December 30

With less than two days left for 2012, I guess I'd better  conclude my blog posts for the year by summarizing the past few days.

Things got a little tense for me on December 21 as I frantically tried to finish a "Pookie" as a gift for a friend's little girl. I was knitting happily when suddenly the power went out, due to a heavy wind storm. Daylight was leaving us, and I could see the handwriting on the wall, so to speak.

I resorted to knitting by candle light as best I could, using the flashlight occasionally to make sure I was following the printed directions correctly.

The doll's clothes got finished in the nick of time. That became a rather stressful issue, too, when I could not for the life of me figure out what was wrong with the short-sleeved cardigan pictured here. I finished the right front with no problem; it was the left front that baffled me by having several stitches too few when I finished it. I googled the pattern and discovered other knitters had had the same problem. One knitter mentioned she'd contacted the pattern designer but never got a reply. What to do?

Finally, with a fresh start the next morning, I discovered the pattern called for decreasing at the beginning of every row of the left front, when in fact the decreases should be for the first four rows only. When I get around to posting this project on Ravelry, I'll mention the error and the solution to it.

So the doll clothes for Haley got finished in time, as did the Pookies.

Christmas morning did just what a Christmas morning is supposed to do in Maine: it snowed! I'd been a little disappointed to see we might have a brown Christmas, but Mother Nature came through for us at the last minute, and it snowed all day.

I immediately hung out one of our favorite gifts: this round-caged feeder for small birds. As you can see, the little birds love it. We've seen 12-15 birds crowding into it at a time, and they've emptied the seed silo in a day, easily.

Violet enjoyed her new clothes for Haley. She received not only the ones from me, but also some from her grandparents, so that doll will now have a hard time deciding what to wear each day.

One morning I was watching the birds at the feeder just in time to see a bird land on the arm, where this top bird is sitting, and suddenly slide down the length of it. I guess there was some unexpected ice covering the arm.

Our friends who gave us this feeder ordered it from Gardener's Supply. My sister, though, said she saw one similar to it in Home Depot or Lowe's, I've forgotten which.

Apparently the small birds love it because they feel protected from the big birds while inside the cage. We've had gold finches, purple finches, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, and others all crowded together in the feeder, having themselves a feeding frenzy.

Another favorite Christmas gift is my chocolate Lab slippers from LL Bean. I put them on in the morning and there they stay unless I go outdoors during the day.

We received more snow yesterday and last night. This could mean we'll get out on our cross-country skis or snowshoes soon. Last winter we didn't use them at all, because we had very little snow.

That's it for 2012. Best wishes to my blogging friends in 2013!

Advice taken!

In my last post I mentioned I had made a couple of doll outfits for our special great niece, Violet. Two of my blogging friends, Linda and Sally urged me to forget, or at least put aside for awhile, the many other things needing to be done as Christmas approaches and concentrate on making a doll's owner happy.

I was immediately reminded of the little blue sweater my mother knitted for my doll when I was sick in bed with the mumps for three weeks as a third-grader. I've never forgotten my mother's doing that for me, sitting by me on the sofa during the long days, knitting away on the doll's sweater.


So I've taken their advice.

But this current little cardigan, currently on my needles, has got to be the final item for "Haley" the doll.

Christmas cards are still waiting to be addressed; gifts are awaiting their wrapping and tags.

It'll all get done.

Meanwhile, I'm having fun.

Getting into the spirit of Christmas, sorta

I thought I was fully into the spirit of Christmas about two weeks ago when I found myself madly Christmas shopping and wrapping gifts.

Then things came to a screeching halt. I have no idea why.

I did force myself to spend about an hour yesterday putting ribbons, bows, and tags on wrapped gifts, but I soon tired of that and promised myself I'd continue the task today.

But I haven't. Yet. And it's 2:30 p.m. already, so I probably won't today.

I haven't even thought about putting up the tree.

And Christmas cards? Haven't addressed a single one, although I do have the cards and stamps on hand.

What I have been doing is knitting doll clothes. When our niece Violet visited a couple of weeks ago, I realized how much she loves clothes for her dolls. That's what she bought, a dress for Haley, when we went to the craft show. Nothing else there, and there were plenty of things there, interested her. It was an outfit for Haley that she badly needed.

