Bread photos

First Loaf proofing

Last weekend's baking, this recipe

resting before baking (on parchment paper)

YUM-baked inside crock pot

So pretty

2nd loaf proofing

Waiting to be baked on pan instead

flatter bread

Me with brand new glasses!

Fall and baking

I love love love fall, and could describe every color and smell and damn tiny feeling that sends shivers down my spine...but I'm pretty sure everyone else is probably doing the same. In Portland, cars are plastered in big beautiful wet leaves. There's Halloween. My anniversary is Nov. 1-until Election day. This year is the Elections, and our 8th year together. (Side note, we had a cute date today filling out our ballots over lunch and dropping them off at the library.)
Forget winter, there should be fall themed carols about this time of year.
Something about candy apple red leaves, picking out pumpkins, and baking bread. 
I saw this on pinterest, and thought, yay, another bread recipe. I love baking bread, but this was trickier than I thought it would be, mostly on my end of the whole cooking thing. One, I don't have the fancy cookware that seemed to be the best to use. She mentions crockpots as being ok, but my lid handle isn't heat resistant, not at 450 degrees. I found that out the hard way. Funny, when I thought I smelled burning plastic, I just assumed it wasn't from MY oven...oops. Also my crockpot insert is tall and narrow and generally awkward to fit into the oven. Something I should have worked out before I turned on the oven.
However, the bread smells great, looks beautiful and tastes wonderful. I prepped 2 batches of plain bread, and have baked one so far. I think I read that you can proof it for over 24 hours, maybe 48? I'll double check, because we've got even more cooking to do. For our anniversary weekend sunday dinner we're having steak and potatoes and cider.
This cider, from allrecipes. We made a test batch last night, and are making one more today. It's very good, but I noticed with my smaller (1.5 quart) crockpot it takes a lot longer than an hour to boil. So I put it on High for at least 2 hours. Maybe longer. I gave it a stir here and there and taste-tested it, serving when it tasted good. Oh, and I just threw in the spices, instead of wrapping them in cheesecloth.
All in all, I prefer kneading bread, and cooking it in bread pans or on a cookie sheet like I did this last summer. The steam thing is cool but I'm too poor for fancy stuff and clumsy to boot, and personally I like my crock pot anywhere but in the oven. I'll happily post a simple bread recipe (that involves kneading-hey, it's fun and therapeutic) and tutorial for those out there who haven't done it before.
But enough blogging for today, gotta get to cooking some more. Maybe I'll remember to take some pictures and post tomorrow?

On not smoking (craft-less post)

I've been going through a lot lately, so haven't crafted much of anything, and what I have done, I gave away without taking a picture (an elfish hat for my niece, so maybe my sister will take a photo?). One thing is that I got sick about a week ago, and quit smoking so I'd feel better faster. It wasn't really planned to be the big "I'm never smoking again" thing, but I'm taking the opportunity to run with it, see how I feel about a smoke-less life. So far pretty good. I used up the last 5 or 6 patches I had left from the last time one of us tried to quit smoking, and went patch-less today with lots of nicotine gum. I never really felt an urge to smoke until last night, watching Breakfast on Pluto which had me in tears, and featured a lot of smoking scenes at one point, 2 things that usually cue a need to smoke, but I still had on a patch. Because that was the last one, I fully intended to go back to smoking again today, but happened on a big box of (expired) gum, and took a pack of cigarettes (for just in case) and, I don't know, like 30 pieces of gum.
The good thing about the patch was that I didn't really feel much withdraw except in the mornings, but the hand to mouth wasn't being replaced by anything but food. On top of that, when my head isn't congested my senses are more acute. So I guess I grabbed the gum because I wasn't ready to lose that again. Cool thing about the gum is that you shouldn't chew for a few minutes after you eat, so for me that means I'm not constantly stuffing my face, like I did when I smoked, because it became natural to smoke after a meal, and therefore, to keep eating until I was ready to go outside. Also I work in customer service, so I can "chew" it while I'm working. That makes the job a hell of a lot easier.
The weird thing about smelling and tasting things better is that foods I used to like taste weird, like bad weird. Breakfast bagel? What's that weird burnt oil flavor? Was that always there? But at least some things actually taste better. When I did smoke sometimes I just kept eating to try and get to the good flavor. Are there any smokers or ex-smokers out there? Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
The only good thing about smoking was that it was the only thing in a quiet evening in that got me off the couch for a couple minutes every hour or two because there's no smoking allowed on the whole property. On nice nights we'd take a walk around the neighborhood (and smoke at least 2-3 cigarettes), but in crappy weather there was at least a walk up and down the narrow driveway a couple times a night. I try to make up for the lack of movement by walking more at work, but I want to find more active things to do after work. I sure wish there was a skating rink close by...
It'll be good to find new things to do, something cool and healthier than smoking anyway...wish me luck... :)

