Whenever we use honey in the kitchen, the biggest pain is the honey stuck to the spoon. This may seem trivial but can be irksome if I am cooking with the kids. They have enough opportunities to track messes around the kitchen.
The bread we make and some salad dressings use oil and honey. Use the spoon and measure out the oil first. Then, pour out the honey into the same oil coated spoon. It slides right out and doesn't stick. So simple and one less messy hand or spoon.
I have never had any sort of ambitions to be a baker. Kneading bread and flour flying in my kitchen just seemed like a recipe for disaster. A few humble attempts at homemade sandwich bread just ended up being a disappointment. Then, a good friend was diagnosed with a gluten allergy and had a great bread machine that she passed on to me.
Our first recipe that we made a lot, and still do is Amanda Soule's WHO bread. We love it and it has become our favorite breakfast bread. Her recipe is the only one we found that was just pure unadultered goodness, would-no-change-a-thing.
After trying a lot of other bread recipes and tinkering with a few we decided to go back to Amanda's recipe and adapt it for our sandwich bread. The boys also requested a white bread. I just couldn't go there so I used white whole wheat flour. The recipe earned the name Sneaky Wheat Bread because they had no idea it wasn't white bread until they fell in love with it. Now they sneak into the kitchen and try to get more.
This is now our go to sandwich bread but sometimes it doesn't make it past a plain slice or a little bit of butter.
Sneaky Wheat Bread
1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon salt (we use kosher salt)
1 cup unbleached bread flour
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 cups rolled oats
1 tablespoon natural cane sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons or 1 packet of bread machine yeast
Ingredients go in the machine in that order. Our setting are for a 1.5 lb loaf with medium color.
Enjoy!
The studio make-over is still going slow but I couldn't resist getting a little something for the walls. I found this on Etsy while looking for some sort of arty screen print poster. I have a mild obsession with type and a not so mild obsession with fiber, so I had a fit and ordered this immediately here from a gal named Jennie Gee in Brooklyn.
It's a fun spin on the Keep Calm and Carry On poster that seems to have taken over blogland and the design world. She does not have a blog that I know of (if you do please pass it this way) and I have not seen any of her other work. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.
I am also waiting on Natalie Chanin's new book Alabama Studio Style. I have so much to say about her work I will have to save it for another post. The book should get here tomorrow, along with color cards of the fabric she uses. I am absurdly excited to check the mail this week!
No fantastic photos of the studio to take today. A giant roll of pink insulation, ready to unfurl, is just not so exciting. Insulation and drywall are the next step. That's going to have to be weekend work when I have my dear husband's available helping hands.
Taking photos and picking colors in the yellow bedroom has stressed me out so much I have decided to paint the walls white. I have never been brave enough to do this in my home. Toddler also thinks any blank wall is a great surface for his art work, even after been taught to help clean up his mess. White would just be a set-up for destruction.
The floors are concrete and covering them is out of the current budget so I was thinking of acid staining the floor a coffee brown. I then rediscovered Bloesem and my heart stopped with dreams of Scandinavian white floors. White walls + white floors = she must be crazy. No, just look . . .
(1. Ingrid Jansen 2. Romy Boesveldt and Ilyo Yashkin 3. Frieda and Maria via Bloesem)
For this kid the swing is an instant smile maker. Totally impossible not to grin form ear to ear. If only life could stay that simple when we grow up.
Most stitchers I know either have a floss box, nicely carded threads, or little skeins thrown in a sewing box. I am a floss box girl because that's what my mother did. I love the little DMC boxes and bobbins because they are cheap ($4) and have one compartment that is a little larger to hold a small pair of scissors and a pack of needles. I like the numbered stickers, too, to keep track of my colors so I know what to buy when I run out of a color. Of course a fine point sharpie would work if you are using Anchor floss or another brand. These boxes are also great for beads and buttons, too.
I recently found an amazing new shop in Savannah, Georgia call French Knot. They specialize in needlepoint and embroidery. It is owned and run by a Savannah College of Art and Design Fibers Grad. She is truly an artist but still very down to earth. Luscious wools, silks, cotton, rayon, ribbon . . .To. Die. For. With no set project in mind I had to leave the shop with these. It is shocking how much money you can spend on things that will fit into a ziploc bag.
My floss box wasn't going to cut it with these lovely wool/silk yarns. The skeins are larger so the bobbins just don't work. They had mother of pearl rings to store yarns on but I had hit my budget max. I went to the local bead shop and found some that were the same size (about 1.25 inches) but half the price. I ended up paying $0.50 a piece for these. I am sure they are even cheaper at the big chain craft stores.
To use the rings, simply open the skein. You will have one long loop that is about 18 inches long. The perfect length for a working thread.
Cut the loop at each end with sharp scissors. I used my dress maker shears. This will be the only time you need to cut a thread for your needle.
Find the center of your length of yarn and loop a simple clove hitch through the ring.