Although Haley isn't an official American Girl doll, she is an 18" doll, so that's what matters. I began looking on the internet for knitting patterns for 18" dolls and hit the jackpot.

Elaine Baker's free, easy patterns for 18" dolls are just the ticket, as far as I'm concerned.

I've knitted a blue button-up vest, which was supposed to be a sweater but I ran out of yarn. (This particular pattern is not by Elaine Baker but from Classic Elite Yarns.)

Back to the Baker designs. I've completed a pale beige dress to go under the blue vest and have started a pale green dress to go with the yellow cardigan.

Today I added a little blue flower to the skirt of the beige dress so the outfit would look a bit more "coordinated." One's doll must wear coordinating outfits, for heaven's sake.

And at the same time, my little collection of animals has grown by three but decreased by one. A second Pookie, in raspberry and purple, has joined the group, and two rhinos have also found their way to my house, but one of the baby bunnies, with nappy and blankie, has gone to Virginia to live with a little girl named Phoebe. Phoebe was due December 31 but decided to arrive November 27, much to her parents' and grandparents' surprise.

But what I really need to be doing is decorating the tree, wrapping gifts, and addressing cards. Yikes.

De-Violet-izing

It's been 24 hours since our great-niece, Violet, went back home after a two-day visit with us, and I've been adjusting to what feels like an empty house.

Although Violet and I are 60 years different in ages (She turned 7 at the end of October; I turned 67 at the beginning of November), we don't let our slight age difference stop us from having fun.

This visit with her Uncle Ken and Aunt Jean included....

Making cinnamon ornaments. (Mix equal parts ground cinnamon and plain apple sauce, throw in some Elmer's glue for good measure, roll them out, apply cookie cutters, bake at 170° for 30 minutes, then finish air-drying over night. Oh, and don't forget to use a straw to place a hole in each ornament, for hanging, before letting them dry.)

Reprising our crystal-making experiment. We first made crystals (hot water, Borax, pipe cleaners) and decided then that we'd try for colored crystals when she next visited.

Violet opted for adding red food coloring to one jar, red and blue to the second one, and just blue to the third.

Patting Molly as frequently as possible. Violet loves dogs.

Adding ribbon ties to the now-dry cinnamon ornaments.

Reading. Violet loves to read; the "Good Dog," I believe it is, series is her current favorite after just completing the "Bad Kitty" series.

Declaring our colored crystal experiment a success, although the lavender one was a tad lacking in vivacity.

And helping me decorate three of our four small Christmas trees. The kitchen tree received the honor of being bedecked with my portion of the new cinnamon ornaments.

This might not sound like the two of us "girls" did all that much in 48 hours, but add to this list the following:

-We attended a local, huge crafts fair, where Violet couldn't resist buying a new dress for her doll, Haley.

-Violet started her first cross-stitch project. She made fine progress on it and took it home to finish.

-We "did lunch" together at McDonald's.

-And we browsed in several stores at the mall just before we rendezvoused with her dad so she could return home.

Violet carried home with her a shoe box containing her new crystals and her cinnamon ornament, and I...

I staggered home and collapsed on the sofa for two hours!

What little I've been up to lately

The other morning I noticed one of our neighbor's horses was out of its fenced-in area behind their house and enjoying a good munch on their front lawn.

I started to go out to Ken's workshop to tell him we'd better try to get the horse back into its pen, since its owners were away at work.

Then I noticed little Oreo was on duty, so I knew all would be well. Oreo is the neighbor's tiny dog who packs a wallop. He puts up with absolutely no funny business from the three horses on the property. Need someone to round up a stray horse and get it back into its corral? Oreo's the man dog for the job. You can just make out Oreo's four legs beneath the horse's head. He's telling the horse to get back where it belongs, which it did, promptly.

I made another loaf of Crusty Bread last week. This time I let it proof for about twenty hours, which worked out fine. I decided at the last minute to add grated cheddar cheese and minced garlic. Delish, but I could have added a whole lot more of each for even better flavor.

