Patching Clothes

This topic probably doesn't require much description. When I get small tears in clothes--usually jeans--I try to patch them.  My mother used iron-on patches, which didn't really work very well.  They came off after a while.

There are a few caveats when it comes to patching.  Using similar cloth is a good idea, and there's the whole 'new patch on an old garment' caveat.  I have some well-washed denim that I cut from something else long ago, and cut squares off that.  I have some pocket material I use to patch holes in pockets in my jeans.

Some rips aren't really fixable, but the knees--a frequent spot for holes--are doable.

Shown is the inside of a recent repair.  I usually go around the perimeter of the patch, then back and forth across the interior.  My technique is pretty slow, primitive, sloppy, and painful, but it generally works.  I do use pins to attach the patch while sewing, but don't use anything to hold the base garment under tension so it doesn't flex. That will be obvious in the pictures below.

Here's the other side--shown also is the offender who necessitated the patch in the first place.  I was walking my dog--a Great Pyrenees--who saw another dog.  She pulled very hard on the leash at the wrong time and I went down.  Although I outweigh her 2:1, she pulled it off, so to speak.  That's the only time it has happened, but it shredded the jeans and the knee underneath.

After the first wash, this is how the patch looks:  I snipped some of the loose threads that weren't tacked down before washing.

In sheer cost-effectiveness terms, it probably isn't worth 30 minutes' worth of work to repair a tear in a pair of pants that didn't cost much to begin with (I don't buy nice jeans; they typically cost around $10-$20).  However, that argument could be applied to many home crafts (e.g., much canning, as discussed elsewhere on this blog).  Keeping something in use a while longer with a minor repair counts as an accomplishment on some level.

Update:  "a while longer" has lasted three years, and counting: see this follow-up post.

Oatmeal Pie

There are a lot of recipes online for oatmeal pie--I can't find one that matches the recipe I use, but this one comes decently close.  Basically, it's just a pie with oatmeal plus sweeteners and eggs in the filling; ostensibly it was intended as a cheap substitute for pecan pie.  I got my recipe from Granny Miller, aka Katharine Grossman, who used to have a blog site but now has consolidated her blog postings into books (I have one and they're worth getting).

This recipe uses maple syrup as the primary sweetener--something wet is needed because the oats need to soften (FWIW, stick to quick oats--I tried old-fashioned once and they didn't really soften enough).  Sorghum or corn syrup will also work, but the maple syrup has a stronger flavor.

I started off with a swaged/cold-pressed crust.  This time I used coconut oil as the fat...the first time I have ever used it.  It's interesting stuff.  Solid at room temperature, but it liquefies at not too much higher temps.  I used a 50/50 mix of white and whole wheat flour, which is pretty typical.  As I have probably mentioned elsewhere, when I'm doing a crust this way I use more flour--about 1 1/4 cup usually.

The finished product looks a little rough because of the crust and not necessarily all that appealing but it has good flavor.  The pie below was entered into a Pi Day competition at work and it won (though admittedly there weren't many entrants).

It doesn't really taste like pecan pie to me.  I think when I used sorghum one time it did so more.  It has almost a pumpkin spice essence to it because of the cloves.  But almost everyone liked it.

Proofing Bread in Cold Weather

As I have noted elsewhere, in the winter I keep the house a little cooler than in the summer.  This slows down the process of dough rising.  I've read in various places that putting the dough in the oven and leaving the light on can help; recently I have decided to try it.

I have a couple of traceable thermometers and put one in with the dough.  It takes a while, but the inside did eventually warm to about 75 degrees.  That's plenty warm enough.  This is how the dough looked after about 12 hours:

Although it rose a lot, I still got good results in the oven:

Interestingly, I have another oven that has a 'bread proofing' setting.  I don't know how hot that gets it but it can't be too much...at any rate, it seems that it's unnecessary.  It's also possible to buy bread proofers, which might work well if time is a factor.  I'm usually looking at a 10-12 hour period, however, since I bake no-knead bread, so just the heat from the incandescent appliance light works well enough.