Naan

Now that I'm feeling a little more comfortable with baking standard wheat bread, other kinds of yeast breads seem much more do-able. I recently made a recipe from a magazine that involved baking little buns around korean-spiced cabbage-beef filling. They were good, and that boosted my confidence even further.

So when I saw a recipe (via a blog which I can't remember at the moment) for Indian Naan bread, I thought "Hey, I could do that!" Joe and I used to go out for Indian food all the time before Julie was born, and it's something that I miss. Especially the bread. We really should try going back out for some now that the food allergies are behind us, but in the mean time, I've been cooking chicken tikka masala at home using this stuff.



It's just a seasoning packet, which I buy at my local co-op, but it's really easy to make and it tastes really good and my family pretty much eats it without complaint. Naan bread would fit perfectly with this meal, so I made up my mind to give it a try.

Here's the dough after its first rise - the recipe said to make it into golf-ball sized balls and let it rise again.



In order to get to this point, I had to employ a couple of diversionary tactics. One was letting the girls play with soapy water in the sink.



Another was agreeing to make chocolate chip cookies. Okay, Julie didn't have to twist my arm that hard, and I figured what else should we do while we waited for the dough to rise?



mmmm...don't ask me about the weight watchers points. Please.

Anyway, dinnertime rolled around, and I took some pictures as I did my cooking - here's the bread on the indoor grill.



The stack of done ones after the first batch was done. I was using the foil to cover them up and keep them warm.



Oh, and here's rolling the dough out from balls to flat bread loaves. And the melted butter for slathering on each side as its grilled.



And finally, dinner. Just before I tucked in.



It was good, and everyone ate well. The bread was tasty, though not quite the same as what I've had in the restaurants. It kind of reminded me of what soft pretzels would taste like if they were grilled. Oh - and the tikka masala packet doesn't say to add spinach to the dish, but I throw some in at the end just to add a little green to the plate.

Lifecycle of a Glove

I knit myself these mitten-gloves back in May of 2006 - well past the end of winter, but I was determined to have a new pair to replace the ones I was wearing at the time, which were falling apart.





I knit these with one skein of white Cascade 220, which I dyed with Kool-Aid to achieve a very bright rainbow of mini-skeins. This pattern is a bit of a pain to knit - not really, just a bit futzy because of all the little fingers and getting the flap attached just so.

But they've served me well. The initial investment is well worth the return - I've had almost two winters' worth of wear - hard wear over long Minnesota winters - out of these, and they are incredibly warm and comfortable. I love the flexibility of naked fingers when I need to manipulate small objects like keys and zippers, but the warmth of mittens with my fingers sharing their heat with each other. I was a little overwhelmed with the brightness of the colors when I first knit these, but between the natural fading of the food dyes and my own familiarity with them, I've grown to love the colors.

Alas, they have started to show their wear - especially the right one, which is my free hand when I'm carrying Sophie and also seems to be the one I steer the car with more than my dominant left. The thumb was almost ready to pop through...



The edges of the index finger have started to fray a bit...



And the poor join between the thumb and the body of the hand is all stretched out. Actually, this is something I've been thinking about quite a bit lately when I consider the next pair, which I will probably get around to knitting some time in the spring. I really want to do a better job with this join - I have a few ideas, but if anyone has good tips on improving thumb joins, I'd love to hear them!



The thing about mending knitting is that I always forget it needs to be done until I'm ready to put the things on and run out the door. Which was the case in point earlier this week when I realized that I'd better go ahead and mend the things pretty quick or they would be beyond the point of possible return. It's not a great job, and it only took five minutes, but the loose stitches are secured, and the worst of the threadbare ones are reinforced.



Of course, the other thing about darning knits is that it is never long before the stitches just outside the range of the mend start to fall apart as well. Hopefully we won't get to that point before the final thaw of spring.

In the mean time, it was crazy-cold here again this week. The kind of shocking cold that I still have a hard time believing exists, even after living here for ten years. It was a day to pull out all the stops on warm winter-wear.



Yes, the hat is warm. No, I'm not sure what kind of fur that is, but it is real - my father won it in a ski race about 20 years ago, and I begged it off him when I first moved to Minnesota. Before you ask, it's the same story as the chicken - hold on to the good, reject the bad. And the mittens? They are just as warm. For now.

Thanks, Andrea!

It's been quite some time since I've received a package of yarn bits for the blankie, but yesterday in the mail I got what may just be the last one to make it in time to be included in the current project.

Andrea in Canada had meant to send hers off to me back when the Yarn Harlot tried to bury me in yarn, but was in the middle of a giant move and only recently unearthed these.



I love how she stuck them in an old oatmeal box to ship them off (and then it was wrapped in brown paper with the addresses) but really - it's so fun to see the French labels on such a familiar product. We USA-Americans don't always remember that many of our neighbors to the north speak French.

Anyway, look for at least two squares made from your yarn in this week's Blankie Friday post, Andrea - probably more because I really like the reddish one and haven't worked it in yet. I will be skipping tonight's Democratic caucus here and hopefully cranking out some more squares instead. Thanks very much for thinking of me and passing along a little bit of your knitting history to go in the blankie.

Editing to add: uh, yep. I'm a big dork. The caucus is *next* Tuesday. I'm gonna be honest and tell ya that I still won't plan on going. I could be happy with either Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama as President, and I don't have strong enough opinions either way to take me out to spend an evening with the political elite versus putting my kids to bed and sitting my butt on the couch with my knitting. Maybe in four years when the kids are a little older.

Product Review and, uh, Giveaway!

Remember last week when I went on a tiny little online spending spree? It was my birthday week, after all, and once I had my credit card sitting next to the computer one thing led to another and I'd ordered a couple things from a couple places.

One of the things I ordered was definitely an impulse purchase - after clicking the refresh button for the 10,000th time on the Bobby Awards voting page (I lost, by the way, to the awesome fair isle pants). But one of the those times when I was indulging my little thankfully-now-over obsession, I happened to notice an ad at the bottom for some double-point knitting needles. They looked interesting, so I clicked on through. I have to say, this must be the first time I've ever bought something after clicking through on an online ad. hm....

Anyway, the ad was for Comfort Zone needles, made out of flexible plastic and available in a variety of colors for each size.



