Lorette

Uh-Oh, There Goes The Neighborhood

John and I were running errands earlier this week, and on the way home, saw this sight:

A new yarn store! It’s not open yet, and when I peered in the window, it’s still an empty building. So why is this so exciting? It’s less than a quarter of a mile from my house, people. A yarn shop I can walk to from home. I’ll keep you posted.

I obviously didn’t get around to doing the requisite “Happy Easter” post. We had a quiet day at home, with little lamb chops cooked on the grill. We had to grill them in between hail storms, but that’s sort of normal for spring weather around here.

For dessert, I served Peeps and chocolate sauce. Here’s my “recipe”.

Put Peeps on plate.

Nuke them in your microwave for 20-30 seconds. This is the exciting part. It’s hard to get a good photo of the blown up Peeps, as they collapse quickly once you take them out.

Add chocolate sauce, and serve.

Don’t laugh until you’ve tried them.

In knitting news, I’m still working on that Shedir hat. The pattern calls for one skein of Calmer. Here’s how far 1 skein got me.

In case you’re wondering, I’m on row 58 of an 83 row pattern. The rows get shorter pretty quickly from here, but still. This was yarn left over from when I made Audrey, so fortunately I have more:

I wound up that partial ball and weighed it on my handy-dandy drug-dealer’s scale*.

15.6 grams. I’ll weigh what I have left and let y’all know how much more than 1 ball this sucker takes.

*Have I mentioned how much I love my drug-dealer’s scale?

The Daily Bread

Here’s what’s on the table this week. Note that I almost missed the photo opportunity. I left this out to cool before putting it in a storage bag, and before I knew it, a third of the loaf was gone.

Pecan Maple Buttermilk Bread

1 Tbl butter
3 Tbl maple syrup
1 cup water
1 1/2 cup white bread flour
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
4 Tbl buttermilk powder
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp yeast
1 1/2 Tbl gluten flour
2/3 cup golden raisins
2/3cup chopped pecans

I made the dough in the bread machine, and added the raisins and pecans towards the end of the kneading process so they didn’t get too mashed up. Knead it a bit by hand before you shape the loaf if you need to so that the fruit and nuts are dispersed evenly. It was baked at 350 degrees to an inside temp of 190 degrees (use an instant read thermometer). My oven runs a bit hot, so you might need to up your oven temp to 375.

Go here for my generic bread instructions.

You could add more or less syrup to taste, or use molasses for a little different flavor. You could also use different nuts, walnuts would be great, but I had pecans so that’s what I used. If you can’t find some of those ingredients, check out this online store. This bread is lovely toasted, with either cinnamon sugar or jam on top.

For something similar, but with a little less of a free-form recipe, check out Rose’s Cranberry Walnut bread from a couple of days ago. She uses a starter with hers, so it takes longer.

After reading her instructions for the cranberry bread, I realized why my Daily Bread turned out a bit dense this time. She suggests adding the fruit by hand, not in the bread machine, as it breaks up and will result in a compact loaf. So next time I make this, I’ll let the bread go through the initial dough cycle, and then take the bread out of the machine and add the raisins before it goes through the first rise.

Enjoy!

Finished Projects!

I actually have finished knitting something! Two somethings, to be precise.

First up is the Baby Riley birthday present. It’s off in the mail, so I can safely show it here. A couple of you guessed correctly, this was the Wonderful Wallaby pattern.

Project Specs:

Pattern: Wonderful Wallaby, by Cottage Creations
Yarn: Cotton Ease, in Pepto Pink (not the real color name!)
For: Baby Riley, my new great-niece (or is it grand-niece?)
Started: February 2007
Finished: March 29, 2007
Needles: KnitPicks Options circulars, and Swallow dpns, in size 4mm for the cuffs/bottom rib, and size 5mm for the rest.

Modifications: None. If I make this again, I’d do something differently with the split at the bottom of the v-neck. There’s a loose stitch there that gaps, and I think there are ways to knit that stitch so it doesn’t do that. I saw a version of this on Brooke’s blog with a cable up each side of the pouch and around the hood. That would be fun to do.

What I learned from this project: I have never knit a whole sweater in the round before. I’d still do most of my adult sweaters in pieces, as I think you have a little more control over the blocking process with flat pieces. I also don’t hate doing seams as much as many of you do. Mattress stitch seaming is actually fun to do, once you figure it out. For kid items, the in-the-round method is perfect.

Although I have a ton of Cotton Ease in the stash, this is embarrassingly the first thing I’ve made from it. The new colors are much more subtle, though again, for kid stuff, the bright crayon colors of the old CE can’t be beat. For cheap yarn, this stuff knits up wonderfully. I think I’d go down a needle size next time I use this yarn. I only used 2 balls plus a little from a 3rd for the smallest size in the pattern. CE has great yardage for the price.

