"D" day

Doggies. Doilies. Dessert. Dancing. Diving into the ocean. All very good things from the letter "D".

Anybody make doll-clothes? I have sewn a few items for DD's American Girl doll. But I never knit for a doll, other than this:
Last weekend, I found some great books at the library. All about knitting heirloom doll clothes.
















The patterns are for all sizes of doll, but the items I want to make the most are:

This cape/poncho for DD's American Girls Kirsten doll. Isn't it cute?! What a great idea....and this:
What a great little mini-bedspread. Gorgeous!

And look at this lovely dress! What a nice gift for a child's doll.

D is for double-knit. I am so enamored of this technique. And I still have yet to complete even one project of that knitting style. Drool. This is one possibility for a first project;

or this:

from a previous post.

I love any double knit, really. Here's a cute scarf (I think I linked to it before), I'd love to make a double knit scarf--how warm would THAT be?! Oooh, I could make a double-knit scarf from the post-office knit charts, that would be cute! Maybe I'll try something like this amazing project soon!

Baking rocks. That was my first culinary love. Here is a recipe for No-Rise Yeast Dough. It is versatile, and great if you don't have one big block of time to spend on baking bread. You make the dough, cover it and refrigerate it 5-7 days, taking out what you need to make fresh dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, pizza crust and other yummy creations. Wanna know where I got the recipe? Remember "The Home Show" in the 1990s?

No Knead, Make-Ahead Roll Dough


2 pkg dry yeast
1/2 c warm water (110-115* F)
3/4 c butter
1 c boiling water
1 c cold water
c/4 c sugar
2 t salt
2 beaten eggs
7-8 c white flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water (I use hottest tap water). Mix butter & boiling water; cool slightly. Add to yeast mixture with cold water in a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients IN THE ORDER GIVEN. Stir til dough starts to to pull away from the bowl. Put into greased very large bowl, seal airtight and put in fridge. Keeps up to 7 days there!

After 24 hours, uyou can roll it out for pizza dough, cut into rounds for biscuits, roll into balls and place in muffin tins (2 balls per tin = parker house roll shapes, 3 roll per tin = cloverleaf rolls). I find it easier to shape if you oil your hands with olive oil first.

You can brush the tops of the rolls with melted butter and sprinkle on poppy or sesame seeds. You can add 1 t cardamom to the dough for swedish rolls, but you have to do this prior to rising. You could add dill, rosemary or other herbs too for savory rolls. Maybe even grated cheese, mmm.

Form dough, let rise (1-2 hours) in greased pans. Bake at 375* F for 12-15 minutes, until brown. Let cool. (Adjust baking time for pizza dough--for pizzas, we use a clay stone and 425* with toppings in place for 8-14 minutes. Adjust this for your own best pizza method). Let cool.

Freeze rolls in plastic bags. To thaw, remove from bag and let sit on counter. When thawed, put in brown paper bag folded closed, into 275* oven til warm.

For cinnamon rolls: roll out 1/2 the dough into rectangle (18" x 12" is good). Spread with softened butter from edge to edge. Sprinkle a mixture of sugar and cinnamon over all the surface. Cut into 2 rectangles 9" x 12", then roll each up into a log. Slice into 1-1/2" slices, place into greased cake tins and let rise up to 2 hours. Bake as listed below. (Top with powdered sugar/milk/vanilla-extract glaze when cooled a bit.)

What I did the last time I made these: on Sunday I made this dough, Monday night after work I formed the cinnamon rolls and put them covered with plastic wrap in the fridge overnight again. Tuesday morning, I set the rolls on the stovetop while the oven preheated, and baked them before work. We had hot fresh cinnamon rolls and I still got to work on time!!! Woo hoo. It was also fun b/c I had made homemade butter on Sunday, and used that. YUM

Now for the bad things...

D is for d-oh! Here's a list of Bumpydoink's blogging Disappointments:

1. This can was a potential craft project.(scroll down) I loved the graphics. I wanted to make it into a planter. I saved it for months, until I couldn't bear to look at it anymore. I finally dumped it in the recycle bin. I should have at least used the canopener. Really. How hard is it to punch some holes with a nail?

2. My harvest of rose-hips. Yeh. They sat on my counter, then in my fridge til they were old and wrinkly. I tossed them.

3. Another wasted harvest. I HAD to pick these lovely serviceberries, because they are edible and they were on my property. I could've left them to feed the wildlife, but no. They rotted in my fridge.