Now let me back up a minute and rave about my very favorite double-point knitting needles in the whole wide world, at least as far as I know. I absolutely adore Pony Pearl double-points for several reasons. They, too, are made of plastic, but reinforced in the smaller sizes with metal on the inside so that although they bend a bit and spring back, they are still nice and firm. I love them because they don't break (at least, I haven't broken any yet, and I use the size 0s all the time). I love them because they are warm in my hands, unlike metal. I love them because they are nice and slippy, unlike the wood or bamboo. I love them because they are not super-pointy like most wood and bamboo needles.

Now, I know that many, maybe even most, knitters out there prefer sharp tips because they think it's easier to decrease or something. I find this not to be the case for me, and in fact the sharp tips are more likely to make me split the yarn and also they hurt my fingers as I'm knitting because I push at the tip to move the stitches along. Pony Pearls have nice roundish tips. The Comfort Zone needles, on the other hand, are pretty pointy.



I opened the package of needles and knew pretty much right away that these would not be for me. They are also a couple inches longer than my favorite Pony Pearls, which are 6" - the 8" Comfort Zone ones are a little excessive. I find that 6" is just long enough to keep the stitches from falling off most of the time, and short enough to keep me from spearing things on accident.



Still, I had to give them a try after having ordered two sets at $7 a pop and paid shipping to boot! I pulled out a sock in progress and started knitting off the Ponys and onto the CZs. It was like trying to knit with a pointy spaghetti noodle cooked al dente. You know how in the Harry Potter book, the teacher accidentally removes all the bones from Harry's arm, and it is left dangling there all floppy? This was like someone had taken the reinforcing out of my lovely Pony needles and simultaneously given them sharp, ouchy tips. I only lasted for 16 stitches - one needles' worth onto the needle, then knit around using my Ponys and knit the stitches back off the abominable thing.

Sorry, Comfort Zone! I can't recommend your needles. However, knitting needle preference is such a personal thing. I bet someone is out there reading this review and saying "Gee, those sound like *just* the needles for me! And since I have two sets (which handily come in sets of 6 in case you lose one) the first two people to speak up and ask for them, and who have not already won something from me in the last year or so, are welcome to them. Put a note in the comments and let me know whether you want the minty green or the purple, and make sure there's a way for me to contact you for address information. Postage is my treat this time.

On the positive side, I have to affirm once again that Pony Pearls are the best double-points out there. If you haven't tried them yet, go get some - they are a little hard to find as not every store carries them, but I did find them here and if you're in the Twin Cities, the Yarnery usually has them in stock. For that matter, the Yarnery is now doing online sales, and while I don't see the Pony Pearl needles listed on the website just yet, I know they'd ship some out to you if you call and give them credit card info over the phone. Yes, I work there, but I'm only mentioning this because they are my pushers suppliers of quality needles.

I also have to admit that I like to encourage people to try Pony Pearls because I love them so much and they are not all that popular, which leaves me constantly worrying that one day the shops will stop carrying them and I will no longer have a supply. I do tend to lose a double-pointed needle now and then, you know. This fear leads me to buying new sets all the time whether I need them or not, and even though I have a coffee mug full of them I still feel the nagging fear. Ayup. I'm a crazy knitter!

Craft Explosion

Dreaming

My good friend gave me a blank notebook for my birthday a couple weeks
ago. I love blank notebooks, and never know quite what to do with them.
I am going to try to make myself use this one instead of saving it for
"something special" "someday". We'll see how it goes...

Happy Birthday, Indeed!

Thank you all so much, those of you who commented on yesterday's post. 77 of you! That felt great. I mean, I can't tell you how nice it was to have a steady stream of "Happy Birthday" e-mails flooding through all day and into today. Really nice, and I appreciate every one. Especially you lurkers!

I did have a great birthday here on the home front too. First and foremost, the girls and I got along all day - there weren't any major meltdowns and the day flew by pretty quickly. Here are some other nice things that happened to make my birthday great:

Joe said "Happy Birthday" to me before I even remembered that it *was* my birthday as I was waking up.

My friend Jen came over for our playdate bringing a giant Starbucks mocha just the way I like it and a dozen beautiful pink roses. And our kids played really well together, which meant that we got to chat.

Joe's parents came over and watched the girls so that we could go to his company's holiday party, which is held in January every year to avoid the holiday rush. I managed to look presentable (should have gotten a picture, and didn't!) and when we arrived, all of his coworkers and their spouses wished me happy birthday. Joe had sent an e-mail around earlier that day. I was embarrassed and thrilled at the same time.

After dinner at the party, as dessert was being served, the wait staff came out with a cake just for me - chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (and white buttercream on the outside that was delicious) - exactly my favorite cake, decorated beautifully with "Happy Birthday Shelly". Everyone sang to me, and then the waitress cut it up so that everyone who wanted to could have a slice of it along with their cheese cake that was already out. I was so glad that a) several people partook, so that I was not left eating chocolate cake by myself - one of my worst birthday cake nightmares - and b) there was still a nice chunk left for me to bring home and share with the girls today.

I had already gotten my present in the mail - Joe ordered three books off my Amazon wish list - the Vogue Knitting Stitchionary volumes 1-3. Yay! And I had already treated myself to that lovely beaded cashmere-silk yarn, which is sitting on my desk where I can fondle it at will. And I may have ordered a couple of other things off the internet, small stuff, that I figured I'd go ahead and treat myself to just for fun.

I was left feeling really simply happy at the end of the night, and still am now. So thanks again, everyone! It's nice to know that you're out there reading and enjoying what I have to say.

Blankie Friday - the Happy Birthday Edition

Yeah, it's my birthday. Hey all you lurkers, come out and say hello, mmmkay? There's like thousands of you out there according to the blog stats, and yet I only ever hear from the same twenty or so people. It's depressing. Not that I don't love you, you twenty or so who DO comment!

Alright, today as my birthday present to you, I'm including the full-sized blankie pictures - just click on through if you want the big ones. Oh, and there were 27 squares this week. Not too shabby.

Let's start off with something a little different - blankie with its hair down. I accidentally laid it out with the backside up the first time, and I thought "hey, maybe they'd like to see the backside and all the ends this time." So there you go. You can also see where I normally lay blankie out, and the toys and crappe that I had to shove aside to get a piece of clear floor space.



