Archive for June, 2008

Fiber To Scarf Exchange


2008
06.30

So, it is time to reveal the scarf that I made. Yes! I received words this morning that it had arrived safely at Katherine’s. Phew! When you mail something one-of-a-kind, good or bad, there’s a fear that it might get lost somewhere along the way. Now I can relax a little. As for how she likes it, you gonna have to read it on her blog. :-)

Here’s the story. (Did you read Ted’s Fiber to Scarf post?) Katherine sent Ted about 8 oz of dyed Polwarth fiber. (Sorry, I lost the post draft when I moved my blog to the current address. Trying my best to recollect details.) Randomly, Ted picked me to spin and knit a scarf for her. I was only given the info of the fiber (which she bought in New Hamburg, Ontario), and the person’s gender that the scarf will be for. So I thought I wanted something lacy for a lady. But I don’t want it too airy with too many holes, either. So I picked Liesel and started spinning the yarn with this pattern in mind. I aimed for a Worsted weight so that the scarf would feel more substantial. I also wanted it to be more woolen than worsted. I used a drafting style that I would call semi-worsted. The yarn turned out quite soft and bouncy. It’s about 12-13 wpi, DK weight. Over 800 yards I think. Lost that bit of info in that post draft.

After a few inches into knitting Liesel, I found it still too lacy to my liking. So I looked through the backup plans and decided on Brooke’s Column of Leaves. I chose to work on a pair of Clover bamboo straight needles, US size 7. I quite like the finished scarf. Still soft and bouncy, and it drapes really well. I stopped knitting at about 74″. It blocked out to be about 88″ or 89″. (Lucky numbers!) I didn’t use pins because I didn’t want it to stretch out too much and become… too lacy. I spread the scarf out on the blocking tiles and just let it bounce back a little when drying.

Polwarth is super luxurious. It has a micron count of 26-21. According to the book In Sheep’s Clothing, Polwarth fiber is suitable for use in baby clothing. Now that is soft! Does anyone have a good source for Polwarth? I really want some for myself. :-) The book also says that the yarn is best spun worsted or worsted-type technique for durability. Does semi-worsted count? :-) Oh, what do I know. I am really only a beginning spinner. This is actually my first knitted project with something I spun. I think a lot of luck was involved.

I took some progress photos along the way. Here are some of them:

Well, that’s pretty much what I did in the last few months with all that family and work issues. What’s next?

GLASG Dye Fest 2008


2008
06.29

Yesterday was a beautiful day for outdoor fun. A perfect day for Dye Fest. Sitting under the trees on a bright sunny day, carding and chitchatting away. I could almost take a nap, too. Thanks to Garen, who opens up her home to host Dye Fest year after year. (She has a beautiful, spacious American Craftsman Style home with lots of big trees outside.) I don’t know how she does it. I would be a nervous wreck!

Unfortunately, the mini dye classes didn’t happen. That didn’t stop the fun, though. There were dye already mixed. There were steaming baskets and dye pots, both natural and chemical. And there were plenty of experts there. People just went at it. I ended up not doing any dyeing at all. (Yes Chris, that means the Shetland and BFL are safe. :-P ) I wanted to do a more controlled experiment and thought I’d take up too much time and space. So, I just watched and tried to pick up as many ideas as I could. I also spent a lot of time carding cotton.

Not sure if I mentioned this. I was given bags and bags of unginned cotton about a year ago. I took some to Garen’s house to try carding them. The carding went well. I was beginning to get the feel for it. But I think I might have to let go of the cotton that I have. It’s filled with bits and pieces of crushed cotton bur. My guess is that it was machine harvested and the burs were crushed in the process. Carding did not take them out. I had to pick them out by hand a little bit at a time. Too time consuming. They may fall off when spun. But I think I’ll just get more CLEAN cotton to play with. I really do enjoy carding and making punis. One day I’ll have some cotton plants, too. Here’s a photo of the punis I made. Note the dirty bits:

I’ll be looking for takli spindles to buy. I tried spinning cotton with a small support spindle. Taklis will make plying easier. Just need to have something that will hold several spindles. I think I know just the person to ask to make one. :-)

Below are some photos of Dye Fest. More can be found here.

