Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Turkey Day!

Things are winding down here at the Family home up in up state NY. We are full of turkey and pumpkin pie and are all relaxing, like a cliche, next to the fire. Simon is playing guitar and I am working on my etsy. (Even though its a holiday I don't seem to get a day off.) All the family members have headed home and now it is time to sit back and let the tryptophan take hold.

The reason I am diligently working on my etsy is that I am preparing for a holiday sale. All of that shop knitting I did was for some fun and warm fingerless mitts that I am listing in my shop. Also with little bits and bobs of yarn I knitted up some fun hair bows. All of these plus more will be on on sale in my shop for 25% off and will be shipped for free starting today and running through to late Monday night. Also all yarn will be 10% off and I just listed some great Alpaca Silk Fingerless Mitt kits. Check my etsy or my etsy on sale to see all great items on sale! Make sure to check back tomorrow for a few surprises that I have in store!

Pictures and Packing

The title of this post pretty much sums up how I've been spending my day. Editing photos and packing for my trip up to my parents.

I still have a ton of yarn photos to edit, back to picnik for more editing.

Finished Projects

Simon and I had a photo shoot yesterday. This means I finally have photos of things I have finished.

This was my Oz plan ride project. It is a modular shawl. It was a lot of fun to knit and super easy you only ever had 60 sts on your needle. I finished this while I was in Australia sometime in March.

The lace Ribbon Scarf, I knit this last Thanksgiving! I never blocked it till after I got home from Oz and now its finally chilly enough to wear.

This one is a design from No Two Snowflakes. The pattern is the Katrina Ballerina Layering Lace Cardi. I knit this almost two years ago...almost...ok maybe more like a year and a half. I finished the knitting in June of 2009, but didn't sew buttons on the thing for almost 6 months.

This is one of my favorite sweaters that I knit. It is the February Lady Sweater and I knit it last January to wear on the plan to Australia. I can tell you right now that I didn't wear it at all in Oz. This sweater also had an extended stay in Oz. I couldn't fit it in my luggage so it stayed in Australia till Simon brought it back with him in August. Much like the lace ribbon scarf I am excited that the weather is perfect for this sweater.

This piece is more recent. I blogged about it in October in the post Get Knitting, where I lamented the errata in the pattern and the yardage being off and needing a solution for my lack of yarn. Well I solved that by using some black wool and silk I bought at Nangellini. The rest of the red wool was added to my sleeves and then I finished the sleeves and button band in black. I like the contrast and think it looks much nicer than using all one color.

I was especially excited about the buttons I found, gold with black in the center I think they give me sweater a very sophisticated look. I block this sweater a week ago and just sewed the buttons on Saturday. I am definatly taking this up to my family's house for Thanksgiving this week.

Homemade Bread

Today I put my to do list Slightly on hold. I really didn't as "learn to bake bread" was on my list of things to do. And guess what I did it! I found a great site called cookingbread.com and found a simple white bread recipe in their extensive lists of bread recipes. The one I used was the Hungarian White Bread I omitted the anise and fennel seeds. Above is my dry ingredients all ready to go waiting for my yeast to activate.


Here is my yest activating in some luk warm water.

All Mixed up and ready to rise!

This was after about an hour and a half it was double its original size. At this point in the recipe you had to "punch down" the dough and cut in half

I did exactly that and placed my two halves in loaf pans. Here I covered them and let them rise for about another hour.

They doubled in size again and puffed up. Now it was time to bake them for 50 min at 350. As the loaves baked the wonderful smell of baked bread filled my apartment. It made our place seem so warm and cozy.

50 Minuets later I had this!

Here they are out of the pans after a few minuets of cooling, I couldn't wait to slice into one and see how it turned out!

Delicious! That's how it turned out! Bread was a lot easier to make than I thought. I think the part that makes it seem hard is the yeast and waiting for the bread to rise. This was more an exercise in patients, but I can now proudly say I can Bake bread. I think this may become a weekly thing.

Vintage Finds Hiatus

I am going to be taking a small hiatus from Vintage Finds Friday. It is one of my favorite posts to blog about, but It is super time consuming, and for right now I need to focus my time to my etsy and my hand dying. I would like to add spinning to that list but i am out of fiber to spin for the time being.