Here's a close-up of the tangled ends. That's only about a week's worth of ends - the rest are all woven in.



And the standard overhead shot. I usually stand on one of our dining room chairs to get this shot, and it's getting harder and harder to fit the whole thing in the frame.



And this week's close-ups. I don't know what it is with Photoshop the last couple weeks, but it keeps wanting to rotate these for me. This time I'm going to straighten them back out for you. It gave me a headache all last week thinking of the one sideways one.







And finally, what Julie was doing while I started this post...she had dressed up in all her play clothes, and I let her watch a video while I put Sophie down for her nap and that gave me a few minutes of free time. Now she is busy chopping up paper, pretending to make Valentines and driving me crazy because I'm not going to get the glue out right now.

Disgustingly Funny

Sophie has discovered her nose (we all have a little cold).

Fighting the Blues

We've reached that time of year when the holidays are over, and yet it is still incredibly cold and dark here in Minnesota. We are in the thick of the post-holiday let-down. Thank goodness Julie is back in school again at least, but by the end of last week, I was exhausted and we had had one of those days on Friday that I just don't like to think about - the kind of day where everyone is butting heads with everyone else from the moment they wake up in the morning till the moment they go to bed at night. It was awful.

And I have to mention at this point that there are times when I wish this blog were anonymous - that I could say what I'm really thinking and feeling about what's going on around me, tell funny, embarrassing stories about people I know without risking their feelings, and just be brutally honest with my whinging. But I know that real-life people read this, and I don't want them to worry about me, or have hurt feelings.

But I can tell you about how sad I was at the end of the day on Friday now, because we had a pretty great weekend to make up for it, and today was good too. We'd bought tickets for the Sesame Street Live show a couple of weeks ago, and Saturday was the day. Joe's mom had actually suggested it - she wanted to take the girls, but I'd been thinking about taking them too, and in the end we all went together and it was great.

When we woke up on Saturday, the thermometer read negative 16 F or something like that. That's -27 degrees for the rest of the world who uses Celcius. That's not taking into consideration windchill - that was the actual temperature. Joe even took a picture.

Let me simplify it for you - that's freeze-your-ass-off-cold. We heated the van up before we took the girls out there, and it was still cold.

But it was worth it - everyone was all smiles when we arrived at Target Center, found our seats, and got our coats off.


Sophie was clapping and cheering as the show started.


Both girls were decked out in Sesame Street hair clips - Sophie with Elmo and Julie with Zoe. Julie spent the entire time during the performance transfixed, simply staring at the stage with a smile. Sophie insisted on standing up the whole time, she was so excited.


Our seats were pretty far back - we hadn't gotten around to buying them till a couple weeks before the show, and by that time these were the best available. Still, we could see the stage just fine.


During intermission, we took the girls' picture in front of a little photo-op sign thing. My favorite part of this picture is that the girls are holding hands. They've only started doing that recently, and I love it when they do little sisterly stuff like that.


Finally, goofing off at home yesterday evening - I took this picture while they were both sitting on my lap. It's the little quiet moments, sometimes, that are the best.


In other happy weekend news, I started a new class session at the store and it's going to go well. It's a group of ladies I'd mostly taught before and really liked. One of the ladies who hadn't been in the earlier class seemed all afraid I was going to criticize the way she knits, and I think I pleasantly surprised her by telling her that diversity in knitting is a wonderful thing just as every other type of diversity is. It felt great to be back at the store after almost a month off of teaching during the holidays.

And today Julie was off school for the MLK holiday, and on the spur of the moment I called our neighbor across the street for a playdate, which went really well. Her little boy is the same age as Sophie and super-cute. The two of them kept us busy and entertained right on through lunch! That makes the day go a lot faster.

Alright, this post has gotten to be a bit of a ramble. I'll leave you on a somewhat silly note. I can't believe I'm posting this because I look so crappy in it, but I took a little video of me and Sophie being silly in the kitchen the other night. Sometimes lately, she'll come up to me and just say "Mommy Mommy Mommy" over and over in her sweet little voice. I wanted to capture that, and I think I did to some extent. Try to ignore the nerdy glasses and pony tail.

Blankie Friday - Post-It Fun

30! Woot! I'm keeping up the pace, and that's a good thing, because I've been working hard again this week. Thirty squares, plus I wove in all the ends a couple days ago. Let's look at the standard shots.

Daisy was present and accounted for again.



Ooh, look - the camera software thought this one was sideways and automatically rotated it for me. I'm too lazy tonight to fix it.






And now we get to the crazy-fun part. All week long, I've been thinking about how many more squares there are going to be, how long it might take, and just how big is this freakin' thing going to be exactly when it's done. And then tonight as I was laying it out, tucking in ends and snapping pictures, it occurred to me that the squares are almost exactly the same size as small post-it notes. The kind that I keep in my kitchen drawer for labeling leftover food containers.



Ahem. Yes, in case my persistence in this project hadn't already suggested it to you, this probably demonstrates a bit more fully that indeed I am a little crazy in a certain kind of way.

If I continue and complete the layout suggested by the post-it outline, then 146 squares remain to be knitted. At thirty squares a week, that would take about another five weeks of knitting, and then I would have to add on the border after that. It's also a pretty huge blanket. I'm thinking about maybe leaving off the last two rows, which would mean only 113 squares and only four weeks of knitting them. Lucky me, I have many hours in which to meditate this.

So Where Were We?

Man, I haven't blogged since Monday, and now it is Thursday and of course there are about a million different things I could tell y'all about, but it is Thursday night and I have been out at a book club meeting - yes, me! A book club meeting! It was my first ever and it was great, but I'm not going to tell you any more about it. But now I want to go sit on my couch and knit squares on the blankie so that I can have more squares to show you tomorrow on Blankie Friday. So I'm giving myself ten minutes and I'm going to just spew some of the things running around in my head so that I can get them on out there.

First, thanks to all of you who ran over to Ravelry and voted for Blankie in the Most Colorful Project contest. I have to admit that I have been obsessively clicking the refresh button on that page all week - It's crazy to believe that 212 people have voted for me to win a prize! And all week blankie has been neck-and-neck with these amazing pants that really are quite colorful in their own right. If I had a less-fat ass, I would so totally be making myself those pants. Anyway, if you haven't gone and voted for me and you are a member of Ravelry, you have until the end of the month to do so. Hint hint.

