“If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.”

~William Blake, English Poet & Visionary

As some of you may know, I am a knitter. At least, sometimes I am.

I did my first stint of knitting when I was about seven. Then I gave it up when I was nine.

I got into knitting again when I was fifteen and gave it up when I was sixteen.

I picked it up again when I was 19 and put it down yet again when I turned 21.

Well, I am now a successful knitter in that I have kept with it, seasonally, for the past five years.

But, my whole reason for returning to knitting was to knit socks. Socks, socks, socks. Lots of socks. I collect them and wanted to make some of my own instead of continuing to buy nylon socks that were made in China.

Loved the knitting. Hated the socks.

I never finished a single one.

Actually, I really liked the socks, but they did not like me back.

I did eventually get used to the concept of double-pointed knitting needles and the whole knitting-in-the-round thing. But, after the 4th one that had to be ripped out during tragic heel-turning episodes, I decided to put socks aside and go back to baby blankets and scarves.

Then, a year later, I broke out the luscious pile of sock yarn and tried again. Twice. With the same sad and frustrating results. So, back to afghans and hats.

Then, just last autumn, I tried again. Equipped with the Addi Turbo 12″ circular sock needles, I felt determined and sure that it would be different.

At first, it was awesome! Knitting cuffs on the Addi is a breeze! Which brought me, at light-speed, to the heel. Dead in the water, AGAIN. And, AGAIN!

Well as I write to you today, I am on my 9th attempt at sock-making. I feel that nine is a lucky and magical number. (I hope!)

I am very excited and truly hopeful that this time the creativity will be effortless (or relatively so) and I will achieve a completed pair of handmade socks by the New Year.

The yarn that I chose is a lot of fun, Zwerger Garn-Opal Harry Potter in the Ron colorway. It makes me feel a little bit like Mrs. Weasley. ;-)

Maybe that’s why I am calling this project my Weasley Scrunchie Socks.

The pattern is a free one, the Squoosh Sock by Yarn Zombie.

Right now I am more than 6 inches into the first sock. I think it’s knitting up nicely, although the yarn may be better showcased using a different pattern, I really like the combination. Fun yarn + fun pattern = Fun socks!!!

Wish me luck (and patience) as approach the heel turning…I’ll need it!

**Ravelry users can find me here.

“What we eat determines how well our digestion works.”
~Alex Jamieson, Author & Vegan Chef

Okay, you guessed it…there’s no meat in this one. But it is fun and nicely textured just the same!

I have tried lots of vegetarian meatloaf recipes over the past few months, and none of them could manage to tickle my fancy as far as texture. They were all crumbly or flaky in their end result, and when they did act like a loaf, they certainly did not taste like anything that resembles meat.

So, after some disastrous experimentation, I have come up with something passable. This is not exactly the right texture, but it is closer than most.

Somehow, I seem to have become the faux-foods lady, developing lots of recipes to replace people’s meaty favorites and old time instant foods with something more acceptable to their new healthy and vegetarian ideals.

The gravy is deliciously beefy, but the “meat”loaf is transitional. I remain completely open to suggestions on this one and do not consider it to be a 100% completed recipe. So, try it out and let me know what you think.

“Meat”loaf with Beef-like Mushroom Gravy
Makes: 2 regular sized loaves
Prep Time: 60 minutes

Ingredients:

“Meat”loaf

2 cups Beef-flavour TVP (Soy Protein)
3 3/4 cups warm water
1 cup bread crumbs
3 eggs
2 tbs yeast extract
1 tbs malt extract
2 tbs rice or soy milk
4 tbs flour
4 cloves garlic, diced fine
1 small onion, diced
2 tbs Italian herbs
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper

Beef-like Mushroom Gravy

1-2 large mushrooms, chopped small
2 cups water
2 tbs yeast extract
1 tbs malt extract
5-7 tbs corn starch (or other thickener)
1 tbs chives
pinch of onion salt
salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)

For “meat”loaf:

1. Dissolve yeast and malt extract in the warm water and add TVP. Let soak for 20 minutes.

2. Wring the liquid out of the TVP, one handful at a time and place in a mixing bowl.

3. Add the breadcrumbs, eggs, flour and all other ingredients.

4. Mix thoroughly and press into greased loaf pans.

5. Cover with a 1/2 inch of gravy and bake at 200°C or 400°F for 30-40 minutes.

6. Cut and serve with mashed potatoes or salad.

For beef-like mushroom gravy:

1. Place 2 cups of water in a suacepan over medium-high heat.

2. Dissolve yeast and malt extracts into the water.

3. Add the chopped mushrooms, salt pepper and chives.

4. When water is warm, but NOT yet boiling add and whisk the corn starch.

5. Boil and allow to thicken, adding more corn starch as needed.

6. Ladle over “meat”loaf before baking and over mashed potatoes before serving.

~

This is working on becoming one of my favorite recipe combos! But, again, after trying these, please add any suggestions that you may have to the comments.