I decided to make some Thermis cowls for Christmas gifts. I stumbled upon this pattern on Ravelry and loved it. So the cowls are done, blocked, and waiting to be gift wrapped.

I was watching an outdoor concert on the Today Show a few days ago and was surprised to see just how  popular cowls are right now.

 On Saturday I drove to a nearby church to drop off 14 Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes packed with gifts. Only one of the shoe boxes was packed by me; the others were packed by the other members of our Alpha Delta Kappa chapter. I won't be surprised if this year's Operation Christmas Child boxes go to some extremely deserving youngsters along the New York-New Jersey coast.

This little hat is being modeled by "Douglas" but is actually for   two friends' first child, due December 31. I made the newborn size, thinking it might be just the ticket for a tiny head in January and February.

The pattern is the Aviatrix hat, also found on Ravelry, and it's a free pattern.

(If you haven't discovered the gold mine known by knitters as "Ravelry," you really must check it out.)

Douglas was rather blasé about modeling the hat, as you probably noticed.

Another baby bunny, the one on the far left, has joined the menagerie. This one, with his "nappy" and blanket, will be another gift for the soon-to-be-born baby mentioned above.

And finally, a friend in Kentucky mentioned a couple of days ago that she had just bought an American Girl doll for her grand daughter for Christmas. (She also mentioned that the doll cost more than her wedding gown back in 1972!)

That got me to thinking that there might be knitting patterns available for AG dolls. Soon I was scouring Ravelry and found several. This is a vest which I'll send to my friend to include with the doll. It's actually a much brighter blue than it appears here. Also, I've blocked it since taking the photo of it, so it looks much less lumpy and distorted. (My actual goal was to knit a sweater for the doll, but I ran out of yarn, so a vest it is. I think I'll also make a cardigan, though. It's a fun, quick knit which a little girl will no doubt appreciate.)

So that's what I've been up to. Now I'm busily worrying about Thanksgiving dinner. It's my year to be the hostess. The turkey is purchased, the yeast rolls are made, and so is one olive-cheese ball appetizer. It's being able to orchestrate everything in its proper order on Thanksgiving Day that causes my worry. I find Thanksgiving dinner much more nervewracking than Christmas dinner, for some reason. The guests are pitching in and bringing various dishes, though, so I'm sure the meal will be a success.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Bread to die for

We received our first snowfall of the season one day last week, so that made for a good day of staying indoors and baking.

One recipe I decided to try for the first time was Crusty Bread from Simply So Good.

I don't remember how I learned about this recipe, but it probably was recommended on someone's website, so I bookmarked it for a time when I could give it a try.

It's an usual recipe compared with my other bread recipes. It requires no kneading, which isn't terribly unusual, but once the dough is mixed together, it needs to sit for 12-24 hours at room temperature in order to "proof."

Then, when it's ready for the oven, it is placed in a preheated cast-iron Dutch oven or casserole, or anything that can stand a heat setting of 450° and has a tight-fitting cover.

It's baked for 30 minutes with the cover on, then 15 more minutes with the cover off.


Oh. My. Word.

This bread is super-delicious. As evidence of that, compare the two photos of the loaf on the left, before and after dinner that evening.

I have a small confession, though. Since I  mixed up the dough around 10:00 a.m., and since the dough kept rising to giddy heights and trying to escape the bowl entirely, and since I'd stirred it down to get it under control at least three times and I wasn't sure it was even supposed to be stirred once, and since I didn't want to be baking bread somewhere between 10:00 p.m. and 10:00 a.m. the next day, I baked it after only six or seven hours of proofing. The dough didn't seem to mind at all; it was really, really, really tasty.

Next time I'll plan ahead a little better and mix up the dough around 6:00 a.m., just to see if it's even better if it's proofed longer.

But I honestly don't know how it could be.

Evolution, of sorts

This is how I kept myself from going over the edge the past few days.

I began this project just as whisperings of an approaching "storm of the century" began to be tossed about.

I continued it with abandon during Monday as Hurricane Sandy/the nor'easter made themselves known.

