What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?
Kitty throw
I finally ran too low on yarns to continue, so I have ordered some more – 500g cones in the required colours. There will be plenty of yarn to spare, to go in my stash for other projects. Until it arrives, I am using the bits and pieces I’ve got left to make some more kitty motifs, and if it doesn’t come after that, I shall go back to my knitting UFO and start on the final sleeve.
Christmas gifts
Socks
My sister in law, who is a great knitter, has made me a gorgeous pair of warm blue socks. They are really soft, and feature a star design. I can’t do this sort of fancy knitting and stick to multi-coloured Fair Isle-style knitting in stocking stitch, although I have made socks in the past. She tells me she has made them for all the family, so she must have been knititng for months!
Puzzled kitties
Our Goddaughter gave us a really fun jigsaw. After what I’ve been saying over the past few weeks as I’ve admired the jigsaw efforts of fellow WOYWWers, that I’m hopeless at jigsaws, this was quite a challenge. My hubby set up a table in the bedroom in the flat (away from the kitties who would have made short work of it), we spent two or three hours on it.
Here it is after unboxing.
My hubby, utterly exhausted, after we’d completed it!
The completed puzzle. Can you spot the single dog? He’s seriously outnumbered by all the kitties.
A detail shot.
You can see that the pieces are not interlocking, which meant they tended to shift around a bit as we were doing it. It would probably have been easier if I’d remembered to put a cloth on the table first. I thought it might be rather fun to mount the whole thing on a board and hang it as a picture. My hubby says we must do it again soon!
Food
Blender woes and blender wows!
Blender woes again… After all the shenanigans at the beginning of last year with my high speed blender, the replacement has now gone seriously wrong and is out of commission. I’m really fed up with this. This blender is an essential piece of my kitchen kit and is in daily use. At least I had my new small one (Sage Boss-to-Go) to tide me over, but given how long it took to get the problem sorted out last time, my hubby suggested I bought a new blender as a replacement, and then if they do fix it/replace it, I shall have a spare for emergencies. So I decided to bite the bullet (no, not the Bullet blender!) and go for a Vitamix. Vitamix is a well-known brand of high speed blenders made in the USA.
This proved more complicated than I’d imagined. There are so many models, and I had to watch loads of videos and look up a lot of comparison sites before I finally made up my mind. I’ve gone for the A2500 Vitamix which is not the absolute top of the range but perfect for my needs, and got a good price on Amazon. It arrived on Monday.
The particular model I have chosen is quite versatile in that you can get different attachments that will run on it. If I eventually want to get the Vitamix food processor attachment once it’s available in the UK, it will fit this model. I do have a food processor and I’m pretty much happy with that for now, but at least I’ve got the option. I did order the small blender cups and bowls to go with the Vitamix, which I think will be very useful, and these have now arrived as well.
Unboxing – really exciting!
The tamper goes through the lid in place of the lid plug, and you move it around, pushing the food down into the blades when necessary. It makes for a more efficient blend if you are making things like nut butters.
Here is the blender, installed on the counter and ready for use. (The Sage Boss-to-Go is on the left.)
The container is wider and shorter than on my old blender, and they say it is designed to go underneath most wall cabinets. Mine does fit under – just! There’s about 1/8 inch to spare! This is good because it means the whole blender has a smaller footprint on your counter.
If anyone else has a Vitamix, I’d be very interested to hear what model they have got, and how they like it. The one I have chosen has a lot more features and options than my old blender. I have now tried it out in various ways and so far it is totally brilliant – and much better than the old one. It is also quite a bit quieter. All I can say so far is “Wow!!!”
The first thing I did was to grind a fresh batch of flax seeds and it did this in about 10 seconds! I made my electrolyte/rehydration drink for the following day, using the blender cup attachment. This turns the Vitamix into a personal blender, like a Bullet, and like my new Sage Boss-to-Go blender which I am now rather regretting having bought, because the Vitamix is so much better! I also made a fresh batch of almond milk and there was no problem with that. After 1 minute of blending, I think the remaining pulp is finer than I was getting before.
Finally, I decided to make a batch of green juice. I have started following a YouTube channel called Life is No Yoke, run by a young couple who are really dynamic and fun. They run a business in the States, selling Vitamix blenders, and they’ve got a load of helpful advice and recipes, which are printable from their website. This is a really good source of information to have discovered. There is masses of other stuff out there as well – far more than with my old blender, because Vitamix has been around for a long time and has a huge following. I am really pleased to have joined this international family of blendaholics!
