Blanketed in love

When I was little there was a long afghan my mother had knitted when she was laid up after breaking a few bones. It was long, covered in cables, beige in color and absolutely gorgeous. She is so proud of the work that she put into and my brother constantly fought over it. It was so warm and I loved wrapping myself up in it and curling up near the woodstove with a good book. My brother thought so too. It has lasted through my brothers and my destruction. We destroyed so much and that lived. It is still on the couch for me to use when I visit home.

When I was a baby my Aunty G crocheted me a multi-colored blanket, it is small, but I have used it throughout my life, the perfect lap blanket, the colors have faded a little and it has broken in places but I just fix them up.

As I grew up and went off to college, my cousin T gave me a new blanket, covered in blue and green with little frogs, it folded into a pillow and when you folded it out it had a little hidey hole for my feet. I love that blanket. It went with me on every swim meet, and It still sits in my living room. It was the perfect studying blanket and it helped me stay warm on the cold swim bus rides to and from meets.

A few years later my Grandfather died and I drifted towards a beautiful rainbow crocheted blanket made by his mother. It sits on the back of my couch currently but I did take it with me in my move to WV and then back. It is one of two, my brother has the other one. It is so nice to wrap it around my shoulders on a cold winter night with a cup of tea or glass of wine.

In the end they are worthless to anyone else but to me, but to me they are value beyond price. We fought over that first knitted blanket but now and then we shared it. As the fall and winter nights come on, those blankets will keep me warm as I knit away and drink my tea. So thank you to the women in my life who have kept me warm. I am a bit to sentimental but it is keeping me warm at night.

Knitting on point

I will be the first to say some of my ideas can be a bit on the borderline crazy. One of those ideas came to me back when I started my research on the history of knitting. It started when I was trying to track down when different types of knitting needles came about. When I was able to track down knitting beginning around the 14^th century and was done in the round. I had already guessed earlier knitting was done on double pointed or pin-needles but further research not only proved that pin-needles weren’t around until the late 1700s early 1800s but circular needles didn’t appear until around 1940s. Have I ever mentioned I love it when my instincts are right?

The Madonna Knitting c. 1400. She is making a seamless garment with double pointed needles and if you look closer there are two colors of yarn. This is thought to be the oldest image of knitting

Images I found and continue to find showed that image. People, both male and female knitting in the round on double pointed needles. Now I learned how to knit socks on circular needles but after doing a few hats on double points I decided to do it on socks. The first thing I noticed that although I was fearful of losing one of the empty needle, I didn’t. The next part was a nice little surprise. I now didn’t have to do any math beyond gaging to do my socks. I hate math so this was an extremely pleasant surprise. It almost does the math on its own. Heels are perfectly set up on the needles that the math almost does itself.

A girl knitting with double pointed needles in the Faroe Islands. Note she is working with two colors hanging from her waist and four needles, three with the holding the project one working the stitches.

I then decided to try it on a 17^th century sweater. The problem with this is they don’t make double pointed knitting needles that you can buy long enough for knitting a sweater. Hats, mittens and socks yep, but sweaters nope. If you’ve been following my blog over the last year you know that I did make some long enough. What I have found was awkwardness. After a while the awkwardness has gone away, the movements have gotten smoother, and the unfinished needles got smoother too.

A sock knitter in 1646 from the Victorian and Albert Museum. again working with two yarns probably 2 colors and I love how he has socks draped over his sholder.

I may never use circular needles again. 

Not Jarring around

“Every woman who must manage a home, be it large or small, owes it to herself to have a well-planned kitchen or workshop one that is good to look upon and easy to work in.”

Maybe my kitchen space would be easier to work in if I didn’t leave items on the kitchen island like bills and sewing supplies. So when I decided (because my freezer was way too full with zucchini bread and next few months’ worth of dinners) to can the spaghetti sauce I needed to make before my freshly grown tomatoes rotted into the mush I wanted them to be but wouldn't be willing to eat, I had to clean it off first. So after cleaning off the island, buying jars and a jar grabber, buying a few more tomatoes just to be on the safe side, and then prepping everything. This prepping included grabbing a book I bought four years ago at Colonial Williamsburg about Self-Sufficiency[1] and after finding and reading the section on canning, particularly hot water canning, and a phone call to my mother to make sure I was on the right track, I got to work. I prepped, laying out so that once I started cooking I wasn’t hunting for things later on. I chopped my tomatoes, ground up my herbs I had dried over the summer and turned on the stove.

An hour later the tomatoes were cooked, and might I say tasted wonderful. Now came the challenge, but I had it well in hand right? I boiled the jars in my lobster pot, which is way too big for my range, and had boiled the lids in a smaller pot. As I loaded the jars up with the sauce, I realized while this could go terribly wrong and it might the next time I try this but this was not only easier than I thought but almost relaxing. I even did it an hour later with strawberries.

The Strawberry Jam never actually became jam but I will use it to make pie for Thanksgiving.

I had canned once before when I was little. We had picked raspberries over at my neighbor’s house and a few days later my mom and I were mixing raspberries, sugar, pots and somehow the dishwasher was involved in there. Of all the times we went and picked berries at my Grandma’s house, my neighbor’s, in our garden that was the only time I remember canning. I remember wanting to do it after reading Blueberries for Sal, and just about every other thing in life that I read that took place in the past.

Jam Cans boiling in the pot

In the end I am proud to say I canned and was somewhat successful. There was a few cans I did have to re-process from the jam but not from the sauce. Yet my attempt was successful. However, if I stop writing come March I have died from my poorly canned food but at least I canned.

The end result... 3.75 pints of Tomato Sauce and 13 pints of strawberry soup. 

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[1] Gehring, Abigail R. The Ultimate Self-Sufficiency Handbook. Skyhorse Publishing; NY, 2012.