I’d also note that the smallest size in the pattern is for a largish baby/toddler. This won’t fit a newborn, but that’s OK. Most new moms get loads of newborn items that the kid grows out of before they even get a chance to wear them. This probably won’t fit her until the winter months later this year, which is a good thing, considering that they live in the Phoenix area!

My other finished project:

Pattern: My generic, top down, picot hem socks. These have a 72-stitch circumference.
Yarn: Dicentra Designs superwash sock yarn, in the color Solar Energy, purchased from Teyani at Crown Mountain Farms. Don’t click that link if you are trying to limit your yarn acquistion. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Needles: Pony Pearl dpns, in size 2.00 mm. Yes, I knit the whole sock with that size.
Started: Remember this post?
Finished: This morning, in my jammies.
For: me!
Modifications: This is one of those logic puzzles, I think. Is it possible to call it a modification if you made up the pattern yourself?

What I learned: I shouldn’t try to cast on with size 2.00mm birch needles and drink martinis at the same time.
Seriously? Knitting a whole sock on 2.00 mm needles is not any harder than knitting them on bigger needles. This yarn is a bit thinner than some other sock yarns, but the finished sock at this gauge has a very nice feel to it. I really like this yarn, and will probably buy more of it when my next “free” day rolls around.

By the way, the Brittany Birch people did send me a replacement for that broken needle. They sent a whole set, not just the one needle. So if you ever break one, just email them and tell them your sad story.

What’s next on the sock knitting list? Well, since Easter is this coming weekend, I couldn’t resist this lovely hank of yarn from my stash.

This is Bunny Luxury, from Joslyn’s Fiber Farm. It’s an angora/wool blend, in the color Easter Eggs, and is approximately a sport weight. I don’t think she sells this particular blend any longer*, but it is amazingly soft. I thought this was an appropriate yarn for the season, even if there is no chance that I will finish them by Easter of this year! I just dare you to look at her yarn colors without buying something.

I’m off to wind up yarn.

Next time: Another installment of The Daily Bread.

*This is not the same yarn as the Bunny Heaven that she has currently available. The Bunny Luxury is 80% wool and 20% angora.

And The Winner Is…

Actually, “winners”. First off, thank you all for the lovely mailbox full of comments. Now I know how to get the lurkers out of the shadows; give away free yarn! There are a lot of great knitting tips in those comments from my last post, some I already know and use, some I once knew and had forgotten, and many new ideas. If you have a minute or ten, go back and read all the comments.

So then, how to pick a winner? As you recall, one prize, the Opal sock yarn, and the Cherry Tree Hill Alpaca Glitter, was to be chosen randomly. Whew, no decision making there. Using the handy-dandy Random Number Generator, Kathy is the winner of this lovely little pile of yarn. Here’s her tip:

“Let’s see…favorite knitting tip for me is keeping track of which circular needle to knit from when knitting with two circs. I take the working end and give it a tug. The correct end will jiggle, letting me know which one to knit with. Makes it easy to figure out which is which :-)”

The other prize is for my favorite tip of the bunch. Now that one was not so easy. In the end, I picked Bridget’s tip, on not drinking and knitting at the same time. How could I not choose that one, even if she didn’t think it was a valid knitting tip?

“I have no actual knitting tips, though I wish I did. I have learned though, that at least for me, one glass of wine is plenty, if I don’t want to rip it all out the next day. Hardly a tip, but it does work!”

Bridget gets the Heritage lace yarn and the Mountain Colors Bearfoot. Given my past history with the bourbon-related mishaps, I’m surprised that more of you didn’t suggest this.*

Thanks for playing, everyone! Not only did I get lots of great tips, but I got leads to a bunch of new-to-me blogs.

Next post, actual finished knitting projects!

*Of course, just because I liked her knitting idea the best, doesn’t mean that I’ll follow her advice. 😉

Blogiversary!

Bread!

Baby!

Free Yarn!

OK, if those titles don’t get you to read on, nothing will. First, the bread. I promised in the last post that there would be another Daily Bread installment soon. Here it is.

Getting ready:

And just out of the oven:

The recipe is Rustic Potato Loaves, from Baking With Julia. As the recipe is in a published book, and I pretty much made it as written, I won’t write it out here. A reader (if it was you, let me know, I lost track of who recommended this book) suggested this one, so I got the book out of the library. It’s a great cookbook, and I’ve been drooling over it for the past few weeks. I came home from work one night this past week, and there was a package on the counter. My sweetie had bought me my very own copy!

The recipe uses russet potatoes, flour, water, salt, yeast, and olive oil. The skins are left on the potatoes after you boil them, so add a very nice flavor and texture to the bread. I made this one with my KitchenAid mixer instead of the bread machine, as it’s a very soft dough and I wanted to have a little more control over putting it together. It turned out great. Here’s the meal it went with:

Baked potato, the bread, steamed green beans, and perfect little steaks with a mushroom-red wine sauce. Yum.