I also set aside one thread and neatly wrapped it around the yarn label. I left the color ID number and price exposed. I can stick this directly in my sketchbook for future reference.
Perle cotton and other embroidery fibers skeined like this can also be organized this way.
These can now live tangle free in a sewing box or bag. I think they would even be nice hanging on the wall in sewing space. They are just too pretty to hide.
So it's has once again been a while since I set foot here. I won't even bore you with excuses. A decade is gone, the first month of a new year is gone, so let's just call it Fresh February for a fresh start on February 1st!
To start things off, Joyce's Daughter is graduating from something I cram into my toddler's naptime to a full-fledged studio. I started this off to get a feel for things and find my identity. What little work I have done I have gotten so much support from some really fantastic people. The little ones in the house are getting more independent and I am finding it a little easier to get things done. To keep myself on track, starting tomorrow, yes tomorrow, I will be posting on a regular schedule as follows . . .
Good Morning Mondays - a cheery random post to start the week off.
Tutorial Tuesday - a tutorial or tip from my studio or from a friend relating to sewing, fiber and needle arts.
One Word Wednesday - one word sets the theme for photographs (blue, grass, linen, etc.)
Thursday Studio updates - more on that in a minute.
Fiber Friday - what wonderful things are going on in the world of textiles, some arty, some crafty, all goodness.
I will stay on schedule for a little while until a rhythm is set here. Then it can either stay the same or take off on its own. As far as the Thursday Studio updates go. I will post what is being made in my studio but also share an exciting new move I'm making.
For the past three years my studio space has been the corner of my bedroom. I have been blessed to have any space at all but it is really hard to work when you are looking at a pile of laundry. It is also really hard to sleep when you are in the same space as your work. For Christmas this year, my husband decided to give up his workshop, which he used a lot, to give me a new studio.
I will be going from this . . .
to This!
The inside is almost cleaned out (a big event in itself) and now it needs insulation and drywall. That should happen this weekend. The double doors will be replaced with glass doors for more light. Some cosmetic finishing and air conditioning and we'll be done. The final product will be a 12' x16' space of my own, though as you can see at the first studio picture, the toddler doesn't plan of being very far away.
Tutorial tomorrow, I'm in an embroidery sort of mood . . .
The blog has not seen much action lately, but the sewing machine has been burning some midnight oil. I finally finished up my doll quilt for Doll Quilt Swap 7 and it has landed in it's new home with Kris. She is a great girl that always sends out the loveliest work in swaps, so I put a little extra something in her quilt. The hexagons are paper pieced and appliqued onto a whole cloth that I printed with my Print Gocco. I used a blanket stitch on my sewing machine for the applique and hand stitched the embellishments. This was the first time I have mixed printing, applique and hand embroidery in a quilt. It was just so much fun!
I have a lot lined up and will be posting on a regular basis again. I took a great class this weekend on string piecing that I can't wait to share tomorrow. I am also testing a new way to screen print in my studio. Good times! See ya, soon.
I did not plan on taking a blog hiatus. The last post got put on the Craft blog, I am still getting a lot of traffic from the 1/4 inch post, you would think I would keep the momentum going.
My oldest son had first grade orientation the same day the youngest turned two. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Our world, our home, changed so quickly. As I have been told as a mother many times, "the days are long but the years are short". It all summed up in a day.
On top of the school year starting for the boys, my husband started graduate school and I am taking off on my own adventure as the art teacher for the 3-5 year olds at my boys' Montessori school. Throw in a school picnic, after school activities, that of course started the first week of school, and the blur of driving here and there and that is what happened to August. I should at least get an award for run-on sentences.
In the midst of chaos, I got a package in the mail. Just a little flat rate mailer that I wasn't expecting quite so soon. And inside, I found this.
I am participating in Doll Quilt Swap 7 this go round. I always seemed to miss the cut-off or was a little intimidated to send off my work. We were paired with people we have never met and given a little background info and list of likes and dislikes. Rebekah made this for me and even sent it out over two weeks before the deadline. She put a lot of thought into this. She looked through my Flickr favorites to see what I like and then designed this herself. She even left out my least favorite color, purple. On top of that the stitching is just delicious.
I love it so much I had to put it here, where I will be a inspired every time I sit down to sew.
As you can see, a lazy haze in lifting from the sewing table. At least that's what I'll call it.
Thank you, Rebekah!
So we have been out of town for a week and vacation brain has taken it's toll. After an afternoon of chaining nine patches for a new quilt, I pulled off my lovely chains only to realize I forgot what order to put them in! A sketchbook beside my sewing machine seemed like a waste of time and redesigning had already wasted what little bit I had. So, I whipped out my little camera and took pictures of the blocks before I began sewing the next row. I now have a visual reference that only took about two seconds and just deleted them once the block was sewn. Getting fussy about photography isn't necessary.