4. This was such a mess. The product I chose for grout remains loose and wet FOREVER. It never hardened (well it might be hard now that it is 25 below zero outside.) The stones I so carefully laid out have moved, fallen, and been repositioned. This can't be used at all now. D is for DEBACLE.

5. Last year's garden. I bought seeds, just a few; I knew my time was limited. Guess what?! All the seeds I bought are still in their packets, unopened. Maybe this year?

Hope springs eternal.

It's sad to have a great idea that does not come to fruition. And I really hate waste. Maybe by reviewing these posts, I can do better this year =D

Dreams. I have very vivid dreams that seem to correlate with running a fever (and I have been sick a lot!) In the dreams, I am running and being chased by zombies/bad guys/robots/tornadoes/dinosaurs/grizzly bears. In some of the dreams, I have to turn and fight because the attacker is gaining on me. In my most recent one, I was being chased by a crowd of robot-clones of Aim from another planet, and at the end of the dream I was cornered and had to use a fireplace poker to defend myself! What the *#@%^ ?! I'd like to awaken refreshed after sleep. Not battle weary! I should lay off the vampire novels at bedtime....

D is for disturbing!

Hope you all sleep sound and dreamless tonight :D


.•:*¨¨*:•.-¦-.•:*¨¨*:•.-¦-.•:*¨¨*:•.-¦-.•:*¨¨*:•.-¦-.•:*¨¨*:•.

Monday

Here is some stream of consciousness writing for you:

It is 4 AM, and I am bustling around, doing dishes, cooking for the day, hard-boiling eggs and keeping the laundry rolling. "What is she doing?" you ask. She is doing what she always does. Goes to bed at 7:15 PM because she cannot keep her eyes open, and awakens at 2:30 AM when DS arrives home (or whenever DH begins to snore.) Sigh. I guess it's a mid-forties thing. Or maybe a self-preservation thing--if I'm going to be awakened each night, it might as well be after 5-6 hours of sleep!

It doesn't help that I've just had 8 ounces of diet Pepsi with Lime, and am working on an antipasti platter of cheese cubes, crackers, olives, pickles and hard-cooked egg. No way I am sleeping after that, heh!

Thought I'd post about blocking. We have replaced all but 2 rooms of the house with laminate flooring; the remaining two rooms have awful, 12-year-old carpeting (that is due to be replaced this year after I pay off my Lasik surgery!) What I usually do is lay an old sheet down on the carpeting, and pin out my wooly items into the carpet and padding, spray them down with a fine mist of water, and leave them to sit overnight. In this weather, with the furnace running all the time, items dry within 2-3 hours; in the summer it may take 24-48 hours. I usually don't drench the items, but I do spray them liberally :)

It's funny, learning to knit with wool in the past 2 years has taught me a lot about blocking and finishing items. Prior to wool, I had acrylic, which I find does not require blocking. However, I have also made crochet cotton doilies for many years, and I don't remember ever blocking them! Ever! I usually iron them if I want them to be less rumply after laundering; even that is awful because I just throw the items into the washing machine. Cave-man style linen care :) (Well, some items I have hand washed and laid flat to dry.)

But now, I feel I have some finesse to apply to my finished items. Really, the amount of work that goes into making crocheted lace deserves better than I have given in the past! I want them to last for generations, and be appreciated for their beauty, even by muggles.

That reminds me--two years ago, I went to a craft show in early November, doing some Christmas shopping. There is a local church that has an annual craft fair and sale with about 40 booths! It's just down the road from my house. Anyway, one of the booths had vintage crochet and embroidered linens for DIRT CHEAP!!! The lady selling the things said that they were her mother's, and that she'd found trunkfuls of them after her mom passed. She and her sister split up what they wanted, and were selling the rest.

Oh my, I don't have to tell you that I spent my whole wad on those linens! I will have to pull them out and photo-document them for posting here! You will be so amazed. If I remember right, I spent about $22-28 dollars and got TONS of doilies, tablecloths, towels, etc. There are some incredible items in that stash! And such beautiful work.

Have you seen this 4th of July potholder? (1/18/09 ETA: Fixed link is here.)Isn't it the bomb?! I would like to make one of those myself....Really into the patriotic thing right now. I started a group on Ravelry about patriotic knits--some of the items that are posted there are so gorgeous! I love the red, white, and blue! So graphic, so meaningful, so crisp and summery!