Next up, the Baby! Baby Riley (my great-niece!) was born late last week, and is clearly in the running for Cutest Baby Ever Born. She has all the earmarks of a princess-in-training. Here’s a photo:

She looks like she might have red hair, like her grandma, my sister. Her birthday present isn’t quite done yet, but that’s OK. It’s turning out to be a size that she won’t be able to wear for awhile.

Now, the Blogiversary. Three years ago this week, I started my blog. In the words of one of my favorite bluegrass artists*, “what a long, strange trip it’s been”! I’ve learned a ton of new knitting tricks from all of you, been led to a lot of great new yarn-buying shops both online and off, and met lots of new friends through this blog. Though my posting has slowed down lately, I have no intention of giving up the blog. I started this mostly to keep track of my knitting projects, but it’s turned into much more than that. Despite the fact that my husband calls you all my “imaginary friends”, I can’t imagine a week without you all here.

In honor of all my “imaginary friends”, as without you there would be no blog, I’m having a contest. I’m giving away yarn! All you have to do is leave a comment with your favorite knitting trick. It can be a fancy way to do seams, a great gadget that you couldn’t live without, a favorite pattern stitch, or just some wonderful secret trick that’s saved your knitting butt.

I’ll choose my personal favorite for one prize, and draw a random name for the other. The contest will be open for 4 days. The last eligible comment will have to be in by Sunday night at midnight. On Monday, I’ll announce the winners.

Oh, and the prizes? Yarn, of course. Two skeins each, for each lucky winner.

For the knitting trick that is my favorite:

And:

The first skein is Heritage lace yarn, in a heavy laceweight. The color is Blueberry Hill, and it’s a silk-rayon blend, 525 yards. The second skein is Mountain Colors Bearfoot, in Bitterroot Rainbow, enough to make a pair of socks.

For the randomly drawn winner:

And:

The first is of course Opal sock yarn, in Lollipop, from my treasured Opal stash. The second is Cherry Tree Hill Glitter Alpaca yarn. The color is Northern Lights, and there’s 428 yards of it. I could see this as very luxurious socks, or perhaps a scarf, mittens, or a hat.

So spread the word, leave a comment, win some yarn!

*He is too a bluegrass artist. Check this out if you don’t believe me.

Off That Wagon

Yarn Focus Challenge 2007

I’ll re-explain the mechanics of the Yarn Focus Challenge first, as every time I post pictures of newly-acquired yarn, I get a comment asking how I can buy yarn when I’m on a yarn fast. The deal is this. Once a month, on one day of our own choosing, we get a free day to buy yarn. I didn’t make the rules, people, I just follow them. Give me a free yarn-buying day, I’m going to take it. It’s like a Get Out Of Jail Free card, which I saw on Rebecca’s blog this morning. I stole it, with absolutely no sense of shame.

So Saturday I got to go shopping in the Big City* with two friends, Kris and Michelle. Michelle was in town for a meeting, and Kris and I drove up to help her shop. What were we supposed to do, let her bumble around trying to find yarn shops all on her own? What if she wandered into a bad yarn shop by mistake?

We picked her up at her hotel, which is when she surprised us with presents. Really, this was just way more than I expected, but it was very sweet of her. Here’s mine:

I’ll bet you want to know what’s in that little bag (which is just the most perfect project bag, by the way). Here you go.

There’s a lovely hank of Fleece Artist sock yarn in the most delicious color, some pretty stitch markers, and a fabric covered tape measure. A girl cannot possibly have too much sock yarn, stitch markers, or tape measures. Perfect!**

We started our yarn shopping downtown in Belltown, at So Much Yarn. This is a smaller shop, but with friendly staff and some nice things. From there it was off to The Fiber Gallery, in the Ballard area. For some reason I’ve never been to this shop before, but it is easily one of my favorite yarn shops anywhere. All three of us managed to unload some cash at both of these places.

An added bonus was getting to see Jessica, who works at the Fiber Gallery. She was teaching a sock class while we were there.

Then it was off to lunch at the 70-Something St. Alehouse, close to the Fiber Gallery. I’ve eaten there before, but it was absolutely packed due to the St. Patrick’s Day festivities, and the slow service cut rather viciously into our shopping time. Plus I got food poisoning, and spent the evening rather close to our facilities at home (instead of going out to dinner with friends as I’d planned). If you happen to be the owner of the 70-Something St. Alehouse, and are thinking of contradicting my diagnosis of food poisoning, please try to remember that I, in fact, do have a medical degree, do in fact have a license to practice medicine, and have, in fact, seen far more cases of food poisoning than you have. You might want to check out the handwashing practices of your kitchen staff.

