Craft time! The Epic Pink Aran Afghan

The beginning was so long ago....

I am a knitter.  I'm just going to throw that out there now because I'm pretty sure that it will be impossible to keep the knitting from bleeding into the other areas of the blog from time to time.  It isn't the craft that I've been doing the longest: that would be cross stitch, which my Daddy taught me when I was around 8. Then came sewing, which I still love and do. But knitting, which I taught myself as I was moving here to Iowa seven years ago, seems to be my one true crafting companion.  It's portable in ways that both embroidery and sewing are not, it's a bit more mindless for those moments when you just need to move your hands, and it's cheaper per hour of entertainment than sewing is by a long shot.

I will admit, I'm not the fastest knitter and I have a lot to improve when it comes to technique.  Knitting teachers would cringe if they could see the way that I still drop the yarn frequently rather than tensioning it properly between my fingers. I'm also not the most persistent knitter when it comes to finishing projects either. Hence, the Epic Pink Aran Afghan.  The pattern is the Great American Aran Afghan, which began as an afghan square contest in Knitter's magazine. It's a 20 block cable and bobble fest with lots of interesting techniques and novel constructions. I've been working on my project for about 5 1/2 years.

It isn't that the afghan is particularly difficult as most of the squares are just cabling and a couple of lace bits, it more that it's modular and well....pink. It was started in a wish for spring and that's mostly when I work on it, averaging maybe 3-4 squares a season before I get called to less wooly pursuits. The squares are too handy a stopping point and offer that sense of having "completed something" when you haven't really completed anything at all. At this point, I'm 17 squares in and with the end in sight, I'm hoping to actually finish this beast some time this year.

To keep me motivated, I thought I would post some of the individual squares and talk about the process of knitting them and walk down knitter's memory lane.

Wheat-less Wednesdays #1: Why Wheatless?

The idea of Wheat-less Wednesdays originates in war time food rationing schemes.  Since wheat is the staple grain of the modern American diet, encouraging people to use alternative grains allowed more wheat to be freed up for feeding the troops.  Also, it was a catchy slogan that went well with Meatless Mondays. I use use them now as a way to encourage myself to use more whole grain alternatives to the usual bread and pasta.

What Wheat-less Wednesdays are not is gluten free.  While some of the recipes may be incidentally without gluten, I won't intentionally make them so.  Number one, the actual number of people who are gluten intolerant or have Celiac's disease is very low and I don't encourage fad diets that mimic someone else's actual disease. Number two, if you really do have gluten intolerances, I would hate to steer you wrong by recommending an ingredient or product with hidden gluten.  Always check the labels of the products you use and don't rely on some random chick on the internets to do it for you.

My first Wheat-less recipe will be Friday's post on making Japanese style short grain rice. Please comeback and check it out!

Money Mondays # 1, Introduction

When I was a wee little growing up in the 80's the heyday of the Home Economist had already largely passed. My vision of a Home Ecomomist was always part Girl Scout leader, part County Extension Officer, and part Betty Crocker.  These were the authors of helpful articles in women's magazines who told you how to get the most out of your 5LB box of Borax or baking soda on cleaning day, gave you the  latest news on home canning from the USDA, and shared the secret to perennials that didn't wilt in the August sun. They ran the healthy, clean, and happy homes seen on television shows set in the 1950's and they did it all on the shoestring of a single-income family budget.

Is it a sexist and somewhat repressed vision of the past that I was daydreaming of? Maybe.  It was never the social dynamic that I was after, but the promise of better living through science.  The main goal of the original home economist was to spread the latest scientific advances to people in rural areas: supporting American agriculture and the drive to be the most modern industrial power on the planet. Now, we live surrounded by the crumbling remnants of our own abandoned dream and I wonder what can be done to bring it back.

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my attempts at replacing the thought that "someone should do something about...." with "I'm going to do something about....".  Starting with learning to become less focused on money and more on happiness. Learning to make do or do without, to value things for the work needed to make them, and to get back to a sense of optimism about the future.