week. I dyed my two skeins of completed Corriedale using left over PAAS coloring tablets from Easter. I used a dip dye method that I found at www.woolfestival.com/articles/eggdye.htm. Just as in the directions I socked my skeins for about 30 minutes while I prepared the dies. I used Aluminum foil cake pans to do this in on my plastic covered counter. Needless to say Joe was less than thrilled to see what I was doing in his Kitchen. I picked out 4 tablet at random out of the envelope and ended up with Pink, Orange Yellow and green. It was my intention to have two matching skeins with all 4 colors but it didn't look like I would have enough room in my pans for all the yarn, SO I put one skein across Orange and Pink and the second across Yellow and green. I weighted the yarn into the water with whatever was handy (an other cake pan... A plate.. a wine bottle and left it all sit until the dye exhausted. This was my first time dyeing anything besides my hair and I was quite impressed by how clear the water became. Over all I'm please with the results of the Yellow and Green which I'm calling “Lemon Lyman” Both for the 7 up pun and the West Wing Reference...:) The Pink Dye in the orange and pink is way too light and the color Saturation is not as good as the rest (thought I will admit that next time I will bot use cake pans I'll use large jars because color saturation is not perfect on any of the colors...) I think I will be over dying the pink section with some Strawberry Kool-Aid I bought for this purpose, (hey it was 4 for a dollar!) The Orange and pink's working name right now is Tequila Sunrise but that can change pending the over dye and how it comes out. I'm thinking of knitting this into a Small scarf or shawl like the The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief by Orange Flower. Of course I might just knit it into a square since I’m not sure how the gauge problems with in the yarn will react to a pattern.
V QC Inspection
A) The Juno Regina by Miriam Felton
1)I finally took some time to tink back the Juno. The stitches just weren't working
out on the lace row so I decided to frog back to my life line. After several tries to get the stick count to work out right I discovered that when I put in the life line I missed some stitches that had now dropped to the life line before. So needless to say the Juno is now in QC.
VI Shipping
A) The Pedestrian Crossing Cowl by Melissa Sibley is DONE! Yeas it's DONE complete with the buttons. Now I can here the grumbling. The cowl has the buttons! And the sweat she's been procrastinating about for two months does not? To be fair I did not put the grosgrain ribbon in the button band for the cowl. It's not the button that are slowing down the FLS it's the ribbon in the button band that I think is going to take FOREVER. (Well at least to do it right by hand using teeny tiny stitches....) My cowl has 5 button instead of the 5 called for in the pattern because once again a pattern stated make a button hole every 5-7 stitches. WHICH IS IT? 5 or 7 because I did it consistently every 5 and I had enough room for a 6th button hole. I'm calling it a design element and not sweating it...:)
B) As mentioned Before the toddler Sweaters for the Knit for Tibet Initiative through Wool-AId are also complete and ready to be boxed up for shipment. You can find more information about Wool-Aid and their charitable projects on their website www.wool-aid.org or their Ravelry group. Remember that contributions for the Knit for Tibet initiative must be received by May 31st which is next Tuesday and My son Nate's B-day! WooHoo! Send Contributions to :
Wool-Aid
1381 Rocky Creek Court
Belleville, IL 62220
VII Bone Room
1) Zombie BBW is still on Back Order. I called up Jimmy Beans Wool to find out if the vendor had given them a lead time on the product and found that they aren't expecting it to ship for another few weeks! Way to communicate NOT. So now I'm deciding if I'll hold out for it or get something new.
2) On the other Hand Paradise Fibers at www.paradisefibers.net are complete super stars. They are having a 2.00 shipping sale this week! This coupled with my Frequent shopper rewards sent me their to bug myself 2 skeins of Malabirgo Rios in the Archangel colorway. Since I bought Babe from them I had about 14.00 in rewards so one of my skeins was FREE! (Insert dance of Joy here...) The only glitch is that I read the clapotis pattern requirements wrong and will need 2 more skeins... (Knitting FAIL!) Luckily the shipping sale is still on so I'll be correcting my mistake. But the totally awesome thing about Paradise fibers???? I order this Wednesday and I received it SATURDAY. That's UBER fast for 2 bucks. So I'll be ordering again... Oh and the Malabrigo???? Sooo nice it lives up to the Hype every time. I can't wait to get this project on the needles.
3) additionally in the bone room I've been eyeing over some of my half finished objects. I'm gathering myself to make another run at the spiral luscious. I got this pattern... I can do this. Plus y'all got my back right? I'm thinking of casting this back on sometime soon. I think it I'll stitch marker it within and inch of it's fibery life and put in life lines ever repeat being careful not to miss any stitches I should be able to knock this out so that I never have to look at it again. Be sure to tune it to see if I vanquish this pattern or laugh when it kicks my butt AGAIN.
