The Things I Love to Do

We have a WINNER . . .

Brandon is the winner of this little knit baby sweater.  He is newly married, with no little one to wear it, but perhaps there is a baby in his family who will get some use out of it.

The 4th of July holiday gave me some extra time this year for the only thing I love as much as knitting, and that is baking bread.  I've tried many techniques over the years, to produce a loaf with a crusty outside and a soft chewy inside.  Well, I've finally found the perfect method, thanks to Pinterest.  The bread is baked in a scorching hot oven (450 degrees), in a cast iron pan.  I have an enamaled cast iron dutch oven, that seems to weigh 100 lbs.  It works perfect, although I'm afraid of anyone being near, when I am removing the pan from the oven, because it gets so HOT!  So hot, in fact, that it changes the color the of the enamel from green to yellow.  However, it returns to green when it cools.  Here is the recipe and technique for this crusty wonder:

3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups water

Wisk dry ingredients together.  Add water and mix thoroughly, with the additional ingredients of your choosing.  Dough will be sticky and look shaggy.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12 to 18 hours.  Heat oven to 450 degrees.  Place empty pan with lid in oven for 30 minutes.  While pan is heating, roll dough into a ball and place on a floured board.  Cover dough ball loosely with plastic wrap.  When pan is heated, open lid and drop dough ball in.  Cover and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove lid and bake for an additional 15 minutes.  Remove from pan and cool.  You will have a nice crusty loaf.

You can add any number of extras to achieve the flavor of your choice.  I have tried: lemon peel-thyme-parmesan; craizen-almond-orange peel; sun dried tomato-basil-parmesan; calamata olive-aziago-rosemary. 

A recent trip to Logan, Utah, led me into the cutest little knitting shop, "Unique Knits".  I found this beautiful merino/silk blend yarn  in a burnished gold.  While in Hawaii I purchased a navy/white patterned maxi dress.  The top is strappy, and I need something to cover my shoulders and upper arms, so I decided to knit another version of "Lori Shrugged". 

This was the first pattern I published, and it has served me well.  I've knit these for my sister and all of my daughters, and I've gotten lots of use out of the one in this picture.  I'm sure the gold one will get a lot of use too, especially since the yarn is so yummy!

This is my latest design, "EMERY".  My Mom bought the same yarn in Logan, in a lighter weight, in a beautiful taupe.  She is test knitting EMERY for me right now, and it is looking beautiful.  In fact, it is looking so pretty, that I couldn't resist casting on another design "LAURA", for a test knit.

This is "LAURA".  I'm test knitting this pullover vest from my leftover Fyberspates-Scrumptious.  This yarn is a dream to knit with, and is producing a soft, leafy pattern.  I was inspired to create this design, by a fellow knitting blogger,  knit purr live.  She was knitting a leafy tank in the prettiest green from a Tahki Stacy Charles-Cotton Classic pattern.  Thus the "LAURA" was born.  This design was named for my daughter-in-law, and so I am knitting it for her.  She seems really excited about it.

I recently knit these little flower dresses for my grand-daughters.  They were knit from 100% acrylic yarn I had in my stash, and since the labels had long-since fallen off, I'm not really even sure what brand yarn it was.  The design belongs to Kate Gilbert, and is called "Anouk - revisited as a dress". 

The pattern for the diaper cover is free, and can be found at:  Knit-Zilla Ravelry Downloads.  I have some pictures of the girls wearing these dresses, but they are in some wierd format, which I cannot get to attach to this post.  Anyway . . . it was a fun pattern to knit, and the dresses look really cute on the girls.

I finally figured it out.  Here are the pix of the girls wearing their flower dresses.

Our garden is starting to produce like gangbusters, so a lot of my knitting time will now be devoted to watering, weeding, picking and cooking.  I've had another allergic reaction, as I was moving squash vines onto a trellis, and the prickly vines have given me a terrible rash on my arm.  I guess I'll never learn that I must wear gloves and a long-sleeved shirt, when working in the garden.  We've had a great crop of peas and strawberries, and cannot keep up with the zucchini (like usual).  Tomatoes, spagetti squash, and radishes are starting to come on too.  Its back to work for me on Thursday, but I hope you all had a great holiday and Happy Knitting . . .

P.S.  Don't feel sorry for working me, as I'm planning on a fun girl's vacation in Palm Springs in early August.