The green juice recipe is called “Every Day Green Juice.” It’s a whole-food recipe, unlike juice that you produce out of a juicer which separates out and wastes all the fibre which is so nutritious. You get the lot in a whole-food juice. I’m not usually a great fan of smoothies and blended juices, because it is generally better to eat the whole, unprocessed fruit or veg, but I wanted to give it a try, and it does have very good reports. Nice for a treat anyway.
On the video about it, the young man described the many benefits of green juice and he was really amusing! One of the things he said was that it made your eyes go green. I looked in the mirror after my first glass (which was delicious, by the way).
I never expected it to happen this fast!!!!! Do you think my whole skin will go green next? Or maybe my hair?
Reminds me of this that I downloaded from the Internet ages ago…
I tell you, going whole-food plant-based is a highly risky business… Lol! You never know WHAT might happen. (You might even get healthier…) Some people might argue that it has had a detrimental effect on my sense of humour, but I could not possibly comment on that.
Here are the ingredients for the Every Day Green Juice, with a few more bits and pieces added for good measure – basically you can add what you want, what you’ve got, as long as it isn’t red or orange because that will turn the juice brown – including anything that’s a bit wilted or damaged – just cut off any bad bits and you’re good to go. It’s a good way of using up any bits and pieces that you might otherwise throw away.
You load the ingredients into the blender container in order, with the water at the bottom, then the fruit, then the leafy stuff and lastly the seeds, adding ice at the end if you want. This means that the stuff will all blend nicely without causing an air pocket around the blades. At the end of blending, it tends to be very frothy, and all you have to do is run it for half a minute or so on the slowest speed, and this disperses the foam. My old blender was not capable of running slowly enough to do this.
Here’s the juice I made. There was enough for a Mason jar and a blender cup full. This cup is part of my Sage Boss-to-Go blender – it has a very nice little spout to drink or pour out of. The blender cups that came with the Vitamix are also very nice, but they are taller and thinner.
Super delicious juice. Full of antioxidants and nutrients. Watch out for the green-eyed monster.
Fresh pineapple
On Monday night, doing a last-minute check on my online grocery order, they said the pineapple I’d ordered was not available, so my hubby went out next morning to pick up a few things for me, including two pineapples. When the groceries were delivered, there was a pineapple after all, so I ended up with three!
Prepping the pineapple with the special tool is great. You cut the top and bottom off the pineapple, and screw it down through the centre. It peels and cores the pineapple, leaving the edible part in the form of a spiral that you can then cut into rings or chunks. In this picture you can see that I have sliced the core. The pineapple tool is on the right, and at the back is the box of chunks and juice, and a small container of pulp that I scraped off the inside of the skin. I eat a small bowl of fresh pineapple each day with my breakfast.
A couple of weeks ago a friend directed me to a recipe she thought I might be interested in – Tepache, a home-made Mexican pineapple beer. It is made from the core and rind of pineapple, with added water and sugar and some spices, and you put it in a jar and allow it to ferment. They said it would be ready after 48 hours but this certainly wasn’t the case for me – possibly because the kitchen was too cold. After a couple of days I put it in the airing cupboard, and after a week, some fermentation has certainly taken place but it’s not ready yet.
I decided to start another batch this week, and used the sliced core above, along with the pineapple rind, cut into chunks. This time, I added a tablespoon of kombucha (fermented tea) to give it a bit of a boost to get started, and we’ll see how it goes.
You are supposed to use a special kind of sugar, but this is all I’ve got – a natural cane sugar, which I use for my kombucha and in the bread that I make. In the end, it’s just the glucose that gets fermented anyway, and anything else is just for flavour, so it should work.
I’m always ready to experiment with something new! I like the idea of making use of the rind and core anyway, because this is usually just dumped in the compost. I used some of the slices of pineapple core in my green juice too – the Vitamix is well able to deal with it.
Clothes
You may remember a year ago, we attended a Tudor banquet in Cornwall at Christmas time. I decided to make a Tudor gown to wear, and found some glorious second-hand curtains on Ebay that I used for this. It was always my intention to wear the separate skirt in the winter – it is quite thick material, and lined. Here it is, paired with the dark red jumper I showed you a couple of weeks ago.
Here is the Tudor gown as I originally made it.
Here is the dark red jumper worn with a pair of patchwork trousers I got in an ethnic shop either in Totnes or Teignmouth (can’t remember which) a couple of years ago.
I’m also wearing one of my infinity scarves, and the felt slippers I got in Totnes, that I embroidered with felt appliqué flowers in the autumn of 2019.
Kitties
Not a lot of feline activity this week, apart from a great deal of sleeping in this cold weather! Here is Lily with my hubby, both watching TV very intently. Lily is quite the telly addict.
