Up in Flames

I'm happy to report that I learned a new kitchen technique this past weekend that supports my cooking resolution. And guess who my teacher was? My husband! I know! All these years he's been living in my house with this dormant knowledge... You could have knocked me over with a feather.

And what is this great new thing I learned, you ask? Roasting bell peppers on the stove top.

Flashback to yesterday morning. I had proclaimed that I was going to make home-made vegetarian chili for dinner. I took to my cookbooks (and the internet) for recipes to cobble together. There was a particular flavor I had in mind... tomato. All ingredients were assembled on the counter and I was rolling up my shirtsleeves to get started. That is when my husband walked up and said "you should roast those peppers first". Huh, wha? Next thing I know, he had the gas burner on the stove on high and a red pepper sitting right in the flame. A Renaissance man!!

My goodness. What a difference! Those peeled peppers were an amazing addition to a chili that was outstanding. I couldn't be happier with this recipe and I thought I would share it with you all today.

My actual chili.

Tomato-y Vegetarian  Chili

2 large yellow onions (diced)

6 cloves of garlic (pressed)

olive oil

3 roasted red (or green) peppers (diced)

1 14.5 can of roasted diced tomatoes

1 46 oz. can of tomato juice

1 cup Texturized Vegetable Protein (TVP) - available at your local health food store or co-op.

4 fresh tomatoes (diced)

1 can kidney beans

2 tbsp Chili powder

Tabasco sauce

Salt and Pepper

Vegetable bullion/broth

1 hour before you are ready to make the chili, put the dried TVP in a bowl and cover with vegetable bullion/broth to rehydrate. Set aside. Roast and peel red peppers. Set aside.

In a heavy-bottomed pan, (I use a dutch oven) heat up ¼ cup of olive oil. Brown the onions and then garlic until they are well carmelized. Add the roasted red peppers and cook until they are heated through. Add the can of roasted diced tomatoes, tomato juice, kidney beans, and the TVP. Add chili powder. Salt, pepper and Tabasco to taste. Simmer for another 20 minutes.

Add diced fresh tomatoes and simmer for another 20 minutes.

I found a youtube video where they show almost the exact pepper-roasting technique we used. Trust me, it's well worth the extra cooking time!

If you are a fan of tomato-y chili, I really hope you try this recipe! Talk to you soon...

–Cassandra

Sheep in the City

This past Saturday, Alex and I took a much needed break from the current craziness in Madison. We headed down to Milwaukee for some fun with yarn people at The Sheep in the City event. Last year we weren't able to attend and were pleasantly surprised at some improvements since our visit in 2009. Some of the changes we noted immediately were: the event is now held at a larger hotel with a bar and restaurant, the trade show area was much roomier and was able to accommodate more vendors and there is a lovely auditorium for listening to speakers.

Main trade show room...the center had room for spinners and knitters.

Unfortunately we weren't able to attend any of the classes...but we did what we do best, make friends and spend money! There were some really neat vendors we were able to visit, these are a couple of our favorites:

Corny Goodness
Yes, they can make yarn out of corn these days. The 100% corn yarn is quite soft. It reminds me a bit of Rowan's milk cotton, except it seems even more "splitty". This is why I chose to purchase the corn/wool blend yarn. It has really nice stitch definition. I think that is why the patterns that they sell with their yarn shows off that fact.

The crocodile hat is just one of their patterns using this technique.

The Corny Goodness yarns come in a nice variety of colors.

This is my corn yarn purchase, I have no idea what I am making yet.

Happy Hands Yarns
These generous-sized skeins of yarn are all hand-dyed in yummy colors. Soft, lofty, candy for knitters. Now, I'm not a big fan of variegated yarns, but she does have some subtle colorways that I find quite appealing. This is what her overflowing tables looked like:

Shiny happy yarns holding hands.

My Happy Hands 100% Merino purchase. I told you it was subtle.

There were so many cool things that we saw that day, but these might be my favorite:

Sheep and alpacas made from mohair. 10pts on the cute-o-meter.

