Wednesday, February 26, 2014

bits of makings...

































I told you she loved her little book! Loved to pieces, it has now been taped and glued back together, will hopefully stand up to more kisses and cuddles.

Do you know Piecework magazine? It is a love of mine. I first came across it at a california bookstore when I was in my early twenties (age determined by the date of my first issues which are from 1996) I carried around my few precious copies for years and years, somehow never thinking to see if the magazine continued publishing more wonderful issues. Then a few years ago I happened upon such an exciting find, a whole stack of free back issues!! Since then more old copies have been collected (I think most back issues are now archived digitally and only available that way, which I have no interest in, so I seek out used print copies…)

Handwork and history, old photographs, inspired projects. The Ellis Island issue in the photo is Chloe's favorite. Perhaps I can show peeks of the magazine over time, there is so so much to love…

Oh, and another special thing is my current knitting project, a cardigan for myself. Crocus, but plain, no stripes, long sleeves, buttons all the way down the front. I am maybe 2 inches below the arm dividing. I have no idea if this sweater will be finished spring, summer, autumn? No matter when, the weather around here is almost always suitable for cardigan wearing. The cardigan I have been dreaming of knitting forever... (probably since around the same time as my piecework magazine discovery, california thrift shops, a hooded orange cardigan, with pockets, it was so perfect, and very likely the time when the seeds of knitting dreams where planted in my mind…)

(I just did a quick search and see that I have mentioned that thrifted orange sweater before, and it didn't have a hood, I just wished it did.) (Only one out 4 cardigans that I have knitted ended up with a hood…)


Other bits of making…

Fun sewing for my swap match (joined Amanda)…

And!!! Tiny cabin making!!! (Or starting at least…)


There is no need to apologize for posting excessive amounts of baby pictures on ones own blog, is there? I hope not…


~ Joining friends Nicole and Ginny ~


...

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

moments from midwinter weeks...

 ..






























Wide open doors in the middle of February. There was one recent week were it snowed for days in a row, yet melted so quickly that it never left more than a few inches on the ground. Only thin patches of crusty white in the shadiest places. Yesterday was nearly 60 degrees!

We had ourselves a little craft project for valentines day. Did you know that I am not at all crafty? Nope. Just handwork-y. My instincts always have me putting all paper into recycling. If it wasn't for Melanie  I probably would have never given my girls such freedom with paper and scissors during their childhood (thank you Mel) (but oh, all those scraps!)
But I sure did feel clever for this crafty little idea of mine. I do realize that cutting out hearts is nothing original, but I like our seed catalog take on it…


I love this second photo, our adorable little Elsie. I have no idea when the photo was taken or what was going on. (Please just ignore the dirty corner with the dog water bowl and cinnamon (don't ask) sprinkled all over the wall.) She seems to be enjoying herself though.

She also enjoys pulling the blankets up and tuck herself in under the covers. Unless it is actually really bedtime, then half asleep she adamantly kicks them all off.


And now we are weaving. Somehow weaving is something we have never gotten around too (I wove a few small pouches many years ago before having children, but not since then…)
Especially in the autumns I always think we will perhaps begin with some weaving (there are lots of nice mother earth weaving autumn type nature stories) but never has it happened.
And sometimes I have felt bad about that (hmm, not something worth worrying over though) and wondered why.
But now I know why…
Because my 13 year old daughter needed a new handwork activity to inspire her.
She has been stitching with needle and thread since she was kindergarden age, knitting since 1st grade, recently she has been sewing her own clothes on the sewing machine. But she is not always "in the mood" to do those things lately. Often she is, but sometimes she is seeking something different. And so now we have weaving. Hooray. And I feel just right about having waited all these years…


….

Sunday, February 9, 2014

just because...

..

Reminiscing - February 2011 - Originally posted here… And it seems the same winter scenario applies...


February is here! We have made it halfway through winter! And while it is dumping snow on just about every part of this country, here we are in our Colorado mountains, at 7000-8000 feet, and we have just had only our second real storm of the winter. If you can even call it a storm, barely more than a few inches of snow, when in other years it would not be unusual for us to have at least several feet of snow by now, if not much more.

It leaves me feeling a bit confused, almost like it's no season in particular. However, it is super super freezing quite often, so I guess there is really no doubting it is still winter.

Other days though it's warm enough to go out and pretend that spring might be on it's way soon.

The girls are always up for outdoor adventures, no matter what the season.

This day they set out on a picnic...

Seeking just the right spot, which was beyond the snow on a sunny stone wall...

Waving good-bye to daddy.

Whispering sister secrets?

Smile for mama.

They said they were going to stay outside the whole entire day. But after about 10 minutes they came in. They said they missed me too much and wanted to come be with me :)


This was another day. They were traveling to Wisconsin. On foot, because they don't have a wagon.

They are Caroline and Charles Ingalls.

See Pa's suspenders? He (she) finger-knitted them all by him(her)self.


And now we begin the new month. I guess I don't really have a Brigid or Candlemas post this year. We did have a nice day, perhaps most memorable part being the wonderful Brigid stories we shared together. (Here is my Candlemas post from last year, you see we do so love Brigid...)

