Weird things and hat experiments

Weird things I've noticed lately -

I started to read a novel - just some random ebook to that was an obvious "story" and a work of fiction, only to find a notice at the beginning of the book that this was a work of fiction, and not true.  Is this a thing now, that we have to warn people that a story, which is obviously a made up story has to have a warning that this is fiction and not true?   I worry about humanity's future.

Kevin has been behaving nicely.  What's with that?

All the lemons on my little lemon tree house plant, ripened at once.   Now I have to figure out what to cook with 11 lemons over the next couple of weeks.

Many years ago, I subscribed to the only spinning magazine available.  In one issue was a felted hat made with handspun, and a pattern for it.   Not being a regular crocheter, I was careful about following the pattern.  I  ended up with this huge football shaped thing which would fit nobody's head.  I contacted the company concerned that there might have been a missing instruction or something, only to get  a rather curt and rude reply that there were no typos or missing instructions and the fault was my own. A few years later, I had learned  bit more about crochet, and I tried carefully to keep my gauge to same as they instructions suggested and follow the pattern.   Again, I ended up with something that didn't even resemble a hat.   

I decided that 3rd time was the charm.   I watched some crochet videos. I made sure I had the recommended hook.  I practiced until I new for sure I had the correct gauge.   I followed the instructions, knowing that I was ending on the correct stitch and had the right number of stitches on each row.  I ripped and remade any row which might not have been correct.  With much anticipation, I felted this new hat in the washer and put it through the drying cycle.  I took it out and did this whole felting routine 2 more times just to make sure...

This football shaped hat will fit nobody I know.  It was still huge, with something like a 28 inch head circumference and comes down past my nose in depth.  I have come to the conclusion that I'm missing something in those instructions.   It's too bad because I liked all the yarn that I used on those hats, some handspun and this one not, in order to try to keep it within the pattern parameters.  I will be looking for a new hat pattern. 

Lustreware bargain

bad photo of lovely tea set which was only $11

 Weird winter weather this year.  We had a mini blast of winter in November and then December was mild, wet and wetter.   One of those wet days, we wanted to go for a walk.   Instead of hitting a trail, DH suggested we go to the antique mall to get our walking in.   It's always fun.   I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, just getting in steps.  However, tucked back in a corner of a booth with almost no china, but lots of other odd things, was this little lustreware tea set.  It was very pretty and a design I didn't have.  Also, it was $14.  Now lustreware  isn't usually horribly expensive anyway, but a few of the booths had ridiculous prices on some of their lustreware, so that seeing this at an affordable price was very nice.  Then I looked up to see the big sign, that proclaimed that there was 25% off that day.   It had to come home with me.   With tax, the total was $11 for the teapot, creamer and sugar bowl.  I was smiling for the rest of the day.  Once in a while I actually make tea in my lustreware instead of the huge pottery mugs that I normally use.   It's pretty delicate though so I don't do it very often.

 We had a storm with "blizzard" conditions roll through.  It wasn't a true blizzard, but the crazy winds made for a couple of days of miserable weather.   The power grid has been so stable lately, since they came through and trimmed everything possible after the ice storm a few years ago, that we neglected to prepare properly when the power started flickering.   Usually we load up some buckets with water for flushing the toilets, and fill up some pots with potable water, just to supplement the jugs we keep on hand for power failures.  Being on a well, rather than town water, we don't have an operational well pump if we don't have hydro.  

 Sure enough, a few minutes after I popped supper in the oven, the power went out.   I had just enough time to get some candles lit so that I could suddenly switch up supper to a cold one.  It's been a while since I've cooked by candlelight, but it was doable.   I made a salad with white beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, red peppers and feta.   Then I laid out some cheese and bread.   By this time the generator was going to keep the stove fan and the sump pump going.   Of course as soon as everything was set up, the power popped back on.   It was a good reminder to keep emergency preparedness in mind, a little more often.

