Workin' Hard

In addition to working on her mittens, Hannah has been working hard the past couple of weeks knitting a scarf for her friend on her Knifty Knitter. Isn't it lovely?

Kasey is still plugging along on her bear, opting to work on it today rather than her mittens because I told her she couldn't start on any cross stitch until both projects were finished.

Mystery Meat...

The girls got the opportunity to try a new food at lunch today- tofu! I have to admit that this was also my first experience with this food by itself. I bought some super firm cubed tofu at the store the other day. I rolled it in a beaten egg then in a mixture of breadcrumbs, Italian seasoning, salt and Parmesan then fried it in olive oil. It tasted a little like fried mozzarella but not as gooey and stringy. It actually wasn't bad although Hannah, Taylor and I were the only ones who ate it. Due to the fact that in a few years we may not be able to tell cloned meat from regular at the supermarket, I am trying to get everyone adjusted to going to a more meatless diet. I am doubting DH will want to try this one though!

Clothespin Dolls

Hannah and Kasey are working on some state projects with their friends this week. Hannah's state is Alaska so I set to trying to figure out how to make an Eskimo doll from a wooden clothespin. Here is what I came up with.

After walking Hannah through the steps, I cut out her fabric and drew the face on the dolls. Hannah did all the sewing herself and painted the little shoes on the feet:

The girls wanted to make their own dolls so I helped Kasey cut out some felt and showed her how to sew the dress she wanted. She colored the face and did all the sewing herself:

And here's one that Hannah did completely by herself, pattern, sewing and all.

Bread Baking and January Challenge

Our January challenge at We Love Handicrafts! is to send in your favorite bread recipe (quick or yeast) and I will publish at the end of the month. You can email it to me at leilacook@yahoo.com or post it on your blog and send me a link. I thought I would try this to see if there is any interest in doing a monthly challenge. I look forward to seeing (and cooking) your recipes!

I am not, nor do I ever have any hopes of being a master bread baker. I do, however, enjoy baking bread for our family. It is also a great activity to get children involved in and can be a great kitchen science lesson on how yeast is a living organism. I thought I would post this recipe that I enjoy using for oatmeal bread:

3/4 c milk (80 deg.)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs (room temp)

(I warm the milk and then mix these together in a single bowl to let the eggs warm up)

Mix together in separate bowl:

1 1/2 c bread flour

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1/2 c whole oats

1/4 c sugar

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour contents of wet ingredient bowl (once warmed) into the well. Add 2 1/4 tea. of quick rise yeast. I don't own a good mixer so I just knead this together with my hands for several minutes. Place dough in an oiled bowl and roll to cover all surfaces with oil. Cover and put in a warm place to rise, about an hour to hour and half. Put into a regular size bread loaf pan and bake at 375 until all sides and top is brown and crusty (between 30-35 minutes, I think- my husband hates that I never time anything! I go by looks alone. It's not very scientific but it works for me!) This recipe makes one regular size loaf of bread. I usually double to make two.

I also use this dough to make home-made pizza. Just stretch thin on a cookie sheet coated with olive oil. We top with canned petite diced tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, minced garlic and Italian seasoning. Bake at 375 until crust is crispy and browned on bottom and cheese is melted. Yum!

Fleece mitten how-to

The handicrafts project the girls are currently working on are mittens made form polar fleece material. I thought I would do a post on how to make them. I got the idea from Martha Stewart's site. you can find the original here.

We first drew around each girls' hand to create a pattern. The pattern has to have about 1 inch or more around the original hand size to allow for the seam and also to allow room for the hand to go through the opening.

After pinning the pattern on the fabric, we then cut out (4) of the same pattern. We also cut out hearts from some leftover felt to decorate our mittens.

The hearts had to be stitched on first. To do this select a color of thread that you want to use and knot at the end. bring the needle up from the underside right at the edge of your design and pull through.

Then place the needle a little into the edge of the decoration and sew through to the underside.
The stitch you create looks like this: If you use a contrasting color, it looks really nice. Continue stitching around the design.

Two sides (one with decoration and one without) are then placed together and pinned to hold as you are stitching. The girls did a blanket stitch around the outside to finish the edges. You can find directions for the blanket stitch in the previous post. Kasey has one of her mittens finished so I thought I'd show a picture of the finished product.