I confess, I make my own hot pads. I like mine just the size of a hand and not too thick and making them is the only way to get them. I should have taken a photo of the ten year old ones I threw out, but they were just so ... so... sad. Worn and torn and stained with holes worn through the middle. It was time for new ones.
At long last I both started and finished Michael Pollan's "Ominvore's Dilemma". WHEW! Here's my review from Goodreads:
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael PollanMy review
rating: 5 of 5 starsWow. It is hard to find the words to describe this book, but there is no doubt that it is a pinnacle of all that Michael Pollan has written before and a major force in the beginning of the 21st Century. It draws a peculiar parallel with the work of Kellogg, who he references, at the beginning of the 20th century, a radically different way of looking at the food we eat.
My flippant reaction to the book is "never eat corn by-products." The follow on is finally understanding the big Cargill sting that took up the Wall Street Journal front pages for months at the end of the 1990s, just what it really means that the cartel of big corn buyers was being accused of price fixing. While trying to explain the food we eat, Pollan reveals one of the great mysteries of the end of the 20th century, the endless supply of American corn and the slow end by debt of every independent farmer that grows it, the vague hand waving of legislators over "farm subsidies", and the growth of the mega grocery store and the unfathomable isles of products that fill it.
This is a book that should be required reading for high school and college students and on the must read list for every concerned and thinking American. Pollan makes his bias very clear and is stunningly even handed and thorough in his research. At the end of the book I am left with far more questions than answers and a deep hunger to see what a new Presidential administration will do.
View all my reviews.
I'm passing this along: PG&E’s ClimateSmart program makes it easy to reduce your home or business' environmental impact. When buildings use natural gas and electricity, they produce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). As a ClimateSmart contributor, you balance out those emissions by making a tax-deductible contribution to fund GHG capture or reduction projects. The average home’s typical contribution is less than $5 a month. http://www.pge.com/climatesmart/charity/
One of the things that periodically makes me smile here in my seaside town are bicycle tourists. We are only a street away from the main west coast cycle route and in the Spring and Fall I often see them, bikes with tidy panniers and loaded, cruising southward.
I've had enough people ask me how I adapted a baby sock pattern to circular knitting that I have decided to publish the pattern.
***********************************************
size to fit ages 3 (6) months
materials : one 2oz ball Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino (makes 2 pair 3 month socks)
set of size 3 double point needles
gauge: 25 stitches and 34 rows to 4in square over st st using size 3 needles
to make (make 2):
With size 3 needles, cast on 34(38) sts.
Rib row *K1, p1; rep from * to end.
Place a marker where the sts join in the round.
Rib another 5(7) rows.
Beg with a k row, work in st st (knit every row)
Work 2(4) rows.
Dec row K4, k2tog, k to last 6 sts, skpo, k4.
Work 5(7) rows.
Dec row K3, k2tog, k to last 5 sts, skpo, k3.
Work 3(5) rows.
Dec row K2, [k2tog, k6(7)] 3 times, k2tog, k2(3). 26(30) sts
Shape heel
Next row K7(8) only, turn.
Next row P14(16), turn.
(Marker should be in center. Leave remaining stitches on spare needles.)
Work 9 rows in st st on these 14(16) sts only. End on P row.
(These directions look kooky, but they are right. It's magic.)
Dec row K10(11), skpo, turn.
Dec row * Sl 1, p6(8), p2tog, turn.
Dec row Sl 1, k6(8), skpo, turn.
Repeat from * one time.
Dec row Sl 1, p6(8), p2tog, turn.
Next row Sl 1, k7(9), pick up and k8 sts evenly along inside edge of heel, k12(14)sts from spare needles, pick up and k8 sts along inside edge of heel, k4(5) sts to marker. 36(40) sts.
K 1 row.
Dec row K10(11), k2tog, k12(14), skpo, k10(11).
K 1 row.
Dec row K9(10), k2tog, k12(14), skpo, k9(10).
K 1 row.
Dec row K8(9), k2tog, k12(14), skpo, k8(9).
K 1 row.
Dec row K7(8), k2tog, k12(14), skpo, k7(8). 28(32) sts.
Work 13(17) rows straight.
Shape toe
Dec row [skpo, k5(6)] 4 times.
K 1 row.
Dec row [skpo, k4(5)] 4 times.
K 1 row.
Dec row [skpo, k3(4)] 4 times.
K 1 row.
Dec row [skpo, k2(3)] 4 times.
2nd size only
K 1 row.
Dec row [skpo, k(2)] 4 times.
Both sizes
Dec row [P2tog] 7 times.
Break yarn, thread through remaining sts, pull up, and secure.
For the next two weeks, is it possible to get more exercise than using a remote control?
