As seen on Engadget – Merel Karhof has hooked up a small windmill to power an antique sock knitting machine.

Image from Engadget from WindKnittingFactory

How cool is that idea? She even has a nifty video here. Knowing how cantankerous these old machines can be, I think she must have put in a lot of effort to make it run so smoothly (and apparently without supervision!).

Because you know that I finished my Simurgh shawl in March and Meredith’s bolero in April, you might be wondering what the heck I’ve been working on since then?!

Check it out – the ubiquitous Swallowtail shawl (.pdf pattern) by Evelyn Clark!

Admittedly, it’s not much to look at here.

I’m using my own hand-dyed yarn (blogged here). I love the subtle variegation of the colors. It really came out well.

This yarn is, by sheer coincidence, exactly the same yarn recommended in the pattern (Misti Alpaca Lace). I was looking through Ravelry for suggestions on what to do with the yarn and couldn’t believe how many people had made the Swallowtail Shawl. I had a real DUH moment when I finally looked at the pattern.

My plan is to make the shawl a bit bigger than originally indicated by the pattern. I first saw Pepperknit’s version of the shawl, which had some nifty instructions on how to make it larger (ie, 19 repeats instead of 14 for the first lace pattern). Then, as I wandered through Ravelry, I found others had widened the nuppy Lily-of-the-Valley part by adding a third repeat (as Pepperknit herself mused about). Essentially, knit chart 1, chart 2, and then repeat chart 1 again (but omit rows 1 and 2 this time). Sounds pretty straightforward.

This shawl is for an aunty of mine in California. She is fabulously creative – I’ve shown you some of her work before. She sewed all sorts of clothes for me and my sister when we were growing up, and this past spring, she even sent a handmade jacket for Meredith. Aunty definitely deserves a reciprocal gift.

I’m sort of back to eating lunch with Mr Bento again. I had to put him away for the longest time because – seriously – it did not hold enough food. I suspect a lot of my insatiable hunger in the past year was attributable to breastfeeding, especially considering that my appetite has toned down in synchrony with Meredith’s decline in nursing.

We have the chicken and saffron rice that I just mentioned in the previous post, giant globe grapes (has seeds, but the grape flavor can’t be beat), cottage cheese with cherry preserves, and jicama salad. Have you ever tried jicama? It’s a really interesting vegetable – sort of sweet and crispy. If you can’t find it at your grocery store, try a grocer that specializes in Mexican goods. I sliced it very conveniently into slender matchsticks using my Benriner slicer and poured commercial ginger and soy salad dressing over it.

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Other miscellany:

Kitty kuddles

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I planted strawberries in 2007 but never got any fruit from them until this year. The first year, they were too small to bear fruit. The second year, I had to transplant many of them to another part of the raised bed. Between the shock of moving and the local rodentia (or lagomorpha) activity, I never saw any fruit. This year, I didn’t move anyone and I put up some plastic fencing around the entire garden. Something is still getting in – birds, maybe – because I definitely see some bites taken from berries here and there, but there’s actually enough for us humans this time. I shared these with Meredith, who gobbled them up. We grinned at each other as strawberry juices dribbled down our chins.

My first homegrown strawberries!

I remember when I planted the strawberries. Matt and I had been trying to get pregnant for a year and a half and were in the middle of finding out how devastatingly infertile we were. I glossed over this back when it was occurring, but during the infertility evaluation process, the clinic performed several blood tests, and Matt received what turned out to be a false-positive diagnosis for a really awful liver disease. He is fine now, was always fine, but for a few weeks, it seemed possible that he might not live past his mid-forties. I never cried so much in my life.

But we were lucky, in a sense, because it was nothing, it was only a laboratory mistake. Planting time coincided with the clearing of that hurdle. While I gardened, I hoped that someday, I’d be able to pick strawberries from my backyard and eat them with my children. I can hardly believe that this dream has come true.

I get the Williams-Sonoma catalog every so often because Matt and I registered there back when we were getting married. Once you are on their mailing list, they are loathe to let you go – I know that I have not ordered anything from them in a really long time. Anyway, it still is pretty eye candy, and once in a while, they have a recipe that I am drawn to, so I haven’t asked them to remove me from their list. This is one of the recipes (modified slightly by me) that accompanied their Le Crueset cookware.