What else? I was so going to do a giant rant post about the experience I had this week with Target Corporation. Argh! I bought a new desk for my office from them, and it was defective, and their stupid number that you call for getting a new part is all automated and you leave a message telling them what you need, and they don't call you back to tell you if or when you will get the part, so I was sitting here with an office in complete and total disarray and no idea of when I would get my life back.

I ended up taking the part to the store and making them open something like eight boxes of the same desk looking for one of these parts that was not defective. And some of the people who work at the store were really cool and helpful (Thanks, Jesse and Ruth and Coventry!) and some of them were totally uncool and really not helpful. Like the idiot woman behind the customer service desk who couldn't understand that the hole was drilled in the wrong place on the piece of wood, and that the metal pin wouldn't reach into it. And kept telling all the managers as they came up front to assist that she thought I was nuts. So I would show them the diagram in the booklet and show them the piece of wood, and they would look at it and nod, and the idiot woman kept standing behind the desk in her ignorance shaking her head in frustration.

The guy from the back room who swore up and down that there was no way to pull more boxes of desks down from the shelves because they were way up high and the trucks were unloading or something, but lo and behold when the right manager asked him to *go back there and get the remaining stock* oh, guess what, here they were. At that point, I was willing to wait until the next day and come back dragging my two small children with me, but I was also relieved that I didn't have to. In the end, they will be sending all the defective desks back to the manufacturer, and I take a bit of comfort in knowing that eight other customers will not have to deal with this headache because I was an asshole on their behalf.

I just know that all the other Target stores probably have defective desks too, and that probably many other customers will get screwed over. And it really is too bad, because I love Target. I shop there way too much. It's like a little oasis of somewhere to go in the middle of a Minnesota winter when there is nowhere to go, and at least you have the excuse that you need another dozen eggs, so may as well go walk around Target for a few minutes and pick them up.

Okay, my ten minutes are more than up. The rest will have to either wait for another night or fall by the wayside. Thanks for listening. I'm off to commune with the blankie.

Falling Down

I had an appointment this morning that brought me just a few blocks from a local yarn shop in town that I really like, but don't get to all that often. Since I was right there and I only had Sophie with me, I couldn't resist.

In we went, and the ladies there were as nice to me and to Sophie as they always have been - not because they necessarily know me, but because as far as I know they treat everyone well.

Anyway, in we went and just inside the store they have a display of just the yarn I've been lusting after since the Shop Hop in October. I had even hinted to Joe that I would love to have some of this yarn for Christmas, but since it didn't happen I figured maybe I could treat myself to some as an early birthday present.



It's Artyarns Beaded Cashmere. Half Cashmere and half silk, with little glass beads every few inches. I bought two skeins, which comes out to 230 yards. It should be enough for a nice scarf.



Maybe I'll whip it up when the blankie is done - I am still sticking to my promise of working on that sucker exclusively till it's finished. The question is - which paIttern? I saw this one on Ravelry the other day, and it looks super-easy but beautiful. I want something lacy and garter-stitch based since I hate scarves that roll. I wouldn't mind something more complicated, but I'm afraid it wouldn't show up very well with the handpainted yarn.



Any thoughts?

FO - Socks

Nothing particularly exciting here - those damn ugly socks are finally finished.



They're not so horrible, really - just boring and not particularly wonderful. But they are warm, and they will match practically any blue jean outfit I might put on. And at least the yarn won't be wasted. I'm just glad to put them behind me and move on to the next pair of mindless socks.

The details, for the record - these were for me out of yarn I dyed - fingering weight Kraemer sock yarn. I used size 0 needles and my own toe-up sock pattern. The one slightly interesting thing about this pair is that on the first sock I knit K1P1 ribbing, which is not my usual M.O. So then when it came time to knit the ribbing on the second, I started in with my usual K2P2, and when I realized the mistake I just kept at it and figured I didn't care about it, and nobody else was going to notice either.

When Toddlers Attack

On Saturday morning, the girls were awake, bouncing off the walls and begging for breakfast. Joe and I were still groggy, and it was his turn to sleep in a few extra minutes. So I took them downstairs and got the breakfast started while they played in the living room. A few minutes into it, I heard some wild giggling and turned around to see Sophie in the doorway, tangled in yarn.

Attached to one end of the strand was a ragged ball, all pulled out from itself; and attached to the other was my poor sock, needles missing and several rows ripped right out.



Argh! I will admit to screaming a bit about "Never, never touch mommy's knitting!!!!" Well, it did take me a good half hour or so to get it sorted.



And then it was okay again. And I had a much calmer talk with the girls a little later.

Sophie says "Who me? I'm a little angel."

Ulp!

Ohmygosh!

Guess what? The blankie got nominated for "Most Colorful Project" in the "Bobbys" awards that they're voting on over at Ravelry - thanks for the nomination, Susan! I know it's totally tacky of me to be mentioning this, but I don't think I've ever been nominated for anything like this before. So exciting for little ole me!

If you're a Ravelry member, go vote! Blankie is on page three, but make sure you check all the pages out - I think you're allowed to vote for more than one project. Also, check out the amazing "nether garment" at the top of page three - so cool!

I meant to post tonight about some socks, but got caught up in the blankie and didn't get around to loading up the pictures. Tomorrow, hopefully.

Friday Night Mish-Mash

I have a bunch of little stuff to share from the last week - just a mish mash of miscellanea and follow-ups. Here we go...

We all went to the Children's Museum last weekend to see the Sesame Street exhibit. Sophie's still pretty into Elmo, and the girls spent the week before fighting over a stuffed Big Bird doll.



The girls had a fine time, although those fancy travelling exhibits always leave me feeling unsatisfied - the activities don't have much depth, and it seems like most of the material was aimed more at the parents than the kids. Look where our techno-centric little family ended up...



I warned you - this post is awfully random. Another recipe that barely counts as a recipe - Rotel dip like you've probably never had it before, and oh-my-gods I am an addict! Mix one can of Ro-Tel tomatoes and chiles (drained of excess juice) with one block of cream cheese (I use the reduced-fat version).



