Give them bread!

Okay, the first of the month budget was such that grocery shopping didn't happen, so we ran out of bread. Looked in the pantry and yup, in the back corner of a shelf was the breadmaker. Collecting dust and neglected.

Pulled out one of those half books on bread machines and found a recipe that I had all the ingredients for, thankfully there was also bread flour in the pantry!

I did the medium loaf of white bread and forgot that it was a 2lb bread machine. It seemed kind of small when done and medium gave it a dark brown crust. The bread was still good!

This morning I decided to try out the oat bread. Went for the large loaf and was happy with how it came out. Tasty too!

Dough in the breadmaker, think its been mixed and rising

Forgot to take a picture before cutting into it!

Inside

The boys like the bread, and I love fresh bread. I might be playing more with this over the next few weeks. I have a few pages marked in the recipe book. The holidays are coming up and those seem like good times to have breadstuffs.

There's nothing like the smell of bread while its cooking, makes you hungry!

Do you have a favorite bread machine recipe or where you get your recipes?

Sometimes a slow learner ;-)

I know that when I'm in a migraine cycle its better if I don't do a lot of activities, but Friday, day two of the migraine cycle I was in, I didn't listen. I decided to defrost some chicken breasts and make a couple dinners. I boiled three small breasts in water with a couple cloves of garlic and a handful of baby carrots. I didn't have any celery on hand and didn't want to include onions. Once they were cooked through, I took everything out so they could either be cut up into bite size bites or shredded.

I've found that shredding chicken really makes a breast go along way. Much more chicken seems to be in what is being served than bite sized bits. Plus I had to us more chicken to make it look like everyone was getting enough chicken. So shredding really helps extend your chicken!

Half of the chicken, the carrots, broth water, and cloves went to this recipe, my South of the Border Chicken.  I think I blogged pics of it last year, if you don't want to go visit the Tasty Kitchen web site. If you don't want to go there, why?! It's a nice place to find some great recipe inspirations.

The other half of the shredded chicken went into a bottle of Vodka Chicken. They sauce this bottle now. Brandon loved getting it at Macaroni Grill when they still existed. So the half a box of linguine noodles and some Chardonnay with the chicken and we had dinner.

The soup went into the refrigerator and has been lunch and dinner since, and a couple in the freezer for lunches. I even had some leftover Vodka Chicken sauce and that went into the freezer. I'm sure I'll have some leftover pasta noodles that it can go with in the near future.

While all that was going on, I had some little tomatoes that I'd gotten from Carla as green ones. They sat on the counter in their plastic bag ripening. Rinsed them off, de-stemmed them and popped them into a pot of boiling water to blanch. Into a pot of cold water to stop the cooking and help slide the skins off and soon I was de-seeding. Once their skins were off, seeds removed it was into a pan to cook down. I only ended up with a pint of tomato sauce, but it can be used for anything.

Still had the headache that night and in fact I think it was a little bit worse, so I stayed home and didn't go to Revels that night. :-( There was a fabric swap I missed too! No one else brought fabric, but she'll bring it another time, and hopefully I can exchange some of mine too.

Jimmy Kimmel slams knitting

I don't usually watch late night television, but happened to catch this. Was a bit shocked to have my hobby slammed. Thanks Jimmy. Won't be watching you again.

I had actually tuned in and watched a bit of that episode. It was interesting seeing the different wheels, ages, the techniques being used. I have spun from the grease and while I don't care for it, I thought it was cool they were trying to break a record.

One frogged, one started - fingerless mittens in November

I tried to make a pair of fingerless mitts for Bailey. Out of some pretty purple alpaca with a little bit of glitter. The pattern was CanCans. I was disappointed with how the stitch definition came out with the yarn. Wasn't happy, so frogged and found another pattern for the yarn.

Can you see the blue sparkle?

I had seen Spatterdash being queued and thought they looked fun and thought they were also in my queue, until I looked. I had in mind at first one of the de-stash Happy Feet yarns from Friday, but then remembered this odd ball skein of Shibui Staccato that I had gotten in the Rose City Yarn Crawl as one of the 20 first people in. 

