A Little Night Music

 

I'm almost ready to weave my latest towel which means I have to go looking for something new to start warping.

I was tempted to buy something but remembered I had several kits in the stash closet. I used to belong to a kit of the month club. First I dug out Cayenne Pepper. It's a plaid. It got stuck in the closet because I wasn't overly fond of the shiny yarn. 

Then I found Colors By Mozart. It's a waffle weave. Again, it was the shiny colors that gave me pause.

Good golly, even more shiny colors. The main problem with all these kits is that you have to go looking for the drafts in separate weaving publications. They don't come with the kit. I told myself that the first draft I found when looking for my digital copies of the publications would be the one to start with and it was.......drumroll please.....

....Colors By Mozart. This is an interesting one because the designer took a piece of his music and translated it into colors. I'm not sure why it had to be shiny but I'll just have to get over it. 

Taking a Chance

 

I have one set of Halloween stamps that I've been using over and over for quite a few years. These to be exact. 

 I wanted to buy some new ones but I didn't want to spend a lot of money. I saw these inexpensive stamps online from an unknown company and thought I'd give them a try. Bad stamps are impossible to work with but these worked just fine. 

The same went for some new dies. I went with this cheap set and was pleasantly surprised. I'm going with the dies this year for my cards. The stamps will have to wait until next year. As cute as they are, I couldn't come up with a card layout that I liked while the dies pretty much told you what to do with them.

Wednesday WIPs: Some FOs

 

The Halloween socks are finished. I'm still debating if they are mine or if they should be gifted. I really like them but I already have three pairs of Halloween socks.

The second section of Hue Shift is also finished. Now I can see where this is going and it makes sense. For the longest time I thought the pattern was wrong. 

Alas, Section Four of Clue One of the Kaleidoscope MKAL is not finished. Blame the vaccines. I lost two days of work on it. I'll hopefully have it finished by the time the last clue comes out on Thursday. 

I did buy some new needles that have been helping speed up my pace. The pattern calls for one long circular but using one with all those fiddly little shapes was making me nuts. I bought the same ergonomic needle in double point form and have been using needle stoppers on the ends. They saved my sanity.

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.