Use a blender or a hand mixer to get 'em really blended.



Scarf it down with Ruffles potato chips - trust me, you need the Ruffles. Any other kind of chips is not as good. And it's best if you serve it to a crowd because otherwise you will sit on the couch and eat the whole damn thing until you are sick. Or maybe that's just me. Recipe, or confession? A little bit of both.

Remember that mitered blanket for charity? I got it sent off to the Minnesota Visiting Nurses Association. I know they will pass it on to a baby in need.



Hey, allergicmom! I have your books all ready to go out - I even found another allergy recipe book for you. But I didn't get your address in your e-mail. Please e-mail me again! shellyk at shellykang dot com.



A gratuitous cute-kid moment with a knitting angle - if I let Sophie play with my bag of knitting tools, she thinks she's getting away with something and I get ten minutes of computer time. Most times, she'll even put it all in the bag when I ask her to.



And one more gratuitous cute-kid pic - Sophie comes along to Julie's ballet lessons and thinks that she's taking them too. Julie's little class doesn't actually use the barre - she was just reenacting a scene from one of her ballet videos before class started. Monkey see, Monkey do.

Felted Clog Round-Up

This is the second post today, and I'm afraid probably not the last. One of my goals with the blog is to stop posting such huge catch-ups and, especially for the knitting content, keep each post to one subject at a time. Ravelry has been a good motivator for this, since I'd like to start linking my posts to my projects in there. So here we have a post wrapping up the Joe's Felted Clogs 2008 project.

I finished the second, smaller pair, and then ran them through the washer about ten times, with a little hand-scrubbing in between. I had bought some leather soles, so then it was time to sew them on. This is the most hateful part of this project to me. I don't like to sew - I like to knit. But after an initial learning curve, it went much faster and less painfully than expected. The biggest thing I figured out was to put the pins holding the sole in place horizontally as shown in the picture versus vertically. They stayed in much better and poked me a lot less.



Obviously, my blanket stitch leaves a little to be desired. But from a distance, it looks good enough.



And the finished product looks pretty darn good, if I do say so!

Oh, and a little funny side note - I am not that great of a photographer by any means, but the hardest part of getting a little snapshot taken on this particular day was clearing enough counter space for a clutter-free shot.



The final step was saying goodbye to the old ratty slippers. They were literally falling apart - see the seam that was worn through?



The old soles were worn through the bottom...



Buh-Bye!



I put the new clogs where Joe had left the old ones when he left that morning.



I heard a happy Oh! when he walked in the back door, and then he came into the office room to say hello with them on.



Happy husband = worth the effort.

Blankie Friday

27! I'm not going back through the archives or anything, but I think 27 squares in a week has got to be pretty close to the most I've done. I spent several evenings watching DVDs and knitting squares. I have to cheer myself on at this point because compared to how much is already done on this behemoth, even 27 squares doesn't look like that much added.



If I can keep up this rate, I might be done knitting the squares by somewhere around the end of February. I'm going to do my best so that I can move on to the next project.

In the mean time, here are detail photos of the new squares for those of you who enjoy getting up close and personal.







Oh, and some of you may have noticed the new masthead. I've been wanting to make one for a long time, but my Photoshop skillz leave a little something to be desired. It's not great, but it's better than the nothing I had up before!

Sweet

Sophie has just fallen asleep for her nap, and in a moment I will put her down in her crib. These falling-asleep moments are some of the sweetest in our days.

Tomorrow is our weaning day. I have had enough - almost five straight years of being pregnant or nursing. I am ready, and also a little sad. Not to mention scared about how our sleep routines may change.

For the moment, I will hold my sleeping baby, one more time to look forward to tonight, and then we will gently let go just a little bit.

Mannah! Recipe!

Those of you who have been reading for a while may remember that I've been experimenting with baking bread at home. I love baking bread. I love the smell of the rising dough, of the yeast releasing its gasses. I love the sticky, bendy texture of the dough. I love the taste and mouthfeel of fresh bread still warm from the oven, topped with something sticky and sweet or just plain. I love the control over exactly what goes into the food I'm feeding myself and my family. It drives me crazy that most supermarket whole-grain breads of the kind that are supposed to be healthy contain high fructose corn syrup, an ingredient that I do my best to avoid bringing into my home.

So I've been trying different recipes - not all that many really - mixing them up in my KitchenAid stand mixer and baking them in my standard home oven. Today I rediscovered a recipe that had come highly recommended by a friend who has been famous for her baking for longer than she would probably want me to say. I ran across it while I was poking through my recipe books a few weeks ago, and I pulled it out waiting for the right time to try again. Today was the day.

My friend Jean is not only a master knitter, and a wonderful baker, but she also volunteers regularly for a non-profit restaurant called St. Martin's Table in Minneapolis. She met me for lunch there one day several years ago, and I think I remember eating this bread then and that it was a fine meal overall. I'm pretty sure they're only open for lunch, and all the volunteer servers donate their "tips" to charities selected by the group that runs the restaurant. It may seem odd that I, an avowed heathen, should be promoting a christian-based group. But I didn't feel one bit uncomfortable there they seem to be a quite liberal religious group, and I liked it there.

I know I bought a copy of their cookbook at the bookstore inside the restaurant's space. And that is where I found the recipe that I followed today. It was so *good*! It's whole wheat, with just enough white flour to give it that chewy lift that has been missing in my other loaves. This is table bread, the kind that you can slice thin for sandwiches or make toast out of. It's a good sized recipe that makes two full-sized loaves. And it was foolproof to make. Although the process takes about three hours start-to finish, I paid attention to it in only about 5-10 minute intervals. I think I probably spent about 15 minutes actively working on it, and that includes cleaning the pans.

I was so excited, I wanted to share this recipe with all of you, so I called up the office at St. Martin's table and talked to their manager, Deb. She said go ahead and share it, so here's the recipe. Thanks, Deb!

St. Martin's Table Honey Whole Wheat Bread

Gently heat 3 1/2 cups of water until lukewarm. Turn off heat and add:

3/4 cup oil
2T of dry yeast
3/4 cup honey

Let stand 4-5 minutes until yeast is dissolved and frothy.

When yeast mixture is frothy, add
2T Salt
2 cups unbleached white flour

Mix together until flour is incorporated. Let rest for 2 minutes.

