I tried a new bread recipe

A while back, on a whim, I checked out Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from the library. I love fresh bread, but I hate the 3 hours of needing to be home to make it (there's no hard labor with bread when you own a good stand mixer, but it is still time consuming). I skimmed it that night, and thought the book seemed like it was sent from heaven, but I didn't have the tools needed: Namely, a baking stone and a large container for storing the dough. Our old pizza stone cracked a couple of years ago, and we just never bought another. I returned the book, hoping that some day I'd get around to buying a dough bucket.

I finally did that last week. I bought some 4-quart Rubbermaid containers, and I went off in search of the recipe again. I found the basic "master recipe" from the book on the internet and tried it out. This bread in its most basic form makes enough for four round, rustic loaves. My first attempt yielded basically a lump of bread. It was ugly. Very ugly. And heavy. Made good toast, though.

Second attempt was to make pizza dough. This went very well. I will definitely use this method in the future.

Third attempt this morning went much better than the first. [pictures coming, but the batteries on the camera died before I could upload]It is still a little too heavy (I think the original mixture was a little drier than optimal), and I had a devil of a time getting it smooth. But it made for a very good sandwich at lunch (ham and sharp cheddar, with a little brown mustard, if you were curious). And it really does only take about five minutes of actual work, plus some time for proofing and of course baking. I'm going to get the book back out of the library and try again very soon. I also will be buying a stone in the very near future. Who knows, this book might end up a "must buy".

The front room is nearly done!

Before (this is the day we moved in):

From front room

After:

From front room

Obviously I need to recover those chairs to make them match, and I also need more furniture for the other end of the room (it's a really big room), not to mention art for the walls, but it's basically done. I cannot believe that we finally tackled it. Three years of hating that 300 square feet of house, and now I just plain like it.
Pictures of the rest of the progress are here.

Update on Blogstalking #3

It has been brought to my attention that I omitted my first true finished knitted object. I cannot believe that I forgot it, but my mother was there to remember for me: My first true knitting project was a beer cozy. Looking back, I shared it on an online knitting message board on November 13, 2006. I've officially been knitting more than two years now. How time flies when you're accumulating stash.


There's a 4th assignment from blogstalking, and I'll get that put up this weekend. But first I need to finish the front room. The walls are basically done, there are now curtains in the windows and everything! I'm getting so excited!

Help!

It's cold and damp here, which is perfect weather for shopping for a few more wool sweaters for the winter. I had no luck finding items I could actually wear this winter, and was going to go home empty handed (young son, however had fallen in love with some Ninja Turtle figures). Then this soft and squishy lambswool sweater jumped out and begged me to buy it, as it was lonely among all its pilly acrylic and faded cotton neighbors. What could I do? It looked so sad, and was so cute, with its little red stripe across the middle.


Unfortunately, it's way too big for me or Mr. Deplume, so it will need work. But I cannot decide what shoud be done. i leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide this fuzzy fate.

Blogstalking assignment #3: Why I learned to knit

I have known about this Blogstalking assignment for a whole week now, but hadn't posted my answer yet because I could not come up with one decent answer about what possessed me to knit. I knew that one day I didn't knit, then next I threw some horrible blue Red Heart Super Saver in my bascart at Wal-Mart and started obsessively watching knittinghelp.com videos. I've been wracking my brain about it for days. I was prepared to come here this morning and admit that I don't know what came over me that spurred the yarny obsession.

Finally, last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, kicking at the cat to keep her from sleeping on top of my knees: It was the needles! I had needles first, and one day I saw other people knitting and said, "hey, I can just buy some yarn and I'll be a knitter."

Why did I have needles first, you ask? (I know you probably aren't actually asking, but I'm pretending you did.) Because long ago I took part in a handmade sewing and craft swap at amitymama.com. Each person makes 5 of the same thing, then sends it to the swap organizer. She then sorts out the stuff, and sends 5 assorted items to each participant. Everyone makes 5 things, everyone gets 5 different things back. It's really a cool deal, except for the shipping costs, of course. My friend and I coordinated the Christmas 2004 swap, and when you're the organizer, you sometimes end up with some odd things. And one of the items that I, a non-knitter, got were some handmade wooden needles (about a size 10 or so) in a little fleece pouch.

I brought them home, put them on the shelf with all my sewing thread and needles and bobbins and elastic, and ignored them for a couple of years. Eventually, here in the "new" house, I got quite burned out on home-improvement projects, and decided that a good winter replacement hobby would be knitting. I made a large swatch with the above-mentioned Red Heart yarn (now happily living out its life as a dolly blanket), then moved on to a boucle yarn garter stitch scarf that my mom got started for me the previous winter. It's a very functional scarf, but it is a bit of a trapezoid. By then I was hooked. I started with dish cloths and fell in love with the craft.

