A Little Too Much

So pretty

Hi, there, dear reader.  Glad you could drop by after my long absence.  It’s been awhile, I know, so let the excuses begin!

The last several weeks I have been caught up in spring.  This season makes me feel light-hearted and yet, ready to take on the world.  Out in the garden everyday, buying flowers, potting soil, and seeds, spring cleaning, clearing out the fountain and raking away the tons of pine needles that threaten to take over my roses, and in general, just being outdoors; enjoying the sun after months of a typical gloomy Californian winter.  Granted, in just a very short while, I will be posting about summer’s relentless, grinding heat and moaning for autumn; however, in the meantime, I will bask in this mindset and weather.

I finally finished the flame stitch bag and gave it a strengthening liner to turn it from a bag to a purse.  I didn’t do the pom-poms because I am really tough on my purses.  They’d need to be taken off after a week!  For the handles, I purchased some at Joann Crafts and Fabrics.  Attaching the handles did turn out to be problematic, but I went with it anyway!

Malabrigo Sea Green yarn

I was supposed to get the $2.99 rings only. $65 later….eeesh!

With the temperatures climbing higher on the thermometer, all the fresh, new growth has attracted deer, especially to the aforementioned roses.  I’ve babied those bushes because they have to Floribunda rosesbe; the pine trees block all but about 5 hours of sun, even on the summer solstice, so I’m always sure to prune them, nourish them, ensure they’re disease-free.  Anyone who has had a serious interest in roses knows how hard this can be.  With the drought conditions we’ve been having, my roses have become a food mainstay for the hungry deer.  To combat this, I’ve been using Must Garden natural deer repellent.  During the winter, it didn’t work so well.  The deer were starving.  So my poor babies were beat up. I didn’t think they would make it this year.  But lo, and behold, they’re blooming.  Not a whole bunch, but it’s a start.

So pretty

Colors are Malabrigo Ravelry Red and Spun Right Round Newsprint

And now that we’re finished with my easy purse, I’ve moved on to another Malabrigo project.  I know, I know.  I love that yarn and it was on sale.  At least, today’s purchase was on sale….But I digress.  I’ve been working on a pattern for a sweater that I bought on Ravelry, Zweig, and I can’t wait to finish it.  I’m realistically shooting for November, when I’ll need it!  I intend to do some more planned pooling on a new brand of yarn – I will report the results!  I’ve also got some more fan art to do.  Never thought I’d be that kind of a fan at my age!  LOL  Life’s too short not to do the things you want when you can.

See you in the funny pages!

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1st Annual Local Yarn Store Appreciation Day

I do enjoy a good excuse to get to my lys, and today was a fine example.  I packed up my tote full of the Flame Stitch Bag  crochet project, and set out in the beautiful Saturday spring afternoon to the Ben Franklin Crafts Store in Grass Valley, 16 miles away.  When I got there, a very large group of knitters were sitting at a U-shaped table set up and I was fortunate enough to find a seat at the end.  Best spot – sweet!  Since I don’t frequent the weekly meetings, I felt a little isolated, but soon started chatting with those around me, and now I’m committed to going back next Friday evening!  Another nice surprise was when several members of my weekly Stitch ‘n Bitch in Colfax showed up.  Hi Diane and Tammi!  I had made this the weekly meeting.  Thought I’d mix it up a little.

Anyway, what did me in today was the 20% off LYS bag.  Buy it for $4.99, and get 20% off your yarn purchase for the day.  I was fine with this.  I could resist, I could.  Really.  That is, until, the young woman next to me was wearing a sweater that was just gorgeous.  And she told me it was a pattern in Ravelry, and I had to have it.  *sigh*  My bank account is now $85 lighter (to include a new circular knitting needle) and I now have another project awaiting my attention.

So what did you do to show your LYS a little love today?

One of My Favorites

It’s been awhile since I’ve made an entry, because I have been so frustrated with my little “fan art” project, not even a third of the way through.  I was just going to make three beanies with a design.  That was it; however, I have tried two separate methods to achieve the

No way was I continuing with this method!

Removing the stitching

look I want, and have failed miserably!  I tried intarsia in the the round. The method used a modified short rows hook up, and you actually went back and forth. Not good.  The site of the join was lumpy, bumpy and quite easy to see.  I went to my LYS where I was told to use duplicate stitch instead.  So I tried the duplicate stitch which, apparently, I’m not that good at.  Stitching on fabric knitted with fingering weight yarn is beyond what my eyes want to do anymore, even with reading glasses!  The hat itself is fine.  The pattern that I attempted to duplicate stitch over the fabric, not so good.  As you can see, I am in the process of recycling the hat itself and someone (my husband) will get a nice, bright red toque.