If you’ve ever made the no-knead bread that was all the rage a couple years ago, somewhere in your pantry lurks an enamel-covered cast iron Dutch oven. Yes, it does work well for this dish, but so would any other heavy-weight saucepan. I was cheap and bought my enameled ironware at TJMaxx for $35. It has held up to infrequent use (ie, once a quarter for a few years), but I note that the interior bottom has a scratch and a slight bubble in it. I suspect water has broken through the coating and rusted the pan within, so its days likely are numbered.

Mise en place

1 lb chicken (2 drumsticks and 1 large chicken breast)
2 T olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
pinch of saffron
(pinch of red pepper flakes)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 c sherry
1 c chicken broth
1/4 c water
1 14.5-oz can diced tomatoes (do not drain)
1 1/2 c medium-grain rice
(1/4 c green olives, halved)
handful of flat-leaf parsley, minced

Heat oven to 350 F. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat Dutch oven over medium-high heat, add 1 T olive oil. When oil shimmers, brown chicken in 2 batches, 7-8 minutes per batch. Add the next T of oil for the second batch. Lower heat if the fond (crust on the pan) begins to get dark, don’t let it burn.

Remove chicken, add onion, pepper, and saffron (if desired, add red pepper flakes at this stage). Cook until onion is softened and browned, 8-10 minutes. Add garlic, cook for 30 seconds. Add sherry, cook for 1 minute. Return chicken, add broth and tomatoes with juice. Simmer (covered) for 20 minutes.

Add rice (and olives), generous pinch of salt and black pepper, bring to a simmer. Transfer pot to oven (covered), bake for 15 min; stir; bake another 15 minutes. If a lot of the rice seems to have a hard core after 15 minutes, add 1/4 c more water and stir. Remove from oven and let stand for 10 minutes. Stir in parsley before serving.

I finished Meredith’s little bolero several months ago, and I finished my Simurgh shawl even longer ago, back in March. I never blogged about them because I was hoping to take some more pictures of us in our garments at home, but I’m slowly admitting to myself that a knitting photoshoot just ain’t gonna happen. The knitwear-in-action pics that you’ll see below were taken at my sister’s wedding.

But let’s back up a minute…

The pattern – Simurgh by Anne Hanson
The yarn – Pagewood Farms Chugiak, 100% Merino, superwash, colorway Really Red

This yarn bled a lot. But realistically, all reds bleed, and this wasn’t any worse than others. It did stain my sink temporarily.

I passed blocking wires through the edges, grabbing every point.

Rulers are good to make sure that the piece is even in width throughout. The left edge still wavers a little here, but it’s good enough for me.

Every mini-scallop on the edge has to be caught in the wire. It is tedious as hell but worth it in the end.

Some more details of this vast expanse of shawl:

Meredith’s finished bolero. As I mentioned before, this is discontinued yarn and a pattern that I made up. I modeled it vaguely after one that I liked from Pottery Barn Kids.

Instead of crocheted scallops, I picked up stitches all around and applied a picot hem. Instead of buttons, I used ties. (Ties were made by cable-plying strands of yarn.) Also – sleeves were set-in instead of raglan, hemmed instead of picot edges.

OK, so here we are – wedding pics – the only pictures I seem to have of us wearing our goods. Trust me, the shawl looks great. I love it.

OMG, I still laugh about how much taller Matt is than the rest of us.

A year ago, after 41+ weeks of pregnancy and 28 hours of labor (~19 hours of which were unmedicated [ETA--and ~6 were insufficiently medicated], thankyouverymuch), Matt and I became parents of a little girl.

Being a mother has been an experience unlike anything I’ve ever had before – to be responsible for such a tiny babe (and to be the sole food source for more than half a year!), to overcome the physical challenges of recovering after the cesarean delivery followed by chronic sleep deprivation, to get my professional life and house in order after returning to full-time employment, and to repeatedly realize the sheer amount of love and happiness this child has brought into my life – it is overwhelming and amazing. I came to motherhood with a fair amount of worry and unease, but I shouldn’t have been so concerned. It has been a fabulous ride so far, and when Meredith smiles at me and jumps up and down because she’s excited to see me in the morning, it is like the sky splits open and sunshine and angels stream around me. Seriously. It is that good.

These are some of my favorite pictures from this past year.

