Black Sheep Gathering 2011

This past weekend Black Sheep Gathering came to town. I love going. All the fiber, all the yarn! This was probably the best time I had because it wasn't super hot. Last year I said I was going to sign up for classes next time but I didn't. I've been too busy and just had a blast looking around.

Lots of fiber from The Fiber Addict.

An amazing needle felted wall hanging.

Beautiful drop spindles with additional shafts. Spin then remove!

My friend Kacy spinning for the first time.

Silk worms busy at work.

A rainbow of colors. Cotton cones from Eugene Textile Center.

Sparkly yarn from Huckleberry Knits.

My purchases L to R:

Eugene Textile Center Argentina Yarn Polwarth/Silk blend dyed purely with indigo.

Huckleberry Knits Blue-Faced leicester/Silk Lace, Weeping Willow.

Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock, Bag Lady.

Beer Bread

My husband brews our own beer. It's amazing. After he's done, we have a bunch of spent grain left. Usually we give it to our hens to eat but recently I've been making bread out of it.

3 cups wet spent grains

1.5 cups warm water

1 tablespoon bakers yeast

1/3 cup brown sugar

3-5 cups flour

Mix yeast, sugar and warm water together. Allow yeast to bloom. In a large mixing bowl, add grains and yeast mixture. Using a mixer or your hands, start adding flour until dough is no longer sticky. Place in large, greased bowl, cover with a towel and allow it to double in size- approximately an hour. Punch down dough and place in two greased loaf pans, allow to double in size again. Bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes until brown and knife comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

A picture of the spent grains ready for baking.

Here, I didn't split the dough into two loaves but rather baked it as one large loaf on my pizza stone. It was much crunchier and would makes a great addition to a meal. But I prefer it in the two loaves. It's softier and is a good sandwich bread. Enjoy!

Our hens enjoying their spent grains.

Hella Nutella

Two posts in one day?? I know! But you can see why. My friend Liz has an amazing food blog, The Food of Love Play On. I have made several meals from her recipes and they've all been outstanding.

Today, I made her Hella Nutella brownies. I like to call them Fuck Yeah Nutella Brownies. They taste amazing and were so easy to make! I like my brownies chewy instead of cakey. These are perfectly chewy. I don't like nuts in anything! But after eating these I realized I don't like peanuts or walnuts in anything. The hazelnuts are great! Liz nailed it when she said, "They added just the right amount of crunch to this surprisingly light, yet chewy brownie."

Do yourself a favor and make these. Now. You won't regret it.

International Yarn Bombing Day

...What a group effort!

This year held the first annual International Yarn Bombing Day on June 11, 2011. My knitting group, the Eugene Knotty Knitters decided to yarn bomb a bicycle and pedestrian bridge in Eugene, Oregon. There were so many great pieces. I've said it before, but I am in so much love with my crafty friends. Their art is so inspiring!

You can read more about our yarn bombing at The Knotty Knitters blog. And I was a guest blogger for Yarnbombing.com.

My contributions to the bridge were a few railing cozies, a pom pom garland and a loooooooong cozy for the bridge that measured 42 feet. After we added the other cozies, it was over 50 feet in length. Amazing!

Bolder Boulder

This past Memorial Day weekend I visited my sister who lives outside of Boulder, Colorado. I knew I wanted to yarn bomb something in Boulder so I looked on online. I came across this "Bull Elk" statue by Jim Agius. I thought it would be great to knit the Elk leg warmers that looked like tube socks.Since I had never seen the statue personally I had to guess what size to make these leg wamers. Luckily they fit!

As I was installing them my sister remembered that the very next day in Boulder was a huge marathon! What amazing coincidence that my yarn bomb worked really well with the neighborhood theme that weekend!

Happy to help this elk get ready to run in the Bolder Boulder.

Stash Buster

... what would you have found?

Finding your parents' stash. What does that mean to you? Did you come across your dad's old Playboy collection? Did you find their bag of pot and rolling papers? Or was it something as innocent as finding your hidden Christmas presents?

For knitters, it's something quite different. A stash is the collection of yarn knitters have.

As you can see, my little boy has indeed "found" my stash.

Dyeing Easter Eggs

...naturally.

You'd think with all the food coloring I have in the house to dye yarn with I'd be set to dye eggs for Easter this year. However I saw an article by Peaceful Parenting about dyeing eggs with natural dyes. Dyes from fruits, vegetables and spices. That sounded like a lot of fun!

Clockwise from top:

beets

paprika

blueberries

spinach

coffee

turmeric

cherries

red cabbage in the middle

All of the dyes I added a tablespoon of white vinegar to except the coffee. And I let the eggs sit in the dye for an hour.

The coffee dye was just strong brewed coffee.

The beets and red cabbage I bought fresh and chopped it up. The spinach I bought frozen. I put them in a pan with enough water to cover and brought to boil. Once it started boiling, I turned off the heat and let it sit for 15 minutes then I strained out the vegetables (the beets we ate while waiting for the eggs to dye. Yum!)

The blueberries and cherries I also bought frozen. I thawed them and mashed them up. I added a cup of boiling water and stirred.

For the paprika and turmeric, I added 1/8 cup of spices to two cups boiling water. The spices don't disolve so when it was time to take the eggs out, you have to wipe them down a bit to remove the powder.

My kiddos had fun asking what the different dyes were from and I think we'll continue to do this every year. I want to try dyeing with onion skins next time and a friend of mine dyed hers with black currant and her eggs came out stunning. If you've tried a different natural dye with great results, I'd love to hear about it.

Little Lego Man

...Cowboy up!

Yesterday I posted on Facebook that I had a hankering to do miniature knitting again. I played around with it last year and found it frustrating yet fascinating. Katie Aaberg challenged me to knit a sweater for a lego man. Challenge accepted!

Did I succeed? You decide. I couldn't knit him a sweater after all because the little lego arms are tight against their little lego bodies making it impossible to get them through sleeves. I then went for a sweater vest look but ended up making it too big. And the tight arms bunches the knitting around. I think it looks like he's wearing a poncho. In my opinion, it works out great since he's a cowboy and all.

Just to give you a scale on how small miniature knitting is, this photo shows my miniature needles up against size US 1 or 2.25mm.

Name: Little Lego Man

Pattern: my own design

Yarn: 3 strands of DMC 6 strand embroidery floss

Needles: 7/0 or .65mm

Gauge: 19sts= 1 inch and 23 rows= 1 inch