I even spent two of those days knitting a silly tiny blanket to go with the little critter. I couldn't help myself. The texture of the blanket is so interesting that I had to see it to the finish line.

 As you can see, I held off adding the eyes, nose, and mouth as long as possible. That's always the most nerve-wracking step, because one little slip of the needle can give the intended a bizarre expression.


(This is another Fuzzy Mitten design. I love her knitting patterns with their easy-to-follow instructions.)

Ta-dah! Done! Facial features added this morning.

So this is how I got through Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath.

But as it turned out, we didn't see much damage here in Maine. Lots of power outages, but we even escaped that. Lots of dead trees or at least some of their limbs downed, but all in all, we came out of it mighty lucky.

The folks down in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, etc., though, are in a terrible dilemma. My thoughts are with them.

John, Elaine, and my camera

Lately I've been harassed by two dreams, very different dreams, but dreams that plague me almost every night.

In one dream I'm with my two best friends from high school, John and Elaine. We aren't high-school age, though; we're our current late-60's ages. In the dream John and Elaine are now married or are about to be married. The status of their relationship varies from one episode to another. Last night, when I had this dream, they were already married. In reality, John is married to Kathy, and Elaine is married to Ed.

Each time I have this dream, I'm disturbed that John and Elaine are together. I feel they've betrayed me, I guess. Maybe I wanted dibs on John, but Elaine got to him first. I'm not sure.

That's about it for that dream.

The second dream, even more disturbing, involves my camera. I have this dream often, too. According to the dream, Ken and I are traveling, I spot a scene or event that MUST be captured by my camera, but  try as I might to snap a picture, the camera won't "click." I try and try. I practically break the camera. I try pushing down on the button with my index finger, then with my thumb. Nothing happens. No click. The scene or event gets by me. All is lost.

This will probably be my dream tonight, since I devoted last night's dream time to John and Elaine. But at least that dream had a new chapter added: I was beginning to teach Elaine to knit while John sat nearby. I see a peaceful ending to this one, but I don't know what to do about my camera.

Assessing the earthquake damage, and other things

Perhaps you heard about the 4.0 magnitude earthquake in Maine last evening.  First there was a loud ka-boom, then a bit of rumbing/rattling, then an even louder ka-boom, with more rattling.

I was at a meeting of my sorority in Gorham at the time. We ladies were startled, of course, and at a loss as to what had just happened. Some said furnace explosion, others said plane crash, still others said cyber attack, and yet others said earthquake.

Everyone grabbed her cell phone, but none of the cell phones worked. That's when I began to get concerned. Maybe it was a cyber attack.

Finally one lady got a call through to 911 by using a land-line phone. She was immediately told an earthquake, centered about 20 miles east of Gorham, had occurred.

Actually the epicenter was about three miles from my home. Ken and the dog were home at the time. I don't know if Molly sensed the impending quake or not. Dogs have a sixth sense when it comes to that sort of thing, but it could be she was wallowing in a delicious dream and simply couldn't bring herself up for air.

Anyway, this morning Ken and I assessed the damage at our house. There's a fresh crack in the plaster of one living room wall.

Little piggy, here, fell from the shoulders of his piggy buddy on my cup and saucer rack. He sustained damage, actually severe damage, to his right foot, as you can see.

Upstairs at Ken's desk he discovered a cup of pencils had been knocked over.

That's about it. I suspect that was probably as severe as the damage proved to be for most folks. Today bridges in our area are being checked for damage, but so far nothing has been found.

I remember an earthquake in this area about 25 years ago, and that one sounded much different. It began as the rumbling sound of a train approaching, except there was no train. China on my hutch rattled a bit. This earthquake consisted of loud booms.

 

Moving on, this is what I found on my kitchen counter when I got home last night. I never know what I'll find on my counters. Ken explained he's calibrating something, no doubt for his Model A, and "the calibrating can be done only on the kitchen counter."

Whatever. This, too, shall pass.

And finally, the knitted dog. He's completed. He's another of Fuzzy Mitten's patterns.The only thing that bothers me is that he seems to look more like a lamb disguising himself as a dog, than an actual dog.

