The Thrifty Knitter

ETA: Ironically, by popular demand, we’re rescheduling these classes for after the holidays. Check The Wicked Stitch site in the next couple days for dates.

Yippee! Look at all my new patterns! I’m teaching a full weekend of Last-Minute Gifts classes at The Wicked Stitch next weekend.

French Kiss 2-hour bulky beret

Laurel 2-hour bulky beret

Leaning Cowl of Pisa

First Hat

First off, I just clearanced out the remaining handful of destash yarns in my etsy shop, so now’s the time to pick up some CHEAP yarn for holiday knitting.

Next, shop update! Lots of dyed fiber and both commercial and handmade samplers. More to come all week, along with my new The Year of the Brain 2011 calendars.

I’m also adding a Vintage section today. I’m going to raid my wardrobe and finally admit all (okay, not all, but many) of my beautiful vintage dresses WILL NEVER AGAIN FIT. It’s depressing, but it would kind of be more depressing for a bunch of lovely frocks to go unworn forever and ever.

ln other news, I can’t seem to focus lately. I hate it when I’m like this. I wake up feeling antsy pantsy and stay busy all day but accomplish almost nothing, then I look up and it’s nighttime already and I don’t know where the day went.

Also, it’s really winter now. Yuck. We had a couple stunning but really windy days. The wind blew the covering off half my greenhouse and flapped it into shreds on one side, but with the help of a gazillion staples, a ton of duct tape, and a poly feed sack, I was able to patch it up.

But, man, the greenhouse really works! Even with my crappy DIY setup, it does the job. I stuck a wireless weather station out there. And I didn’t check in the middle of the night, but right now it’s 25ºF outside and 44°F in the greenhouse. The only heat it’s got is a 250 watt flood I turn on when it’s going to be in the 20s overnight (and off again in the morning). I’ve seen it get to the 80s on a mid-40s day before I vented it.

In the springtime, I’ll strip the whole thing, pull out all the old staples and nails, peel back the chicken wire and hardware cloth that’s still around from its coop days, and recover it with fresh greenhouse film. I wonder if I could bend some think wood around the top of the hoop so I’d have an extra surface to help secure the film. The duct take more or less does the job, but it’s so fracking ugly.

Oh, I forgot to report back! Okay, I did lose a number of fruit (maybe a third) to that hard freeze, but most came thorough just fine. The frozen ones I picked and refrigerated over the course of the week as I saw that they were looking funny. They’ll become sauce, jelly, or chicken food in the next couple days. The herbs are fine, and while the vines are all solidly dead, most of the tomatoes were mature green, so assuming the lows stay reasonable, they’ll be able to ripen naturally.

Spinsters was on Sunday and it was so fun! I didn’t actually spin (I knit), but it was great to see everyone and chat and joke and snack. We also do our annual yankee swap and I got a luscious ounce of pygora cloud plus some super soft dyed kid mohair locks. I had to steal from Denise to get it, but that’s the nature of the swap.

I also made Marilyn model my recent knitting.

Here’s the First Hat pattern I wrote for Quick Hats class in the Last-Minute Gifts Extravaganza (at the Wicked Stitch). It’s a bulky pattern knit entirely on circulars. There’s a decrease at the crown, but it’s cinched at the end, so you don’t have to switch to dpns or magic loop, making it fast and easy for beginners.

There’s also Susan Chang’s Wham Bam Thank You Lamb!for the Cozy Cowl class, along with my new Leaning Cowl of Pisa (apologies for the name).

All in all, there will be 2 days of 2-hour classes on last-minute gifts. I’ll put up the link when Jennifer puts registration online. Speaking of, I’d better go browbeat her about that.

My November tomatoes, before last night’s precipitous temperature drop.

While I wouldn’t describe myself as a homesteader, I do like dipping my toe in the homestead pond. Really, I like swimming in it. That would be more accurate, as I do like to may a lot of my own shit and practice sustainability/self-sufficincy as much as possible. But I’m too techy and unisolated to really think of myself as a proper homesteader. Also, I live in a school, not a farmhouse. It’s weird defining myself.

ANYway, my point is that I’ve always loved DIY, but I feel coming out here has really unleashed my DIY spirit. Though I always had the impulse/interest in Austin, I never got around to trying out some of my favorite makes.

Yesterday, instead of TCB in proper work fashion. I did a little life TCB, which included 2 projects: the greenhouse, and brewing.

