Thrilled to be Thawing

Good morning, my friends. Okay, so now I think we're going to thaw out for real. All temperatures in the forecast for the next week are above freezing. And it's been raining...a nice warm rain. Possibly we'll be able to get out of our driveway today. Also, we're getting rid of a two-drawer file cabinet, and someone has spoken up for it. He's been unable to pick it up because of the icy roads. Possibly the file cabinet will leave us today too. It's a little too early for these kinds of predictions, but this afternoon is looking very promising.

As for yesterday, I looked out the window after writing my post and saw the iced over snow sparkling like diamonds.

You might remember I said I was going to mix up some bread dough, and I did. Here's how it looked when it was allowed to rest and rise.

It was still awfully cold in our room an hour later. Feeling the dough and the bowl, both felt cold to the touch. The room temperature was only 68°F...really too cold for dough to rise. I set up my proofing box and set the temperature to 75°F, and that got it going.

The day before I noticed I'd worn a hole in the left knee of another pair of my favorite jeans. You might recall how I patched the last pair. I did it pretty much the same this time. I used a 100/16 top-stitching needle. I believe I used a 100/16 universal needle the last time, but a top-stitching needle is really the better choice with the thick denim. It's a little difficult and awkward trying to sew a patch to the knee of a leg of jeans. Thankfully, my stitching cat was by my side.

If chin scratching would get the job done, we'd have been finished a long time ago.

When it was finished, it looked like this. Nothing fancy. These are my jeans I wear almost every day of my life. I made this patch a little larger than the last one because I noticed a hole at the seam line, and so I covered that too.

Next up, I wanted to start working with fabrics on the "When Quilters Gather" block.

Oh Sadie. This looks suspiciously like papurr-piecing. I'm not sure I have the skills for this.

Nothing to worry about, Smitty. Purrmit a woman to take over.

Thank you, Sadie. Pawssibly this has been women's work all along.

She helped me to get it this far. There was still time in the day, but I'd developed a yen for some biscuits by then, and so I stopped.

Looking at the picture from the book, the section inside the red line is complete.

We had an Irish Beef Stew I'd taken out of the freezer...leftovers from last March. Originally, I'd planned the bread for that, but then forgot to bake the bread the day before. So, I checked for any biscuit recipes I could make within the ice-caused limit on my ingredients. I came up with this untried recipe for Nana's  Rosemary Biscuits with Cranberries. Mike was just then suiting up to fill the bird feeders, and so I asked him to get a sprig of rosemary from the herb garden. (I happen to know the rosemary will not survive the winter. I've begun to think of it as an annual.) Since I had plenty of dried cranberries left from Christmas baking, I had everything I needed. I made just half the recipe.

The recipe specifies using a 2-inch biscuit cutter for these. I thought they were kind of small. I'd make them again, but I'd probably make the whole recipe and use a larger biscuit cutter. They tasted good anyway...savory, rather than sweet.

Also, I check in on my bread dough. It had risen nicely. This was a new recipe from King Arthur Flour for No-Knead Harvest Bread.

Originally, I'd planned to bake it today, but then I worried about the yeast pooping out if I left it at room temperature overnight. It had already been hard at work for well over 8 hours. I decided to go ahead and shape it, give it a second 2-hour rise, and then bake it. When it came from the oven, it looked like this:

The recipe notes it's not a big riser, but I still thought the loaf was a little too squat to be very pretty. Here's how it looks on the inside. Sorry for the blur in this photo, but I think you get the idea. It contains dried cranberries, golden raisins, and walnuts.

This was baked in a lidded oval casserole dish. The Google informs me that "without steam in the oven during the first part of baking (when oven spring occurs), the rapidly expanding dough quickly forms a hard crust on the exterior. This early crust formation limits optimal oven spring and will hinder overall loaf volume, resulting in squat and dense loaf." I suppose the lid was intended to retain enough moisture to produce steam, but it clearly did not. Oh well...it tastes good, and that's what counts.

So, I'm not really sure what the day holds. If we can get out of the driveway, we'll go do some grocery shopping. If not, we'll be home again today. If we're home, I'll get back to the "When Quilter's Gather" block. If I don't drag my heals too much, I might be able to finish it off today. If I can do that, I'll get busy with the next project on my list of WIP's...the Painted Ladies. I have eight of ten rows for this quilt now. It's getting close to a finished quilt top.

So, one way or another, I'll keep myself busy today. How are things at your end? You might be getting the same series of storms we've been dealing with. If so, you have my sympathy. The new prompt for Project Quilting comes out today. I've been drumming my fingers on the table waiting to see what it will be. With just a week to finish it off...time's a wastin'.