Bon Appetit!

“Then I heard it! It was silently beautiful, my soul song. The universe within, humming like a waterfall. Pulsing. The heart of love.”

~Vera Nadine, Inspirational Writer and Spirit Channel

It’s always so lovely and enjoyable for me here on Vegetarian Frugal Housewife. I love bringing you fun and creative ideas that you can play with and enjoy at home.

Over at my main blog, I enjoy working to bring you exciting and inspiring posts about spiritual development, meditation and metaphysical topics.

If you’ve never checked out Vera Nadine, I invite you to pop over and explore it now. There is a wealth of information there, including spiritual guidance based on my own personal experiences.

Spirit is in you, and in everyone. Many of us who are embracing more healthy living, closer connections with nature, activism and community building, are also looking for ways to deepen our inner connection with spirit and the creative source.

The free articles and downloads at VeraNadine.com are intended to help you understand and open up to the realms of spiritual awareness so that you can live a more peaceful and inspiring life.

Here are the top ten posts from VeraNadine.com to help familiarize you with the site:

1. Universal Soul: The Video Meditation

2. Medium Adventures: The Geisha Girl

3. Do you have “the sight?”

4. Random Spirit: Heath Ledger

5. Spiritual Hermit Syndrome

6. Goal Mapping for Focusing Intent

7. Suicide, the Spirit and Karma

8. Active Meditation

9. Of Orange Aliens and Crop Circles

10. Questions About Channeling & Mediumship

While you are visiting the Vera Nadine blog, don’t forget to submit your questions, as I will be giving readers free guidance by channeling answers to submitted questions and posting them as Q&A blog articles.

Also, everyone who submits a spiritual question will be entered in my monthly drawings for a free private reading!

Thanks to all of you for supporting my work, both here at Vegetarian Frugal Housewife and at Vera Nadine!

“A snowball is simple, direct and familiar to most of us. I use this simplicity as a container for feelings and ideas that function on many levels. ”
~Andy Goldsworthy, Environmental Sculptor

When we are talking about art, and we are talking about frugality, we should definitely be talking about Andy Goldsworthy.

His art is something that bridges the gap between both art and eco-friendliness but also speaks to us of other, perhaps more important, concepts like innocence and spirit.

Andy Goldsworthy, a British Sculptor who does some fantastic site-specific sculpture using natural materials found on location, has such a unique style. His work is transient, deliberately and most naturally temporary, lasting only so long as the winds, the seas, gravity or mankind allow.

He takes his inspiration from the colours and textures in the landscape, from the patterns so common in nature herself, and he delights in transmuting things from their ordinary form and function into something equally natural but yet astoundingly different.

Andy has been working since the seventies, when his disagreement with the restrictive programme at his art college led him to seek solace in the real, in the inspiring. In other words, in nature.

To look at some of his early works check out the online catalogue at Glasgow University’s website. Or if you’d like to watch a documentary about his more recent works, check out Rivers and Tides.

Since his beginnings Andy has become renown for his distinctive and ephemeral brand of landscape art, encompassing pre-dawn ice sculpture, beach sculptures that just barely beat the tide and leaf collages which tempt the fury of the winds.

There is something so sacred and yet so human about his type of artwork. It makes a beautiful and terrifying statement about the way in which man has such a great, and yet such a fleeting, effect on his environment. His pieces remind us of our divinity and our own mortality.

Andy’s casual, quiet nature, as well as his somewhat reclusive lifestyle in the Scottish Highlands, has left much room for new artists to follow his lead and, over the years, many have. But only one really deserves mentioning in the same arena as Goldsworthy, not necessarily for the grand scope of his works but for his similarly spiritual and unassuming approach to his craft. And that is Shane Hart.