First the greenhouse. Before I get started, I say “experiments” in homesteading because most of my attempts are fails. In everything, not just new stuff. Half of what I knit, I frog and reknit. I would estimate three quarters of my completely new projects fail or disappoint. Most of this comes from overestimating my creative/engineering abilities and “improving” the plan. I should know by now not to do that, but I never seem to learn. If I actually follow instructions–or try to, anyway–my success climbs to about 50%. The only realm where I have consistent success is cooking. 90% of what I make is yummy, with only the odd new recipe sucking.

So the greenhouse, formerly the chicken coop. We’ve had a very mild fall, with a handful of nights in the 20s and mostly mild days. So my makeshift sloppy greenhouse covering more or less preserved my tomatoes this far (most of the vines were dead/dying, but the fruit was in good shape and it was ripening slowly and deliciously–way better than pre-frost green-picked tomatoes ripening indoors).

I knew a harder freeze (19F/-7C was the prediction when I started; when I went to sleep last night, they were saying 13F/-10C–a significant difference in maintaining a protective temperature bubble) was coming, so I decided to properly finish up my hastily-covered greenhouse. I covered the front in plastic, stapled down through duct tape-reinforced edges, closed up the back as much as I could (there wasn’t enough clearance to get the staple gun in there, sadly), taped the seams, added an interior bed sheet curtain to act as a buffer between the plants and gaps in the door, and covered gaps in the back with other sheets. Then I turned on the 250 watt lamp and hoped for the best.

I also–and this was the ill-conceived step–cut back all the dead leaves and vines that were leading nowhere. My thought was that while the vines were still green in much of the plants, the leaves were dead, which means no photosynthesis, right? And no photosynthesis means they’re pointless, yes? So I figured I’d cut them all back and clean everything up, clear out the decaying leaves, keep it healthier, stay on top of any bug problems, and actually be able to see all the fruit, so I wouldn’t miss any and let it go off. I’d also get a better picture of what was still alive.

In retrospect, though, that was probably stupid for 2 reasons: 1) I suspect the dead leaves at least had some insulating properties and 2) that might have been a shock to the plants.

But let’s climb into the time machine and go back to yesterday afternoon, when I still thought I was clever for having November tomatoes.

Here’s the greenhouse from the front door, with the curtain pulled back. The whole thing was cleaned up and all the fruit had been retied to hang out of the way. I was even daydreaming of bringing in a few chairs and a little table this winter to enjoy reading a book or surfing the net while my tomatoes ripened around me in the shelter of my nice little greenhouse.

The cleanup revealed a surprising amount of living vines, and even a lonely little blossom!

But instead of having a low of 19 for a few hours, it was much colder for much longer, and I’d be surprised if the greenhouse raised the temperature more than 5 degrees or so. I won’t know for sure until I open it up and survey the damage. I’m leaving it shut until it’s above freezing outside, on the off chance that there’s a magical pocket of warm air keeping everything safe and sound. I did peer through the plastic and I can tell already that the rest of the vines seem to have been killed. I’m just hoping most of the fruit’s alright. Otherwise, I’ll be making a lot of green tomato chutney this weekend.

My key problem was believing the forecast. I should know by now that it’s never right, and I should plan for several degrees worse. If I had been thinking 13 instead of 19, I might have lined the inside with additional sheets, or simply cut down all the vines and brought them inside to ripen, instead of kidding myself my wimply little greenhouse would protect them. I spent a lot of time this morning beating myself up for not just cutting down the vines and bringing them inside, but it’s Science! How will I know for sure if I don’t experiment?

Okay, it’s not really science, since I don’t know the actual temperature outside or inside the greenhouse, just the Weather Channel’s version. I actually bought a wireless weather station but forgot to set it up in time, or I would have a little data I could learn from.

But if I hadn’t already worked up the makeshift greenhouse, those tomatoes would have all been dead at the end of September–most of them were far to immature to even bother picking green at the time. And with Yarn School and travel, I wouldn’t have had time to do anything with them anyway, so they probably would have just rotted.

So that’s me looking on the bright side. At the very least, I got almost two extra months of fresh tomatoes and now I’ll have some more for sauces or chutney either way. And I’ve got a workable base for a greenhouse. It should still be ample for winter greens, and for early starts for next year’s crop. Maybe with a greenhouse in place, I’ll get the full yield of heirloom tomatoes–they always take so long that the frost hits well before they peak.

My other homesteady experiment was brewing. I talked a little bit about my hare-brained ginger beer exploits earlier. Aside from the stuff we bottled a couple weeks ago, I kept back about a third, which I fed a bunch of sugar for several days. I stopped fermenting a few days ago and I finally had time to bottle the rest last night.

