When Craftiness Abounds

Time Flies
Do you ever feel like you can't possibly keep up with everything? I feel like that on a daily basis. The morning is usually full of chores (or volunteering at the elementary school) and it speeds bye, and then it's time for Kevin to get off the kindergarten bus. The afternoon usually involves chores, play dates, and errands. It zooms bye too and all of the sudden it's time for Geoffrey to get off the bus. Two days a week we have soccer practices. We gave up on Monday night Irish dance, because the boys weren't that into it, which helps tone down Monday chaos. Saturday morning is also for soccer. I have book club and bunco and a parent's group to attend or host every month. Andrew hosts or goes out for poker, and his travel schedule is just insane. Every other week I do all this stuff myself because he's out of town on business. I'm sure there are things I'm missing in this little summation of my weeks, but it's stuff you would be bored with anyway. I probably drink more coffee than I should, but there are worse things people do to stay on top of things!

In the Garden
There's not much left in the garden....just a few herbs and cabbagy plants. Everything else got plowed under last weekend thanks to Andrew and Kevin. Geoffrey has been under the weather due to allergies and colds going around school, so he was inside, probably watching Star Wars. By far the best yielding plants in the garden this year were the potatoes. I forget what kind I planted, but they did well and they taste good!

"Normal potatoes" is what my boys call these. I also planted a red variety that did very well.

My sweet potatoes, which I planted along the front walk, did very well too, except for the half that got eaten by deer. I guess next year I'll plant them inside a fence?

Andrew tilled and tilled, adding the year's compost and lots of manure.

Kevin's job was to chop up the chunks of half rotten potatoes, pumpkins, zucchini, and other stuff with his shovel. He loves to help out in the garden. Actually, he just plain loves to help out.

Our Daily Bread
I've been baking a lot recently. Among my many bread-baking foibles was to use Bob's Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour when I should have been using the plain whole wheat flour. Thanks to Cassidy at Bob's Red Mill, I have some of that flour to use when baking bread! Our local market (Ross' Granville Market) carries some of the products, and at least one of the local giant chains does too.

I love that slogan: "Life Insurance you eat." We use a lot of Bob's Red Mill products, which include things like grains, beans, seeds, flours, mixes, and hot cereals--which I sometimes add to bread dough for extra healthfulness (fibre and protein from the whole grains).

This would be the right whole wheat flour to use when baking bread. Andrew swears by the whole wheat pastry flour for pie crust though! I like it in cookies too.

I baked a loaf of whole wheat bread in my bread machine yesterday, and it rose appropriately. My earlier attempts at whole wheat bread, which didn't rise, yielded whole wheat bricks. Now that I am armed with a tiny bit more knowledge of bread chemistry, I will go forth and bake!

Sourdough pumpernickel rye with whole wheat flour. It's a dense loaf (though it rose a lot) that was best when it was fresh. It wasn't great on the third day, but that's OK. It was great on day one! This recipe came from Clayton's New Book of Breads. I used flax seeds instead of caraway and also substituted sorghum for the molasses.

A whole wheat loaf I did in the bread machine to save time. The recipe came from the booklet that came with the machine. This loaf also has sunflower seeds and cracked hard red wheat in it. It rose nearly to the top of my bread machine!

Knitting News
I've got two projects currently on the needles. I've been wanting to make the "Boatneck Bluebell" from Stefanie Japel's Fitted Knits for nearly a year now, and I've finally gotten started. I'm knitting it in Cascade 220 color# 9425 (dark green heather). I'm going to love it, and it's going rather quickly on size 8 needles.


My other project is from Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn by Carol J. Sulcoski. I was dazzled by the "Spot Check Sock" pattern and decided to cast on the Sunday of A Wool Gathering. I love how they're turning out, and I'm knitting them from Earthly Hues' Forever in Blue Jeans and Sunrise Seedlings on US2 needles. It will take a full skein of each, but I'll be rewarded with very warm socks when I'm done! It's stranded knitting....you knit one stitch of Forever in Blue Jeans, then one stitch of Sunrise, and on the next row you change the order so you end up with checks. You also end up with double thick (and doubly warm) socks. Winter, I'll be prepared for you!

