The Right Choice

As I started for home from town on this cold, wet, blustery day I had a choice to make; take the bus or spend the bus fare on a big bunch of red tulips from the market and walk home.

I made the right choice.

Celestarium

All my materials for the Celestarium shawl arrived this week so this morning I settled down on the sofa and cast on.  The circular cast on gave me some trouble (I found a helpful video here) but I figured it out in the end.  There are pages and pages of charts, which get longer as the circular shawl is knit outwards from the center.  I'm on the 'D' charts at the moment; Ursa Minor is complete and other constellations are emerging.  

I'm using Blacker Classic 4-ply yarn in navy, which is a British yarn spun from Blue Faced Leicester fleece blended with Lleyn or Charolais fleece.  I havn't knit with pure wool for ages and this is reminding me how good it feels to work with.  After this I may be a bit spoilt!

I think I'm going to enjoy making it, although it's a high attention project; certainly not the mindless knitting I've got used to doing.

Home brew,socks and a heavenly shawl

Hello, it's been awhile since I last posted; what have I been doing?  Lots of bits and pieces!  I spent the Easter weekend visiting my Mum and Dad back in Stoke and saw a friend for a couple of hours too.  She has a baby and a toddler and works full time (phew!) so it can be hard to have a good long chat on the phone, and living 90 miles apart means we don't see each other much, but she's visiting in May and I'm looking forward to it.  I'm planning on being a tourist in Leeds for the day and going to the museum, art gallery and other great free places in the city, and of course we'll be chattering at high speed all the while.

I've racked off one batch of home brew twice to try and get as much sediment out as possible, and now it's in the cellar to clear further as putting it in a cold place helps the process.  The Vimto wine had a good, long ferment, smells sweet and alcoholic and now I've added a campden pill and will be racking it into another demi john to start clearing in the next day or two.  I started another batch of grape juice wine last week and it's fermenting madly in the warm Home Brew Corner near the radiator.  The last batch of wine we made from supermarket grape juice came out at 13% abv; not bad for about £1.30 a bottle!

I've been on a sock knitting binge since mid March as my sock stock was sadly holey and depleted   I've finished one pair, knit one pair and am half way through another.  I'll have to post a photo of the ones I'm working on now because they're made from left overs from all the other socks I've knit over the years and I like how they're turning out.  

However I've put socks aside for now as I'm trying to finish some outstanding projects to make way for something new.  I've splashed some cash on yarn, pattern, needles and notions for Celestarium, a shawl that accurately depicts the view of the night sky from the North Pole, using yarn overs (deliberately placed holes) and small, silvery beads.

It's a long time since I've knit anything so demanding (you should see the charts!) and I nearly chickened out, but I really want it and I want to challenge myself with my knitting again.  I used to take on lots of pattens I wasn't confident about so I could learn something new, but I've become lazy and tend to stick to making variations of the same things.  A friend I met at the Leeds knitting group is planning on making it too so we'll be having a bit of a knit along.

Other than home brewing, sock knitting and blowing my budget on yarn I've been getting into my astrology course and reading a lot for it.  My Dad gave me an old book he had about Mind Mapping and it's helped me to get a handle on the course material and start taking it in and fitting it together.  I'm going to have to pay for an extension on the course as I'm so far behind, but now I feel confident that I can complete it.  Mind Mapping has been a massive help but as it's something I'm still practicing I'll wait and give over a full post to the subject later, because it's a useful tool to have.

I've also started writing a book but I'm too shy to talk about it yet!  It's aimed at 8 to 12 year olds and writing it is entertaining me.  Through it I'm learning about plot and characterisation etc and it's led me to read lots of contemporary children's books to get an idea of tone, style, length and so on.  Some of the books have blown me away and, in particular, 'Moon Pie' by Simon Mason is one of the best books I've read in months.

Well writing this post has sparked off ideas for things I really want to share with you, so I'll jot them down somewhere and write about them soon.

