varieties of use

4,000+
This blog has reached an unimaginable (to me) milestone and passed the 4,000 readers mark since it started less than a year ago! And readers are all over the globe! Wow! I'm blown away by that figure. Many thanks to all of you who have checked it out, stuck with it, or who dip in and out. I plan to continue. It's fun. More so now that I know there are actual bodies out there who, to some degree, care.Thank you!

ahh...
As I write the smell of cooking coq au vin is permeating the house. It's only mid afternoon and dinner won't be for several hours, but I'm using a slow cooker (formerly called a crockpot). The thing is, I have only cooked in it once in my life. The result was bland and pale. I bought the pot many years ago with the thought of using it for dyeing yarn in Kool Aid, not for cooking.

My granddaughter was expected for her annual summer visit and I always tried to set up new and interesting things for us to do together. That summer (more than a decade ago) it was dyeing yarn. The resulting socks that I knitted and sold at a studio sale later that year were labeled by Kira. She indicated the flavor of the Kool Aid and a tag that read "Sniff Me!" (the socks really did smell like grape, strawberry, lime). Since then the crockpot has been stashed, unused, on top of the tall kitchen cabinets. I'd forgotten it existed. Standing on chairs this morning we located it and brought it down. Unattractively enveloped in cobwebs, faded, and with greasy kitchen dust on it, I nearly threw it away. But in my new waste not mode, I carefully and thoroughly washed it and voila, it turned out to be as good as new. Hence, the hopeful preparation of coq au vin. It smells wonderful, but I still have doubts about so-called slow cookers. I'm more the throw-stuff-into-the-skillet-sizzle-and-saute type, but we'll see.

later...

a hit! delicious!

to keep my ears warm
This morning when I walked in the park with Spike, it was cold. I was wearing a baseball cap and my ears tingled uncomfortably. I thought about how nice it would be to have a lightweight knitted cap for days when the temp is in the 40s. Enough to keep my ears covered, but not too warm or confining. Tonight, while I waited around in the kitchen during the last anxious coq au vin cooking hour, I remembered that my friend Joan had returned from Stitches West with a gift for me of a hat kit designed by Ali McGraw. Joan was helping out at the Tutto booth and Ali (who is also from Santa Fe) was their featured guest. Remember that cap in Love Story? How great she looked in it? Ali is still beautiful and hasn't aged a day (how is that possible?). She is also an animal rights advocate and knitter who joined up with Marion Foale, a British stylist, who designed a line of gorgeous, soft 3-ply wool. Proceeds from the sale of the kits goes to the Wildlife Emergency Response Fund's efforts "to offer immediate help whenever crisis strikes wildlife anywhere in the world." How cool is that?

This is a worthy cause and a beautiful kit. I've just started working on it, but I can tell already that it will be a satisfying project I will make again and again. You can't knit just one! I encourage knitters to get one for yourself from Tutto. Did I mention that also included in the kit is a carved Sea Turtle button? 

how comfortable!
nestled in a bed of yarn
the wooden sea turtle