The green tones and the splash of pink just not colors that I'm normally attracted. The skein flashed into my mind when I looked at someone's finished project. So when the Cancans failed and before finding the pattern for the yarn, I jumped in and started my pair of Spring Green Spatterdash:

I don't normally want to knit something flat that you're going to wear in the round, but this has been interesting to do. There's a bit of shaping with decreases in the stockinette portion. Adding in the thumb gusset was different. Definitely nice tidy little increases without big holes. I'm a fan of those! 

There's five more of the fan patterns to go, they go quickly, so hopefully one will be done soon. 

Who gets these?  Haven't decided yet. Depends how they come out and if they shout out they go to a particular person. ;-) I need a pair of fingerless mitts for the season, but are they these?

Oh! Had to refresh my memory on a stitch - SSP. I am constantly doing a SSK with the Hitofude pattern, so doing a purl version was a nice twist. How to do it isn't as fast as the SSK that I learned from Lucy Neatby at that first Sock Summit back in 2009. I can't find a good explanation of it. I'll see if I can get Brandon to video me doing it tomorrow. 

NaKniSweMo Progress Update 1

I've been knitting for nine days and have made steady progress - Yay!

I manage to get one pattern repeat done a day, because I'm now also working on another project and because I have it memorized and it gets a little tedious. I've done two in one day or a little more than one.

Day 2

Day 2

Day 4

Day 5

As you can see above, I've used about a skein of yarn to get to that point. Now like a lot of knitters weaving in ends isn't a lot of fun. I'd recently seen a post by Knitted Wit about how to join yarns without ends to weave in. It's supposed to be fairly easy to let it blend in. Here's the YouTube video on how to do it.

Here's my knot:

Here it is all knitted in. It ended up at the point of the pattern. I can feel it. If I hunt for it, I can find it, but its not glaringly obvious. I'll see with the next one if I continue to use this.

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

So making progress. I want to get the sleeve/upper body done, so it looks like a cardigan rather than a shawl in progress. My row count will change with that though, so maybe I shouldn't be so eager? ;-)

Some Fall Color and a little bit about books

Have popped my head outside in the backyard a few times this last week, during the rain breaks. ;-)

The Sunset Maple, we got it for the colors for fall. Red-orange, or sunset colored:

You can see some of the leaves are their normal dark purple color, but then it turns yellow-orange. It's been fun watching it grow over the years:

I bought this at the Norm Thompson sample sale a few weeks ago. I love owls and this was quirky. Trying to get enough sun during the day to recharge the solar cells. Did you know that some solar cells don't charge on cloudy days? They truly need "sun" to charge. It's a little green light when it does come on at night.

Isn't he fun?

Looking over the roof to the front yard, you can see the two sweet gums on either side of the driveway. I think its funny how they change at different rates. This is the one on the left side of the driveway as you look at the house:

The one on the right side of the house. It's always behind the others in the cul de sac:

The nasturtiums went into hibernation when I forgot to water the box. With all the rains, they popped up and went green and have been throwing out blooms and being all cheerful. I love that they reseed themselves and return each year.

No comments about the sweater posts, but I have one or two that I'll write up and post along with another new project.

I have been an avid reader since grade school. Family will tell you that I was often found deep within the pages of a book. I've had problems reading the last couple of months. It's really weird. Authors that have usually sucked me into their world I've struggled to read their books. I'm at 75% for my goal of 100 books for the year. I've had books that I've had to return to the library unread because of struggling to finish a book. A couple of times I admit I just gave up and left it as something to possibly be read in the future. Others, have been put back on request to be read.

Have you ever had this problem? Does anyone pay attention to the little bookshelf over on the right? Read any of these books? Did you know if you hover over the book it will show the review I gave it?

NaKniSweMo 2013

Some of you may be familiar with November being a NaNoWriMo where people sit down and try to write a 50,000 word novel during the month. Well a knitter wanted a sweater and decided to use the same concept to knitting.

I had heard of this phenomena, but November is usually smack dab in the middle of Christmas knitting. I've been handmaking Christmas gifts for years. This year, there may be fewer hand knit and maybe some sewn things as well as jams and preserves.