I tucked him in with the penguin and lamb to try to distract viewers from his non-canine appearance.

Now I'm focusing on finishing a pair of knitted socks for Ken. Knitting socks is tedious, especially when they're man's socks on a size 2 needle. I'll be glad to see them done.

We had a solid frost last night. The outside annuals are officially dead. Ken's outside with his little garden tractor this afternoon, using the leaf sweeper to remove mounds of oak leaves from our lawns. I'm sure this is only the first of many afternoons he'll spend doing this between now and the first snowfall.

It's time to put away plant pots and other garden paraphernalia and hunker down for the winter ahead, an earthquake-free winter, I hope.

Meet Pete

This is Pete, a penguin. I always find it encouraging when I hold up a newly-knitted creature for Ken to identify, and he identifies it correctly. When I held up Pete, Ken said, "Penguin." Phew. If he'd said "aarvark" or "hippopotamus," I'd have been a tad discouraged.

Pete came into this world via Barbara Prime's Fuzzy Mitten patterns. I enjoy Barbara Prime's designs because they're so knitter-friendly. Also, each creature has a wardrobe to be knitted, so that finishes off each one nicely.

Soon a puppy will be joining Pete. Stay tuned.

Jean, 1: Deer and hornworms, 0, and other stuff

This post is a conglomeration of various topics, as you'll soon see.

I'll start with the "other stuff."

Here we have a lobsterman, out checking his traps just off shore near the Lobster Shack in Cape Elizabeth.

Ken and I went to the Lobster Shack one day last week, a Monday, in fact. thinking we wouldn't have to fight the crowds to place our order.

We were wrong. Apparently the tourists don't all go back to their respective states once Labor Day has passed. We waited in line about 30 minutes before ordering, then sat at a picnic table while our order was being prepared. The wait was worth it, though. Delicious lobster rolls.

After leaving the Lobster Shack on Two Lights Road, we drove out to Portland Head Light on Shore Road in Cape Elizabeth. It's called "the most photographed lighthouse in the world," and I know I've done my share of that abundant photographing. It's a lighthouse that looks beautiful in any weather, so it's fun to capture its beauty on each visit.

I thought we'd head home after leaving the light house, but Ken suggested we drive into Portland to check out the cruise ship currently in port. It was the Celebrity Summit, and it was large. Ken assured me, though, that much larger cruise ships come into Portland Harbor over the course of the summer and fall.

We checked out the stern....

...and the bow, and we watched its passengers wending their way from the shops in the Old Port back to the ship. There were hundreds of them.







So that was a pleasant late-summer day, a chance to squeeze out a last bit of Maine summer beauty before facing the winter ahead.

This photo, completely unrelated to the above, obviously, is here merely to give you a chuckle. It's what happens to the simmering spaghetti sauce when one thinks she'll dash to her computer for a quick little browse and gets lost in the maze that is cyberspace.

If only I'd thought to put the cover on the Dutch oven before abandoning it!

Remember my concerns about the deer who wandered dangerously close to my garden, and about the hornworms who took a shine to some of my tomato plants?

Well, I won! As you can see by the tomatoes and green peppers here, my garden was a success. The items here in the photo are only the final vegetables I picked; I've been canning tomatoes, making spaghetti sauce (as you saw above), and chopping and freezing green peppeprs. I've also made and frozen two large batches of dynamites--not the explosive kind, but the eating kind.

I like honesty, though, so I suppose I should confess my garden wasn't a complete success. The cucumbers and zucchini stopped producing way too early, the pumpkin plants yielded only three pumpkins, the beets I planted never did come up, and a little critter of some kind, possibly a mouse, took a liking to one of my butternut squashes, eating a large hole into its very core, for heaven's sake. But all in all, my garden did pretty well despite the heavy, drowning rains we got for over a week right after planting in June.

Finally, I thought you might like to see my assistant in all things culinary. If I'm in the kitchen, she's there, too. She usually sets up a roadblock, like this one, which means I have to carefully step over her as I move about the kitchen. I wouldn't dream of asking her to move. I've even been known to say, "Excuse me, Molly," when I carefully step over her.

So that's that. A mish-mash of topics.