2.26.2007

My cherry bag

Sarah volunteered us to donate an item for the Take Back the Night raffle. We decided on some yarn, needles and free knitting classes, but we wanted to put them in a cute bag that would appeal to the non-crafty types. I volunteered to make this bag since Sarah is making another bag for a Gatewood Galbraith fund raiser next month. I have a ton of denim fabric that I got from Philip's grandmother and since I never use denim I used this as an opportunity to get rid of some of it. Here is the bag I whipped up.

The cherries were just a quick sketch I drew on the bag and went over using the satin stitch on my machine. I am really happy with the resulting bag and I think I might make another one for me.

2.20.2007

My weekend in Nashville

Since I had an extra day off this weekend due to the holiday I decided to take a trip down to Nashville to visit my friend Nieves who I don't see nearly enough. Nieves the only roommate who got as excited about decorating a space as I did. Philip is okay; he gets excited when I pull everything together, but the actual process kinda bores him. We spent a lot of the weekend crafting. She was working on her stuff for the Revolution of Craft in two weeks which will be her very first craft fair. Her stuff is incredable, she makes these amazing glittery shrines which are the focus of her booth, but she also has some super cute bags and pins made from old sweaters. I can't wait to see all of her finished stuff at the fair. While she was working on her stuff, I finished up my first socks of the new year.

This is a pretty bad picture, but it gives you the basic idea. The yarn isn't self-striping, it is a variegated yarn that made spirals on the socks.

On Monday, we decided to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame since she gets free guest passes through work (free is the only way I could afford to go.) I am not a big fan of country music, but I love the traditional country that my dad listened to as a kid and I love cowboys. The museum had way to many guitars for my taste which is to be expected in a place devoted to preserving a musical history. My favorite part of the museum was all of the clothing worn by mid-century country musicians. They had several suits embellished to the point of over-embellishment. Just to look at these suits and realize that all of the stitchings and rhinestone work was done by hand is just amazing. I also saw the Hee-Haw corn field which wasn't bad either.

After the Hall of Fame we headed over to Hatch Show Print where Nieves works. For those of you who don't know, Hatch is a letterpress in Nashville that has been running since 1879 and is most famous for its concert prints or to the knitting world for the cover of Mason Dixon Knitting. The place was huge, way larger than I had imagined and all of the walls were covered with shelves and drawers of print blocks and poster from the beginning to the present. I can't believe how lucky she is to go to work there everyday.

Here is the view of Hatch from the very front.

Some of the various posters printed by Hatch over the years.

Hatch is an operating museum so you can go there and see the designers and printers in action and buy some of their vintage prints. If my life ever slows down I would like to take a week and intern there- you can add that to my 40 before 40.

2.12.2007

Punch time

Philip and I acquired a vintage punch bowl last summer and have been waiting for an opportunity to use it. Well, that opportunity came Friday night when we had a few people over for a friend's birthday. We wanted to make a fun party punch that could be enjoyed with or without alcohol since our guest of honor doesn't drink. Here is what we came up with.

Saint Valentine's Party Punch
1 can pineapple juice
4 liters ginger ale
2 pints raspberry sorbet
1 liter Peach Schnapps (optional)
1 liter raspberry vodka (optional)
1 heart shaped jello or cake mold
The night before fill heart mold with raspberry sorbet, cover and store in freezer. Mix pineapple juice, ginger ale, and remaining sorbet in punch bowl. At this point you can either add the liquor or keep out beside the bolw for your guests to add. Right before the party, use hot water to release the sorbet from the mold and drop in punch bowl.

2.10.2007

Knitting with wheat

I just read this in the NYT- looks like we will have another alternative fiber to try out in the near future.

A Wheat-Based Wool?

Wheat gluten, the protein that gives bagels their characteristic chewiness, may someday have a new role: as the basis for inexpensive, environmentally friendly textiles.

Narendra Reddy and Yiqi Yang of the University of Nebraska have come up with a way to make useful fibers from 100 percent wheat gluten. The protein forms chains that give the fiber tensile strength and other properties that are similar to wool and better than some other protein-based fibers.

