Phat Fiber Goodness

Several months ago I heard about this interesting idea called Phat Fiber. The idea is that indie dyers, spinners, and other artists contribute samples of their work each month. The samples are sold in boxes once a month. As an artist, it's neat because it gets your work into many hands at once. As a consumer, it's fun because you get to try lots of new artists' work without committing to a big purchase. You can buy from the ones you like, and if there are some that don't catch your fancy you're not really out much!

Anyway, I've found that quite a few people aren't familiar with Phat, so I wanted to take a few minutes today to showcase it. As a contributor, I get a "mixed box" each month (assuming I meet the minimum number of samples)--it's a combination of yarn AND fiber. As a customer, you can choose if you want one or the other, or a mixed box. Here's a shot of my mixed box from November:


Now, for a bit more detail:

Those are the yarns I got. My hope later is to come back with some links & details on them.


And those are the fibers. Again, details later, I hope!


Those are the goodies & other items in my box. Some months this includes patterns, orifice hooks, soap, tea, and other fun stuff. This month there was a lovely Christmas card from the family behind Phat Fiber, as well as stitch markers, a button, and some coupons.

The December boxes go on sale VERY soon. (To get the exact details, you have to sign up for the emails. This month's email has already been sent out, but I bet if you're extra nice to the fabulous people at Phat, they might be willing to pass it on to you!) I sent in 3 types of samples for December:

Hand-dyed yarn, "Golden Nebula"


Handspun yarn, "Star Formation"


Hand-dyed fiber, "Jupiter Storm." I have to say, this is one of my favorite colors. I have dyed some up for myself, and I also have 2 braids that are about to appear in the shop!

OK, I could probably drone on a bit more, but that's enough for you to get the idea, I think. I hope I've enticed a few new folks to go check it out!

Eating Seasonally: Chicken, White Bean, & Sweet Potato Stew

Here's the recipe I promised the other day. I'll try to be as specific as possible, but let me know if you have questions. Oh, and I didn't snap any pictures--so it's just text today. :-)

Ingredients:
olive oil, salt, pepper to taste
2 slices bacon, chopped
4 chicken thighs (bone-in, skin on)
1 small onion, diced
2-3 carrots, diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1/4 C white wine
3-4 sprigs of thyme
1 C dried white beans (soaked in advance)
2 C chicken stock
14 oz. canned diced tomatoes
1 sweet potato, diced
2 T fresh parsley, chopped

1. Heat a drizzle of oil in dutch oven over medium. Brown the bacon and remove with a slotted spoon.
2. Season chicken with salt & pepper, and place, skin-side down, in dutch oven. Cook until golden brown, then flip and cook 2-3 minutes more. Remove from pan. When cool to the touch, remove skin.
3. Meanwhile, add onion & carrot to pan. Season lightly with salt and pepper and cook until tender. Stir in garlic and cook another minute.
4. Deglaze the pan by pouring in white wine and using wooden spoon to scrap up brown bits.
5. Add thyme, beans, broth, tomatoes, and sweet potato. Return the skinned chicken pieces to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and summer (covered) for 30-40 minutes.
6. Remove the chicken pieces and continue simmering the stew for another 15-20 minutes (until beans are tender). When the chicken is cool to the touch, remove the meat from the bones, shred it, and return it to the pot.
7. Ensure that chicken is hot and veggies are tender. Stir in parsley, remove from heat, and serve. Sprinkle the bacon on top of the bowls full of stew.

Notes:
-I imagine this would taste good with any part(s) of chicken, I just had thighs on hand.
-I understand if you're skeptical about the sweet potato. I was! But next time I actually might add 2 of them, it worked SO well with the dish.
-Of course, the cold weather makes this a great seasonal dish. In addition, all the vegetables & herbs in this dish were things I had on hand, fresh, from local sources because they store so well (dried beans and root veggies). Eating locally at this time of year is certainly harder, but not impossible. I think the only thing in my stew that was not local was the tomatoes (I didn't can my own this year, as tomatoes came in season SO late this summer. I'm hoping to do that next year!), salt, pepper, and olive oil. Oh, and this bottle of wine might not have been local--but there's certainly local options.
-Oh, and once again--this is great with fresh bread. A full, hearty meal to keep you going on a cold day!

Dyeing Follow up (and some food!)

OK, first the picture of the finished roving I blogged about last week:


This particular roving won't be in the shop, as it was for a wholesale order. But if you want some similarly purple yarn or fiber, let me know as I am happy to take custom orders! :-)

A few other words about the dyeing process, which I didn't cover last time:
1. Care should be taken in the mixing & handling of acid dyes. Read the directions that come with them and take appropriate precautions. These may include wearing a mask when mixing the dye powders and wearing gloves when dyeing.
2. Any vessel that you're using dyes in should NOT also be used for food. If you review my dyeing post and my older post on apple butter, you will see in the pictures that I have a separate crockpot for food. This also goes for other forms of dyeing with acid dyes--microwaves, pots, etc., should be either for food OR for dye.
3. I don't dye exclusively in crockpots. The other method I use most frequently is really well explained in this post by Diane Mulholland. This method is really great for handpaints where I don't want as much blending of the colours as I get in the crockpot.

