17 March 2024

I Read Harder

I finished the local library's challenge (read three books in different categories for a prize) and received my prize: a bookmark.

  

My third book was in the category "Choose a book from a library display."  The first two books I read were ones I have at home, and I wanted to read at least one library book for the challenge.  When I went into the building to select a book they had two displays near the entrance, one a general topic and another for Black History Month.  Since I am from Dallas, I instantly was drawn to this one:

I found it interesting both because I remember some of the time, having lived in the Dallas area then, and also for his personal journey.

Maybe next year I will read more than three books for the challenge; I thought about trying to read th4ree more quickly and get another bookmark, but there isn't time and I have a couple half-finished books I should finish first:  Charlie Wilson's War (still working on it from the course I took in November!) and The Catcher Was a Spy which I started on the trip to Spring Training.  I might take the latter on next week's trip to a cybersecurity conference, since the topic seems appropriate.

14 March 2024

π day 2024

I wasn't sure what I would do to celebrate today, but a plan came together.


I had trouble deciding what type of pie to make, and how large.  I'm still not sure I can find all my pie plates, or should I use a small cake pan?  If I made a big pie, who would want to share it?  It came down to a chicken pie or a peach pie, because I have both in the freezer.  Then I got the crazy idea to try both.  Together.  In one dish.

I wasn't feeling excited about making pie crust, and when I took the peaches and chicken out to thaw, noticed a roll of puff pastry I'd stashed over the holidays.  Perfect solution!

The chicken part would be a riff on b'stilla, with a bit of some 14th-16th Century as well.  The peach pie would be much more traditional, other than the crust.  For the b'stilla I checked a couple of recipes, scaled them down, and decided to use some Penzy's Pie Spice in addition to the saffron and a bit of black pepper.  Most recipes just use cinnamin, saffron, and pepper.

First step is to cook chicken with onion, saffron, butter, and water:
  
While that simmered I lined the dish with pastry and saved the rest for on top:

I also mixed the peaches, about half the full recipe:
   

I made a wall of pastry to keep the two sides apart.  Yes, I should have chilled the pie, but I was heating the oven and didn't want to put a cold Corning Ware® item into a hot oven, just in case.

Next, I chopped almonds and added raisins (which are not traditional in b'stilla, but I like them and they fit with the additional spices), then chopped up the almost-cooked chicken, and put everything back into the pot to cook until the liquid was gone:

When that happened, I let it cool a bit, then added a beaten egg and the spices, stirred it all together, and spooned the filling into the other side of the dish, where it fit perfectly:
   

I added a suitably marked top and it was time for the oven - 350ºF for about 45 minutes.


It was very yummy, and the two sides hold together nicely:

I've got suppers covered for two more nights.

09 March 2024

Carolina Fiber Fest 2024


I am not getting to much of the event this year, because I want to get back to Dallas for a show (or two) and several of the days are work days, which I cannot take off right now.  I debated about classes, and whether to go to the Friday event, and whether to try entering items in their competition.

In the end, I decided "no" to the Friday event, partly because it is just a hangout and I may be more comfortable after I know more people in the local fiber groups, and partly because of the difficulty I had on Thursday evening when I drove to enter the one item I decided to try.  There's a lot of road construction in that area, and my car navigation didn't acknowledge the Expo Building, then my phone navigation didn't handle the construction detours.  I got there with about twenty minutes to deadline (then had to find parking, and hope I didn't get towed for slipping into a "permit only" slot which appeared reserved for the next day), but managed to get the submission done.

This is what I entered:

Pattern is called "Granny's Not Square Cowl".

It's Category YC32, the Crocheted 2024 Craft-Along Pattern.  I did a slight variation by adding a row of single crochet at each edge.  Yarn is Louisa Harding "Amitola Grande", a silk-wool blend, in 'Tangerine Dream', an oddball purchased from a short in the DFW area.