This one worked!

That was actually the first time I’d worked with fingering weight yarn for something other than a pair of socks, and the process took way longer than I thought it would.  So, learning from this disaster, I changed the design, and employed worsted weight yarn.  The results?  Not as fancy as I would have liked, but at least it was completed, and I can carry on with my life!  Will I try fingering weight yarn again?  You bet.  Will I try the same design again?  Yes, because it was supposed to be correct.  Will I post it?  Eh.  Maybe.

If anyone out there has successfully created designs with duplicate stitching on fingering weight yarn fabric, please let me know what your secret is!

Now, on to one of my favorite subjects – food!  The title of this blog is referring to the food, not the knit fails!  I thought I would share this with you, as it is a good all around pork recipe that can be incorporated into many other foods, and is not seasonal, even though it’s cooked in a crockpot.  I originally posted this on Cafe Luna’s blog to see if I could get some other fab recipes from locals here in Colfax using Mario’s salsa.  So far, I’ve been the only one.  Maybe that will change?  For those of you not fortunate enough to live in the area, substitute your favorite green salsa in lieu of Mario’s blend.  You guys have any good recipes that uses salsa?  Post it here!

Glenda’s Gringo Slow Cooker Pork Chile Verde

2 lbs. pork, preferably a little fatty, cut into one-inch cubes

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 pint Tenderfoot Salsa Verde

flour for coating

salt and pepper to taste

cooking oil

Heat oil in a large skillet on medium high, then add onion and cook until almost transparent; add the garlic.  Cook another minute, careful not to burn the garlic.  Remove the onions and garlic from the skillet and put into your slow cooker.  Add more oil, if necessary; should cover the bottom of the pan.  Coat the pork in salted and peppered flour and brown the meat in two separate batches.  You’re not trying to cook the meat at this point, you’re just caramelizing the proteins to give the verde a richer flavor.  Mix all ingredients together in your slow cooker and pour the Tenderfoot Salsa Verde over the mix.  Remember, the slow cooking will render out meat juices, so you may not want to use the whole pint.  That’s up to you.  Anyway, cook on slow for 6 – 7 hours, high for 3 – 4 hours.  Makes a nice meal with leftovers!

The original posted here – https://cafelunacolfax.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/salsa-recipes/

If you want rice to go with, here is a recipe of mine:

https://nittinninja.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/chile-rellenos-casserole-and-green-rice/   –  Scroll all the way down for the green rice recipe.  It’s worth it!

 

The Endless Scarf

Showing off the scarf length

We’re getting there! It’s a simple garter and moss stitch design and is going to be fab WHEN I finish it!

We’re halfway through March and the February blahs have followed me with dogged determination.  I have been working, very slowly, on a simple red scarf.  It should have been a week at the most  We are looking at a month right now – daaanng!  For those of you who are following the link, be aware that I only cast on 29 stitches and didn’t do a center piece.  Didn’t want to count all those rows.  I feel like I’ve been too busy; even writing this entry seems to be a great excuse to not knit or crochet!  Does anyone else have this waxing and waning pattern towards your yarn?  I know that when I’m finished with the scarf, I’ll be fired up to do something else.  I’ll be trying a new technique, working intarsia in the round.  I’ll definitely document it, even if I don’t finish it.  I’ll be doing “fan art”.  Christ, I’m 54, almost 55, and I’ll be making”fan art”.  What’s this world coming to?

Upside, my social media biz has grown; woo-hoo!  So far, I’m still doing trade instead of receiving money, because it seems everyone I take on has a product or service I need!  Tax-wise, it’s easier, and it’s definitely more friendly for new, local businesses that don’t have a budget or time to take care of their social media.  I feel it’s more…organic? primeval?  In any case, it’s the way I roll.

And speaking of rolls, around December 27th, after stuffing myself silly during the holidays, I reached my top weight.  No, I’m not going to mention it; suffice to say, I was not happy.  I didn’t want to do a New Year’s Resolution, because there is the new tradition, I’ve noticed, for the resolutions to fail.  Have you seen that?  Most people resolve to lose weight, but by February, they’ve given up.  And that means more weight gained over the course of the year, and another resolution to fail.  I didn’t want to do that.  So I began thinking of food differently the day I decided I was going to lose weight.  Nothing happened for the first month or so of me just eating less.  It wasn’t until I started counting my calories, which I really didn’t want to do, that I noticed a change.  I still have a ways to go, but I figure – eh.  What else are you going to do?  Any of you have New Year’s resolutions you’re still keeping? gave up?  Let me know!

