Twosheep Yarn hasn’t been updated since January. I hope to remedy that situation soon. (No need to click there now, nothing new has been added yet. I’ll let you know when.)

Anyway, I’ve been winding hanks of yarn, and I was reminded that I am asked occasionally about how I twist my hanks into the Twosheep Challah Braid. To give credit where it’s due, I first saw this twist in a Classic Elite yarn (pictured here), but I figured it out from a photograph, not from undoing a hank.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Begin with an ordinary hank of yarn.

2. Anchor one end (in this case, the left), and twist the other end outward.

3. Keep twisting.

4. Add twist until you have a lot of energy stored in the hank. It will want to kink backward on itself.

5. Bring the two ends together. Everything will curl up like crazy.

6. While you hold the ends together, pull each half straight and redistribute twist as needed to make a pleasant arrangement.

7. Tuck one end into the other and tug to straighten.

So easy!

Because my first batch of soap was successful, I thought it’d be neat to make enough soap so that I could forgo (spelled correctly, that) using commercial bars altogether. I liked my previous recipe, but it melted quickly in the shower and was not particularly pretty to behold. Jessica suggested using cocoa butter to improve the hardness, and chocolate soap sounded good to me!

I tried a recipe from the Cavitch book that incorporated a hefty chunk of cocoa butter. I followed the recipe, followed the directions, and something went terribly wrong.

The soap crumbled when I tried to cut it.

The few bars that I managed to cut cracked as they dried out.

The texture was quite odd – it was like flour with fat cut into it, like a pie dough – it was crumbly, soft, and somewhat moldable. From the troubleshooting table shown here, I guessed that I had stirred too vigorously with the stand mixer, reached a “false trace,” and poured the soap into the pan prematurely. That meant rebatching was the new order of the day!

I grated the soap in a food processor and put it in a crockpot set to low heat.

I didn’t add any water because I thought enough moisture remained in the soap, but after 30 minutes of absolutely nothing happening, I put in ~2 c of water.

It melted down as soon as the water warmed up, and I cooked until I had soapy shreds and flakes. I spooned it into my rusty brownie pan (lined with freezer paper) and let it cool.

I spent some time reading about “hot process” soapmaking (here, here, and here). To me, this sounds a lot better than “cold process” soapmaking because the saponification reaction is finished on the same day (instead of the next month), and a lot less fragrance is required. The texture may not be as smooth as cold-process soaps, but the stuff is for me, mostly, and I’m not so picky. I think I’m going to use the hot process in the future.

Anyway, I checked the pH of the rebatched soap to confirm that the saponification had indeed finished, and to my surprise, it was somewhere between 12 and 13! Yikes! Regular soap should have a pH of 10 or lower, and woe to any eyes that catch a drip of soapy water with a pH of 12! It would appear that I screwed up twice, then, because I had not added a sufficient amount of fat (or too much NaOH). I suspect my scale is the culprit because if you add weight very gradually, it doesn’t always register the change.

At this point, I’d spent about 4 hours making soap and had a giant brick of unusable caustic crap. (#$%&*!!!) I let the stuff dry overnight, shredded it, threw it in the crockpot with water, and added a giant dollop of olive butter to the mix. This was pretty damn unscientific, I know, but I figured I’d titrate the mix with fat until the pH came to a respectable value. (You know a better way? Talk to me.) I let it go for about 45 minutes with near-constant stirring and checked the pH – it was at 8, baby! I probably should have cooked it to the flake stage again, but I opted to slap the goo into my brownie pan and move on with my life already.

It turned out great! It needs to dry out a little more, but I’ve been using it in the shower since Saturday, and my skin is fine.

I love a happy ending.

I make chili about once a year. I’m not wild about the flavor of cumin, but sometimes a chili-eatin’ urge overwhelms me. My version is always a last-minute gamesh of meat and veggies that probably makes true chili fans cry foul. We eat this with rice.

1/2 to 3/4 lb beef (I used a cheap cut – round, I think? Ground beef is fine, too.)
28 oz can diced tomatoes (I used one with oregano, basil, and garlic in it.)
4 ears fresh corn (cooked)
1 green pepper (I used 1/2, leftover from something else)
1 small onion (I used 1/2, another leftover)
1 small can black beans (organic, “Eden” brand)
Garlic (minced), chili powder, red pepper flakes, cumin – to taste
2-4 T tomato paste

Mince beef, brown it, simmer in a little bit of water until tender. If you’re using ground meat, simmering is not necessary. I used a pressure cooker to soften the beef, but the rest of the chili was cooked at atmospheric pressure. Add canned tomatoes (including juice), corn cut from the cob, diced pepper, diced onion, and beans. Stir well. Toss in a glug of booze if you like the flavor. Add spices to taste (and for the love of FSM, do not use garlic powder). Simmer on low until flavors have merged (20 min?), and add tomato paste until it’s the consistency that you prefer. Add salt if it needs it, and serve hot to the ones you love.