Another lady was also entering her item (a lovely felted abstract picture that appears to be in natural colours of various wools, brown and black and cream) just then, so I felt better not being the only person to skid at the end of Thursday.  Items could also be entered on Friday morning, but I had to work.  If you are coming to the opening of the event, it's handy to deliver your item then.  While classes begin on Wednesday and run through Sunday, the vendor hall and other events are on Friday and Saturday only.

I thought about entering more items (you can only enter ones made between March 2023 and March 2024) but I cannot be there on Saturday afternoon for pickup.  They offer an option to mail it to you, but I didn't want to risk the box not being correctly calculated.  One cowl in an envelope with several stamps shouldn't be an issue.

Given my schedule I wasn't sure which workshop(s) to take.  I am very interested in the one to do a felted sheep or peacock table mat, but in the end decided on a beginning drop spindle class.  I keep trying to learn and hope that someday I'll get it to work.  Maybe this time?

I chose the early Saturday session, which ends just as the vendor hall opens.  I hope I can get in there and while I don't want to buy much, I expect I'll find a few interesting items.  I also want to browse the Used Equipment Sale and maybe find somebody who can help me get my wheel back in service.  I've had an offer to help balance it, but the pedal needs work also.

After Report

More report later, when I have time to take photos of the things I purchased: buttons, a magnet, lots of yarn.  And I think I've figured out drop spindle!

Plus I got to see my cowl on display:



Finishing Things

In addition to the cowl, I finished one of the scarves I had in my quickly-begun pile.  As I semi-suspected, one cake was not enough, so I included most of the second one.  This means there will not be another green scarf, although I might have enough (in the two bits in the middle of the photo) to make a hat to accompany it.


I worked on the scarf through the North Texas Irish Festival and it drew a lot of attention.

I also finished the Ghost Ranch Cowl:

I'd done the hat first, and am thinking about frogging it and reknitting in the stitch pattern so they match more closely.  It will wait until after Easter as that's not a started thing.

Speaking of started things, I decided that the second mitten of a pair doesn't count as a new start, but the progress is not encouraging:

The yarn isn't even thickness, so the new mitten is smaller than the other despite the same number of rows.  I may remove this bit and start further down where the yarn is thicker again.  Or I may reknit the hand with extra rows.  I am leaning towards the former so I can get to some bright colours more quickly.  Definitely fraternal mittens, whatever happens!

05 March 2024

Another year of music.

Yes, I went to help at the North Texas Irish Festival this past weekend.  When I arrived Tuesday night it was cold and rainy, but quickly warmed up on Friday and was sunny all weekend - perfect festival weather.  I did my usual working and running errands and repeat all weekend, with a little bit of shopping at a local soap supplier:

Bath bombs (they also had some with gnomes
or shamrocks or hats), lip balms, and soaps.

I also helped with check-in at the annual 5K Fun Run, and while they ran out of the medal-cum-bottleopener (in addition to runners/walkers they had a "0K" version where you could just sign up to get the T-shirt and goody bag) I was given a T-shirt:

There is a cidery in Deep Ellum that provided this year's beverage (in addition to breweries and the inevitable Guinness) and it is very tasty.  I would be drinking it regularly if I lived there.

Once again I stayed at the main hotel and it was crazier than usual because the National Cheerleader Championships were in town and they shared the hotel.  Quite a mixture of high-energy people!  This also meant that both of my flights were about 2/3 full of cheerleaders and their parents and coaches.

Hurrah for earplugs.

Of course I wore masks all weekend, with Saturday's noting the March 2, 1836 founding of the Republic of Texas.


#OnThisDay in 1562 was chartered the entity
that would become Trinity College, Dublin.

I worked a bit for my real job on Friday, and then Saturday morning before going to help at the Fun Run, and Sunday evening.  Then I took off Monday morning to help set-build for the Plague Mask Players' show, "Taming of the Shrew".

As we were loading in the set pieces and getting organized.

I didn't do a lot, especially as I had to leave noonish for my return flight (I could have taken a later connection, but direct flights are preferable especially during work hours), but it was good to be back doing the kind of stage stuff I love.

27 February 2024

A group hug, in yarn.

