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Yesterday was that kind of day. In and out. At 8 am we were off to the Farmer's Market so The Mister could get his oatmeal whoopie pies. There was only one left because we were a tad late getting started because the front doorknob broke and locked us in the house for a bit. It's our new door too. He spent his down time fretting over it but it can't be fixed so he'll be off to the hardware store to replace it on Monday.
Then it was off to the Boo Bash at noon.
It's the costume parade for dogs. They are serious about prizes. Look at all those.
There were about 30 contestants and some amazing costumes like this astronaut doggy and his shipmates. There were clipped and dyed giraffes and punk rock pups. I saw the Harry Potter crew, the Sanderson sisters, a whole lot of Chick-Fil-A cows and an assortment of butterflies and lions.
Pup hates the idea of the whole thing and won't participate even though there were plenty of dogs in carts and strollers.
She did get to walk around a bit in her sparkly Halloween costume before it got too crowded but for most of the time we sat on the hill, in the shade away from the crowd which tbh is fine with me.
Her reward for her trying afternoon was some chicken nuggets. Peeled, of course. Then it was time for a nice long nap. For both of us.
Pup turns thirteen today. It seems like just yesterday I was posting my weekly Pupdates in the first year of her life.
The poor thing has been through so much in those thirteen years. Hip surgery after the vet dropped her off the table while clipping her nails was a low point.
That was the week that she was allowed to come out of her 58 day quarantine after giving us all mange back in 2022. She picked it up from our outdoor cat.
We spent a lot of time running in and out of emergency vet clinics and surgeons offices that year. We had a three week wait for the surgery after the hip was dislocated. Keeping her still for so long was no fun. We still spend a lot of time at the vets because the hip issue really took a toll on her overall health. It's been impossible to keep her weight down.
Since the surgery couldn't save her hip joint she can't walk very far or for very long anymore. She's a stroller dog now. We get comments all the time about how spoiled she must be but we know better. She'd much rather be running if she could.
She gets to celebrate her big day by going to the town's Boo Bash which is a Halloween parade for dogs. It's her least favorite place to go as she hates loud noises and crowds. I'll push her stroller over to a quiet spot and we'll watch from afar. Afterwards we'll get her some chicken nuggets. She'll forgive anything for some chicken nuggets.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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