After lunch, and before the food poisoning set in, Kris and I really impressed Michelle with our navigating and map reading abilities. We managed to get from Ballard to the Weaving Works in the University District by way of going all the way back down through the city and up I-5 again. If you live around here, you know that’s not the short way. We kept telling her that it was worth it, but I think she had her doubts until we walked in the door. There was this audible intake of breath from Michelle, followed by a whispered “Ohhhh”. We all spent money there, too.

Here a couple of action shots from the day.

Michelle is wearing Starsky, which she just finished knitting.

After I got home I took photos of the loot (before the food poisoning set in).

What’s in that pile? There’s a skein of Opal, one of Shaeffer Anne (that bright neon stuff on top), the blue is Mountain Colors Mountain Goat for hat and mittens, one of MC Bearfoot sock yarn, and a couple of skeins of shiny green Italian stuff (Ritratto) for a scarf. And a ladybug tape measure. And the bright green stuff you can barely see?

That’s Jitterbug sock yarn. It’s way greener than that. It’s Green in the way that my pink Cotton Ease from the last post is Pink.

Oh and Kris and Michelle? Remember that silky stuff we were all drooling over at Weaving Works? The Colinette Tao? After I got home, I ordered enough for a little scarf. It was still within my free shopping day limit, and it would have been another month before I could have bought it. What if they ran out? It isn’t here yet, obviously, but here’s a link to their website. Yes, the Copperbeach is the one I got, and yes, it really is that exquisite.

All in all, a fun day, and totally worth a case of food poisoning, which is gone. The yarn is still here.

Next post: The Daily Bread, a new installment!

*Seattle

**No, she didn’t buy me a new crown, that one is mine.

More Pink Knitting

I actually got a comment today asking where the hell I was. She worded it a little more nicely, but that was the gist of it. I really didn’t pack up the yarn stash and move to Siberia to knit in peace and quiet for the remainder of my days. Though I’d consider it if they’d let me take the yarn.

I’ve been here, knitting away, though once again I have little to show for it.

There are a few more inches on a lace shawl that looks like one of those crocheted market bags at the moment. It wasn’t worth taking a photo. Look at this one (scroll down), it has a couple more rows than that now. And no, I really don’t need a reminder of how slow I knit. There’s been a little project creep around this house (meaning more than the usual three projects going at once), and that means nothing ever gets finished.

I spent most of last week working on this:

Yes, that would be Shedir, from Knitty. You can find the pattern here. I got this far, then compared it with the pattern photo, as something just didn’t look right.

See the nice little crossed cables over there, marked by the little purple arrow, by the teddy bear*? Click on it to make it bigger so you can see the arrows. Now look at the non-crossed cables, over there on the left, by the red marker. I crossed the first two sets, then didn’t cross them again all the way around the hat. Frak.

I looked at that for quite awhile. I even stupidly kept knitting, even after I noticed it. Then I realized that I would hate this project forevermore, and probably never finish it with those frakking uncrossed cables. You can probably guess what comes next.

I did try to just rip it back to the ribbing, but because this yarn has a good bit of stretch to it, I couldn’t get it back on the needles without a lot of yarn splitting and bad words, so out it came. I’ve started over, and am partway back to where I was up there in that first photo.

More pink stuff:

That would be the Mystery Riley project (for my soon-to-be-born niece, Riley, not the dog Riley). That’s one sleeve, and the beginning of the second sleeve. The good thing about baby sweaters is that Sleeve Island is a much smaller, more intimate vacation destination. I finished the first one in an evening, and the other one will hopefully get done tonight. Last night’s episode of Robin Hood is Tivo’d, and tonight there will be a new episode of Battlestar Galactica to satisfy my sci-fi jones. And we have three whole discs worth of the first season of Rome from Netflicks at the ready, in case we need any more television.

Last but not least, here’s this week’s bread recipe. The first photo is before it went in the oven.

And after:

Here’s the recipe, or rather, the ingredient list. Look at any general cookbook, or a bread machine recipe book, or my prior bread post, for how to put it together.

Lorette’s Thursday Rye Bread

1 Tbl butter

1 Tbl sugar

1 Tsp salt

1 1/2 cup unbleached bread machine flour

1 1/2 cup rye flour

2 1/2 tsp yeast

1 cup water

1 Tbl Ground caraway seeds

1 1/2 Tbl gluten flour**

After the second rise, top with whole caraway seeds and salt, then slash and bake. I use a gourmet flake sea salt for the topping, and crush it a bit. Bake it at about 375 degrees, use an instant-read thermometer to tell when it’s done (190-200 degrees in the center).

Next post: Yarn Shopping with friends! Loot!

*Yes, I have teddy bear stitch markers. You have a problem with that?

**Makes it rise better with less effort. If you want to knead the hell out of your bread, then leave it out. I like less guesswork with my cooking.

