Getting ready for St. Patrick's Day and a bit of green

Well, St. Patrick's Day is nearly upon us! And my mother would never forgive me if I didn't plan a nice Irish meal and some green to wear. We were never much for the green beer drinking, kelly green wearing, rowdy crowd. More of the sage or forest green with some nice tweeds or a gansey sweater to wear, a piping irish stew for supper, with brown bread and a pint or two with some live fiddle tunes or a session going on nearby.

I even remember a year when my mother hastily cut green shamrocks out of felt and pinned them to our clothes since none of us seemed to have a spec of green to wear to school.

Michael and I now live down the street from the local irish/american-ized pub and restaurant, and the kelly green rowdies will come a-parkin' on our lawns and in our driveways come Tuesday night so we'll be pacing the ramparts and watching for the wayward reveler who may inadvertently wander into our garden looking for God only knows...

I'm planning a succulent lamb stew with taties and root vegetables and a slosh of stout to tenderize the lot, accompanied by some whole wheat Irish soda bread (from the Farmer's Almanac) and some more stout to wash it down.

We've got a great new disk to play while we eat (the Green Fields of America with our good friend Robbie O'Connell and other masterful players) and if my fingers hold up a few more days, I'll have my new mistletoe-green raglan hoodie to wear to do my mother proud.



The lamb will be local, sustainably raised and procured through the knitting goddess Kristin Nicholas and her husband "the farmer" from their new endeavor selling lamb directly to the customer at Leydon Glen Farm. It's so nice to have the opportunity to support local agriculture, sustainable practices and purchase healthier food! They are just getting going with this new business, so if you're interested in lamb, I'd recommend that you e-mail Kristin through her blog Getting Stitched on the Farm.

And for a few other bits of green, I've just finished up my first wool soaker for the little goober and I love the pattern, found on Ravelry and available for free.
To check out the size, I've compared it here to a Bummis super brite in size newborn. Just can't wait to see these on a little one.





Enjoy your weekend and St. Patrick's day!

Slainte!

All buttoned up

I've just finished up the baby bunting that I've been working on since before Christmas. Whoohoo! I found the perfect leather knot coat buttons to match. The pattern is a freebie from Garnstudio, and can be found here. The pattern was simple and I love the feel of the Valley Yarns, Berkshire bulky that I used for this piece. The colors are stone blue with coffee bean I-chord trim. Sadly, it looks like the baby may not be coming in time to get much wear from this. Hopefully we'll be parents before the Fall, but I'll try to knit on patiently and accept whatever time frame this journey to parenthood takes us on.

Meanwhile, I've also finally found buttons to finish up two projects from the fall. They are Baby Surprise Jackets designed by the late Elizabeth Zimmerman. If you are connected to Ravelry you can find all the details of these projects here.




More coming as I bind it off the needles.

Starting from seed

Well, the sun is creeping up a little earlier every morning, much of the snow has melted off of the tops of our raised beds and the raspberry canes made it through the winter. There's talk of another winter storm coming this weekend, but no worries. I'm swirling with ideas for this years planting. We had some definite winners last summer...purple bush beans, red skin potatoes, sugar pumpkins, butternut squash, some good cherry and plum tomatoes...we had some trials that we'll give another year's effort before giving up on them...eggplant, corn, broccoli. And some additional things to add...elderberries, cranberries, a cold-frame for a winter crop of hearty greens and root vegetables next fall and winter...hmmm. Much thinking going on.




But before too very long, we hope to be seeing our first asparagus shoots coming up, watching the unfurling of the rhubarb and witnessing the tender green scapes of the garlic.

Time to send in the seed order, dust off the seed-starting area in the basement, fill the potting trays and get ready for new beginnings.

A little crafting for the little goober or babywearing diy

In my on-going quest to remain (some what) sane amidst the angst of waiting for a call from the agency. And with an incredible urge to research and prepare for all manner of parenting...I found some great baby sling/baby carrier patterns and whipped up a few to start us out.

Please forgive the overly warm photos... a little digital camera challenge.

Above Michael and our pal Teddy are modeling the lined pocket sling I made to Michael's dimension from Handmade-Adelaide-Baby. I made one for each of us. Michael's is a brown stripe (with orange and teal) on one side and a teal and indigo ikat fabric on the other. Mine is a poppy, persimmon and turquoise stripe on one side and a blue and poppy print on the other. And since all the fabric either came from my stash or from the sale table at the local fabric store we've really saved some money over the designer slings found at most baby boutiques. They are truly comfy and feel very secure. We'll see how we do with a real little one inside. We suspect a learning curve will be involved.

And below we are modeling our "minou-wraps" my interpretation of a very simple set of online instructions for a moby-type wrap.


I can no longer find the link but there are many sites with the basics for a baby-wrap style carrier. I bought 3 yards of an all cotton light weight t-shirt knit. Which is about 54" wide. I folded it in half down the length making a 3 yd by 27" panel. And cut the length of the fabric along the fold. Then I sewed the two pieces back together down one short side with a flat-felled seam using a short zig-zag stitch on my grandmother's old Singer. This leaves a lovely structured center seam which gives a little extra support and helps you to know where the center is when wrapping yourself in yards of stretchy fabric. On both wraps I tapered the tails for easier tying. Since these are t-shirt knits, they don't need to be finished along the cut edges. They roll themselves up a little and won't unravel. We've printed out some directions for different wrap style for various carries and have been trying them out. Check out the babywearer site for lots of great information on buying, making, trouble-shooting and the benefits of babywearing.

