Crochet: A mystery, and a plan

A crochet mystery.  

My grandma made a beautifully complex-looking blanket for the baby, but doesn't know what stitch she used since she can no longer read patterns after a stroke.  She just made up the stitch, or had it stored somewhere in her subconscious!

Whatever it is, it's definitely cozy and super soft!

I can tell that the edging is a shell stitch pattern, because my first crochet project of a scarf used it.  But what about the middle?  Is it some form of shell stitch too?


In other news...

I've spent the past 2 weeks finally trying to really teach myself to crochet (projects 3-7).  Here are all the projects I have ever done: 

1. A 1-skein scarf.  (This was done probably a year ago.)
2. A perfect sphere.  (Done in February)
3. A newborn pumpkin hat & cocoon for a halloween costume
4. A newborn boob hat, for nursing hilarity
5. Another newborn boob hat for a friend
6. A 4-inch snowflake
7. A mini pumpkin

I'm just waiting for a larger tapestry needle to show up in the mail so I can finish weaving in some ends, and then I will post some photos and link to the patterns!

Assuming I have plenty of time before the baby arrives, what patterns should I work on next?

Feelin' Prodromal

Well, today's the day that our little womb dweller is due!  It is hard to believe that I've made it this far and that he's still in there.

We had an appointment with the midwife this morning, and she says the quality and strength of the contractions I've had periodically since the night of the 7th mean that I'm having prodromal labor... it'd be actual labor if the darn contractions would stick around!

The good news is that it's giving me lots of practice with breathing techniques, and labor is looking less scary because each time I have a real contraction I somehow get excited instead of nervous.  The bad news is that it's a bit tiring to suddenly realize "Omigods, this is it!" and then to have it fizzle out, over and over and over... makes sleeping interesting, since it mostly happens at night.  My prescription is literally to take naps and get as much sleep as I can.

So... can I say that I've been in mild labor for over 2 days?  Can I say that the lunar eclipse sparked it and that he's therefore a blood moon baby?  Guess it depends on your definition of labor.  And moon.  And baby.

Now we just hunker down and wait.

For the love of Mead, Part 3: Ceiling Surprise

Ryan came home and his first question was "have you looked at the ceiling recently?"

Why, no.  No, I haven't.  If I had, I would have noticed this:

Oops.

Those meady explosions were a little more powerful than I'd thought!  Luckily the kitchen has shiny washable paint and the hibiscus bits didn't stain. 

Anyway, today's the day I'm adding 1/2 of the remaining nutrients.  The fermentation has not slowed very much so far, which is awesome!  These nutrients will give the yeast another boost to keep them going strong.  I'm still aerating a few times a day and being extra-careful about more krausen clogging up the airlocks... and ending up on the ceiling. 

So far the Specific Gravity started out at 1.105 (adding more honey equals a higher SG), and it's now down to 1.090 (or maybe a bit less, it's hard to tell with all the bubbles!).  That means that the mead is already 2% alcohol after just 6 days, which is like a weak beer.  It certainly smells alcoholic already.

I'm expecting it to get to about 13.75% by the end... most wine is 12.5-14.5%, so this is pretty good for such a quick mead.

Trying to capture the Blood Moon

I played with the settings on the new camera all night to figure out how to take moon pictures.  I do not have a tripod or an ideal lens (just the 18-55mm it came with), but these were the best I could come up with....

(Click on it to see the full size)

The trick was to set it to F11, ISO 100, a 2-second timer delay (to keep me from shaking the camera more from the button-pushing), zoom in on the moon and let the automatic focus do its thing (it is far better than I am), and then to adjust the shutter speed based on how much light the moon was giving off at any particular time.  I'm particularly excited about the full moon photos, since I've never been able to capture that kind of detail before!

This was my worst photo, where I set the shutter speed so slow that I thought the camera was malfunctioning and I stopped holding it still out of frustration.  Oops.

It has its charms... nice October-appropriate colors.

In other news, spending so much time staring at the sky appears to have kicked these Braxton Hicks contractions up a notch or five.  Here's hoping that our little spawn doesn't take too much longer to get here.

I hope you enjoyed the lunar eclipse as much as I did!

Do you have any moon photos to share?

For the love of Mead, Part 2: Release the Krausen!!

I have always done my meads the "natural" way, using chopped raisins as the yeast nutrient, and using very high alcohol content (which kills off the yeast) and time to end the fermentations. 

This time, however, I'm going the sciency route!  So far I've added 2 out of the 4 lab-created yeast nutrients, which will help this batch of mead perform as quickly as possible so that it's ready in time, and then I'll also kill off the yeast at a specific stage and re-sweeten rather than waiting a year for them to die.

