A proud member of the reality-based community
This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here. Monday, December 08, 2008 Cheese and scarves and stuff I said there would be no new knitting until after the current batch of work was completed, but you knew I couldn't stick to that, right? On Saturday, Clarence and I ventured out into the weather (which was fine, actually, when we left, but snowed all the way home) to drive to A Likely Yarn in Abingdon, a lovely little yarn shop that shares an old house with an equally nice coffee shop. Janet, the owner, has come up with a terrific idea--bring in your unwanted yarn, any variety, any amount, and she gives you a dollar credit for each pound. The yarn is donated to knitters at the Southern Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Virginia, who use it to make items for CASA, a children's advocacy group.ETA--I'm afraid I've given the impression that one can walk in at any time and get credit for unwanted yarn. No, only when Janet announces a Yarn Amnesty event. She doesn't have room to store yarn for when the volunteers make a trip down from Grundy to pick it up. Check the store website for announcements of future dates.I couldn't find the Bernat Boucle I had planned to donate, and the other bag of yarn that had been given to me, that I thought was acrylic, turned out to be 100% wool, even if in a couple of uninspiring bland colors. So I hung on to that, but carried along with me several bags and a big tote box of yarn from my friend Kristin. It came to 17-1/2 pounds, so I got a $17.50 credit toward the yarn and other items I bought. I'm still trying to get Kristin to take some of the yarn, but she was insistent that she just wanted to get rid of the old skeins and miscellaneous balls that she had inherited, and that I could use the credit. She also said I could take anything I wanted out of the donated yarn first. I felt awkward about doing that, since it was going for a good cause, but I did swipe a skein of rainbow-striped Red Heart, a partial skein of something white in fingering weight, and two skeins of Marks and Kattens mohair/acrylic in a brown/red/green stripe.Which leads me to new knitting, this partially completed scarf, SpillyJane's "Scarfy Come Home" (love love love her patterns!). Nearly all the other Ravelers who made it mentioned how fast it knitted up, but even so I was surprised. I completed this much in no more than a few moments here and there over the last two days. My only concern now is whether I'll have enough yarn to make it reasonably long. I'm nearly to the end of the first skein, and the second one had already been partially used. This is about 14", so if I can make it to two feet in the first skein, I'll probably be happy with the overall length. It doesn't have a home yet. I had thought I'd add it to the emergency gift box, but in spite of the laciness, the colors are subtle enough for it to be a man's scarf. So my son-in-law may end up with it.Yesterday I threw all the rest of the milk into a big pot and made a round of Gouda, which is resting in its briny home (two pounds of kosher salt in a gallon of water) until tonight. Then it will get dried and wrapped in cheesecloth, and go into the "cheesecave" for a couple of weeks before it's waxed. I hadn't made Gouda before--all my other cheesemaking has been limited to soft cheeses and several variants of Cheddar and Swiss. I'm impressed with how quickly it went together, and also by the fact that it's typically eaten at a much younger point than other aged cheeses. So I'll probably be making much more of it. The Cheddar and Swiss are really great cheeses, but you can spend a whole day raising and lowering temperatures, stirring, cutting the curd, stirring some more, and then pressing at three different pressures, just to get a two-pound wheel of cheese. And then they really need to be aged for six months or more. I don't have that kind of time right now.And now I must load up the car and hit the road, so I can make the money that supports all these other much more enjoyable activities. posted by Liz @ 10:03 AM | The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email toliz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3 KNITTING BLOGS Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits FINISHED PROJECTS -------FINISHED IN 2006------- Peruvian Cap Tutti-Frutti Socks Shelley's Socks Carol's Socks -------FINISHED IN 2007------- Chain Link Socks Baby Surprise Jacket Valerie & Friend Baby Bonnet Rainbow Baby Socks Girls Pixie Hood Mitred Square Heart Red & White Socks Coffee Cup Pot Holder Nubbins Dishcloth Garterlac Dishcloth Suede Booties Kate's Socks Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap Half Thumbless Mittens Red Mittens for Akkol -------FINISHED IN 2008------- SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE -- Blogs and websites -- Causubon's Book Club Orlov Food Storage Made Easy From the Wilderness In the Wake Listening to Katrina Survival Topics The Modern Homestead The Oil Drum Notes from a Hillside Farm -- Mailing Lists -- 12vdc Power Living on the Land Rainwater Refrigeration Alternatives Old Ways of Living POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES The political sites have moved BOOKS I'M READING How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising ARCHIVES February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 Feedjit Live Blog Stats