Here’s what I learned: don’t use a siphon/bottler on a big bucket full of grated ginger and lemon zest. What a mess. Also: read the label before you add things. The carbonation tabs I used were meant for beer (they included malt in addition to dextrose, so the ginger beer may taste a bit more like actual beer).

I won’t know until I drink it whether it’s actually boozy, but it smells boozy. I’m going to leave it at room temp for a few more days to ferment out the carbonation tabs, then move it to the fridge and taste it. If it’s remotely good, I’ll try again using proper sanitation and equipment and WAY more ginger.

I also started my first batch of beer, nut brown ale from a kit from the Topeka homebrew place, Ale-N-Vino. The guy there was very nice, helpful, and reassuring, and actually discouraged me from going overboard with purchases until I’ve made a few batches. I’m one of those people who tends to buy EVERYTHING for a potential new hobby before I’d even decided if it really is a new hobby, so I appreciated the vote for restraint. I got my cider/beer kit the Christmas before last and hadn’t yet used it. I thought I’d get acquainted with my equipment via a beer kit, then try out some cider blended from a mix of commercial Kansas cider and juice from the CSA/local apples and pears I’ve been squirreling way in the fridge.

Since I’ve only ever proofed bread yeast, last night I was convinced the yeast was a dud, but this morning, the airlock was bubbling away like a champ. I think the primary fermentation is supposed to be a week, then it goes into the carboy for another 10 days, then into bottles for 3-5 weeks, and we’ll have beer for the new year!

The airlock (above) lets the CO2 bubble out without letting any contaminants into the brew. I’m going to buy a second airlock so I can start my cider next week in the primary fermenter (read: big plastic bucket with an airlock), after I transfer the beer to the carboy. I accidentally went off book a little with the process, but my sanitation was great and my starting gravity was as as it was supposed to be. The kit takes out all the guesswork, so I think I’ll have plenty of wiggle room and produce a decent product even if I’m a little off.

Oh, and I finished my handspun socks:

I just love teaching there! Yesterday was Thrummed Bunny Slippers and Spinning Self-Striping Yarns. We each took one colorway and spun it into several different stripes. Once I wash the little sample skeins, I’ll line them all up and shoot them. Then I get to design a little cowl for them, yay!

Writing a pattern for the striped yarns tops my list of Fun Projects I Get To Do as Soon as I Finish My Gorram Work. Stupid work.

Here’s the full list:

Finish & wash self-striping samples!
Write self-striping handspun cowl (might be fun to write this all up & sell fiber kits…)
Make beer! (This is assuming my ploy to get my mom to gift me a beer kit worked, not at all a sure bet. What about a Thanksgiving present? Is that a thing?)
Make cider! (This would be in lieu of the beer kit not materializing, or afterwards)
Fix up the greenhouse! (See photos below.) This falls dangerously close to the work category, except that it doesn’t generate any money, so its priority is dropped even though it’s important to me & time sensitive because we’ve got some extra-low lows on the horizon and I don’t think the fruit will tolerate that kind of a drop in temperature.
Line Ron’s mittens!
Start my own Flocked mittens!
Finish my socks! (See below)
Empty the freezer!
Stock the freezer! (Soup, beans, stock, stews, chili, etc.)
Knit up Last-Minute Gifts class samples! Okay, technically work, but lower urgency and more fun than THE BIG WORK I AM IGNORING RIGHT NOW
Build a fire pit with Ron!
Make Christmas presents! This year is going to be almost fully handmade.
Make that Glen sweater!
Make exciting datebook covers! Wait, that’s work, too.
Write up proposal. Hm. Also work. Work is hijacking my fun list.
Properly bottle the ginger beer! I’m kind of stoked it turned out boozy (if that’s actually the case), but the current mason jar setup doesn’t seem very stable. Also, that’s the third alcohol-production-related item on my Fun List.  What’s that mean?
Experiment more with bread making!

If I can keep them from freezing and avoid mice, I think they’ll keep ripening through December. But to survive the upcoming hard freezes this week, I’ll need to fix this:

Having bed sheets loosely tucked around the front won’t cut the mustard when it’s 15° (-9C).

Working on some quick toe-up socks. They’re my Cautionary Tale socks because they showcase the dangers of letting your singles for Navajo ply get away from you. My yarn was only a teeny bit thicker at the beginning of the bobbin, but once it was Navajo plied and worked into socks, the difference was huge.