Placidly contemplating a bowl of health food

I used to be quite fearful of pressure cookers because my mom had a crazy old pot with the weighted lid and hissy vent that made a tremendous amount of noise (scared the crap out of me) and was known for its ability to reduce bones into gelatin (it was really funny the first time). I didn’t think a pressure cooker had a place in my kitchen because I like crispy vegetables and don’t usually buy cheap cuts of meat. However, back in 2004, a guest at our wedding said he hadn’t bought a gift yet and would I like a pressure cooker? I politely replied, “Sure, I’d love one,” even as I wondered what I would do with it.

Well. How did I ever live without one?

It is a fan-fricking-tastic tool. It makes chicken stock in no time and softens those tough cuts of meat like you wouldn’t believe. These used to be hour-or-longer processes for me, and now I can churn stock out in less than 30 minutes. The beef I used in the chili probably would have taken 45 minutes to soften with conventional heat, but cooking under pressure reduced it to tender goodness in 5 or 6 minutes.

This is the wonderful pressure cooker that I’ve been using.

The version we received has 1 lid but 2 pots – a 2 1/2 qt and a 6 1/2 qt. Of course, both pots can be used conventionally. Everything goes through the dishwasher without trouble. In terms of safety, it has a few great features. One, pressure doesn’t build unless the handle is locked. (Guess how I figured that out?) Two, after cooking, the handle doesn’t unlock until the pressure is released. (Um, guess how I figured that one out, too?) Three, it emits a harmonious noise to alert you if the heat is too high. Four, it has 2 opposing handles that stay cool, which make it very easy to transport when full.

It works well, saves time, and looks good. What more could I want? Thumbs up for the engineers and chefs who designed it!

A couple weeks ago, a friend forwarded an email describing a gently used Van Eaton Fly-n-Tote that was posted for sale. I’ve been told that Mr. Van Eaton is no longer accepting new wheel orders since his stroke last winter.

I sent in my offer. I was the second-highest bidder (lost by $50).

*sigh*

If you like eye candy, more photos of the wheel are here.

I enjoyed your comments from the previous post. I’m surprised by the frequency with which many of us dream the same thing!

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So – more ice cream! It’s summer, it’s hot, and it’s good to have something cold and fruity melting in your mouth. I made this a long time ago and never wrote down the recipe. I have no ideas of the proportions of this one – it was something like:

15 apricots
1 large mango
6 large strawberries
1/2 c sour cream
6 oz marscapone
2 c sugar (more or less to taste)

Puree the fruit, mix in the sour cream, marscapone, and sugar. It’ll be liquidy. If it isn’t, add more fruit. Process in an ice cream maker.

It had a bit of a zing from… the apricots? Not sure. But I really liked the texture of it.

I’ve had vivid dreams throughout my life. They are frightening, funny, bizarre, rarely nondescript. One trend I’ve noticed in my dreams over the past few years concerns counting and numbers.

Example 1 – I’m trying to telephone someone. I have a card with a phone number and am using a push-button pay phone. I cannot seem to dial the number correctly and repeatedly hang up, get a quarter back (ha! does that date me?), put it in, and misdial.

Example 2 – I’m supposed to be counting a stack of money. I can sum 2 bills, but by the time I try to add the third bill, I’ve forgotten the total. I sort the money by denomination into separate piles, but I still can’t tell how many of each bill I have.

Example 3 – A waiter hands me a receipt for my meal. I stare at the total and have no idea what to leave for a tip. Oh wait, that really happened yesterday… (Just kidding…. mostly.)

But my dreamland fallacy strikes with incredible consistency. I guess whatever part of the brain controls The Maths really shuts down when I am asleep. Sometimes I worry, even in mid dream, that when I wake up, I won’t be able to crunch numbers anymore.

The other thing that used to be a dream-problem throughout college and most of graduate school was a total inability to use my legs. I’ve had many dreams where I was crawling on my hands with legs dragging behind me or clutching a fence and pulling myself along with my hands and arms.