Add additional flour by cupfuls to make a ball (The dough will be slightly sticky.)
8-10 cups whole-wheat flour

Knead until smooth and elastic (at least 10 minutes), and form into a ball. Place in a large, greased bowl, cover and leave in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size. Punch down. Form into two loaves, place in greased pans and again leave covered in a warm place until doubled in size. Bake in 350 degree F oven for about 45 minutes.

Okay, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about how I followed the recipe. I heated my water in the microwave using a 4-cup pyrex measure. It was a little bit on the warm side when it came out (you want it no more than about your body heat, because you want to grow the yeast, not boil them to death). But I added the honey and the oil (extra-virgin olive oil in my case) and then it was lukewarm. The yeast I had on hand was one of the grocery-store brands that comes in three packets attached together. I just dumped in all three packets because that was close enough.

I dumped the white flour (I happened to have a bag of Pillsbury's Best Bread Flour on hand, so that's what I used) and the salt into the bowl of my mixer and stirred them together a bit. Then I added the foamy yeast mixture and stirred it up. It looked quite soupy and gross at this point.

While I was waiting for the yeast to fizz, I had measured about 8 cups of whole wheat flour (I happened to have a bag of Dakota Maid Stone Ground on hand) into a separate bowl. Part of my reason for doing this was because I am forever losing count of how many cups I've measured and I like to set myself up so I can have a redo if necessary. Because I was measuring right out of the bag, using a smaller scoop to dump into the 1-cup measure, I held the 1-cup measure over the bowl so that any excess would fall in the bowl instead of all over the counter. Which meant that in the end I had a little more than 8 cups in the bowl. I figured once I had added all that was in the bowl, I could scoop some more out of the bag if the dough was still too wet. Oh, and because it can be important in bread baking recipes, I'm going to mention that it is rather humid here today for January in Minnesota - meaning not as bone-dry as it usually is, but still not what anyone in their right mind would consider truly humid.

So I turned my KitchenAid on to speed 2 and gradually poured flour from the bowl into the mixer. When the bowl was empty the dough had formed into a nice big blob that was sticking to the dough hook, and although it was slightly sticky, it wasn't gumming onto the sides of the metal bowl any more. And it didn't look glisteningly wet, either. I let the mixer run for a couple more minutes, but electric mixers are much more efficient at kneading than hands, so 10 minutes would have been way too much.

I took that empty bowl from the flour and poured a bit of olive oil in the bottom, then swirled it around and even spread it a bit with my hands. Having some oil on your hands while you're transferring the dough is a good thing - it keeps it from sticking to *you*. I covered it with a damp kitchen towel, and stuck it in the oven.

Oh, but I forgot to mention that I like to raise my bread inside the oven, so I usually heat the oven to about 200 F when I start the yeast blooming, then turn it off and leave the door a bit cracked so it doesn't stay too hot. Then, I put the dough in there to rise and it's just nice and toasty warm and draft-free. The yeast seem to like it.

I set the timer for an hour and ran around playing Mommy. When I came back, the dough was ready. So I took out my two loaf pans and let Julie oil them this time just like I'd oiled the bowl. In the mean time, I literally made a fist and poked good and hard at the dough to get the big bubbles out. Note: take your engagement ring off before doing this - you don't want to be scrubbing bits of dough out of the prongs, do you? I used a rubber spatula to score the dough down the middle, then tore it in half with my hands, and gently shaped it into loaf-shapes as I transferred it to the pans. Back in the oven, back under the damp towel, set the timer for another hour.

When I came back, the dough had risen again, and I could see some big bubbles right under the top. I didn't want the crust splitting away from the middle, so I went ahead and pushed it back down a bit. I didn't bother taking the bread out of the oven to pre-heat, I just turned the oven on to 350 and set the timer for 45 minutes. Back to playing Mommy while the scent of fresh bread wafted throughout the house. Ding! Timer went off. I took the bread out and had to work hard for 15-20 minutes to distract the girls, who wanted desperately to sit down and eat it. For the record, Sophie threw a little temper-tantrum because she wanted to eat bread immediately. It was so cute, I wanted to take a picture. Would it be wrong of me to take a picture of her sad little angry face? I didn't.

Finally, even though the bread was still quite warm, I took out my serrated knife and sliced it up. It sliced like a charm. The texture was perfect - soft and not too dense, yet without any huge bubbles. The crust was nice - only slightly crusty - and the bread held together well as I smeared it with butter and jam for the girls. I still hadn't eaten lunch yet (I'd been too busy mixing bread while they ate), so I had peanut butter and jelly on mine.







And, by the way - those are two good-sized loaves. Homemade bread really deserves to be eaten within 24 hours, or barring that, frozen and thawed when you're ready to eat it again.

Winners of Junk

Hey, thanks to everyone who asked for some of my valuable junk! It looks like it's all going to find homes. You don't know how happy my office room is, or how happy it would be if I would go ahead and finish organizing the new book cases.

Anyway, Jennu - the sock yarn is yours. The postage is $2.15.

Allergicmom, the recipe books are yours. The postage is $3.49 (That's Media Mail).

Wannietta, you get the Palm Pilot. Postage is $6.40. (Turns out Priority is the cheapest way to send that one.)

Kelli - you get the Crazy Aunt Purl book. Thanks for being flexible! Postage for you is $2.47 - again, it's Media Mail.

The easiest thing for me with this is Paypal. If that works for you, just shoot me a Paypal using my shellyk at shellykang dot com address, and make sure to include your mailing address. I'm planning to head to the post office on Monday, so if you can get it to me by then you'll get your stuff soonest. Otherwise, I'll get it out on my next trip there - it seems like I'm always at the post office at least once a week with pattern sales and other stuff.

Yay!

Shades of Gray

I am, unfortunately, not all that surprised that I've gotten a couple of snarky comments (made anonymously, of course!) on the recipe box post from a few days ago.

"Wow--I thought you hate your dad, why did you list a recipe from him?"

and

"you should call it, "Dear Dad: Bugger The Fuck Off!" yummy chicken..."

I know, to people like the ones who made these comments, it must be confusing. How can I write such an angry letter to the man one week, and the next praise his recipe?