I’m knitting them two at once, toe up, so the difference between the gauge makes for one dense 38-stitch sock and one lighter 44-stitch sock. I also have to work a couple extra rounds on the light sock every inch or so.

Spun from this (the true color is somewhere between those pictures and this one):

I split the roving and spun stripes because it was pure mud combined (although I understand intellectually that red + green = mud, it still took spinning it to accept it).

This was my Alden Amos ginger beer experiment. Since I don’t really understand the purpose/proper use of my hydrometer (it came with my as-yet unusued cider-making kit), so taking a reading of it didn’t really help me at all. Bottom line: my ginger beer tastes alcoholic, but I don’t know whether it actually is. I think I’ll just drink a jar of it and see if I’m drunk afterwards. The things I do in the name of science!

Either way, I think I’ll mix up some simple syrup on the side and plan to combine them at serving rather than experimenting further with adding sugar, a crap shoot.

Mitten School was just delightful! We had a cozy group and got expert hand-holding and attention. I can confidently say that it dramatically and fundamentally improved my colorwork in just one weekend. As soon as I finish Ron’s Flocked Mittens (I realized mid-cuff that these were Ron’s colors, not mine), I think I’m going to dust off some mitten charts I made up last year but balked at actually knitting.

So. The Mitten! The pattern won’t be officially released for a while yet, so right now you can just admire them and wish you’d gone to Mitten School yourself!

I knit mine pretty much per the pattern, with the only variation being a 2-color braid, since I wanted to learn how and I figured mistakes would be more evident with a contrasting color. I also knit the year into one of the cuffs. Mine (and everyone else’s) are Quince & Co Lark in Gingerbread & Honey.

I’m knitting mine inside-out (thanks, Amy!), which keeps my floats loose.

One of the really cool things about this pattern is the amount of potential variation built in to the design. We discovered quite a few variations of our own from those rather rare happy accidents of knitting. It turns out that fucking up the colors on the Flocked Mittens can actually yield some dandy results.

Melinda’s Mitten (before and after blocking)
Melinda accidentally cast on in the CC instead of the MC. Instead of frogging (since we’d all just knitted in the date and woven in a gazillion ends) or reversing the color scheme, she decided to switch to the MC after the braid, which gives the impression of a little lacy trim, a very feminine touch. Her mittens were in in Honey & Glacier, with lining in Quince & Co Tern in Wampum.

Ellen’s Mitten (before and after blocking).
She cast on and started with the correct colors but ended up starting work using the inverse patterns I’d just handed out, so it gives the pattern a lovely negative effect. Ellen said they remind her of Medieval gauntlets, and I agree. These were knit in Delft & Honey. The color in the first picture is closer to true.

I’ll finish my 2nd mitten tonight, but I’ll probably hold off on the lining for a couple of weeks, since I’m behind on pretty much everything!

Tomorrow, I’ll be doing some last-minute dyeing for my classes this Saturday at The Wicked Stitch:

Next week, I’m hoping to churn away at my Überlist and catch up on some cooking and crafting.

My original 4-gallon store-bought feeder, while very nice, is really just too big for 5 chickens. It’s so wide that mice seemed to have had no trouble hopping in from the walls of the coop. This summer, when I started letting the girls free range, I took it down completely, but now that it’s getting colder and the bugs and sprouts are slim pickins, I wanted to hang a feeder back up. My new one, homemade from a well-washed plastic paint can and an old pie pan, is high enough off the ground and hopefully far enough from the walls to minimize mice. I hope. Though once the heat lamp comes on and brightens the place, the chickens may well eat the mice. They do love mice.

I found these thrifty feeder instructions online. It took maybe 15 minutes to make (with stuff I already had on hand), and I had to cut out the holes. If you’ve got a nursery planter like the one in the video, it would take more like 2 minutes. I found my 5 roughly 1″ triangles to be a good size–enough to have decent flow without overfilling the tray.

In other barnyard news, I’ve got a few more projects in the queue to prepare for winter.

I’m going to use the ragged tarp from last year’s hoop house to line the coop walls when the temperature drops. I’m toying with making roll-up blinds like the one I made for the opening of my hay shelter so I don’t have to take them down and put them up each year.

The hay door rolls up and out of the way in fair weather, and rolls down and fastens to the pole on one side and one of those screw-in dog tie-outs on the other side.

