an ent knits

Nothing new and exciting here. Just trying to get through all of everything right now. Yesterday was too full of little things going wrong. So here’s an old picture that sort of represents my mood at the moment.

Still spinning batts and knitting shawls.

I finished the Green Banana batt, which came in at 100 yards of 16 wpi for its 38 grams. Not sure what to do with this one, either, other than pet it.

That’s all that’s left of the first Abby batt. (Then I just have to transfer this cop to something else and spin the other batt so I can ply them together.)

And I’m being spinning-irresponsible: I started the corriedale/silk batt blending project instead of resuming my sweater spinning. Still, this is fun. Maybe I’ll switch back when I fill this bobbin. (This stuff is supposed to be singles. I’m going to try to full it pretty thoroughly when I set the twist.)

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The corriedale-silk swallowtail shawl continues to grow. I really like the crunchy feeling the silk gives to this yarn.

…And so does the Wool Peddler’s Shawl. This one isn’t crunchy, but it’s wonderfully woolly. I hope I’m not jinxing it by saying so, but I’m going to try to get this finished for Rhinebeck. It’s probably ridiculous–I don’t have a lot of time for knitting these days, and I haven’t even reached the lace bit yet–but it’d be nice to have a new handknit for the festival, and this is the least outlandish possibility.

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Oh, also, I cooked more Real Food tonight. It’s posted on Farm to Philly.

Pun incidental but apt.

This is the cinnamon bun bread from Baking Bites. I followed the recipe as closely as I ever follow any recipe, which is to say that I think the only actual substitution I made was soymilk for cow milk. (Still not vegan, since it also includes an egg and some butter.)

Yum.

I spent much of last week away at a conference, and I’d been even busier than usual in the week or so before we left, and then Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings went into antisocial ignoring-the-world so I could recover from the overstimulation of the meeting. Wednesday…oh, yes, Wednesday evening was a little cleaning and then reading the book I’d picked up from the library. Which meant that last night was the first time in far too long that I actually Made Food. (It’s fall. I eat a lot of apples/asian pears in the fall, with either peanut butter or cheese. Not the healthiest thing ever, but fast and tasty.)

I think it was partly the stop at the farmers’ market that did it. I bought chard and an eggplant, plus a yam and some lettuce, some lamb and some more apples and asian pears.

And I have now had three meals of Real Food (defined as requiring washing and chopping of veggies).

A salad! It’s been a while since I’ve seen baby greens at the market, and I don’t really eat anything else. Partly because I like getting mixed lettuces/greens and partly because I prefer the texture of the younger leaves. So it’s also been months since I’ve made a green salad at home. (Yes, the bowl is mostly full of lettuce, with a bell pepper on top.)

Vaguely-Indian chard/squash/pepper stuff. It would’ve been over rice if I’d had enough rice, but the whole wheat couscous is pretty good with it. This isn’t my best Indian-ish food ever, but it’s not bad.

And tonight, I stopped for tofu on the way home and ended up getting a head of broccoli as well. (I also discovered a pepper in the veggie drawer of my fridge.) I’d been wanting eggplant with tofu in black bean sauce, but it’s even better with pepper and broccoli (and hoisin sauce), too. Yum.

Restaurant and catered and truck foods all have their places, but real, homecooked food is far superior. It’s nice to be back to it.

Thursday afternoon, Saturday evening, and Wednesday evening. I am so glad I carry my camera everywhere.

Well, exactly here for a little while. Mostly, I was farther from the water and working.  But we had fun skipping stones during some of our downtime.

This week’s eye candy is from Tuesday morning, when I was waiting for a bus.  (By the time you see this, I’ll have been away at a conference for a couple of days, mostly away from the internet.)

(Sunday evening: Argh! I swear I thought the post-writing thingy was on ‘html’ and not ‘visual’. *sigh* Well, I’m home…)

I think I have a new fiber obsession: batts.

The above yarn, spun from one of Amy Boogie’s Monkey Farts batts, is my current favorite handspun.  Just need to come up with a project worthy of it…

I spent a little while being responsible (i.e. working on a long-term spinning project that I’ll post about later) when I finished that yarn, and then I gave in and started spinning the other Amy batt I had next to my wheel:

This is Green Banana, and has llama instead of silk noils.  Yum.  It’s not drafting itself as much as the Monkey Farts batt did, but it’s still really nice.

And next in the queue, after I finish the bobbin of Responsible Spinning, is this pile of wool from Handspun by Stefania:

You may recognize the fiber in the front, which I bought at MDSW this year.  Well, I couldn’t figure out what to do with it, except that I wanted to combine it so I could have a 6oz project instead of 2 3oz projects, and then Anj suggested blending them.  So I did.  :)

(I’m also still spinning that red Abby Batt, but it’s slower going because it’s on a spindle.  And I got sidetracked for a bit by that targhee.)

I really hate the way the university replaces the plants next to the biology building every season, but they do pick some nice ones.