Oh, but where to start...as I mentioned, I am not surprised by this backlash. I even considered the potential for it when I posted the recipe. But Kay had kind of implied that she wanted a family recipe. I do have a handwritten recipe for meringue (the egg whites on top of some pies, not the dance - I'm so not sure I have it spelled right) from my grandma Marlys. But I think I've used it once. I wanted to post a recipe that I thought people might actually read and say "Hey, that sounds pretty good. I'll add it to my menu for next week" because that is the kind of recipe I'd like to read. I mean, how many recipes for fudge or shortening-based cake icing does a person *need*? A heck of a lot fewer than they need good what's-for-dinner recipes, that's how many. So that's where I was coming from.

And, I'm going to get to the real point of the post now. It's hard, in this complex world where our brains crave simplicity and order and tend to turn issues to black and white, to see the shades of gray in things. The first poster suggested that I "hate" my father, and I have to admit that on-and-off for many years I have hated him. But hate is an awfully hard emotion to maintain for very long, and if you try to it will eat you up from the inside out. I don't hate my father. I hate many of the things he's done, and I hate the way he has treated me all my life. I am in a position now where it is better for all of us if I refuse to allow him to contact me because I'm pretty darn sure he's going to keep acting the way he has always acted - there is no evidence to the contrary - and I want to protect myself and my family from his poison.

Okay, and I think it is just silly that because I don't want to be around my father I'm not supposed to like the chicken dish that has always been one of my favorites any more? Because he used to make it, and because the fact that he won some prize in a cooking contest was part of the story that was told every time we ate it? Well, if that were the case, I guess I wouldn't get to hold on to *any* of the few precious good memories from my childhood.

I could write a book about my experiences growing up. Really, I could. I mean, the stories! They are so insanely wrong they are funny. But I don't want to dwell on it all. I've moved on. I'm happy. I've worked hard to find myself and my good memories in the rubble of the past. I've worked hard to separate the bitterness from the good, and to be satisfied with who *I* am as an individual and as part of my own family. This blog is not about the past - it's about my life, my cooking, my knitting, my kids right now - and not necessarily in that order!

In my experience, when I tell my story to people - and I don't share it very often, and I haven't shared most of it with you - I find three categories of responses.

There are people who have come from such stable backgrounds, such happy homes, that they simply can't comprehend the idea of parents hurting them, betraying them so deeply that one would say goodbye and cut them out of their lives. Those people sometimes think I'm being petty or perhaps am a bit spoiled. I assure you, this is not the case. If anything, I erred way too far on the side of putting up with it and forgiveness. Hell, I went to my sister's wedding even though my mother and her by-then-husband (my abuser) were there acting like the proud parents. It was a disaster. My own husband falls a bit into this category, although he has seen plenty of the crazy for himself, enough to know that my family is, in his words "all kinds of messed up." He is so right.

The second category is people who have experienced abuse of their own of one kind or another, but are not able or willing to admit it. They are still living in denial, still putting up with the crap, still making excuses. These people are less common than the first, and are harder to deal with. They sometimes feel threatened by my example. They get defensive and ask blaming questions like "why can't you just get over it? Put it in the past and forgive and forget?" And my answer is that I tried forgiving for almost thirty years. Over and over. But the behaviors never changed. After a while, you have to stop banging your head against the wall and just walk away.

And the third category, quite a common one, thankfully, is the people who have seen some kind of abuse in their family or in one that they know. They've heard similar stories or they themselves are estranged from one or more relatives (or wish they had the guts to walk away). I've been pleasantly surprised in the years since I made my decision about my family. Most people sympathize. Not very many realize the full depths of the grief that I went through when I cut off my father and my sister. I was giving up not just a future with them as they were, as they probably are now. I was giving up the hopes that one day they might change and become the family I wished for - the family who could treat me with the basic love and respect that every daughter and sister, child or adult, deserves.

And let me just reiterate: The hurt is pretty much in the past. The whole letter to my father thing was just my way of reminding him that he needs to back off or put his money where his mouth is. I don't expect him to ever earn a place back in my life, and honestly I kind of hope he doesn't try. I'm happy putting my effort elsewhere, and even if he could learn to treat me decently, he is not the kind of person that I would choose to be around were he not family. I'm talking about this now because there is apparently a lot of ignorance about there about abuse and recovery, about how surviving it means keeping the good parts of yourself even if they are tied to experiences with the people who hurt you.

It's not black and white, and there are so many shades of gray that the mind will boggle. But you sort through them anyway, and you find your own happiness in there somewhere. Peace.

Oh, and you anonymous people? If you're going to post snarky things in the comments? Leave a name. I know that some people don't have blogger or google accounts or don't feel comfortable leaving an e-mail address. I've told people in the past, pick a pseudonym and stick to it. Be accountable for your words on some small level. It is so easy to be mean and insensitive when nobody is looking you in the eyes. And it's a lot easier for me to take you seriously and to give you the benefit of the doubt if I can at least associate a name with your words.

Addendum to the Manifesto

So, the charity blankie is done, and the second pair of clogs for Joe are in the washing machine now. Why is it that when you have something you want to felt there never seems to be enough dirty laundry, no matter how much there is on any other given day? I think I'll be washing sheets tomorrow - and not just because they desperately need it.

It's time for the blankie - that blankie - to come back to the spotlight. I'm going to get to knitting on it as soon as I'm done here, and in fact, I knit a square or so this afternoon. But I thought I'd better take a photo first so that I can count how many squares I knit in the next week - Blankie Friday will be resuming as of now.



The girls were playing right there in the living room as I took this picture, and it took every bit of self-restraint they had to stay off it long enough for me to take a photo. So as soon as I got it, I told them "Okay - have fun with it." And they did.





And while I knit mitered square after mitered square, I will be dreaming of the next project, I'm sure. But I thought I'd share the UFOs that are calling from the closet in the mean time. (And, uh, maybe I wanted to get some bloggy mileage out of it while I was adding them to Ravelry.)

Remember Bavarian Twist the second? It was originally meant to be for Julie, to match the little pink sweater I knit for Sophie last year. Between lack of knitting time and brainpower after long days minding two little kids, this project fizzled out. But the body's knit up to the armpits and one of the sleeves is half done.


