woops, spring sprung!

So the camera hasn't come out in the craft room again yet, because I am struggling to get in there. the sunshine came out, and so did I. Into the garden, that is.
After only one afternoon of timing the children in the garden(making them stay out in the "fresh air". what a tyrant!), we have managed to fall back into a nice pattern of spending a couple of hours out there every afternoon, while they play in the chicken house, digging patch, or with the big ball, whilst I dream vegetables. I can tell when the soil is right for planting because the neighbourhood cat starts doing its business in the beds again.
Dug over last years beds and covered them with black plastic just before those really strong winds came....luckily I have a lot of bricks in the garden, so it only took one midnight garden visit to stop the plastic going halfway down the street. Now I just have to be patient and let the soil warm up so I can put in my beans and onion sets. horray!

this weeks tool of the week...

Goes to the drum carder! I honestly don't use it as much as I would like, but here are some shots of me and the Girl creating wonders with it.
First pic shows the batts I carded earlier and then dyed. got ready to spin them and noticed I had dyed the stripes the wrong way.... so we tore them up(in order) and threw them back through, in a colour sandwich.
When we where done doing my batts, the Girl got to do her own, with the floof off the feed drum, and some extras from my stash. She has the hand of using the noisy beast now, but has aquired some battle scars along the way. We go with a "two hands on the handle" rule, and she still enjoys it.

The two pics above are the spun up singles, and finished yarn. I plyed my "recycled sari" with babylonglegs silk/merino top, one in petrolhead colourway, the other a custom dye.

The top was very smooth to spin, very fine. It tends towards what meghan, at stitch it!! would call "nose hair". You can compare this to the drum carded stuff, which has the same ratios of wool to silk, and they use the same wool(sorry, forgot to check what that is though...). The top is a worsted preparation, and the drum carder does semi-worsted. I think the additional neps and noils are due to my technique, but I think I fell in love with them, they remind me of recycled sari yarn, the silk holding the dye so vividly. Just think of what it would be like with a smidge of angelina...

I inherited the drum carder from the Mans dad, who was a spinner too. It was playing on his wheel for a week that helped me "get" how to spin. He mainly used it for preparing raw and scoured fleece, and managed to get some relatively smooth yarns out of it. maybe someday I will get there too. think I will be being more ruthless with the mini-batt and the obvious neps at that stage, instead of worrying about "wasting" the fleece.
To stay on theme, next week will probably be the Wheel....

inside the lair...

It has been a while, so I thought I would share elements of my most treasured asset, my Craft room. This is where I get to plonk all my crafty junk and get a bit of space to think and work. Hopefully also looking at what I have in there and putting it on "show" will encourage me to get a bit tidier and maybe even get rid of or use some of the stuff I keep for "just in case", like toilet roll tubes, and old debit cards!!!

I am blessed to have a house which, at the moment, has a spare room for me to use in this way. it is about 10x20 foot (ish), and has poor storage at the moment, a good reflection on the whole house.

The door stays SHUT. The children do not enter without me, so I can leave pins and sewing machines and books open all over the place safely. down side is I am the only one who cleans it, or remembers to close/open windows/adjust the radiator. The postcard on the door helps get me in the "mood" for creating, a favorite quote of mine, from Goethe.

If we open the door and take a peek inside(which is enough for most people), you see the array of bags of knitting projects ready to grab, recycling system(paper, yarn, fabric and rubbish), yarn stash in it's mothproof tupperwares and the Passap knitting machine, which I have yet to master. the window sill has become a shelf for bottles full of buttons, and tins of knitting needles, so when I approach the house from the street I can see my haven and smile!

Inside the room(which I DID NOT decorate, by the way) you are assulted by stacks of banana boxes of fabric, plastic tubs of fleece, worktable, rocking chair, sewing machines everywhere and just stuff, I am sorry to say. It just barely fits two people working in there, but then you can't get around at all!

