Excited about this year ending!

Is there anyone who isn't excited about this year ending? I certainly am, although I suspect we're in for at least another few months of anguish and turmoil.  Meanwhile,  I might as well document what I've been up to.

• 

  This'll be a great blanket,
  not a great photo though

  I'm trying to get a double wide double weave twill blanket on the loom. I'm using a beautiful Targhee cross yarn made from Timm Ranch wool that I got from Meridian Jacobs. I put a test warp on the little loom, then wet finished it by dunking it in the sink and swishing it about; I ended up with 25% shrinkage in length and 20% in width, but the finished fabric is smooth and warm and yummy. Right now I am struggling to get a warp on the loom; there are too many other things grabbing my attention, and it's a big project; but I'm almost done putting the 800 ends through the heddles. I will have to re-beam it after threading because I did stupid things.
  
• I signed up for an online Overshot class in January so will be putting a warp for that on the little loom in the next week.
• I'm slowly making my way through cute little adventure patches for my niece and her family on the embroidery machine; I've been doing that while threading the loom which may be slowing down both projects.
• I also used some of the info from a Craftsy class to practice doing repeating linked designs on the embroidery head. It's fussy but I have two matching panels that I'll use on a future bag.

• 

  Another pile of quilt blocks 
  ready to be put together

  I sewed all the blocks together for a quilt I started awhile ago; I've got the borders/backing ready to go but will put it off until next quarter.
  
• I've got most of a 4+ ounce of wool/silk spun into singles; it's a purply brown colorway. I have another braid of the same and would like to weave it into yardage for something wearable.
• At night, I've been working on the Double Your Pleasure Cowl. I've misplaced the pattern and have been working from Kris's snapshot of it... Of course I did not read it carefully so have been skipping what may be a key step, but I've been consistent so I'm not pulling it out. It is possible that it's done by the end of the quarter,
• I tried to start some mittens, thinking they would be a lovely treat for friends moving to Canadia... but after 3 tries I could not get gauge, so decided to finish the cowl before coming back to the mittens.
• I put the dry wall tape on the sides of the mosaic table substrate and glued them down with thinset. I'll need to lightly sand this all to lay flatter but am all ready to start mosaicing the new poppy table for the bbq area.

I've also been spending a lot of time exercising, working in the garden, and cooking, and am finding myself missing studio time. I think I felt more productive when I had quarterly goal! So I'll be going back to that in Q1.

Quilted bag, towels, and more!

Here's the quilted bag using new equipment and techniques, mostly from Craftsy... DH immediately declared it to be useful and has taken it from me for his weekly shopping trips. I'm thrilled he likes it!

Thanksgiving has come and gone... We ordered ribs from Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City, via GoldBelly.com. Tasty, tasty ribs, but the sauce was surprising; not sweet at all and very much on the salty side.  I made beans, cole slaw with apples, and corn bread to go with it; and a apple crumble for dessert. 

I neglected to mention the November cookbooks; I cooked from the Zuni cafe cookbook, and made a fish dish with potatoes, leeks, and a whole bunch of butter, as well as Socca, these chickpea flour pancakes from the south of France. This month, DH has selected Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat; I snuck a few recipes worth of ingredients onto this weeks shopping list.

I've been procastinating all kinds of projects but did manage to finish four towels; one is in use, the middle one will stay with us and the far left one is going to live with someone else. The far right one will either be for the guild towel exchange, or stay in my kitchen. 

Puttering in the Studio

What's his name is quarantined for a few days after attending live business meetings... So I've PLENTY of time to putter around the studio. Here's what I've been working on.

• I am still knitting away on the Double Your Pleasure cowl. Someday when it's done I'll have a photo to share.

• 

  Wanna be towels
  

  The towels are on the Gilmore loom... I'm debating how much they're going to shrink up off the loom so I can figure out how long to weave them; There really isn't any excuse not to sample. I am thinking of weaving the first one 36" then pulling it off and finishing it just to see what happens. This one has a single color weft but the other two I'll play with multiple weft colors.  I'm also designing a 2nd run of towels to go on to the Baby Mac using some variegated 8/2 cotton I hand dyed a few years ago.