About yesterday's photo shoot:


Uh. It was colder than stink! Look at this close-up of my poor hand. My thumb is getting pre-frostbite! And this is after running outside in my Blue Beauty sweater, posing for about 3 minutes, running back inside until I thawed out, and then running back outside for another 2-3 minutes shooting photos! Ah, the things we do for the love of knitting....I musta been crazy :D (current wind chill is around -18 degrees F! Not sure what it was yesterday....)

See ya!

Post-dated....

Time to come out of the water...
I initially wrote this post in early June. Before I learned to spin on the drop-spindle. I thought it would be amusing to post it now.....

"SOMEBODY HELP ME...."

Well. I am in trouble. Real fiber trouble. I had joined the hello yarn fiber club in April, got my first fiber in May, and have recieved another in June. Besides that, at the same time I signed up, I also bought my first drop-spindle and some fiber to try my hand at spinning. Of course, I have never spun before except as a demo for 15 short seconds about 20 years ago. Never mind that I don't even know what to do with it, I am recieving new shipments of wool roving every month!!! Have I gone mad?!

I guess this is the way to force myself to try it! There is a great local resource for all handicrafts, and I know they have classes in spinning and weaving, so I'll have to bite the bullet and really try. But meanwhile, I found this on-line, and methinks I will be making great use of these instructional videos!

Learning to spin has been one of my dreams for as many years as I have been a crafter. It's a long-running joke in my family that my spouse was making me a spinning wheel for a Christmas gift 20+ years ago--of course, he wasn't, but everytime he wants me to guess about a gift, my first guess is always a spinning wheel. ;)


That's kind of funny, in retrospect. Now I can spin after going to the fiber fair and being taught this summer. But a taste of spinning is all I've gotten, and I was hooked on it before I even tried it!!! So you know this is the beginning of a great love!

This site is a spinner making innovations I know nothing about yet! And this one is doing the same kind of inventing... I really want to learn more about spinning!

I have to learn to ply next....seems like it would be fairly easy, letting the twist that is already in the singles do the work for you. Unfortunately, this is really on the back burner until I can devote some time to it. Board exam, you know ;)

I have to make a version of Herrschner's Winter Forest, seen below. I love double knitting, and was making a cheezy snowflake in double knit about 15 years ago, as my first taste of it. I think this would be the most cozy afghan on the planet; a double layer of stockinette!!!!! Wow. And I like the colors they chose for the pic:

Drool. Really need to make this, I must find some kind of cheap wool that I wouldn't mind buying twice as much of, because it will take twice as much as a normal afghan. At Herrschner's website, I think I found the book this is published in....

Color, color, color.....

Whoa, watchout bun-buns....

Photo taken at a bird sanctuary, this hawk was circling directly above us....(or maybe he was eye-ing us?!)

I love birdies :) Here are some more interesting shots from the bird sanctuary....

Ha haaaaa, look at that mug! :)



this is an Impeyan Pheasant, from Nepal. Love the colors in the plumage, would love to make a blanket or garment with all those wonderful colors! Man, those are really rich jewel-tones.

How about the Slivered Almonds Bird:

Just kidding--didn't get his name, but doesn't he look like he's covered in slivered almonds?! The beauty and diversity of nature continually astound me!
This guy looks like he is wearing a clapotis around his neck....

You must really click on the photos to get the full effect of these colorful pheasants from around the world...


This is a Golden Pheasant.

Speaking of color: have you seen this ? The author has a whole entire series of color study on her blog, and I love her step by step process and how she is inspired....I could sure learn a lot about that :)

Here is another blog about color: in the form of fair-isle knits. Love that blog, it's so inspiring. I would love to try my hand at a large fair-isle pattern, having successfully made We Call Them Pirates last winter--both hat and mittens!

On Knitty Gritty, one of the knitster girls was making a double-knit scarf in white and red, and that is really inspiring to me, too! Had tried my hand at double knit about 15 years ago--here's my learning swatch:

This is from 12 years ago, when I was brand new to knitting, and was planning a blanket! This is as far as I got, cough, cough! It was done in icky acrylic yarn, which is all I could find at the time. But I still think it rocks, and it is calling me to do something in that technique. Perhaps one of my scarf Xmas gifts?....

Another creative knitter in color of fair-isle and double knitting in multiple colors! This is one massively creative woman, inspiring me with each of her projects.