A bit before Thanksgiving, one member of the online fiber group I oversee announced that she suddenly lost kidney function and was having to navigate a very new normal.  She couldn't knit, and was frustrated and depressed and a couple people wrote privately to give her encouragement.

As the group is wont to do, we decided to send her what can be considered "a group hug", in the form of a blanket.  The member lives in Minnesota and we saw her with a blanket in one photo on her Facebook page.  A close friend of mine who has been on dialysis for years told me that everybody gets a thin blanket as part of a "welcome to dialysis" package, because you have to lie there for several hours and the rooms are always cool so the machines work better.  We figured a group blanket would be something this person could use and which would remind her she's cared about when her spirits are low.

We agreed on a colour scheme of mostly jewel colours, which I would put together with gold yarn because of a picture the recipient had posted on her social media:

We agreed on making the squares about 8" on a side, of DK or worsted weight washable yarns of any fiber, depending upon what people had available.  This size can be made from leftovers fairly easily, if people didn't want to start a new ball or skein.  It's big enough that we don't need many, because I didn't want to sew together a hundred pieces!  Also, I wanted them big enough that the border wouldn't overwhelm the squares.

First intended deadline was Christmas, but of course with the holidays not all the squares arrived.  Not only were people busy, but a couple packages went missing in the mail.  So those contributors decided to make more, and I had to wait for them to arrive.

Then I had to add borders.  It might have made sense for me to work on them as squares arrived, or when most of the squares were here, but of course I waited until I had all of the pieces here.  I worked three rows of single crochet around most of the squares.  I didn't block the squares, either before or after adding the border, because the different stitches and weights and patterns meant it would be difficult to do, plus the time involved.

Finally, I could try arranging them.  First I divided the squares into colour families:

Clearly, some of the borders need to be redone.  They were.

I found I had many in shades of deep rose, so I arranged those into a checkerboard:

  

The first one was great until I realized I had only four columns, and I needed five.  So, a re-do, adding in another red square for the grid to work.

Then I added the other squares, trying to avoid having the same square of a given colour next to another.  I also tried to keep the few lacy squares away from each other, for blanket integrity.  This is what I thought would be the final arrangement:

Of course that's not what happened, as I did a bit more arranging as I sewed the blocks into rows.  I also had to finish the topmost row, which is where I'd put the blocks that were not to the size requirements and I knew I'd have to adjust.  One is a heavily ribbed, reversible cable block that pulled in quite a bit.  Another is one of the replacement blocks; the sender sent a leftover from another project.  Two were knit on the diagonal, which can be difficult to measure and often come out odd-sized.  The one with a heart I wanted to keep in a special place.  So I worked those together with different amounts of the border on each block, and a fill-in panel, and made sure that row ended up the same width as the others:
You can see a sewing tail I left at the bottom.

Now it is time to sew the rows together, and I noticed that I'd sewn the end block on the final row backwards from the others.  See that four blocks aren't showing a tag?  It turns out I'd done the border from the back instead of the front, and my OCD compelled me to not only take the block off, but to re-do the border before reinstating it.

Then one more big error: instead of sewing the bottom row under the next row, I sewed it on top!  Rather than re-do a long row (a single block is one thing, the row is another) I decided to keep going in that manner, so the blanket would be flipped, except for the second row of odd-sized blocks and the panel.  I want to be sure the heart goes in the correct direction.  This did cause an issue with the green-and-white block, as those are sheep and I didn't want them to be upside-down.  So again, cut off the block and sew it back into place.

Finally, all the squares are together, and mostly blanket-shaped:
Not perfectly even, but not bad given the variations.  Also, most of
the blanket photos are taken from one end and not directly overhead.

After that photo I decided to remove all the tags, as they were no longer needed.  I put each person's name on it, then when I set up the layout I added a code for row (letter) and position (number) to keep them in order as I sewed.  As I removed the tags I created a chart showing who had made each block, in case somebody wanted to know later.  Since some people did one block and others did several, I decided not to include it with the blanket.