The researchers dissolved gluten in a urea and sodium-sulfite solution, aging the mix for up to 36 hours at temperatures of 50 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Then it was extruded through a hypodermic needle into a bath of sodium sulfite and sulfuric acid, which served to coagulate the protein into strands. These were further drawn and then dried and annealed at about 260 degrees. The process is described in the journal Biomacromolecules.

The researchers found that the wheat gluten fibers had a resistance to breaking that was about three-quarters that of wool, but higher than fibers made from soy and corn protein. Wheat gluten also is similar to wool in a measurement called Young’s modulus, a gauge of stiffness. So the researchers say that if textiles could be made from wheat gluten, they should be as soft and flexible as those made from wool.

They would probably also cost far less. Wheat gluten is readily available worldwide at a cost of less than 50 cents per pound — at least one-tenth the cost of wool.

Too bad the article doesn't give any information about the fiber properties as they apply to knitters.

2.09.2007

Mmmm, cupcakes!!!

My adventures in baking have been few and far between, but yesterday during my lunch break I whipped up a batch of green tea cupcakes from the Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook. They sunk in the middle when they cooled, but I just filled the holes with icing so they look beautiful. If anyone knows what makes cakes fall in the center and how to prevent or at least lessen the effect I would love to hear it. Also, if anyone knows a place in Lexington that sells dragées (those silver sugar balls,) please share; Philip and I went to several grocery and specialty stores before giving up on our search. I finished the flowers and I can't help but to think how nice they would look with the dragées in the centers.

2.07.2007

The newest addition to our household

Philip and I have been talking about expanding our household for quite awhile now. Our only worry was that we would not be responsible enough to nurture another life. Well, the other day we did it, we finally bought a palm tree for the living room!! I know what you're thinking, "But Robyn, you barely water the plants you have." I know, I know, but we have been dreaming of a palm since we first built the tiki bar. Our thought is that as the tree grows (or should I say if,) it will make our living room even more of a tropical paradise. Plus, now we will never have to buy a Christmas tree!! Anyway, here is our new baby...


Since for some reason tropical plants go on sale in the winter, we also purchased a Bromeliad to put in the pot of the last plant I killed (I know, I know.) We picked one that hasn't bloomed yet so we have something to look forward to in the coming weeks.


In other plant news, the bamboo and the succulents we bought over the summer are still alive and well so I do think that we are improving in the plant care department.

2.05.2007

My weekend

This was a busy busy weekend. First, I received a final package from my SP which contained a cookbook from the Grit Restaurant in Athens, Georgia. Vegetarian Southern cooking is my favorite so I am really excited to try some of the recipes in here. I was a little sad that only one of the brunch recipes were vegan, but the others should be pretty easy to convert. Overall, I would say half of the book is vegan with all of the vegan recipes marked with a "v" (though I did find a few vegan recipes that didn't have a "v" so it is possible there are more.) I also found it a little odd that a Southern Restaurant called the Grit didn't include grits, my all-time favorite breakfast, in its cookbook.

On Friday night, Sarabeth came over to my house to have a sewing night since I refused to go out in the cold. She brought over doll patterns from Wee Wonderfuls that she wanted to make for her two sons. We each worked on one doll until we were too tired to go any further. She is coming over again tonight so we can finish up the dolls so I should have pictures to post tomorrow.

I finished the AntiCraft project and I am a little relieved to have it out of my life, now I am just doing mindless sock knitting and knitting little things that use up my scrap yarns. I have become obsessed with making little flowers with my extra scraps, I made about 15 flowers this weekend in my downtime. Here is my first finished flower broach.

The flower and leaves are knitted from some Blue Sky Cotton leftover from Christmas gifts and the little plastic pearls are buttons I found in my button box. I think I am going to make some broaches with the leaves and some without since I only have a little green yarn left and buying more green to use up my scraps would defeat the purpose of the project.