WEEK 35 OF YEAR OF PROJECTS (YEAR 9)

It is early (6:30am) here in Arizona.  I have been up for an hour already and am enjoying the quiet that is surrounding me.  The weather people have promised a gorgeous day today.  This means I will be getting my 'stuff' done early so I can enjoy the 73F afternoon promised to us.  

There was knitting done this week, yet, I don't feel like I have a lot to show for it.  This could be because I have 3 shawls on the go, as well as a pair of socks and dishcloths.  Trying to divide my time between all of them makes for slow progress on all of them.  Let's see what they look like.

One dishcloth done and another about 1/4 of the way done for this week.  I only worked on these the 3 days I dog sat.  Well, actually, they only saw attention 2 days as day 3, I spent driving all over the Phoenix Metro area.

Cabled Rosary Prayer Shawl is my Thursday knitting project.  That is the day we have prayer shawl meetings.  It does get my attention the entire day though.  It is a pleasant enough knit and the yarn I am using is so soft.  It is Cascade Yarns "Cotton Club".  60% cotton 40% acrylic.   

High Effect Feather and Fan Shawl is moving along nicely.  This is the shawl I am showing the most amount of love to at this time.  I am hoping to have it completed by the time I go to the Dallas Fiber Fest the first weekend in April.  I wish I could find the ball band of this yarn.  All I remember is I bought it in Las Vegas at the Sin City Yarn Shop.  It said 'Girly Girl' for the color of it.  I think it might be from Zig Zag yarns.  Although they say their skein is only 500 yards and I do believe this one is over 1000 yards and I know it is only 1 skein as the yarn shop wound it up for me.

This is one huge cake of yarn.  See the left hand side of the cake.  That is where she had to wind by hand after the ball winder could no longer accommodate the amount of fiber being wound.  Can you see the texture of this yarn?

It has a nubby feel to it.  It makes for some great looking texture on the item being knitted.  I will say, it was hard to find a pattern with enough airyness (is that a word?) to allow said texture to show through.

The socks and the other shawl did not receive any love this week.  I am sure hubby would love to see the socks get finished.  He loves the hand knitted socks the best.

In other news........................................................

One of the prayer shawl ladies loaned a cookbook to me last week.

So many yummy recipes in this.  It uses 'super foods' in the recipes.  Each recipe will tell you why the super food is being used and what health benefits it will have for you.  The first 60 or so pages tell you all about the science behind each super food also.  I am going to order this cookbook, as well as:

this cookbook.  Same prayer shawl lady loaned this one to me also.  See the little green tabs on the side of this one?  Those are the recipes I have found so far that peaks my interest.  I am about halfway through this one.  Hubby and  are going to try and have 1 meatless meal each week. (Yes, even after Lent is over)  With over 700 recipes in this book, I think I will have plenty of items to choose from to make it happen.

There was an order placed with Thriftbooks last week and I received a few of the books yesterday.  

Since I make most of my daily bread in the bread machine, I am always on the look out for cookbooks to help me expand my bread flavors.  This little book has some very yummy sounding breads in it.  

BUT!!!!!!!!!!!  This book

is the grand daddy of all bread machine cookbooks.  There are 300, yes 300, bread recipes in here.  Most of them call for bread flour as well as gluten which kind of concerns me.  Bread flour already has a higher gluten content than all purpose flour.  I see no reason to add more gluten to it.  I am going to try a few of the recipes without added gluten and see how they go.  I was perusing this one last night and saw where she tells you how to substitute honey for refined sugar in your recipes.  That is a big plus for us.  

After I get this posted I am going to get my day started.  There is 1 load of laundry to do, a loaf of bread to make, 2 dogs needing baths, menus for the week, grocery list and of course knitting.  

Oh, before I forget, I also started reading a new to me author yesterday.  I do not remember who recommended her to me, but I am glad they did.

Another treasure from Thriftbooks.  Kristin Hannah books.  I just started this yesterday and already am in love with the way she writes.  It is a good thing too as I ordered 7 of her books.  They will be excellent for my bedtime reading.  Not too heavy and good character development.

OK, time to get that bread into the bread machine.  I already have a pork roast in the crockpot that will be made into carnitas for dinner tonight.  If time allows, I will make tortillas to go with it.  They are so much tastier than store bought.

Until Next Time.........................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!