Ferment with me…

19 Jan 2011 1 Comment

by katsmama in food, learning Tags: ,


Got a new book the other day- “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Katz. I got it with yogurt in mind, but it has a ton of stuff on pickled vegetables, too.

Yeah, it bugs me too, that they divided fermentation after the T, instead of between the N and the T.

A couple of years ago we had a glut of cabbages from our CSA, so I decided to make sauerkraut. I’m a white American, but I don’t have childhood memories of kraut- either my parents had it growing up and hated it, or it was considered “too ethnic” by both sets of grandparents. Anyway, I had a ton of cabbage, and all of the instructions I found online called for a ton of cabbage. The problem is, I wound up with a ton of sauerkraut…I didn’t know I didn’t like sauerkraut… yeah, I know, too ethnic.
Now, there’s a Mexican restaurant in town that serves pickled cabbage as a side. I learned it was called cortido, and it is essentially…Mexican sauerkraut. Too ethnic? No!

The recipe I found at the library made only a quart of it, which was just right.  The ease of the recipe inspired me to get this book- Wild Fermentation, for more recipes. I started a batch of Kimchee this weekend, which is like… Korean sauerkraut.  It has napa cabbage, radishes, carrots, onions and jalapeno peppers. The veggies are soaked in brine, and the spices are minced, then we drain the brine off and stirred in the spicy paste, then jar, cover with brine and let sit at room temperature for a week.

Minced jalapeno and garlic- see how fast my knife goes? No, it's just that I can't focus with my left hand.

 I’m very excited- just a few days for it to ferment, and I can try it.

I have a friend who loves pickles- only a week until we can try it.

 The cookbook has a ton of other ideas- I am thinking about sour dough and yogurt and a ton of other naturally fermented stuff. Not beer, though. Beer’s gross.

Just Right

11 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in learning Tags: ,


Finished the hat this afternoon- the girl is happily wearing it now. Can’t prove love through material things, I know, but there is love in every stitch. I hope she can feel it.

Just in time for icy weather...

Pink and Pink

10 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: ,


About half of a hat- there is a way to make the color changes less obvious, but I haven't learned it yet.

I am cruising along on the girl’s two toned striped hat. I actually did a swatch, which I hate doing, but I really hate finishing a project and discovering it is too huge or too puny. So, I actually measured the girl’s head, made a little swatch, measured, counted and multiplied.
I cast on last night just before we put in Hot Tub Time Machine- and knit about 4 inches up the hat by the end of the night. HTTM is a good knitting movie-not a good movie…a good knitting movie is one where it is brightly lit and not mysterious. Everything in the movie was telegraphed- no inferences needed to be made. I was never wondering who the obnoxious guy might have to have sex with in order to ensure that Jacob would be born. I knew before the characters did which beverage needed to be spilled on the Hot Tub control panel. Anyway, this is devolving into a review of a bad movie, instead of a hat pattern.

I decided to make uneven stripes, in a fibonacci pattern, because I am pretty nerdy: a fibonacci sequence adds the 2 previous numbers to get the next one in the sequence. The first pale stripe has 1 row (which I forgot to do- oops) the next has 2 rows, the next, 3, the next 5, the next 8, and so on. Actually, I plan to stop at 8 and go back down. I think an uneven stripe is more visually interesting than even stripes, but I also likethere to be a pattern in the chaos. 

By the way, I am writing this pattern in case anyone is looking to make a hat just like this- but I have to say I’m more of a believer in making up your own pattern design. Once you know how to do a basic hat, (and this one is about as basic as you can get), you can do anything you feel like. Also, this is not remotely a copyrighted pattern- I learned how to make a basic hat from “Stitch and Bitch”http://www.amazon.com/Stitch-N-Bitch-Knitters-Handbook/dp/0761128182/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294612345&sr=8-1, a long time ago. I made so many hats I  memorized the pattern, changed it, added stripes, etc. Now, for the first time I am writing down how to do it, while I am doing  it.

