Fiber Club 1 Yarn

Here's what I made of my first fiber club roving. It's wheelspun, though. But I used my new spindle to ply. :-)
The roving was a handpainted, 50/50 merino silk top.

 

It's a three ply. I'm not really a fan of jewel blue but I like how this yarn turned out.

Fiber Club: Part 1

Last year's christmas gift to myself was a membership in zebisisdesigns fiberclub for three months. Maysha makes wonderful stone whorled handspindles and beautiful fibres, too. The club deal is, you get one spindle and ca. 4 oz. fibre every month for three months. So, my christmas gift will last til march. A surprise box full of lovelyness every month. 

My fisrt club package contained this beautiful top whorl spindle. It has a handcarved rosewood shaft and a silver hook. I love the colour of the whorl. It looks like arctic ice and water.. It's a blue druzy and weights 0.92 oz.

 

The roving was this blue and green hand painted 50/50 merino silk top. It's so soft and fluffy! :-D Indeed, I'm a bit late posting this, because I already got it a month ago. That's why I can say this roving was such a pleasure to spin! But more about that and the yarn later!

Making Ghee

If you love Indian food as much as I do, then you surely know what ghee is. If not, ghee is kind of a boiled down butter. It doesn't need to be refrigerated and can be used whenever you need oil or fat to roast. And you can smear it on fresh, warm naan. Yumm! :-P

Making ghee is actually quite easy. But it takes some time. I had a lot of butter in the fridge and needed the room for other foods. So I decided to make ghee because of the non-fridge storage thing..
First, you'll need butter. I had about 750 gramms. Cut it in small bits and put it in a large pan. Slowly heat until all butter is melted. Be careful, don't let it burn! This may take up to 15 minutes, depending on the amount of butter.

 

Boil shortly and then let it simmer 40 minutes. Check it regularly. While simmering, white tatters will apear.

Now we need to filter it to get rid of those white tatters. We don't want them in our ghee. Use a funnel and kitchen paper towels. This takes time, too. You'll have to replace the paper towel from time to time.

 

Now we have lovely, clear and golden yellow liquid ghee. Fill it in clean and dry glass jars. It will become solid once cooled down. In a dark place, you can store ghee for months! 

Pro Verzasca Yarn

May I inrtoduce my latest spinning: A lovely creamy-beige single spun.

This one is made of very special wool, even if the sheep is unknown.. The roving was a gift of my mother. She got it in the Valle di Verzasca, Canton Tessin, Switzerland. Way back in this small valley, there's a small town, Sonogno. They started to produce wool, plant dyed yarns, embroidery and woodworks in the 1930's to come over the economic crisis back then. Soon they founded the association Pro Verzasca, which is still working today. You can visit their website, unforetunately, it's only in German, French, and Italian.. I really need to visit Sonogno myself and see all the lovely plantdyed yarn and wool. :-P Maybe this summer...

A new easy headband

I was inspired by Frau Kichererbse's cool headband and knew I had to make my own! I usually don't wear headbands, even though I like them. They always run up my head and won't stay where they are supposed to.. However, this one behaves perfectly! 

It's made of black and red and beige checked jersey fabric, with a black band to wrap arround. I made it far to long intentionally so I can wrap it three times arround my head.

 Please excuse the silly face.. Taking my own picture was more difficult than I thought..

Awesome single spun yarns

These are some of my very first wheelspun yarns. I got an Ashford Traditional some time ago and I love it. Not that I don't like my handspindles anymore, but wheelspinning is so much faster! 

I got the roving at Wildhare Fiber Studio on Etsy. They're named "Irish Eyes" and "Lucky Penny". So beautiful and soft and fluffy... I'm really into multicoloured singles recently. Love the colour changes..

An Afternoon Walk

 

 Because the weather was so sunny, nice and warm, I went out for a walk yesterday. I couldn't  resist taking my "new" camera with me and play. It's not brand new, actually, I got it on ebay. But it's much better than my old, small pocket camera. And it has a great macro! Ideal to take nice detail pictures.

 

I'm not a fotographer, but I'm quite pleased with my pictures. Wasn't it a wonderful day?