How are your New Year resolutions going? So far so good with mine. I’m always very successful in keeping my first, and most important one: “Tomorrow, I am going to stop procrastinating.”
Have a great creative week, everybody.
OOh that is so good to know that the blender is worth the money. I have seen a few being hawked at big box stores where they set up people who are trying to demo them but, they are always surrounded by a crowd and you know talking into head set microphones and such. ( as an introvert I tend to just keep walking from things like that) not being a puzzle person, I think that one would have made my eyes cross long before it was finished so, that was interesting to see it completed too. and I did nod and laugh over the ending joke too. 🙂 ~Stacy #41
I always have to make a cuppa before I settle in to read your post! Looks like the blender was a close call – it appears to JUST fit under the cabinets LOL! Vitamix is a great name, possibly one of the original blenders way back, and powerful, so you should be happy with it. I think your Tudor gown is fab – and it must be warm. Our house is always interesting to heat, as it used to be two houses that were combined into one, and not particularly well, I suspect. We def. have hot and cold spots even with the new boiler. ah well. That puzzle look a hoot. Well done getting it finished so quickly!
I also have to say those slippers are stunning. You are nothing if not colourful – right down to those green eyes LOL!
Happy WOYWW 2021!
Mary Anne (1)
Hi Shoshi, lots of fun stuff in your post this week. Especially loving the green eyes, and the carrot foot! I have a juicer, I think it is parked next to the breadmaker …. I did have a phase of making green juices and fresh fruit juice a few years ago, but the job of cleaning the machine was a chore that outweighed the pleasure in drinking the juice. Great jigsaw – I can’t spot the dog. I love the photo of your husband once the jigsaw was completed. I will tackle one of my jigsaws soon. Another lockdown will no doubt ensure I have plenty of free time, as our grandchildren cannot visit us, much to their dismay! Perfect time for me to redecorate my craft room though- and work in a large area for quilt making and jigsaws! Very colourful slippers and patchwork trousers. Your ensembles are always put together so well. Hope your yarn arrives soon and you can get back to the kitty throw.
Have a lovely week, Heather xx #14
That puzzle looks rather challenging – I can’t see the dog – but I do see a bum hole, which could belong to a dog LOL! That blender looks seriously professional and when someone’s using it as much as you do, the cost doesn’t matter. I’ve got a cheap one but we hardly ever use it – only for banana milkshakes. Your green eyes look pretty freaky! Good that you can recycle the Tudor outfit for everyday use – people would give you a funny look if you walked around dressed like Anne Boleyn out of context. I remember your funky slippers – good to see them again! Lily looks adorable watching TV – it seems she’s really watching it. Happy New Year Shoshi – hope you’re keeping safe!
Loving your jigsaw might have to have a look out for one like that myself.
Super slippers so richly colourful.
Happy New Year BJ#24
Love the cat puzzle! How unusual the pieces don’t interlock! We have 3 Vitamix blenders at church, they are well loved but I don’t know the models. Great outfits!
Have a great week!
Carol N #30
Hi Shoshi! I laughed at the vaccine joke, so true!! Good for you for getting a good blender, you obviously need one! My blender was a wedding present 36 years ago, still works. But doesn’t fit under my counter – nice to know that some designers are actually thinking! I got an air fryer for Christmas, not something you would probably use a lot? But after a few not so great tries I finally made pork chops in it last night and they were perfect! So there’s hope for it yet. I did make a very nice potato-onion and kielbasa dinner with it the other night. Did your eyes really go green? Or were they already that gorgeous colour? I LOVE your embroidered slippers, I remember when you got them and started working on them. So talented! And the Tudor dress is amazing, and that you can use parts of it afterwards! Say hi to the kitties for us, Mittsy and Inky are sleeping a lot these days too, after their initial run in the snow at 8am. Have a wonderful week! Lindart #35 PS- I love the cat puzzle!
We eat tons of fruit and veg Shoshi, it just doesn’t do it for me squelching it all into a drink, but then again some folk don’t like to eat it.
Moving swiftly on haha.
I always admire your sense of style for textures and colours in your outfits. Lovely to see your combinations.
Take good care of you and hubby.
