Making a Yarn Cake, Courtesy of Gnat

Because part of my reason for blogging is to keep things readily organized while doing craft projects, here is one idea I am cataloguing for the next time I make a ball of yarn from a purchased skein.  This quick process is called a center pull yarn cake, and allows you to pull yarn from the center of the ball rather than from the outside.  This will eliminate that pesky ball from rolling around on the floor and creating chaos, and resulting in a dog or cat toy when you really just wanted to knit!

This website, hosted by Gnat, has an excellent tutorial worth a read;  I am keeping it handy on my blog because it looks a lot easier than how I have been laboriously performing the maneuver of getting yarn skeins ready for knitting.

At this same website, you can listen to her podcast (I just downloaded it to iTunes for listening on my walk today).  The podcast is called BarknKnit.  She likes dogs, can you tell from the title of her podcast?  I might let Libby and Mercy listen to her on the computer today while she barks and knits and I play internet Scrabble.  woof!

Take the Flower Test :o)

What does your birth flower say about you?

My Quiz Result: Carnation is the birth flower for people who are born in January. The Carnation symbolizes deep love, a friend in need, distinction, beauty, and fascination. If your birth flower is Carnation: You are a sensitive person. You are very protective towards your family and friends. You are very ambitious and aim to achieve big things in life. You are a very helpful friend.

Take this quiz: What does your birth flower say about you?

Take more quizzes, myspace quizzes and fun quizzes on personality, love and other topics.

Spiced Tea that Keeps Forever (low calorie)

Edible gifts are usually appreciated, and it is always a good idea to keep a bit back for your own survival purposes.  More jarred mixes were previous posted here for cocoa, risotto rice and peanut butter cookies.

This is a recipe I found on the internet at the Cook Site that calls for:

2 c. Tang
2/3 cup instant tea
2 (3 oz.) pkgs. lemonade mix
2 1/2 c. sugar

2 tbsp. cinnamon

1 tbsp. cloves

The "old recipes" that I had from back in the day called for Tang (not an easy product to find these days on grocery shelves...and expensive!) and presweetened Kool-Aid, also not available at the three major grocery chains in our neighborhood.  The old recipes also called for lots of sugar.

This as about the closest I could come up with for a general mix to use for gifts to give our produce laden neighbors who were generous to share with us their summer squashes and tomatoes. In rough proportions, this will yield a spiced tea mix for about 8 cups of dry spiced tea, using aspertain sweetened products:

1 can of pre-sweetend instant tea with lemon flavor
2 small cans of Tang ( you really have to look for this product at your local grocery)
1/2 can of pre-sweetened lemonade (or several little packs of Crystal Lite lemonade)
1 Tbsp. cinnamon (no cloves for me)

Add about two tsp. of the mix to a cup of hot water, and the taste of fall is on your tastebuds!