So there. All that, and to be honest, I still really don't know what prompted me to pick up needles and learn. I think it might be coded in my DNA somewhere.

I love caulk

More specifically, I like caulk's ability to make my rickety house look less bockety. What pushes me into the realm of gushy squishy disgusting love is this, my newest toy:

From front room

I bought him yesterday morning, and I'm in love. He's maybe the most instantly satisfying home improvement purchase I've ever made. I have weak hands and perpetually sore wrists, and installing the molding around the bottom of the baseboards just about killed me. So to be able to effortlessly lay a bead of painter's caulk around said trim in about twenty minutes is a true blessing.

Unfortunately, my little battery powered caulk gun just isn't strong enough for DAP "Better than the Nail" Moulding Adhesive. So today, when Mr. Deplume and I installed the crown molding, he had to work the old-fashioned caulk gun. Luckily, the man is strong as an ox, and had no trouble rising to the occasion. We ran out of the specialty adhesive 4/5 of the way through the project and found in a spectacular manner that liquid nails is just not a good idea. I'm sure it's fine for people hanging trim in a drywalled room equipped with an pneumatic nailer, but that is not the case here, and we had an 8-ft piece of trim fall on our heads, leaving an unsightly blob of brown liquid nails on the floor. oops.

So back to Menards I went, and came back with the right tools for the job. And some wine and crusty Italian bread (not from Menards, of course). By 4:30 PM, we had 72 linear feet of polystyrene crown molding hanging securely along the perimeter of our front room. If you are planning on diving into the dangerous world of compound miter cuts, I suggest this video. After each watching it, we only made one cut wrong, but it was actually fine for a different corner in the room. We don't have a saw like theirs, but the miter box and hand saw essentially does the same thing.


I promise pictures of the finished molding tomorrow afternoon, once I get done with the paint touch ups. (At least my plan is to finish the paint tomorrow-- you just never know how things will turn out, though, in the Deplume house.)

I also finished a 4th and started work on my 5th sock yesterday. The 4th sock I started was the first ever completed, and Number 5 is its mate. I'll post about that soon, too. This room project is stealing my knit time away.


Addendum: Mr. Deplume and I are not responsible for the ladder being that messy. It is a hand-me-down and looked like a paint store blew up on it before it came into our possession 10 years ago. It has served us well, regardless of outer appearances, bless its vertical heart.

Blogstalking is back!

I found out that the folks over at Knittyboard started up Blogstalking again. For those of you not in the know, it's just a fun deal in which we all post on the same topic once a week. I missed week one (serves me right for not checking the board often), but week two's topic is:

"I love ________ because ___________"

So here it goes. I love high density foam paint rollers because they kick ass. It's true. If you have trim to paint in your house, invest in these. They are fast, don't leave stupid brush marks in the paint, and the rounded ends will even paint in the curvy bits of the molding. You only have to use a brush for the inside corner-y bits.

Last time I was at the home improvement store, I bought the jumbo economy size pack of the roller heads, and when the front room project is done, they'll also be the tool of choice for repainting the kitchen cabinets.

Happy Halloween!

I have grown to love Halloween. Not because I like the candy (although I do like candy), and not because I love witches and ghouls and cobwebs and black lights, either. I have grown to love dressing my kids up for Halloween. Nige is still a little young to get creative, and he always wants to be a super hero (Spider Man this year). But Nora, she has really gotten into the fun of thinking up something and making it happen. Last year she was Rapunzel, and kids still love to use the long blond wig when they play dress up.

This year, she originally wanted to be a frog. Her teacher loves frogs, so it seemed logical to her. But then we went to a friend's birthday party, and all the kids got plastic animal noses. Nora got an elephant's trunk, and right then the final costume decision was made. First off, I bought gray sweatpants and a sweatshirt and a skein of gray yarn. I went back to the old standby, the single crochet beanie. It is typically fairly cold on Halloween night here, so I like this stocking-cap-as-pattern thing. I used craft felt to make the ears (cut 4 elephant ear-shaped pieces, the sewed two layers together, and flipped inside out). I just whip-stitched the ears to the hat.