More Gadgets

Stephanie posted a picture of one of her knitting gadgets recently. Claudia also has a swell drug-dealer’s scale that she boasts about regularly. Between the two of them, they got me coveting one of these.

It’s a Vector Fuzion Xtreme XTR-500, and it’s very tiny. It will weigh up to 500 grams, which is all I really need it for. This one was relatively reasonably priced, as I can’t really justify dropping a sweater’s worth of cash on a scale, when all I really need to do is weigh sock yarn. It also will fit into my knitting bag, so I can keep track of how much yarn I have left when knitting socks. Sweet!

And yes, it appears that I will likely be able to get a pair of baby socks out of the leftovers from my current sock-in-progress.

Man Can Not Live By Bread Alone…

So we’ll get back to knitting!

First up, the socks. Solar Energy is the color name for this yarn (Dicentra sock yarn), and it’s a good name for it. It’s quite sunny in appearance, and for a change it’s sunny outside today. The ducks are out there on the lake doing their little head-bobbing thing around each other, pairing up as couples, so baby ducks can’t be far behind. Well OK, they are a ways off yet, but I can hope.

A reader, Michelle (no blog), asked a week or so ago how I managed to do gussets without holes. I’m not sure I have any magic tricks, but have tried several things in the past. One thing to remember is that even if you get holes at the corners, they tend to disappear with washing and wearing. If all else fails you can always cheat and cinch them together on the inside with a bit of yarn and a sewing needle when they are all done. Yes, I’ve been known to do this. It does get better with practice, so if you get holes, just keep knitting socks. After several pairs, it seems to go away. I’ve also found that mine are much better since I’ve gone down to 2 or 2.25 mm needles for my fingering weight socks.

Here’s what I do currently. I’m a heel flap and gusset girl, all the way, so if you do short row heels, I can’t help you. First, I don’t pay any attention to how many stitches the pattern* tells me to pick up along the side of the heel flap. I do a slip stitch along the edge of the flap, and pick up one stitch for each slipped stitch. Sometimes I end up with 1 more on one side of the flap than the other; no worries, I just decrease more on that side. Trust me, nobody will be able to tell.

So here I am at the corner, after I’ve picked up the stitches along the first side of the flap. You can click on all of these photos to make them bigger.

Now I pick up one extra stitch right inside that gusset corner, sort of like a raised increase. A tiny crochet hook makes this easier. I’ve seen instructions to pick up this stitch in the running thread between the two needles, just to the left of where I’m picking up, but I’ve found that this tends to make a little hole of its own, like a “make one” increase does.

Now knit across the instep stitches. When you get to the other heel flap, do the same thing.

Some knitters pick up two stitches at each corner, the second just opposite the first, so it would end up on the instep needle. I don’t bother with this, as just doing one seems to do the trick.

Here’s my finished gusset corner:

By the way, that little crochet hook is one of my most-used knitting gadgets, and believe me, I have lots of knitting gadgets. It’s got a tiny crochet hook on one end, and a pointy “probe” end on the other.

I use this so much that I have two of them, one in my regular gadget bag, the other in my sock knitting kit. Patternworks has these, though I’m sure you can find them elsewhere. The little probe end works great for getting knots out of things.

I’ve also still been working on the eggplant Jo Sharp sweater, though you wouldn’t know it by my progress. I’m currently marooned on sleeve island. After getting part way through the sleeve increases, I decided I didn’t like the holes that I was getting with the “make one” increases I was using. So I ripped all the way back to the seed stitch border and started over, using raised or lifted increases instead. Increasing inside seed stitch is just a bit more entertaining than doing so in stockinette stitch. Here’s where I am after all the ripping and reknitting.

All those little pins? I think I’ve posted this before, but I use them to keep track of increases (or decreases). If I have to increase x number of times, I string that many pins together and pin it right to the sleeve, then take one pin off and mark the increase as I make it. When the pins are gone, I’m done.

Please ignore all the extra dog hair. We have Rae the neighbor Corgi with us for a few days, and she’s left fur all over the house. I was way too lazy to vacuum and dust before I took photos.

Speaking of Corgis, here’s what happens when you leave a Corgi in a room alone. This used to be the cable needle in the sleeve above.

Fortunately, I have a whole bunch more of these (see gadget comment above).

Next time: My latest knitting gadget.

*I actually don’t often use a pattern anymore for socks. Or, I do, but it’s in my head. Plain ribbed or picot top, stockinette cuff, heel flap/gusset, standard decreased toe, grafted together. The number of stitches I start with at this point is one of those “force be with you” things.

Give Us This Day…

The Daily Bread

Here’s the bread that I came up with yesterday.

And here’s the recipe, such as it is. You’re on your own as to the details. I mix this up in the bread machine on the dough setting, then make a free-form loaf and bake it in the oven directly on a baking stone.

