A Tiny (embarassing) tip, more about my Phang spindle, some new bread pans, and hankies...

Do you see what I'm holding there?  That is the plug assembly for our kitchen sink.  It is a replacement for the original, which finally broke last year.  Now.... here is the embarrassing  part, and I am telling you this just in case it happens to you.  For quite a while, I've been complaining to my husband that the sink drain seems to smell really awful.  I had tried a variety of things to "sanitize" it and it never did any good.  Then I discovered something a few days ago.  See, on the original plug, the black rubber part on the bottom was a solid piece.  But, on this cheapy, you can actually open it up like this:

I didn't know that!  And there was all kinds of icky gooey nasty stuff in there.  Now that I have thoroughly cleaned it out, the bad odor has disappeared.  Sigh....  Now, I clean it every time I clean the sink. *blush.*

Ok, on to more salubrious topics...

I have done some more spinning on my Phang spindle and I don't have a Nostepinne (yet) so I used the handle of a wooden spoon to wind the single ply yarn off of the spindle.  In order to do that, I rested the spindle in the larger bowl you see in this picture:

Here is the center pull ball I made on the makeshift Nostepinne:

Then I removed the ball of yarn and used the spindle to make a 2-ply yarn.

Here it is all wrapped onto the spindle:

This is not very much yarn.  I was too curious to wait until I had spun more. 

35 grams of yarn, wrapped into a little skein:

It is certainly not the best yarn I've ever made, but I am new to using a support spindle, so it's not too bad.

Lately, I've been making bread using natural yeast that I got from Caleb Warnock who wrote The Art of Baking With Natural Yeast .  A wonderful book, by the way. Sourdough (this is really not sour) is much more easily digested, and often, those with gluten sensitivities can eat genuine sourdough without any trouble.  Yesterday I was shopping with our daughter for baby things (she is expecting a baby boy in a month) and saw some new Pyrex pans, that I thought would work nicely for bread.  I bought two of them and used them to make my bread this morning.  They are not technically bread pans, but I like that they are a bit shorter than usual bread pans, from end to end, and the handles are nice.  Here is one of the pans - not washed, after the bread was removed:

and here are the two loaves of bread:

This recipe is Caleb's "Grandma's Bread" that I love so much.  The only thing I changed, is I add 1 cup of King Arthur's unbleached bread flour along with the whole wheat flour when I make it.  That is not necessary.  I have made the 100% whole wheat bread very successfully too, but I like the higher rise the unbleached gives it. 

I am 66 years old.  When I was a young child, there were no "facial tissues."  We used handkerchiefs to blow our noses.  This past month, I had influenza, followed by pneumonia and bronchitis.  It took the whole month, and in that time, I went through two whole boxes of tissues.  I know, I know... so what's the big deal?  I'm such a penny pincher.  So, for the price of the two boxes of tissues, I bought 3 yards of cotton print fabrics and am making 12 hankies for myself.  I have 4 of them finished and have been using them and am very pleased. 

Here is one that is finished, on top of the fabrics I have not sewn yet:

I am making them from 18 inch squares of fabric, sewing up a narrow hem and doing the corners like so:

I carry one in my pocket and use it all day and then throw it into the wash.  Don't be alarmed.  We must wash our hands after blowing our noses, even if we use disposable tissues.  This will save me several dollars a year, they are softer on my nose, too, and make my frugal heart happy.  :)