VII After 5
This week was the May DAR meeting. I am new to the DAR in fact my application is still in the verification stages in Washington. When I was invited to my first meeting I was told that the ladies bring in drink and baked goods. I thought that meant that ALL the ladies did this for every meeting. So I set about to find a suitable recipe to take. I didn't want to just make some Duncan Hines Brownies I wanted it to say. I'm younger than all of you but I can hang in the kitchen. (Which I totally can't but that's another story...) And now I'm left with the task of seeing if I can make lightning strike twice. So I was listening to Meghan over on Stitch it talk about baking cinnamon buns. That sounded awesome! So I started surfing recipes online because she did not post hers and I found http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/354/Cinnabon_Rolls1576.shtml. They were pretty good so I took them to my first meeting, That day I couldn't stay and chat with the ladies as Joe, the kids and I were leaving on vacation. So I left the pan and prayed they were well received. The next’s months meeting seeing that not everyone baked but the hostesses I didn't bring anything. The fact that their were no Cinnamon buns was not lost on a few of these ladies and I was plied with gifts (a tote bag and a seed packet...) to be inspired to bring more. Cinnamon buns take a day to make by the time the dough rises, gets punched down and proofs... and you're finally ready to fill and roll these suckers it's midnight! So I decided to find something else to make. I've always wanted to make candy since I saw Julia child making a yule log on TV she had Meringue mushrooms and moss made of of sugar floss. I'll never forget how easy Julia made that sugar floss look. Boil the sugar dip a fork in it and whiz it over a broom stick suspended between two chairs... Genius But I never tried it being afraid that Whizzing molten sugar through the air would lead to more burns and mess than sugar floss was worth. Then came Alton Brown and Jackie for the KIP ing it real Podcast. Jackie seems to a bit of a kitchen goddess. She had on one episode that she was making marshmallows that she dipped in chocolate and rolled in Graham cracker crumbs. … HEAVEN! Then Alton had a good eats episode on candy in which he made Marsh,allows... and that was all she wrote. I decided to try my hand. So after some online research for an easy recipe I found http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/06/springy-fluffy-marshmallows/ they were an unmitigated success! They are light and bouncy and from all accounts taste like a dream. Due to a power outage about 30 minutes before I had to leave for my meeting they did not make it to the chocolate dipping stage but I can always do it for Joe...:) I did not have the stickiness issues that the author had. Though that may be because I heeded her warnings about scraping the bowl and did so very carefully and very little. I had also attempted to make a gooey butter cake for this mee3ting as my back up if the marshmallow fell flat. When the power went out for some reason the oven went off as well. Which I don't understand since it's gas and not electric... needless to say the cake was the flop as it was raw and bubbling over the sides of the pan when I had to leave. I left poor Joe with that mess. He told me that the cake on the bottom of the oven filled the house with smoke as soon as I left. The cake looks UGLY but he tells me it tastes just fine.
In other home front news the farm we pass everyday on the way to School and work has gotten and some new calfs. It seems this farm gets one or two calfs every year and they graze all summer long never to be seen again. Now, I'm no vegetarian but it turns my stomach to realize that these little creatures are ending up in the freezer every fall. Of course B loves seeing the cows and when that fateful day around Halloween comes he always asks where they are and I rather than telling him they're in the farmers freezer say it's too cold outside they're probably in the barn. This year the Farm has 4 calfs 1 white, 2 black, and 1 orange. I pointed them out to B this week and said “look at the baby cows!” he informed me that they had colors and that they were not cows that those were in fact sheep. Ack! I knew I should have gone to the blessing of the sheep. Even if It was cold and raining at least them he's know the difference between a cow and a sheep! He also sweetly pointed out that these cows/sheep had lost their Momma. Awwwwwww! To which I assured him that she was in the barn cooking them dinner.
That's about it for this week. If you're local or able to attend Please remember the Crooked River Fiber Festival is coming up August 4-7th in peninsula, oh. Registration for workshops for non PAA member Started yesterday May 21st. I'm planning on attending a course or two. I had my heart set on Beginner Spinning but It;s on Friday 1-4 and I'll have to take off a day of work... Who knows may be worth it. I may also take the “Rumble and Scrumble” class that looks like fun but a bit overpriced. Also memorial day weekend the Great lakes Fiber show will be held in Wooster May 28th and 29th. I doubt I'll make this one but it looks like a fun time! Please remember you can get in touch with me as AJLUVSJOE on Ravelry, Twitter, and Plurk. The show notes are located at www.ajknitspodcast.blogspot.com. If you have comments or suggestions or just want to say HI drop me a lien I'd love to hear from you!
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