It was a great day... aside from the snowy ride home! We had fun, met some fun people, and bought interesting yarns. It is getting me excited for the upcoming "Knit In" event in Madison!

–Cassandra

Crafting for Democracy

As you're all aware, Madison, Wisconsin is the epicenter of a huge U.S. political battle. It consumes those of us who live here. Everyone wants to talk about it - whether to commiserate or to dissect the minutia of all the political wranglings. Frankly, it's exhausting.

This was the scene on Saturday: 

I've coined three terms: "rally fatigue", "rally stress", and "rally anxiety." I'm thinking about trademarking them... (j/k)  Over the course of the last two weeks, I've bounced between these three states of being - none of which are particularly pleasant. Then, on Friday night (2/25), I got to add "rally inspiration" to my list of terms.

You see, Friday night was the first meeting of the Knit-In/Craft-In for Democracy. As we all know, I can't resist an opportunity to knit in public with a group so, of course, I went. One report counted 92 people in attendance on the 2nd floor of the north wing of the Capitol. Most were knitting but some were crocheting, or spinning, or sewing. On person had set up a make-shift craft "table" with bits of paper, glue, pipe cleaners, and such - like you'd see in elementary school art rooms. It was awesome.

photo courtesy of Carrie Ouradnik

photo courtesy of Thea Dingo

photo courtesy of Carrie Ouradnik

People chatted and laughed. They talked about their knitting and about the rally. There was an air of camaraderie and of doing something "important" - even though we were just doing what we'd probably be doing at home, in front of the t.v. The "event" lasted until about 9:30p.m., at which time many protesters were bunking down for the night so it was the right time to leave. We dispersed as we'd arrived, with hugs and words of gratefulness and support.

From that first, three-hour gathering, the Knit-In/Craft-In has expanded. People convened again on Sunday February 27 starting at noon and are encouraged to keep coming every day, starting at noon, until the end of the "siege."

Carrie, a friend from my knitting group, (aka CraftyPuppyLover on Ravelry) provides this account of the end of the day:

"They were supposed to close down the capitol and start arresting people that didn’t leave at 4. So a few of us stuck around, and were planning on peacefully leaving once we were personally told to by an officer...and that never happened! My VERY unofficial guess is that there were about 200+ people that stayed behind, and the officers all just stayed calm. (edit: I have seen this number as high as 600, it's probably in the middle somewhere)


At around 7pm we got the word that there would be no arrests and that everyone was free to stay the night! Kelda Roys was SUPER AWESOME and escorted me upstairs once we figured no one was going to be arrested. She was also the person that was escorting others around to make sure that we could all get things like water, gatorade, and pizza into the capitol to feed the protesters.


I left around 7:45, I felt like I was there long enough to have my “body counted” and so that people could stay the night. The last thing I heard was that they were going to let in more food and eventually move everyone down to the ground floor so that the 1st floor could be cleaned, and that no one would be forced to leave."

I think that, when it's all said and done, the thing that inspired me was the peacefulness of it all. Throughout this ordeal, there's been no violence - even though there's been horrible anger. And we crafters are not known for being too unruly so we fit perfectly into this non-violent protest. Ghandi would be proud. Let's hope it stays this way.

One last note: as I was leaving on Friday night, there was a documentary filmmaker shooting video of the knitters. Here's the video she produced:

Peace,

- Alex

When Crafts Attack!

When one thinks of crafting, one generally associates it with hush-voiced grandmas sitting around a quilting table or knitting up something cozy while rocking in a chair. There might be a unicorn or a double rainbow in this visualization because, you know, crafts are sweet like that.

UNTIL CRAFTS ATTACK!

This week, I learned all about attack crafts when my recent project drew blood.

Yes...you heard me... it drew real red, stain-y blood. Bast*rd.

Here's the photographic evidence:

It's blurry but you can clearly see the damage. And, if you look carefully, I think you can even see the offending craft tool sitting on the table.

You thought that we were just a couple of namby-pamby crafters writing this blog. Now you see us for the death-defying warriors that we are.

How could this horrible tragedy happen, you ask?  Thank you for asking!...