New Swap pics!

So for a few weeks I was involved in an organized swap on craftster, and since my partner received, I can tell you all about it and share pictures.
The theme was Mabon, which is a witchy/pagan celebration on the autumn equinox, and the requirement was to craft at least one thing for a shrine/altar. My partner was interested in getting something for use outdoors, so I did my best to make portable things.
One of the ideas I had was to make a portable altar surface, originally one that could fold up and be stored easily, like a game board, re-purposed with either nice paper or an embroidered fabric. However at the craft store I began to notice a lot of wood. And a wood burning tool. And a variation of the idea came together.

I'm calling this an "altar board"

This is a box painted and decorated to look like a gypsy caravan. 

Baba Yaga cup

Thor's hammer cup.

I'm still pretty new to wood burning, if you hadn't noticed. Still these things are much nicer than my first tries.

First and second attempts at wood burning.

The left one is the 2nd attempt, a rather complicated and tiny piece of knot-work. I changed the tip I was using, so it began to look better. The one on the right was originally a very easy celtic knot that I didn't transfer well enough. I gave up trying to free hand the parts I couldn't see and couldn't sand it off when it started to look bad. Hence the bizarre cherry or leaf thing.
I knitted a pouch with a saxony braid cable, but forgot to take a picture.
That's all for now, but I do plan on keeping up with the pyrography, as soon as I can get more wood/supplies.

new-ish crafts

I know I was supposed to update a while ago, but I've been too busy doing all sorts of crafts. New skillz include woodburning and soap making (insert "squee!" from me here). Most of those pics aren't available yet, due to making them for a swap, and having yet to mail them.
But I promised pictures from the last swap, and so here they are! These were for a Lammas themed swap last month on craftster.org.:

Lacey altar cloth, knitted in summer/fall-type colors, merino wool.

cute leafy stencil, soy based paint on canvas

Lavender besom-lavender from cool herb shop around the corner

Hoopy! Corn in heart and tree embroidery

Also I have cleaned the kitchen, and used it for baking, crafting, soap and lotion making, and lots of cooking in the last month! Let me dig up pictures...
Clean-ish kitchen (Kay, so the only good pic I had of the clean stove had to be nixed, due to my BF playing guitar in the background in his undies. I nearly left it up, because you could barely see him, but felt considerate to his feelings, and erased it. :P) Look at my neat freshly cleaned kitchen shelf instead!

I love my crappy apartment if only for this old rickety kitchen shelf. The Uhura mug and Ghostbuster car and owl pic are all new finds.

The reason for cleaning: baking bread. 2 of 3 loaves made in one day at the beginning of August.

One of my new passions. Forgot to take a picture of the 3rd special loaf, but it's there wrapped in foil in the back.

My birthday was last weekend and this is one of the best presents ever, outside of craft related presents and cupcakes.

Anyone remember Twin Peaks?

So I'm due to send out my craft items for the Mabon swap at the end of the week, hopefully I'll get the pics of those up as soon as he receives. Any new non-swap related crafting I do in the mean-time I'll put up when I can. I've done some soaps and lotions, and a couple beginner woodburns that I'll end up keeping, so maybe those will be up soon.
On a side note, I had to buy a new set of knitting needles because I lost an entire project, the Noro scarf! WTH! My apartment is eating my stuff! I also bought a ball of special yarn last weekend that is no-where to be found.