There's probably more, but I can't think what. So if you still have any questions after my posts, let me know!

In a not-really-related note, my hands looked like this earlier this week:


Nope, that wasn't the result of forgetting gloves when dyeing (although it could be, so take my advice from above, please!). That was the result of peeling a bunch of beets to make this tasty borscht:


The recipe was from Tyler Florence, and I didn't make too many modifications. We enjoyed it quite a bit, despite the complaints from some reviewers that it wasn't "authentically Russian." To them, I say a) Russia is a big country and not everyone cooks the same and b) borscht is a general term from much of Eastern Europe, and doesn't mean the same thing everywhere. So get over yourselves and enjoy this tasty dish!

We served it with some homemade bread and a cabbage & carrot salad (OK, yeah, that's basically fancy coleslaw).



Oh, for best-ever bread, check out Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day (and the new version, Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes). If you don't think you have time to bake good bread, these books might just change your mind.

I've been busy in the kitchen this week, because my next blog post will probably also be food--a recipe I created last night for a chicken, white bean, and sweet potato stew. Different, but SO good. Hopefully I'll have time to write that up tomorrow.

Dyeing Process

I've had a few how-to questions about my dyeing process, so I thought I would try to document it today. It's neither very scientific nor very exciting, but here it goes!

First, the building blocks. For today's example, I photographed some merino top, but the process works about the same with yarns, too. I start with:

8 ounces of combed merino top, as it comes from my supplier. Sometimes I subdivide into 4 oz. lots to dye separately, but usually I dye 8 oz. at once.

and...

My dye stocks. I use acid dyes (there are several different brands out there. Right now I'm using both Jacquard & Country Classics). I pre-mix the powder with water in those bottles, so it's ready to go when I am. Quantities depend on the dye and the colour you want--but 1 tsp of powder per bottle for the Jacquards, and maybe closer to 2 for the Country Classics. (their label recommends a higher concentration, but I don't find it necessary--in fact, I think that's too much.)

Next, the fiber prep. The wool soaks in my laundry sink with a few tablespoons of white vinegar and a lot of water. This picture has the 8 oz. plus a few skeins of yarn, too. Soaking time varies a lot--some fibers need longer than others to get thoroughly wet. One hour is good for most. After that, I pull what I want out, wring out most of the excess water (gently!), and place it in my crockpot. I douse it with a bit more white vinegar:


Now the fun part--color! So, I have premixed stocks in several shades of primary colours, plus a few more that I find hard to recreate by mixing. Sometimes I use these colours as they are, and sometimes I mix. Today's fiber was destined to be several shades of purple, so I mixed some of my different reds and blues in cups:


Sometimes I use that turkey baster to apply just a bit of dye, but most of the time I just pour it on. As I said, I'm very nonscientific. I keep track of what colours & blends I use to create a specific colourway, but not how much of each or where I paint them--so each time I dye, it's a one-of-a-kind creation. Today I poured my different purples on in splotches:

and then gently pressed the dye into the wool by hand (otherwise it puddles at the bottom of the pot). I do this in layers in the pot, until all the wool is in and covered:


Then the crockpot gets turned on to high, and it cooks for typically 1-3 hours. After that, I turn it off and let it cool completely in the pot before putting in back into that vinegar water for a rinse.

I'm sure you're curious about what this one looked like when it was done. So am I! It's in the cooling phase now, so I won't have photos for you until it's rinsed and dry--but I promise I'll put them up here!

Not Just a Day at the Beach

Jenny Weekend, 2009. What, you may ask, is Jenny weekend? It's a weekend for the friends of Jenny Chang to honor her memory and celebrate the wonderful, but short life that touched so many of us. A big part of Jenny's legacy was her amazing ability to find the best people around her and instantly connect with them. We often say that Jenny collected friends--and it was an honor to be part of that collection, especially when you meet the other amazing people she picked up along her journey!

While she was alive, Jenny helped to organize gatherings and parties that brought together these diverse collections of people. We all loved meeting each other so much that we have decided to continue to gather every year around her birthday. This year was the 4th annual event, and 6 of us gathered in Dewey Beach, Delaware.

Unfortunately for us, Delaware happened to be finishing its date with the remnants of Hurricane Ida when we arrived. The main road through town was closed due to flooding--but the good news was it was closed 1 block based the beach house we had rented!


(and yeah, that's me in the rearview mirror there!)

It was a very short weekend, and with the rainy weather we didn't really spend time at the beach. However, another of Jenny's talents was bargain shopping, so it seemed fitting to spend much of Saturday at the outlet malls (tax free in Delaware!). I had forgotten the shoes I planned to wear to dinner that night, so I was obliged to pick up these:


Cute, AND they're Dr. Scholls, so they're actually pretty comfy. :-)

We then had a fabulous dinner in Rehoboth Beach at Eden Restaurant. Delicious, definitely would recommend it to anyone headed that way.

