How I've been spending my time

In case you haven't figured out from the last few posts, I've been kinda focused more on sewing and food lately. Still knitting, but I'm enjoying the libraries selection of food and sewing books. Here's my current stack, which is a great indicator of how I've been spending my time:



And, here are pictures of yesterday's bread. It was pretty good, but I still really want to work on getting the open, loose crumb (like this). I think the bread may have been a bit over-proofed (which also may have contributed to the lack of oven spring), and maybe not wet enough. The recipe is the San Fransisco Sourdough from Crust & Crumb (though I halved it).

Here is a picture just out of the oven, and you can seen the lack of oven spring as the slashes barely spread during baking.


And here is the crumb (second day). Nice and even, and the loaf was yummy, but I'm still trying to achieve the elusive open crumb.

A few of the Critters of Nu'uanu

The TV is currently broken, which one would think might increase productivity, but when it comes to knitting, the productivity has actually gone down as most of my knitting was done while watching TV. Currently I can still watch TV on my old 13 inch laptop, or netflix instant on the new 15.5 inch widescreen, but neither are as conducive to knitting as the real TV. I'm still making progress on the WIPs (and one new project which just needs to be felted), but nothing major to report yet. Actually, the Garter Yoke is done, and has even made an appearance at Aloha Knitters, but it has just been too hot to put on an alpaca and wool sweater for pictures.

Instead I've been working more on other projects, including some sewing and more baking and reading. In fact I'm currently waiting for the most recent loaf of sourdough to cool enough to slice.* So, while I wait I thought I'd share some recent pictures of the interesting and/or cute creatures I've been encountering here (and I'll leave out the not so fun encounters I've had). Sorry that some of the pictures aren't great, some were taking quickly and with the only available camera, my phone.


First up are the pair (or sometimes trio) of ducks that seem to have taken up residence in the neighborhood. Upon research I'm pretty sure they are a hybrid of the Hawaiian Duck (koloa maoli) and Mallards. Unfortunately, the Mallards are an invasive species which has interbred with the native duck to the point where there are almost no ducks left that aren't hybrids (except on Kaua'i). And, what is even sadder is that it seems the hybrids are less adapted to the local ecosystem (so much for hybrid vigor).




One of the most vibrant animals we see are these Gold Dust Day Geckos, just like the Geico gecko. Another invasive species, and they appear to be rather localized as friends who live less than 1/2 mile down the valley don't have them.
Here is one hiding in the light outside our front door.


And this guy was being very cute, poking his head up from between the boards.



Not so vibrant, but these walking sticks are just such interesting creatures. While they move slow, which allowed me to get a better camera, I had a hard time photographing it to show the size and also the features.



Last, but not least is the one animal no one thinks we have here: the blind snake. Yep, Hawaii has snakes, but they are tiny and blind. This one was dead (or doing a really good job of playing possum), and pretty big.


And, since we are talking about animals, I thought I'd share this great flickr group I just found: the Ask a Bishop Museum Scientist. You can upload photos and a Bishop Museum scientist will try to identify the plant or animal (unfortunately, due to funding cuts, it seems they are limited in how much they can do).


Oh, and in actual knitting related blogging.... new knitty!! I haven't had time to puruse fully, but looks promising. I'm particularly intrigued by Tridactyl and the crab is adorable.

*Okay, I'm not really still waiting now. But I was when I wrote this and then I had a lot of trouble getting the last photo off my phone, so it took a while to finish this. And, to report: the bread was pretty much a success, yummy, but I didn't get enough oven spring and am still having trouble achieving the open crumb I want.

Adventures in Baking: Sourdough Buns & No-Knead Bread

I have to wonder at what point one's partner becomes concerned that a new interest may have gone too far. I'm not sure exactly where that line is in knitting, or on which side of it I sit (though my husband may have something to say about that). However, I think I came close to that line on Monday with regards to the renewed sourdough baking interest.

So far I've been focused on bread, with brief forays into pizza dough to use up the discarded starter. But Monday I decided to try making hamburger buns. To the non-baker I'm sure this sounds similar to how the idea of making socks sounds to a non-knitter ("You know, you can buy a pack of those at WalMart for a few bucks?"). But, just like socks, the handmade ones are worth the effort (and the effort was a lot less than socks. And, unlike socks, these were very close to the same price as the ones you'd get at the store, but much better.

