Wednesday WIPs: In the Kitchen with Betty

 

Right before my nasty cold hit me, I made another loaf. This was my favorite so far. It wasn't too sour. I cold proofed it for 24 hours. I'm not sure if it made a difference but it was nice and fluffy on the inside with a crisp crust. 

That night I used Betty's discard to make my first crackers. I thought they were good but The Mister thought they were too thick and too crunchy. 

My second try was too thin. The Mister declared these chips and that they needed salsa...lol. Oh, well. I don't need to be eating crackers anyhow.

I've also got two starters going now. Brown Betty is on the left. She's the original one that consists mostly of wheat and rye flour. I used a bit of her to start another all white flour Betty that I call Betty White. 

I put a very little bit of both their discards in a bowl in the refrigerator overnight and had my first starter explosion. It came over the top of the bowl and pushed off the lid. What a mess. At 34 days old Betty is really starting to flex her muscles. 

TNT: Nothing to See Here

 

Between the two Grand sitting gigs, the sick dog, the snow prep and then a miserable cold, I haven't a thing to show off this week. I haven't even picked up my knitting in days. What I can show off is ice. Lots of it. Everywhere. 

We started out with this much snow and then the ice came and glazed over it all. Not enough to pull the wires down but enough to make a big mess. 

The cats have been enjoying the weather. Since the top layer is hard ice we've been throwing seed out on top of it for our feathered friends and they've been putting on quite the bird show. We're hearing rumors of another snow storm heading our way at the end of this week. Hopefully, I'll be feeling well enough then to get out there. We've got the sleds ready to go when we are. 

Dammit

 

I haven't had a cold since I had Swine Flu back in 2009. I kid you not. Not a sniffle. Not even Covid but I've got one now and so does The Mister. All that pre-snow crowded rush was probably a field day for germs. At least it's not the flu. Not yet anyway. I would have loved to spend my snow days working on my many projects but instead I'm under the covers with a bad case of brain fog, a leaky beak and a wicked cough. No fun there. No fun anywhere. Argh...

A Knitter Notices

 

There's joke about not wanting to see Jim Cantore from The Weather Channel show up in your town but the folks in NYC got to see him out and about waiting for the big winter storm in this really cool hat. It looks like someone knit that hat. I wonder if it has a story...or a pattern.

And...a big thank you is in order to Dee in Ohio. She sent me this puzzle which sent The Mister over the moon because...

....he had done a similar diamond art project a while back and really liked it. He's working on a snow scene right now but as soon as he finishes it, I'm sure he'll want to get started on the tree. He'll probably have had enough of snow-inside and out by then as will we all. 

I was asked about what I was going to do about all that tofu. Nothing fancy. I freeze it, then thaw it in a big pan of cold water, cube it, toss it in some olive oil and low sodium soy sauce and then crisp it up in the air fryer. I keep a container of these cubes in the fridge to eat along side of whatever I'm cooking for dinner since I don't eat meat. Sometimes I just snack on the cubes. I have a pre-diabetic condition that has decided to roar back with a vengeance according to my latest blood work so tofu makes a great non-guilty between meal tummy tamer. 

And...speaking of tummies, while everyone was frantically getting ready for the big snow/ice event yesterday we were here. The emergency vet. Pup had a scary tummy issue late last night and our vet wanted her checked out asap. After the triage that thankfully confirmed that she did not have bloat or a blockage, we waited another five hours to see the vet who confirmed it was just a bad stomach ache. It was a long night. We got home right around midnight after driving home an hour in that terrible cold. Pup is right as rain today and on a very restricted diet until we get past this weather mess. At this writing they are calling for 1/4 inch of ice overnight which is a nightmare scenario. If I disappear for a while, you know the trees got the wires-again. Sigh....

Old Dog, New Tricks

 

It's been a crazy week. First it was the unexpected two kid sitting adventures and then it was the weather. In between the madness I still had soap to get wrapped and mailed. It's my favorite part of the process but I had to do a rush job to beat the weather. 

SoxieKnitter recommended Pirate Ship which took me a while to figure out but made it all so much easier. Instead of multiple trips to the post office, I could click a few buttons and drop it off. It's so cool I didn't want it to end. 

Betty also taught me a new trick. I made a giant jar of starter and turned it into...

...a pile of pumpkin/blueberry waffles. I might not like sourdough bread but these I can eat.