The feet proved to be more of a challenge. Originally I was going to use a round cardboard oatmeal container cut on half to make the hands, but the other felt I had was really dark gray, and we couldn't find a good way to attach to her hands and still allow her to do school things and hold the trick-or-treat bag at night. So back to the drawing board. At 6:30 last night I decided to knit them. (I'm a horrible procrastinator, but I do work well under pressure)


I started out by casting on 28 stitches and knit 12 rows of 2x2 ribbing on US5 needles. (I have a tendency to knit ribbing very loosely, so I go small on the needles)
Row 13: (kfb, k3) to end [35 stitches]
Row 14: knit across
Row 15: (k4, kfb) to end [42 stitches]
Row 16: knit across
Row 17: (kfb, k5) to end [49 stitches]
Row 18: bind off loosely, leaving last loop on needle
Grab a 5.5mm crochet hook and transfer the last loop to the hook, ch3, turn
double crochet into each of the bound-off stitches, ch3, turn
dc 4 more rows.
weave in ends.

If I were to do this again, I might skip the last inc row and stick with 42 stitches, as they are a little unwieldy, then do a few more rows of double crochet. And I think I'd switch to single crochet after the ribbing instead of the garter stitch, because it's so much faster. I finished these about 20 minutes before Nora had to head off to school this morning, I'll probably chain stitch some pink toenails onto them before T-0-Ting tonight.

If anyone wants to visit them on Ravelry, here are the links to the hat and to the feet.

The bread that ate Pittsburgh

I decided to try out a new whole wheat bread recipe today. But after I started adding flour, I realized that I was going to run out of whole wheat, so I had to substitute a couple of cups of white flour in at the end. Of course I had already added enough vital wheat gluten, yeast and dry milk to raise 100% whole wheat dough into fluffy bread. So I wasn't surprised when it rose very quickly and well. But I was not prepared for it to rise another inch-plus in the oven. sheesh! Can you imagine eating a sandwich from this loaf? I hope Mr Deplume and our daughter can find the strength to lug their lunches with them tomorrow to work and school.

I hope it tastes as good as it smells. Although the smell of the bread is somewhat overpowered by the apples and sugar and cinnamon in the crock pot, destined to become apple butter. Yeah, my house smells good. Doesn't look so pretty though. Painting and cooking are productive in their own right, but they don't facilitate picked-up toys or put-away laundry.

Oh well. Such is my life.

brrrrr!

Last night I went to bed, knowing that we were in the midst of a wind storm, and that the first bone fide frost was on its way. I awoke a couple of times in the night thinking, "it sure is cold in here." I woke up this morning, went to the thermostat, and it's 55 degrees in here (for you metric people, that's 12!).

I am now swilling hot coffee, and awaiting the moment when I can call the furnace magicians to come and wave their magic wand over it, and restore my castle to its regular level of toastiness. I'm a tad worried about my luck though, because when the air conditioner failed this summer, it only 11 wire connectors and a service call to fix it. A few years ago when I awoke to this sort of temp, if was the fault of a toddler in charge of setting the thermostat (that fix was free, of course). Surely I cannot keep up this charmed HVAC life I've been living.

Must now stop typing, as my fingers are stiffening up from the cold, so I'm off to hug my coffee and retreat under a blanket. I'll end up a frosty Normcicle if the heater won't cooperate soon.

Ceiling Cat Hates Me

The ceiling in the front room has turned into quite an affair, which is odd, as I really thought that it would be the easiest thing in the whole project. There was a large discolored spot in the center of the room, presumably from old water damage. I figured it wasn't too bad, so I skipped the primer step. That was mistake number one. So then I started a second coat (mistake number 2), and it was obvious that I was going to have to go back and prime the center of the room.

By this time, I was low on paint-- it's a 300 sqft. room, and the ceiling has that sand texture on it, so a gallon is just barely enough for one coat. I went to a basement and pulled out another can of ceiling paint. Same brand of paint, and this was supposedly "bright white" and the other "brilliant white", so I figured that if mixed them together, we'd have enough paint for the third pass at the center part of the ceiling (to cover the primer) and I could put this to bed.

Here's where mistake number four comes in: the basement paint had apparently been tinted off white. I don't know why it wasn't labeled. So now I have 3/4 of a ceiling that is off white, and a few patches of brillirant white around the edges.

I have now whined enough that Mr. Deplume will paint the ceiling with the brand new gallon of "casual white" paint that I bought at Ace today, while I continue cleaning and priming trim. I swear I'll get this done by Thanksgiving when a zillion people will be coming over for turkey and pie. If you are a religious sort, and have a spot on your prayin' schedule, would you mind throwing my front room on there for me?