I used this recipe with a few slight modifications: I used whole wheat flour for about 1 cup, I used 1 cup starter and 1 cup discarded starter (because I didn't have enough fresh starter) and I used vegetable oil instead of butter (because it was there, but the butter probably would have given better flavor). I also brushed them with an egg wash and sprinkled sesame seeds on most of them before baking. Here are a few photos of the process:


I used a small springform pan to cut out the rings, this is just after I cut them, but before they rose. I thought I got pictures after the rise but before the oven, but I guess not.


I probably crowded this pan a bit (this is not the one above), and then as they rose they smooshed together a bit as they rose, but still good.

The final product, Lamb Burgers with Tzatziki (with the Greek salad hiding in the back)






I also made a loaf of no-knead sourdough bread that day and it wasn't a total success. I followed a recipe that had me do the last rise in the dutch oven, and it spread out a lot so I ended up with a flat disk of bread instead of a beautiful boule.






I also burnt it a bit around the edges (I think the oven was too hot). Both of these things made it very hard to get out, luckily I'd put parchment of the bottom, but the sides were stuck very well and I didn't want to scrape the pot so i had to use a plastic bowl scraper. But the flavor was good (very sour) and the crumb was good, just need to revise the prooving/shaping methods.

Still Tinkering

I've been trying to make to columns here wider (which one would think blogger would make easy). Luckily I've managed to find good instructions here, but it will take a while to work out the kinks so bear with me as things may be a little messy for a bit.

Cupcakes for the Grown-up Set

My blogging MO seems to be a spurt of posts and then silence. Really I have no excuses other than laziness. And I've even had a decent amount to blog about in terms of both knitting and cooking.

On the cooking front the big one is that I'm getting back into more baking including recently sourdough bread (which will hopefully get its own post). The first up was an attempt to use a ton of limes I had (from a semi-failed attempt to make Cochinita Pibil, which I'll blog about if I ever make a version that is worth writing home about). I had the limes, and felt like baking something sweet, so my mind drifted to the good things I'd heard about the Margarita Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Now, I'm not vegan, and I'm not even a huge fan of tequila, but the idea of vegan margarita cupcakes just warms my heart. So, after a quick google search I found the recipe here.

I ended up making a double recipe, because there were supposed to be 11 people at the dinner and 12 cupcakes for 11 people just seemed wrong. I thought about making 1 1/2 of the recipe (and because there were no eggs, it would have been really easy to do so), but figured that more cupcakes was better than more math. I'm very happy with the decision to double the recipe.

The cupcakes were a big success, the perfect grown-up cupcake. The flavor of the lime and tequila came through so well, but it wasn't overpowering at all. While the cupcakes were a little dense, it was more that they were just very moist (which is a good thing in my book), not dense in a bad way.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the greatest pictures, but here are a few. I tried to do the rimming with green sugar, but it was really messy. I think it would be better with a coarser sugar instead of the sprinkles I had.





I wanted to find little lime candies, but wasn't able to find them last minute (and on Easter Sunday), so I decided to candy some limes for a little extra decoration. They didn't turn out as pretty (or tasty) as I hoped, but they were a cute addition.



I followed the recipe, but used butter for the frosting. I'm not sure if it was because of that, or something else, but the frosting was not as thick as I would have liked, even after adding more sugar than called for (and it was getting rather sweet). Next time (and there will be a next time, these were so good) I'll try to do something to make the frosting a bit thicker.

Really, all I have to say about these is yum. They were just so good. But, if you are looking for other excuses to bake with booze, I also recommend this recipe for Chocolate Whiskey Bundt Cake which I made last year into a pirate cake pan for my FIL's 60th birthday. The picture is not the greatest, I forgot my camera and and to rely on others.

Excursions in Stash Busting

I'm really trying to knit only from my stash. It helps with the wallet and helps with the space issues in the apartment. But, one of the side effects is that I they buy patterns to work with stash yarn.

I've been spending a lot of time looking at the photos of my stash on Ravelry, trying to find inspiration. A lot of the yarns that haunt me are variegated yarns I bought, but now can't find something to make them into. Some were bought we I first started knitting, but for many there just isn't an excuse.

One of these is some Berocco Calico that I bought at Stitches from the Heart (okay, maybe my excuse is that it was for charity). I've been searching for something to make with the Calico and I keep coming back to Pismo. It is one of the few patterns I was able to find which (1) looked good in the yarn, (2) was something I might actually wear, and (3) was something I have enough yarn.

I wasn't planning on buying the booklet now, but just wanted to see if it was out there and how much. However, with the assistance of the ever helpful Google, I was able to find it at The Knitting Zone for $2.99 (regular price $6.00). Turns out they are reducing most of their inventory to focus on wholesale distribution on Hiya Hiya needles, and their patterns (other than downloads) were all marked down tremendously.