Tata,

Laura

Socks for sanity

When work's been a stressful mix of deadlines and personality clashes, when the walk home with heavy legs seemed to take twice as long as usual, when my knitting's gone wrong and I've had to rip back some tricky work I'm thankful for reliable, safe, comforting sock knitting.

Ahhhhh, most refreshing.

Vimto Wine

The wine making is going well; we've just bottled some white grape juice wine made using cheap Tesco grape juice which has turned out at a mighty 13% abv and have started off two more gallons today.  One is a Chardonnay kit from Wilkinsons that we've used before and which gave excellent results and the other is more of an experiment - say hello to Vimto wine.

I saw a recipe for Ribena wine here and fancied trying something similar so I've substituted Vimto for Ribena.  Apparantly it makes a strong wine and is a bit like sherry.  The yeast has frothed up and started bubbling already and I only put it in an hour ago.   

If you fancy joining me in experimental Vimto wine here's the recipe:

600ml Vimto cordial (use the regular one, not sugar free)
1kg caster sugar
1 sachet of wine yeast
1 tsp yeast nutrient
Water to top up to the neck of a one gallon demi john

Mix together the sugar, Vimto and enough water in a large saucepan to make it all less gloopy.  Boil for 10 minutes; this boils off the preservatives in the Vimto which would otherwise prevent fermentation.

Leave to cool until luke warm.  Pour about 500mls of the mixture into a jug and tip in the yeast and yeast nutrient.  Pour everything into the demi john, fill with water up to the neck and take a reading with a hydrometer so you can work out abv later on.  Fit the air lock and leave in a warm place.

That's what I've done so far.  From here on in I believe it's a case of leaving it to ferment for a couple of weeks then tasting it and checking the abv until you're happy with the sweetness and alcohol content, at which point you kill of the yeast.  Once I find out how it goes I'll finish off this recipe.  At this point the hydrometer reads 1.07 which might be too low as I've added a lot of water, but I'll find out given time.  I don't know how it will turn out but the whole thing's only cost around £2.50 to make a gallon so I won't be heartbroken if it goes wrong.  

I love my freezer

I've been off work all week feeling crappy with a nasty infection and taking so many antibiotics, painkillers and other assorted pills that it's a wonder I don't rattle when I walk.  It's been a painful week (when you actually want to blurt out "Wah, I want my mummy!") but has had the unexpected side effect of money saving.  Usually we do a big online shop once a month and for the rest of the month if we need anything I get it in my lunch break as I work in town; fresh meat from the market and other stuff from a near by supermarket.  This week though the furthest I've been is the doctors and back, and Mr CB has a temporary job at the moment, doesn't finish until 5.15pm and by the time he's walked home it's 6pm, so no chance of shopping there either.

So this week we've been living off freezer supplies and dry goods and it's been fine.  I'm glad I had so much squirreled away in the freezer, it's saved a lot of hassle so I've been able to rest.  I've also found things in there that I didn't even know we had, so there has been a good deal of surprise food on our plate this week.

Here's to the stockpile; I knew it would come in handy (eventually!)

Sow's ear = silk purse

I've just been on the SuperCook website for the first time and want to tell you about it because it's my new Favorite Thing.  I'm trying to cut down on food waste and save money on groceries but I'm a bugger for having lots of food in the house then buying something else because I can't think of what to do with what I've got.  You start by entering the ingredient that you want to use then the site searches for all recipes with that ingredient.  At the top of the screen another list of ingredients appears and you tick off all the ones you've got.  It then picks out all the recipes that you already have all the ingredients for and lists links to the site where the recipe is published.

Tonight I found a speedy recipe for garlic shrimp, it was delicious and I wouldn't have thought of making it yet I already had everything I needed.  I've found a recipe for Chinese pork chops for tomorrow's dinner so I can use up some pork steaks that have been languishing in the freezer.

Do check it out as it will be very helpful if you're a "but it was on special offer!" stockpiler or buy stuff in supermarket bargain bins then can't think what to do with it (ie. me).