Bun trouble.

Today we put on a pork shoulder to smoke for BBQ. After we'd started it, I realized that we didn't actually have any hamburger buns upon which to eat the aforementioned BBQ. So, being the crafty lass I am, I decided to whip up a batch of my own.

And this, as they say, is where things went badly.

See, I used this recipe. Smitten Kitchen has never steered me wrong before, and all of the comments seemed to unanimously say "YAY! This is the most awesome thing since cheese!" So, how could I go wrong, right?

As it turns out, 3 tablespoons of milk, one egg, and some butter were not enough to somehow magically turn 3 1/3 cups of flour into a super-sticky dough. At least, not in my kitchen. I have no idea what manner of voodoo the rest of the world might have going on, but I ended up with a bowl full of mostly-dry flour. I had to add 1/4 cup more milk to make it worth anything.

Normally when I botch a recipe (which happens frequently enough), I can go back and retrace my steps and figure out what I did wrong. "Oh, I used a teaspoon instead of a tablespoon" or "Damn, I completely spaced on the butter..." This time, though, I am 100% positive that I followed the recipe exactly. I'd blame it on the altitude, but I think that might be a little bit of a stretch for this one!

Anyway, they turned out edible, if a teeny bit on the tough side. They were a little bland, too, but that's nothing that some good BBQ sauce can't fix! Actually, I'd be surprised if there's anything in the world that BBQ sauce can't fix. I'm pretty sure that it could usher in an era of world peace if only we would let it...

I am definitely in the market for a new hamburger bun recipe, though. (Or any hints on what I might have done wrong with this one... I'd be glad to admit I made a mistake if I could just find out where!)

Crafting and ethics and morals, oh my!

Making things makes me happy. Really, really happy. There's just something about creating new things, especially new things that are pretty. I'm a big fan of pretty.

Crafting can, however, get a bit political. Well, it can for me, anyway, since I'm one of those people who considers the far-reaching implications of pretty much everything. If I had my way, I would only knit with yarn that came from people who only used wool from happy sheep, or bunnies, or whatever. Actually, I'd rather raise my own sheep and bunnies and spin my own yarn, but I'm pretty sure there are ordinances against that sort of thing. (The sheep, not the spinning.)

As it stands, however, I am one broke-ass crafter. Sir HatDragon has been out of work for many months at this point, and my own job search has remained unfruitful. There's just not a whole lot of work here in Denver, and no work means no money, and no money means that I have the choice between spending $2 on something from a big box store or... not doing anything.

And, let's be honest, there is no way that I'm getting organic, fair-trade, or local anything for $2 at the big box store. I would love to be able to afford to buy from local glassblowers or or metalsmiths or fiber-people. (What do you even call people who spin yarn? Spinners? That sounds like spiders...)

In that same vein, I feel like people should work on reusing, upcycling, and recycling materials as much as they can. I've seen some amazing t-shirt surgery, and some beautiful items that have been created out of already existing materials. And, really, we already have enough crap on this planet. It wouldn't kill us to reuse some of it.

That's why I feel as sheepish as I do about jewelry making, I think. Most of what I've been using has been new materials, and it doesn't do anything but look pretty. No one really NEEDS jewelry the way that people NEED dishrags or bags or clothes or shoes. But it's so pretty! And fun to make!

Anyway, I think that's at least partly what's drawn me to knitting bags lately. They're fun, and fairly simple, and cute, and - best of all - useful! I'm hoping that people will use them for farmer's market/grocery shopping bags, thus eliminating the need for plastic bags a little further.

I have been fighting a bit with the handles. The way that the pattern I started out with (and promptly chopped up, rearranged, tweaked, and reinvented... will I ever be able to just follow a pattern more than once?) does handles is less than awesome, I think. Not very sturdy, too stretchy, not very attractive. So I've been working on figuring out how to make good, solid, cute handles. It's been an adventure.

I also broke out the crochet hooks and tried to make cute little flowers to go on my bags... as it turns out, I have a very firm grasp on the basics of crochet. And absolutely nothing beyond that! What does it MEAN when it says to sc in ring? Argh. I need a tutorial on crocheting in the round.

Next on the agenda: finding ways to upcycle un-useful things into slightly-more-useful things.

(Mouse, the only being on this planet that makes me lapse into baby talk, does not approve of my lazy blogging.)

Oh, man, I'm so busy lately. It's stupid how many things I'm doing. Let's make a list, shall we?

- I'm working on an iPhone application with HatDragon, mostly in the consulting and writing documentation sense.

- I'm making jewelry and knitting things for my Etsy store.

- I'm working on a project that I will tell you about eventually but not today.

- I'm trying to get ready for my best girl to come visit in a month (!!!) by cleaning and doing yardwork.

- I'm gardening, not that it takes much effort right now.

- I might have a web design project.

And that's on top of all the normal stuff that I have to do, like snuggling children and cooking meals and laundry. God, I hate laundry. I mean, I'm not really fond of most recurring chores, but laundry in particular just seems to have it out for me. It breeds while you aren't looking, I swear.