Then I added the border:

Close-up of the border - a simple finish.

Also the embroidery, which I am pleased is very neat on the back.  I used chain stitch which I knew would be fast, and adjustable around curves, and fairly thick so the letters would be legible.  More-or less, anyway.  I wrote the message on waxed paper (I didn't have tissue paper handy), pinned it to the blanket, and embroidered, then pulled away the paper:





As we were working on this, another group member announced that she has to undergo chemo due to a cancer diagnosis.  I gently inquired, and no, she has plenty of blankets that she has made over the years - I was relieved to hear it!  But her hair is falling out, as often happens with chemo, and the infusions tire her so much that she can knit on a few stitches on a chemo cap at a time.  So I let the group know and she is likely to have a wardrobe in an assortment of colours very soon.  I mentioned my no-new-projects-during-Lent commitment during our Sunday meeting and a couple people stated that this is charitable work and it shouldn't count.  I have a very soft hat handy but it's colours this member said she doesn't like, so I will have to think about what to do - maybe after I finish one or two other projects.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The box did arrive safely; the recipient posted this message:

I came home from dialysis and I was tired. Driving home on the freeway I missed my turn and ended up in a residential area of a Minneapolis suburb - lost and frustrated. I got home and there was a big box waiting for me. In it was a gorgeous blanket knitted in squares by members of the KT family. I can't believe that  you all would make me this blanket; you guys hardly know me!! I am gob-smocked. 

For those who do not know, I lost my kidneys last July. No one knows why. I am one in a million the docs say. Then I spent 3 months in and out of the hospital; mostly in. The docs kept sending me home w/o fixing me. They sent me to a rehab facility and there I spent 3 weeks of very little rehabilitation After an "event" at my daughters house I ended up in another hospital for a week and they sent me to a rehab facility that was more aggressive. After 4 weeks I finally came home much stronger. I am staying with my daughter and family for more recuperation.. I had more in-house physical/occupational therapy. I am stronger than ever but continue to keep active by exercising.

Thank you to Afton, Alison, Annette, Diann, Donna, Helena, Jen, Jill, Kathleen (Hi), Kathy, Kim, Maura, Minerva, Robin, Sue T, Susan A, Trish, Vickie and Margo Lynn. I love all of the squares and the golden trim. I cannot thank you knitters enough. It reminds me of all the good there is in this world. I am still amazed. 

During my physical breakdown, I could not walk, write, had brain fog and lost some memory. That is all better but my knitting skills are not up to par. I will try and post some projects but most of mine are in time-out. Seems like I make so many mistakes in my knitting.

Thank you all for the blanket; I will use it when I go to dialysis to keep me warm.

I love  you all.

21 February 2024

The true harbinger of spring.

As many of us say, it's not what some silly rodent decides, spring really starts with the call of "Pitchers and catchers report!"  That was last week and this weekend I'll be enjoying three games of the Cactus League, via a professional group's trip:

It is a tradition for the President of the Illinois State Bar Association to select a trip.  In the past they have been cruises and such, often to the person's family's origin country or area.  I haven't gone because they were not interesting to me.

Naturally, this one is.

I borrowed my mother's White Sox gear, and have my own for the Cubs.  I'll get a new T-shirt there, of course.  We see the above game on Friday, a White Sox game on Saturday, and a Cubs game on Sunday.  A perfect weekend!

I hope to get to the Phoenix Art Museum to see two exhibits.  Since all our games are at 1:05pm (according to the posted schedule) that doesn't give much time, but both are small:  Guarding the Art and the Fireflies Infinity Mirrors Room.  If one of the games is later, I may try to get to Taliesin West, which I toured many years ago and would like to see again.

Maybe I'll switch to a later plane home.  😊

17 February 2024

Again, a start. Several starts.

It was the Lunar New Year earlier this week, the Year of the Dragon.  I don't do a big celebration or observance anymore because I don't live someplace that does, and my grandmother, who really loved celebrating (she loved any celebration!) died last May.