I said there would be no new knitting until after the current batch of work was completed, but you knew I couldn't stick to that, right? On Saturday, Clarence and I ventured out into the weather (which was fine, actually, when we left, but snowed all the way home) to drive to A Likely Yarn in Abingdon, a lovely little yarn shop that shares an old house with an equally nice coffee shop. Janet, the owner, has come up with a terrific idea--bring in your unwanted yarn, any variety, any amount, and she gives you a dollar credit for each pound. The yarn is donated to knitters at the Southern Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Virginia, who use it to make items for CASA, a children's advocacy group.ETA--I'm afraid I've given the impression that one can walk in at any time and get credit for unwanted yarn. No, only when Janet announces a Yarn Amnesty event. She doesn't have room to store yarn for when the volunteers make a trip down from Grundy to pick it up. Check the store website for announcements of future dates.I couldn't find the Bernat Boucle I had planned to donate, and the other bag of yarn that had been given to me, that I thought was acrylic, turned out to be 100% wool, even if in a couple of uninspiring bland colors. So I hung on to that, but carried along with me several bags and a big tote box of yarn from my friend Kristin. It came to 17-1/2 pounds, so I got a $17.50 credit toward the yarn and other items I bought. I'm still trying to get Kristin to take some of the yarn, but she was insistent that she just wanted to get rid of the old skeins and miscellaneous balls that she had inherited, and that I could use the credit. She also said I could take anything I wanted out of the donated yarn first. I felt awkward about doing that, since it was going for a good cause, but I did swipe a skein of rainbow-striped Red Heart, a partial skein of something white in fingering weight, and two skeins of Marks and Kattens mohair/acrylic in a brown/red/green stripe.Which leads me to new knitting, this partially completed scarf, SpillyJane's "Scarfy Come Home" (love love love her patterns!). Nearly all the other Ravelers who made it mentioned how fast it knitted up, but even so I was surprised. I completed this much in no more than a few moments here and there over the last two days. My only concern now is whether I'll have enough yarn to make it reasonably long. I'm nearly to the end of the first skein, and the second one had already been partially used. This is about 14", so if I can make it to two feet in the first skein, I'll probably be happy with the overall length. It doesn't have a home yet. I had thought I'd add it to the emergency gift box, but in spite of the laciness, the colors are subtle enough for it to be a man's scarf. So my son-in-law may end up with it.Yesterday I threw all the rest of the milk into a big pot and made a round of Gouda, which is resting in its briny home (two pounds of kosher salt in a gallon of water) until tonight. Then it will get dried and wrapped in cheesecloth, and go into the "cheesecave" for a couple of weeks before it's waxed. I hadn't made Gouda before--all my other cheesemaking has been limited to soft cheeses and several variants of Cheddar and Swiss. I'm impressed with how quickly it went together, and also by the fact that it's typically eaten at a much younger point than other aged cheeses. So I'll probably be making much more of it. The Cheddar and Swiss are really great cheeses, but you can spend a whole day raising and lowering temperatures, stirring, cutting the curd, stirring some more, and then pressing at three different pressures, just to get a two-pound wheel of cheese. And then they really need to be aged for six months or more. I don't have that kind of time right now.And now I must load up the car and hit the road, so I can make the money that supports all these other much more enjoyable activities.
ETA--I'm afraid I've given the impression that one can walk in at any time and get credit for unwanted yarn. No, only when Janet announces a Yarn Amnesty event. She doesn't have room to store yarn for when the volunteers make a trip down from Grundy to pick it up. Check the store website for announcements of future dates.
The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section
RSS Feed
PERSONAL
WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'
"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.
THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME
Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3
KNITTING BLOGS
Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits
FINISHED PROJECTS
SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE
POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES
BOOKS I'M READING
How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising
ARCHIVES
February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002
Powered by BLOGGER Template made possible by BLOGSKINS.
