AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

At it again

I signed up for Iron Craft again this year, and like many facets of my life for 2013 I decided that I had only one goal: work from stash.

I should have picked a second goal: don't procrastinate. Ah well,  too late now.

So, I had this beautiful project idea that involved felt and snowflakes and beads, and well, I'm here to say that it didn't work. It wasn't hideous, but it wasn't great either. In my attempt to make it better, I made it worse. The attempt is in the trash, and that is aOK. So, my backup project was born.

I made canes out of Fimo.

I bought this Fimo when I was going to make something for one of the Iron Craft challenges last year. My packages sat unopened and sad on the shelf. I figured canes aren't that hard.

Well, I was wrong and a little bit right.

Making canes isn't hard. Conditioning the clay isn't too bad, especially if you like rolling snakes. Of course, everything is probably easier with proper tools, which I didn't have.

On the other hand making good canes is pretty difficult. These are subpar canes, but they are sparkly and I can probably fix some of their flaws with some sandpaper and maybe some additional beads around the beads. I didn't pierce them all, because I wanted to try doing some of them with a drill. Later. Because today I'm just glad that I'm only 24 hours late to posting my subpar canes.

Yup, that's my new cover band: Subpar Canes. It is for a group that sings the golden oldies.

I did use two different colors in my canes. The main color is a silver, which I proceeded to need Lava soap to get off of my hands (well, technically I used the steel wool, but the lava soap is upstairs and would have worked too). The secondary color is a Glow in the Dark accent color. I needed to use way more of it to get the effect I wanted.

That's OK. I was wearing glow in the dark nail polish at the time, so there has been some glow in my life.

See. There is a hint of glow. I promise!

Chicago Stuffed Pizza

A little over a week ago my husband and some of his friends had pizza delivered parcooked and frozen from Chicago. It was stuffed pizza from Giordano's. My husband loves deep dish and stuffed pizzas, and I have always wanted to be able to make a pizza that fits his requirements.

So, finding a recipe for a Chicago-style stuffed pizza dough is surprisingly difficult. I based my dough on a couple of different recipes. I paid particular attention to the comment in the Cookstr recipe, and made the following pizza dough. The pizza dough has passed the hubby test, so hopefully this is a good start for other people who cannot easily get Chicago-stuffed pizza.

Now that Cookstr recipe implied that it made a 9-inch stuffed pizza, which is a bit erroneous. More on that later.

Chicago Style Stuffed Pizza (dough)

Ingredients
2.25 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1.5 cups water (around 110° F)
3.5 cups all purpose flour (18 ounces), plus extra for kneeding
1 tsp salt
0.125 (1/8) tsp cream of tartar
0.25 cup unsalted butter, melted
0.25 cup canola oil

So, here is a little tip I have for getting water to the perfect temperature for proofing yeast. Set a pot of water to boil on the stove. Once it is hot, add about a cup of water to a measuring cup and add a candy thermometer. Add cold water until you have the temperature between 110° and 115° F. Remove the thermometer and then pour off any excess water (I usually have about a quarter cup extra).

Take the water, sugar and yeast and put in the bottom of a stand mixture and let it proof for about five minutes. In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and cream of tartar. In a liquid measuring cup, melt the butter in the microwave and then add canola oil until the just over the 0.5 mark.

Add the flour mixture to the yeast at once and with the normal beater, mix for 1 minute. Switch to the dough hook and continue to mix for 2 minutes while adding the butter/oil mixture in a slow steady stream. The oil will not appear to be fully incorporated.

Flour a clean surface and kneed the dough for another minute or so. I used about a half cup of flour. Place the dough in a oiled or buttered bowl and covered with plastic wrap and a warm damp towel. The dough should rise until doubled, about 2 hours. You can also have a long slow rise in the refrigerator. If you rise in the fridge, then let it come to room temperature for about an hour. Preheat the oven to 450° F.

Divide the dough into two sections: 2/3 will be the main crust. Press the dough into a deep cake pan, at least 9 inches across. Raise the dough up the sides one last time before parbaking for 4 minutes.

