Thursday January 17th

On Tuesday night I received 3 bales of used textile on the Greyhound bus. My supplier from Burlington kindly puts the 75 lb. bales on the bus for me. I live too far away to go myself to pick and choose so I get what I get, a mixed bag of sorts. No choice of colour and hopefully the sweaters are wool. I am getting frustrated with so much superwash wool these days. The wool goes through a chemical process to remove the barbs from the fibres, to make it machine washable. People these days like the convenience, no more hand washing. I am not sure what the process does to the wool, I do know when a superwash sweater is wet it feels like an acrylic sweater, not wool. Not sure if the process changes the insulating properties of wool. 

Superwash wool is my arch enemy these days. It makes for a lot of unusable sweaters, I have bags of them that would not shrink.

I have started to cut up sweaters for my next rug, I would like to add another image but I am not sure how to do that, they just keep going to the top, and then I can't move them around. I would like to be able to place them below my text. I am sure I will learn as I go.

We had a delicious dinner last night, Cajun Sauteed Shrimp. I do love searching and cooking new recipes, so I will include yummy recipes here, to share.

Cajun Sauteed Shrimp

4 servings

10 min. 5 min. prep.

1 1/2 lbs. large shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 tsp. paprika

3/4 tsp. dried thyme

3/4 tsp. dried oregano

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 tbsp. olive oil

1. Combine the first 8 ingredients in a large ziplock bag: seal and shake to coat.

2. Heat oil in a large frying pan, I used cast iron, over medium high heat until hot.

3. Add shrimp: saute 4 to 5 minutes until the shrimp are cooked.

I served them with long grain brown rice cooked in chicken broth and steamed vegetables. I also made the same recipe with cubes of boneless chicken breast, just increase the cooking time. Enjoy!!