Beady and bready

DP took me to the store today to get beads - hooray! I got silver, gold, bronze, green and red, which I think will make a marvelous waistcoat :) My plan is to put half of each color of bead in a bowl, and thread them onto the yarn. Hopefully, I'll have enough...and the back of the leg won't be too stiff with all the beading. I'm excited to try this out, and if it looks anything like my imagination, I'll be very happy.

I also just pulled a batch of b-bread out of the oven. I used this recipe, but I swapped out rum for the bourbon. One, I don't have any bourbon in the house, and two, I love rum and bananas together. Frankly, I love rum in anything, but that's beside the point :)

I just need to finish the foot and heel of the second Diamond Waistcoat sock, then I can cut the yarn and bead it up. Goodness, that banana bread smells lovely!

Let them wear socks, and let them eat cake

I'm trying yet another yellow cake recipe - dp loves boxed yellow cake with chocolate frosting, but I refuse to buy boxed cake mix. I've tried various butter and oil cakes, but nothing is quite right. Currently, I have Smitten Kitchen's yellow cake in the oven - most of her recipes are great, so I have high hopes for this one. I don't know what to do about the frosting though...dp didn't like the buttercream I made last time, though that might be a review of my skills rather than the recipe :)

I finished the Nibblers socks - hooray! Here they are in they're poorly lit glory:



and the detail shot:



I finished the second sock in about 5 1/2 days, so I'm only a little bit behind schedule. I'm currently working on the March mystery sock for the SKA sockdown on Ravelry. I'm happy to be knitting down the stash - though if I use up my sock yarn, I'll only have sweater weights left. It's likely though that I'll top up the sock yarn, if I could only get someone to take me to the yarn store!

I also finally got some cardigan pictures off the camera:

Side one:



Side two:



I love that it's reversible, and I love both sets of buttons. Now that my sister and my best friend are expecting, I think I may have to whip up a few more of these for them. So cute, and so quick. Though if either of them is having boys, I may not go with this cardi - it is a bit delicate looking.

I still have two half finished cardigans for myself sitting in my WIP pile, but I don't have the energy to work on them. I think I need a nice vacation, so I can concentrate on just relaxing, at which point I'll be able to work on the sweaters. I need to have either a certain state of mind, or a really hard deadline :)

Well, off to pick out a frosting recipe...

Whatta day

It has been snowing all day long - sometimes heavy, sometimes, less heavy - I'm so happy I didn't have to work today.

I spent the day working on my second mystery sock for SKA on Ravelry, catching up on my blogs, baking bread and reading romance novels. Sigh.

Here's a pic of the first sock:



Yes, I know it's blurry, but it's the best I could do :) Really - I took six pictures, and this was the best one. Eeep! I'm about a third of the way through the second sock, which will end at the end of the gusset (the next clue isn't out until next week). This is the first time I've done mosaic, and I have to say that I enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would. I love colorwork, but I'm not often in the mood to have to carry both yarns around - this makes that problem moot.

I finished the sweater/dress that I was test knitting:



I love how it turned out, and I'm going to give it to DP's sister's daughter. I think it will be a dress for her now and a sweater for her later, but it's just so cute I can hardly stand it.

I baked two loaves of bread today: a whole wheat sandwich loaf and a baguette. I use the recipes from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day, which I encourage everyone to run out and buy if you are interested in making bread. The two things I've brought away from the book that I think can be used elsewhere are the overnight rise and the stretch and fold. The overnight rise gives you a lot more leeway on when you make the bread, and it helps the flavors of the bread develop so much more than the usual countertop rise. The stretch and fold lets you make a dough with a higher hydration and less traditional kneading. You knead your dough for a bit, then stretch and fold it onto itself by quarters. You let it sit for ten minutes and do it again, usually three or four times total. It's an amazing technique. Sadly, I have to let my bread cool, so I haven't been able to dig in yet, but I have designs on the baguette at least for dinner. DP also mentioned that he'd like roti tonight, so I made end up making 3 different breads today.

I also got a bunch of pictures off my camera and onto flickr, so I can prove that I actually knit something during Christmas. Behold, my juerga mitts:



and



A coworker got the green ones and DP claimed the yellow ones.

And some One Scarves:







I love that pattern - obvious, I know.

Finally, two keyhole scarves:



Again, another great pattern from Anne Hanson. She's amazing.

I still need to make myself some more lip balms; I'm totally out, since I had to give several away to visitors who left their own chapsticks at home :) I need to finish filling out the h&p stuff for my doctor's appointment tomorrow (new fertility clinic), and I have a couple more chapters to read. Finally, if anyone knows of a great pattern for Rowan Cashsoft 4 ply (the fingering weight), let me know. I'm thinking baby stuff, since it's soft and machine washable, but I'm not sure which baby stuff. All the babies I'm waiting for the birth of are due April through August.

Done, and buttons

The socks are done! DP loves them, since he didn't realize I was making them for him.

I got the buttons from jennybuttons - they're gorgeous, and I think they'll be perfect with the sweater. Little bronze buttons with a hand hammered look...swoon :) I've got to get the back of the sweater finished so I can start on the sleeves. I'm just so excited!

We had a nice snowfall today (it's even better since we don't have to drive anywhere), and we're having a tree-trimming party with my sister and her family. I'm making a big pot of chili, some cornbread and a caramel nut tart for dessert. I have coffee and port, and I'm ready to go. Unfortunately, I have to shovel the driveway before they get here! I hurt my neck and shoulder yesterday - I was moving an upright piano and one of the casters came off, so I had to lift it up and push it on two wheels - but snow waits for no (wo)man, so I'll soon be off to the garage. I love shoveling, but it really cuts into my knitting and baking time.

DP lost the blue fingerless gloves I made for him last year, so I'll have to make him another pair as soon as I can. I have some of the terra cotta colored Madelinetosh DK left, which feels like it will make good glove material. It's soft and a bit bouncy, which I think he'll like. He's able to wear merino and other fine wools, so I'm going to make these and see what happens. It's too bad he's allergic to angora, because my brown angora mitts would fit him perfectly. Sigh!

A quest, or an obsession?

I love bread. I know, it's totally un-cool to like any bread that's not fancy schmancy, made with all whole organic grains, but I just love a good loaf of french bread. Unfortunately, I can't make a loaf of it to save my life. Truly, if I was kidnapped by French bakers and had to make a loaf as a ransom or be cast into the Seine, I'd end up at the bottom of the river.

So, I've been trying to get better. For the past week, I've been making a loaf of french-ish bread every other day, trying to figure out how to make it taste good. A couple loaves were so bad they went from stove to counter to garbage can in short order. I just can't let it go - I have to figure it out.

Yesterday I made the dough and put it in the fridge to age (?) overnight. I took it out this morning and went through the 3 1/2 hour rising process, then baked it at 400 for about 35 minutes. It was better, but still not great. I just can't seem to get an open crumb, no matter how much or little I knead it, or what my hydration level is. Yargh!

In other news, I'm working on a cardigan for my niece - Hearts, by Tora Froseth. I'm about halfway through the yoke, and it seems like it'll be cute. The directions I have seem to have incorrect marker placement for the 4 year size, but I think I'm making it work.

Onwards!