When Knitting Was a Manly Art

This is since Monday night

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For the 4th or 5th time since the first of December we woke to another dump of snow. About 7″ overnight and a bit still coming down. NOAA is predicting at least a couple more inches for us before this one is over.

And a quick picture of the little lace wash cloth I finished up. The pattern is called Dayflower. I knitted this lace pattern ages ago on my first circular lace shawl project from Shawls and Scarves (Best of Knitters)

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Stepped outside to grab some firewood and was greeted by blue sky, bright sunshine and a snow covered world. Took a few shots trying to capture the beauty. None really did that, but this one is pretty nice.

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Buttermilk Bread - 2lb loaf

1 1/2 - 1 5/8 cup Buttermilk
1/4 cup Honey
2 tsp salt
2 Tbs butter/margarine
4 cup unbleached bread flour (I substituted 1 cup whole wheat for 1 of the white)
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

Start with smaller amount of liquid. If dough appears too dry add additional liquid, 1 Tbs at a time.
I mixed in my old Kitchenaid stand mixer with dough hook. Mix/knead until dough is silky and smooth.
Form into ball and place in an oiled bowl in a warm place for first rising. Rise until dough has doubled (45 minutes to 1 hour).
When doubled, dump out and punch down/knead a couple minutes to remove bubbles and then form into loaf and place in standard bread pan.
Second rise: I wait until loaf has domed above the edge of pan, another 45min-1hour. Preheat oven to 350F and when up to temperature, place loaf on shelf in the bottom 1/3 of oven. Bake 40-45 minutes until crust is nicely brown and you get a good hollow thump then you knock on bottom of loaf. I usually turn the pan front to back about the half way point to ensure even browning/baking.
Turn out on wire rack and cool *at least* 1 hour before slicing — I know it smells good, but you’ll just end making a mess of the loaf if you try to slice it too soon.

Crockpot recipes: Please… If anyone has favorite recipes they’d like to share, I’d love to have them. After *years* of cooking this is my crock pot and I’m learning from cookbooks and it’s trial and error. While I haven’t had any disasters yet, I have done a few that I won’t try again.

Cooking: I’ve discovered cooking blogs. Do you know there’s nearly as many cooking blogs as there are knitting blogs? Well, that’s not really likely, but there’s a lot and some interesting stuff too.

Knitting: Not much. In kind of a slump again, but I’ll dig myself out of it and be on my way again soon.

Weather: Another winter wonderland — at least if you don’t have to drive in it.

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The weather in Northwest Oregon has been horrible this past week+. Rain, rain, and more rain. Kind of disappointing after the previous weeks of warm, clear and sunny weather. There is a good side though. Not much need for watering the nursery plants outdoors.

Feather and Fan shawl is still progressing slowly, but I’m getting time each morning to work on it. Starting row 125 and 840 stitches around. I’m thinking about ways I can show something besides a scrunched up ball of knitted fabric. Maybe more later.

Work..Yesterday was my first day off after six straight days of work and five closes. We’re probably going to be shorthanded again the next couple of weeks as one of our counter ladies is about to be fired. She’s trying to cause troubles by spreading gossip about various people on the crew and in particular our main lead, Myssie. She told me in confidence that Myssie was doing a lot of complaining about my work behind my back and of course I asked Myssie about it the next day. The gossip was untrue, of course, and she went to the owner the next morning. Owner is not happy and I expect it came to a head Friday afternoon when gossiper showed up for work. I’ll probably find out the results this evening, as I’m scheduled to close tonight.

And I love this time of the year (when it’s not raining)… So many things growing and blooming and my camera and I are constantly searching out something new.

Primula auricula ‘Vulcan’

One of the showier of my small collection of Primulas. This was shot about a week ago and already the blossoms have faded and disappeared.

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11:00am - Overcast - Current temp. 50.4F(10.2C)

Max 67.1F(19.5C) - Min 41.2F(5.1C) — 0″ precipitaiton

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12:00pm - Sunshine - Current temp. 51.4F(10.8C)

Max 52.7F(11.5C) - Min 34.9F(1.6C) — 0.16″/4mm precipitation

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It’s been days since I’ve posted any weather or anything else semi-interesting.

We’ve been short-handed at work which as meant longer hours and less free time, but things are quieting down this week. So let’s start again.

9:45am - Light rain - Current temp. 40.5F(4.7C)

Max 49.1F(9.5C) - Min 38.3F(3.5C) — no precipitation - dogs knocked over raingauge sometime in the past week.

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11:00am - Overcast - Current temp. 52.3F(11.3C)

Max 54.5F(12.5C) - Min 42.6F(5.9C) — 0.04″/1mm precipitation

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7:45am - Overcast - Current temp. 44.8F(7.1C)

Max 56.7F(13.7C) - Min 44.2F(6.8C) — 0.87″/22mm precipitation

Popularity: 26% [?]