It turns out that these yeast nutrients are VERY effective.  Rather than feeling like a mead, it feels like I'm making a beer (which involves a violent fermentation and only takes a month)!  I could really use a few blow-off tubes, because every time I aerate the must (2-3 times a day), I get explosions of foam (otherwise known as the krausen).  I can only wear black clothes to avoid the inevitable stains.  And it ALREADY smells a bit alcoholic by day 3! 

Hibiscus foam escapes.

Ryan has suggested that I stop cleaning up the bright red sprays, and just consider it to be part of our Halloween decorations. 

Oh, for the love of Mead!

Well folks, it looks like the meadery is open again.

Wait, it was closed?

The past 2 batches of mead that I've made did not turn out very well... mead is very sensitive to exposure to oxygen, and the type I was doing took a year to make, and both batches had to be moved to a new house so they were exposed to a ton of jostling and aeration.

They acquired an off flavor... something kinda vinegarish as a smell and aftertaste.  Nothing harmful, and nothing you can taste or smell after you're already buzzed, but hey, I'm a perfectionist and it's disheartening to have one's secret wedding recipe taste sub-par.

As a result I haven't exactly been motivated these past few years to put a lot of effort into making booze.  There was too much going on, and too little success to spur me into action.  The type of mead I was making was not the cheapest either, and I hate throwing money down the drain.


Current inspiration:  A new recipe and a special event.

But now we're settled for a while, and if things go to plan, a new mead won't be subjected to any more moves!

I wanted to do a mead again this month, since we usually go up to Apple Hill at this time and get all the honey and apple cider.  That traditional plan is totally not going to work out though, considering that I need to stay close to my birth center.  Plus, there's a special event in 7.5 months that calls for a meady celebration, and the usual year of fermenting is just not going to cut it.

Instead I found a recipe for a "very crowd-pleasing" hibiscus mead that is supposedly ready to drink in 5.5 months.  This is FAST for a mead!  It is also brilliantly red.  Here's a test I did where I added the same percentage of hibiscus to boiling water to make a tea, to see how dark the resulting mead might become:

Whoa!  Much more red than I was expecting.  

This year I ordered hibiscus online, visited Costco for honey, and am using spring water instead of the usual mulling spices/local honey/cider mix.  I estimate that this will take the cost down to $3.50 per bottle ($1.10 is just for the empty bottle, normally we'd be reusing old wine bottles but this gorgeous color calls for clear glass)... not bad for a fancy mead. 


Baby's coming very soon, so it's time to get started.

Today was Day 1:  I created the must (the concentrated hibiscus tea plus honey) and pitched the yeast today. This is the most time-consuming task, and I'm due in less than a week, so it's a relief to get it done before we're too busy with our new spawnling. 

10 gallons of Stormy-approved beverage.

Haha, yes, I have them on a gardening cart inside the house.  My excuse is that my back and hips can't handle lugging 5-gallon carboys around at the moment, and I want to be able to work with them without bugging Ryan, so I had to get a little creative.

I also made a third carboy with a slightly altered recipe, so that leaves us with 15 gallons total.

There'll be more to do... I'll keep you updated on the progress!

• Day 1.5ish:  Add a nutrient - done!  This took less than 7 hours from pitching yeast, but I was asleep and did not time it exactly.
• Day 6:  Add first half of a nutrient mix
• Day 10ish:  Add last of nutrient mix
• Day 20:  Rack mead
• Day 36:  Rack mead and stabilize
• Day 49:  Add spices and back-sweeten
• Day 53:  Check that stabilization was effective
• Day 57:  Rack off spices
• Day 155:  Bottle... expecting to get 48 wine bottles for the event
• Day 162:  Taste-test any time after this date

Let's cross our fingers that this new recipe works!  It already smells divine.

Photogenic Dog

Whoa, with this new camera I can actually take photos of our black puppy without her drowning in shadow!

Poodle attention span level:  SQUIRREL??

On the left you can see the evidence of sunflower destruction, as mentioned yesterday. 

That is all for today... I am just having fun playing with the camera. 

Ghosts in the garden

In honor of the spooky month of October, I decided to do a little ghostly decorating in the garden.

Boo!

Okay, okay.  So it's not in honor of the upcoming holiday.  It's to keep those darn birds away from my mammoth sunflowers! 

So far we've lost about half our seeds because the darn doves pick them off and leave half on the ground which the squirrels then pick up.  Covering the remaining 3 heads of seed with cheesecloth was the only thing I could think of... and so far it appears to be working to keep them away.

I also just completely decapitated one, and it's drying out inside the house in a paper bag.  I think it was ready to be picked...