Monday, February 27, 2006

A Plan to Foil the Missing Mitten Monster

We must have lost 100 mittens and its barely March. My six year old just can't keep track of them. The last time I was at the thrift store I bought a mens xlarge sweater with a very tight weave for 99 cents. My plan is to cut the sweater into as many matching mittens as I can. If it goes smoothly, I may get another sweater and do the same for my five year old.

I think there's a pattern or instructions to do this in The Complete Tightwad Gazette and that's probably where I got the idea from. My plan is to trace the hand of the child in question and make the mitten a bit bigger. If you try this don't forget to leave room for the seams.

I ran short on time yesterday and didn't make my normal yeast bread recipe for the week. Instead I gave the Oatmeal bread recipe a try from How It All Vegan. It uses baking soda and baking powder instead. I'm not crazy about the way it turned out. Part of the problem is that I got distracted and overmixed the batter. This creates that big lopsided crack on the top of the loaf. Also the inside was gooey, which I should have noticed before taking it out of the oven but didn't. It tasted pretty good once you toast it. I'd like to give it another try sometime when my mind is actually in the kitchen with me.

5 comments:

Harmonia said...

Hi! I responded to you on my blog...it was so nice to see you again. I will be posting a quizi-recipe later

AnnMarie said...

Can you attach the mittens to the child's coat instead? I recently learned that the connecting string we all used to have as kids is now considered a choking hazard. I also had clips--two little clips with elastic in between. One hooked on the coat sleeve and one on the mitten. I don't know where to find these anymore (maybe you could fashion one out of small binder clips instead?). My DH also suggested shorter strings that would be attached to the coat instead of to the pair of mittens. You'd have to attach them semi-permanently to the coat, but.... I will be exploring these options in the next few years. For now, my 15-mo old has mittens with the strings because she's never out of our sight with them. Next year, I'll be fashioning other methods!

jenni said...

hi! cool blog!
if you connect the mittens with more of a scarf than a string, you get added warmth in the sleeves too... or, add a hook to the mittens and a button to the inside of the coats, and button them on... I'm sure a six year old will always remember to button ! HA HA ... just a bit of sarcasm there huh? =)

Unknown said...

My oatmeal bread had the crack and was gooey in the middle as well, glad I'm not the only one! :o)

I didn't realise I'd overmixed it, I will do it less next time, but I do think the recipe doesn't call for long enough in the oven, mine took quite a while longer to be fully done.

Katie said...

Harmonia
I left you some comments on the burger recipe.

Annmarie, Wenchypoo and Jenni,
Great ideas from everyone. I fear if I attached the mittens to the coat in some way he'd just rip them right off and rip the coat in the process.

As for the sock monster, I can only tackle one monster at a time but the sock monster lives here too!

Anna,
I suspect an extra 15 minutes in the oven would do wonders for the bread. I'm glad to hear I wasn't the only one.