Stripey Hat pattern

Knitpicks bare fingering weight, dyed in 2 hues of the same color.

 size 5 needles, 6 st. per inch for a 21″ hat. Main color- approx. 120 yds, contrasting color, approximately 80 yards

Cast on 108 stitches, work in 2×2 ribbing for 1 inch. Increase evenly around to 120 stitches and switch to cc. follow the fibonacci sequence for the light colors, but knit 4 rows for the dark stripes every time.

Continue knitting, following the fibonacci pattern, until 7 inches up from the cast on row, place markers every 12 stitches. On the next row, knit 10, then knit 2 together before the marker, then slip marker. Continue each row this way, switching to double pointed needles or 2 circulars, whichever you prefer. Once you get to the final 10 stitches, cut off the yarn, thread it onto a tapestry needle, and stitch through the remaining stitches.

Seed Catalogues

07 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in gardening Tags:


Seed catalogues have been piling up in the mailbox, and on the coffee table for a couple of weeks now. Pinetree Garden Seeds was the first to arrive, and has the most post-it notes, but Nichols’Garden Nursery is running a close second. I love Nichols’ emphasis on herbs, but also love Pinetree’s multiple pages of gadgets. Leaf Claws? does anyone need leaf claws? Not really, but fun to read, as the days get longer, and I can start calculating when I can plant early things like sweet peas or potatoes, or sugar snap peas. Territorial is good too- they have 29 varieties of garlic- with a brief discription of each, teliing aboout growing requirements and flavors. 29, really? Do most of them just taste like garlic? I’d have to wait to get them in the fall, though, because Territorial only ships garlic bulbs in the fall, so I probably won’t order- delayed gratification is bad enough when I send off a check and order, and don’t get seeds for a couple of weeks. High Country Gardens is my favorite for perennials for the dry west- the nursery is based in Santa Fe, and they are really great about explaining what grows here, and why. I should probably order something from them this year, to stay on their mailing list. This sounds crazy- don’t most people want to get off mailing lists? All of these companies have a web presence, if you don’t have catalogues clogging your mailbox.

My stack of magazines, with sticky notes. Time will tell if Asparagus seeds make it on to the order.

As Promised, Dyeing Tutorial

04 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts, learning Tags:


No, not the death kind of dying, yarn dyeing. I have some desperately soft wool and silk blend that I made a sweater for myself with. Knitpicks has what they call “bare” yarn, white and ready for dying. I just wanted a white sweater (it’s like a sickness- how inconvenient are white sweaters? but I have a bunch already and must have more!) but I had quite a bit of yarn left over after my sweater was finished, just waiting in the closet for a project. A striped hat for the girl is just the project it was waiting for.
Step one: find the ball of leftover yarn. This was surprisingly easy.

This handy dandy tool is a niddy noddy, perfect for winding a ball into a hank. The loop is roughly 1 yard, so I can keep track of how long it is.

Step two: unwind it from the ball and into a hank or long loop. Tie the ends together and also loosely tie loops around it, to prevent it from getting tangled. Don’t tie it too tightly, or it will tie dye, and that’s a different tutorial. If you order bare yarn from Knitpicks (www.knitpicks.com), it comes packaged this way, so there’s no need for this step. If you are over-dying another color, make sure you are using “protein fibers” like wool or silk. Cotton, linen or other plant fibers (hemp anyone?) use a different process. I have over-dyed light yellow with blue to make a funky green, but the process is kind of hit or miss. If you feel confident with color mixing, go for it. Or if you only paid a dollar for the yarn…
Step 3 Soak yarn with a drop of dish detergent in the water. The detergent breaks the surface tension, and lets the yarn really get soaked, so the color will penetrate more evenly.
Step 4 Prep materials: Since I am working on this with my daughter, we are going the low poison route- I have used commercial acid dyes before, but I don’t want to be concerned with the safety of doing it inside with a ten year old. We are going to use neon food colors, white vinegar, and a pyrex dish with lid. We have also used Kool Aid before, but the colors aren’t as mixable, and the cost adds up, believe it or not.