June 2008

July 2008

August 2008

September 2008

October 2008

November 2008

December 2008

January 2009

February 2009

March 2009

April 2009

May 2009

June 2009

NAYY – I just got word of this and thought a heads up might be in order for any local weavers who lurk around my site. I know very little about weaving, but the prices seems really good.

Kessenich, Nilus Leclerc, Macomber, other brands of looms for sale at the University of Minnesota. See here for more details.

Laura and I went to the local sheep and wool festival yesterday. This is what I bought:
 

*crickets chirping*
 

Right, so very lame, but I had a wallet full of cash and didn’t buy anything other than food. Nothing really spoke to me at the market. Well, nothing affordable caught my eye (hand-dyed BFL top for >$60/lb? Gorgeous, but argh!), or if it was affordable, it was too coarse for my princess-and-pea skin (Coopworth-silk blend in really lovely colors).

But it was good to see friends, watch some of the sheep dog demo, eat a lamb burger, etc. I had Meredith with me, too, and she and I had a good time.

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Mother’s day itself has been just lovely. Meredith slept in and was in a good mood in the morning. When she began to get tired, I put her in the baby backpack and went out to do yard work. She napped while I turned the compost pile, weeded the raised bed, began digging up the sod to lay out a new flower bed, mixed more compost/vermicullite/peat moss and added it to the garden area, and pulled more weeds. Later in the afternoon, Matt came outside with us, and Meredith and I planted the first seeds of the spring.

Matt took a quick video of us planting together. I’m writing down what seeds are sown. Meredith is trying to eat dirt.

Hope the moms out there had a fine Mother’s Day, too!

Continuing in my quest for whole wheat goodness, I dipped back into an old favorite, banana bread. This recipe is from the King Arthur 200th Anniversary Cookbook.

I’ve always been a somewhat impatient person who prepares ingredients on the fly as the rest of the dish is coming together. Most of the time, it’s fine, but sometimes it is a pain to stop what I am doing to do something finicky, like zesting a lemon. I know the standard in cooking is to make a “mise en place,” and while I’ve resisted doing it for years, I finally have admitted that it is the smarter way to cook.

1/2 c butter (1 stick)
1 c sugar
2 eggs
2 very ripe bananas
1 glug vanilla extract
2 c white whole wheat flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

Heat oven to 350 F. Spray a 1-lb bread pan with PAM+flour.

Cream butter and sugar. Don’t just combine it – cream it until it changes color and turns pale. (With a hand mixer, this takes ~10 minutes.) The picture below shows it at the “just mixed” stage. Silly me, I forgot to take a picture when it was fully creamed. The aeration helps keep the texture lighter.

Add eggs 1 at a time, beating on high for at least 2 minutes after each egg. Add bananas and vanilla. I don’t mash the bananas ahead of time because the very ripe bananas will disintegrate (more or less) with only a little encouragement. The batter may look “broken,” but it’s fine.

Mix the soda, salt, and flour. (I tend to scoop up the soda and salt and sprinkle it into the batter, and I mix well to disperse before adding flour.) Add dry ingredients and mix on low until just combined. Smooth into the baking pan.

Bake for 60-75 minutes (until a skewer in the middle comes out clean). Tent with foil after 50-60 minutes to prevent the top from becoming overly brown.

This has a very different texture from regular banana bread. I would describe it as firm and almost “sandy” (but not gritty). It is not mushy or feathery. Deb of Smitten Kitchen once referred to whole wheat bread as being “earnest,” which is a great descriptor of a certain genre of baked goods (ie, it makes me think of whole wheat muffins with oat bran, raw carrots, coconut, sunflower seeds, eggs, and hardly any sugar). Anyway, this is not earnest banana bread, but it’s not cake-like, either. I’ve made this a couple times and have grown quite fond of it.

Hell must be freezing over, whodda thunk I’d ever talk about housekeeping or beauty?!? I know it’s sort of out of the way topic-wise, but I kept thinking, “Boy, I should really blog about this, this has changed my life!” So here I am.

Now, you may not know, but during the past year, I have been trying to phase out the kinda-toxic-but-super-effective cleaning agents from my house. I’ve been attempting to use more homemade cleaning solutions that are based on baking soda and other less scary stuff. But peoples, cleaning with such mild agents takes a lot of elbow grease. I’d rather not die of fume inhalation when I clean the bathroom, but I’d also rather not spend 60 minutes cleaning it.