I ate dumplings, and a moon cake (saved from the fall Moon Festival, and yes I know it's not traditional for the new year, but it's round which is), and wished people Gong Hay Fat Choi!

Tuesday was Mardi Gras, again not much of a celebration here.  I went to a local bakery and bought a filled donut so I could feel like I'd had the pączki which I'd gotten used to eating in Connecticut.  It was filled with strawberry cream so not traditional, but tasty.

The divot in the icing is from the tongs when I 
selected this one from the case - the frosting is soft.
I also got a mochi donut to eat the next day, for Valentine's Day, and forgot to take a picture but it had the same frosting and sprinkles.  I gave my parents the dark chocolate covered almonds, tucking the packets into their card, which I left when I took my morning walk and put their paper into their garage.  Dad found it when he went to check for the paper and put the envelope at my mother's place at the breakfast table.

Since it was also Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent, I had to start either giving up or doing charitably.  In the give-ups are pork, and generally sausage things (yes, I know, I'm Jewish and shouldn't eat pork - and other than bacon, I pretty much don't, but I eat lots of kinds of chicken and beef and other non-pork sausages) except if I am at a baseball game and it's the most likely food option; and one category of sweets; and starting new fiber items.

I thought the last would help me focus on and finish a few things, but realized it could be a problem because I wanted to have some projects specifically for upcoming trips.  So I took an hour or so on Tuesday evening, instead of trying to finish a group project (more on which in a later post), and started things:

The two on the left are scarves (top one in knitting, lower one in crochet) that I plan to work on at North Texas Irish Festival.  Top middle is a project that I am taking to Spring Training next weekend: The Age of Brass and Steam Shawl in Forbidden Fiber's Pride DK (which has a bit of gold sparkle that doesn't show in the photo), colourway "Merchant Dynasty".  Below that is Granny's Not Square Cowl, the Carolina Fiber Fest crochet-along project, which of course I want to finish before then.  Yarn is an oddball of silk-wool blend, Louisa Harding's Amitola Grande in "Tangerine Dream".  

Bottom right is a corner-to-corner crocheted scarf if I need a charity project, of Premier Yarns Candy Shop in "Blow Pop" (there's more yarn waiting), and the top right is an emergency project (if I need something small and have nothing else before Easter), which is a baby sweater crocheted in sock yarn.  It is doubtful that I will finish more than four of these, especially with other items in progress, but I will keep reporting.

Reflecting, and a Status Check

Sometimes people use a new year to reflect and make changes.  Of course, I generally follow the Gregorian calendar for the major ones, but other new years provide a good time to review, possibly to reset, and evaluate.

Given that I just started six more projects, how am I doing on my resolutions?  I haven't completed any UFOs (and still not located the shawl), but I have almost made a thing for me:

I had a skein of handspun from the Knitting Buddha, and needed a simple item to work on while I was at a fiber arts group last weekend, so I decided to wind it up and work on a plain beanie.  I just wasn't happy with it, and frogged before I thought to take a photo of the progress.  Then I took the two ends, and wound a ball with both together, adding a small knot when I finished to mark the middle.  So if I reach the knot before the mitten is done, I need to add yarn to finish.  However, I've managed to finish this one without reaching the knot.  The ball at the top is the second strand, being wound into its own ball, and below is the remainder of the double-wound ball.  I need to take a row out of the thumb because it's just that much too long.  I have debated whether to make the cuff even longer, but it's probably sufficient as it will tuck nicely into a jacket sleeve or coat sleeve.  The second mitten will go quickly.

There are people in the fiber arts group who can help me repair my spinning wheel.  I'll get back to it after Carolina Fiber Fest as people are very focused on things for then.

I've read three books and made more progress on the really big one at my bedside.  Today I picked up the third book I need to read for the library challenge: "Called To Rise: A Life in Faithful Service to the Community That Made Me" by the former Dallas police chief, David O. Brown.  It resonated for several reasons, including my ties to Dallas; it's Black History Month; and the challenge category is "A Book From A Library Display".