• 

  1/2 of a quilted tote bag

  I recently purchased a premium Craftsy subscription, with access to tons of classes for all kinds of crafts, gardening, cooking etc. I'm so tempted to play with frosting cakes! Instead, I'm working on a few new techniques/projects. I watched The Scrappy Market Tote with Christina Cameli for "intuitive" piecing techniques, and quilting with some new free motion techniques from The Secrets of Free-Motion Quilting  (also with Christina Cameli).  Sadly I forgot to push the purchase button on some strapping for the handles so will not finish the bag until next week.  I used my new piecing foot, the Bernina Quilt Stitch Regulator, and the ruler work foot with my new rulers. The QSR is surprisingly easy to use, the ruler work is surprising hard and needs more practice.

  

  What was I thinking?
  

• Next up, The Machine Embroidered Quilt with Eileen Roche, if I can figure out where Craftsy hid the embroidery files...

I've also been spending some time cleaning and rearranging the studio and found a box of fabric. It looks carefully curated, as if I were going to start a new project with it's contents. I have no idea what I was planning.

There's nothing new on the food front. Honestly it's not very interesting to cook for one. I did make a lovely brocolli salad with a honey mustard dressing, and some green chili stew, leaving some on the porch for the DH as if he was a feral cat or something. Yesterday, election day,  I was tempted to make an almond cake per Alice Waters but remembered that comfort food only comforts me while I'm eating it (so not very long) but exercise seems to put my brain at ease for much longer. I did stress nibble my way through the kitchen but also got out for a late afternoon walk which was quite soothing. 

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

 This month's cookbook challenge is the Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. Last night, I cooked Spareribs Pan Roasted with Sage and White Wine, Treviso style with polenta (the lazy less stir method) and some broccolini. We drank it with a La Monacesca "Mirum" Verdicchio di Matelica Riserva.  Such a lovely dinner!

I've decided to back off on quarterly goals and allow myself some time for exploration, at least for the rest of the month.  In November, I'll pick up work on the pub quilt again...  Meanwhile, I'm playing with the new sewing machine and largely ignoring everything else. Here's a short list of what's been active:

• I've been working on the Double your Pleasure cowl in front of the TV and on zoom calls; have torn it out twice but now I think it's going well.
• I took out the paintbox quilt (Judy Niemeyer) and have pieced the rest of the blocks. I know it's been on time out for some problem but the problem seems to have healed itself? I've ordered some fabric for backing/borders and will look at piecing it together in the next month or so. It'll be twin size. I may machine quilt it myself, or maybe send it out...
• I've been "down" after the second shingles vax... just feeling crappy and "meh" so watching videos on machine quilting using a technique called "ruler work".  I've ordered a set of rulers and have been watching videos on Craftsy so am ready to play with this new technique!
• I have a warp ready to go on the loom and need to get another one on the other loom... hoping to do that later this week.
• I also organized my button collection and am looking at refactoring the studio so I can find things better... More of that later.

Q3 2020 finished things (9)

Here we are again at the end of a quarter. I confess that I find the EOQ exciting and the push to finish the "almost done" projects is amazing. I oddly do not find it stressful. Here's the list:

• The evil eye mosaic is done, and I grouted the color stick although I'm not convinced the grout will stay adhered to the piece. I think it's fun to see the color stick in this plant on the deck.
• Finished the woven jacket with knitted sleeves.
• Wove two ikat scarves.
• Made masks:  2 pink ones to match the ikat scarves, and two testing out some methods. I'm only counting Masks as one item regardless of how many I've done. Otherwise it feels ridiculous.

• 
  I also bought a new sewing machine with an embroidery unit. I confess I was a little confused when I brought it home as to what I'd do with it. So I enrolled in an online class and learned all kinds of things while making this tiny 20" square wall quilt! This lead to a bunch of exploration on line and a list of new techniques that I want to try. I'll explore this more in another post.

I also finished two major pieces:

• The woven jacket with knitted sleeves.
• The Festivus quilt. I'm trying to figure out when I started it and I've determined it was before 1995, based on the completion date of a smaller quilt I'd started about the same time. I'm going to guess '93 or '94, probably the former. It's gorgeous and I'm thrilled with it. I'm going to leave it on the bed for some time even though it feels a little early for Christmas...

