Sleep Sack for Baby

I threw together in the course of about five days, a sleep sack to give as a gift at a baby shower held on Sunday. I had originally planned to do some intarsia knitting and have a little duckie on the front, but since it was my first attempt at intarsia I opted to practice that separately and try it on the next sleep sack.

While there are many types of sleep sacks that you can purchase online, my knitted one was nothing more than a tube or sleeping bag for the baby. The sleep sack allows you to keep the baby warm and not use a blanket. This prevents the blanket from getting in your baby's face and preventing him from breathing, which apparently reduces the risk of SIDS.

The great thing about this pattern is that you use a three needle cast off which looked great and was super easy. All you do is (with right sides together) put the two needles of the project together and take a third needle and feed it through one stitch on each needle and then knit the stitch and cast off like you normally would. It's super easy and looks great.

Raw Milk Campaign

I am going to begin collecting research regarding the health benefits of raw milk with the end goal of having the sale of it in grocery stores to become legal. Here in Texas the sale of raw milk is perfectly legal on the farm. This is quite frankly retarded. Why is there a difference in purchasing raw milk on the farm versus buying it in the store? It's the same milk isn't it?

In light of the recent events in Washington; however, the Raw Milk Campaign may have to wait until after the November 2010 elections. Securing our freedoms are more important at this point. If we congress continues to take away our freedoms then we won't even have the option to purchase raw milk at all.

Okay, I'm off my soap box.

Swedish Knits Book Review

I checked this book out from my local library. I love Norwegian styled sweaters and thought that this book might be something along those lines. And yes, I recognize that Swedish styles can differ from Norwegian styles.

To say that the book was a disappointment would be an understatement. The book had 21 patterns in it with only two of them truly representing traditional Scandinavian sweaters. The other patterns were good- don't get me wrong- but in a book entitled Swedish Knits am I expecting too much to expect that all the patterns would be either traditional Swedish Knits, updated versions of the same, or a discussion of Swedish knitting?

This book did not touch on really any of this. The first few chapters of the book discuss knitting techniques- from beginner through advanced. It even discusses creating your own patterns. That's great and all, but that's the type of information I want in a book about how to knit and not from I book that is supposed to be about a specific type of knitting.

The overall presentation of the book was quite nice with the photography being very good. The directions were easy to understand. The one nice thing about the book is that they walk you through making a sweater (but then again a lot of other books do as well).

There is no real niche here. I gladly return this book to the library.

Am I being too harsh?

Fun with Rit

We all know what Rit is right? For those that need a slight memory jog- Rit is that powder dye that comes in a box and looks like the logo hasn't been updated since the 1972. You see it in some supermarkets and in craft stores.

Today I dyed one of my skirts. I purchased a crinkly type white skirt from Forever XXII a few years ago (and by a few I mean at least 4) and picked up about three stains along the way. I'm not sure when or how I acquired them. I tried to treat the stains even going so far as applying the bleach from a bleach pen and letting it sit over night and then soaking it in Oxy Clean. The stains were set.

I liked the skirt and decided that it would be the thrifty and resourceful thing to do to dye it a new color. I opted for a practical chocolate brown. All of this isn't very exciting, I know, but I did do a few things the package didn't instruct, and thought I would pass it on to you since it worked so well.

I followed the directions for the stove top dying bathe. Once I was done with the bathe I decided to rinse out the skirt in the sink with cold water to try and get all the residual dye out. I must confess that I did this because I am extremely anal-retentive about my washer and dryer. When I could not get the water to run clear by rinsing and ringing, I decided that I would just wash the skirt in the sink (the box recommends putting it in your washer).

Then I decided to use the recipe for color fasting from my book entitled Lemons, Salt, Vinegar, and Baking Soda- a must own. I filled the sink up again with cold water and then added 1 cup of white vinegar (Wal-Mart's finest) and 1/2 salt (mine was Kosher). I let it sit for about 5-10 minutes. I then rinsed it off and hung it up to dry. This was not in the directions at all.

The remarkable thing was that the water was turning colors when I was filling up the sink again but as soon as I put the vinegar and salt in, the water become colorless again. Then when I rinsed the skirt, no dye came out!

Prepping for St. Patrick's Day

I am corning my own beef brisket this year. I have to step things up every now and then, ya know?

So how do you do it?

1 beef brisket (4-6 lbs)
Salt (Kosher) (I used large sea salt)
Bay leaves
Thyme
Allspice
Paprika
Cracked black pepper

Spear the brisket on either side and then rub the spices on it. Put it in a Ziploc, remove the air, and then put it in the fridge with a brick or cast iron pan on top, turning twice a day. Leave for 5-7 days. It's that easy.





On a side note, I am totally in love with Vanna's Choice Baby color Little Boy Blue. It's gorgeous.

Playing Catch-Up

During the course of the past week and a half that I have been dodging this blog, I embarked on some interesting projects. Me and my friend S (she had never canned before) did some canning. We made grape jelly from scratch, apple butter, and two batches of applesauce. Some pictures where taken and unfortunately a lot was never taken.

We used the recipes from the Ball Blue Book as well as the recipe that you get in the box of Certo pectin.