Filling Ingredients:
3 broccoli crowns
1 large handful of spinach
olive oil and balsamic vinegar
1-2 cups pizza cheese blend
tomato sauce
parmesan cheese

Layer the cheese on the bottom crust. Top with the other filling ingredients. I topped with filling with tomato sauce, though that doesn't appear to be traditional. Stretch or roll the remaining dough over the toppings and cover with tomato sauce and parmesan. Bake at 450° F for 40-45 minutes.

One thing to keep in mind. You really need a cake pan ideally bigger than I used. Try for 10- to 12-inch pan that is at least 2 inches deep. The top crust should cover the topings but still meet up with the outer crust like a plan. It is delicious and filled most of Chris's criteria. To see the rest of the pizza pictures, go to Flickr.

Iron Craft: They charge what?

The latest Iron Craft (number 4, though I missed the last one because I was too tired or lazy to get off my butt) was to make something inspired by an object in a catalog. I had just done a whole sale cleanout of the random junk mail, including catalogs, that I received and funnily enough didn't get any additional catalogs until after the challenge was over. So, I went to that hotbed of awesome (for ideas) and scary (for price) area that is Anthropologie and found these:

Source: anthropologie.com via Seanna on Pinterest

Oh, I don't know if you have $125 to spend on glittery loafers. I mean, without a word, they are certainly awesome and it isn't not like I haven't spent money on glittery shoes before. My glitter platforms get used at conventions and other times when I want to be both super tall and kind of ridiculous in a fun way. I love them.

I didn't want a multicolor though like this, and I had a bit of glitter that I wanted to use though I knew I didn't have enough for shoe coverage.

Saturday I went on a trip to buy supplies and a pair of crappy shoes. I just didn't have any shoes at home I could sacrifice to this noble effort.

I tried on a pair of shoes at Payless. Now, I have admittedly stopped going to Payless in the past year or two. For a while it was where I went for emergency shoes when I realized that I didn't have anything appropriate to wear to a wedding, but as at least one pair of those shoes were left in the parking lot that very same evening as being too uncomfortable to save I have been avoiding them ever since. I didn't care about shoe color, because I was intending to cover the entire thing. I cared about comfort and heel. While I love my heels, I don't wear them very often. I was hoping to have a flat or a platform. Sadly platforms aren't very popular now.

At Blick (conveniently I found everything right in Central Square), I got a nice paint brush, some glow in the dark paint, modge podge, red glitter and an acrylic sealer. The salesperson I spoke to was very helpful at differentiating between the different products on the shelf and pointing me to things that would be appropriate for a craft project (aka, not the most expensive items).

On the way home I snagged a copy of the Boston Phoenix. I knew I was going to need some kind of newspaper to help keep my place clean, and what would be better than porn reviews and personal ads. And well, now I know where to send my friends if they are looking for gay MMA porn sites. Educational!

 
1. Finished Glitter Shoes, 2. All the Glitter, 3. Scuffed, 4. Glitter Shoes materials, 5. More Glow in the Dark, 6. Scuffed and Taped, 7. Mixed Glitter, 8. Scuffed and taped, 9. Painted on Glitter

Making glitter shoes is pretty easy. I followed this tutorial after seeing a pair of glitter shoes on Super Eggplant. The steps are simple.

1. Lay down paper before you make the mess and gather your materials. Hey, I need this step every time!

2. Using coarse sand paper or the coarse side of a nail filing block, scuff up the shoes. Now, my shoes were not leather like in the original tutorial, so I erred on the side of caution in how much scuffing to do. There were spots where I completely wore through the coating that gave it color. I would aim, especially with non-leather shoes, to just remove the initial shine on your shoes.

3. Measure out your glitter and Modge Podge. I used about 1 tablespoon of red glitter and a slightly smaller amount of glow in the dark glitter. It doesn't matter which Modge Podge you use. I used about 1/4 cup of modge podge to just under 2 tablespoons of glitter. You are going to have multiple layers, so you don't need a high glitter to modge ratio.

4. Tape your shoes. If you are really careful you might be able to skip this step, but I used painters tape to mostly prevent me from painting the insides of the shoes and the little heel in the back. I ignored it for the tiny bit of outer sole that showed. You can also use tape to create shapes if you only want to glitter a section.

5. Paint. I did about 3 layers, maybe even 4. I did the first two pretty quickly, but the subsequent layers needed more time for drying.