I’ve discovered that there is a lot of flexibility in a bread recipe. I basically start with a formula of 3 cups of flour and 1 cup of water, and improvise from there. My bread machine is a Zojirushi, and they don’t make the particular model I have any longer. It makes a 1 1/2 pound loaf, so if yours is smaller, you’ll need to modify the amounts accordingly. My machine calls for adding the liquids in the bottom, then the dry ingredients, and the yeast on the top.

I use King Arthur flours, and keep everything except the unbleached white in the freezer. I use that up fast enough that I don’t worry about it. The yeast I use is SAF-Instant brand, and I buy it in bulk and store it in a tin in the refrigerator. The added gluten flour gives you more of a rise out of your flour. I use it if I’m adding whole wheat or rye flour, about a Tbl of gluten flour for each cup of ww or rye that I’m using. If you’re going to bake the bread directly in the bread machine, watch it with the gluten flour; it gives the bread a nice oven spring, and you might overflow the pan! If you take a look at that loaf in the bread pan, it never would have made it through the machine cooking cycle.

2 cups KA unbleached white flour
1 cup KA pumpernickel flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbl gluten flour
1 Tbl olive oil
2 Tbl honey
1 cup water
2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup seed/grain mix, soaked in just enough hot water to cover

More flour or water as needed

Put the ingredients in the bread machine according to your machine’s instructions. Let the seeds/hot water stuff cool a bit before adding. You can use a commercial cereal mix, or mix your own (wheat flakes, oats, a variety of seeds, polenta, bulghur wheat, etc.). I mix up a plastic container full and keep it in the freezer.

Once your bread machine starts, open the lid and play around with adding more flour/water as needed. You want a ball of dough that is floury enough to stick together, not too wet, but not too floury either. With experience, you’ll figure out how much to add. Remember that after you add more flour, it might take a bit before it absorbs the liquid, especially if you’re using ww or rye flours. If you add too much flour, you’ll get a leaden ball that feels more like a brick. After the machine is finished with the dough cycle, take it out, knead a bit to get a feel for the dough, add more flour if it’s sticky. Form your loaf, either in a pan or on a board, let it rise again until almost double. I sprinkled this one with poppy seeds, then slashed the top right before popping it in the oven. I beat an egg white and brush a little of it on the top so the seeds stick before I do the sprinkling.

I keep a baking stone in my oven, and preheat for at least 30 minutes so the stone is evenly heated. This one I started at 400 degrees, but this is a bit flexible as well. My oven runs cool, so you might try 375. Watch the bread, if it’s looking like it’s getting too brown on the outside but not done in the middle, turn the oven down, or cover your bread with a piece of foil. I start checking the bread at about 20-30 minutes, and use an instant thermometer to tell when it’s done. Stick it in the middle, when it reads somewhere around 190 degrees, you’re there. Your bread should also sound hollow when you pick it up out of the oven and tap on the bottom.

I also use a spray bottle and shoot a little water in the oven towards the oven walls every few minutes during the first 5-8 minutes or so to create steam. This gives it a nicer crust, but mostly makes me feel like Julia Child. If you have an oven light, don’t spray right on the bulb, the cool water could break it. Julia would never do that.

When it’s done, take it out, put it on a rack, and admire it. But restrain yourself from cutting into it until it’s cool, or nearly so. Bread, like a roast, cooks more when you take it out of the oven. If you cut into it right away, you’ll get an unsatisfying texture, more gummy than not. And remember that homemade bread doesn’t keep as well as store bought. This is usually not a problem around my house!

This is a great resource for bread bakers, and has a lot of other cooking tips as well. My favorite bread book is this one. Peter Reinhart’s books are also lovely, though not about bread machine baking. Yesterday’s bread was from one of his books, and is his Struan bread, one of my all time favorites. Here’s a link to the recipe.

This link tells you a little bit about adding other stuff to your bread, and what you might expect when you do so.

I’ll now return you to your regular knitblogging programming.

Been There, Done That…

…Bought The T-Shirt!

The theme this year was the changing face of bluegrass, and as such, included a few artists that stretched the definition a bit. Some of it didn’t work for me, most did, as usual. I’ll listen to it all, though my favorite is still traditional Appalachian style old-timey music. There wasn’t much of that this year. Uncle Earl was as close as it got, and they were every bit as good as they were last year.

Other favorites? Crooked Still, with a great lead singer and a cello player (yes, cello!) that will knock your socks off. All the girls seem to like him, too. There was a lot of girly screaming every time he played a solo. Blue Highway, playing more straight-up bluegrass, and with one of the best dobro guys around, Rob Ickes. John Cowan, Darrell Scott, and Pat Flynn, each a great musician, and together they were dynamite. Cowan’s voice will send chills up your spine. The Infamous Stringdusters are a great bluegrass jam band. Mike Dowling is a wonderful acoustic roots-blues guitarist, and was one of my favorites of the festival. Doyle Lawson and his band were polished, as usual.