I have a hard time passing up sales, and a hard time paying shipping on one small item, so, after some browsing, I was able to find a few more patterns that I "needed." But I was good and resisted the yarn. Over all, I got 6 patterns/booklets/magazines for under $30. The shipping wasn't cheap, at over $11, but still it was a great deal. And the shipping was so fast, I put in my order late Thursday night (Friday for most of the country) and the package arrived today. Here's what I got:

FiberTrends:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/felt-bird-houses-222, Felt Alpacas and Llamas (207), Gotta get a Gecko (233), and Felt Koala(205)

Other:

Berroco Booklet #241, Berroco Booklet #278, Rebecca #31


And, just to show that I actually have been doing some knitting, here are the baby socks I just knit. The pattern is the Little Sky Learning Sock from Cat Bordhi, and I can't wait to try the technique on a sock for me. I used some Cascade Cotton Rich that I had one skein of in my stash (that I think may have come from a swap). It probably wasn't the best yarn for this, as it wasn't very stretchy which made some of the decreases and other techniques a hassle, but it was just sitting there and since the intended baby (no, not mine!) is here in Hawaii, the cotton seemed appropriate.



I think I'm going to start the Felted Koala, also using stash yarn, to give with the socks. Hopefully I can get one done by this weekend when the baby shower is.

Companion Cube!

Last week at Aloha Knitters meeting Kai asked how many of us had knitting blogs, and almost everyone's hand went up. I followed up and asked how many have actually updated in the last few weeks.... significantly less hands in the air.

So, here's my little update on my most recent FO: The Knitted Companion Cube.

For a few weeks last year the husband (who is currently on my shit list, but that's another story) was obsessed with the video game Portal.

Now, I've never knit anything for my husband. I keep threatening argyle sweater vests (for some reason, he hates argyle), but living in Hawaii he doesn't really need any of the things he'd actually appreciate (hat/gloves/sweater). So, I was rather excited when I saw a pattern based on one of the elements (characters?) in the game: the Companion Cube. I thought about it for Christmas, but was bogged down in other knitting, and couldn't locally find a light gray wool (I hat the other colors in my stash). But, on our trip to Maui I found a light gray Cascade 220 at Ben Franklin (why they had the color when none of the Oahu ones do is unknown).

So, I decided it would be a perfect Valentine's Day gift... a cube for my companion.

This was the first time I'd done fair isle with long floats, and I'm not sure if I did them totally right, as the floats show through a bit. Here are a few in-progress shots:



Of course, I was late getting started on it, and started about 10 days before v-day, but I was making good progress despite not being able to work on it while he was home. On the morning of valentines day I had about 5 more rounds to go before finishing the knitting. I was working on getting those done when I snapped the cable of the needle right at the join. Luckily I didn't drop any stitches. And I had another circular in the same size; however, it was shorter and the stitches barely fit which made the knitting very slow. But I got the knitting done, and started the blocking. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the blocking, but I set wrapped it around a pop-up sweater dryer, pined the edges down and set two fans blowing on it. I left it there for a while and went out to Wal-Mart to buy the foam for inside.

Here it is once it was blocked:

Sorry for the bad lighting, but it was night by this time and I wanted to get a picture of this stage.


Next up was the steeking. This was the first time I've ever done steeking, and I feel like this is the one technique knitters can legitimately be afraid of. All other techniques (other than felting) can be undone, you can always frog and start again. But with steeking, once it is cut, there's no going back. So I pulled out the sewing machine, and started.



After I'd sewn the reinforcement, there was nothing left to do but cut. I took a deep breath and cut; I wasn't really afraid it would unravel (the wool was tight and grabby, and the stitching gave extra confidence), but it was still nerve wracking. But I did it, and then suddenly I had transformed a tube of knitting into six squares of knitting. In the rush I missed getting pictures of the sides cut out.

Next up was the seaming, which isn't something I have a ton of practice with. I brushed up with a few books and got to work. It was about 9pm now, with the husband due home a little after 10pm. He got home when I had one and a half edges left to seam up, so I had to hide in the bedroom for about 10 minutes to finish.



Over all, the recipient was very happy, which made it all worthwhile. If I had to do it over again I'm not sure I'd knit all 6 squares in one round; instead I think I'd do the four sides together (skipping the steeking and therefore without knitting the gutters, but maybe a twist slip stitch or something at each edge) and then the top and bottom separate. I though the seams would add some structural integrity, but instead they just add bulk on the inside (especially at the corners) and aren't really that necessary. But hey, I conquered steeks!!! I'm now thinking about using them a lot more because I like cardigans, but don't really like purling.