Knitting

Time, Green Growing Things

June 10, 2014June 10, 2014 mud&stringLeave a comment

TIME OUT

I feel like I’m falling down on the job – I haven’t posted since Sunday, not for a lack of postable material, but it’s SO hard to pull myself away from the other things that I love and that make me so happy. I feel so blessed to be at this point in my life, the point where if I want to spend the entire day baking or painting or knitting or reading or anything else that catches my rather short attention span I can, and it’s ok.

GREEN LEAFY STUFF

The plants that Mr. Iknead and I managed to put out before the rains hit are thriving like crazy, leafing and budding and flowering. It’s been raining here off and on, mostly on, since last Thursday, with some bad storms with high winds and torrential rain. No tornados and no hail, thank goodness, but things are a muddy mess. I know that we’ll all be crying for rain by the time August rolls around, but today, a little sunshine would be welcomed. I took these today between rain showers-

Basil is growing like a house afire. In the narrow box is more basil that took root after I thinned the ones in the clay pots.

I love my begonias! My mother loved begonias and at first, I got them because they reminded me of her. Now, I’ve fallen in love with them, too.

This is our first time with a butterfly bush, I think it’s doubled in size over the past week. It’s a keeper for sure.

PARTING SHOT

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools. Albert Einstein

Knitting

WIP Wednesday 7/17/13, Doing the Herb

July 17, 2013 mud&stringLeave a comment

ON THE NEEDLES

Mr. Iknead’s socks continue to grow. The first of the pair is finished, and the second maybe 2/3 finished. My goal is to have them done in time for FO Friday. I’ve said that before and been defeated, but hope springs eternal and all that.

Wise Hilda’s Basic Ribbed Socks for Mr. Iknead

THE HERB

I noticed yesterday that my basil was beginning to flower and that means it needed to be harvested quickly if I’m to have more basil this summer. I was going to dry it, but learned that because basil has a high water content, it does better when frozen than when dried. Learn something new every day, I do.

That’s plain basil on the left, lime basil on the right

My kitchen smells HEAVENLY!

BY THE BOOK

I’m nearly through with Joyland and have enjoyed it immensely, wishing sometimes that there were just a couple more hours in the day, like 26 or 27 instead of just 24, just so I could squeeze in a little more of my favorite pastimes. (I think I just heard a few moms of toddlers groan.) I also checked out a couple of library books on spinning and knitting; the pictures are lovely, I may never get to the text!

I’m linking up today with Tami, Ginny’s Yarn Along and Frontier Dreams KCCO. Don’t forget to visit these awesome blogs!

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted. John Lennon

Knitting

Potpourri (You’ve Been Warned)

June 17, 2013 mud&stringLeave a comment

WARNING

This particular post will probably be all over the map, the weekend was so fantastic and I have so much stuff to show; so, consider yourself warned.

GREEN GROWING THINGS

Now, truly, I’ve never, ever had the desire to garden, it always looked like so much work and fretting about what to plant and where and when. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. Give me real, live things to fool with, like babies or puppies or kitties. Note that plants are not under the category of real, live things. Honestly, I sort of thought that people who were really into gardening were, well, a little odd. Until now. I’ve done a complete 180 on the garden thing. Here’s how it happened. Remember how I’ve been cleaning out, going through and organizing about 18 years of stuff? Cleaning out the garage one day, I found a couple of seed packets, I for sure remember that one was morning glory seeds. Just for chucks, I found a couple of pots that already had dirt in them, stuck the seeds into the dirt, gave them a drink and sat back to see what would happen. And yeah, just like seeds are supposed to do, they came up! I was flabbergasted! Success! With that little confidence boost, I got some basil seeds at Wallyworld, bought some real potting soil, again stuck the seeds in, covered them up and gave them a drink. Another success! Amazing! There really could be something to this gardening thing, so, I bought a couple of begonias (my mom always loved begonias), set them out back with the rest of the growing things and again, settled back to watch. They grew! They bloomed! They grew so much I had to repot them! They lived! I learned why people garden – it’s fun, it’s interesting, it’s soothing, it’s just very, very cool all the way around. I am now a gardener. Who woulda thunk it?

Basil, Batchelor Buttons and a poor sad Begonia that’s doing oh so much better now

The Morning Glory that started it all

Red Hydrangea

So, I’m now “one of those people” and proud of it! There’s a lot to be said about getting your hands dirty!

JOSIE

While I was out documenting my new gardening obsession, I snapped a couple of pics of Josie Pug on a whim. Isn’t she beautiful??

