The Fiber Fest that Wasn't - Day 2

On Friday night at DFW Fiber Fest is the big event.  There is a baked potato bar, and cake, and door prizes, and sometimes a raffle, and always a speaker.  In the early days we had trunk shows and fashion shows, but the last decade or so they've hosted a speaker.  Many times, it has been Franklin Habit and he's a favourite of mine.  So today I decided to wear an outfit drawn by him.

 

You can get the t-shirt in his Society6 shop, along with many other cool items, and Maker's Mercantile used to sell the leggings but they are sold out.

The shawl is from yarn I purchased a couple of DFW Fiber Fests ago, or more, from Knitting Lagniappe.  Misty spun one hank and Sony spun the other and they became one of my UFOs until late last summer.  I'd looked forward to showing them the end result this weekend - guess I will have to do it next year.  The two hanks go together so well they look like one:

 

The yarns are very soft merino, and the shawl is a nice size, and cuddly, and the kind of hug some of us need right now - especially on a very grey and rainy and chilly Friday.

Today at DFW Fiber Fest I was supposed to take a class similar to yesterday's but in another format: "Colorwork Crochet Cables".  My skills here are more basic than in knitting coloured cables so I was looking forward to learning some new skills.

The other class, which I was really interested in learning, was Franklin Habit's "Snip and Zip" class on steeking and insetting zippers.  I've inset zippers in fabric, but not knitting.  And steeking is scary but he does it often, so is a good person from whom to learn.




Lucky for his Patreons, he did a demo of steeking as a live feed, and luckily for me, I could watch it as a late lunch half-hour.  It was charming, and we can watch the preparation and video later also:

Work was less so, and busy enough that I was glad I put in my farmstand order for tomorrow instead of trying to go today.  So I didn't get very far with my knitting.

The instructions for the yarn is to use each colour completely.  I want to have smaller stripes 

and thought of doing five-row stripes because 3x5=15 and it's the DFW Fiber fest Quinceañera this year.  It's a two-row pattern stitch, though, and that would be problematic with the colour changes because they won't look clean every time.  So I decided on six rows of each colour, and this also works for me because 3x6=18 and in Jewish numerology (called gematria) this is propitious because the letters in the word תִּי, which means "life", add up to eighteen.  I'll take that as an omen.  "Next year in DFW," we're already telling each other.

The Fiber Fest that Wasn't - Day 1

Today I decided to wear my old shirt from when I was on the Board, back in the founding days when the logo looked much different, since it's also #tbt (ThrowBack Thursday) today.

The leggings are from Maker's Mercantile, and I don't usually wear my skirt hiked up, but I wanted to show as much of the pattern as possible in this photo.

Today I should have been in the class "Twists on Twists: Reversible, Color, and Multicolor Cables".  I've done that kind of thing before, and like it, and am always up for learning new tricks.

For my knitting, I couldn't decide among the new things, and I wanted something not too fiddly since it's a work day.  I remembered picking up the yarn for this two years ago, and since I couldn't find the pattern I bought it again in digital format, especially as it's a fundraiser.

This is supposed to be a cowl, but I have two yarn sets, and I think it's enough to turn this into a vest for me.  One row is plain knit, the other has the pattern which spells out in binary code "We Knit In Texas Y'all" and  it just seems to be what I need to knit right now, even though I'm not in Texas.

No Foolin'

As the lockdown increases, and more people are voluntarily staying home for as long as possible, I've seen a lot of suggestions about how to "stay normal" such as continuing to follow a normal routine to get ready for work in the morning, if you now work at home:  shower, breakfast, dress, hair, makeup, jewelry, whatever.  My routine has been a bit less normal, as I have made pancakes or waffles more often than not, and my usual workday breakfast is cold cereal and yoghurt, maybe fruit, a granola bar.

Pumpkin pancakes with blackberries.

Wild blueberry waffle.

Yes, I am still eating at my laptop, but it's much nicer than I usually consume.  I am trying to make a point of not "going to work" until 8:00am unless I have an earlier meeting or a hard deadline, and this gives me a bit more time to cook breakfast instead of grab-and-go.

One sadness is that today I should have been on my way to Texas for DFW Fiber Fest's Quinceañera, but like so many things, it was cancelled.  