Canadian Soap Friends: For the first time ever I got asked about tariffs and taxes on those two measly bars of soap. I didn't know how to answer the questions other than say they were just gifts. No money was changing hands. I apologize in advance if this ends up costing you anything. The post office clerk hadn't seen those questions before either and was of no help in deciding what box to check. I have read online that you can refuse delivery and have it sent back to me making me responsible for any payments. Again, I'm sorry. Like so many others have discovered recently, sending things between countries has been made near impossible. What a shame. 

Friday Fluff: DMV Insanity Edition

 

DMV for those of you who don't know stands for The District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia and I can tell you the place is rocking. The S word always scares the stuffing out of us here in the Mid-Atlantic. What's crazy is after a week of extreme cold temperatures, it was so warm yesterday that I had the windows open for a while. Right now it's hard to believe anything cold is coming our way but they say we won't be out of the teens for all of next week. 

Just in case the ice and snow does show (it doesn't always), I put in a pick up order at the big grocery store across town. We had already been to our little mom and pop grocery that morning but they were out of everything. We were told when we got to our pick up spot at the big store that they were backed up by at least FOUR HOURS. We didn't want to sit and wait so I grabbed a cart and tried to remember what I had ordered. I didn't do too well but I did get the water and tofu along with a lot of fresh vegetables. The place was insane. I feel really bad for the workers.

As for fluff, this is how it started back in October....

....and this is how it ended. It's Merino. It's an okay skein considering I really lost interest in it around the holidays. The colors don't do much for me. 

The best part of finishing something is going stash diving. I found this beautiful BFL which will make a very nice Olympic spin. Until then, I'm giving the wheels a rest. 

Winter Weather Advisory

 

We are all in such a dither here about the snow that's being forecast. It's been a long time since we've had a really big snow. On my travels to the Grands I brought along the Ski Sweater to work on. The Mister's Riddari is too big for travel knitting now but I wanted something warm and cozy in my lap since it's been so blasted cold. 

We arrived early in the morning so we had two whole days to play. Big Grand got a space capsule for his birthday a few weeks ago and we had a lot of fun playing space man. Of course I had David Bowie playing in the background. There was a lot of Major Tom to Ground Control going on. You're never too young for Bowie.

My sister, who is also on a sourdough journey, stopped by on Tuesday to pick up some of Betty's discard and brought along a family heirloom. It's a 1960 Brio carousel pull toy that Baby Grand loves to bits. It has a bell that goes clang, clang so we had to ration his play time with it before we all went mad. 

Speaking of Betty, we cut the little loaf we made and Big Grand declared it delicious. He ate several slices at lunch and then finished it off at dinner. My sister and The Mister got a big laugh out of learning that after all this work, I am not a fan of sourdough. Never have been but being a process person it doesn't stop me from wanting to make it. I don't like scented soap either but I always make plenty of it just because I like to fool with the fragrances. 

As for that Betty discard, look what my sister made from it yesterday. Now that's a pretty loaf of bread.
 

Wednesday WIPs

 

I didn't pack up my projects this week to head up to the Grands because after Saturday's adventure I realized there isn't going to be much down time with those two anymore. Back at home, I did get a few rounds on The Mister's Riddari. The next round I work on will be the last of the 3 color rounds. Hallelujah. 

I've been trying to put four rows on each of these projects every night we've been home. Slowly but surely. I think there's still enough winter left for me to get some use out of the mittens but that cowl...it's going to take some time. 

The Mister has another big finish this week. After whining and complaining about how many pieces there were and how big it was and how the colors were all the same, he blew right threw it in a couple of weeks. He's packed it away now which is a good thing. Every time I walked past it I got hungry. Kraft Mac and Cheese? Haven't had it in years but it was good.  Hostess Snowballs? Yes, please. 

And...The Mister finished his sparkly fall diamond art project this week as well. He's been on a roll getting things done. I wish I could say the same for me.

TNT: On the Road Again

 

There's not much progress to show this week because of all the back and forth to Daughter's house to sit the Grands. I had meant to pack this away after I finished the small snowflake on the right side of the heart last week but then the bigger snowflake underneath it looked interesting so Christmas Quaker is still with us for at least another week. 

When you unexpectedly wake up to this, stitching snowflakes seems like the thing to be doing tbh.

If you told me I'd be on the 4th block of the Patchwork of the Crosses quilt so soon I would not have believed you. I don't spend much time on it every day but I do spend some time on it and I'm surprised at how it's moving along at such a nice pace. 

I don't have much to show for a week with the needlepoint projects but I did work on them both. As for slowly but surely, The Mister finally finished his Halloween PbN last week. I had a good time watching this come together. It looked like absolute slop for most of the time and then like magic it came together. I like it. 

