Mead: Where the Tupelo Gum Tree Grows

Mead. I'll never forget the first time I tried it. I was back in Blacksburg, VA, visiting my boyfriend, and his roommates had a large ceramic bottle. They were very excited about it. "Do you want a taste?" Absolutely. I love trying new things. Especially when those new things involve sweet alcohol that no one has ever heard about. I can definitely understand the "hipster" ideology of being interested in things that are out of the public awareness. Without the smug superiority, of course. You have to be honest with yourself; acquiring things that aren't in public demand is hard, expensive, and time-consuming. It's work. And being difficult is rarely something to be proud of.

So he poured us a small amount into some plastic cups and we drank. It was like sunlight on a winter afternoon. Cold, sweet, gently bubbly, but richer than I'd expected. Everything I want in a drink. I was hooked. I remember staring at the bottle longingly the rest of the day. But they had told me how expensive it was, ($40 for a bottle? You're kidding, I gasped.) and how difficult it was to find. So I did what I always do in this situation, where I'm presented with something that is awesome but hard to come by. I start figuring out how I can make/acquire/approximate the thing in question. Really, this mindset is why I have more hobbies than I have time and money to accommodate.
Fast-forwarding to this summer: I bought a book. "The Compleat Meadmaker" by Ken Schramm. It came highly recommended from all the hidden mead-lovers of the internet, so I figured I'd invest. Mr. Schramm is a great writer, appealing to my inner scientist while still allowing me to pretend I wasn't reading a textbook. Think Alton Brown with a beer.

So now I'm pretty much committed; my dad picked up homebrewing again after a 20-year hiatus (kids and all, you know) and has me all excited. "While you're waiting for your mead to age, you could squeeze in a couple of batches of beer!" Yes, this is all too convenient. The time and the energy is there, as well as the knowledge and resources for the inevitable stumbling block. I just need the equipment, and some honey.

The honey got immeasurably simpler once I planned a visit to visit my dearest friend in coastal Florida. I have to drive right through the center of the state, right through Orange Blossom and Tupelo country. The beginner's recipe in TCM uses Orange Blossom honey, to give you some interesting tastes without any complicated techniques. I can get that here, in Mississippi, but I can't be contented with just the beginner's level of anything. I wanted mead that would taste like that first sip I'd had, years ago. And then I knew- tupelo honey. Dark, incredibly sweet. But I'd have to have it shipped from Florida, where the Tupelo Gum Tee grows, and that's just impractical. Driving through the state, however, solves this problem entirely. So, a few e-mails later, and I've got a 6-lb jug each of tupelo honey and orange blossom honey to be picked up next month. Huzzah!

Next step, getting the equipment. I see a grand list in my near future.

Crochet: A Dress for Winter

So this one's been on the gray matter cork board for a while now: crochet sweater dress.

I made one last year, while I was still new at garment-making and design, and didn't have the funds for all the beautiful, gorgeous fibers out there. It turned out fairly well, all things considered, and I'm still pleased with it. But now I have another year of experience, I'm armed with multiple books on the topic (my weapons of choice, as it were), and marginally increased disposable income. Plus, I know what I want out of this garment.

Here's the plan:
- Yarn: Knit Picks Swish DK. DK weight yarn makes the fabric a little lighter, so I get a better drape and I can make a finer mesh out of the stitches. This was an issue with the first try, as I was using a worsted wool with tall stitches and thus, needed to wear all sorts of undergarments to look appropriate. It's also 100% merino wool, something I'm very excited about working with. And it's also "superwash" so I don't have to hand wash the dress all the time, which means I'll be more inclined to wear it. Which is the point, right?

- Color: "Dusk". It's a dark, not-quite-midnight blue. I was shooting for a sapphire color, and this is pretty close to the mark, I'm thinking. As these ideas came together, I'd been on the fence between this blue and a cream color, with which I'm sure I'd be just as happy. But this will be the first time I've approached such a large garment with no pattern. I figured, if I made a mistake anywhere, It'd be a lot easier to hide in a dark blue yarn. White has a tendency to scream "Hey! Look at my skipped stitch over here. Yeah, right there!" and I'm just not confident enough. It gives me something to work towards, though.

- Shape: Above-knee, fitted, cowl neck. I adore cowl neck sweaters; they're just so cozy. The cowl-ness of the cowl will be determined when I start working it up. The only information I have to go on with this is a pattern fragment I found when I started looking for this project early on. I wanted to do a top-down construction with this project, so I can try it on as I go, so it'd fortunate that it doesn't look too complicated to join at the neckline again and work the cowl up that way. There's even some opportunities for subtle texture changes with this. Oh, the opportunities!

- Texture: It's my understanding that the yarn has a decent amount of stitch definition, so I've been taking that into consideration with what stitch/stitches I use. Though I have been thumbing my way through my copy of "The Complete Book of Crochet Stitch Designs," I keep coming back to one of my favorite stitches. I've seen it called the seed stitch most commonly, but it's a mesh of single crochet and double crochet.

sc-dc-sc
dc-sc-dc
sc-dc-sc

I like the idea of having the sides of the dress be a slightly different stitch to give it some visual interest, and that would definitely work with this stitch pattern; I could just switch to all sc at some point in the row on both ends. This would also make the shaping increases and decreases much easier. Looks like I've got a new thing to research.

Nerd Wars on Ravelry starts in October, and I'm planning this project for my "dissertation," basically a huge, multiple-month-long project for major points in the competition. So yarn purchasing will wait until October 1st, if I can keep myself in check that long.

To keep myself from jumping the gun, it looks like I'll be buying my mead-making/beer brewing equipment this month! Honey gets bought in October, on a special trip to Florida, but it would be very good to get the the materials together before then. Like, prepare my guest bathroom to be my fermentation room. My mother would be livid about this. I'll just have to make sure it's clean before the holidays.

Welcome; A Nesting of Sorts

Well, hi there.

You've found the space I've carved for myself out of the ether for my musings on new hobbies. Specifically, those that are deemed "quirky, yet age-appropriate." Whatever that means.

So if you're interested in mead-making, perhaps you've stumbled upon it recently and want to figure out what it is or why you should care about it, or maybe you even want to strike out on your own and see if you can create some of this delicious nectar yourself, you'll find some of these posts to your liking. Or, at least, amusement, as you see me stumble through the first beginner's steps of turning honey into a fermented drink.

Maybe you're deeply into crocheting, or knitting (we don't discriminate, here!) or another yarn craft, and my post caught your eye on Ravelry, or some other awesome place, and you're inspired to pick up some yarn by what what I've written. I raise my hook to you and say, "Huzzah!"

Or perhaps you're more fond of our hoppy, malty friend, beer, and the art of homebrewing, and my flailing into that field has you baffled and bemused.

Either way, I am happy to have you join me. These hobbies require time, commitment, and finances. But they also require passion and an analytical mind, some combination of which I'm willing to bring to the table. Hopefully, you'll find some inspiration from my stories, or words of wisdom by not doing what I've done.

I will warn you, discerning readers, that I may leap off into tangents regarding some of my other, less appropriate, hobbies. Perhaps the weather this day has been truly phenomenal, and I must share its meteorological significance with you. Or I have had the most incredible experience with my Dungeons and Dragons group and the world must know. But I'll do my best to keep things on task. It's probably better this way.

So, without any further fanfare, let us be off!