Does this happen to you? Do you have some specific incompetency in your sleep?

Matt and I went to spend time with his family over the recent holiday. It was nice. We ate too much, lit fireworks, walked on the beach, talked to the family. Curiously, our visit coincided with the NJ state government shutdown and the silencing of casinos in Atlantic City. If you think that 7% sales tax is high, sales tax in Chicago is even higher (9%).

Anyway, I have traditional ‘blog fodder coming up, but photos are unready and the text is yet unwritten, so I will entertain you with photos of other people’s children.

Nephew Dan (1 y, 4 mo)

Baby Dan can walk, feed himself, sort of talk, and has become a great deal more interactive (see how tiny he was last year?). We spent quite a bit of time carrying him around while he pointed to things. I sound like a moron when I talk to babies. “Yes, that’s a DOORKNOB. Can you turn the DOORKNOB? That opens the DOOR. That’s the LOCK to the DOORKNOB. Can you push the BUTTON? Yes, KEYS go into the KEYHOLE. My, you are heavy.”

I got to visit with Ying again (we were grad students together). Her kids were just delightful. I only get to see them once a year (last year’s pic), but I am impressed that the older ones remember (and seem to like) me.

Daniel (4 y), Stephanie (6 y), Christina (2 y)

They don’t realize that I’m teasing, but I always ask if they behave well and do everything Mom and Dad ask them to do. They nod solemnly. I ask if they are that good 100% of the time, and they look worried and a little guilty. (Their mom and I stifle the giggles.) I tell them I’ll check up on them next year and find out if they’re good kids, and that I’m keeping an eye on them. They promise to be good. I feel like some kind of weird Santa Claus.

Lastly – a long (handheld) exposure of the fireworks that were lit on the sand:

I purchased some Chasing Rainbows bombyx silk at MDSW (colorway “Moody Blues”), it is a delightful mix of greys and blues that look sort of like shiny molten metal.

Silk on the right

I got 4 ounces without a clear idea of what to do with it. In May, I went to a Creative Fibers spin-in (scroll down to “Spinning with Shelley”) and met a relatively new spinner who passed around delightful hanks of lovely laceweight yarn. I was enamored.

Take-up tension is an issue for me when I do fine-grist spinning because it becomes a very tricky thing to adjust – it either sucks yarn out of my hand or doesn’t wind on. This has been true with every wheel I’ve owned (Schacht Matchless, Lendrum upright, Drudik castle, Womack Butterfly), using Scotch tension or double drive. Elaine B. once told me that her superfinest spinning is done on a charkha (no tension except for your own hand pulling on the fiber). However, I’m still incompetent with a charkha (must have eyes close to the drafting triangle or I’m lost), so I’m left with spindles.

Mmm, yummy

I’m using the Bosworth Mini again because it’s the only spindle I own that has decent high-speed spin time. (Any suggestions for another laceweight, weighted rim, top whorl spindle?) It must have gotten banged up in storage because when I first pulled it out, it spun with a wicked bad wobble. I followed the directions for a spindle hook tune-up and paid careful attention to the adjustments described in Chapter 2. I think Jim wrote a great tutorial, btw. My hook looks kind of bizarre now (it’s leaning forward a lot), but the wobble is almost completely eliminated. Whee!

I highly recommend that you tune-up your spindle with every new project because the grist of the yarn changes the location of the yarn center line relative to that of the spindle. When the spindle spins true, I think it maintains a higher speed and longer spin time. If you like to spin long draw, this minor adjustment will really facilitate the process. I spun the first cop with Mr. Wobbles and a second cop without, and believe you me, it went much faster the second time.

Specs on the yarn – I’ve spun about 0.8 oz. I’m pulling off 2-inch sections of top (not trying to separate colors, but I can see that it happens) and spinning long draw from the fold. It’ll be a 2-ply yarn. I want to knit something lacey! The singles feel kind of hard, but I’m optimistic about the softness returning after plying.

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Aside: Did you see the minimiam site on WhipUp last week? It’s amazing!

I received a lovely, generous gift from Vanessa, one of the ladies who attends the Northfield knitnight (Just Foods, Tuesdays, 7-9 PM).

The photo doesn’t show you the wonderful variation in color (badger pattern), which runs the gamut from ecru to dark grey. It’s a second clip kid fleece, the locks are silky and shiny and oh-so-curly! Thus far, I’ve washed it, but I’m not sure what else to do with it just yet (it hasn’t spoken to me). I would love to hear some ideas – what is your favorite project for kidmo’?