We have two nieces and six nephews, so they'll get the focus of the handknit stuff. Well except for Logan. We had gotten him a book (other kids got books too) and I found out that he's definitely the reader in the family. He has gone on to get the books in hardback and will go back and re-read from the beginning of the series to prepare for reading the latest book. So I'm going to pick him up a book or two for his gifts this year. I'll handmake him a bookmarker so he has something made by me.

I have a start on the Christmas gifts as you saw with Bailey's hat yesterday. I have a pair of fingerless mitts also planned for her. The rest of the boys I've run into stumbling blocks with. I think they are due for hats, but what ones?

Selfish knitting is usually planned for January for most knitters. I can't wait until then this year. I need to satisfy a need to have something that I'm making stay with me. So NaKniSweMo seemed like a perfect way to accomplish this goal. I have yarn stashed for several sweaters and cardigans but gift knitting always seemed to get in the way, or it was the wrong time of the year to be thinking about wearing a sweater. It's actually the perfect time to do it, so its ready when the weather is, but we won't go there right now. lol

I posted it to Facebook as kind of a way to put myself on the hook. I had at first planned to do Tempting. I have the yarn that I thought would work for it, more than enough I think too:

It's some Arucunia Wool that I had bought at The Knitting Bee several years ago during a Super Bowl sale with the thought of using it to make a Clapotis. In the knitting world it seems like everyone has made one, but me.  Oh I know there are a few hold outs still. ;-) I didn't jump right in and start making it, so the yarn has been at the bottom of the stash bin, pulled out a few times and put back.

I even did a gauge swatch for the pattern! I was a little tight with the yarn and then relaxed and got gauge. Yes, I know the swatch should have been bigger, but I wanted to get started!

So through chatting about the sweater on Facebook I also mentioned that I had been thinking about doing a new pattern I bought. The pattern is called Hitofude and was just a few US dollars. I had been looking at clothing through different online stores and noticed that this style of cardigan is very popular right now, so seemed like a perfect time to knit one. I'm also all about the layering. I have a tendency to run warm, weight not withstanding, so wearing the Tempting might be a little warmer than I would like.

Now, if we ran to colder winters, I'd be totally into making one. Our more temperate weather here in the Portland area means I need to worry more about getting wet than bundling up.

So I'll still make the Tempting, with the cable modification at the neckline, but after I do the Hitofude cardigan first.

I cast on and got start on November 1st and have been knitting on it every day. I have pics for the first four days:

I had some Knit Picks Gloss in Woodland Sage planned to make a Thermal. It's nice but I don't think I'd ever wear it.

Day one. You do provisional cast on in crochet chains. Then do the setup rows. I got the first two done before going to bed. Why was I doing it so late? I'd started playing Lord of the Rings Online with Brandon and we played until after 10pm, so I had to do all that so I wouldn't be behind.

Day two I have one chart repeat and two rows into the second done.

Day three there are three chart repeats done and I'm one chart repeat ahead of daily stitch count needed.

How do I know I'm ahead?  Well I sat down and tried to come up with a spreadsheet to track numbers of stitches each day done and whether or not I was ahead or behind and if I was on track for the goal. I then enlisted Brandon's help with getting all the bells and whistles done through Excell. He helped me with it and I was using it and on day two he tells me that I had a mistake and so he was re-doing the spreadsheet for me.

Yes, it helps to know how many days are in the month you are working with. I had given November 31 days, it only has 30 days. So he was able to take all of what I wanted and create the new spreadsheet with some better programming and formatting.

Because Ravelry keeps track of progress by percentage I had to request that addition to the spreadsheet. It unfortunately does it in increments of 5s, so I've been at 15% for a couple days. (You should see that by the project pic in the upper right hand corner of the blog.)

I'll try not to bore you with daily updates, unless you really want to see them?  Let me know. ;-) I have 15 chart repeats to do of the current setup. This makes the arms and the upper back of the cardigan. I don't want to get close to the end of the month and be racing to be done.

Its not too late to get started on a sweater/cardigan for the month. Want to join in on the fun? The Rav group is here. As mentioned there are prizes, its going to be done on a random number generator basis on finished projects. One lady has donated $75 gift certificate to WEBS and that's going to be a grand prize, yet to be determined how to win.

So am I totally selfish in wanting to knit something for myself? Or recharging my creative box by knitting for myself?