podcasts

Episode 110: Be Mine

February 14, 2016April 10, 2016 by Sara

cover110 This episode features the following segments: The Back Porch, The Front Porch, Ever-expanding Skill Set, and Off the Shelf. I hope your weekend is especially sweet! I’ve been cooking and baking with jam and jelly this week. You will hear about the delectable cookies in the cover photo, and an Asian-inspired dish: Triple Ginger Turkey Meatballs. I have completed the embroidery on my multi-tasker tote, and I continue to read The Subversive Stitch. Today I share an excerpt from Chapter 4: The Domestication of Embroidery.

The Back Porch

crane3 — Crane motif from a book of Chinese embroidery designs — this one was intended for a woman’s robe.

The Front Porch

Paper Cranes by Lori Versaci
Hediye by Ysolda Teague

Ever-expanding Skill Set

Triple Ginger Turkey Meatballs

Last night, I improvised an Asian-inspired recipe using blackberry jelly. Beware: all measurements are approximate.

thistle — Here is the dish plated up with soba noodles, carrots, onions and snow peas, and a sprinkle of slivered almonds.

For the meatballs:

1 lb. ground turkey
1 c. puffed millet
2 small eggs
1/4 c. blackberry jam
2 tblsp. grated ginger
1 tsp. ground ginger
soy sauce
worchester sauce
dried cilantro
salt & pepper

I mixed ingredients together and created small meatballs, then baked them in the oven at 350 on a foil-lined cookie sheet until cooked through — about 15 minutes.

For the glaze:

1 cup blackberry jelly
2 tblsp. brown sugar
1 tblsp. “better than bouillon” beef base
2 tblsp. diced candied ginger
1 tblsp. grated ginger
1 tsp. ground ginger
soy sauce
salt & pepper

I brought ingredients to a boil and stirred with a whisk to incorporate. When the meatballs were done, I put them in the glaze to stay warm and soak up flavor.

Off the Shelf

The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine by Rozsika Parker

Arrows and Doorways

The design for this super-cozy cowl was inspired by textiles in a hotel lobby. Concentric geometric shapes kept playing in my mind until finally I was able to chart the pattern and get it onto my needles. The interplay of this chevron-like patterning has a mesmerizing effect–while you’re knitting and when you wear the finished accessory.

Knit up a cowl with yarn from your stash, adding some magical new mini-skeins from your advent calendar, or exchange leftover yarn with a friend. The design invites frequent color changes, and makes an ideal knit for the advent season. It could be just as striking knit with two high-contrast colors.

While most cowls of this type are seamed within a band of a single color, this pattern incorporates a technique called stranded donut grafting, an incredibly clever and completely seamless graft that allows you to maintain colorwork patterning so that your starting and ending rounds are undetectable. Really! With many possibilities for color play and a new technique to add to your skill set, this cowl pattern is really an opportunity for knitters to level-up!

NEW PATTERN DESIGN!

ONE DARK BLUE NIGHT

This hat is the third in a series of patterns inspired by teachings in Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves. This time, I drew inspiration from Estés’ retelling of a Japanese tale, Tsukina Waguma or “The Crescent Moon Bear,” in which a young woman travels to the cave of an incredibly intimidating and ferocious bear. She makes several journeys to the cave, leaving food and quickly retreating, until “one dark blue night,” she musters the courage to stand her ground and ask for what she seeks--one hair from a moon-shaped patch on the bear’s chest--which she is granted. The young woman returns, triumphant, to the old healer who has sent her on this quest. She believes this single hair is the magic ingredient in solving the problem that plagues her. She holds it forth, but the healer tosses the hair into the flames. The young woman is in despair until she realizes the true lesson of her quest: that using her determination, courage, and patience, as she did with the crescent moon bear, will help her to confront the challenge at hand.

The moon phase motif of this colorwork hat is meant to capture the magic of a dark blue night--when the moon shines brightly overhead, the frosty air sparkles with possibility, and we succeed in summoning accumulated wisdom from deep within ourselves so that we can apply it to our own healing. Choose colors to conjure a wintery night sky, or select a palette of your signature colors.

Available on Ravelry December 20th.

Yarns at Yin Hoo