 

 

International Women’s Day, pt.2: Finding Sally Dawley

After posting the pic of Margaret Thatcher for the International Women’s Day tribute, I felt I should choose another candidate, one closer to home. I just met her two days ago, but her dedication to her cause has garnered kudos and international recognition and my respect.  Her name is Sally Dawley and she is affectionately known around these parts as “The Butt Lady of Auburn”.   This interesting moniker came about in 2014 when she started picking up butts along her daily walk and thus began her odyssey that continues today.

How I came to meet her has its own quirky story.  Don’t worry – I’ll make it brief!  I’m a big Trailer Park Boys fan and have a subscription to their Swearnet website and on their podcast episode #133, they congratulated Sally and asked for help contacting her because they want to talk to her themselves.  That was an unusual request – I’d never seen them do that before.  So, I thought, hey!  I live near Auburn, I’ve got free time, let’s find her!  A cursory Google search came up blank, Facebook zilch and even Duck-duck Go produced no results.  I now understood why the unusual request; she has absolutely zero web presence.  Thankfully, my first action of posting in the Auburn group on FB got me in touch with her.  Thanks everyone!

Our meeting was really unusual, and think about it;  to Sally, I’m some random stranger looking for her, who just wanted to let her know that a group of guys from Canada were looking for her.  Not suspicious at all.  It must have taken a leap of faith for her to call me.  I don’t know if I would have done the same!  When we finally talked the night before meeting, I had to explain that I am in no way affiliated with The Trailer Park Boys (they wouldn’t have me), only a fan who had time on her hands and likes helping people.  Weird, right?  The next morning I showed up at the appointed Starbucks, prepared with my laptop and headphones so she could see what had prompted all the furor.   Sally was amused by what she saw and was definitely game, and I thought, oh, great! mission accomplished.  Then we both looked at each other, and she asked, “What do we do now?”  I laughed and said I would give the appropriate people her phone number…in an e-mail.  She shook her head and explained she didn’t want that kind of information on the internet.  I ended up writing a letter to that effect, where, as far as I know, it’s sitting in someone’s inbox in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

When we were fairly comfortable with each other, we went out into the parking lot and, yes, you guessed it, picked up cigarette butts for about an hour.  Well, I got to use the clicker for the most part and she did the hard work.  During that time I found out that not only does she find butts while she’s out and about, she finds wallets, cash, (she’s collected $900 since 2014!), ponytail hair ties, and of course, used condoms.   And don’t worry if you drop your wallet with your credit cards, $1,000 cash and no ID – she’ll get it to you one or way or another.  She’s scrupulously honest that way, but if she finds a stray $20 here or there, the law of “Finders, Keepers” comes into play.

What saddened me and galvanized my respect for Ms. Dawley was that after about 20 minutes of picking up butts, the magnitude of what she was trying to accomplish hit me.  There was always another butt over there, by this fence post, trapped in the sidewalk cracks, underneath a truck trailer, disguised as dead leaf – it seemed endless.  I asked her if she’d noticed any difference in the volume of cigarette butts she was finding since she’d been receiving some notoriety and the city of Auburn had installed ashcans for smokers in public places.  She shook her head and said, “No, not really.”  Then she remarked how unusual it was to have someone helping her.  I was shocked at this point, and clarified if I’d understood her correctly, in that no one has ever helped her.  Nope.  I had heard it correctly.  Then I was really disappointed.  And really proud of her.  A lesser mortal would have given up well before the 1,000,000 mark.  As we were nearing the end of our time together, I asked her what message she wanted to get out, and she said, “For people to stop throwing their cigarettes everywhere.”  Ultimately, she wants everyone to stop smoking, but as seen through the eyes of this ex-smoker, that ain’t happening any time soon.  Besides the fact that it’s highly physically and psychologically addictive, it’s a tremendously personal decision and you’ve got to want to stop.

So next time you’re out on the town, or anywhere, for that matter, getting ready to toss your cigarette because you can’t find an appropriate place to put it, try field stripping.  That way, you’re less likely to find a cigarette butt in the stomach of the fish you caught that morning, you won’t have to worry so much about your dog eating a stray butt while you’re walking them and making them sick, the birds will have less to line their nests with and the landscape in general will start looking a lot better.

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