Here is a photo of the neighbour's Standardbred yearling or almost yearling anyway, to make up for the lack of photos.  I couldn't do a cat photo because there is a compatibility issue between some of the photos on my phone when I tried to transfer them to the computer - the the horse it is.   He's got a very pretty face though and was very brave to come right up to me to say hi!

And I just changed my settings to avoid the HEIC format, because it's suddenly corrupting more photos on transfer than not and that doesn't make me happy at all.

1924 Devil's Food Cake

 It looks rather modern with the gummy worms and cookie crumb dirt.   However, this is a modern  birthday cake made with a Devil's Food Cake from 1924, called Cake Secrets.  The booklet was produced by the Carnol Tonic and Restorative company.  Alternating pages have either recipes for cakes, frostings or fillings  and the opposite pages have testimonials for the tonics.   I noticed that some of the recipes seem to be from other cookery books.  As well, some recipes have suggested fillings or frostings, but the recipes aren't in the book! 

This recipe was chosen to fulfill a challenge using ingredients which you wouldn't normally use together.  In this recipe, it's the use of chocolate and potatoes, which I'd never, ever imagined would be ingredients that I'd put together.  Because I had no leftover mashed potatoes, I had to actually boil, mash and cool the potatoes before I made the cake.   I frosted the cake with a whipped ganache.  Usually this is a simple and nearly fool proof frosting.  Unfortunately the kitchen was cool and the chocolate seemed to start setting up before it was completely incorporated into the whipping cream.   It tasted superb though and wasn't noticeable when eating it.  Only that it was a little bit rough in looks.

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I didn't add the nuts to the cake, though it would have made a nice addition.  I used one of the layers that this cake made to take to a pot luck luncheon and left the nuts out due to possible allergies.   

It says to bake in 3 layers, which I took to mean to bake in 3 separate pans.   I only had 2 the same size though and ended up overfilling the pans, which might have contributed to the denseness of the cakes.    I would definitely do  3 thinner layers next time.  Also, not having Swans Down Cake Flour, or any cake flour on hand, I just used scant cups of all purpose flour.  This may have made a difference as well

In all, it was a very rich and moist cake.    After 4 days, the cake was still moist and not showing any signs of stale crumbs at all.    In fact, when I tossed the remaining bits, they were as moist as when it was first baked.  This is definitely a good recipe to play with, plus it was very tasty.  Everyone who tried it liked the flavour and texture.

Weaving with Singles - a Viking apron dress

 I was going to update the blog background to a wintery photo, but instead am leaving it in it's autumnal glory.  We've had so much rain, fog and overcast skies that the bright flowers make me happy.  We had a couple of hours of sunshine today, which was glorious.  I'm not sure where Kevin was hiding, but Dion found a spot which was near enough the woodstove but was also a sun spot. That kitty surely lucked out on his timing for that nap!

I've been working on a simple viking apron dress panel for a friend.  She's getting an award and doesn't want a cloak which is one of the normal gifts.   It's one of the older, no longer thought to be historically correct apron designs.  However, since she is always working with metal and flame etc, this is a well thought out costuming piece on her part.   She asked me to weave it.  I decided that I will also spin the yarn for it because I didn't have a lighter weight wool yarn on hand, and this fabric really does need to be lighter than the commercial wool yarn that I have available.

I had a pound of merino roving in my stash, so pulled it out and started spinning.   This is going to be the requested diamond twill.   I'm spinning it to weave at about a sett of 15.  Because it's merino, it will full up nicely.  This is important because I'm passing the woven piece on to another friend who will embellish it with crazy beautiful embroidery.   