Here are pictures of what I've managed so far (click on the picture to see the whole album):

front room

Note to self:

Dear Norm,

You have small, uncooperative veins. When you mention to the phlebotomist at the church's blood drive that you are difficult to stick, and she looks at you with a little bit of fear in her eyes and says, "we'll be fine", stop. Do not pass go. Do not say to yourself, "I'm sure the reason that she has her name written on a piece of tape stuck to her lab coat is due to forgetfulness, and not at all a sign of someone in her first week on the job."

No, what you shall do in the future is this:
1. politely stand next to the chair.
2. ask for the expert in the room, preferably someone who has taught phlebotomy to others in the past (that's a pretty good sign, in my experience)
3. refuse to let them tell you that it will probably be okay.

Trust me, it's not worth it to get stuck in two arms by two people to try to get one pint of blood, because you don't want to hurt the newbie's feelings. Better to just have someone do it right the first time.

Love,
Norm

P.S. Today's Red Cross hero was named Steve Stick. Remember that name-- and ask for him if he's there next time.




Note to others who might be reading this note to myself: I take much pride in the fact that my Grandma Bug was apparently often "the expert" in her years working for the Red Cross, with the blood mobile. I bet she would have gotten my my petite veins to cooperate on the first try. She had beautiful hands.

How cool is this?

I never would have thought of making a bird house out of an old porch light. I don't think I have a right to be surprised, though, since this spring a small family of birds nested in ours. Funny how sometimes the brain just refuses to take those tiny steps. But now that I know, I'll be trolling the thrift store for old sconces to make little birdies' homes.

I hope that there will be real, photographable progress on the living room this week. I plan on painting the walls today, leaving "only" the trim and floor to do. I decided the other day that home remodeling is rather like liver: it seems like a good idea, and the grilled onions smell so good, but you take that first little bite, and it starts growing in your mouth. You keep chewing and chewing, yet it never seems to be time to swallow. Unfortunately, I can't spit the living room out in my napkin and skip straight to dessert.

Uh Oh. Too much knitting.

Yesterday, I posted about my renewed fervor in finishing a project so that I can dig into that alpaca yarn that is chanting my name. I went to my Wednesday morning knitting group, and knit on the shawl. I knit a little when I got home, too.

Last night, my wrist was a little sore. I figured that I had lugged the boy around too much (he's four and still loves to be carried) and it was a little irritated. I went to bed. At 3 o'clock, I awoke to a throbbing wrist. I managed to prop it up and get back to sleep, only to squish it again a little while later. Ouch.

This morning I hunted down my old wrist brace, totally forgetting that it's for my right wrist I got it from the Occupational Safety department when I worked in an office). I think I need to go to the drug store and buy a new dealie for my poor pained appendage.

And no knitting for me today. I guess I'll have to clean the house instead. *sobs*

Just keep knitting

I bought some lovely alpaca at a local farm the other day. I want to find and start a project with it RIGHT NOW. Unfortunately, I have a lot of other projects on teh needles right now. I mean like ten. That's too many. So I have declared that I cannot start anything new until I finish up some things. I need to frog and re-start the ski winter mask for my little super hero son, easy-yet-neverending shawl for myself, and the socks for the little lady for Christmas are all on the front burners now.

I worked on the shawl for about 45 minutes last night, got 3/4 of an inch done. Being a triangle shawl, each row is longer than its predecessor. Yuck. And the balls of yarn (I'm knitting double-stranded) just refuse to get smaller. It may never be finished, at this rate. I think after this I'm going to stick with rectangles. At least it's easy, and I can almost knit without looking. But all that purling and purling and purling. I prefer the look of stockinette lace (although this isn't really a lace piece), but I'm beginning to see the allure of garter-stitch-based lace. Less purling would be much easier on my hands.

As for the ski mask, can anyone point me to a good pattern sized for kids? I was trying to just adjust an adult pattern down, but I'm finding it rather difficult to do that much math on an odd-shaped object like a ski mask.

Owl update

The other night, as I was reading in bed, I heard our Eastern Screech Owl calling for the first time. I'll be honest and admit that I got giddy about it. I know they've lived in the maple tree outside our bedroom for at least two years, and even seen them a couple of times, but I've never heard the call of the owl before. It was amazing. I'm beginning to understand how people can turn a little birdwatching into a full-time avocation.

Oh, and I also started a Christmas gift, a superhero- mask for the boy. I'm a whole 1.5" in so far. I'm kinda inventing this as I go, so we'll see if it actually makes it to "Finished object" status. I'm dubious.

Seriously, someone stop me!

Thanks to my mama, I am the proud possessor of a Clover needle felting kit. She wanted to try it out and present it to her local Sewing Guild tonight, but found the whole process rather mind numbing. I expressed interest on Tuesday morning(as I am wont to do with pretty much anything fiber-related), and a short while later she appeared at my doorstep with needles and a brush and some of her first experiments.