I have partial progress on some of the other goals.

• The table design is done; I have all the glass, and the substrate is ready to go but it's been too hot or too smokey to want to work in the garage bay.
• I explored doing Zentangles on fabric using fabric pens from Sharpie and using gel glue resist. I need to have a dye day to take them to the next step, and this will give me the info I need for the Number One shirt
• Make masks for family in Utah: what can I say, they're partially sewn together. I'll get on it. 
• Trial another shirt pattern (Patternworks Akita). The pattern is printed and taped together. I find this an unpleasant process. So now I need to trace off my size, make a muslin, etc.. It's almost time to start trialing vest patterns instead.

No Q4 goals yet, I'll give some that thought and publish later in the week.

Powering through the Festivus Quilt

At the very end of 2019 when I basted the Festivus quilt, I was anticipating getting the quilt done in a couple of months. Ha!  I've been working diligently on it, quilting a bit most days, making it my choice of projects for meetings and TV time... and here I am, 9 months later and it's done and ready to go on the bed. You would think I'd be in a good mood, finishing a quilt after so many years... but in the past it's been a very anti climatic event. You spend all this time working on something and in the end, it's just a blanket, right? 

I will confess, the quarterly list of finished things is ending up being very motivating for me to finish things at the end of the quarter!!! It's not stressful, just motivating.

On other fiber projects, I enrolled in Sara Snuggerud's online Embroidery Essentials class and I'm feeling very satisfied by what I've learned; it's 15 different techniques I can use my machine embroidery machine for.  I've got all the blocks done, sewn together and quilted; am hoping to bind it tomorrow or the day after. I've got some ideas for additional projects with the embroidery machine but also have my eyes on what I can finish next... I'll flag a couple of links here:

Binding with flat felled seam foot

Quilt as you go

Photos of the quilts have not happened yet and will be on my finished things page. 

The looms are all empty right now but I have a warp for 4 kitchen towels ready to go! The other loom will be my Double Weave project for the Study Group.

I managed to bring in a few of the ripe Granny Smith apples from the garden before the rodents get them... Luckily I don't think they care for this variety! I made this French apple cake with GF flour; it's got 2 apples in it and is absolutely delicious!  The next day it got hot, so I beat the heat by cooking these Red Beans and Rice in the slow cooker.

Hawker Fare

Yesterday the sky glowed orange, the sun appeared either a faint yellow dot in the dark sky, and confused crickets chirped mid afternoon; at 2 in the afternoon it was as dark as late twilight. This was a result of lots of smoke blown high in the atmosphere above us and a lower marine layer or fog and haze...  Very eerie and emotionally draining...

Yet I'd marinated 2 lbs of pork chops according to a recipe in Hawker Fare for Septembers cookbook challenge. The cookbook is the story of a Lao refugee, now the chef at a well known SF restaurant of the same name.  There's more recipes than story, and many of them with ingredients that are not easy to get in a pandemic. I did manage to find some Lao fish sauce online, which is a nasty pungent thick version of the Thai fish sauce we're more familiar with; but mixed into a sauce or a marinade, it's pure salty umami. So in the early evening, I made some rice and cucumber salad using cukes from the garden, and we braved the apocalyptic skies, grilled the pork chops (moo ping) and served them with a spicy dipping sauce. I'd make this again, for company!

There's also a beef rib satay recipe that I'll expect to make before the month is out; I'll try to cook the egg salad and maybe another dish as well. Next time I'll try to get pictures.

Beef Satay from Hawker Fare; there was enough satay
sauce for chicken satay later in the week

For my birthday, DH bought me FIVE NEW COOKBOOKS! I'm sure we'll see some dishes from  these in the near future. We've been eating very well and I take this as a compliment to my recent cooking endeavors. 

New Bernina!!!

I bought myself a super fancy sewing machine for my birthday this year! I've barely used it since it came home a few weeks ago but have big plans; I'm noting a couple of websites (and one doc you won't be able to access) here so I don't forget them.

Bernina videos: https://sewingmastery.com/bernina-770/

Embroidery Website List: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/search?q=embroidery

Embroidery class online; for a price but it seems to be worthwhile: https://sewingmastery.com/saras-embroidery-essentials-online-course/

In other news, I finished a small 3D mosaic; here it is with grout drying. DH has promised to take some glamor shots of it for me... I'm really pleased with it. He's almost got the substrate ready for me to start the next table, and I was able to buy some glass this week! So no excuses!