Our social worker and most of the books and sites we've perused for parenting tips and adoption tips, encourage baby wearing as an important step in forming healthy early attachment. We're looking forward to giving our baby carriers a try for real.

Now I'm off to finish up another pair of booties.

Sweet on a snowy day

What better on a snowy day than a warm bright kitchen and some good homey treats.

When we were little, my mother always baked when it snowed. I think some people around these parts even refer to it as "baking snow". I just couldn't resist with the white stuff piling up outside the window and me at home with time on my hands.

When we were feeling a bit pooky as kids, or needed a sweet little something, my mother would open up the cupboard, take out the ingredients and whip up lovely little vanilla egg custards in small custard cups. They made the kitchen smell heavenly, and with the hot water bath around the dishes in the oven, the kitchen got nice and steamy. ( A great place to give those sore winter noses and sinuses a break!) Well, since Michael had to work and was battling a bit of a cold, I hunted down this recipe so he'd have something nice to come home to. My mother's version used evaporated skim milk and I've replaced it with fresh whole milk.

Vanilla Egg Custard

serves 6

Ingredients:
2 Cups whole milk (we use organic)
3 Large eggs
1/2 brown sugar (or Turbinado)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
cinnamon sugar for sprinkling (we use evap. cane juice instead of ultra refined sugar)

Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease 6 custard cups with butter (or cold-pressed organic coconut oil) and set aside.

Whisk all ingredients together in medium bowl. Make sure you've broken up all the egg white and yolk. Mixture should be light lemon yellow and frothy.

Divide evenly into custard cups. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar (optional). Place in 13" x 9" baking pan or other to hold all custard cups. Place on center rack of the oven and pour hot water into pan 3/4 of the way up sides of custard cups to make a steam bath for the little dishes.

Bake until custards are just set. About 40 minutes. Remove from water bath and cool or rack. Serve warm or chilled. Will last up to 4 days in the fridge if covered.

Yum!!!


And since we couldn't just focus on dessert...

I pulled some of our own sourdough pizza dough out of the freezer, and we had this yummy calamata olive spread, carmelized onion, spinach and goat cheese pizza for supper. Nice!

the Humble Hermit

Sadly the picture doesn't do these delicious, chewy, spicy morsels justice. They've truly become the "house cookie" around here. Very simple to make and as our electrician observed when I was baking some a few weeks back..."man, your house smells just like Christmas!" Pretty high praise! They also pack really well for care-packages. Historically, sailors wives made these goodies to pack off with their guys when they went to sea. The molasses kept the cookies moist and they held up well for travel.

My recipe is a modified (health-ified) version of the chewy hermit recipe from an old spiral-bound cookbook of my mothers. Here's my version...

Chewy Whole Wheat Hermits
makes 24
Ingredients:
3 Cups flour (this recipe works great with white whole wheat or even stoneground whole wheat)
1 1/4 Cups sugar (we use organic turbinado or brown sugar)
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1 Cup raisins or mixed dried fruit
1 egg
1/2 Cup vegetable oil (we use organic cold-pressed sunflower oil)
1/4 Cup molasses
6 Tbsp. water


Grease 13" x 9" pan. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Combine first eight ingredients in a large bowl. Mix and set aside.

In a medium bowl combine next four ingredients. Whisk together and pour into dry ingredients. Dough will be very thick and hard to handle. Use dampened hands to mix if necessary.

Spread dough in pan. Press down firmly. Bake 20-25 minutes until firm. Cool on wire rack. Original recipe said it makes 40 bars!!! We make 24 and they seem the perfect size. Enjoy!

On a simple life in this crazy world

As things start to heat up for the holidays with the frenzied shoppers and crazed schedules, and messages about the economic crisis become more and more dismal, I'm finding relief and words of hope and sanity in welcome spots and hidden corners.

Thankfully not everyone has embraced the MORE mentality and many are looking for connection and peace instead of just another flimsy piece of something that won't last, that they don't need, that was made far away by people who were badly paid or ill-treated and that will land sooner than later in the landfill.

Grace writes a powerful and extremely timely and eloquent post about her feelings in her post titled "Bear with me", which many, MANY people share. Take a moment to read it if you can.

We made a conscious choice to celebrate Buy Nothing Day last Friday. We've been moving for some time to a simpler lifestyle where we buy much less, so avoiding malls and stores on Friday truly wasn't that difficult. But hearing the buzz all around me from people gearing up for their shopping and planning their strategies for hitting as many stores as possible did bring the message home more deeply than ever for me.

A few friends have expressed curiousity (and some frustration) about how to truly make a difference and get started living a simpler life. And I read a wonderful post titled small steps which speaks to this more eloquently than I can. Rhonda Jean lives in Australia and writes many inspiring posts. I hope you'll enjoy discovering her.

These two are only a little sampling of the many, many people around us who are choosing to think about what they do, how they live, what they consume and what they really want. So, the next time the latest news from Wall Street smacks you in the head or you hear someone on the train panicking over how few shopping days there are left before Christmas...remember there are other ways to celebrate and enjoy the true meaning of whatever holidays you choose to celebrate at this time of year.

And since I don't want to leave you with dreary page of text...

Here is Kate



a little knitted critter I made for a friend's baby shower. Welcome to the world little Kylan!


Enjoy