The dark pink wound up taking about 60 drops of neon pink dye. Yes, we counted.

Step 5 Mix color: the girl wants pink and red stripes, which I will interpret as pink and dark pink, and just use different concentrations of the same food color. I mix the dye in a measuring cup, keeping track of the number of drops of dye. Two cups of lukewarm water and a slug of white vinegar are about right for dyeing 75-100 yards of yarn. Part of the fun of this is experimenting with the kids, and you could probably turn it into a science project by tracking the amount of vinegar it takes to get maximum concentration. Or, you could just have fun and make a mess.
Step 6 The microwave: put the lid on the bowl and put in the microwave for about 5 minutes. It will stink like vinegar.
Step 7 Let it cool off. Really, seriously, take the lid off and walk away from the boiling water. Ask me how I know this.  Seriously, have some tea and fudge, and just wait until the yarn isn’t boiling hot anymore.

After 7 minutes in the microwave, the water was still kind of pink, so I added more vinegar and put it back in for 2 minutes.

Step 8: Using a chopstick, or spoon, move the yarn to one side and see if all the dye has been taken up. It always astonishes me to see the water turn clear. If there is still lots of dye in the water, microwave a few more minutes, and if it isn’t dark enough, mix more dye solution and add, then microwave more.  If you want to play with varegation, drop some dye directly onto the yarn, otherwise, mix it with water.

Step 9: pull out of the dye bath and rinse with lukewarm water. Don’t run the faucet directly over the yarn, but dunk the yarn in clear water, to get rid of any dye that hasn’t been taken up. Hang it up to dry, away from the cat.

Because of the rinse, your shower probably won't turn pink. Probably.

Make sure it is entirely dry before winding into a ball, or it might get mildewy.  It will still smell kind of vinegary until you wash whatever you knit with it. For some people that is a deal breaker…and the only advantage to using Kool Aid is that the yarn smells fruity instead of like vinegar. Colors will lighten up when the yarn is dry, and you can always re-dye if you are not happy with the results.

No New Projects! Well, maybe just one…

02 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: ,


As part of my resolution to be more organized this year, I decided not to start any more knitting projects during the month of January. I knit compulsively, and I still have about 3 long term projects that I will just never finish, unless I really work on them exclusively. For example, there is a short sleeve sweater in a very thin bamboo yarn, on ridiculously skinny needles. I timed it today, and it takes me a full ten minutes to knit one round of this thing. The pattern is knit in one piece, from the top down to the waist, and I am about 10 inches down from the collar. Did I mention that the color is kind of band-aid pink? When I started I thought it would be subtle and natural-looking. Now, I just don’t know. No pictures…
There is a pair of brown socks, very easy ribbing pattern that I have memorized. That is my portable project, for meetings, and car rides. No pictures of them either. My camera is in the car, and it’s just too cold to go get it. I’m also in my pajamas.
The third major project is a circular afghan. Afghans are big, if you hadn’t noticed. and the thing about knitting in a circle, is they get bigger every round. It just takes for ever. Right now, it has a radius of about 12 inches. Not really big enough for an afghan yet. I don’t expect to finish it during my self-imposed ban on new projects, but it’ll maybe go to a 16 inch radius?
There’s also a hat that will take maybe half an hour to finish up on, and it’s charity knitting, for the preschool silent auction.

Now, the girl asked me today for her own hat. Red and pink stripes. And I have this really pretty wool and silk blend, that we could dye. And she’s due for a hat- the one she has been wearing constantly I made about 6 years ago. For her brother. So, she’s totally due.

 No new projects. But watch for a dying tutorial…

Gift bags

29 Dec 2010 3 Comments

by katsmama in arts and crafts, environmentalism, holidays Tags: , ,


A pile of presents, wrapped and ready to go. Oops, one of the books is peeking out.