Once upon a time, I wrote a blog post about about FiberTrends Felted Clogs - my favorite pattern to knit because it's so easy and satisfying. I was in the process of making a pair for a friend's birthday when I decided that I wanted to, somehow, personalize these slippers because, you know, homemade isn't personal enough.

One craft technique that I've been dying to try is called "needle felting." I've seen incredible work done with this technique and, while I hold no illusion that I'll ever be THAT good, I do like to try new things. So, off I went to the local hobby shop to buy some inexpensive roving (wool that's been dyed but not spun) and felting needles.

For the uninitiated,

• Felt is a non-woven cloth that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing woollen fibres. While some types of felt are very soft, some are tough enough to form construction materials. Felt can be made into any shape or size. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_felting
• Needle felting is the interlocking and compacting of wool fibers by using pointed, barbed felting needles either by hand or machines.

Needle felting is often used to create 3-D crafts, like toys and decorative items. It can also be used to add decoration to other things - like, say, felted slippers.

So, I finished the slippers. (see how plain they are...)

Boring and in need of decoration

Then I set out my new tools.

New and dangerous equipment

For drawing my design on the slippers. This worked better in theory.

POINTY

I'd like you to take note of how POINTY these needles are. And, what you can't see without a magnifying glass, is that the pointy ends of these suckers are BARBED.

If you remember from my tutorial above, the way this works is that you POKE THE NEEDLE in and out of the roving, over and over again, until it binds the wool fibers together.

Are you getting a picture of the danger involved in this activity?

I decided to go with the simplest design I could think of since this was new to me and I was using dangerous equipment. Tiny red hearts on the heels of the clogs would add a bit of color and a sweet sentiment to my friend's gift.

Poke, poke, poke, STAB! Ouch! #$^%@#&^%!!

Poke, poke, poke, STAB! Ouch! #$^%@#&^%!!

In case you missed it before.

Eventually, I finished my first needle felting attempt and, frankly, I'm pretty proud of myself. I think the hearts are cute and they actually appear to be done correctly. Of course, my thumb may never recover...

All I can tell you is that my friend better appreciate the suffering that went into making these things.

- Alex, Craft Martyr

Giving Is Fun!

A couple Friday's ago Alex told you that we were on our way to our latest charity crafting afternoon. It was a wonderful (and productive) time and I finally have some images to share with you from our day.

Three of us worked on the Take-Along Quilt from the book Craft Hope by Jade Sims. This project is really fun to sew, but unfortunately the 4-hour window of time that we had to work on this project was not enough to complete our quilts. Being the "business people" that we are, we did try to proactively set some "efficiencies" in place to try to shave some time off the process. We centralized the cutting of the panels and the backing by having a non-sewer work the rotary cutter table and had another non-sewer pressing seams and smoothing wrinkles in fabric. While this did save us some time, sadly, not enough. I think that we are all about 3/4 of the way done with the quilts and when we reunite in April for another afternoon, we will all finish and maybe even be able to spend some time on a small project with the rest of the time.

We centralized cutting operations for a 19.45% increase in efficiency.

Seaming my Dr. Seuss quilt.

Erin figuring out her design.

Alex lining up her layers.

We had a no-sew fleece blanket project and the seaming of a patchwork knitted afghan going on at this table. We have also decided that we would love to line the back of the finished afghan with some flannel for extra warmth. Maybe we can squeeze that in next time too.

Then we had the knitting contingency. Baby hats for newborns and scarves for the homeless were the projects for the day over here. We heard a lot of laughter (and a few tears) from this table, I might have to join this group one of our next afternoons!

Love the knitters!

 Great times, great projects, and great people. I love our charity crafting group!

–Cassandra

Feeding the Revolution

You may have gleaned, if you read us regularly, that Cassandra and I are from Madison, WI - currently a hotbed of protesters, counter-protesters, and spotlight seekers (I'm looking at you, Jesse Jackson.) Our usually low-key, small city is in a state of relative chaos, with tens of thousands of people descending on our capitol building every day for the last week.

