The Joy of the Journey

I won a cool prize last year at the Bendigo Sheep & Wool Show, for a hand-spun and hand-knitted project, and it whetted my appetite for fame and accolade amongst my knitting/spinning brethren. I've been thinking about what to make for next year.

For a couple of years I have had some beautiful suri fleeces, some given and some sold to me by a breeder in the Southern Highlands. I've been meaning to do something with them, and I think I have found just the thing.

Scour, comb, re-scour, rinse, condition, rinse, repeat until finally white!

In numerous of my recent spinning experiences, working with raw fleeces instead of processed top, I have realised, mostly through doing it the *wrong* way, that the up-front preparation is diabolically important. The effort you put in to the scouring/carding part of the process reflects directly and I think exponentially upon the quality of your finished yarn. 

This had already had at least one wash, if not two.

Getting cleaner

Clean and dry, shining in the sun and ready to spin

Alpacas are grubby beasts. They like to roll. They are always *full* of dust. In the case of suris, who have silken dreadlocks, they are also full of burrs, grass etc (known as 'vegetable matter' or VM). Scouring the fleeces is a long and arduous process.

In commencing to prep these suri fleeces, I am putting an intensive amount of effort in. However long it takes, it will take. 

To date I've spent three days on the first fleeces (there are three destined for this project). So far I have only 50g of cleaned, dried and carded fleece. I think it still needs to be hackled before being spun. There is another batch still being soaked, which I'll hopefully attend to tomorrow.

Carded and ready to spin

I'm seriously excited about this project. Stay tuned for progress reports.

Oh, and it was just the perfect weather for sitting on the grass in the sunshine, mucking about with a watery project!

The jacaranda is in bud! 

Minestrone

Yesterday was the football (Rubgy League) Grand Final, and the local team here was in it. Much excitement everywhere, including the male inhabitants of this house. The female inhabitants were of a much more 'Meh' inclination.

Charlie stole my knitting spot!

Off went the boys to sit in howling wind and sometimes rain in the football stadium for the entire afternoon. The girls were delighted to have the house to themselves. There was a fire. There were pyjamas. There was tea, knitting and audiobooks. And there was Minestrone.

Recently I have not resorted nearly so much to hard and fast recipes, but have begun to cook by the seat of my pants.  Shake the fridge, see what falls out, and make a meal out of it. Sometimes the results are unorthodox, but the success rate vastly outweighs the failure rate.

Minestrone is one of my absolute faves. Chuck a bunch of things in a pot, walk away for most of the day, come back and eat something warming and wonderful. Use up all the odds and ends in the veggie crisper. Meat optional. There is a basic guideline but no firm rules at all. Every time I make it, it is different.

Yesterday, the ingredient list looked like this:

Amazingly, the bunnies haven't found their way into the herb pots yet

Stage one:
1 swede
1 parsnip
1/4 head of celery
1 small red capsicum
2 small onions
selection of fresh herbs (oregano and parsley) from the herb garden in the front yard
approx 3 litres of water
salt
1 jar of passata (tomato puree) and 1 can of diced tomatoes
* * *
Stage two: 
1 potato, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 cup black-eyed beans
1/2 cup dried split peas
1 cup of green cabbage, cut to 1cm-squared pieces
* * *
Stage three:
1/2 cup risoni pasta

I threw the Stage One ingredients in the crockpot for a few hours, but I decided that it wasn't cooking fast enough, and as I was home and around the kitchen, I could be trusted to tend a stove-top pot, so it was transferred to my biggest saucepan and set on simmer.

The swedes take a long time to tenderise. When they were done I blended the soup with a stick blender. After that the second set of ingredients went in. The liquid level needs to be checked quite a bit - I would say I put another at least 1 litre of water in, progressively.

When the beans and cabbage were tender, finally I cooked the risoni in a separate saucepan, drained and added it to the soup.

We made garlic breads, and served with a dusting of parmesan cheese. It was pretty fantastic. Just the thing for a midwinter-like lazy Sunday!