Break Time

I had thought that the three-week visit would preclude all preparations Bead Fest, but as it turns out, there was much understanding and no overt guilt-tripping which I used to full advantage for what I needed to do.

(Apart from escape).

I made samples, packed beads into baggies, worked on instructions, all good stuff.

Interestingly enough, when it's purely a matter of self-discipline, I fall to pieces and work on something else.

It started with a picture on someone's blog in which I realized that three-drop tubular netting looks fabulous in two highly contrasting colours, so I thought I'd see if it was in fact true when I did it too.

It is.

It's also a little boring, so I found a few matching fire-polished beads and made thingies. The beaded bead is a bit of a surprise, as it started off as simply a ring of beads that got more embellished until it curved into very sturdy beaded bead. I shall have to make more.

Here's something: I knit in the car.

At RED traffic lights, duh.

I like to have socks for this, because:

(a) I hate to waste time. There's so little of it

(b) You can never have too many socks

(c) They're small and don't take up space in the car when you give people rides

(d) One needle's-worth is easily enough for a shortish red light

(e) All those one-needles do eventually add up to whole socks

I actually finish pairs of socks.

Which means that I get to start more socks.

(Both sock pictures are clickable Ravelry links.)

Today: eating, uh, spinning. Yes, again so soon!

I'm bringing Lemon Snow Pudding with Basil Custard Sauce. The fingerfuls are pretty good - jury is out until it's eaten after a meal, in bowls, properly chilled and set (but I think I can anticipate the final judgement anyway).

I'm a pretty decent cook, and almost entirely fearless. I think that's true of knitting and beading and anything I actually seriously want to do (the fearlessness, that is).

Anyway, since the dessert requires some hours of cooling, and since I was hoping to sleep in this morning (said hopes sadly being dashed by the lethal combination of my being a light sleeper and someone heading bathroom-wards at six twenty-one ayem but of course I couldn't anticipate that), I decided to do the prep last night.

I have made many, many custards and have never ever curdled a custard until then. It wasn't getting as thick as I thought it ought to (my mistake was in thinking "custard" rather than "sauce"), so I decided that my thermometer simply had to be wrong and continued. I reached for a - something, I can't remember now - and when I turned back to the pot it had curdled.

Sadly custard is not, like emulsions, salvageable. You can't add another egg and re-whisk and re-emulsify (or whatever the term is for what custards do. Recustardify). I put it in the fridge anyway as it's delicious in taste if not texture, and this morning I dashed to the supermarket at everyone-is-still-asleep-o'clock for more milk and eggs (I don't keep whole milk) and did it again properly.

Sauce, not custard.

What can one DO with curdled custard anyway? Can you make it into something else? I hate to simply toss it.