I always look forward to these special days in February, we sure can all use some extra joy and fun to help get us through the last long stretch of winter. (I pretend that it won't be too long...)

Hope everyone in the snowy lands finds time to enjoy some nice coziness!


...

Monday, February 3, 2014

feeding our families - february

..




















So yes, I thought it would be nice to have these monthly conversations about food. I could talk about food forever (as long as I took breaks to talk about sewing, knitting and books once in a while…) (gardening talk would count as food talk…) Apparently though I am not much good at writing about food.


I thought I might keep some food and kitchen notes throughout the month in preparation for this next "feeding our families" post, but all I ended up with was this…

monday kitchen 1-13
made granola in the morning, beans soaking and then cooking in the crockpot, cream culturing on the counter
dinner - leftover elk stew (simple and delicious, baked low in oven) served over mashed potatoes

thursday kitchen 1-30
next batch of cultured cream into the fridge
must bake bread this morning
looking for a pumpkin pancake recipe - discovered we have lots of pumpkin and eggs at the moment
broccoli soup?
wondering if jason took the elk steaks out of the freezer last night, will check soon

enjoying the jar of apple butter that we opened this week (also from freezer) - so so delicious, yummier than I remembered it being when we made it - this must have something to do with the fact that it is autumns goodness spooned onto fresh baked biscuits in the middle of winter…

Yes, I make cultured cream often these days. No, we do not always have venison for dinner.


Back to today…

I read my food post from last month and noticed I said we don't eat rice very often. But now we just ate rice and beans three nights in a row! I made a huge batch of Anasazi beans in the crockpot the other day. Two quart jars full went into the freezer. For the first night I made some spanish rice and we served the beans over it with spinach and corn. The second night it was the same ingredients layered in a dish with cheese and baked in the oven. Last night the last of the casserole was served with roasted sweet potatoes. You can imagine how happy my family is that the rest of the beans were put away in the freezer. I think the leftover rice is bound for the freezer too.

I never made the pumpkin pancakes. They sounded too sweet. We even skipped our usual "pancake sunday" because no one seemed in the mood for them. I did make pumpkin muffins though and they were super yummy. Still a little too sweet and I will do less sugar next time, maybe just a mix of molasses and maple syrup.

I am just about at a loss as to what to feed my thirteen year old daughter, who hardly wants to eat a thing these days. I mean, she does want to eat, she is hungry, but there is not a single thing that "sounds good", or sometimes something even sounds particularly unbearable. Kind of like how Chessa can now be nearly in tears at the though of having to swallow another bite of yet another bowl of oatmeal. (At least it took her five years or so to get tired of morning oats…) (And Chloe still likes oatmeal well enough, but now only sometimes…)
It seems like one answer to this issue would be to just take/keep matters in my own hands and serve up a good meal for her, hope she will eat it, which she likely will, cause she always does, this is how dinner is, but throughout the day…
I need to get better at lunches...

Today is quinoa porridge for breakfast. Much preferred over oatmeal lately. I love quinoa, but not sweet with honey how the girls like it. Rye is one of my favorite porridges…


Menu planning… I only menu plan about half the time! Just saying that makes me wonder how following a plan only half the time could possibly be a good idea. Hmmm. I do always have meals planned ahead of time, I just don't necessarily always know which night of the week we will have which meal…
More thoughts on all that later though...


I have considered sharing some of our bread recipes here before - one of the main things that stops me is that we live at about 7,000 feet, and altitude definitely affects some aspects of baking…

So how about a few little bread baking tips for now…

1. Bake bread - if you haven't but want to, then just go for it. You can definitely do it. Probably! For example, my mother may not be able to bake bread ;)

2. Use really really hot water when proofing your yeast. The only times I have had bread not work out well was when I didn't have the water/liquid hot enough. I use super hot water from the tap, as hot as it gets. The only time I have had my liquid too hot was once when heating milk, I killed the yeast.

3. Butter and honey!!! This is a more recent discovery of mine. For more than 10 years I baked our bread with only flour, yeast, sugar, and water. But adding fat and honey makes such a difference! The honey is just a few tablespoons in place of the organic sugar used when mixing the yeast. Then I cut thin slices of butter and let them melt in the hot yeast water. The bread is more moist, slices easier, and keep longer. And it's more delicious!

4. Knead well, for at least 10 minutes, and then an extra 5 if you can. You can feel the difference when you get to that 10-15 minute point.

5. If you are rushed and anxious for fresh bread you can shape your loaves and do a single rise. The bread will not rise as much or be as light as bread made with two proper risings, but it will still be very good.

6. If your oven should ever happen to suddenly break while you have bread dough risen and ready to bake (which I really hope it does not) then you can roll all your dough out into flat breads and bake them in a skillet on top of the stove. So you see, a broken oven can be a blessing in disguise, otherwise we would have never discovered how delicious yeasted flatbread can be! You could also try this out without the broken oven part happening first...

7. Consider setting an extra ball of dough aside for other uses… pizza, calzones, cinnamon rolls! I have finally caught on to the convenience of homemade pizza night…


And that's certainly enough food rambling for now…


Please feel free to share any food thoughts you may have…
and please visit my dear friends who were kind enough to take up this little project with me… A few new friends joining this month… Thanks to all who are participating!