My personal favorite? This one was a surprise to me. Mike Marshall has never been one of my favorite performers. He plays mandolin, and is one of the best in the business, but his music tends to run a bit experimental for my taste. This time out, he performed with Hamilton de Holanda, a Brazilian bandolim virtuoso. Their music is astounding. I don’t buy many albums any more, as I can listen to pretty much anything I want on Rhapsody, but these two were good enough to warrant buying the CD. Mike also did a solo performance on Sunday of Bach’s Chaconne (yes, Bach on a mandolin) that was terrific.

The festival also provided many hours of uninterrupted knitting time. I saw a couple of other knitters there this year, including Leah, who is knitting Rogue. She was also knitting it in a dark purply yarn, in near dark. I was having trouble just managing socks in stockinette. I didn’t take any photos at the festival; after I lost my binoculars a couple of years ago at Wintergrass, I try not to take anything that might tempt another thief. (You’d think bluegrass fans wouldn’t be pickpockets, but there you have it.)

And the socks, you ask? How much sock can I knit over a four day festival? (Actually, two evenings, Saturday afternoon and evening, and all day Sunday.) I started on Thursday evening just past the gusset on the first sock. Here’s where I finished Sunday night.

Can’t tell from that photo? Here’s another:

I also have been working on the mystery baby project, using some of my closely guarded Cotton Ease stash. I still can’t show a real picture, or it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, now, would it. Here’s a hint:

By the way, Cotton Ease is back on the market, with newer, better colors. Once I use up the stash I have, I might just have to buy more. (Who am I kidding, I probably won’t wait that long!)

And just to tempt your taste buds, here’s the bread I made earlier this week.

It’s white-bread, but with cooked brown rice, polenta, and enough wheat bran to give it a nice chewy texture. It’s already gone, so I need to go make more. I make my bread in the bread machine, but generally bake it in the oven. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I don’t need much of a recipe; I just start with the right proportions of flour and water, then add the other ingredients according to whim. Yum, now I’m hungry.

Oh, and in case you can’t find it, here’s a link to Wintergrass. Yes, I already have my tickets for next year. Did you really need to ask?

February….

It’s been a loony, busy week around here. As is usual for a work week, I didn’t get much else done. Now that the work week is over, it’s time for a little fun. First was Mardi Gras, Knitting Doctor style. We had Fat Tuesday at our house with a couple of neighbors. We made homemade chicken and andouille sausage gumbo and cornbread for supper, then played a competitive game of dominos to top off the evening. This photo is to prove that I can play Mexican Train and knit socks at the same time.

Note the lovely jewelry that I am wearing in that photo.

There aren’t many other knitting photos in this post, so if that’s all you came for, you might want to look away now.

Here’s a shot I got of Will this morning. He stared intently out that window for over an hour, at exactly the same spot. I finally got up to see what he was looking at, which of course was nothing. He turned and gave me that “see, I made you get up and look, all humans are helpless against my superior powers” look that only cats have.

And now, because I know you all are wondering what the title of this post has to do with anything, other than that I am at least partially oriented:

February is indeed my favorite month. It’s time again for Tacoma’s bluegrass festival, Wintergrass. It started last night, continues tonight, and all day Saturday and Sunday. I have my sock knitting ready, and a backup plan in the unlikely event that I finish these (this is only the first of the pair). I don’t plan on missing a note.

More Sunsets, Knitting Update

Here are more vacation photos. See the previous few posts for details of where we were, in case you haven’t been hanging on every word that I post.

Yet another sunset from our condo. In weeding through the photos, it appears that we took at least 50 sunset photos from our balcony on the various evenings that we were there at sunset. Thank heavens for digital, is all I can say.

We did make it out to Catalina Island. I had that silly song in my head for the whole trip, by the way. We took the Catalina Flyer over, and spent the whole day, taking a bus trip inland to check the place out.

Here’s the bus:

And more beach/knitting shots.

We stopped at the Wrigley ranch for refreshments part-way through the tour. I took a knitting break with this fine fellow.

There were cute horses, and a cute real cowboy.

There were buffalo:

And the ferry ride back to the mainland, at yet another sunset.

We met our Germany friends for breakfast Sunday morning before we took off for home. We discovered the Crystal Cove Beach Cottages during our trip. This was a thriving beach community from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, and subsequently fell into disrepair. It has been turned into a historic district and is slowly being restored as rental cottages. The restaurant on the property, the Beachcomber, is just a hoot. I want their martini flag for our dock. We didn’t get any photos, as it was drizzly that morning, but someday intend to go back there for a vacation.