We used the Certo recipe for grape jelly, but instead of using Concord grapes, a mixture of green and red seedless grapes were substituted. This yielded a lovely jelly with a potent grape flavor and a pretty shade of pink.






The applesauce recipe was from the Ball book, and it came out well. I opted to add cinnamon because my husband requested it. The second batch I added some ground cloves and cinnamon. I had a second batch of applesauce because I had so many red delicious apples (20 lbs.). I also had a great idea to put some of the applesauce into the small 4 oz. jelly jars so that I could just grab one to put in his lunch box. This has really worked out well in the mornings!

The apple butter recipe I used the ingredients and processing time from the Ball book. The flavor is phenomenal. The recipe lacked two major things: the estimated cooking time and how to tell when the butter is ready. The recipe read along these lines "Cook slowly until thick enough to round up on a spoon." This was not helpful...in the least.

I then consulted another canning book Jellies, Jams, and Chutneys fortunately this book was a lot more helpful. The butter is done when you spoon some out on a clean plate and let it cool and there is no liquid ring around the butter. I can work with that. The time indications in that book weren't very helpful either. I cooked the butter for 3 hours, and it still wasn't close to being ready. I was hopeful it would thicken up after canning it and cooling it, so I canned it. It wasn't any better a day later.

I began to search the internet for recipes/cooking times/examples of butter and stumbled upon a recipe on www.pickyourown.org. In this recipe the author puts the butter in the crock pot for 6 to 12 hours. This was the answer.

Unfortunately, I never think to take pictures while actually ladling, measuring, and sealing. One of these days I'll have a friend be here just to take pictures.

Oscar's Favorite Sweater Pattern

Oscar’s Favorite Sweater

1 skein Bernat Baby Sport
Size 5 straight needles*
Size 5 16" circular needles*
Yarn needle
*Any size to obtain gauge
Gauge: In stockinette 30 sts x 30 rows = 4 inches x 4 inches

Main sweater:
CO (Long tail chain method) 90 sts
Row 1 *K2, P2*
Row 2 *P2, K2*
Row 3 *K2, P2*
Row 4 *P2, K2*
Row 5 *K2, P2*
Row 6 *P2, K2*
Row 7 *K2, P2*
Row 8 (WS)*P2, K2* - Should be about 1 inch tall
Row 9 K All stitches (Switching to the stockinette pattern)
Row 10 P
Row 11 K
Row 12 P
Row 13 Kfb, K until last stitch, Kfb
Row 14 P
Row 15 Kfb, K until last stitch, Kfb
Row 16 P
Row 17 Kfb, K until last stitch, Kfb
Row 18 P
Row 19 Kfb, K until last stitch, Kfb
Row 20 P
Row 21 Kfb, K until last stitch, Kfb
Row 22 P
Row 23 Kfb, K until last stitch, Kfb
Row 24 P
Row 25 Kfb, K until last stitch, Kfb
Row 26 P
Row 27 Kfb, K until last stitch, Kfb (Should have 106 stitches)
Rows 28 through 76 Work in stockinette stitch
Row 77 K2TOG, K*, K2TOG *Repeat until last two stitches
Row 78 P2TOG, P*, P2TOG
Row 79 K2TOG, K*, K2TOG
Row 80 P2TOG, P*, P2TOG
Row 81 K
Row 82 P
Row 83 K
Row 84 P
Row 85 K
Row 86 P
Row 87 K
Row 88 P
Row 89 K
Row 90 P
Row 91 K
Row 92 P
Row 93 K
Row 94 P
Row 95 K
Row 96 P
Row 97 K
Row 98 P
Row 99 K
Row 100 P
Row 101 K
Row 102 P
Row 103 K
Row 104 P
Row 105 K
Row 106 P
Row 107 K2P2* Repeat until the end of row. While doing this, knit from straight needles onto circular needles. At the end of the row cast on (via Cable Cast On Method) another 18 stitches.
Row 108 K2P2*
Row 109 K2P2*
Row 110 through 127 K2P2*
Row 128 Cast off in pattern.

Chest:
I knit the chest piece from bottom to top, but you could likewise reverse it.
CO (via long tail chain) 30 stitches
Row 1 through Row 30 *K2 P2*
Row 31 K2 TOG, *P2 K2* Until last two stitches, P2 TOG
Row 32 K2 TOG, *P2 K2* Until last two stitches, K2 TOG
Row 33 *P2 K2*
Row 34 through 41 *P2 K2*
Row 42 CO 10 sts, P2 K2 until end of row, CO 10 more stitches
Rows 43 through 50 *K2 P2*
Row 51 (RS) Cast off in Rib Pattern
Block pieces over night, and stitch together.

I added stitches when joining the neck to knit in the round, however if that would be too big for your dogs neck, just add two stitches to maintain the rib pattern and join to knit in the round.

I'm so overdue!

I have been needing to make a post since about a week ago, and I just haven't gotten around to it. I feel like such a slacker. I have a book review and some pics and projects to update.

Stay tuned, a real update is coming. But now, I must make bread, finish the laundry, and test the apple butter.

Cheers!

Finished!

Here's a few pictures of Oscar's Favorite Sweater. I'll post the pattern soon.