Sweet Success in Bread World

Our Daily Bread


I think I've got this oatmeal sourdough recipe figured out, with the help of my favourite kitchen toy. I love that it's red. It's a very sassy red.


I am able to make bread that looks like this:


The bread has crust that looks like this:


The beauty of the moment is enhanced by this one-of-a-kind rack made by Andrew's dad.


Bread is good stuff. Especially when made with the right kind of flour.

Fiber Indulgence: Gather ye wool while ye may...

My apologies to Robert Herrick. I couldn't help it.

A Wool Gathering
This past weekend I took Earthly Hues to A Wool Gathering at Young's Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Fibre fun was had by all!

I was in "The Red Tent," which made everything in it look red.

I got to chat with old friends, made new friends, and successfully avoided spending my profits on things I didn't need. That is, I somehow left the festival having bought NOTHING fibre related. All my expenses had to do with travel, food (I highly recommend the Sunrise Cafe in Yellow Springs, though they don't open at exactly sunrise, which I found out), and lodging. How did I do that? Proud determination and a self-imposed fibre spending freeze. I was determined not to add to the mountain of yarn and fibre I already have but haven't used yet. I really, really wanted to buy a fleece from a booth right next to me, but I have 2 sheep fleeces and 3 alpaca blankets already and haven't had them processed yet. I wouldn't let myself do it! So, although I had plenty of opportunity to gather more wool, I decided not to.

My self control has nothing to do with not wanting things. I wanted to drop hundreds of dollars at the Bijou Basin Ranch booth. They have a herd of yaks out in Colorado that are so stinkin' cute you'd like to hug them, then try to secretly pluck the down from their undercoat.

This is a sweater I wanted to make with the yak yarn. The photograph is from Bijou's website.

I decided not to go for it because I have so many projects in a queue that I can't even count them. So, no ruffled yak-down sweater for me this year. There's always next year though!

Denise's Fleeces, from Morgantown, Indiana had the only raw lamb & sheep fleeces there! Can you believe it? There were plenty of alpaca blankets. "Blanket" is fibre-ese for "fleece" or the fibre that is shorn from the animal at shearing time. I fell in love with a large grey alpaca blanket but someone else wanted it to and beause I was a self-imposed spending freeze I let the other lady have it. OK, that's a lie. She got there first and I sulked for hours afterward.

Why the spending freeze? It's because Earthly Hues recently bought this:

The new toy.

It's a (lovingly used) Tools of the Trade loom, with a 24-inch weaving width, 8 harnesses and 10 treadles. It was made in Vermont, but the company doesn't make looms any longer. So, it's an American-made collector's item!! It will enable me to do quite a lot with weaving, and I hope to offer hand-woven objets d'art at fibre shows next year. Let's hope it pays for itself! I did get quite a deal on it though. A new loom that size could cost $2000 to $3000, and I spent a fraction of that: $500. A fraction it might be, but it's no small beans. I'm keeping the old rug loom too, even though I never used it. I will someday. Someday I'll have a whole room for my fibre crafts, and both looms can be set up!

Did you finish Flower Child?
Yes! I finished it on the evening of 9/18 and wore it on 9/19 to the show. It got lots and lots of comments and I was extraordinarily proud. There were miles of seaming involved with Flower Child, but I'm glad I persevered. I really love it. Perhaps tomorrow I will be able to get some modeled shots so you can check out the shaping. I ended up with two different dyelots (of Ella Rae bamboo/silk), and while (I've convinced myself) it's not that obvious in natural light, it's quite something with the flash. I'm considering overdyeing it with a pale yellow-green, to bring coherence with the two different variants of the Apple colour. For now, this is what I have:

Flower Child, in bloom.

Our Daily Bread
Today's bread will be another batch of sourdough oatmeal. I started the sponge today. Let's hope the starter is still alive after sitting lonely for 5 or 6 days! Tomorrow, if all goes well, I should have two loaves of deliciousness. I promise I'll take photos.

Imagination Station
Foggy, cloudy mornings like this I can look out the back window, squint, and successfully convince myself, for a fleeting moment, that we live in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. Imagination is bliss.