So, there is an overview of what it is like in my Craft room. I hope to update on the specifics in greater detail, as it can be interesting to see what makes a difference to people in the way they craft.

apple juice concentrate

Thought I would share the results of my latest home experiment! My partner makes apple presses, so every year about now we start collecting apples, from local parks, friends, neighbours and over freecycle-type groups. Last year we made about 70l, this year so far we have done a bit less. After extracting the juice using the scratter and press we then tend to pasteurise it. If we had a freezer I would be tempted to freeze it, as I have heard that retains more of the vitamins and nutrients, but at the moment a freezer is carbonifically(if that is anything like a real word..) unviable for our household.

Anyway, we pasteurise by one of two methods; first, and least satisfactory, we heat up the juice in a large stainless steel pan to 80 degrees for about 15 minutes, then pour it straight into plastic bottles, and screw the lids on. This is less good as plastic bottles release toxins as they get older, especially if they are heated up! Second method is to pour juice into wine bottles, place bottles in the large pan, fill with water over the liquid level in the bottles, raise temperature to 80, hold it there for 15 minutes and immediately cork with sterilized corks.

This year we had gathered enough wine bottles that we could just use them. This has been the activity in my house for about 5 days, and now my partner has moved onto cider, and I am not well versed in that.

As I spent a whole day pasteurising, I then felt I had permission to experiment with the days leftovers. Now, to get the children to drink enough liquids (they seem to think they are evolved life forms that take on liquids via osmosis, or something), I buy apple juice concentrate, rather than cordial, or that nasty squash with all the sweeteners and preservatives in. Costs a bomb, though, at least £4 for half a pint, and that will barely last a week. Anyhoo, I decided to give it a go, making it at home. I had 2/3 gallons of juice, which over 8 hours of vigorous boiling, has given me 3 pints of concentrate, and a very steamy kitchen. The walls, which have just been sugar-soaped, started extruding tar again!

I have yet to work out the costing on this, but as it is very locally sourced and produced, and our energy, although not home produced yet, is %100 renewable, I would say it was worth it, as a carbon reducing measure. Unfortunately, the amount I would have to produce to keep the household in juice is inhibiting, as is the dampness in the kitchen. It has also been strongly recommended by the other adult in the house that we just drink pasteurised juice, but this is a big space investment.

To make sure your juice is "concentrated", you can use a hydrometer, such as you get for wine making, which kind of floats in you COOL liquid. Compare where it sits in commercial concentrate to your concoction. It went way below the chart on mine, so it took many comparisons to feel satisfied.

Apple juice concentrate is also used in wholefood and healthy children's cookery, as a sugar alternative, and to sweeten soya milk, although a have had no success with that one at home. I also wouldn't put it in tea, as it curdles!! So it would be the closest thing you are likely to get as home grown sugar, unless you keep bees.

The picture is of the children pressing cherry juice. The Man has made several of these presses, for wedding gifts and a local press share group in Leicester. It also goes to several events in the area. It is %75 efficient at the last measure, higher than any other model we have seen! For more info on the press and other interesting woodwork you can email him on rupert.goffeindesignsATgmailDOTcom.

shop update

This is what I do in my "spare" time...
CatInnaHat Creations

Simon the Dinosaur, from lets knit! magazine, a birthday present and stash-busting project. The Man almost died when he saw these photos of the little monster IN the PC! this is how we keep the PC from overheating, rather than install more fans, but little creatures in it where not the plan..

all the knitting in the house go YEAH!

Not that I have actually finished anything recently(other than Simon the dinosaur..), but having just been down in Kent visiting the Mans family and only taking ONE knitting project, I hammered away at it, while I wasn't reading. Sherbet is 3/4 done down the body, but now I'm home I most likely won't do the boring knitting, I'll find a new project.

I tell a lie, I have recently finished the Girls cardi, Sorbet. The beast that broke my needles only had mild misadventures from that point, due to running out of the yarn I was trying to use up, albeit a little early... so she has a funky cardi, and the Boy has an Owls sweater on the way(which will get its own post!)

While I was away I redescovered the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, as the Mans sister owns nearly every related book. I tried reading Little house in the big woods to the Boy, but frankly, he wasn't interested. Unfortunately I was, and have managed the first three in five days! I will have to order the rest from the library, I expect...