Hart’s impromptu art, a precarious balancing act between upright stones that seem to have no right to defy gravity, has been given the name of Uppala Yoga. And it is certainly rooted in the philosophy and peaceful grace of yoga.

The uppala stone sculptures present elegance in the face of resistance, defying gravity with an awe-inspiring simplicity. To stumble upon one of his works unexpectedly would certainly challenge our own impressions of what is possible and what is divine.

All-in-all I am enamored of those who can, from found natural materials, channel through their unique spirit an original piece of low-tech art that showcases the innate magnificence in all creation.

The spiritual beauty in accepting, and even embracing, their art as temporary and transitional is what is most moving, and like all good art it speaks to that silent something in our human core which defies explanation. Now THAT is real art, here today, gone tomorrow yet leaving us with a splendid feeling and a memory that will last forever.

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”
~George Eliot i.e. Mary Anne Evans, 19th-century British Novelist

Here in England the autumn is rolling in quite quickly. By far my absolute favorite season, it has that crisp, heady smell on the breeze.

Something about the autumn makes me long for the traditional, for the comfortable and cozy. I guess that growing up in Massachusetts somehow the autumn (or the fall, if you please) became acquainted with history and family traditions like Halloween and Thanksgiving.

It seems that I have such a happy flutter in my heart when this time of year dawns and I feel the need to pull out heavier blankets, my wool cloak, long novels and YARN! Yep, that’s right. I have been bitten by the autumn crafting bug a bit early this year! And being as we left all of our lovely knick-knacks and craft supplies at our apartment back in the U.S., it has been difficult to get my hands on some yarn and good knitting supplies at such short notice.

Before we set off to explore Europe and work on some of my spirit channelings, I was in the process of taking my knitting to the next level. I was graduating from afghans and scarves to baby sweaters and socks. My intention was to then get to learning fair isle and intarsia. So all of those rather groovy and expensive supplies are waiting for me, in limbo, back in Massachusetts.

When we are going to move back to North America, or whether we will at all, remains to be seen. So for now I simply NEED to get some knitting done but don’t want to spend a whole lot of MONEY to get that achieved. Frugality is key folks.

I am sure lots of readers, and crafty persons, out there are wondering about making gifts for friends and family this year, since the whole world seems to be sinking into an economic recession. For me the answer was the dollar store (or “pound shoppe” as they are called in Britain.)

Having to compromise my values about free trade and natural fiber yarns was not easy for me, but I figure it is just for a while and, in this economy, frugality sometimes wins out over my politics…not often, but sometimes. In general I do not agree with plastics of any kind and I agree even less with my money going to something that was made in China. I did manage to find yarn that was made in England, but it is, unfortunately acrylic.

The fiber shop here in town wanted ₤8 ($16) for their cheapest ball of natural yarn, with only 100 meters of length. That being said, at the pound shoppe I got ₤3 ($6) worth of acrylic yarn and ₤2 ($4) worth of not-so-great knitting needles. For ten bucks I got 900 meters, enough yarn to knit 3-4 scarves or maybe 5-6 winter hats. If you try Ebay you may be able to find some luscious alpaca or mohair yarn for an affordable price, but certainly not enough to make any really BIG projects.

Most people do not like the feel of that cheap acrylic yarn close to their skin. This is easily remedied by using some fabric from an old pair of pajamas or old t-shirt to line the finished item. You do this by laying the item down on a paper bag and drawing an outline of it, this makes a template for cutting fabric.

For a scarf, make a template of 1/4 or 1/3 of its length and then just cut out and sew together the correct number of pieces to line the whole scarf. For the hat, cut out a pattern for 1/2 or 1/4 of the hat and then sew them together as above, make sure that you use a somewhat stretchy fabric for the hat lining.

Then you place the fabric and knitted item, with wrong sides together, and use a matching color of thread to sew the edges together, tucking in about 1/4 inch of fabric along the edge as you sew. This creates a nice finished edge and keeps the fabric from fraying during normal use.

So, just for fun, here are a couple of free scarf patterns that you could use to make some quick scarves as gifts, I’m using both of these for my current projects. Plus, think of all the relaxation and enjoyment you get just from knitting them up. If you like, you can always donate them to charity.

Marijke Scarf *pictured right*

Meandering Rib Scarf (registration required for free pattern) *pictured above*

These scarves would also come out great in multiple colors and weights of yarn, so get out that scrap box and get knitting!