All of this means I've been failing at blogging. My goal, starting now, is to blog every other day. But you guys will forgive me if I don't, right? Because of that list up there? Ok, good. In reward for your awesomeness, I'll leave you with some pictures.

*Me and my amazing bardic friend SJ Tucker at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
*Pretty sea-inspired necklace.
*Turqiouse bracelet. (This one is actually on Etsy.)
*Earrings... for me! (A girl's gotta keep something back for herself, right?)
*Another bracelet up on Etsy.

Now, off to take a shower so I can get stuff done. See you on Saturday!

PS - Oh my goodness. This is the craziest thing that I have ever seen, and I think I might make it for my birthday. Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cake.

Sometimes life goes too fast for blogging!

I've been promising this post forever! I've kind of failed at blogging lately, but this time I have an excuse that isn't just me being whiny and having a blog-identity crisis or whatever.

So, to catch you up, I started playing with chain mail (chain maille? I can never figure out which one is the "proper" spelling) a month or so ago. I've always been fascinated by metalwork of any sort, but chain mail really draws me. Probably because I am a total dork for history.

This is not to say that my pieces are historically accurate, mind. Far from it. Maybe one day I'll get into making historically accurate jewelry, though... because I don't have enough hobbies, right?

The first piece I made was a 4-in-1 choker (which I photographed before I built my super cheap macro box):



That is a really crappy photo, but it's still in my queue for photographing properly. You get the general idea, though. The middle part, until past the crystals, was done with some jump rings I got from Michael's. While we were in there I saw a jump ring maker, and I asked the HatDragon, "Why would anyone want to make their own jump rings? Seems silly when you can buy them right here."

Yeah, famous last words. Trying to work with the jump rings from Michael's was awful. Half of them were warped, they didn't want to close right, it was a mess. I decided that I was going to finish the choker and give up on the whole idea.

Well, I didn't have enough to finish, so I ordered some jump rings in bulk from Fire Mountain Gems. Oh. My. Goodness. It made all the difference in the world. They came properly closed, they were easy to open, they didn't go all caterwumpus on me unless I really screwed it up. So I fell in love with the idea of making mail jewelry again.

The next thing I did was a Byzantine bracelet:



The weave kind of collapses on it when you lay it flat, but you can see the middle is standing up properly and that's what it looks like when it's on your wrist. It was... challenging to make. I love the way it turned out, though. Next time I think I'll use thicker rings, just to keep the weave in place when it's laying flat or being hung up. I'm a perfectionist like that.

Then there was this one, which was so easy that I'm kind of embarrassed to even call it "mail(le)"... it's a simple 2 in 2:



I love the colors, though, and I love that it's delicate and simple. I'm really drawn to dark reds and silver, so maybe I'm biased. Oh, and I made it, that probably helps.

In true CSADD form, I made these and a few sea-inspired necklaces (which is another entry altogether) and then went back to knitting! Right now I'm working on making bags, knitting in the round. Maybe I just needed to make something practical after working with jewelry for so long?

Tonight I set up an Etsy store (there's not a whole lot there that you didn't just see... and in fact, you got one more thing than Etsy did!) in hopes of maybe not feeling guilty for making more pretties than I can use. I mean, if I'm making them to SELL, that's ok, right? It's not an obsession then, it's a job.

Yeah, that's it.

My Grandmother Would Not Approve

Last year I had a garden. It was a pretty ok garden, as far as newbies go, but I left the cauliflower too long and the Brussels sprouts got mealy aphids and I didn't stake the tomatoes down properly so they broke in a mid-summer windstorm. Mostly I ended up using the herbs out of it, eating a few radishes, and learning a lot of rather difficult lessons involving a complete loss of various crops.

This year... this year I'm doing better. I've learned from my mistakes a bit, see?


That tomato is not going anywhere, I promise. No little dowel rods here, no, I tied it to a small slab of hardwood. We've already had three hail storms (!) this spring, and so far the worst that has happened is the sharp hail shearing off a few leaves. I hope my luck holds on that one... it's supposed to storm all damn week.

So, things are coming along, and that makes me happy, especially since the breadwinner of our little household was unceremoniously laid off at the beginning of May. We went and bought a lot of easy-to-freeze things (like meat and bread and cheese and frozen veggies) with his severance pay, but I worried that we wouldn't be able to afford to eat fresh greens and veggies like we're used to. I can't even count how much spinach and mixed lettuce we go through in a month, since it's one of the types of raw vegetables that the guys will eat with no problem.

Luckily, one of my box gardens looks like this:

Lettuce apparently LOVES the cool, rainy weather with occasional bursts of sun that we've been having lately. And the little guys even like home grown radicchio (something that they detested in the storebought version) and will eat the "curly parts" with no arguments. Really, this is a win-win situation.

(I feel the need to mention that I did learn one lesson the hard way: if you let arugula get too crowded, even if you intend to eat it all while it's still "baby" lettuce, it will bolt and flower. Apparently lettuces will do this when they feel stressed, and my arugula needed some serious Xanax or something. I only got one salad out of it before it bolted on me.)