Chilled Sweet Mung Bean Soup


2008
06.25

Ah, Mung Bean Soup 綠豆湯. One of my favorite Summer treats. Sweet, refreshing. I used to think that it took all day to prepare. But a little search on the Internet I found incredibly fast and simple way to cook this. I can’t believe it. I am elated. I can make this childhood favorite myself. Anytime. And there is a big pot just chilling in the fridge already. :-)

Here’s how it’s done. Get a packet of mung beans from an Asian market. Chinese markets should have this well stocked. You usually get about 2½ cups of them in one packet. Soak them in cold water for an hour before using them. (Keep a few soaking and they will quickly grow into bean sprouts. Put them on wet cotton and they will continue to grow. Great fun for kids.) Rinse it a couple of times after soaking. Then, prepare the sugar water. Just heat water and add sugar. Any sugar will do. I used brown rock sugar. The cooked mung beans will increase in size 3 to 4 times. Make enough sugar water to cover the beans when they are added. And make it just a little sweeter than you’d like. You will be adding the unsweetened beans to it.

Set aside the prepared sugar water. Cook the beans the same way you cook steam rice. I used a rice cooker, which made it super easy. After the beans are cooked, transfer them to the pot with the sugar water. Bring to a boil. Turn off heat and cover for a short time until the beans pop open. Uncover and let cool, then move it into the refrigerator. Serve chilled! Yum!

Mung beans have medicinal properties. It is cooling, it detoxifies. And I just found out today that it even reduces fat! I gotta see if that’s true! :lol: Here’s some info I found:

From ITM Online:
Phaeseolus (ludou; mung bean), another legume, is mentioned in the Chinese-English Manual of Commonly Used Herbs in Traditional Chinese Medicine as being able to “relieve metallic and drug poisoning: for preventing and treating the poisoning of lead, arsenic, alcohol, and aconite.” Oriental Materia Medica simply states that phaseolus “removes all toxins.” A traditional prescription, Mahuang Lianqiao Chixiaodou Tang (Ma-huang, Forsythia, and Phaseolus Combination) uses one type of phaseolus (chixiaodou), along with ginger, jujube, licorice, morus bark, forsythia, and ma-haung to treat pruritis. It was recently shown to treat skin reactions to paint and other toxic and allergenic materials. Both types of phaseolus are characterized as having a sweet taste.

From Beijing Municipal Health Bureau:
Mung bean: Traditional medicine believes that mung bean, cold in property and sweet in flavor, is able to detoxify various toxins of metals and stones, white arsenics and vegetations, and able to speed up the metabolism of toxic substances inside the body. Therefore, people with regular exposure to lead, arsenics, cadmiums, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other toxic substances shall in their daily diet have more mung bean soup, mung bean porridge, mung bean sprouts, and so on.

From abz-nord.de:
Commonly used fat-reducing foods:
White gourd, date, water-caltrop, lotus roots, lotus seeds, oats, mung bean, water melon, cucumber, onion, turnip, hot pepper, old hen meat, mutton, spirit.

Heat-stroke preventing:
Commonly used foods:
Mung bean, small red bean, small red bean soup, etc.

I need to make more Mung Bean Soup, don’t you think? :-D One caution though. If you don’t like the texture of those sweet red beans that you find in a lot of Chinese deserts, you probably won’t like cooked mung beans, either.

Where The Hell Is… Matt?


2008
06.24

Have you seen this? Watch it, or check out his bio first. Better yet, read the bio then watch the bigger and better version of the video on his web site. Quite amazing. After you are done, watch the Dancing 2006 Outtakes on this page. Heck, watch all of them videos! :lol:


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Added on 06.26.2008, 10:58am, thanks to Kelly who found and posted the lyric to the song Praan. It is actually a poem, Stream of Life, by Rabindranath Tagore. I cannot tell you how these words touch me deep within my being. How beautiful it is to live a life so aware, so mindful of each and every moment.

Stream of Life

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

One Happy Person


2008
06.23

Yes I am! A package arrived last Friday, all the way from Canada. It was a scarf. And it was from Ted, aka Knitterguy. Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Oops. Was that a triumphal laugh, or an evil laugh??? :-) Seriously, I am not bragging. It is just that it felt like winning the lottery, hitting the jackpot. I’ve been in awe of Ted’s knitting and spinning skills ever since I met him online. Now to receive a scarf that’s both spun and knitted by Ted. Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Oops. Here I go again. But it feels great! :-)

I think that I can blog about this. I am not giving anything away. The person that I spun and knitted a scarf for already knows that it’s on its way. So there’s no secret there. And anyway, I am only talking about MY, all mine, scarf. Bwah-ha-ha-ha! (Are you tired of that?)