I say "relative chaos" because, really, the week has been pretty peaceful and civil. The chaos comes from having to feed all these people. Fortunately, our capitol is in the middle of downtown on a square littered with amazing restaurants. Each of the eight streets leading away from the square also have restaurants on them with State Street (our "high" street) being the most rich with choice. From pizza to Tibetan food, you can pretty much find anything you want within a 1/2 mile walk.

Regardless of the tempting food choices, the die-hard protesters and, I suppose, some of the counter-protesters are loathe to leave the immediate area of the building. Hell, some are loathe to leave the building entirely - sleeping on air mattresses and make-shift bedrolls. What to do with them? Can't really leave them to starve...

Cooking brats for the protesters

I don't remember what day it was - protests started in earnest on Tuesday so maybe it was Wednesday - somebody showed up and started handing out bratwurst (the official wurst of the great state of Wisconsin.) Then there were cookies, and pizza, and more brats. Individuals and organizations took it upon themselves to support democracy by feeding the revolution.

Then, on Friday, Ian's Pizza, a popular local pizzeria that specializes in odd pizza combos (its best-seller is a Mac-n-Cheese Pizza and it is exactly what you think) announced that it was closing its State Street location to normal business so it could focus exclusively on fulfilling the hundreds of donated pizza orders called in FROM AROUND THE WORLD. I swear to god, you can't make this stuff up.

Mac-n-Cheese Pizza from Ian's

Somehow, and I'm guessing it was via social media, Ian's phone number* got out to the world and people started ordering pizzas to be delivered to the capitol. Ian's remained closed for regular business on Saturday as well - continuing to fulfill the steady stream of orders.

I heard online that Ian's had taken orders from over 30 states and 5 countries - but their website doesn't say one way or the other. Today, a read a tweet that reported a pizza order called in from Egypt.

It's important to note that Ian's - or, for that matter, any of the food suppliers - doesn't discriminate in regards to who they'll feed. If you're hungry and you're participating in this amazing show of democracy in action, you, too, can have a slice. Or a cookie. In Wisconsin, we're nice like that.

Viva la revolucion-ary food!

- Alex

*If you would like to contact Ian's and help feed democracy in action, please call 608-257-9248 or visit http://www.ianspizza.com/

UPDATE: Ian's Pizza has a Facebook page with a bunch of info on how to contact them as well as great photos - including a couple of the chalkboard where they've been trying to keep track of where all the calls are coming from. http://on.fb.me/gr5yO9

100 Years Too Late

Last week Google did another "theme" day on their search engine. This time it was an amazing, interactive, nod to Jules Verne. If you didn't have a chance to see it, it looked like this:

I cannot boast to have spent my childhood tucked away in the library, reading Jules Verne novels. However, I have always been a huge fan of Disney's version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I loved the creepiness, the fantasy, and most of all... the aesthetic. My taste has always leaned toward the Victorian (if I'm being honest with myself though, I think I'm just a big fan of anything that is too ornate and/or French). Just look at these gorgeous book covers:

What makes the Jules Verne aesthetic truly unique is the introduction of technology. The meshing of the highly decorative and the technology of Victorians (sprockets, levers, etc.) create a look that is both lush and progressive. One of the issues I have with modern design (big square buildings that look like glass cubes, rooms without nooks... you see where I'm going) is that it seems to not have a artisan's touch anywhere. I want to look in a corner and see a charming detail or appreciate the texture of a drapery next to the texture of a plaster wall. I feel more comfortable with the idea of a learned person being surrounded by books and curios from around the world, instead of a computer and a smart-phone. *sigh*  I missed my time I guess. Of course, I could always get hip and just go full-blown Steampunk..

I do try to interject as much of this aesthetic into my home as possible. In the last few years (because of the new little people in my house) I haven't been able to devote as much time to refining my decor as I used to. But, that is going to change soon. It's time to get back at it. The vibe of my home is really important to me, and it has been neglected at the altar of practicality for way too long. My walls need artwork, corners need detailing, and antique fairs need attending.

So, I wait with bated breath for Spring to get here so I can open the windows and let the fresh air (and ideas) in! Hopefully I'll have some thoughts to share with you on this subject very soon.

–Cassandra