There are so many things I could say about this piece, and so many cute and clever names I could give it. Does art need a clever name? Does that make it more artistic or detract from the artists intention? Is a clever name better or a mysterious name? Shouldn't art speak for itself?

I'm slowly chipping away at the Festivus quilt border... Sadly as I approach the top left corner I realize that I left an entire block unquilted! So I'll be working on that after I finish the final snowflake.

I've been working on that knitted cowl too, when the cat takes the quilt away, and just realized I'll need to take out about 4 inches. Don't ask.

I also started winding the warp for some dish towels... I was playing Yarn Chicken (where you're not sure you have enough yarn so go on anyways) and lost. So I'm waiting for MORE yarn to arrive in the mail. Meanwhile, I need to warp up a sample of double wide double weave, hopefully before Thursday when I meet again with the folks in my study group.

I am working on a Project where I document the steps as I go along in a book. I'm combining hand spun and mill spun yarn into a fabric that I'll use for a vest.  I believe I have all the yarn ready to go; more on that as it progresses.

And masks... I need to dig out the mask box and finish up the 13 masks I have promised here and there.  So much to do!

August has just been too damn much fun!

August has been an interesting month, what with the wildfires and smoke and all. Looks like we've made it through the worst. Can't wait to see what September brings!

This month has been a food month of internet recipes, and tomatoes, which just keep growing. I've cooked the following. Don't ask for links, I did not save them.

• Tomato jam from 2 lbs of cherry tomatoes using a recipe from Thea but with suggestions from the internet... I also made it with the surplus of heirlooms but the cherry tomato one is far superior.
• Tomato Salsa over halibut and cilantro lime rice; I'd make this again.
• Tomato risotto: OMG good!
• Peach ice cream: meh
• Chicken and butternut tagine: also good
• Brocolli salad with a tahini dressing

On the fiber front, I've been mask making again; I'm adding medium weight interfacing on the sides to give it more body, and experimenting with the flat metal strips instead of Scott's wires to see if they're more comfortable. 

I finished the 3rd border of the Festivus quilt and have been knitting on the Double your Pleasure cowl until I can get around to marking the final border.

The 2 ikat scarves are off the loom, and one will be flying away today... I dyed some shibori fabric with the warp and weft to coordinate and made a mask to go with it.

Fog in my brain...

 I haven't gotten much done in the last few weeks; I had the new shingles vaccine and the side effects were brutal. I had 3 days of fever, arm pain, and I generally felt blah and a little foggy! Of course I got worried about the virus but since the symptoms exactly tracked the vaccine side effects I just chilled and it went away on schedule. Add to that a little brain fog and lingering malaise for about a week... All seems to be good now and I'm back to exercising and normal activity. 

I did manage to get a fair bit done on the quilt; I'm now forced to think about the last border. I finally decided on snowflakes as a seasonal symbol, and I ordered some quilting templates online. It feels good to have made that decision.

I finished one of the two scarves on the loom but determined I don't have enough weft to do the 2nd scarf. I dyed some more yesterday, hoping for a gentler shade of fuchsia but it was not to be; it's pretty bright.  It should be dry and ready to weave with by tonight!. Hoping to finish it quickly!

I'm also knitting on the Double your Pleasure cowl when the cats won't let me quilt, which is pretty much anytime they figure out I'm quilting.  I've started locking them out of the room.

Not yet done-done, but done!

Done, not yet done-done.

The jacket is done! Well, not done-done, because I have snaps and buttons on order, and I'm still debating adding a collar. But otherwise done. It's so warm!

More info on the fabric and weaving process is in this post.  I drafted a square armhole jacket in a class in 2019 at Stitches. The fabric is wool, alpaca, silk and nylon (I have no idea of the percentages; I cleaned out the oddball and partial ball sock yarn stash of blues/greens/teals/purples) and is quite drapey, so I interlined with silk organza to give it a little more body. The front facings and Hong Kong seam finishes are done with commercial quilting cotton toughened up with a little lightweight fusible interfacing. The sleeves are Magpie Fibers Swanky DK,  a blend of Merino, Cashmere, and Nylon.