Sunday morning before heading out we wandered over to the beach to check it out. The sun didn't come out until after we got in the car, but the rain had stopped, at least! There were quite a few people out, including 2 surfers trying (without much luck) to catch these waves:


And then we all headed home amidst discussion about where to have next year's Jenny weekend. No clue yet where we'll head, but there will definitely be good times and good company, just the way Jenny would have wanted it.

Eating Seasonally: Maple Cinnamon Apple Butter

On Sunday, we had a birthday party for Catt at my house. She brought some homemade bread (yum!), so I pulled out some of my apple butter to go with it. It was well-received, so I decided that when I made another batch this week I would actually write down the recipe to share with people. It's super easy, but the peeling and chopping is time consuming.


It's not an exact science, and the ingredients can be varied according to what you have on hand or your personal preferences, but here's what I did:

5-6 pounds apples (enough to fill the crockpot within an inch of the lid. I used about half Ambrosias and half McIntoshes. I think it's always a good idea to use more than one type, but experiment with whatever you have on hand.)
3-4 T maple syrup (depending on how sweet you like things)
3-4 t cinnamon
dash salt, cloves, nutmeg (again, vary the spices as you wish)

1. Peel & chop apples. The past few times I have just roughly chopped after peeling, but this time I tossed them in the food processor. I think the finer dice may have sped up the cooking process. Toss the chopped apples in the crockpot.

2. Stir in syrup & seasonings.
3. Put crockpot on high heat for the longest time you can, and stir occasionally. Mine maxes out at 6 hours on high, so I had to go back and turn it back to high for a total cooking time of about 8-9 hours. You'll know it's done when it has all turned a lovely dark brown caramel color and the apples are basically melted. Last time, I actually left it on overnight. The crockpot reverted to the "keep warm" mode at some point, and I woke up to some really caramelized--but delicious apple butter. Oh, it should be noted that your house will smell insanely delicious for this entire time.
4. Remove the lid on the crockpot and allow any excess liquid to cook out (maybe 30 minutes more on high)

(Note how much it has reduced in volume!)
5. You can either leave it as is, or use an immersion blender to smooth it out.
6. Package it for immediate use (tupperware in the fridge) or can it and process in boiling water about 10 minutes for long term storage.


Yield: varies by how much you allow it to cook down, but I usually get 2-3 500 mL jars. Yup, 5-6 pounds of apples reduces A LOT!

Usage: well, straight up is pretty good. On bread/toast, of course. But I also like it a lot on oatmeal or mixed in with some plain yogurt. Really, what doesn't taste good with maple and apple?

More about Melody

So when I posted the teaser picture of our new dog (Melody), I think I promised to tell you a little more--and to share a few more photos of Her Cuteness. Because my brain isn't feeling up to a technical fiber-related post right now, I'm going to do that today!

Some background: our last dog (Magic) was a Samoyed. He was my family dog and then became my dog, and was a total sweetheart. We had him for 13 or 14 years until he couldn't walk anymore--that was a bit over 3 years ago. This was mostly before we owned a digital camera, so the only electronic photo I have of him is this one:

Yeah, that's us curled up on the couch, both sound asleep, with the moving boxes stacked in the background.

After some time passed, we knew we would want another dog (probably another Sammie), and wanted to go through a rescue group to get one. A fenced yard was a requirement, though, and at the time our next door neighbors' houses were still under construction so it wasn't a great time to put up the fence. We finally got a fence put up, and then we realized that we were probably going to be moving soon--so another delay.

And that was wise, because for a while we were living in 2 different cities with lots of commuting back and forth, and even when I moved to Waterloo we were in a condo and both gone long hours. Would not have been a nice life for a dog. Anyway, we finally got into the house this summer, and had a fence put up soon after--and before that was even done, I started scouring rescue sites to see if I could find a good fit for us.

The Sammie rescue group in Michigan had a few dogs, one of which sounded like a good fit, so we agreed that while I was down there visiting my mom I would also go meet Melody. Here's a picture from that first meeting:


She was a bit shy and stressed, I think, but was clearly very sweet. We were able to learn a bit about her--she's 5 years old, and (along with her "brother", Mozart) was surrendered to a shelter in Kentucky. We don't know why the family gave them up--they both seemed well cared for, and had been with this family for their whole lives, so we are assuming it was some kind of hard times. So sad--I can't imagine having to give up my dog because of money or a move, it would be heart breaking. Anyway, I went home so we could talk it over, and we agreed that we would like to adopt her. We had a big trip planned, so we agreed that we would pick her up when we returned. And the rest is history.

But, just so you can share my joy, here are a few more photos! :-)

When we first brought her home, she made this face every time the camera came out:

She still makes that face sometimes, but we're finding her a bit more relaxed, so eventually we started to get some photos with her ears up where they belong!


Like this one, hanging on the couch with my mom.

And this is her on the loveseat that she has claimed as hers:

We get the big couch, and she gets the little one. Sometimes she curls up really tiny on it, and other times she sprawls out like this. Beware--if you come to visit and are wearing black, don't sit on the loveseat. Really, coming to my house wearing black is dangerous no matter where you sit, though. The fur sticks to everything!