On to knitting. I worked on the Laurel Hill sweater during the trip, and finished both the front and back. Now it’s on to Sleeve Island, nothing like Catalina Island, I’m sure. Maybe playing that song would make it go faster. Then again, maybe not.

I also got quite a bit done on the first of the Solar Energy socks. I wasn’t quite certain that I liked this color once I started knitting, but it’s growing on me. It’s striping in a rather interesting fashion.

It’s actually not quite that…yellow. It’s more maize and khaki, with light purple and orange in the stripey part. I’ll try to get the color better with the next, hopefully daylight, photo.

I’m also still working on a lace project, but it’s gotten to that point where it just can’t be photographed without looking like a blob. The last photo I took of the Forest Canopy shawl was way back in September. It’s bigger than that now, but too big to spread out and get a decent photo. You’ll just have to wait.

This week is a work week, so stay tuned for another post. Who knows if I’ll get any knitting, or posting, done this week. All I have to say, is that it’s cocktail hour here, with or without the martini flag.

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An addendum: One of my new favorite knitting blogs: TECHknitting; check it out!

Trains, Planes, and Knitting

We’re back from the Great California Train trip of 2007, and boy, do I have pictures. The trip was a blast, and I’d definitely do Amtrak again. We took the Coast Starlight from Tacoma to Los Angeles, then drove to Newport Beach, where we had a condo a little ways from the water. We flew home yesterday, and I finally sort of have my act together to post a few photos. We booked a “roomette” for the trip, which is two seats facing each other in a compartment that has a big window and a sliding door to the train corridor. At night, the two seats fold down for a single bed, and a bunk folds down from above for the second bed. We slept in this type of room the last time we were on Amtrak several years ago, and it is cramped but better than sleeping sitting up in a chair. The bathroom and shower are down the hall, and shared.

After we got on the train, we asked about upgrading to a larger compartment. Just as a tip, if you do this, you are definitely risking that there won’t be a larger room available, especially during the busier travel seasons, but they quite frequently will upgrade you for much less than you would pay by booking it directly. Fortunately, they had one “luxury” compartment available all the way to LA, and we were first to ask. These rooms still have bunk beds, but the compartment is about twice the size, and has a bathroom/shower combo that is just barely big enough to stand up in and turn around to rinse off. It works, though. Here’s the train pulling in to the Tacoma station:

The Coast Starlight route goes by the water through Tacoma, then cuts inland for awhile until you get into California. Much of the route through CA goes right by the water. Here’s a view of both the new and old Tacoma Narrows Bridges. The one on the left is the new one, in the process of being built.

Here I am, settling in to the compartment for the long trip.

Of course, Sweetpea got to go along. That’s John in the mirror of our compartment.

I did a little knitting in the observation car, along the coast.

The “first class” compartments (the cars with the sleepers) normally have a separate parlor car, which is supposedly pretty fancy, but they are all offline for renovation. We’ll just have to plan another trip, I guess. They do have wine tasting on this route, every afternoon, for the “sleeper people”. Here we are enjoying a glass.

All your meals are included when you book a sleeper. You get to share the table with another couple while you are eating, so we met some interesting people on the route. The Coast Starlight is notorious for being late, but it seems to be getting better. We were only about 90 minutes late getting into LA, but as this was strictly a pleasure jaunt, the time issue didn’t bother us.

Here’s a photo of the first sunset from the balcony of our condo.

Our first lunch was at the Crab Cooker, which is sort of an institution in Newport. Fortunately, it wasn’t very busy when we were there.

We met up with friends from Germany that just happened to be in Newport on family business. It was purely coincidence, and we only found out that they were going to be there a week before we left home. Strange, indeed. They spent one night at our condo, and we had a couple of lunches together as well. We played a killer game of Mexican Train the night they stayed with us. Here’s me concentrating.

I still lost. And don’t let that water bottle worry you. The bourbon glass just didn’t make it into the photo.

Guess where we ate?

Mmmmm. Two double-doubles, with cheese, and chocolate shakes. Worth the whole train trip, right there.

We walked on the beach:

We took a boat tour of the Newport Harbor:

…With our friends from Germany:

We saw more sunsets, this one on Laguna Beach:

I’ll post the rest of the pictures later this week when I get them sorted out. There might also be a knitting update photo or two! How exciting!

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In even more exciting news, my friend Kris, the Knitting Wannabe, and her husband Dana have opened up an online yarn shop, Sonny and Shear.

Go, shop! I am on this crazy yarn fast, and can’t shop again until the 15th, but I’ve got my credit card number memorized and I’m ready. Buy enough yarn to keep her in business. I am overjoyed to no end to have a friend who owns a real yarn shop. I need to get a sign that says “will work for yarn”.

26 Miles…

Romance, Romance, Romance, Romance

I couldn’t resist…

**see the previous post, if this makes absolutely NO sense to you. Just so that song is stuck in your head, like it’s in mine!