Beautiful drive in to work. Love living in Alaska.

More garter progress

Picked up some notions for the garter today. I cant wait for the final result!!

Progress on garter

Adding a second layer of edging.

Another day of sourdough

Freshly baked and oh so scrumptious. If you want some dehydrated starter and instructions, send me an email. Faemystique at gmail dot com.
Oh and I am working on making a sellable pattern for my crocheted garter that I'm soon to finish. Will post updates when I have them.

Crochet lace garter

Making an heirloom garter for my sisters wedding.
Ivory mercerized size 10 cotton thread and size 7 steel hook.
After looking over some patterns I am developing my own. Will have picot edging as a third row of edging over the interrupted v stitches.

Earbuds finished

So the earbuds are covered in icord and it will soon be time to start my next project. I need to make a nice garter belt for my sisters wedding and something else I'm not sure what just yet. The sun has been beating down on me in this leather recliner and I'm sweating. Ugh. It's only 77 def I know but I'm an Alaskan what do you expect? Lol. An Alaskan without a uterus so I'm not sure how much of these hot episodes are faulty ovaries or not but I need to go shower and change to lighter clothes. ;)

IPhone earbud cozie

Enjoying the sunshine whilst knitting an icord around my earbuds. This yarn was on sale at joanns and I loved the colorways but it splits horribly often while knitting.

Bookmarks

I've been making tons of these and giving them away. I found the simple but lovely pattern for them on ravelry. I finally made this one for myself however!

Solara scrubbie dishcloth

Solara dishcloth scrubbie 

Worsted weight cotton, G hook, plastic dish scrubbie
Slip stitch into middle side of scrubbie
30 slip stitch around in scrubber
Slip stitch to join round
Ch 2, 2hdc in ea stitch around (60 hdc)
Ch5, (*dc in 2nd ch from hook, ch2) repeat * to end slip stitch to close
Slip stitch in ch2 space, sc, ch2, dc in ch2 space, ch1(*2dc in ch2 sp,ch1) repeat from * to end slip stitch in top of ch2
Ch1, sc in each stitch around to end slip stitch in 1st sc to close
Ch3,dc in next ch,(dc in next ch, 2dc in next ch) * repeat to end. last will be 1dc in same stitch as 1st ch 3, slip stitch in top of ch 3 to close
Ch 4, tr stitch in same ch as ch4, 2tr in ea ch around, slip stitch in top of ch4 to close. Finish off.

I would love to know of mistakes in the pattern or if it works out for you!  I wrote it after I crocheted it so I hope I got it right... enjoy!

Sourdough

Freshly baked. Yummm

If anyone is interested in sourdough baking and wants to get some dried starter, let me know.  This recipe is from an old Alaska Cooking book from the early fifties from an Anchorage Ladies Aide group.

In large glass mixing bowl:
1 cup sourdough starter (*should be the next day after feeding, lots of happy bubbles, stir well first)
2 cups warm water
2-3 cups flour
1/4 olive or reg oil
1/4 sugar
2 tsp salt

stir to make "sponge", should be like thick cake batter or so consistency.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and set in warm place to rise overnight or 8 hours.  I set mine in my oven with the light on for warmth.  Then add 2-3 more cups of flour to make nice dough.  Don't over add flour!  Knead dough for 15 minutes, place in clean large mixing bowl coated with oil.  Roll dough on all sides to coat with oil.  Cover loosely and let rise 3-4 hours.  Knead dough for 10 minutes or so, separate into two loaves and place in greased bread baking pans.   Slit tops to allow for expansion.  Cover loosely and let rise for 2 hours or until doubled in bulk.  Set oven to 375 deg, I let mine stay in during preheat.  Set timer for 40-50 minutes.  Brush with butter when done.  Let cool on rack, bottom of loaf should be hollow sounding when thumped with wooden spoon or other utensil.  Cut a piece while its still warm, butter and enjoy the lovely sourdoughy goodness! ;)

Shall I attempt to keep a blog... again?

I am notoriously terrible at both journaling and blogging.  Terribly bad at keeping a picture record of all my crafts just for ravelry or otherwise.  Pretty pathetic overall really.  Well tonight I whipped up a scrubbie cloth.  I have never made one, nor read a pattern for one but I think I really like the way it turned out.   I wrote out what I hope was the correct pattern.  I wrote it after I made it so I am crossing my fingers that it will work for others as well.  I will post it from my phone soon.
I have so many ideas in my head that I want to create, that is my biggest challenge.  I tend to have crafty inspiration overload and can't keep myself on track to save my life.  I make a few things in one category then on to the next and sometimes forget all sorts I had plans for along the way.  Maybe I can be more proactive using my iPhone to its full potential coordinating with this blog? I am not holding my breath but still, I am ever hopeful as always that I can carry something through fully and completely!!!  Hey I made it through college, so somewhere I must have the ability to stick with it... smiles!

I reconstituted my sourdough starter a couple of weeks ago and made two fresh sourdough loaves today.  I just love the simplicity of sourdough.  The fact that I can bake delishous bread with so few ingredients in a traditional way makes me glad.  These were perhaps some of my best, nice light sour flavor, moist bread, and hard crust.  The sourdough starter is a few years old now, and was quite happy before I made the loaves.  I brought some starter down for my friends Jeanne and Rebekah in Homer, Alaska this last week.  I hope they can enjoy some of their own soon as well!

If anyone wants my recipe just leave a comment...