SATURDAYS

I like Saturdays!  They don't have the same duties as weekdays.  I feel that I have more choice about what I will do. I usually choose to do some baking.  Today I made 13 cranberry scones for breakfast.  I had 2, Jim had 5; that leaves just 6 for some other breakfast, or 6 for snacks once in a while.

We had only one hamburger bun left in the freezer and since Saturdays are Burger Days it was time to make a batch of them.  Then for a light snack once in a while I made three Heirloom Boston Brown Breads.  That's a recipe from the More with Less cookbook, which came out in the 70's.  That was the first cookbook I was ever interested in.  I read about it and bought it.  I learned quite a bit from it, and still use some of the recipes on a regular basis.

One of them is the recipe for Heirloom Boston Brown Bread.  Very simple: 2 cups of whole wheat or graham flour, 1/2 cup of white flour, 2 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. salt.  Mix these together.  (I add some Whey powder to add protein.)  Add 2 c. buttermilk or sour mild (I use no fat plain yogurt), 1/2 c. dark molasses, 1 c. raisins.  Mix all together.  Then I depart from the recipe.  I divide the batter among 3 heavily greased tin cans (saved from canned tomatoes) and bake in a 350º oven for 45 minutes.  Let cool for a few minutes and turn out onto a cake rack.  This is very nice with some homemade jam or a slice of cheese (round Havarti is especially nice and fits just right).

I also finished up a pair of socks that were started as examples in the "Toe Up Sock Knitting Class" which I taught at IDA during February and March.  These are Patons Kroy Sock Yarn in "Rainbow Stripe."

I wanted to go ALL the way to the last bit of yarn for both socks and figured out how to know how much to save for the binding off, using Jeny Staiman's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off--such a good solution for binding off socks!

Here's what to do:  When you're getting near the end, take the very tail end of yarn and loop it around a needle (the size you're using, of course), one loop for every stitch in the whole round.  Holding the last loop, slide the loops off the needle.  Now double the amount of yarn used to make the loops.  Add just a little for weaving in the yarn end.  Put a knot where that is.  Make it pretty secure.  When you reach that knot, it's time to start binding off.

The way to get the stripes the same in both socks: Pull out the beginnings of the two balls of yarn (that is, if you're knitting with 50 gram balls) laying them side by side until you're able to have a colour match.  Trim one of the yarns to match the other yarn.  This usually works for me.

These will go to one of our granddaughters.  And I started a pair for her younger sister.  These needed to be unravelled and made narrower.  Here's a good method of doing that in such a way that there's no problem catching the stitches back:

I take out a needle and insert it into the stitches below, however far it needs to be ripped back.  One by one the needles are removed and inserted into the stitches that need to be "caught."  I find this much easier than trying to pick up stitches from completely raveled knitting.