cleaning house

I hate cleaning. But the less I do on a regular basis, means the more I gotta do later...Attacked the kitchen today, preparing for baked bread for next weekend. I gotta little more to do in the kitchen tomorrow, then I gotta get to the craft area...That might take a couple weeks. I live in a teenytiny apartment, and the craft area is also the living area...which means that everything gets shuffled together.
Lots of crafting has been done by the way, but I can't show pictures until someone receives the package I sent for a craft swap...Hopefully by Monday she'll get that, & I can show off what I made. And because I'm lazy, I'll wait to take & post pictures of current projects till then too. I learned how to do these by the way!

upcoming craft spree

Wondering why I call this "craft blog awesome" when you haven't seen a craft post outside of gardening in months? It's true, I've neglected my knitting needles and embroidery hoops in the last few months, and I still have 2 scarves in progress, but I have been dabbling here and there, writing, and drawing mostly. Also I recently discovered the craft addiction that comes with "swapping," so I guarantee you will see some things soon.

This is one of those fortune teller things I learned how to make in like 4th grade, that I recently made in a paper craft swap for midsummer. It says Earth, Air, Water and Fire around the outside.

The inspiration came from here (pintrest).

I also made some ATC's (artist trading cards) but lost the pics I took (you can see the very upper corner of one in the pic above, I think that was a poem by Shelly, with a watercolor flower). That takes me to new ATC's I'm working on and plan to finish by this weekend. Expect more pictures soon!
And I just signed up for a new swap, but won't be able to post pictures until I send out, close to the end of the month. ...Well, maybe I'll post teasers...
Anyway, thanks for reading!

Aphids are horrible creatures.

Lady bugs are apparently really good for the garden, so I'm off to Portland Nursery tomorrow after work to get a bunch to combat the aphids. Maybe it's a bit extreme but I'm sure the other gardeners in the building could benefit from them too. I just sprayed the Morning Glory and the Sage with soapy water which is somehow suffocating to aphids, but I'ma go out tonight to rinse them off as per the directions I read here. Also they don't like Basil much, weird because something has been munching on it. Slugs? I'll try putting pennies in that pot, a trick I heard off a craft board.
Mom, the tobacco spray sounds good, but it might be a waste of good tobacco too... :D
Urgh, I feel like they're all over me now.
Horrible horrible creatures.

A da garden

Cilantro and basil are the newest addition to the patio. Unfortunately it looks like some pest is munching on the basil...

I feel like the chamomile is my greatest achievement, going from that teenytiny thing that nearly died to this.

Pretty damn tall!

This was doing so well unil about a week ago, when I noticed it is also being nibbled on...

Blurry, but the thyme is flowering and I'm pretty sure the rosemary is getting bigger. Yay!

The remaining hens & chicks, lookin pretty cute in that damn can!

I replaced the morning glory that was in this cutty sark pot. The morning glory got huge but then started to shrivel.

I have no idea if the color change means it's dying or if that's just something it does...?

One of my spinach starts. I've got pots and organic soil for them, but due to pesty munchers outside, I need to find something to support it near the window so's I can keep it inside. (Pardon the dirty window, I realized I need to wash it when I saw the pic...)

So that's what's going on. The eucalyptus died, and I had already given the rest of the seeds to a friend.So now I'm off to get a bunch of books from the library, mostly field guides to finding edible plants, and some kinda shelf for the window for the spinach. And I got more seeds...calendula and hollyhock. Oi, what to do with all these plants!

photo-less post

Well, I've been a while in posting, but I have been rather active. In the last couple months I've been to The HP Lovecraft film fest and Wonder NW, the coolest geek fest in town. Unfortunately my camera batteries died, and I just keep on forgetting to get more...
My garden is doing alright, but the anise, which looked strong and healthy in my last post, is now dead. :( On top of that the eucalyptus isn't lookin so good either.
The chamomile is doing great, and the morning glory...WOW, the moment I brought it indoors it shot up and up and up! I've gotta find a bamboo stick or something to let the vine wrap around something. For now I've put it back outside so it doesn't eat my blinds.
I also started a new triangle scarf with red fingering weight yarn. The pattern is super easy, and weirdly, I can't find it anywhere anymore... Essentially you just do a yarn over increase near the end of each garter row. Use larger needles and get a lacier effect. Mine's not so lacy.
So hopefully I'll remember to get batteries and take pics of my loot from geekfests and crafts and plants soon enough.

