Knitting and spinning. The fun never stops.

First day back at the office today and I survived. No problems on the commute (apart from a brief delay on the trip home), I remembered my security badge and keys, and I remembered all my passwords.

And wonder of wonders, I had no voicemail messages at all. That could be explained by the very strongly worded outgoing message I left on my voicemail before leaving work for the holidays. “Don’t even think about leaving me a message, scumbag!” (Okay, it wasn’t quite that bad.) Email, however, was another story. My inbox runneth over.

But all in all, it could have been much worse.

Hey, remember this?

I’m hoping to get back to work on my Hanging Garden Stole within the week.  I’m still working on un-bloggable stuff for a while, but by the weekend I think I’ll have things enough under control that I feel comfortable splitting my time between the unbloggable and the bloggable.

In the meantime, hey, would you like a book?

For reasons I cannot fully explain, I find myself with two copies of Lace From the Attic by Nancie Wiseman. Therefore, I am giving one away.

If you’d like to be entered in the drawing to receive my second copy, leave a comment to this blog entry by Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 4:00pm EST. At that time the noble and revered random number generator will select a winner from among the comments.

Lucy sez:

“And where have you been all day?”

Well, look at that. We are 4 days into 2009 already. I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year celebration!

For me, 2008 ended on a mixed note.

The good: my brother became a grandpa on December 30. (Remember the baby surprise jacket I made a few months ago? That was for his new grandson.)

The bad: on the morning of December 31, a family friend had a large tree fall on her house, which demolished about one-quarter of the house. The good news there is that neither she nor her 2 kitties were injured, but the state of the house is horrific. Work has already started on it, but it will be at least several months before it is habitable again.

I’ve been off from work since December 18, and am reluctantly returning to the office tomorrow. So today I’m getting things ready to return to “normal” life.

I’ve got my new 2009 calendar up at home.

And I’ve got another 2009 calendar ready to take to the office.

Now I’ve got to pick out a new book to take for lunchtime reading.

I’m still working on non-bloggable things, but wanted to show you a photo of one of the lovely things I got for Christmas:

This is laceweight wool that my friend Johanne gave me, along with matching beads. It’s from a shop local to her in Stockholm. Isn’t it gorgeous?

So, all is back to normal here. And Lucy is as usual overseeing everything!

This afternoon I’ve assembled a venison stew for our New Year’s Eve celebration. The ingredients:

2 lbs venison cut in chunks
4 slices of bacon cut in squares
4 medium potatoes cut in squares
6 medium carrots sliced
2 medium onions chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cup flour
2 cups beef stock
1/2 cup catsup
1/4 cup A-1 steak sauce
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 cup burgundy wine
1/2 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced.

I used to work with someone who went hunting regularly, so got venison from him, but this time I ordered venison stew meat online, from Broken Arrow Ranch.

Start by cooking the bacon in a skillet.

When the bacon is crisp, remove it from the skillet with a slotted spoon and brown the venison cubes in the bacon fat.

When the venison is browned all over, remove it to an oven-proof casserole dish that has a cover. I use a Le Creuset dutch oven. Spread it out in the bottom of the casserole and add the fried bacon on top of it.

Sprinkle the salt, pepper, and garlic powder over the meat, and then sprinkle the flour over that.

Saute the carrots and onions in the same pan that you browned the venison in. It you need to, add a bit more oil, and saute until the vegetables are softened slightly.

Spread the sauteed veggies over the flour in the casserole, and place the potato chunks on top of that.

In a bowl or large measuring cup, whisk together the beef stock, mustard, catsup, and A-1 sauce.

Carefully pour this over all in the casserole, and pour the burgundy wine over that. (I actually used Pinot Noir, left over from my Boeuf Bourgignon from last week.)

Put the cover on the casserole and bake in a 325 degree oven for 3 hours. Half an hour before it is done, take the casserole out and add the mushrooms.

Return it to the oven for another half hour.

This is a very yummy stew — I’ve made it in the past and it is always delicious. Here’s hoping tonight’s is no exception!

Lucy sez:

“Wake me when dinner’s ready.”

Happy New Year, everyone! See you in 2009!

Thank you so much for your response to yesterday’s post about the HELPSudan project.

Today? Not too much going on.

I had a hard time getting Little Loopy out of bed.

Rather, getting him off the bed.

Then he pestered Lucy for a while.

And I caught him wrassling with Teddy.

Lucy sez:

“Little Loopy can stay as long as he doesn’t get in my way too much.”

Sudan is an extremely war-torn country, and that for a long time. The current genocide in Darfur, before that the Second Sudanese Civil War, in which over 2 million people were killed have made it difficult for the Sudanese people to go on living normally, like sending their children to school.

HELPSudan was formed by the Lost Boys of Sudan to establish learning facilities, recruit teachers and provide school supplies as well as provide health resources and clean water especially in Southern Sudan. HELPSudan is raising funds for the purpose of starting more schools in Southern Sudan; ”providing pencils and notebooks for hands that might have taken up arms, and an education for minds that once only understood war.”

The Ravelry Darfur group, (http://www.ravelry.com/groups/darfur–end-the-genoicide) thought the knitting and crocheting community could help raising funds, and at the same time making something useful for the Sudanese children.

The object to be made is a pencil case, because they’re easy, quick, inexpensive and light, and because they can be both sold to benefit HELPSudan financially as well as given to the Sudanese school children along with pens and notebooks.

I was contacted by the Ravelry group to see if I would design a pencil case, which I’ve done. Mine is of course created like a toe-up sock. It’s knit in the round and has a diamond texture pattern along it, and is finished with eyelets around the top. You thread a cord through the eyelets and close it that way.

Some other generous designers have made patterns for the project, too, and are publishing them in their own blogs and Ravelry. The current link list of available patterns will be kept and updated at www.worsted-knitt.net.

Once the knitting gets going, there’ll be a voting on the most beautiful pencil case on Flickr with lovely prizes!

The challenge is here: HELPSudan’s next Annual Fund Raiser is just few weeks away. They say some pencil cases would be a great addition to their Silent Auction of arts and crafts… however, HELPSudan have said that they will have need for pencil cases after the event, too, so this KAL/CAL will be active for at least until the end of March. Updates will be published at www.worsted-knitt.net as well as Ravelry Darfur group (http://www.ravelry.com/groups/darfur–end-the-genoicide).

The finished pencil cases can be sent directly to HELPSudan at

HELPSudan
5255 N. Ashland Ave.
Chicago, IL 60640
USA

My pattern is here (in pdf format). No photo, but it’s a pretty easy and quick knit. If you are interested in altering it to knit for this project, please feel free to do so, or you may knit it as is.