6. Additional decoration. Once I finished my last layer of glitter paint, I decided I wanted to add a little design in glow in the dark paint. It's pretty subtle and not super great looking (though not bad either). This could be a time to use a little stencil to make glow in the dark stars or free form drawings on your shoes.

7. Once it was completely dry I added acryllic sealer to my shoes. I did an initial coat and then about 20 minutes later a second coat. I let the shoes dry overnight.

8. In the morning, remove the painters tape and carefully use an exacto knife to clean up any wonky edges.

There you go! Glitter shoes! I think I might take my Vibrams and give them glitter toe nails, because it would be hilarious.

Iron Craft 2: The search for hearts and flowers

Per normal, I had too many ideas and eventually not enough time. The power of procrastination is strong with me.

Last night I finally got around to making something (rather than stealing the xanthan gum) from my molecular gastronomy kit, a gift from my husband. I wanted to try two techniques: gelification in both shapes and spaghetti form and spherification. Given the theme, I had this elaborate idea of making flowers from gelification and the center topped from the spherification. I was going to use the spaghetti and the other flavor to make a stem and leaves.

It even sort of worked.

So, the kit (which is no longer available at Thinkgeek) I have contains all of the chemicals I need for these items in 2 gram packets. I did some basic math and modified the recipes in the kit and came up with strawberry flowers with basil leaf and stem.

Here is the general recipe (warts and all):

Strawberry Puree
1 lb Strawberries, diced
40 grams sugar

Add the sugar to the strawberries and let macerate for 30 minutes. After the strawberries have been sitting for about 30 minutes, puree them and then strain them to remove the seeds.

400 ml water
4 grams calcium salts (I swear that I add the correct chemical name later)

Combine and stir until the calcium is dissolved. It takes about a minute and can be set aside.

Spherification
200 ml strawberry puree
10 ml vanilla vodka
1 gram sodium alginate

Using an immersion blender, combine the 3 ingredients until the alginate is completely dissolved. Let sit at least 30 minutes to degas (the color will be much truer the longer you let it sit... a good reason to use straight fruit juice and let it sit overnight).

To create the spheres, you can use a syringe or pipette to drop into the calcium mixture. The longer they sit the thicker the "calcium skin" will form around the sphere. Alternatively, you can fill a normal half-sphere teaspoon with the mixture and gently over turn it into the calcium water. This will create a larger sphere (or ravioli for the largest sizes). The one pictured is from a 1/4 teaspoon measure.

Gelification
200 ml strawberry puree
20 ml balsamic vinegar
2 grams carageenan

Combine the three ingredients over medium heat and stir until boiling. Turn off the heat. Pour onto a cool surface (I used a pizza pan), and store in the fridge.

For the basil, I used the same amount of carageenan, but I used a basil puree from a tube. Bad idea. It had additives including xanthan gum and salt and the entire thing smelled good and tasted, well, strongly of salt. Because I used the puree and then strained it out, the liquid was fairly pure and possibly not as strongly basil flavored as I was trying for. I also needed a larger amount of carageenan to get a similar level of gelling as the puree. No recipe, because it was not worth repeating though I did get to try out the syringe and the tubing to make spaghetti.

To combine, I placed the basil on the bottom of a plate, and using a heart shaped cutter I put 4 heart "petals" on top of the basil. In the center of the 4 petals I put a strawberry sphere. Visually it worked, but the flavor of the basil marred what could have been a wonderful strawberry experience.

Things I learned: Getting appropriate caviar shapes is harder than it looks. Mine all looked like tiny worms or tears. My lack of patience meant I had a much better success with the larger spheres. This all takes a fair amount of time, and it is best that at least some of these things are spread out over a day or two. Oh, and clean things right away. Getting things stuck in tubes and pipettes is not really a fun time had by all.

It's Iron Crafting Time

I fell off the wagon a lot last year. I would buy materials or scrounge materials from the house with the idea of making this really cool project for Iron Craft. However, with a 1 week turn around time and my reading patterns (which meant I decided what project I might want to do often on Monday only a short time before posting) I didn't give myself enough time to make a project and I chose projects that were super time consuming.

The first project for this year's Iron Craft is paper. I had this awesome idea but it involved nice paper, printed on a better printer than our home printer, a big of mosaic/decoupage, an exacto knife, spray adhesive and a foam board. As I never managed to get myself to either an art shop or a Michael's for any of the things I didn't have I had to scrap the idea. Then my husband made some random comment about the dog and I was off.