Eucalyptus & other stuff

First, finally pictures of my Noro scarf in progress! I guess I burned out about 3/4 of the way thru the first half. Haven't worked on it in a while although it's not really scarf weather anymore here in P-town.

Feathers and fan lace Noro scarf

There is a teeny tiny sprout in my eucalyptus starter! It is about half an inch tall and the leaves are nearly microscopic, and it's a sort of redish and greenish hue. For the most part I left it in my bathroom because it stays warmer in there, but on sunny days I'd try to put it in my kitchen window. I think I'm going to designate it my indoor plant, maybe try to train it to be a bonzai tree?

that teeny tiny seedling!

So I just read the back of my morning glory seed packet and the flowers don't bloom for 75 days or until late summer. Meanwhile the leaves themselves are getting prettier...But it was left outside for a while, and I noticed a dusty white spot on one of the leaves...too much sun? I took it back inside.

Mostly the one in the upper right looks questionable...

The Anise looks good, getting big, but checked the chamomile yesterday and it was limp and all floppy. I brought in the chamomile for most of the day yesterday, and watered it outside last night. Still looks sad today tho.

Anise

Chamomile :(

Sage, rosemary and thyme! Lookin good!

Most of the succulent terrariums are doing alright, except the hens and chicks in the coffee jar outside don't seen to be doing well. I don't know, maybe the colder mornings or too much sunlight or too much/not enough water. Thinking of getting a couple more jars and breaking it up into more gift terrariums.

 

My new favorite terrarium, the hens & chicks in the really tall glass.

garden update

Yay, there has been a bit of progress with the new plants/former seedlings!
The chamomile is slightly bigger, the anise is at least 2x bigger, the morning glories are tall and green (but no flowers yet) and the sesame seed jar/terrariun is sprouting all sorts of new shoots!
Last weekend I took a big risk and started a couple eucalyptus seeds, but it's gotta stay warm, which it hasn't. This is Portland, Or, the most schizophrenic city when it comes to weather. For instance, starting Saturday we turned on the a/c, and by yesterday were considering the heater again...Anyway, I'm wondering if I should just keep it under my bathroom light or bedside lamp until it starts to sprout.
After two days of carrying my largest bowl outside to water the herbs, I also decided I need to splurge on an actual watering can. There's a new nursery just down the street from where I live, so this weekend I'll give them a visit, and get round to more garden pictures.
Hopefully I'll have more info on the nursery and some pics to post by Sunday, although Tony's band Stormwreck is playing Saturday night and I've heard it'll be a late show, so could be I'll be recuperating.

Indoor and patio gardening

Kay, so I don't know how long I've been absent, but mostly I've been sick and reading, and/or obsessed with gardening...not so much crafting, except a little collage-ing and jewelry making.
A month or maybe even two ago, I got started with a pre-potted herb garden from Trader Joe's, sage, rosemary and thyme, then the heather. I think I got the seeds for the herbs after that (from Powell's of all places), lavender, chamomile and anise, plus some others. Then, waiting for those to seed, I bought the succulents and have been hunting for jars and glasses and other cheap/cute/odd things to use as pots and terrariums. My favorite place is and always has been Village Merchants, but Value Village is great too. Except I bought a big brandy snifter which broke when I got home.
On to pictures!

Succulents for the window sills:

My attempt at terrariums.

Extras, outside. Coffee can.

My favorite is the sesame seed jar. There has been new growth.

Outside herbs:

Chamomile in a strainer

Anise, which had pushed a taproot out the plug after 2 weeks.

Heather, re-potted, and lavender, which you can't really see yet, plus I might've accidentally killed.

Thyme and rosemary.

And my absolute favorite:

Jar from Value Village.

Morning Glory seedlings in a starter plug, on top of soil and rocks or glass pebbles.

And some collaged glass jars for candles and whatnot:

Most of the pics came from Bitch Magazine, Juxtapoz and High Fructose.

Oh, and my supervisor at work let me take a bunch of BiG, old out of date magnets home to craft with. That weekend I found the greatest pictures to glue to them, so maybe next weekend?