Somebody's Watching Me or "It's Raw"

Episode 21

I Production Scheduling

1. Events
   1. Algonquin Mill fall festival Friday, Saturday, and Sunday October 7,8,9.at the Mill Farm Located 5 miles south of carollton, oh on rt 332. I'll be at this event on Saturday October 8^th. This event looks like one for then entire family. This year the organizers have made 11 tons of sour kraut up from the 9 tons made last year Because they sold out! I can't even imagine 9 tons of sauerkraut! The Algonquin Spinning and Weaving guild will me demo'ing the sock machines! If you've never seen one of these check it out on you tube they are amazing and can produce a pair of socks in minutes as opposed to days. These were a hot topic on #Knitchat on Thursday. I'll be at this even on Saturday the 8^th.
   2. Ann Arbor Fiber Expo or the Fuzzy Fair as Melissa has taken to calling it...October 22 and 23^rd at the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds. Fiber, Ford, food and fun who could ask for anything more!? (Oh wait... that's Toyota.)
   3. Camp KIP April 21-24 2012 at the Cedar Creek Conference center in New Haven, Missouri there's 208 days until Camp Kip!
2. Production
3. What's In My Tea Pot
4. Materials Sourcing
5. After 5

II Production

1. I had a light knitting week due to a death on my husbands side of the family. This week on the needles.
2. The Brea Bag by Norah Gaughan I saw this bag last weekend at Stitch, piece and purl and bought the yarn to make it (Berroco Ultra Alpaca in color 6279 which is a reddish brown) Last week I had finished the back of the bag this week I finished the front. I'm currently working on the gusset which is feeling as though I'm knitting a small moss stitch scarf. B and I also went to the goodwill store in streetsboro in search of handles. I did find a set of Pleather handles that will do the trick but I'm not sure that with all the work that I've put into this bag that I want to use pleather handles. B and I did hit the Fabulous finds in streetsboro and didn't find anything. SO the search continues. Etsy may be my next stop.
3. Nothing else got any love. The cabled mitts are still cooling their jets in the project bag.

III What's In my Tea Pot

1. Little Melon Seed (Lu An Gua Pian)

A wonderful, competition-grade yellow tea from Anhui Province. Grown organically, note the very deep green coloration of the leaves.  Once opened, they remind tea drinkers of a melon seed, small and round with a finely serrated edge. The taste is full, sweet, with a lingering finish clean that makes for an exquisite cup of tea. Steep in water between 165 and 185 degrees for two minutes

2. I don;t see the resemblance of the tea leave to melon seeds, In fact when I opened this tea I thought wow these leaves ore long and thin. The tasted to me is mild and vegetal like most greens but is really nice. This is a good tea for curling up on the couch and watching movies with or for drinking with dessert. :)

IV Materials Sourcing

1. The 50/50 Merino Silk blend id finished being plied and had been steam finished. Who would have known 3 yrs ago when I was ticked at my husband for buying me a clothes steamer for Christmas that I'd get so much use out of it! Pictures of the finished yarn are up on the Show Notes page and are also on ravelry as my first entry into the Autumn Jumble spin along.
2. I'm not sure if I had received my batt from Knitty and Color as of last recording but so far I've felt that it's too pretty to spin. It looks like a fluffy fiber flower sitting on the server in the dining room all black, gray, purple, and sparkly. It's even tied up with a black satin bow. <Sigh> I squish it every time I walk by.
3. Since I can't bring myself to dissect my pretty batt I'm spinning that knubbly slubbly black cherry hand painted from the Great lakes fiber festival. If you recall I had to fight to spin the sample skein on this fiber. It pulled apart when I attempted to predraft and was just not cooperating. I decided to spin this woolen and let it slub as it wants. I think this fiber was just meant to be a skein of art yarn. Who am I to try to force it to be anything else.

V After 5

1. Even though I;m recording on my own tonight Joe has not put down his needles. He's still practicing his purl stitch. He doesn't feel ready to put it all together for stockinette yet so hopefully next week we'll be able to move on. After that we;ll cast on his transformers cloth by Enid Danforth (Free on Ravelry!) an teach him to read a pattern.
2. It's been chilly this week in Ohio. We've been having cold and rainy weather all week and that means the return of long pants. I'm mot sure how but B is really hard on pants and shoes. I Chalk this up to him being a rambunctious boy. Pants only last so long before they are either out grown or end up with a whole in the knees. I think Nate went through a phase like this as well. I was driving B home from school and he was looking at the freshly worn hole in the knee of his pants and he declares... “Mommy you need to yarn my pants because there's a hole in them. That's my boy! Yarn is the answer to all of life's ills.
3. Around here we watch a ton of food tv. Joe an I have pretty different tastes in television and it's the one of the few subjects we come together on. Gordon Ramsay is one of our favorites so we watch Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. What's the one dish that you always hear about on Hell's Kitchen and always has drama associated... No not the risotto... The Beef Wellington! We attempted beef wellington in the house this week we used a recipe from the new basics cookbook by Rosso and Lukins this version does differ from the hell's kitchen recipe as it uses canned mushrooms instead of Duxelles a finely chopped (minced) mixture of mushrooms or mushroom stems, onions, shallots and herbs sautéed in butter, and reduced to a paste (sometimes cream is used as well). It is a basic preparation used in stuffings and sauces (notably, beef Wellington), or as a garnish. Duxelles can also be filled into a pocket of raw pastry and baked as a savory tart (similar to a hand-held pie). We used fresh mushrooms that we sauteed in butter. Joe started his path tho wellington at the local super grocer Giant eagle looking for a Tournedos of beef. Can you believe that the entire meat dept had no idea what a tournedos was? And then has never seen a beef wellington? After some conjecture as Joe just figured the butcher would know what wanted (which was basically filet mignon) he chose a steak about the size that he thought he needed. We then coated them in a mustard seasoning mixture and seared them off, and wrapped them in puff pastry. Our one glaring error was that we used too much puff pasty and left the extra to cook with the meat instead of trimming it off. Much like our favorite contestants the first time out of the over they we're RAW! I guess next season I won't be so critical when the wellie's come out raw time after time. Of course we also didn't heed Elise's advice from last season of :If one is raw they all are “ and cut into a second one before putting them back into the oven for another 5 minutes. Which yielded Beef Wellington perfection. :) Yay for us! See anything is attainable!
4. This weekend we also attended a end of the summer party out in wine country. The hostess asked that everyone bring a wrapped dollar store item to the party for a gift swap. This gift swap was one were everyone drew a number and then picked a mystery gift, After all the gifts were distributed they were opened and then the numbers were drawn again. And the horse trading started . The best prize was a singing Halloween skull decoration that sing’s Rockwell's somebody's watching me while the eyes shift about and light up. Trading was intense for that item and at one paint I had it. And some teenage girl took it away from me giving me some craft moss. Craft moss? Really I'm pretty crafty but I have no clue what to do with this. B was pretty upset as the skull went away. But luckily he had drawn the last number and claimed the decoration as his own. On our way out the door the hostess asked me did you see who won the skull? I missed it. To which B said “I winned! I Wined it all!” Though by the amount of times I've hear this thing play this after noon I'm beginning to wish maybe he hadn't.
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5. #knitchat Thursday night at 7:30 PST which is 9:30 EST