Paper Dogs. So much better behaved than normal dogs.

I was going to cut sheets of brown paper to the 6-inch squares, but then I decided that was also too prone to error and that I didn't need my dog to be natural colored.

Instead, I raided my origami paper stash.

I haven't done any origami in years. When I worked at Sasuga Books over 10 years ago, I spent a lot of time either there or in the Porter Exchange and bought things like origami paper a lot more regularly.

This paper is from the Echo collection, and I don't remember where I got it. The paper is acid free and uses a soy based ink. Very eco friendly. The paper is nice and thick, which makes it ideal for this application where you want a sturdy origami product.

I used these instructions for making my origami dog. I used a bit of glue (and a glue stick) to attach the head to the body and then dug out some googly eyes. Everything is better with googly eyes.

This is a really cute dog and super quick. The folds are easy to make and the site explains with lot of pictures how to do the different folds.

Awe... so cute!

Of course, this morning after I tried to adjust the origami-ness so it would stand again (I pressed it under a card box a little too long and it didn't want to stand), one of the eyes fell off. It is currently being superglued on. I will not be defeated, and now I have another cute thing to put in my office!

Iron Craft 33: Is Team Hufflepuff anything like Team Smack Bella?

(Apparently last week was supposed to be Iron Craft 32, so I have 2 of them. Not a big deal at all. Whoops!)

This week's iron craft challenge was to finish something that had been lying around.

This was easy. I have a ton of projects lying around.

See the unfinished projects. Heck I have a ton of projects that aren't finished that didn't even make it into Ravelry. It's true! I'm pathetic about the finishing stages. The lure of a new garment doesn't outweigh the annoyance of seaming.

The best projects are the ones that thus do not involve more than about 20 stitches worth of seaming.

So, one of the projects that was not on that list was the sweater for my husband. Team Hufflepuff, which was started at the movie theater (or right before) of movie 7 and was supposed to be finished for opening day of movie 8.

Yup, just over a month ago. The knitting has been done for a few weeks, but I was punting on the blocking and seaming. And it is completely understandable that I was. It took me most of an evening to crochet the shoulder seams (I was having piss poor luck with the other methods there and spent 2 hours seaming and picking apart at Gather Here, but at least I was amongst friends). Saturday evening was spent sewing the sleeves into the arm holes. Sunday evening was sleeve and side seam 1 (2 hours of Mars Attacks. Why did I want to watch that?) and Monday evening was sleeve and side seam 2 (ah, Will Wheaton was a much less painful experience). Tuesday was picking up stitches for the neckline and weaving in ends.

We photographed this last night even though it was late and it loses the full geeky effect. Better pictures later I'm sure.

The pattern is an amalgamation of the sweater from Charmed Knits and the sweater template from Handy Book of Knitting Patterns.

The yarn is Cascade 220. In a stupid turn of events I started this sweater (November 2010) having only bought 3 skeins of the grey Cascade 220. Wow. Mind numbingly dumb. I ended up buying 5 additional skeins in 2 additional dye lots. Thankfully Cascade's dye lots are usually really close.

I have about 1.8 skeins left (somehow I have 2 started skeins and one that is still unwound). Needless to say, this was not my best planned project ever.

This is also a project that could have used outtakes.

My husband has tried on the project at nearly every instance of the seaming. Things I missed with the camera: the Huffle Poncho, Michael Jackson wore one sleeve, right?, and Do you think this neckline is too much? Why did I miss the Huffle Poncho? It was hilarious!

With all of the yarn left, I wonder if I should make an actual HufflePoncho for my husband or if he would disown my sorry arse! As it is, I will be making with the remaining black and gold a Hufflepuff version of the Elinor's Mittens. The cables are happily unisex enough and the pattern sized enough to fit many a person I know.

Iron Craft 33: The days of summer

Summer time for me growing up is flying kites (we had the cheap plastic ones), going to the beach, collecting rocks, and a lot of swimming. We also collected recyclables to redeem for cash, read books (mostly me, my siblings aren't as much into reading as I), and fished.