It is beautiful, and it would suit Sophie just fine for next winter. And it would be nice if I could enter it in the State Fair. The manifesto states that I will not cast on any new projects for other people, which means that I could work on this one and still maintain my resolve. But it's not the first thing on my priority list by any means.

Here's that falling leaves sock I started a while back with my hand dyed yarn. I was thinking about kitting it up with the pattern for sale. Looking at it now, I don't hate the colorway as much as I did a few months ago. I still don't think I want to kit it up, though. At least, not with my own yard. I do think it might be fun to pull together colors from a commercial yarn and knit one up as a sample for a kit, though. In the mean time, this will stay on the needles and wait - at some point I might go ahead and finish this pair for my own use because the original falling leaves socks are starting to wear out.



I started this sock not all that long ago. It's Vesper Sock Yarn and Mag Knit's Rainbow Socks pattern. Because of the constant short rows, it's not really mindless knitting - not for me, anyway. And I do think that a different self-striping yarn would show up better in this pattern.



I was strongly considering ripping these out and knitting the yarn into some plain socks. But I tried it on tonight, and it looks okay on my foot. I might actually work on these after the blankie is done - or maybe I'll stick them in the van for knitting on if the girls fall asleep or if Joe is driving.



Next up, a sweater I knit up on the LK-150 machine last winter and is still in pieces. It's lovely Wooly Stripes worsted weight wool from Nashua Handknits. This sweater gave me huge headaches and took much longer to knit up on the machine than I expected - partly because there was so little free time, and partly because I'm really not very good at using the machine. Now that the pieces are knit up, it really wouldn't take that much longer to finish - block the sleeves, sew a few seams, cut the steek on the front, knit ribbing for the cuffs and collar, and knit on a button band. Well, that *would* be a couple weeks' worth of evenings for me probably.



I think it could turn out wearable, but I paid a lot for this yarn and honestly there are some issues with the tension in areas. Serious issues that cause some puckering.



Even though the fabric is nice overall. Call me crazy. but I can almost see myself ripping this whole thing out and knitting it seamlessly by hand. It's a lot of expensive (to my budget) yarn, and I'd really like to end up with a sweater I like. My only hesitation is that the yarn is single-ply and much of it has been knit through the machine more than once. I wonder if it would be more likely to pill after all that handling...good thing I have plenty of time to meditate on this one as I knit the blankie.

This one has actually been calling me quite loudly of late. I started it a couple years ago or so - I know it was after Julie was born, and before we moved to the new house. It's my own design in Bartlettyarn's 2-ply wool



The body's all in one piece - it's going to be a cardigan. I had a good chunk of the sleeves knit at one point, but ripped them out for reasons I don't fully remember. Which left me with a giant pile of crinkly bits of yarn to be reused.



I'd forgotten how pretty this was knitting up. I know I set it aside in frustration, and probably again out of lack of solid chunks of time to work on it. That era of my life is a little hazy, but I know I was pretty busy trying to soothe a constantly-screaming baby. I think I might be willing to tackle it now. Or, at least, once the blankie is done.

And finally, there is this lovely thing - a lace scarf. There is nothing wrong here, no headaches. It just got set aside because of all the other projects in the lineup. This one is quite tempting indeed. The only potential drawback is that it would take a bit more time than some of the other projects - but not all that much more time. It would match my new coat well enough, but not stunningly, and I wouldn't want to wear it on a daily basis - not with all the schlepping of the kids. Still, it would be a fun item to enter in the Fair as well. And the yarn is some luscious alpaca/silk laceweight I got from my SP9 pal. Yum!



So there you go. That about accounts for all the UFOs in the house - at least the ones I can think of and dig out. I've got lots to think about while I knit on the blankie. Lots to look forward to.

And here's the funny part. At dinner tonight, Joe and I were talking about some friends of ours - friends that I really don't know very well. They are expecting a baby in the next week or so, and I caught myself thinking about knitting up some little booties for them realquick. For a moment I thought about justifying it by knitting up the little pattern I've been wanting to try - the one I've seen on all the blogs with the little crisscross straps that button. And then I caught myself and laughed. Manifesto!

Keeping Busy On a Thursday

The holiday break is starting to drag on a bit. Joe went back to work yesterday, and we still have a few days left before Julie returns to pre-school. I had planned ahead for this eventuality, and signed us up for a community ed activity called "Ooey-Gooey Fun" for this morning. We had a bit of a struggle getting out the door on time, and I didn't help matters any by stopping the girls on the way out the door for a quick photo because I thought they looked so darn cute.



It was one of those moments where I was so *angry* at all of us for not getting our acts together, that I had to stop myself and take a deep breath, look at my girls and appreciate how wonderfully cute and sweet they really are. Sophie has her hands in her pockets here because she refuses to wear her lovely handknit and felted mittens about 90 percent of the time.

Unfortunately, when we arrived twenty minutes late at the location where I thought the activity was being held, it became clear that the activity was actually being held at a different location fairly close by, but which would have taken us another twenty minutes to reach when one calculates in time needed to load up the kids in the van, drive over, get them back out and run them up a couple flights of stairs. So we would have had to go through all the running around for at most twenty minutes of potential fun, assuming that the kids wouldn't freak out about arriving mid-stream with all the other kids already making their mess.

I opted out. We needed to head over to the grocery co-op, so I made a quick-thinking deal with the girls. "Let's go to the grocery store now, we'll get you a treat and some lunch from the deli counter [Julie loves getting a little box of black beans and brown rice from there, has since she was Sophie's age]. Then, when we get home, we'll do ooey-gooey fun in the kitchen. And the ploy worked.

And oh, it was at least as much fun as we would have had at the planned event. I bought some chocolate pudding at the store, and after lunch and nap I set the girls down with a dollop of pudding and a dollop of vanilla yogurt each on a pie plate, and told them it was finger paint they could eat.





I swear, they sat there and played for almost an hour. And that is HUGE for kids this age. And the cleanup wasn't even that bad. I got them in the tub right after, and gave them a bubble bath, which I rarely do because the soap is bad on their skin. And guess what? They spent almost another hour playing in the tub.



See, look - happy kids in the late afternoon. It's all good. They love it when I give them a bath early and let them put their soft, cuddly jammies on before dinner. The rest of the day was a cake walk. Whew!