A few minutes later I was rifling through the box, with the knowledge that I am now the "expert" for tonight's meeting. I did a little googling for tutorials, but didn't see all that much out there. Best way to learn something is hands-on, I always say.


poke. poke. poke. poke. This is kinda fun. Poke, poke, poke. I wonder if I have any old fulled sweater scraps downstairs. And some yarn scraps. Poke poke poke. I think I need to make a special two-hour trip into town to buy some wool roving so I can do this thing right. pokepokepokepoke. I need to poke poke poke go poke poke poke to the store and do the poke poke dishes. After one more experiment...

Needless to say, I'm wayy behind for the day. But look what I've done.


The girl loves it too. She made this for her teacher, out of cheapo craft felt. (it's not wool, but it does seem to work pretty well)



Even the boy is getting into the action. Here he is designing "super hero symbols."


But now I really really need to get started on the other stuff like dinner and dishes and going to the library.

UPDATE:

Still nothing exciting going on. But the blog feels sad when I don't post for weeks at a time, so I'm giving it a little attention this morning as I sip my coffee.

We did have a fun time last night when Mr Deplume's brother and family came over for dinner and lego tower-building (that was mostly a kid activity, though). I'm now kicking myself for getting not one photo of the event. They are from a far away state and it will likely be the only time they come over this year. Oh well.

Now I need to go pack a lunch for the girl and get dressed. Later today, I go back to the front room for more plastery adventure. Wish me luck, my faithful reader!

Just move along, nothing to see here

I mean it. I have very little to show for my days lately. I ripped down some wallpaper in the front room, and started patching holes, but then I realized that I needed to tape the corners in the room before I can go any further. I went to the hardware store and bought the tape, but they didn't have one of those nifty inside-corner-putty-knife-dealies. So no progress there, until I have a chance to get to a home improvement warehouse.

I have still been working on my "doable" shawl, but now each row takes like 15 minutes to complete. Have I mentioned that there are vast expanses of stockinette stitch on this? That's a whole lotta purling, folks. I thought a mostly stockinette lace weight project would be good, as it's mindless. A little too mindless, it turns out. It's rather like a woolen lobotomy.

But I've gotten all the dishes done three days in a row! Super boring factoid there, but it really is nice to wake up to a clean sink. Thanks, Marla Cilley! SOme day I'll even follow the rest of the tidy-house steps, but for now I'll be happy with my dishes progress.

And now for something fun: My four-year-old boy refers to the legs of pajama pants and sweatpants as bottom sleeves or foot sleeves. As in "My bottom sleeves are stuck on my knees!" IT cracks me up every time he says it. And I fear that soon he'll learn the right words, never uttering footsleeves again. The thought makes me sad. I don't want them to grow up quite yet. Waahhhh!

Tonight, we'll go to a local fair and ride rides and eat carnie food. Good times. Good times.

That's all for now!

Patterns? We don't need no stinkin' patterns.

Aprons were always part of the uniform in my table-waiting years, and I'd learned then of their usefulness. I've gone back and forth with wearing them though, during my adult years. If you are wearing an apron, it means you are doing housework. And since I hate housework, I prefer to act like it doesn't exist-- an apron is a cruel reminder of the incessant cycle of cleaning and dirtying and cooking and repairing. It seems that once you start wearing aprons, however, can never go back to life without them. Well you can, but you trousers get dirty quite quickly from the incessant hand wiping (being a waiter in a busy restaurant teaches you all sorts of bad habits). I'm currently back on an apron-wearing kick. But I have run out of aprons, as the old ones I got when I moved out of my parents' house 14 years ago finally had all ripped or disappeared. I do have one Christmas one left, but I'm not ready for poinsettias and holly just yet.

So I set out to make some more. I have about 4 apron patterns around here, some borrowed from my mom and a couple I've acquired over the years too. I do dream of making myself a couple of Lucy Ricardo aprons, but in really wacky prints. But what do I do when I go to sew one today? I decided to invent my own pattern on the fly, by recycling one of Mr. Deplume's old denim shirts. It's been said (usually by me) that I rarely do anything the easy way. And today's sewing escapade certainly bears that out.

However, after an hour or so of guesswork (45 minutes of that also included prayer), I ended up with a usable apron. There are pockets, ties, and the bottom three buttons are still functional, in case I ever want to make it a split apron (handy for more strenuous housework). I'm pretty pleased with myself.

I hope that if I make another one, it will take considerably less time. That's how it is supposed to work, right?