I’ll need to shut off the hose and pull out the heated waterers when the temperature drops down some more. I want to keep that hose going as long as possible. I kind of really hate my heated chicken waterer. The heated part is awesome, but the overall design is fracking horrible. They’ve improved it a bit in the new model, adding a cord so you don’t have to plug you extension cord into under the water pan (where it’s usually damp), but it still has that fucking awful bottom-fill plug so you have to fill it upside-down and flip the whole thing in the freezing cold, sloshing water everywhere in the process. I’m not shelling out another 40 bucks to get water everywhere when it’s 5 degrees.

I’m really tempted to try to get the chickens to use rabbit waterers. I’ve seen several chicken forum posts about it, and the same company that makes the heated chicken & sheep waterers makes a heated small animal waterer, basically just a 2-qt version of those little hamster cage bottles. If the chickens can/will actually use it, it would be ideal. Even though it’s on the small side and would probably require frequent refills, you refill it from the top (yay!), so you can leave it in place after you mount it and just hit it with a pitcher. I also like that I’d never have to worry about mice, feathers, dust, or litter in the water. Plus it takes up a fraction of the space, appealing in a small coop like mine.

But there’s no rush. The short-term weather outlook is pretty mild (50s/30s), so I’ll think it over after Mitten School.

Well, the tomatoes in my makeshift greenhouse made it through the first couple of frosts, but not through the 25° one a couple nights ago. I got my days screwed up and thought the hard freeze was supposed happen Saturday night/Sunday morning, not Friday night/Saturday morning. First thing in the morning (still only 29°), I thought I’d actually gotten away with screwing up–most of the leaves were still meaty and bright green. But by the evening, they were all curled up and dark. Boo. I think the problem might actually be that I watered them the day before (thinking I still had a full day for it to get taken up by the roots), so the soil around the roots may have been waterlogged and frozen.

On the bright side, the tomatoes are unharmed, and the extra month I teased past the first frost means that most of the green tomatoes are mature enough to ripen on their own, good news. For now, I’m going to leave them where they are. If the forecast is still calling for freezing lows during Mitten School, I’ll probably cut the vines and bring the whole things inside and hang them up in my office or another of the cooler rooms to ripen slowly. Otherwise, I’ll let them just ripen on the vine outside. I think the sunshine will produce the best flavor. And the parsley, sage, and oregano are still in great shape.

I’m sad I didn’t keep them alive through Thanksgiving, my hope, but it’s still pretty fucking awesome to have ripe, homegrown tomatoes in November. And I’m kind of psyched to pull them up in the next few weeks and plant some greens in their place. Once Mitten School’s over, I’ll have some time to properly cover the front and back of the house and get it a little more snug in time for winter.

Speaking of Mitten School: QUINCE & CO YARN!

I missed the best light, but you can still tell how gorgeous it is. And so soft and bouncy. The heathery colors on the right are the lining colors, a wool/silk blend. I’m making up the kits this week–I’ll shoot them when they’re all finished.

If you’re feeling envious about Mitten School, it’s not too late to sign up–and we’ve added a Day Camp option for localish people. I went a little overboard with extra yarn so everyone could have some wiggle room to switch colors, so we can definitely make room for a few more students.

You wanna to know how excited I am about Mitten School? I’m so excited that I’m not even stressed out. Me, angsty-pants. I’m a cucumber, baby! My only concern is which colorway to pick. But as the host, I have the luxury of dithering as long as I want.

Okay,back to laundry time. I may not be anxious about it, but those sheets and towels still ain’t gonna wash themselves.

I just saw the brand new Hello Yarn pattern that’s getting previewed at Mitten School and it is GORGEOUS! The cuff alone is a masterpiece! I am so excited about this. I plan to spend the entire Mitten School weekend in my pajamas (note to self: new pajamas? maybe fancy Liz Lemon’s cupcakes or cheaper Target owls…) , eating cupcakes and sipping hot chocolate and cocktails. By necessity, winter workshops are much smaller (read: easier to prep/oversee), so I get the luxury of participation. It’s going to be a marvelous weekend, and probably your last chance for a little relaxing break before holiday madness ensues. Aside from the actually knitting and the usual yummy meals, we’re also including daily professional hand massages and happy hour after class! You should totally come.

If you’ve been following Adrian on flickr, you know that with the help of the handsome & talented David of Southern Cross Fibre, she’s been busy selecting colorways for Mitten School. We’ll be using gorgeous, squooshy Quince & Company Lark (territorial wool) for the mittens and Tern (wool/silk) for the lining. Yum, yum!

I’m torn between the second from the top and the second from the end. Oh, which will I choose?