Something I have been dying to tell you...

*snort* *snicker* Sorry, had to get it out of my system.

Anyhoo, what started out as 100 grams of Knitpicks Bare Bulky weight yarn, ended up looking like this:



I split the skein into five parts and tried different dye/mordant combinations [Aside: a mordant is what you use to set the dye]; from left to right: Beet with Alum and Cream of Tartar, Coffee with Vinegar, Onion Skin with Vinegar, Beet with Salt, and Beet with Vinegar. And some progress photos (in all of these photos, you can click to go to Flickr and see dye/mordant labels).

In quart jars, soaking in dye and hanging out in the sun (kinda like sun tea):



Drained and rinsed out:



And hanging out on the deck to dry:



I had a good time playing with dyes and was very excited to get some pretty colors without using the kinds of serious chemicals that can wreak all tunes of havoc if you don't use dye-dedicated pots and pans and use care in handling them. Everything I used is in the kitchen for cooking anyway, so I wasn't as worried about getting interrupted all the time!

I beet my yarn

The results of my quick and dirty beet-boiling water dying experiment is in:

Based on my (pretty minimal) reading on the subject of natural dying, I didn't expect the lovely hot pink hue that gets all over the everloving kitchen occurs when you cut raw or boiled beets. But I am quite happy with what I got. It's a light orange shade, with a little pinkish and brownish thrown in. Think peach or salmon that is on the rusty side.

We get the keys for our new apartment Thursday, but the kids are already decidedly sick of the moving process. I have been rushing around trying to get regular stuff done in addition to getting organized/packed/cleaned up. Either Bug or Bean has the following conversation with my every 15 minutes:

B: I want to _____
M: No, that requires too much ______ (supervision, clean-up, assistance, etc.)
B throws conniption fit
M: I'm sorry you're so disappointed, but I have a lot to do right now, but once we are done moving and settled, we'll have lots of time for fun projects.
Repeat.

Sigh. I know it isn't much fun for them and I do try to involve them in as much as I can without having to run away screaming and lock myself in the bathroom. Fortunately, their local adopted grandma is visiting tomorrow, so maybe we can get her set up with some of the projects I can't tackle with them right now! And once the time-sensitive part of moving (getting things physically relocated, enough stuff put away that we can function semi-normally, and the old place spic and span), we will have more time for fun stuff again. Meanwhile, we are still doing our regular Farmers' Market, library (though shorter visits!), and a few other (shorter) outings. The irony of all this is that if I am available (not necessarily involved, just available) they are perfectly capable of amusing themselves for hours at a time, while I do my own thing.

Just Beet It!

We have been getting bunches of beautiful beets in our CSA box. The first time we tried a recipe that was in our newsletter...I'm too lazy to look up the name, but it was basically hash browns made with beets instead of taters. Yummy, but messy to make and fried, which kind of defeats the whole wholesome veggie thing if you do it every time. The second time we got beets, we also got a cabbage, so I added a couple of shredded beets to a half of the cabbage to make coleslaw (twice). I call my masterpiece "Pink Coleslaw." I thought it was tasty...a bit of earthy beetiness without being overwhelming. The color however was another thing. It made Pepto-Bismal look positively subtle. That didn't bother me either, but by the second batch, I realized I was the only one eating it.

So we needed a new beet strategy. This time I tried Norma's Pickled Beets. Beets, getting ready to roll:

The syrup, put together, but not yet boiled:

How I dealt with the fact that I KNOW I have a tea ball for the pickling spice, but I couldn't put my hands on it to save my life. I boiled everything together first, then put the prepped beets in a larger saucepan and poured the syrup through a strainer over the beets. Then put the strainer with lemons and spices in the pan too to let a little more flavor out.

It wasn't particularly elegant, but it worked! And the finished product:

Yup, just two pints of beets. Neither Kitty Daddy nor I know if we even like pickled beets, so I thought this would be just about right. We used the bunch of beets in this week's CSA box plus a couple of little ones left over from the coleslaw batch and a half a batch of syrup. We'll give these bad boys a couple of weeks to cure and then we'll see.

Oh and the fiber person in me just couldn't bear to see all that lovely colored beet boiling water go to waste, so a small experiment was in order. I snipped a couple of yards of KnitPicks Bare laceweight off the ball, soaked it in vinegar, then put a splosh of vinegar in a little jar, filled it with beet water and plopped in the yarn. It sat in the sun for the rest of the afternoon and I have it back out in the sun this morning. I will report results when I know!


And a postscript for Stephany and anyone else interested in my ratatouille. I followed this recipe, instruction-wise, but played fast and loose with ingredients based on several other recipes. For the layered part, I think I used a monstrous summer squash, a normal sized zucchini, a half of a humongous sweet onion, a green pepper, and a good-sized tomato. It filled a 9x13 Pyrex dish. My biggest complaint was that there was too much summer squash compared to the other ingredients, which was a bit on the bland side. Next time, I would scale back on the monster squash and maybe add some fresh herbs (basil, oregano?) interspersed in the layers.