I know for a fact that my farmer ancestors would laugh at me for feeling this way, but there's just something magical about this whole process to me. I built a box and mixed the dirt just so and planted little seeds, and then I went out in the drizzle this evening and harvested a salad. Just like that! Amazing!

It makes me wonder if perhaps we haven't gone full circle. My great-grandmother never quite got over the shock of going to the store and buying cans of food that you didn't personally have to sweat all day in the kitchen at harvest time to make. My grandmother was amazed at the idea of going to a store and buying strawberries in the dead of winter. My mother delighted in t.v. dinners and other no-cooking options. For generations my family has cheerfully moved toward convenience and away from manual labor.

Me? I'm tickled that I can grow my own food, it tastes good, and if I want to preserve it in cans? I could do that! Totally! How exciting is that?! (Ok, not the lettuce. But I fully plan on making my own salsa and pickles and the like.)

Well, I'm excited, anyway, which probably makes me a dork. But I'm a dork with roughly $50 worth of produce hanging out in her backyard and more coming up every day. I say that evens out.

CSADD

Can we be honest? I hope so, because this is the internet, which pretty much ends up facilitating the most beautiful and brutal honesty ever. (And the most horrible and stupid lying ever, but that's another post.)

I think I might have CSADD. Craft-Specific Attention Deficit Disorder.

Remember my saga about the beading, how I followed the never-ending path of crafting to get there? Started with knitting? Well, the other day I was thinking about doing some beaded charm-type things. I thought they'd be cute as accent pieces on bags, right? And I could totally make bags. I could sew some. I need to practice sewing anyway. So I went and looked up patterns (which are way more complicated than one would think) and some inspiration.

On my search for inspiration, I found knitted bags! Which let me to other things which led me... to sitting around knitting. It's like chasing my tail. I keep going around and around in circles and I'm actually getting anywhere.

I'm not sure what to do about this affliction. I thought about making up rules. Like, you know, I would do one craft a day. Knitting on Monday, sewing on Tuesday, etc. Or I could set up a project timeline. I can't do anything else until I finish this necklace, then I'll work on that blanket. Or I can work one hour on this project, but then I have to put it down and work one hour on that other project before I can pick it back up again.

Which are all really good ideas. For someone else. They just don't work for me, at least not with creative ventures. If I'm trying to sew when I really want to be knitting, I'll hate everything I do. Ah, well, maybe I'll find a way to cure myself at some point.


Until then, lookit the fun knitting stitch I ended up messing with!

Until now I've mostly been doing pretty straight, blocky stuff. I did finish the cabled scarf, but that's been the extent of my interesting knitting. I really like the scalloped shape that this gives, but I think next time I'd do it with one color or perhaps with intentional color changes.

Still, cute, huh? I found a few super-awesome crocheting patterns, too!

... uh oh.

Seriousness is overrated.

So, one day I'm sitting around thinking about knitting. Then I though that perhaps I'd rather do some other sort of crafty-type things instead, so I made some little ladybugs. They were cute, so then I wanted to make dragonflies. I decided to make those out of beads, which meant dragging out the long-neglected beading supplies and figuring out what I still had after four or five moves.

This led to the little guys poking their noses into the beading box going "What's this one?" "Ohh, can I see that one?" "Look, this one looks like a monster tooth!" And poking themselves with wire and the like. So, in a flash of inspiration I decided to dig out an even longer-neglected box of plastic pony beads we had so the guys could play with them and leave me to sort my gemstone beads and poky wire in peace.

... which involved me cleaning out the pony bead box, removing all the screws and thumbtacks (wtf?) and sorting it out so there were just beads/beading supplies in there. Once I was done with that, I realized that there were not that many actual beads in it. So we bought two giant boxes of assorted acrylic beads when we went to Michael's to get me some supplies.

Because, of course, I'd gotten off on a jewelry tangent. It has since kind of turned into a chain mail tangent, but that's the topic of another post.

Like most things, the jewelry-making started to seem daunting after I really got into it. I look at various beading catalogues for inspiration and my reactions vary between "I could totally do so much better than that!" and "Oh, god, I'll never be as good as that, so I may as well not try." This whole self-defeatist attitude is something I'm trying to work on.

As it turns out, the bucket full of silly plastic beads was the perfect cure for my whiny, I-can't-do-anything crap. The guys won't use the "girl" beads (yeah, they're at the stage where gender roles are set in stone and nothing I say will sway them that some boys actually wear purple and some girls don't like flowery things) so I started messing around with them, just making little bracelets.



And they were cute! And they gave me ideas for other, more grownup jewelry. So maybe I just need some creative stretching before I start thinking of new things to make. A little mental yoga, perhaps. Something goofy that I have no worries about screwing up.

So, creative people of mine, my professional opinion as the girl of all trades is that you go forth and find your own brand of mental yoga. Do oneword or keep a stash of tiny canvasses (I found some 3" square canvases that are adorable) to limber up your brain when you feel unmotivated, boring, or like a hack. If it doesn't fix you right up, then you might have to break out the big guns, something used by artists and writers for millennia...

No, not absinthe. Put that bottle down! I was talking about a nap, you deviants.