It's a huge amount of work to put on an event like this, and just as much to tie up all the loose ends from cancelling it.  One loose end was the vendors and their wares; many planned for DFW Fiber Fest to be a major part of their income.  And yet, wonderfully, many are contributing to DFW Fiber Fest (which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, if you'd like to contribute also) some portion of sales, either from their commemorative colourway or otherwise.

So of course, I took the money I didn't spend on airfare (well, I have a credit that I'll use for a future trip), hotel, and car rental, and put it to purchasing from the vendors:

A Thing for String's show colourway,
on two different bases.

Crafting My Chaos.  The two on the
left will get worked into one garment.

Fiber Seed.  Such bright yarns!

Fiberlady - they got their start at
DFW Fiber Fest #2, and this is their
fundraiser colourways, all three of them!

        

Forbidden Fiber Co.

The colours in their Pandemic Survival set.

   

Hill Country Weavers - commercial
yarns, but they give discounts to fiber
people in need.  I paid full price.

Lazy Cat - my favourite show colourways.

I loved Leading Men Yarns' tote.

Mahogany Sheep does pins, including
sheep doing yoga.  We need yoga.

Schmutzerella

The Sexy Knitter.  Socks plus ?????

   

WhimzeeStitches one-off colourway.

I also picked up a few patterns from some of the teachers.  So now I have decided that since I cannot go to DFW Fiber Fest this year, I'll wallow in it by wearing, for the next four days, one of the fiberstuffs-related T-shirts and leggings that I would have worn had I gone.  And I am putting aside other knitting to work on yarns from DFW Fiber Fests past and cancelled.

Speaking of putting aside my knitting, given that my March mini-Resolution was to make a baby blanket for friends, and then finish items for the Mittens for Akkol grads, how did I do?

Well, the baby blanket is partly done but not finished.  I was going to hand it off to friends to deliver, since baby and parents live overseas, but all that was upended in mid-March.  So I'll finish the blanket and send it when it's ready.  Maybe later this month.  Photos to follow.

The grad items are done and not-done.  On Leap Day I set the intention to make four items:  a sweater and coordinated scarf in red and yellow or gold; a purple scarf; and a blue-and-orange hat.  While updating my progress of the items on a Google-docs chart, I noticed a couple other items that needed makers and which would also use up stash: a hat to go with a dark pink sweater, and another to match a navy/colours set.  I had some yarn that I wanted to use up that fitted both of these, so I claimed those and made them and mailed four items:

I'd planned a different pattern for the orange-and-blue hat, but couldn't find it, started what you see, and by the time I found the pattern I was well into the first band of slip-stitch and the stitch count was too different to switch, so I stayed with what you see.  The scarf is a lot of Shaker rib stitch in different shades of purple (hard to see, but different) and the pink hat is a slip-stitch honeycomb with a solid single-ply over a handdyed.  The other hat was the last ball and a half of an Italian yarn that feels lovely soft, and I did a bit of rib patterning.

The sweater is close to being done: 

MarlyBird was doing a knit-along, and while I knew I didn't have time to work on the sweater then, I liked one of the patterns and decided to use it for this sweater.  It's zooming along although I have to pay attention to the patterning.  You use a slightly larger needle to help compensate for the drawing-in that often happens with colourwork like this.  I like that there will be very little sewing-together at the end, just some underarm grafting.

So, I'm calling it good enough.  I should be able to finish the sweater and scarf in April.

For my proper

Resolutions for April

I plan to finish one item FOR ME, and out of yarn from a DFW Fiber Fest vendor.  With luck, I'll finish more than one.  As you can see, just from this year's shopping I have an embarrassment of source material, so to speak.

And I need to make at least one shawl for my grandmother, so I can mail it in time for her to receive it for her birthday, which is at the beginning of May.  But that's not really a resolution since I'd do it anyway, provided I select among the yarns and patterns queued.

Still no progress on the books.  There's too much to read online, plus work was madly busy between having to assist customers whose businesses are heavily affected by COVID-19, and it being the end of our fiscal year, so my eyes usually had enough reading by end of day.

Instead, I've been indulging in all the cool stuff available online, from the Met Opera and Playbill's weekend free musicals, to The Globe Theatre and National Theatre in the UK.

