Spinning and Folding

It's been so long since I've posted, I feel remorse because it just began. Well, good news exists. I have been spinning some more since the last post. Again, I bought some roving almost a year ago and hadn't touched since. It was like blue-raspberry jello clouds and cotton candy. The colors were my favorite when I was a child and just brought back so much nostalgia when I found it. My plan is to knit it, felt it and stuff it with buckwheat groats to make a muscle pack. You know, those things that you put in the microwave when you're sore. One of those. I want one, I just don't want to pay $16.95 for one when I could make it easily.

Last night we made pot stickers by hand, except for the wrappers. We had a bunch of random stuff on hand so we mixed all together and made dumplings. It consisted of garlic, ginger, a bag of shredded cabbage (intended for coleslaw mix) and some Xiang Chang, a sweet Chinese style sausage. They turned out so tasty. We had some wrappers leftover, I think I'll make some homemade ravioli.

Sick, sick, sick

Last Friday I thought it would be bad ass to flyer around town for my local info shop(Civic Media Center). This took me walking a few miles in 40 degree temperatures. Subsequently, I'm now bundled up with a frog in my throat (turns out it's strep). I thank myself for being too lazy to bike, I might have ended up worse.

Anywho, today I've been resting in hopes of not furthering sickness. While resting my friend Sarah came over to bring me "Get well" bread, which she baked herself. It is a delicious garlic and rosemary whole wheat loaf of healthy-soon-to-get-your-ass-out-of-bed-goodness. While she visited she taught me how to spin yarn using a drop spindle. She has become quite adept at spinning her own yarn. She not only spins it, she knits socks with it. It's one of the coolest things I think you can DIY.

Here's a pics of the roving I bought ages ago, thinking I'd spin one day.

And here is what I've spinned so far, now that I have my technique down.

Sarah said that 4 oz should yield a pair of socks. I can't wait to see how the stripes knit up.

Laundry and Mending

First of all, welcome to my blog!

Lately I've been on a kick of hand washing my own laundry. The idea came after watching some youtube videos about women in the Ukraine doing all domestic chores without mechanical assistance. Most intriguing was the women bent over a bucket, as if reaching her tippy toes and hand scrubbing the days laundry for 20 minutes. In that position I think my back would give out after 5 minutes. Well it dawned on me that most of the world does their laundry this way. It made me think and calculate...

It turns out that, the commercial washers and dryers that Chris (boyfriend) and I currently use cost $1.75/load. This may not seem like much but each washing load uses 30 gallons of water and I don't even know the amount of electricity used for drying. However, doing laundry by hand saves us $5.25/week (3 loads), winds up using 18 gallons of water per wash, less detergent and no electricity for drying. The only drawback is the drying time, it takes a little longer for clothes to dry but they end up smelling wonderful.

Here is a picture of today's hand washing soaking.

Here is another photo after the soaking with my new washboard Chris gave me for Christmas. I know it may seem like a sexist gift, but its purpose it to be more DIY.

To conclude this first post I also attended to some mending today. Chris destroys socks. He wears through them unlike anyone I've ever known. In order to save money I've attempted to repair the holes in his socks until he absolutely has to get more. The technique employed today is a knitted patch sewn onto the sock where the hole is. I chose this because I failed at darning. Tomorrow he will try them out while at work to see if it is comfy. If successful we will mend all his sock this way and save ourselves some money, for now.