Not just a pretty knitter

But a BAKER too!  Well... I don't know if you can call it that, but I did make bread!  Two loaves in fact.  Unfortunately I added 1/4 less yeast than I was supposed to, so it should have been lighter and fluffier, but it tasted GREAT!  Wanna see a picture?  Okay!  I have a lot more dough in the fridge and many plans for making more wonderfully yummy things! I got the recipe and the inspiration to be a bread baker from the book 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day'  Basically, without giving the value of the book away (and that would be hard to do since there are hundreds of recipes in it) is that you make a no-knead dough with five ingredients (water, yeast, salt, flour and cornmeal for the bottom), put it in a dough bucket or similar storage device and it keeps for 2 weeks.  As it keeps, it ages until nearer the two week mark there is some serious sourdough wonderfulness going on.  When it's baking time, you hack off a chunk (very dainty huh?), make it round and smooth with the method they show you in the book, let it rest for 40 min and then throw it into the oven on a hot pizza stone with a tray of water below and bake for 30 min.  Done.  Seriously, it's SO easy and the bread is amazingly yummy (if a little heavy, given the lack of yeast... my fault!).  I'm tempted to make more right now, but I'd like to get somewhere near the two week mark to see if the sourdough is yummy or not.  Go buy the book!

So that was the first part of my very productive Sunday.  The second part of my very productive Sunday, which the entire 'productive Sunday' didn't start till 5pm, was that I decided to make wool soup.  Well, not exactly... I decided to dye some roving. I bought this roving with my first spindle when I was in the states last year at Northwest Handspun Yarns.  They have a great little shop, lots of beautiful yarn and TONS of beautiful fibre and spinning wheels.  The selection of spindles sucked bobo, so I bought a super huge Ashford plying spindle (little did I know)... wait... I don't think it did suck actually... I think the girl told me that the spindle I wanted (nice) was too expendy... well anyway.  The reason I bought the spindle in the first place was because about two months before that I bought about 6oz of this beautiful yellow tussah (pronounced tuss aw)/merino blend because I was feeling bad, and it made me feel better, but then I decided I should learn how to spin it... Anyway, I am positive I've told this story on here before... so at the time I bought my spindle, I bought some roving to learn on.... and THAT is what I dyed this Sunday.  I pulled off 2.9 oz (because I got a digital scale from Canadian tire for $15 this weekend also!) soaked it in vinegar water, heated some water and then put it in the pot with the water (and more vinegar) and then poured my dye mixtures over top (with more vinegar).  The end result wasn't as blue as I was going for... I used teal, sky blue and green and it came out mostly green... note to self... more sky blue... less green... a LOT less!.  So I decided that if I wasn't going to spin it (which I knew in the next foreseeable future, given the amount of amazing roving I have to spin), that I would sell it.  So I threw it up (threw up... hahah!) on the destash fibre board and went to bed.  And by morning I had an offer on it, so I'm selling it to a nice lady that lives in North Carolina.  I think she has a wheel, which will make spinning this much easier... I'm selling her the other 3oz of undyed.  Altho I'm a little sad because I kind of wanted to dye it orange and pink... but she probably didn't want me to ;)

And lastly, I HAVE to rave about the most wonderful thing I got in the mail today!  It's called a Bubu Bag and it's from a company called Element Botanicals.  They don't have a link to the Bubu bag on their site, but she'll send you one if you email her.  Here's what the description on the hangtag says:

This incredibly comforting bag has been stuffed with oganically grown

flax, rice, lavender and peppermint.  Wam it up or freeze to help alleviate muscle strain,

headaches, migraines, nausea, stiffness, cramps, hangovers, sleeplessness and more!

Now!  If you know me at ALL!  You know that this is like the cure for everything that ails me!  It's SO amazing smelling and strong and refreshing that my mailbox smells good!  It permeates with mint and lavender and is soothing just to smell!  The girl (Amber) that owns it picked out fabric for me based on what I described as liking, because they have tons of nice options and what I got was a pink backing (I love pink!) and a blue front with little space people!  It's very retro and SO cute!  Just what you would think of when you were thinking of your Bubu bag!  (pronounced booboo as far as I know).

 If you're wondering, the round box behind the Bubu Bag is my new Thai jewelery box.  It's made out of smoked mango wood and you can actually open it up and take a huge whiff of this most amazing smoked mango scent!  Sometimes I put predrafted bits of roving in it so that when I'm spinning, it smells yummy!  If you're in Vancouver, you can find all the amazing imported Thai home accessories at Spirithouse on Main Street.

they have amazing lighting options, small accessories, thai massage items, art, furniture... it made me sad that we haven't gone back to Thailand in a long time because I LOVED it there! 

I hope you find something interesting from this blog post... either a bubu bag, a cookbook, some thai home decor or maybe you're inspired to dye your own roving. Or you want me to dye it for you... which can also be arranged ;)