Catching up with Cooking

Like much of the world, I am staying in lockdown.  While I don't have any of the medical markers requiring self-quarantine, I am staying home to avoid dragging the virus around.  I go out of my neighborhood by car about once a week; I get mail at a post office, not at home, so I have to collect it.  This past week I went out on Thursday because I had a discount coupon for Walgreens that expired that day, and it turns out they didn't have anything I wanted, so I'll be back to a Saturday trip next week.

When the weather is good I try to go for a walk outside the neighborhood.  On Friday I put an out-of-office message reading "Following the recommendations of our leadership for self-care, etc., I have gone for a walk.  It's lovely out today and the weather this weekend is supposed to be drek.  I'll respond to email and review things when I return, which will be before sunset."  And indeed the weather this weekend is not conducive to walking:  From sunny and mid-60's(F) on Friday, it's been between freezing and low 40's(F) with waves of sleety rain alternating with heavy rain all weekend.  I was very glad I'd gone walking when I did.  I walked down to the reservoir and back, about three miles, and I saw a lot of cars parked on the north side of the road.  It seems they had decided enough people were there and they closed the reservoir and were turning away even people on foot.

The strangest thing to me about being at home All The Time is not having to constantly pack a suitcase or overnight bag for each week's travel.  It was odd enough before to have a week when I didn't travel, although I enjoyed being home to do local activities.  Now I've put away the suitcases into the closet, and I'm participating in some local activities that have moved online; SWAN DAY shifted to ten nights of online concerts from some of the performers.  It's fun to do even further away things that I might not get to see or hear, such as the Metropolitan Opera's daily stream, or Paris Opera, or touring museums, and going back in time with Playbill's weekly showing of a musical.  I'm hugely excited about some of the shows the National Theatre (of Britain) is going to show.

All of this does mean that my reading has slacked off considerably.  Oh, well.

Since I posted last, there have been several holidays for which I've done cooking.  First up was St. Patrick's Day, and since I don't do corned beef and cabbage, and I had to work with what I have in the house, and work was going NUTS because we had to figure out how to respond to the COVID-19 effects on our customers, I didn't have much time to do anything elaborate.  Of course, I did make soda bread:

Whole wheat flour, oatmeal, baking soda.

Stir in buttermilk, form.  One half had caraway seeds added,
then cut into quarters or "farls", the other dusted with oatmeal.

Finished!  Hot and buttered and YUMMY.

When I finally had time to prepare supper, I was too hungry to bother with pictures.  It was supposed to be a venison casserole, but I made it as a stew because I have ground beef.  So instead of flouring and browning chunks of meat, I browned the ground beef in some bacon fat, added onions (should be browned in the fat, but I'd missed getting fresh ones in the panic stockup people did so had to use dehydrated) and the rest of the ale from the Apicius cooking a few nights before, plus the seasonings: juniper berries, allspice berries, orange rind, ground pepper, cider vinegar, and a bit of stock.  The upside of ground meat is that it cooked fairly quickly this way.  I have a photo taken the next night, when I ate leftovers:

Stew on soda bread with roasted brussels sprouts,
because they look like miniature cabbages.

The last bit of pear and
blackberry pie for dessert.

I had a bit more time on St. Joseph's Day to make "Carpenter's Pasta".  It should be spaghetti or something similar, but I'm not fond of long noodles so used rotini, which I have on hand.

Step 1:  Brown breadcrumbs.
They are supposed to represent
a carpenter's sawdust.

Step 2:  Soften onions and
garlic until they are golden.

Step 3: Add chopped tomatoes,
basil, and oregano.

Pasta cooked, tomato sauce over, breadcrumbs on top.
Steamed asparagus and fresh figs, the latter of
which is also associated with St. Joseph.

It was easy and rather tasty.  I used soda bread crumbs, of course.  When the bread got a bit dry, as it does due to the lack of fat, I toasted slices and put butter or cheese on top.  Still rather yummy.

I've done some cooking since, but nothing very photogenic.  I tried making pumpkin waffles, to use up the pumpkin from the Ides, but my waffle iron is old and not cooperative.  So the batter became pancakes and I added the rest of my fresh blackberries:

As you can see, I was eating "at work".

Last night I made a Tuscan Stew using a packet of herbs I'd gotten some time ago.  The idea is that you follow the recipe using the premeasured amounts in the packet, and then keep the recipe (it's on a punch-out card) so you can remake it later.  I had everything on hand except chicken, so I used some extra-firm tofu that has been waiting in the refrigerator.  I also subbed frozen greens (put in the freezer last summer) for fresh spinach, and swapped half the beans with some potatoes that needed to be cooked and eaten.  Overall, the result is very good.  It does make a LOT of stew, so I have meals until well into the workweek.

