May 28, 2003
Mother Hubbard Ain't Got Nothin' On Me!
I need some serious epicurean help! At this moment, in my refrigerator, I have two little plastic cups of chocolate pudding and some old Monterey Jack cheese. Period. Last night for dinner, I had a tin of mandarin oranges, which I ate with a sad little plastic fork. Sigh.
I am such a bad cook that K and I have a theory that it takes at least four days for me to make a meal: One day to decide what to cook (which is a traumatic exercise in itself); one day to locate and buy the ingredients; one day to actually make the meal (which leaves my kitchen looking as if a tornado blew through); and one day to clean up (which is not necessarily the day after the meal has been consumed). In short, I’m good for, at a maximum, one meal a week.
On the other hand, if K had in her refrigerator only the same pudding and cheese I have, somehow she’d manage to make a luscious stir-fry of peppers, onions and marinated barbecued chicken strips on a steaming bed of jasmine rice, and her kitchen would be immaculate when she was done. I have no idea how she does it...
Knitting Knews – Good News, and My New Yarn
First things first: A big thank you goes out to reader Janine who belongs to the same guild I belong to and who reports that the bag of Philosopher’s Wool was found! She described the mysterious disappearance/reappearance delightfully, saying the yarn was “the victim of mischance rather than miscreants.” Phew! I just hated the thought of petty theft casting a shadow, no matter how small, over such a wonderful and complete monthly “escape.”
As promised – although it does not do the yarn justice – here is a photo of the yarn I bought. The litany: Schaefer Yarns, 100% merino, 280 yards per skein, heavy worsted weight, hand-dyed in shades of aquamarine, teal, cobalt blue, and navy, color name "Miss Priss."
Dye Garden Dyegest – Shopping Success!
Below is a photo of my new $9 dyeing paraphernalia, procured by haunting our local Deseret Industries and St. Vincent de Paul’s thrift stores.
The natural-dyeing reference books say it’s important to dye yarn in either stainless steel or enamel pots because the alum in aluminum pots may affect the color of the dye. Experienced dyers can use aluminum pots to their advantage but I'm still inclined to go absolutely by the book, having dyed, as you know, a grand total of two balls of yarn (with Kool-Aid, no less). Also, someone on one of the lists I belong to said that when you are experimenting with dyeing small batches of yarn, a practical idea is to put a variety of dyes in different mason jars, put a few yards of yarn in each jar, and then immerse the jars in simmering water in a larger pot.
The reference books also warned to always use pots with lids since some of the natural dye products can be a mite odoriferous.
With all this information under my belt, I procured:
- One large, slightly rusty enamel pot and lid, complete with mason jar holder/lifter (I don’t know the official name. Anyone?). This cost about $7, maybe $5 more than it should have cost but whutevuh.
- One small, slightly rusty enamel pot with lid which cost a whopping .99.
- Four mason jars with lids, .25 each.
