It seems lately that I have had a lot of time for spinning and knitting. Understandably, there is an abundance of free time while not running my own household. I don't have to get up at 5 to go milk a goat (although I miss it terribly). I don't have after work farm chores, grocery shopping or cleaning to do. My evenings are free to knit and spin to my hearts content. At this point in my life I am trying to enjoy the extra free time, in hopes that soon enough I will be busy again. I also constantly have some knitting project stuffed in my purse. Yesterday I had to pick up a prescription at Safeway and it wasn't ready. Right there is 10 minutes of knitting! Yesterday was a treatment day for my mom, which meant 5 hours of knitting next to her. At this rate I don't have time to get bored with a project because they are finished so quick.
Right now on my wheel I am spinning up some purple fiber. I am unsure what it will want to be knitted into, but I am sure that I love the colors! The roving is mostly a shade of dark purple, but also has hints of fuchsia, blue and pinks. So pretty!
On my knitting needles I am working on a scarf by Stephen West, Spectra. I recently flew out to Maryland to visit Tim. While there we went up to Lancaster (one of our favorite spots) and of course stopped by Lancaster Yarn Shop. The owner Wendy had this shawl on display. Its been on my queue (my list of projects to make on ravelry) for a long time now. I decided to get the yarn and make it up in blues and purples... I am seeing a purple theme today. The wedges in the scarf change colors while the edges remain in blue. I have to do over 80 wedges and don't think I am even to 20 yet... Hopefully with all this knitting time it will fly by!
You can see my mom's feet in the background while getting treatment.
The scarf is curvy and hopefully will hang that way once all is said and done.
I hope you all enjoyed my knitting update. I can't wait to show off the finished items.
Just recently I have been introduced to nutritional yeast. One of the families I nanny for use it on toast for the kids, but call it "cheese". After all, what kid wants to eat something called nutritional yeast over cheese? tricky! My mom is extremely limited on what she can eat and last week tried nutritional yeast in a "macaroni and cheese" meal. She can't have grains, dairy, sugars or meat. So the mac n cheese was good, but nothing like real mac n cheese. Moving on... this morning I decided to try the "cheese" on my toast and all I can say is yum! This stuff is good! Not only does it have a cheesy taste, but it also has many benefits. One serving (I believe is 2 Tablespoons- more than enough for 2 slices of toast) is a complete protein! This is tremendously helpful to my mom who is limited in her protein choices. It is low in both fat and sodium, and a great source of vitamins, especially the B-complex vitamin, as wel as folic acid, selenium, and zinc. Some producers of nutritional yeast offer it fortified with Vitamin B12. It is used by many vegans who are looking for additional protein and vitamins. Nutritional yeast can be found in the bulk section of most health food stores. Luckily we have a plethora of them here in Santa Cruz.
Even if nutritional yeast didn't have any benefits, it is tasty enough to hold its own. The fact that it includes multiple benefits makes it extra impressive. If you have never tried nutritional yeast, I recommend you get a small bit to try it. There is nothing scary about it, except the thought of running out!