Love Lynn xxx 20
not sure how I missed this post, although I did have trouble scrolling down to find the entry point!! are the green eyes for real? how amazing… I can’t believe that Tudor outfit was a year ago, although of course it must have been! it’s true, time does fly! Take care and stay safe.. Helen #2
Terrific post! you received some nice presents ~ handmade socks and a kitty puzzle ~ Love them both! speaking of love…I LOVE my Vitamix! we have the 5200 model VM103 ~ I think we’ve owned it for 7 yrs ~ I think the blades might need sharping/replacing because my family tends to not put enough liquid in before turning on high ~ but the motor is strong and we have definitely used it a lot! You will love it. Your little purple slippers are adorable and so are you! ~ Blessings & Happy New Year ~
Hi Shoshi, loving the slippers, gorgeous. The socks are lovely too and look as though they would be lovely and warm. You dressing up session looks like fun too but most of all I love the jigsaw, no wonder hubby is tired out after putting that together. Wishing you a Happy New year and lets hope it’s a safe one too. Hugs, Angela x19x
Great review of the new Vitamix and its uses Shoshi. I do so love those slippers that you embellished and embroidered. The kitty puzzle is amazing and those socks look very cosy. Meow to the kitties, stay safe and Happy WOYWW. Sarah #3.
It’s so frustrating when equipment you rely on goes wrong! I’m glad you’ve managed to get a suitable replacement though.
Loved the joke about the vaccine, totally true!
Happy WOYWW!
Morti #23
Hi again Shoshi – to answer your question about the glueing of the puzzle, I used Ravensburger puzzle conserver, but I think it’s just a thin PVA glue, nothing more. It has a sponge applicator, but it doesn’t work very well if you ask me. It would be better if it came in a pot and you could apply it with a brush because it needs to seep into the cracks to glue everything together. I mean it does work but I needed three coats and it was difficult to get the stuff out of the bottle. You need to apply the glue to the front of the puzzle with something underneath to prevent it from sticking to the surface you’re working on. (I used baking parchment.) Someone suggested that you should also apply the glue to the back, but it’s not a good idea if it seeps through. It almost ruined my puzzle, but luckily I was able to scrape it off. I also added a final layer of a satin sealer which gave it a nice sheen. Do NOT stick the puzzle to anything that might warp (card, foam board, etc). I’ve done this once and it warped terribly, even after I glued another puzzle on the flip side, thinking it will even out the surface – it didn’t! It’s a trial and error process, I’m afraid. Once you glue the pieces together as described above, it lies nice and flat – you can then maybe put it in a frame – that’s probably the best solution if you can find a suitable frame for it.
That is an amazing puzzle, your husband looks as if he needs time to recover before you do it again 🙂
You have some great colourful outfits . I would love to have a nice warm long skirt. It is so hard to buy long skirts, I did think of getting a dressmaker to make me some, not sure how expensive that would have been?
Have a great week Angela #13
….I’m still laughing. I must tell daughter about green eyes…she’s been a vegan now for nearly two years! and she’s got me on her oat milk. I LOVE that kitty puzzle, I’m going to have to find that one! yes! hubby agrees with you about the pub, open them all up and mix in the vaccine with the beer…or all drinks! Brilliant idea. I must tell my brother inlaw. He owns a couple of pubs, which again, have had to close. Be safe stay well, Happy new year and happy woyww ((Lyn)) #25
Hi Shoshi, I love your slippers, the embroidery is fantastic. I used to drink a lot of green juice but stopped when I had a panic about sugar – you’ve reminded me how good it is. My eyes never turned that bright a green though, LOL!
Your kitty puzzle is great but a new level of trickiness, since it doesn’t interlock. Thea says Meow to Lily and Ruby
stay safe, hugs
Lynnecrafts 15
What an incredible puzzle – we had one a bit like that with pieces of all random shapes but it was of the House of Lords so was all dark browns and reds – a total nightmare to do – we only did it once. I love all your clothes and interesting to hear about the blender. Sorry I’m late. Wishing you a happy belated WOYWW. Take care and stay safe. With love & God Bless, Caro xxx (#10)
What green eyes! I love the Totnes slippers!
Sorry I am so late with my visit.
Happy New Year and happy WOYWW!
Susan #6
Hello, Soshi! So good to see you at my door last week. I’m way late getting ’round but you saw what I was dealing with and know what I’ve been up to. Sounds like you’ve had your share of mechanical issues as well but that the new Vita should do just fine. I will say I love your hair but don’t think green is the way to go 😉 The puzzle looked interesting. ‘Bout went cross-eyed trying to find the dog LOL. I’ll stick to the one laying on my feet under the table at the moment. Those socks do look cozy and I’m betting she was able to knit up the whole lot in record time. If it’s like crochet, once you get a rhythm going, things move quickly. That tudor outfit is gorgeous! So rich and perfectly done. Hugs to you and hubby. Creative Blessings! Kel #29