Ted started this Fiber to Scarf Exchange 2008 in January. It was very hush hush. No one knew who else was participating. No one was suppose to blog about it online. Everyone sent in enough fiber for a scarf to Ted, he then randomly selected a participant to spin and knit the scarf. We got minimum info on whom we were making a scarf for. The identity of the recipient was revealed only after the scarf was done. (See his rules page for more rules if you are curious.)

I sent in 8 oz of Ashland Bay Mulit-colored Merino Top in Sandalwood and got back a beautiful scarf:

The pattern is Campus from the book Scarf Style. Very guy-friendly I think. It is soft, springy. Drapes really well. The color is a nice warm brown. Is it winter, yet? :-) The yarn that he spun is so fine. I’ll post a picture to show a comparison of his yarn to the one I spun when I post about my work. For now you can read about MY scarf on his blog here and here. I was going to model the scarf myself. But the weather has been very very warm. So I used one of CB’s sculptures instead. :lol:

Needless to say, this scarf has instantly become one of my treasured possessions.

Pounds Of Goodness


2008
06.20

My order from Spunky Eclectic came earlier this week. The box wasn’t particular large. But it contained pounds of wool that I had been anxiously waiting for. I am quite happy with the quality.

The above is 4 oz of Galaxy Series, hand-painted natural colored Blue-Faced Leicester wool. Colorway Saturn. The colors are wonderful. Exactly what I was hoping for. Can you guess what I want to do with it? Morning Surf. Yes, I love that scarf! I think 4 oz is enough. I just don’t know when I’ll start this project. It is getting so warm here in So. Cal.

The above is 8 oz of naturally colored Blue-Faced Leicester wool. It’s considered a dark color by the vendor. From the book In Sheep’s Clothing, Blue-Faced Leicester wool is a good choice for strong and smooth fabric. Staple length 3-6 inches. It’s micron count is 28-24. Not as fine as Merino. I’ll have to do the next-to-the-skin test. Is there a good method? :-) I might take this to -Dye Fest. Yes, I am going! Yay! Now I have to figure out the colors that I want to try.

Above is one pound of Black Shetland wool. The color is more dark chocolate than pure black. I wonder if I’ll get a ‘raven-like’ effect when I dye this at Dye Fest. Shetland has a micron count of 30-23. Staple length 2-5 inches.

Above is one pound of gray Icelandic wool. A really nice silvery gray. Feels a bit scratchy. My guess is that it has both the outer and inner coat fiber. I am not sure. I’ll have to handle it more to see. And you know I will. :lol: It’s micron count is 31-28 for outercoat, 22-19 for undercoat. Staple length is 4-10 inches for outercoat, 2-3 inches for undercoat. The book says that the if spun softly, the fiber from both coats can be used together for garments. This really needs planning. Anyone has any suggestion? I might take this to Dye Fest, too.

Church Weekend


2008
06.19

No, I didn’t convert. CB and some of our good friends are Episcopalians. A few were graduating from the EFM class last Saturday. CB and I were invited to participate the ceremony at the Cathedral Center. The service was a bit odd. But I enjoyed the visit anyway. Plus, we got to go to brunch afterwards. Someone found this really nice place in Silver Lake, Cliff’s Edge. Very hard to find location. No signage other than the little valet parking sign. But the atmosphere was fantastic. Food was good, and the price was right!

Sunday we surprised our friend Connie by showing up for Los Angeles Recorder Orchestra’s performance at St. Bede’s. Connie played the Bass. I’d never seen so many different kinds of recorders. Actually, I thought there was only one size. Check out LARO’s photo page for various types of recorders. Especially the Contra and Great Basses. Very odd looking. :-)

We also went to a blessing of same-sex union two weeks ago. Wonderful friends of ours. A lovely couple. About 250 people showed up. And I think about that many went to the reception at the couple’s house afterwards. Catering was done by Paul McCullough, former contestant on season 3 of The Next Foodnetwork Star. (I told quite a few that he was on season 2. :oops: ) Everything was super delicious. Definitely check him out for catering service. Too bad I forgot my camera! :-(