Yoga And Bean Soup

Today's been a bit of a quiet day.  I got up at a regular morning time (which resulted in my mother inquiring if I was accompanying her to the park this morning; ha, ha) and pulled out my yoga mat for some sun salutations.  I haven't done that in over a year, and today reminded me exactly why I signed up for a yoga class: I love it to bits.  It's so relaxing and energizing.

I spend the better part of the middle of the day (11-3 or so) with Ian.  It's the last week he'll be here before school starts again so there were a lot of really tight hugs.  Both of us started crying at different times, which made the other one cry.  (His was really disconcerting; he just stared at me from about a pace away for a good thirty seconds before finally saying "I'm going to miss you," which is when I realized he was trying really hard not to cry and failing.)

The afternoon was quite a bit more productive.  I started making a cowl from some gradient merino handspun I did over a year ago.  It's a really nice skein and I'm sorry there's only 66 yards of it.  I dyed the fiber in five sections in ratios of red to blue: 100/0, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75, 0/100.  Those ratios don't give a perfect red-purple-blue gradient (especially not on grey and brown fiber), but it's actually gorgeous.  In the spinning and plying the transitions got even more muddled than they were already, which makes it very gradual indeed.  I'm knitting the thick-and-thin mostly-worsted yarn on 10.5mm needles, so it's pretty loose, and it's in moss stitch to give some texture.  It's turning out quite nice and I look forward to finishing.

Red, red-purple, purple, and the very beginning of purple-blue.

I also took some time to make a strap for my yoga mat, since I expect to be hauling it to school twice a week (then back into my house for practice).  I still have some ends to weave in somehow, but it looks excellent and functions perfectly so far.

I used the brightest rainbow variegated yarn ever, but held it with black to tone it down a bit.  It worked wonders!  

In addition to the fiber-type crafting I did today, there was some food-type crafting as well.  I've had a bit of a craving for both the process and the finished product of homemade bread, so I finally just went to the kitchen and did it.  I was a bit freaked out by the refusal of my dough to rise in the pan, but a bit of poking around on the internet informed me that it was probably just too cold, so I put it in a warmed (but not on!) oven and it promptly puffed right up.  See?

This is back in the loaf pan with a towel over the top, waiting for breakfast time.  I plan to make toad-in-the-hole, and I know one of my brothers already has an eye on picking up a slice.  It will also go excellently with my bean soup!

This is pinto beans, black beans, Great Northern beans, and kidney beans.  It comes out to about a cup of beans.  They're soaking overnight.  In the morning I plan to put them in a pot with carrots, onion, celery, (possibly other vegetables if I can find any), maybe potatoes, a lot of water, and probably spices.  Then I shall simmer it for several hours so it gets all flavorful and delicious.  Hopefully I'll be eating it for lunch for several days.  I'm quite excited about this soup thing.  I shall let you know how it turns out.