Would I make this jacket again? Probably not. I would prefer something with set in sleeves and a little more shaping. The fabric also presented more of a technical challenge than I expected and I frankly needed more experience to carry this off. And I didn't notice the treadling error that I positioned right across the center chest of the left hand side!!! Still, I suspect I'm going to wear this a lot and enjoy it immensely.

Actually working from my list!

Sometimes I make a list of what I want to do for a quarter and am appalled at how far I stray. I'm not sure it this is an issue with my lists or with my focus! I'm proud to say that I'm 2 weeks into the quarter and nearly right on goal. Few photos, nothing is finished yet...

• I cut and glued most of the blue outside tile to the eye mosaic (3D mosaic) and played with the andamento on the top, without making any decisions.
• I played with the design for the next table and have made some decisions; also checked glass supply and I have enough orange glass but insufficient green glass. 
• I also found these mind blowing mosaics:  https://www.veniceclayartists.com/mosaic-sculpture-art/
• The ikat is on the loom and being woven; I'm 12+ inches into the first one. I must say it's a very enjoyable weave and I could just do this all day. I'm working on some towel ideas for the next project. 
  
• I finally started on the jacket with the knitted sleeves! I'm doing a specialty finish on the seams to encase the unraveling seams so having to sew every seam 5 times... Yep, that's right, 5 times. I'm having a ball and whereas it's not perfect I'm pretty happy with it. 
• I'm still quilting the border... I'd like to accelerate the process in the next week by devoting some more time to it, so hoping to finish this one day.
• New! Fun! I got Sharpie dye pens! And I spent some time with youtube videos on Zentangles. Planning on either using the Sharpie or a batik technique to do some Zentangle designs on the Number One shirt.

And tonight was cookbook challenge night. This month, I'm cooking from Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterrean. I made the olive, orange and onion salad and set it on a bed of arugula, then followed it with a spinich and cheese "sprinkle" pie; it's traditionally made with cornmeal instead of phyllo dough with makes it gluten free and gives it a bit of a crust. Next time I'd rinse to olives to make them a little less salty, but otherwise it was a lovely evening meal on the deck with a nice bottle of wine.

Q2 '20 Finished things (9 or more)

My time to work on things has been curtailed a bit by pandemic and other activities. For awhile, I was doing my own housecleaning and yard work; thankfully I've surrendered that back to the experts. Still, I'm cooking a lot more often, and more project menus, and I've been working out a lot more because it helps me sleep at night. DH has also involved me in a few house projects, and I've spent a lot of time in the Guild library, and in fostering Guild social activities. So I expected to see a list with very little "finished" things on it and was super surprised to see that I've actually done a lot!

Wonderful handmade cotton fabric!

• I aspired to do a shadow weave fabric of my own design for the study group, and in fact spent some time researching shadow weave and came up with a couple of fun designs... but then decided to reverse engineer a pattern from a shirt one of my guild mates was wearing as an exercise to see if I could do it.  I wove this is mostly 20/2 cotton and one mystery yarn. It's approximately 14 inches wide and very very long and it's destined to become a shirt or vest!

It's almost
opalescent
in real life

• I finished spinning 250 grams of silk I dyed more than 10 years ago. It's not particularly even and is under plied in some areas... But I had fun and have a great feeling of accomplishment. 

• I wanted to finish the Festivus quilt but didn't realize exactly how much work it would be! I did finish quilting all 12 of the blocks (well, mostly, I'll go back and add a little more to two of them), and I'm about half way around the border. My biggest impediments to finishing are Owl and Ziggy who think it's a great frame for laying on my lap.

Hand dyed, hand decorated and
hand sewn mask now in the
collection of a master gardener.

• I wanted to do some other sewing thing. Does 38+ cloth masks count? I made 18 for the niece in ABQ to give to those who need them, 5 for DH and I, and the rest to friends and family. I must confess, I really like some of my masks.

• I completed a muslin for the Shirt Number One in size large (pattern loaned by a friend)... It'll need some dye on it... but the sewing is done. I'm unlikely to make another one of these; it's too boxy; but it probably would have been better in a softer fabric.

