TNT: Seeing Spots

 

Betty Boo (no relation to Sourdough Betty) has a pumpkin and a bat. This week I'll start the sheep that they are perched on.

I should have also picked up Patchwork Automne or the Crafting ABC sampler that I'm working on but after doing all my Halloween decorating I was in the mood to work on the more somber Matter's House again.

All the primary stitching was finished last year but I still had all those confetti dots to do. I've decided only to do the ones in the top box to balance it out. The pattern calls for them over the entire piece but I'm not going that far. Just doing a few a day is enough to make you crazy. I'll be seeing this project for many a Halloween to come. 

Baking with Betty: Trying Something New

 

In spite of it being only 68 degrees in the house, Betty has been bubbling like crazy and I haven't even had her heater turned on. 

Since she's been so active, I thought I'd try something new. I wanted to try baking her in a loaf pan instead of my Dutch oven so I ordered two with some parchment liners. One pan is for the dough and the other is to make a lid.

I usually make two small, round loaves with this particular recipe but instead I made one big, oblong one. 

While I was waiting around for Betty to do her thing with the bread dough, I also made a batch of Sourdough Apple Donut Cake with my jar of discard. Instead of three smallish loaves I should have made two bigger ones but other than that they were amazingly good. They taste just like apple cider donuts with a crunchy cinnamon sugar layer on top. 

Six hours later it was looking promising. After taking off the pan I used for a lid I was surprised to see such an extreme ear.

In spite of it not being put into a pre-heated Dutch oven there was a lot of oven spring. I even got blisters along the sides. I wasn't expecting those from this scaled down version.

I have to admit that those sourdough girlies on YouTube know their stuff. It is possible to skip all the pre-heating and lugging around of very hot, heavy pots. I'm not saying I'll never go back to the more conventional way but it's nice to know that there is a shortcut. 

Chili Weather

 

We both seemed to have recovered from our jabs overnight so yesterday morning we were up early and rushing out the door to the Farmer's Market. Before we left we put some veggie chili in the crockpot. 

It had rained overnight and the parking lot was a mess. All the vendors were working together to make the day happen, filling in for each other and taking turns sweeping the puddles. In spite of the cold and the wind everyone was in very good spirits.

The growing season has pretty much come to an end. There's not much to buy except apples and pumpkins. I passed on the pumpkins but came home with some apples.

We always take the long way back to the car which takes us down the boardwalk. The bay was really churning from the wind. It was a beautiful morning if you like this sort of stuff and I do. 

The town workers were getting the place all decked out for next week's Boo Bash. It's the Halloween dog parade in the morning and the kiddie parade in the afternoon.

Halloween wasn't the only thing on their minds. The sound of chainsaws was everywhere. The Crepe Myrtles were getting their winter haircuts so they can be wrapped in Christmas lights. They've already started putting the lights up on the main road that runs past our house. One season just blends into another anymore. 

Rest and Recovery

 

In spite of feeling like death warmed over most of the day yesterday. I found the energy to get my Halloween stitching on some foam board so I could display them this year. They've been sitting in their project bag for quite a few Halloweens. I discovered you can cut foam core board with an old rotary cutter. It made quick work of the job.

Most of the day I napped. For dinner I discovered you can make a quick veggie version of "Italian penicillin" aka pastina in a rice cooker without much effort. It was just what the doctor ordered for my post-vaccine malaise. 

For all The Mister's insistence that vaccines don't effect him, this is how he spent the morning. The first clue was the grouchiness, then it was the long morning nap and not wanting dinner. He's not as invincible as he thinks he is. 

Double Ouchie Day

We were out on the town yesterday afternoon hitting all the stores. Christmas was everywhere. 

Well, almost everywhere.

I came home with a bag of goodies....

....and two pretty purple bandaids. Flu and Covid. Unfortunately, the Moderna MnexSpike that I got last year was out of stock at the pharmacy so I had to get the regular Covid vaccine that always lays me low. The Mnexspike is a lower dose for us oldies and I felt great last year after getting it. If I disappear for the weekend blame the shortage. 

The Mister never gets any reaction from any vaccine so he'll be up and about while I am down and out. While shopping he loaded up on English muffins because look what came in the mail. NYPeapod sent me another shipment of her prize winning goodies. At least now I won't have to worry about his meals for a few days. 

Look what also came along for the ride. Isn't it the cutest? She made it on her Cricut. Thanks so much Ruth! It was all very well timed and very much appreciated. 

A Deep Dive

 

Yesterday I gave a brief look at the progress I've made on the MKAL but today I want to show off the things I have learned along the way. Look at this mess on the back.

It would be mind blowing to have to deal with that but Stephen has a plan. The "Weavin' Stephen". You weave in the ends as you knit by twisting them around the working yarn. Brilliant. All I have to do is snip the yarn ends when I am brave enough to do it.  Kaffe Fassett has a similar technique that I tried on Bon Amie but it doesn't work so well on Fair Isle where you are constantly switching up the colors. 

I've learned how to do i-cord cast ons and bind offs. The cast ons give me a fit but I find that a small crochet hook really helps snag that working yarn. 

Everything is connected through a series of slip stitches at the top of each motif. I learned the hard way to be consistent and neat with all of the last stitches on the needle. You will be needing them again. 

You can see the Franken-stitches where they triangles are joined with the trapezoids and wedges by knitting first and last stitches together. 

Speaking of wedges, they are formed by short rows. I hate short rows. They are evil but knit in garter stitch they are quite harmless. I don't know enough about them to give Stephen credit for this particular technique because up until now I've avoided them like the plague. 

Clue Three comes out today and I haven't even made it through Clue One. I'm just starting the very last section and it's a doozy. Two parallelograms and four wedges make up this repeat so it's slow and fiddly going. By my calculations it will take me eight days to finish this up. Just in time for Clue Four. Yikes. At least I've been able to see where I'm going. It's been no mystery to me.

Wednesday WIPs: Fiddly Dee

 

I finished section three of clue one this week. Ouf.....I'd hate to add up how much time I've spent on this. It's not TV knitting but I did sit myself down in front of the video tutorial to get my head wrapped around this section. Then I watched a lot of podcasts from folks who were also wrestling with this project. I was happy to know that I wasn't alone in being a slow poke or fretting about how ratty the whole thing looks at this stage. It's been an adventure that mostly takes place after everyone else in the house has gone to bed.

In spite of my MKAL obsession I have been working on my other projects. The Halloween socks are at the stage where I think they are ready for the toe but I'm not quite sure. I always have to think about it.

The big drama this week was Chestnut. Measuring it against Bon Amie, I could see that all I needed to do was to finish the last few rows of the last motif and then start the facing but somehow I ended up with a big hole where the ends meet. I had neglected to twist my ends on a few rows and when I went to untangle them some stitches were dropped. What a mess that was. I had to rip it all back and ripping back colorwork is no fun at all. All's well that ends well and everything is now back where it belongs. 

I've got two more blocks on Hue Shift's yellow row and then this section will be done. It's always good to pick this up when everything else is going to hell in a handbasket. It's been very dependable.