WHAT I’M READING

Outstanding book and particularly relevant to me as I caught myself doing a lot of (internal) screaming while waiting in line – any line.

I love just looking at the gorgeous photos in this one.

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Knitting

FO Friday 06/14/13, Best SIL Ever, Too Hot To Bake?

June 14, 2013 mud&stringLeave a comment

Linking up with Tami’s FO Friday blog today.

OFF THE NEEDLES

Medano Beach Bag

Sugar’n Cream 100% cotton

Ecru and Country Red

This bag is proof that stockinette in the round with two colors CAN be messed up. I was nearly to the bind off when I noticed that I’d missed a stripe, wrestled momentarily with wanting to frog the whole thing and decided to leave it be. So, the bag has a unique pattern, designed for easy recognition in case it’s ever in a pile with 20 other red and white Medano bags. :p My only complaint was that this bag grew so slowly, due to my decision to use number 4 needles instead of the number 7 or 8 recommended. I do like the density of stitches that the small needles gave me, I’ll just scale the whole bag down a little next time.

YOU SHOULD BE SO BLESSED

Happy birthday to my best son in law ever! I truly believe he was sent to us (not just to Bigmommy, thank you very much) straight from above. His gifts of love, faith, positivity, strength, generosity, ideas of fun, common sense, intelligence, loyalty and sense of humor have elevated us all. (He has a ton more assets but I ran out of fingers.) Great father, great husband, great friend, great preacher, great man of God – Clefton, you’ve covered all the bases! We love you!

Clefton and Annabelle

IN THE OVEN

Yeah, it’s pretty hot but I’m baking today anyway. I think I’ll start with Sundried Tomato Basil Bread using my own fresh basil and maybe move on to something sweet, Pull Apart Cinnamon Bread, maybe.

Six essential qualities that are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity. William Menninger

Knitting

Getting My Hands Dirty and Bread Love

April 16, 2013 mud&stringLeave a comment

GOING TO POT

I’m still love, love, loving my pottery class and look forward to it every week. Yesterday, we learned about building with coils and how to use an extruder, which is a really quick, easy way to make them. Takes a little bit more upper body strength than I have, but by standing on a stool and leaning my weight on the handle, I can get the job done. Here’s my pottery WIP from yesterday – with emphasis on the WIP! I’m starting to feel more comfortable with the clay, catching on to how it feels when it’s too wet to add details (too wet clay is floppy and will slump and collapse) and then how it feels when it’s dry enough to hold the details or embellishments added. Cool stuff, I think.

I didn’t get to finish this little pot, I want to flare the sides more and then narrow and smooth the top; since I’m in a class at the Art Center, I can come and go at the pottery studio when I want, not just at class time. I may go later today and work on it a little more, maybe experimenting some with different sized coils and bases. I love this!!

FROM THE OVEN

The Sundried Tomato Basil bread was such a success that I want to share it. This isn’t my recipe, so to give due credit, the original was submitted by girlversusdough on tablespoon.com. She has a baking blog, girlversusdough.com, one I’ve enjoyed following.

Sundried Tomato Basil Bread

1 cup warm water

2 tbsp olive oil

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour

2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tbsp chopped dried basil

1/2 cup chopped sundried tomatoes

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add 2 cups of the flour and all other ingredients to the batter and mix with dough hook until just combined. (I used the paddle attachment and it turned out fine.)

2. Add remaining flour 1 tbsp at a time until dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl.

3. Remove dough from bowl and place in a clean, lightly greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled, about an hour.

4. Punch down risen dough and shape into an oval, stretching from the top of the loaf to underneath the bottom. Place shaped loaf in a lightly greased 8×4 inch loaf pan. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.

5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Once dough is ready, bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing. So good!

Thanks girlversusdough for sharing this recipe, it’s delicious!

The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated. William James

Knitting

Think Out of the Breadbox

April 13, 2013April 13, 2013 mud&stringLeave a comment

THE TOMATO BASIL EXPERIMENT

Babymama and I went to lunch earlier this week and I had my first taste of tomato basil bread and now I’m hooked. I’ve baked bread off and on for years – mostly traditionals- whole wheat, rye, white, etc. so today, I’m stepping out of the breadbox (a little baking humor) and trying my hand at a Sundried Tomato Basil Bread recipe that I found on the Tablespoon website.

Success! Simple recipe, great flavor. This one’s going in the recipe box to be baked again and again. With cheese, fancy mustard and smoked turkey – two words – different and delicious! Such a pretty loaf!