The Boston area has been more spring-like than summery this week as we have had rain pretty much each day since Sunday. So, I did what any respectable New Englander would do and I made a kite.

I used this tutorial, but used fabrics and ribbons instead of plastic bags.

Click on any of the pictures to see the full size on Flickr.

My materials:
2 bamboo skewers
1 fat quarter (or less) of fabric
2 yards of 7/8-inch ribbon
cotton thread and needle

1. Print the template to fit an 8.5 by 11 inch sheet of paper. Fold over the bottom, and hand sew a hem on the bottom with tiny pockets in the bottommost corners for the bamboo skewers to fit. Fold over and sew a single width of fabric, no greater than 1/8th inch, on each of the remaining sides to clean up the edges.

2. At the two topmost points, sew on two triangular pieces of scrap fabric to help hold the skewers into place.

3. Next place the skewers over the fabric and marked where to cut them to fit the kite. Cut the skewers at the marked area with a pair of scissors. Insert skewers into the fabric pockets. Sew the skewer to the fabric by sewing around the skewer near the middle of the fabric.

4. Cut 2 strips of ribbon about 1.5 to 2 inches long. Fold in half and sew to the outer most points of the fabric base.

5. Cut the remaining ribbon in half and sew around the bottom of each skewer.

6. Attach crochet cotton or other light (the lighter the better) thread as per the tutorial. I would err on the side of too much thread for the bridle. Mine had a harder time in flight partially because my heavier material, but also because the thread was a little too tight to allow the easiest lift.

7. Fly!

I used a gauzy ribbon, but was hoping for some happy monkeys or beach themed ribbon.

This was a fun little project, which I think I will refine over the upcoming week. While it flew sort of, I'm sure I can make sure it goes a lot better!

This treat's for the dogs

Ice cream for people can be made in a ton of different ways: eggy custards, milk and cream thickened with cornstarch or things like xanthan gum, sweetened condensed milk, or no dairy at all and a bit of carageenan or similar substance to keep the mixture smooth and scoopable. Eggy custards feel the most traditional and are a very forgiving dessert. Ice cream for dogs? Well, dogs shouldn't have sugar and while they can eat certain human foods it is always best to keep their treats in moderation. Homemade ice cream for dogs is going to freeze pretty hard, because without sugar and fat it is hard to keep it soft.

1. Doggie Ice Cream, 2. Doggie Ice Cream, 3. Freshly churned doggie ice cream, 4. Tiny scoops only

Making doggie ice cream is about mixing things dogs can eat. I used this site for the list of things Victor could eat. I also remember from when Victor had some stomach problems last year that he can eat eggs and a number of other things that weren't on the list. I made Victor a custard-style ice cream, without all of the sugar. Here's the recipe!

Cinnamon Apple ice cream (for dogs!)

1/2 cup water
75 grams baby carrots (or a well packed half cup)
160 grams apple, pealed, cored and chopped (or one medium granny smith)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 whole milk
4 egg yolks
1 cup 2% greek yogurt

Boil the first 4 ingredients over medium heat until the apple is very soft and most of the water is gone. The carrots will still be a bit crunchy. Puree the mixture with a stick blender or food processor. Add the milk and warm it gently. Add the egg yolks and stir constantly until thickened. Normally I would temper the eggs, but Victor (and likely any dog you meet) is not going to care if there is a small amount of scrambled egg in the treat. Once the custard base is thick (you should be able to make a line on the back of a spoon without any bits dribbling in), remove the custard from the heat and add the yogurt.

The mixture needs to be chilled thoroughly before churning it in the ice cream maker. The ice cream maker adds air to the mix, making the resulting mix (even after it freezes like a rock) much lighter and fluffier looking. Once it is cold, churn in the ice cream maker for 30-40 minutes. Because this mixture has more water and less fat in it than normal, you will have freezing along the sides of the container. The majority is scoopable however, and can be stored in a tupperware in the freezer for doggie fun time!

I used Daily Burn and estimated that there were approximately 36 tablespoon-sized servings (or the smallest cookie scoop which is what I used for his first serving). According to Daily Burn, eat little serving should be about 15 calories. Just right for a doggie treat!

Guess what? He likes it!

a confluence of events

I am signed up for both Iron Craft and 10 for Tuesday. While there are other things I signed up for this year, these are my primary bloggy things to do (not that you can tell by the number of Iron Craft things I've finished this year).