The yarn is spun, with adequate extra, hopefully for any possible
miscalculations.   I know someone who insisted that you only need to spin 10% extra yardage.  As nice as that sounds, I've found that if I do 30% more yardage, I have bases covered for any breakage or math errors.   ( or you know, naughty kitties)

As much as I wanted to dye the wool with indigo, I don't have the chemicals needed on hand and ordering it in would take too much time away from weaving.  Since I really didn't want to rush the weaving on this project, I used commercial weak acid dyes.   The warp is blue.  I added a bunch of black and thought it would grey out the colour a bit.  It did, but not as much as I expected.  Still it's a really attractive blue.  The photo isn't quite accurate.  The funny thing is is that I've some indigo sampling from past dye vats which are a very similar colour, so there is that.

The weft is spun but still needs to be dyed.   I've been waffling with what colour to dye it or if I should leave it white.  A pale blue would show up the weave structure less boldly than the white.  With the embroidery, I don't want the weave structure to compete with the pretty designs.   I do want the pattern to show up a bit more than doing it the same colour would.  Grey is another option.   

The warp needs to be sized.  I use a double strength gelatin for sizing  and it works very well.  This sizing adds some strength to the singles and helps protect against some of the abrasion from the beater.   I really means that weaving with singles is so much easier.   I usually size the yarn before I wind the warp.  This means I'll also have to wind the yarn into cakes before I wind the warp, just to make sure I don't tangle things up.

   In between all of this, I need to dye the weft.  The weft doesn't or at least shouldn't need to be sized.  I may weight it when I'm drying it to make the yarn a bit easier to work with.   Now I need to decide whether to put it on the table loom or the floor loom.  I think it will take a little bit longer to dress the floor loom, but will be a little bit faster to weave off.   I find that the table loom is faster to dress, but takes a tad longer to weave.   Because the process on each loom equals out, it is no help at all as to what loom I should use.   Oh the joy of 1st world problems :)

CSM - Sock machine update

Cranky 54 slot cylinder

 

The sock machine uses cylinders with different amount of needles to help with different gauges and sizes of socks.   I've been using the 72 needle cylinder which makes a slightly wider sock.  It fits my men folk fine, but is a little loose in the foot for me.  It's still wearable.  When I wanted to make a child's sock, I switched to the 54 needle cylinder and had lots of issues.  I felt really lucky to get a pair of kids socks done.  I thought I'd solved the issue, but when I went to make socks for my daughter who has tiny, skinny feet, I had nothing but issues.  I kept having a spate of dropped stitches.  I switched out needles.  I took all the needles out and shook them in lots of oil to  get rid of any accumulated static.  I even cleaned all the nooks and crannys  to get out any fibre which may have accumulated.  However, there were still issues with dropped stitches, and a weird noise which I wasn't happy with.  In the end, I just walked away for a few days and stopped worrying about it. 

  Why wasn't I worried about it?  Not only could I not do anything about it for a few days, but I knew that
under the Xmas tree was a box from Chambord, a Circular Sock Machine company in Canada, which makes lovely parts for old machines.   In that box was a 60 slot cylinder.  I knew this because I ordered it but wasn't allowed to open the box until Xmas day!

It's beautifully made and finished really nicely.  I didn't get the ribber stopper for it though because it's a separate item and all the prices just went up, so I kept within my budget.   When I changed out the cylinders, I cleaned everything up again.   CSM's use a fair bit of oil to keep them cranking smoothly.   It took a few oilings before this new cylinder ran smoothly.    

I've been cranking out gauge tubes and a few sample socks from yarns I'd not used on the other cyinders, to see how it works and what the tension knob does when moved.  My sweetie gave me some sock yarns that I definitely wouldn't have bought myself because I usually balk at spending $33 or more on a single skein of yarn.   So before I make extraordinary socks for myself, with lovely, lovely sock yarn, I want to know how the tension settings will work on similar yarn.  I don't want to make mistakes on the really, really good yarns!  The mauve and grey yarn is Fleece Artist organic and is nice.  It's from a company in Nova Scotia.  The other is from a much closer, Ontario company called Timber yarns.  It's two matched small skeins, to make matching socks with no measuring or math!   It's got a really, really nice twist to it.   These are definitely socks for me!