Mountains in my back yard. Admit it. You can see it too.

On Sourdough and Sour Moods

Sourdough Bread

The last time I posted, I was brewing a sourdough starter. I've baked a few different sourdough recipes since then, and have fed and watered the starter every time it comes out of the fridge...which is every 3 or 4 days.

First, there was a plain old sourdough recipe. It had baking soda in it, and once baked, you could still taste a slight hint the baking soda. I know there's a chemical reason for that, I'm just not sure what that reason is.

The second recipe I tried was an oatmeal sourdough recipe, which turned out light and airy. A really great bread that the kids ate for lunch and breakfast. I'd do this loaf again for sure.

The last recipe I tried involved whole wheat. It had just a tiny bit of bread flour, and the rest was whole wheat flour. I used Bob's Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour. Usually this flour turns out great baked goods, but not this time. This recipe produced two whole wheat bricks, best used for bird food. Truth be told, even the birds won't eat it. I wonder what I did wrong? The loaves didn't even brown. Something went very terribly wrong with that batter. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact the recipe states "2 to 4 cups of whole wheat flour?" How do you know when to stop? Maybe a more seasoned bread baker would know, but I didn't!

I have no photographs, because I didn't think of taking photographs at the time. Lame, I know.

Sour Moods

Have you heard that Mary Travers, from Peter, Paul, and Mary died yesterday? Oh, the injustice. My kids will never hear P, P, & M sing "Puff the Magic Dragon" live. I have heard them in concert, twice. The first time was in a tiny little tent on Cape Cod in the summer of 1996. It was awesome. The second time was a the Palace Theater in Columbus. Mary is the epitome of a flower child. She always spoke or sang what she felt, she was true to herself, she had hard times but she got through them. My heart is heavy.

In Mary's honour, I must finish Flower Child today. I have seamed my little heart out and have woven in all the ends (trillions), and all I have left to do is knit the ribbing onto the sleeves and block the hell out of it. Then, I will wear it to Yellow Springs this weekend, where Earthly Hues is exhibiting at A Wool Gathering at Young's Jersey Dairy. I hope to meet new people, see familiar faces, and sell a lot of yarn and fibre.

Peace, Love, and Fibre

Our Daily Bread

After paying $5.00 at the Granville farmer's market for a loaf of (spectacular) sourdough bread (worth every penny), I said to Andrew, "You know what they should do? They should make sourdough bread bowls for soup and sell them!" Then I said, "I should make sourdough bread bowls (and eat them, not sell them)." Then I went on with business as usual for a couple of days.

The day I used the last of the sourdough, I decided to check out a sourdough recipe, because, it can't be that hard to make sourdough, right?

Well, it's not hard, but it does take a while. First, you decide on a recipe for the starter. My recipe came from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads. Every time I try a recipe in this book, it turns out perfectly. Mr. Clayton offers six different recipes to make a starter, and by making a starter you're growing your own yeast. If that doesn't appeal to you, buy from Lucky Cat Bakery at the Saturday Farmer's Market in Granville! That's Kim, with her back turned to us, in the (linked) photo. Her partner Andrew, who is always there too, is the Sushi Chef (Sushi every Monday night, and now they have takeout!) at The Wine Cache, and also farms and makes bread. Andrew's the only person I know who has grown artichokes from seed, in Ohio, and raised them to maturity. In Ohio.

Imagine my glee when I spotted one recipe that uses hops. Hops, my friends, are essential for making good beer. Andrew (Not Kim's Andrew, my Andrew. They're both tall, and they're both Andrews, but my Andrew is bearded, is married to me, and is the father of my children, which is how I keep them straight in life, but it might be easy to confuse Andrews when presented in a rambling bloggy format.) and I love good beer. However, to tell the truth, I was a Bud Light drinker until I met him. I'm now a convert. Once you drink from the fountain of good beer, there's just no going back. Off subject I know, but now you know we love good beer, which tastes of hops.

We grow hops. Most years the harvest either goes to waste or goes to a good friend who actually brews beer. Good beer.