For Iron Craft the challenge was flowers, and my thinking about flowers so influenced my 10 for Tuesday that I thought I was supposed to write about flowers. Baka.

I haven't made a choker in nigh on forever. Usually when I make a choker I bead weave, which I also haven't done in forever (I found one of my looms with a pattern already strung on it, but I don't remember the gist of the pattern. I think I was doing braille pictorially, but did not see any notes conveniently next to the loom).

This time I knit. I knit a cabbage rose from Knitting on the Edge (by the way, does anyone have a copy of this pattern that has the leaf instructions for the Cabbage Rose?) out of leftover Madeline Tosh sock yarn. I then created stamen with random seed beads, because I was too lazy to get up and find the gold and yellow beads). I sewed a strip of lace onto a black satin ribbon and sewed on black snaps (incorrectly the first time. Please tell me I'm not the only one who regularly sews her snaps on wrong). I positioned the flower over the snap and sewed it into place.

A single evenings worth of work.

 
A better picture though still dark. What were we thinking this morning?

In 10 for Tuesday land, I really would like to talk about my favorite birds.

1. I obviously like penguins. I have a wallet (still in progress, because I'm slow) that has a free form penguin on the front. They are cute, surprisingly loud, and live pretty much in the water.

2. Swans. I especially like the mute swan. It has the most gloriously frivolous plummage of the different swans I've seen.

3 (and 4). Chickadees and Grackles. They remind me of Maine and of wall hangings my mom made.

5. Starlings. I blame Tris's book, because I hadn't really thought about starlings before that.

6. Peacocks. I love the super colorful tail feathers.

7. Mallard Ducks. They were one of the first ducks I could recognize with their snappy markings.

8. Sparrows. I remember being young and watching a sparrow beat a crow (or grackle) for a partial hot dog and bun that we had thrown to the birds. It was the dead of winter when every scrap of food was precious.

9. Owls. I know they are over done, but I love them anyway.

10. Herons and Cranes. I love the long limbed birds (for that matter I love Rhea and Emu, but it is mostly a crossword puzzle thing with those birds).

plying my needles

This week's Iron Craft was about money, and per normal I'm not going to make the deadline. Heck, I want to be finished before Saturday, but that is just not likely to happen either. It's OK. I'm enjoying the process and leaving my sewing machine under my craft table and doing all of my sewing by hand. It might be a bad idea with something like a wallet, but the end result is that as slow as I am, any sewing project is more likely to be completed if I don't lock myself into my craft room to work on the project.

I decided I wanted to make a wallet pretty much as soon as I found out what this week's challenge was. I have this large wallet from Bungalow 360 that I picked up ages ago to match my purse, but it is large enough that I find I am overstuffing it. I am trying to find a happy medium and cart less stuff around. I'm hoping a smaller wallet will allow for that.

I found this cute wallet pattern online that looked to be about my skill level. I didn't want polka dots though or a flower applique. Instead I wanted pengies, like this one.

 

I'm not sure my penguin is as cute as that one, but this has been my efforts over the past day or so. 

I followed the tutorial's second (well, actually first) tutorial for the applique and free hand drew my little penguin onto the blue fabric. I cut the pieces and then needed to sew then onto the fabric rather than use the heat and bond stuff from the tutorial.

I used left over sock yarn with yellow floss for the couching around the penguin. There are some areas where I'm going to take a seam ripper and take out the initial basting stitches. I didn't want them to be visible, but I also didn't want to stitch so close to the edge that I caused additional raveling.

I picked everything I needed for this project at Gather Here, which was awesome! The only thing they didn't have was velcro, and when I got home I found that I had an unopened box of the stuff in my sewing box. 

Things left to do? Most of the sewing. I'm going to outline the penguin's eyes in either white or the yellow floss. They are pretty darn hard to see right now.

After I finish that part, I need to cut all of the pieces. I think I will actually use my rotary cutter and mat for the first time, so I will do less line marking and more clean cuts. Not many of the fabric stores I've been to will cut less than a quarter yard, so I have enough extra to be safe from mistakes. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have a wallet (and I might have had it by the Iron Craft deadline if I didn't decide that hiding under the covers was much better than anything else I could do on Monday).