Last year at Christmas, I was appalled at how much wrapping paper got thrown away, as I have mentioned before, so I decided to make some bags, and use scarves to wrap other presents, Furoshiki style. I have been buying scarves every time I go to thrift stores, but I put off making bags until just a couple of days before Christmas.

I’m usually not so good at follow through, but this year, I did actually make some bags for gifts for my immediate family, and some extended family. I think there were only a few presents in paper that came from my house, and a couple of others that were packed in re-used paper gift bags. I was still appalled at how much paper got thrown away, but at least hardly any of it was mine.

I always give everyone at least one book, so I wanted adjustable bags with side gussets for thick or thin books, and an adjustable closure. I modeled these after a lunch bag pattern I found in a book.

I used a pattern for a lunch bag that I found in “Bend the Rules With Fabric” to make book bags for DH and the kids, and kind of pimped out some of those freebie drawstring backpacks with applique. Last spring, I was given a whole bunch of string backpacks from the Census Bureau. I was supposed to give them to my students, but none of them really wanted one. I couldn’t throw them away, but didn’t want to carry around a census backpack, either.  

 The homemade bag  I am proudest of, though, is for my great-niece- I looked at the construction of the freebie backpacks, said to myself, “That can’t be too hard” and whipped one up for her in red velvet. She’s going to be 4, she needs a red velvet backpack!
Now, next year, I will have the bags that already exist, and I’ll make a few more, and so on and so on. Never buying wrapping paper again…

I stitched a square of red silk onto this canvas backpack, then cut out a bluejay, freehand. It took me a couple of tries. I mostly wanted to cover up the logo on the bag.

I (accidently) grew a sweet potato!

24 Dec 2010 1 Comment

by katsmama in containers, food, free is good, gardening, Uncategorized Tags: ,


Way back last summer, there was a sweet potato sprouting in the bin, so I chucked it into an empty flowerpot, with some soil, of course, and put it out on the patio. Sweet potatoes have pretty, heart shaped leaves, and I enjoyed the greenery all summer, honestly not expecting it to have enough soil or water, or warmth, to produce tubers. I didn’t even check at the end of the summer.
Today it’s warm and sunny, so I went out to do some fall clean-up which I should have done when it was actually fall, and emptied out the pot with the sweet potato plant. Imagine my surprise to see an actual sweet potato. there were a couple of small mushy ones, but one was the size of one you’d see at a grocery store. I’m going to eat it on Christmas.

The leaves froze sometime in October, but the tuber stayed alive in a 10 inch flowerpot.

Blood, toil, tears and sweaters

20 Dec 2010 2 Comments

by katsmama in arts and crafts, favorite things, learning Tags: , ,


I highly recommend using sock yarn for sweaters because it's machine washable.

I knit for fun, really I do. I like to have something to do with my hands when watching TV, or riding in the car, or waiting at the dentist.  I also like to plan projects, and see them come alive.  A couple of years ago, the girl was reading the American Girl books, and when reading the Kirsten series, she asked me for a sweater like Kirsten’s mom made for her. It was cute- a black and white, Nordic ski sweater. I had played a little with knitting in two colors, and felt comfortable with it, so I took on the project.  http://www.amazon.com/Changes-Kirsten-Winter-American-Collection/dp/0937295949/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292820841&sr=1-1

We wound up misplacing the book- it turned up later in the closet under the stairs, so I couldn’t make up the pattern by looking at the illustration on the cover.  At that point I didn’t feel comfortable looking at an illustration and making up a sweater pattern anyway. 

The inspiration for the sweater. we never made the hat or mittens.

Actually, I don’t think I could do that now, either… So I found a pattern in “Knitting Without Tears” from the library. This is a book I highly recommend, by the way, if you are ready to graduate from scarves.