On the first Monday of spring, we had a snowstorm:

       

It didn't daunt the crocus:

Pi Day and the Ides

The title sounds something like a one-hit-wonder band, doesn't it?

Yesterday, I made a pie, as I do on Pi Day:

This year's is pear and blackberry, combining recipes from an old favourite cookbook and baked in a 6"x3" springform because I don't have small-sized pie plates and didn't want a full-sized pie.  Not for just me.  I used the recipe for a single crust, mixing:

• One cup whole-wheat flour
• One half-cup all-purpose flour
• Half a stick of cold butter
• Enough cold water to make a paste

Then I rolled out about a third and cut a lid, using the pan as a measure.  The remainder (and trimmings) rolled out to fill the pan.  I chopped up about three cups of peeled pears to about the same size as the blackberries, and mixed them with not quite all of a six-ounce box of blackberries from the shop; a few went into the cook to determine sweetness of the filling.  I added about a tablespoon of lemon juice, a tablespoon and a half of sugar (quite a bit less than the recipes said, because I do not like sweet pies), and about two tablespoons of all-purpose flour.  Filling in, lid on, sealed, and the traditional π cut for juices to escape, although as you can see, they ran out around the seal as well.

Today, Ides of March, and I decided to pull out Apicius.  Often I do roasted carrots, but I've had a carrot-based curry this weekend, so I decided to do something else.  First to figure out what I can do with what's in the larder; a recipe for Pumpkin and Chicken intrigued me (ditto a more Thanksgivingesque option), but couldn't find poultry in the freezer.  I did find a package of ground bison, and decided to split it between Roman food for the Ides and something for later in the week.

Some more browsing turned up recipes I may try in the future (especially a nut tart) but being limited to what is onsite, I decided to substitute a patty of bison for roasted meat, make a sauce for it, and have pumpkin on the side since I've got pumpkin.  Changes I had to make was using ale instead of wine (because I have the former, and need a partial bottle later in the week) and skipping some of the greens I don't have, such as lovage, which to be honest I never have.  The result is:

• Broiled bison patty with a sauce of ale (4-5 oz), honey (about 2T), allspice (5 berries), and pepper (about 9-10 peppercorns), based upon a recipe for Roast Neck.  Many of the recipes include cumin but since I have it in the vegetable, I looked for a different combination here.
• Pumpkin (one cup) mashed with oil (1T), oregano (1/2 tsp.), cumin(1/2 tsp.), caraway (generous 1/2 tsp.), and onion (generous 1T minced), a combination of recipes 74, 78 and 79.
• Salad, because I have a little, and the Roman dressing is oil and vinegar, much as today.  I used olive oil and red wine vinegar.
• Asparagus, because I have some, and Apicius mentions it just cleaned and boiled.

Overall, it's nice, although as noted the two green things didn't have much done to them.  I simmered the sauce to about 3T and strained it over the meat.  In the future, I would use half the cumin and caraway, as they overpowered the rest of the flavours in the pumpkin, but it wasn't unpleasant.  The photo shows about half the pumpkin; the rest went into storage for lunch tomorrow.

It's definitely a week for creative cooking, since I'm staying home except for once or twice a week, important things like the dentist (an old crown needed replacing, with some infection underneath) and post office.  Upcoming are St. Patrick's Day, and y'all know I don't do corned beef and cabbage, and St. Joseph's Day.  Catching up a bit, I made boxty for the first-Sunday brunch this month:

..... remembering too late that it was St. David's Day and I should have done bara brith or some other Welsh thing instead.  These, being similar to American biscuits, were well-received.  Most boxty are a sort of pancake,  but I have a scone-like recipe and used it.

A few days later was the North Texas Irish Festival, and despite COVID-19 becoming serious, I went.  Good thing, as Performer Products (the area where I work) was understaffed - not enough volunteers, one manager flaked out, and another ended up in hospital with an allergic reaction.  The rest of us pulled together and it all worked, and I got a few minutes to go out and see dogs in costumes, and stormtroopers in kilts, and hear music at stages other than the one next to our booth.

  
I will say, there's a benefit to being a manager, when you go to the staff-and-performers-only hospitality area: