Tag Archives: featured

Cooking

Dried Kumquats

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The little kumquat tree I started in my front yard a couple of years ago was loaded with fruit this year. It wasn’t actually a lot of fruit, but for the small size of the tree, I am very pleased with its production.

So far I’ve made a couple of small jars of kumquat preserves and also sliced some fresh kumquats to put in garden salad. Now I am looking for something else to do that will help me enjoy the wonderful, citrus flavor of these fruits throughout the year. The answer, of course, is to dry them! Here is a photo journal of my process using the Excalibur dehydrator I got just last fall and am already finding many, many uses for. (I will tell you more about these in future posts)

wash kumquats and trim ends if necessary

Wash kumquats and trim ends if necessary.

cut kumquats in half

Cut kumquats in half.

remove seeds/pulp center from the peel

Remove seeds/pulp center from the peel. The easiest and fastest way I’ve found to do this is just to press my thumbs against the outside of the halved kumquat, thus inverting the peel and pushing out the pulp center along with the seeds.

after seeds/pulp center pushed out and placed on dehyrator tray

Place the peels on dehyrator tray. I like to put them peel side down so that the juicy bits do not get the tray unnecessarily sticky. That way there is less tray cleanup, while still getting maximum air flow through the tray grid during the dehydration process.

dehydrated kumquats after 6 hours at 135 degrees

Here are the kumquat peels after 6 hours in the dehydrator at 135 degrees F.

kumquat peels after 6 hours in the dehydrator

The kumquat skins will have shrunk up and look a bit wrinkly.

dried kumquats

They are crunchy with a nicely intense flavor. Yumm.

store dried kumquats in an airtight zipper bag

Store dried kumquats in an airtight zipper bag that has been labeled and dated. No need to refrigerate — these will last just like they are on the shelf for months and months — IF  I don’t eat them all before then, lol.

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Spinning

Cotton Roving – braiding, dyeing, spinning and knitting

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I have some photos to share from a “cotton study” project I did quite some time ago. It was always my intent to do a write-up with the pictures, but you know how intentions can sometimes go by the wayside. Here I am many years later looking through my photo albums and was reminded again of that short article that I still wanted to write. Well, here it is finally!

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of the step-by-step process I used. I will just have to talk it through. For those familiar with dyeing and spinning, you should be able to follow along well enough and surmise. For those unfamiliar with these, maybe you can just enjoy the pretty colors and inspiration.

Stages of cotton dyeing, spinning, plying and knitting
Stages of cotton dyeing, spinning the singles, plying and knitting

The above photo shows

  1. the braided un-spun roving after dyeing
  2. the singles yarn
  3. the singles plied with fine rayon sewing thread to make the 2-ply knitting yarn
  4. and the result of using the 2-ply yarn to knit the HeartStrings Reversible Lace Cables scarf pattern

Dyeing the cotton: I started with un-dyed white cotton roving. I broke off lengths of roving about a yard long each and braided them. Then 3 colors of fiber reactive dyes were applied to the braid. After the dye was set and rinsed, I let the braids dry completely.

Spinning the singles: I undid each braid (sorry I can’t remember how many I had, but the total weight was 1.75 oz / 50g) and spun each length of dyed roving separately into an S-twist singles. I used long draw from the “wrong end” of the roving on my Lendrum spinning wheels highest speed whorl. For you spinners, you know that cotton roving will draw out more smoothly in one direction than the other. I intentionally used the other direction to produce a lump, bumpy textured singles strand of spun yarn. (this is harder to do than you’d think after you’ve spun for a while!) I wanted a yarn that when knitted into the lace, would produce a casual, somewhat rustic look.

Plying: I plied the spun singles Z-twist with fine rayon sewing thread to make a 2-ply knitting yarn.

Here is a photo of the knitted scarf that I took recently with a different camera in different lighting (the original picture above was taken in the 90’s! — my, how digital cameras have advanced, haven’t they?)

Reversible Lace Cables Scarf in hand-dyed, hand-spun cotton
Reversible Lace Cables Scarf in hand-dyed, hand-spun cotton

Here’s a bit more of a close-up so that you can see the texture of the yarn in the stitches.

Detail of the textured yarn knitted into the lace stitch pattern
Detail of the textured yarn knitted into the lace stitch pattern

p.s. Do you recognize this scarf as having been knit from the same pattern in last week’s blog article Spinning a 2-ply laceweight yarn for a scarf?

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