Felted Skulls and Yeast Leavings

My younger son (a grown man, mind you) asked if I would knit and felt a gearshift knob cover to match the We Call Them Pirates Hat that I knitted for him last winter (Adrian Bazilia's wonderful free pattern: http://www.helloyarn.com/wecallthempirates.htm ). His gearshift knob is metal, and it has been consistently below zero for awhile, so his fingies are cold, I guess.

It was a very quick knit, and the cover came out pretty much perfectly. I adapted the We Call Them Pirates skull pattern to a 14 st repeat, got out some Knit Picks Palette yarn (hurrah for a large stash), size 3 needles, and CO 56 sts. I worked the lower border, 2 skull repeats, and then decreased, working vertical stripes, until there were 16 sts left. The unfelted cover was about 4 1/2" long, and 3 3/4" wide. I hand-felted it in the sink until my fingers were pruney, and it shrunk to about 3 1/2" long and 2 1/2" wide, and it slips over the metal knob snugly and perfectly. He hasn't seen it yet, and I don't know if he'll want me to trim the excess and tighten the bottom, or if the longer cover will work. I think he'll like it, and it'll be a good insulation from the cold metal. And it matches his hat (he doesn't read my blog, so he won't know I'm making fun of him. He is actually quite hard to knit for, so I'm happy to be able to make him something that he will use).

BTW- the flare at the bottom of the gear shift cover is the result of not stranding the first few rounds. I did it on purpose, so the cover would come on and off easily, but the propensity for solid color rows to shrink differently is something to remember if you want to felt Fair Isle knitted items.

And I was pretty sure you all really wanted to see the goopy sediment left after racking the Hard Lemonade to a clean carboy for the final settling. I was right. Right?

Yarny Stuff

Whoa... and I thought this was a wine blog...

There is small wine progress to report- I'm going to rack the Riesling to a clean carboy tomorrow because there is a goodly amount of sediment in the bottom of the current jug. It's clearing nicely, but has a ways to go before it's transparent, much less clear. The Hard Lemonade specific gravity is nearly where it needs to be for me to stop the fermentation. I'll probably do that tomorrow as well, and then let it settle until Tuesday, at which time I will sweeten and freeze it, so we can enjoy it over Christmas. The Merlot is bubbling away merrily in the bucket and will go into a carboy in a couple of days. We won't start any more wines until after The Holidays because having a loosely covered 5-gallon bucket of fermenting juice sitting on a chair in the kitchen with 15 guests (5 of them ages 7-9) is just too much temptation for Fate to resist.

But, back to yarn. I finished the Monkey Socks, and they're gorgeous, as all Monkey Socks are (pattern on Knitty). I worked a short row heel and a star toe, but otherwise, followed the pattern (which is becoming easier- I still refer to the chart to keep my place, but mostly I can go with the flow of the repeat). The yarn is Fleshy superwash from Beyond Basic Knits (link in Stash Enhancers). It has a fantastic hand, the colors are lovely, and the socks are wonderfully soft. I wish I could keep them.

I am down to the heel of the Valkyrie Aunt Helen Variation Socks. You all know how much I love Twisted Fiber Arts yarns (and I missed the most recent update totally... bummer...) and this yarn is no exception. I really like the Aunt Helen Variation pattern (K 4 rnds, next rnd: *YO, K 2, pass the YO over the 2 knit stitches*, rep around), but I think it might be more effective if I worked the YO thing with a couple of plain knit stitches in between. It's a great texture, but I think it would *show* more if it was interspersed along the row, rather than solidly around it. I'll give that notion a try on a different pair. As it is, I do love these socks.

And I knitted another handspun ribbed hat. This one will come in handy if the recipient has to hide out in the wilds of sculpted berber carpeting. He'll blend right in.

Thursday Tab- Wonder Cut and Color Bride and Groom, 1971 #9605

Okay, so I like coloring too...

and how about that hair tumor???

I got nuthin'

It doesn't happen often, but I have nothing to report today. No knitting that I can show you. No wine progress that isn't the same as what I've posted before, except Merlot-colored. No weather related stories that involve anything but it being -10(F) but not so bad for all that. Nuthin'

So, here are some Lol Cats to amuse. All from I Can Has Cheeeburger (http://icanhascheezburger.com/ ).

Merlot and Podcasts

No progress to report on the Monkey socks because I'm working on a project I can't talk about, but I hope to get back to them in a day or so.

