HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Today in Canada it is our Thanksgiving Day. I hope everyone is having a good one and lots of turkey. Yesterday I had dinner at a friends. I made and brought brought my Cranberry Compote. I got this recipe from a friend's son who got it from a book. It is very easy and tastes yummy. If I am having cranberry from a can I want the jellied kind as I don't find the berry style very good BUT when I make it I want the berry style. Enjoy the recipe.

Cranberry Compote

- 3 ripe pears peeled and chopped
- about 18 - 22 dried apricots chopped
- 2 cans of mandarin orange segments (juice and pieces used)
- 1 bag of cranberries
- 1/2 cup sugar

Drain the oranges from the juice in the tins and save the orange segments.
Add water to the canned liquid to make a total of 1 1/2 cups liquid.
Put liquid in a large pot along with the sugar and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
Add the pears and apricots to the liquid in the pot and bring to a simmer and continue to simmer for five minutes.
Add the orange segments to the pot, return to a simmer again and simmer for another minute now.
Add the cranberries, return the mixture to a simmer and cook over medium heat for five to ten minutes. Stir the mixture occasionally.
It will thicken as it cools.
You can make this up to a week ahead with no loss of flavor or freshness.

When I am alone on a turkey meal occasion I tend to make a cheating turkey meal which will make a couple meals or a meals and turkey sandwich depending on how much turkey I use. I season the turkey as I would a whole bird and put it in my slow cooker. I usually use turkey breasts but have been know to use thighs or legs. Then I add one large scrubbed yam and a can of turkey gravy. Remember this is a cheat meal!! Turn the slow cooker on and voila later you have a turkey dinner complete with the smells of turkey cooking in the oven. To complete the meal I will nuke a piece of broccoli and make some stove top stuffing. Again remember this is the easy cheat method. Normally I would open a can of the jellied cranberry but since I made some real cranberry on Friday I had some of that with my dinner. For dessert tonight I had a piece of apple pie that Darlene brought over today with a cup of tea from my tea exchange.

It is not nice out today. It is grey, rainy, drab and cool. The end of last month the bush down at the end of my street looked liked this:
Tomorrow I will put photos in my blog of what they look like now.

I have been busy working on different knitting projects.
I washed my monkey socks and OH NO!!! They stretched. They ended up an inch and a bit more than they should be. So I had to go swimming at the frog pond and take out the kitchnering, the toe decreasing and one pattern repeat of 11 rows. I added five plain rows and then did the decrease again. It again measures what it should. I hope it doesn't stretch out again. I wonder if it is yarn I am using or is it b/c I used a 2.5mm needle to knit them with. I am leery about rewashing them again. Any suggestions out there? Has this happened to anyone else?
I have also been working on my knitnplay bag. Here is what it looks like so far before it is felted. The single skein of yarn is to show how big the bag is.

I also changed the yarn I added on the my Mixed Jelly Bean Socks. I wanted to make the socks a little longer in the leg and I ran out of yarn. The first yarn I used was too dark. This next yarn seems okay. If it too light my eyes haven't seen it yet and I hope they don't or it means more rip rip ripping. BUT so far they seem fine.

On Saturday I went to Ram's Wools for a Jane Ellison workshop. B/C I take the bus I was there early. I was there even before the shop opened but I was let in and got to do some extra browsing and petting of the yarns.

For those of you who have to order online or via the phone here is what Ram Wools looks like. Yes it is very plain on the outside but it is very very very large on the inside.
Here is a photo of Lorna who works at Ram and Jane with a couple of her knitted items from the Marisol book. AND here is a close up of Lorna and Jane. There were 12 of us taking the workshop. Several of the ladies thought she would be older than she is. I guess that is because she has been designing knitting patterns for quite a while. She designs for Noro and Debbie Bliss also. She is working with Diamond Yarns for the Marisol project.
Here is 1/2 of the first glove I made at the workshop. They are knit in garter stitch from the pinkie to the thumb four times and then two are sew together to make a glove. The first photo shows one half of my knitted glove on the page with the photos of the knitted gloves in the Marisol pattern book and the second photo shows my glove on the cover of the Marisol knitting pattern book.
Everyone at the workshop got to choose the yarn color they wanted to use.
While I was talking to Jane I asked her about my Cavendish Blanket that I call a serape shawl I am knitting from one of her Noro patterns asking her why I was needing more yarn than called for. I even brought it with me. She looked at it and said I was knitting too loose. She also told me she liked the way I was using different colors of the Noro Silk Garden and thought they were blending well. Jane even knew the names of the colors of the Noro Silk Garden yarn I was using and could pick them out in my serape. I was amazed. From my conversation with the gals at the workshop it seemed everyone had a good time. There were even familiar faces at the workshop.