I cast on about 200 stitches in sock yarn for the body, and started on the patterns going up the body to the armpits. It was kind of fascinating- you hold the black yarn in one hand, the white in the other, and go across the rows, knitting four of black, 3 of white, or whatever, and row by row the pattern builds. Checkerboards, snowflakes, giant backward letter “s” . With the amount of work this was going to be, I wanted it to fit for a  few years, so I made it extra long, and by the time I got to the armpits, it was time to start the sleeves.  This was where I got stalled. 

You look at a sleeve, and it looks small, but it winds up being more than a quarter of the size of the body of a sweater. I cast on what I thought was the right number of stitches, and went about 4 inches, before I thought of trying it on the girl. Too small. It is now a mini dress for Barbie. Start over, The other thing about sleeves is that they can’t be just cylindircal, because arms aren’t. But the thing about working with two colors, is most of the patterns have repeats of 8 stitches, so increasing gradually messes up the pattern, and increasing too suddenly makes the arm look goofy.  Ask me how I know. 

By now it was March, and even though in Norway, I am sure people wear Norwegian sweaters well into summer, here in Northern Colorado, we are riding bikes and playing soccer. I put away the sweater for a while as being just too frustrating.

Took it out again in the fall, ripped out the sleeves, reknit to make sure they matched, then attached them to the body of the sweater. At this point, I really started cruising. It still took a while, though.  The girl’s school had a spirit day, whose theme was “Dress as a book character” I made it down the home stretch and finished the Kirsten Sweater in time for her to wear it to school. 

Now, the reason this has come up now, 3 years after I started knitting that thing, and 2 and a half years after I finished it, is that when I picked up the girl the other day at school, she was wearing it. “Oh, you haven’t worn that for a while.” I said.

“Yeah, I just found it in the lost and found.”

Yikes- the school newsletter had just announced that as of  Friday, anything still in the lost and found would be taken to Goodwill. As I said, I knit because I enjoy it, but that sweater has a little bit of my soul in it, and the thought of it being sold at a thrift store was a little jarring. I’m glad to have it home again. Don’t ask me what I’ll do when she outgrows it. I’m not ready to think about it.

The line must be drawn here…

20 Dec 2010 2 Comments

by katsmama in arts and crafts, holidays, learning Tags: , ,


This year, I haven’t made or given teacher gifts, I didn’t handknit anything for my secret Santa recipient, I haven’t made batch after batch of cookies. And I am okay with that, I think. 

In previous years, not only have I given presents to all the kids’ teachers, and aids, and speech therapists, I made the presents from scratch- one year I knit 7 mini stockings, and put Starbucks cards in them. It was good because I totally was able to internalize the structure of sock knitting, with all these mini socks. But I also remember staying up late the night before the last day of school, weaving in ends of yarn.   This year, I decided to cut the teacher presents, for lack of time and energy. 

A noro striped scarf I made for Secret Santa last year- if the recipient has worn it, I haven't seen it...

In previous years, I have made scarves or felted bags for the person I’ve drawn for secret santa at school, and this year I couldn’t bring myself to it.  Part of it was that my local yarn store has closed and I don’t have anything stashed away that would have worked. But I noticed that when I made the decision to skip knitting something for my colleague, a weight lifted off my shoulders.

Similarly, when I decided to skip the cookies, I felt so relieved. We’ve made tons and tons, and given some away, but eaten a lot myself, too. Not having to make several different recipes of cookies, and put together tins or plates for people was a relief.  There is the chance that I will be able to zip my ski pants, too, so there’s another benefit. Don’t get me wrong- we aren’t entirely Scroogey-  we have decorated, and hosted a party, and we have gifts, (some homemade) but having a slightly simpler Christmas has helped us with some peace on Earth.

Gingerbread houses- another project we didn't do this year.

Or at least peace in our own house. I don’t think my kids will look back, and say, “Hey, remember when we made gingerbread houses, and mom yelled at us for putting too much food coloring in the icing?”  This year, I am trying to draw the line at yelling.

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