Effective homemade cleaning solutions are tricky for me to find on the Internet because whenever I find a Web site that describes the supreme cleaning power of combined baking soda and vinegar (”the fizziness tells you it’s effective!” blah blah blah), I close it out and discount the credibility of the info on the rest of the site. I know not everyone is a scientist, but I distinctly remember covering this in 3rd grade (kitchen volcanos, anyone?). Baking soda and vinegar combine to produce WATER and CARBON DIOXIDE (and the salt, sodium acetate, but I guess I didn’t learn that in 3rd grade). Thus, any cleaning effect of a mild acid or mild base is more or less negated by putting the two together.

Cleaning hint #1: The shower.

We use mostly drugstore soap and shampoos when we bathe, and we have mineral-laden water. Together, these form a lot of soap scum. (That and, as I mentioned to a friend some years ago, perhaps Matt and I are a waxy people.) I can clean the shower ’till it’s sparkly, only to have a totally dull surface within days. What’s a girl to do?

I tried one of those daily shower sprays (Method, purchased at Target), spritzed the walls, floor, and curtain religiously, and that seemed to work quite well until the entire 28-oz bottle was empty ~1 week later. At $4+ a pop, I couldn’t see myself buying a bottle every week. I found an Internet shower spray recipe that seemed like it would work. I scrubbed the shower completely and then started spraying this stuff every day. It’s been almost a month now, and I am super impressed!

Say it with me, “Oooh, shiny!”

In a 28-oz spray bottle (I’m using the old Method bottle), add the following:

1/2 c rubbing alcohol
1/2 c hydrogen peroxide
6 drops dish detergent
1 capful (about 2 tsp) Jet Dry or equivalent (I use “Earth Friendly” brand, purchased at my local co-op)

Top off with water, invert to mix. I make this up weekly because the hydrogen peroxide degrades in light (the spray bottle is clear), and that’s how long 1 bottle tends to last. I spray this on a dry shower (after I come home from work, usually). The alcohol smell lingers for about 15 minutes. The chemistry behind it all, as I understand it: rubbing alcohol – disinfectant, helps “dry” the shower faster, may help dissolve stains. Hydrogen peroxide – disinfectant (may help prevent mold; so far, our shower curtain mold hotspot is clean as a whistle). Dish detergent – cleaning agent. Jet Dry – “sheeting action” helps prevent water spots.

It’s amazing.

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Cleaning hint #2: The washing machine.

We recently bought a king-size bed. I tried to wash a king-size mattress pad in our standard top-loader machine. It barely fit, I had to stuff it in there. When the cycle was done, I realized the top few inches never even made it under water (off to the laundromat I go). I started to pull the puffy thing out of the machine and saw that where it had scraped against the inside rim of the wash basin, it was picking up some brown residue. Ewwww.

I looked under the rim. I’ve never done that before, not in the 6 years we’ve owned this machine.

Gah! What *is* that?! Old dirt, detergent residue…? It felt like sticky, like oxidized fat. Yeech. I went after it with a scrub brush and some dish detergent. I was really surprised to see all of that gunk. You’d think that a machine whose purpose is to clean things would somehow not get that dirty. It was as if someone told me I needed to wash my toothbrush to keep it clean.

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Beauty tip: The skin on your feet.

When I was nearing the end of pregnancy, I got a lot of information about breastfeeding and all the myriad problems that could occur. I tried to prepare for everything, just in case. I purchased a tube of pure lanolin for the treatment of sore, cracked skin. Actually, I purchased a couple tubes (on sale!) and then received one as a gift. And of course, Meredith and I learned to nurse quite easily, and I never needed the lanolin. What to do with it? Last fall, I started using it on my feet, esp on the heels and around the edges where the skin was tough or cracked.

I applied a very light coating of lanolin to my feet just about every day (put wool socks over it on most days, but also pantyhose). I saw improvement within weeks. Now, almost 6 months later, the skin on my heels is just great. No cracks, no peeling, no thick areas – all that without filing, scrubbing, callus shaving, etc (I’m generally a low-maintenance type, if a procedure is fussy or takes time, I’m unlikely to do it).

It’s hard to take a photo of one’s own heels! Just sayin’.