I have even taken a week long break from knitting for me. My original plan was to knit during the day for the shop or work on a design and then in the evening work on some me knitting. So I have been a busy little knitting elf for this whole week and I feel like I've gotten a ton of things done. A lot of new items that will be photographed on Sunday and you will start to see them in my shop on Monday!
Here is my pile of progress. I will have two more pair of mitts to add to this by Sunday. Knit Knit Knit! As for the rest of my to do list I plan on buying buttons today, and my photo shoot is scheduled for Sunday!

Tomorrow has been dubbed super productive day. Here is an updated to do list for tomorrow:
1. Bake bread (That's right I'm doing it. Today is payday to I'm going to go and buy supplies and see what happens. There will be a special late Saturday edition of Blue Betty Blog because of it!)
2. Finish Shop Banner and Profile pic. (I lumped these together)
3. Finish last knit for shop. (If I keep to my knitting schedule my last project for the shop will be on my needles tonight and bound off tomorrow)
4. Dye last two hanks of alpaca silk.
5. Cut out Muslin for Jacket. (I want to sew a new jacket for thanksgiving, this is a big undertaking, so we'll see what happens, and if I actually finish it in time for thanksgiving. And by Jacket I mean blazer.)
6. Book tour in Gettysburg (The Hubby and I are going away for a few days.)

Well I am off to knit and drink coffee and then off to work...BTW this is my last day of work for two weeks!

P.S. Today is the last day of my Holiday Head Start Sale in my etsy!

The To Do List

Since I have a ton of things I need to get done before Thanksgiving I have brought back my trusted to do list. Most of it has to do with my etsy shop and some of it has to do with getting ready to go up to my parents place for Thanksgiving. One or two things might be things indulgences for me. (Like starting to learn to bake bread and start knitting a new sweater or sew that blazer I want to sew.) First things first though I am planing a giant overhaul of my Etsy shop. I new Banner and pic, new items and a new out look. All of these things are going to culminate on the Thanksgiving Holiday. There will even be a sale in the shop and a giveaway on this blog.

Here is the top five things on my to do list
1. Finish Knits for the shop
2. Photo Shoot
3. Create New Banner
4. Create new Item Listings
5. Sew buttons on red sweater

So there it is my top five things for the weekend. Baking bread might be on that list too, but first things first.

An Intersting Ambition

I would like to say that this week is a quiet one. But the reality is with the upcomming holidays I am mostly knitting for the shop, dying all the base that I have, trying to work on a lace pattern (although the farthest I've gotten is dying the wool and deciding I want to design a lace project), putting together items of different price points, attempting to think about Christmas, planing a short get away with Simon and deciding that I really want to learn how to make bread.

Most of this list is some what normal for me, knitting, dying, dreaming up designs. Some of this list comes with the holidays, but the weird thing is my new desire to bake homemade bread. I have a silly domesticity in me that wants to bake bread in the morning, I blame the fact that I am recently married and am nesting in a weird way. My reasoning is I'm home most of the morning and afternoon, I don't work till 3pm, I can totally learn to bake bread.

This want to bake bread just adds to my seeming domesticity. I cook, knit, sew, know how to make pie crust from scratch, I spin yarn, and now to add to the list I want to bake bread. Next thing I know I'm going to want to start canning and making jam (two things a have done in the past with the matriarchs of my family).

I feel a type of wonder doing these things, in a way I feel its keeping alive a dying art form. Who actually bakes bread any more, I know people do, but I don't know anyone who does. With the rush and bustle of today I really like the idea of making something that takes time and practice. Maybe this is why I gravitate to knitting and spinning and even sewing. I am a good knitter but it took time and practice and a lot of mistakes to become a good knitter. I still have a lot of room for improvement and have only learned a small amount of technique, but I want to improve and learn more.

So, maybe this week isn't the best week to decide to take up bread baking, but I have two weeks off starting on Saturday. I think next week I will be indulging my new found interest. But first I think its time to bring back the time honored to do list for now.