So, to review: I was looking for a good recipe for starter, I find one including something we grow in the back yard. I dive right in and get started. This involves harvesting some hops. My friend Jenny is going to use some to make a sleepy-time tea for her daughter too, so now you know there are even more uses for hops that don't involve alcohol. And no, the tea is Not fermented, so don't get on my case! We don't support feeding beer to young'uns.

I am in favor of taunting Andrew with the smell of hops in the house, so I got started right away. And I am now getting curious about brewing beer, but that's a whole 'nother tangent.

These are hops. They're the flowers on the hop vine, and they smell divine. Like good beer. Picking them makes your hands a little sticky, but you won't mind it because you're swimming in hop smell.

This is one of the vines, it's one we transplanted from the old house. The vines die back every year and don't grow back on dead stems, it grows back from the root and they double in size from year to year.

Making tea from the hops...into the pot! This is when Andrew wandered out of his office and said "I smell hops." He was wearing a silly grin. I wonder if the smell causes a chemical reaction in some people's brains? I should ask my cousin, Colleen, who knows all about how our brains works.

It tastes like beer smells, but very, very bitter.

After adding mashed potatoes, salt, sugar, and cornmeal, it sits at 85 to 95 degrees F until it's "frothy and smells pleasantly fermented." This takes 24 to 48 hours. It looks like pancake batter. Once it's reached frothiness, you put it in the fridge to mature.

Andrew says this smells pleasantly fermented:

It's maturing in the fridge. This will take another 48 hours.

The sourdough recipes themselves (there are eight of them!), which take anywhere from one to four days, are so varied (French, whole-wheat, potato, oatmeal, plain sourdough, california whole-wheat, and pumpernickle) I don't know where to start! But sometime next week I'll have sourdough bread I made from scratch, from hops in my back yard. Until then I'll have to make some simple bread for sandwiches, because we're out of bread again. In my house, being out of bread is a terrible, terrible thing. We need our daily bread.

What? Don't you knit anymore Spastic Shepherd?

Yes, I do still knit and I'm not planning to stop. But life changes and there are so many more layers to me than just knitting. Should I have a blog for each layer? No. No. No. I can barely keep up with the two blogs I have. So (drumroll please), I have changed my blog to be not all about knitting, officially.

Unofficially, it's been about lots of different things from the beginning, yes?

Today's Crazy Craftiness: Canning Peaches!!!

Why? Because summer, to me, involves fresh fruit. Preferably eaten right after being picked, and still warm from the sun. I have a theory: sunshine is key to making things taste good. So, my hypothesis is that my sun-ripened, locally procured and canned peaches will taste better in January than the rock-hard peaches I can get in the store then.

To review: Nasty storebought-in-January peaches taste like this:

And mine will taste like this:

There's almost nothing to it.

I started with a half bushel of peaches. They were not super ripe, which makes them perfect for canning. I also decided to skip the peeling step, because the skin would not come off after a quick bath in boiling water. I think it's because they were not very ripe....

I made a "light" syrup for the canning (2 cups of sugar to 6 cups of water) and added the citric acid directly to this syrup (it fizzed, which made me panic, but I hear that's OK).

I quartered the peaches and stuffed what I thought was the max amount into the jars, then covered them with the hot syrup/citric acid mix and put lids on. The last step was to process them in a boiling water bath for a while. This allows the seals to be super-sealed, which helps with preservation. Complete instructions, as well as a link to just about every pick-your-own farm in the US of A, are here: Pick Your Own. After processing the jars in the water bath, I realized could have packed the peaches in tighter, but that's a lesson I'll apply to the next canning project: pears.

Because I've run out of pantry space, I've decided that storing jams & canned goods in plain sight is cool. I also like it because my plain, off-white backsplash is incredibly boring. It goes with my plain, off-white countertop, which is never boring because it's always stained with something. Currently that something is black permanent marker. I bleach the counter, but would love a suggestion to get stains out of white/off-white Corian without bleach. I hate using bleach---it's not nice stuff. Vinegar doesn't remove permanent marker, neither does baking soda. I tried it.

The lovely new backsplash also frames my harvest very nicely!