Yarn Zombie

September 2010
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Spring?

Mar 9th, 2009 by Jacki

Spring! I don’t care if the temps drop again and we get more snow, at least now I know that spring is near. For we have crocus! And pussy willow!

Yay! Nature hasn’t given up on us!

The past few days have been absolutely wonderful (we didn’t get anywhere near as much rain as Katie did). It got into the mid-60s. We were able to have plenty of outside time with the dogs.

Also got a buttload of dyeing done. Katie came by on Saturday and we did one of our marathon keggle dyeing days. Everything came out awesome. I’m going to start reskeining tonight. I’m actually looking forward to reskining this batch and seeing how stuff looks, so maybe Travis won’t get stuck doing all of it. Dyed some roving, too. Unlike some of my other wool roving, this stuff seems like it might be carded easily, so I may whip out a few experimental batts.

Saturday was a lot of fun (we even went to the bowling alley for dinner! Class – we haz it). Yesterday Travis and I decided to go ahead and do a St. Patrick’s Day dinner, even though it was early. We normally wind up intending to do holiday dinners, but then either we don’t plan far enough ahead or Travis has to work or something, I figured since he was off, we might as well go ahead and do it. So we ran to Kroger’s and got the goods, and then made corned beef, cabbage, bread, and potatoes. I was inspired by Simply Recipes, who had posted separate recipes for baked corned beef and sauteed cabbage and a Guinness Beer Bread. My family always baked our corned beef, but I guess most people boil it (why???), so most of the corned beef recipes I’ve seen are for boiling, not baking. Now that I finally had a guidelines for baking it, I felt more secure in making it. And really, baking corned beef? Takes about 3 minutes of prep time. So easy. We just dumped the meat in a colander, rinsed it off, stuck it in a roasting pan lined with tin foil, spread the spicy-hot mustard on top of it (which was new to me, but NOM), and then sprinkled the spice pack on top of that. Closed up the tin foil tent, and baked at 350 degrees for a few hours. Piece o’ cake, and came out perfectly.

Happily, the Guinness bread was also cooked at the same temp. Unhappily, and we didn’t realize this til this morning when I cut into the middle of the loaf, we didn’t cook ours quite long enough. Our oven is a little slow. I think about 7 extra minutes would have been perfect. At least I know for next time, and yes, there will be a next time, because the bread was awesome (the end parts that were done, anyway). Also, we have to have a next time because we bought molasses and self-rising flour to make this, which are two things we don’t normally buy. Also, randomly, why is all self-rising flour bleached? Yick. I totally don’t get bleaching flour. I know, given the option, I go out of my way to get unbleached flour. I’m pro-color in general.

I sauteed the cabbage as per the recipe, with garlic and onions and olive oil. Delicious, and quick to make. I swear this whole meal probably took at most 15 minutes of prep, and that was split up in a few different chunks. Good food doesn’t have to be complex. Sometimes I forget that.

In a different area, I also tend to forget sometimes about one of the most effective tools in a dyer’s repertoire: patience (yeah, I’m off food now and back to dyeing). Travis and I got out the keggle again this morning to make a go of scouring some of the millions of pounds of fleeces I have in it. When I’ve scoured stuff in the past, I just did it in kitty litter buckets in the sink, but always had the feeling that I could be getting things even cleaner. Scouring in the keggle certainly wasn’t any quicker (mainly because it took so long for the water to warm up to a near-boil), but it seems like it worked well. The length of time it was taking was kind of driving me nuts, but I think I’ll be okay with it once it gets warmer and we get the garage a little more tidied up – then we can just set out lawn chairs and hang out and drink beer and scour fleeces.

After we got them clean(ish), I went ahead and dyed them. There doesn’t seem to be any point in getting the fleeces dry, and then having to re-wet them to dye them at a later date. Two lingerie bags of fleece pretty much filled up the keggle, but I threw in some charcoal gray Sheep Shed roving too that I wanted to try overdyeing (mainly because it felt funky, not because it looked bad).

And this is where patience comes in. After throwing in the dye, adding more acid, and waiting for it to clear… it didn’t. Nope, it just looked pretty much the same. That pissed me off, so instead, I just threw in more dye and then Travis and I turned the heat off and went in to eat lunch. When we came back outside, the water was perfectly clear, and I had the deepest colors I had ever managed to dye on fleece.