 

 

It's here!

Look at those lovely colours! I ordered this sample box of sirocco tea after testing two free samples I got with my recent yarn order. I think I'm going to test them by colour, starting with the dark green one, Piz Palü...

 

"keep me warm swap" part two

I received my package from Charlotte the other day. See what yummy lovelyness she sent!

She made me a headband and a scarflet

Lavender and vanilla sugar and chai spiced milk

A lot of delicious hot drinks! Bournville cocoa, orange blossom tea, rose infused tea, instant Starbucks coffe, different hot chocolates and a beautiful hot chocolate on a stick.

Thank you, Charlotte! :-)

Pizza Oil

Making your own pizza oil is easy and fun! You can customize it after your very own taste and the possibilities are endless. You can use it for your pizza but also for your pasta and even if you like to give fried rice or veggies and extra hint of flavour.

You'll need:
A bottle
Olive oil extra vergine (use a good quality)
1-3 whole chilis
1 teaspoon ground chili
1 teaspoon whole black pepper
One or two garlic cloves, chopped or sliced
One twig of rosemary
One twig of thyme
Two bay leaves

Put all the spices and herbs in your bottle and fill with olive oil. Be sure to close the bottle tightly and let sit (room temperature and not in direct sunlight) for two weeks. Et voilà! Your homemade pizza oil is ready! You can change the components and find your favourite flavour.

Enjoy!

Garden Plans

It's february now and time to make some garden plans! What will I have this year?! So difficult to decide! Have you ever pondered over a seed catalogue? If you haven't, it's like beeing a little girl in a toy store! Oh, I want this, I want that! And I absolutely NEED that! I have an itsy-bitsy tiny garden with aweful ground. And the place where my plants get enough sun is even tinyer. That's why I'm having a container garden. That also means very limited space. Luckyly, there are a lot of plants which grow well in containers. 

I went through my stash of last seasons seeds and decided to be strong and only buy the absolute minimum! Be frugal, girl, use what you already have.. But, there're at least some plants I NEED..

Last years chilis were awesome and I'm a sucker for cool looking chilis. That's why I bought four new chili sorts.

 

 Red Cap Mushroom-capsicum sinense

Don't they look cool?! It has a 4 on the 5point scala, so it's quite hot.

Black Hungarian chili-capsicum annuum. It's only a three, but the green leaves should be highlighted by purple veins. So pretty! And black chilis are cool! : D

Sweet Hungarian Pepper-Capsicum annuum. The dried and ground fruit gives you the real hungarian red and sweet pepper. Now I have a whole summer to find out how to grind them..

Tequilla Sunrise Chili-Capsicum annuum, Pro Specie Rara

I needed more colour and this yellow is just lovely.

I have a deal with a good friend: We'll exchange the plants we don't need. So I'll get at least two or three sorts more. YAY!

I love herbs, too. I already have some (Sage, mint, rosemary) and I have seeds for basil. I need more (thinking about making my own garden herb soap!) I decided on St.John's wort and borrage because I think borrage is pretty. (Silly me..) I will also have verveine and bee balm.

 

All pictures taken  here

"keep me warm swap" part one

I'm in a "keep me warm" swap on craftster and my partner is the lovely Charlotte. To swap we were required to send a handmade worn and warm accessory, a hot drink and a handmade hot drink accessory. Because she already received, I can post pics of what I made for her.

  

I made her cozy warm crocheted  wrist warmers and some extra flowers because I had some yarn left. It's a wool/silk/alpaca mix, really soft and fluffy.  

This handpainted mug goes very well with the colour scheme. I was inspired by her blog title and the snowflakes are for winter. I think the painting went out ok. I'm not a good painter, though.

And some more spoiling for her: Homemade caramelized almonds and hot chocolate on spoons.

Crafting for this swap was so much fun and I'm pleased with my themed package idea. She really loved it. The hot drink was Snowflake Tea (a black tea blend with vanilla and some fruits, I don't remember the exact list of ingredients).

 Now I'm impatiently awaiting my package. It's currently somewhere between UK and Switzerland. I'll post about it as soon as I got it!