And...early yesterday morning I decided to experiment with Betty once again after giving her a very heavy nighttime feeding. This time I followed along with the lady on the Life Changing Same Day Sourdough YouTube video. It was the very first time I got a dough that acted like dough. No sticky glop. Eureka. 

Twelve hours later I got a rather beat up looking mini loaf of sourdough bread. It's still a HUGE improvement from what has come before. It actually poofed up this time. I'm not sure what's going on inside of it because I'm not cutting it until I get it back up to the Grands today. My little helper deserves to see the first cut. 
 

Betty on the Move

 

When we agreed to do all this overnight baby sitting for the Grands I had forgotten about Betty. She's still getting her twice a day feedings. I could have just put her in the refrigerator until we got back but I didn't want to break the cycle so she got packed up and taken along. Big Grand was fascinated to have a science fair experiment right there in his own kitchen. Betty must have enjoyed her two hour ride in the car because I'd never seen her rise so high. 

I was planning on trying another attempt at baking with her when we got back home the next day so Big Grand and I gave her a big morning feeding before I packed her up. Again she over performed in the car. She almost came over the top of the jar. That would have been a mess.

I used what I could in the recipe, set her back up in her incubator and put the rest of her in the fridge to use for an experiment later in the week. I brought her back down to a more reasonable size. No one needs that much starter. When we get home from our Tuesday-Wednesday overnight trip this week, I'm going to try once again to revive a sample out of the refrigerator. The first try didn't go so well but this Betty is much stronger.

And if you are wondering why I don't have any cutesy kiddie photos to share from our visit it's because we arrived late in the afternoon which in parenting circles is called The Witching Hour. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the two little ones spent the entire time running and screaming. Running and screaming. Then more running and screaming. I spent my time being the referee. The poor Mister was trying to watch the football playoffs while all this chaos was happening but he took it stride, I'm happy to say. Did we have an easy time getting them to bed? Nope. It was a fight to the finish with both of them.

Advice Taken

 

When I complained about my pink Brava hat being too short and not having the yarn to lengthen it or wanting to buy a whole other skein for each color when I only need a bit more, some of you suggested stripes for the remaining skeins. I didn't really have colors that would work well together so I bought one skein of black that will go with most of the remaining colors. 

My main goal was to make warm hats to match the sweaters I wear the most when it gets cold, especially this one. I drag this one out every December to wear to all the outside holiday things and every year I say I'm making a red hat to go with it. This year it's happening and a few black stripes won't hurt. This was one of the first colorwork projects I ever worked on. I saw the pattern in one of those 1980 women's magazines. It's knit in the cheapest dime store yarn I could find at the time. I love it though. It's big, baggy, warm and comfy. All my $$$ fancy yarn sweaters can't beat this old girl. 

I've got that hat started and a cowl I want to wear for next year's holidays.

I want a festive winter themed doodle cowl and I'm using this book. There's no rush so I'm working on both the hat and the cowl whenever I get a spare few minutes in the sewing room. It's never too early to start Christmas knitting, right?

Some Trouble and Hot Wheels

 

We've got the rare night time baby sitting gig this weekend. This afternoon we are heading up to Daughter's to sit the Grands while mom and dad attend his work holiday party. Yes, I said holiday party. They are doing some casino night thing and this is when they booked the venue so there it is. The 4 year old's birthday party was last Sunday at the rink but we didn't take our presents because we knew we would be up there tonight. It looks like we'll be racing his little car collection on the giant track we bought him and playing a few rounds of  BlueyTrouble. Of course there are football playoffs on and SNL is new this week so I told Daughter not to be surprised if the two boys are still up watching TV with us when they get home. Bedtime duty is something we've never done and I'm betting we're not going to be very good at it.

Friday Fluff: Unraveled

 

Since it got really cold again, I picked up the Garter Squish yesterday morning but I didn't like what I saw. I ended up ripping out a good bit of it. All that yellow is gone.

The problem started when I tried to spin and dye yarn that was just for it. It didn't match the original in color or weight so the darn thing flares out and the colors are all wrong. I was tempted to toss the whole project but decided to put it back on the needles then go through the handspun stash to see if I can find better yarn choices to continue with. I found a few.

On the Ladybug, I'm chain plying the Sandy Canyon Merino. It's going to be a very...um, rustic yarn when it's done. Since it probably will never have a life outside one of the already over full handspun bins, I'm sad to say it doesn't really matter. So much fiber, so few uses.