In the meantime, the Hard Lemonade went into the 3-gallon carboy this morning (SG 1.010- a little lower than necessary). There is a chance that we can drink this by Christmas because all it has to do is finish fermenting. It doesn't have to clairfy, I just need to let the dead yeast settle out a bit because we're not bottling this mixture. I'll add lemonade concentrate to the wine (divided out into several batches- regular Lemonade, Strawberry Lemonade, etc) before freezing it in buckets. We serve it by mixing scoops with whatever (pop, orange juice, champagne- it's all good). Anaerobic fermentation could take a week, or it could finish in a couple of days. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes. Hard Lemonade is as close to instant gratification as you can get in winemaking.

Note the Riesling carboy in the top picture- the wine is getting that *glossy* look, which means the sediment is dropping already. We'll rack it to a clean carboy in a week or so.

I started a 5 gallon batch of Merlot this morning, using Alexander's Sun Country Merlot Concentrate and the recipe on the can (except that I don't add bentonite to the wine because we use a different fining method. Bentonite is a clay that attracts sediment). I don't think I've posted pictures of the yeast starter yet- the early pic is the warmed Merlot juice with the yeast nutrient and yeast added. The second, is the starter, an hour later, with the yeast awake and multiplying. I stirred it into the bucket shortly thereafter.

And on another subject entirely, I'm really enjoying listening to Pride and Prejudice on the treadmill, interspersed with episodes of Old Time Radio Mysteries. My first, an Ellery Queen, managed to surprise me with the ending. I thought I had it sussed out from the beginning, not so much from the clues, but from the mystery conventions, and social proscriptions of the time. I was totally wrong. I love when that happens.

Monkey and a Half

As the wind howled last evening, I got as far as the heel on the Monkey Mate. I do love this pattern, but I'm ready to knit something else when these socks are finished. Pattern mods: short row heel, and star toe.

The Great Snow Rearranger blew all night, but by morning the wind had died,and we could again see further than 20'. I am so glad that my husband talked me into buying a Carhartt jacket in the fall (back when it seemed like it would never get this cold)- it does a fantastic job of keeping the wind out. And my 20 year old Sorell boots still work their magic. And I know this because we had to go into town during the worst of the storm. Not that this dry powder is any good for snowmen, but I think I need some snow pants too. Just in case we get a fat, wet snowfall.

It's -15 (F) at the moment, but with no wind, and a bright (very bright) sun, it feels a great deal warmer than yesterday's -5. I'd say we got about 6" of new snow, though it's hard to tell out in the country, what with it being piled up here and scraped bare there. This is going to be an interesting winter, not as interesting as the Winter of '97 (when we had a full out blizzard every week from November through April), but more interesting than the shirtsleeve winters we've been used to lately. Good thing I have a lot of yarn on hand to keep me busy. Oh wait, maybe I don't have enough, and should buy more. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Wino

Had a bit of routine wine work to do today, handy since doing anything outside is totally out of the question.

The Riesling reached the proper SG (.098), and the sediment was starting to settle on its own, as you can see in the picture. If I was patient, I could just let the wine settle and clear, with no additives. It would take a year, but there would be no sulfites in the wine. Sulfites don't give me headaches, and I am not patient.

So, I sanitized a new carboy and the siphon, and put (grunt, heave, strain back muscles) the full carboy on the dining room table, trying not to jostle the sediment too much. Then I racked the wine, leaving about 1" of sludge on the bottom of the old carboy. That sludge was active yeast. The alcohol content of the wine hadn't exceeded it's genetic limit, it just ran out of sugar to eat. If I added it to a new batch of juice, it would be up and bubbling in an hour. If I added more sugar to the riesling, it would be bubbling again as well. In fact, adding more sugar and yeast is how champagne and sparkling wines are made.

I stirred in 1/4 tsp of sodium metabisulfite to kill the yeast, and then gently stirred in 1 cup of Sparkolloid mixture to clarify the wine. We usually use Isinglass, but Northern Brewer said that Sparkolloid was the best clarifier they'd found. I'll be curious to see how well and quickly it works. The last task was topping off the wine to minimize the air space under the fermentation lock (if I had a bottle of home made Riesling on hand, I would have used that, but alas, it's all gone. So I used filtered water). Now we just wait for the wine to clear- that can take 3 weeks or 3 months, or it can take a year, depending on the wine, the clarifying agent, the temp, and whether or not I chanted the proper magic charm when I started this enterprise. We'll rack the wine several times as it clarifies- whenever there is an inch or more of sediment in the bottom of the carboy. When there is no more dropping out, and the wine is crystal clear, it's done. At which time it can be sweetened (if desired) and bottled.

The Hard Lemonade is bubbling and slowly dropping SG (1.050 this morning- it has to be 1.020-1.030 when it goes to anaerobic fermentation). The foam is totally different than the foam on the grape wines, which I find fascinating (I amuse easily). Next up, I think a 5 gallon batch of Merlot, after the Hard Lemonade goes into the carboy.