This fabric doesn't exist
anywhere else!

• I deep cleaned the studio and found a shirt I started while still at Canada College... The choice: find a place for it to live or finish it. So I finished it. The fabric was printed to my spec by Spoonflower, and I tailored the pattern to fit. The broadcloth is a bit stiff but causes the shirt to stand away from my body resulting in a cool, comfortable top.

• I started knitting the Double Your Pleasure cowl; I'm just started and already will have to unknit some of it. But I'm liking the pattern so far. Pictures will appear in later posts.

• An ikat project is dyed and about to go on the loom.

• I finished a black and white scarf in crackle. I learned a lot about crackle but not sure if I want to do more. I had some issues with the beat and the sett as well, so not proud of this scarf. 

How can I not have a colorized version?

• I carved a frog stamp, water colored and stamped post cards, then released them into the world. So far I've gotten lots of positive feedback!

• And I can take "make peanut brittle" off of my bucket list. I crumbled up most of it and added it to peanut butter ice cream; that was a little too sweet, but the peanut brittle was glorious.

• I made a small piece of garden art and it failed. But as a recent guild speaker commented, if you're not failing 50% of the time, you're not trying!

I got no traction on these list items...

• The eye mosaic; and there's another partial piece down there...
• The woven jacket with knitted sleeves.

I'm unsure how to count what I've done this quarter... Do 38 masks count as 38 or as 1? Do 17 postcards count as more than one? I'll take one for each of these, knowing that a lot more were made...

What's up for Q3? I'll put the last quarters leftovers on this quarters list:

• Complete one of the started 3D mosaic project.
• Finish the woven jacket with knitted sleeves.
• Would it be too much to finish the border of the Festivus quilt?
• Dye the Number One shirt.
• Trial another shirt pattern (Patternworks Akita).
• Carve another stamp for August.
• Weave the two ikat scarves.
• Spin the wool for the scarf I'm making with Carol.
• Design and begin work on a table for the grill area. It would be nice to use it this season.
• Weave a sample for a coverlet.
• Make masks for family in Utah.
• I'd like to explore doing Zentangles on fabric, and also making fabric wrapped rope baskets...

No Haiku for the weaving

dark of night filled with

tiny tree frog croaking for
his lost tree frog love

I started carving this linoleum block at Esalen  back in March from the same photo as the frog mosaic; I  finished it recently and did a test print and adjustments today. I'm planning on printing a group of postcards, probably black ink on green watercolor? We'll see.

No haiku for the
weaving yet the shuttle throws
my hand right then left

The one memorable dish from the pandemic

I made this tofu with a spicy peanut/lime sauce on Sunday. Really easy and extremely tasty. DH declared this will be the dish he remembers of all the food I've cooked during the pandemic, I suspect because the flavors are so unusual.  It was so good, I'd make the marinade just to turn it into salad dressing...

I've started on Rick Bayless' Everyday Mexican in a big way today. I've got a pot of beans in the slow cooker, and I just made the Roasted Fresh Chile Salsa to go on the Grilled Chicken with Tangy Yucatecan Spices tonight. This is not a salsa to casually consume with chips... a substitution for this, if you don't have the chiles, is Tabasco's Jalapeno hot sauce. I licked the spoon after stirring it and had a bit of a jalapeno vacation; that's when what you're eating is so spicy everything leaves your mind except the spice.

Fiber wise:

Failed test piece

• I continue to work on the quilt... It's coming aong. I think I am done with 1/3 of 3/4 of the border. I'll need to figure out how to quilt the top border...  
• I have a new project on the loom; a black and white crackle scarf. I know better but I didn't include any length for sampling, and it's taken me the expected 5 inches to get the beat right. So I'm going to cut out the unevenly beat bits and start over. 
• I've started winding/tieing a warp for 2 random ikat scarfs. I'll find some white fabric and tie some shibori to throw in the pot for a matching mask.

On the mosaic front, I tried to create a piece for the garden. It's on pvc pipe, about a foot tall. I used silicone adhesive to glue the glass to the pipe... it was a little fussy working with dipping each piece in the silicone, so I decided to smooth it on the whole pipe, then lay the pieces on. Easy, right? I smugly left the studio and went to find out how long I needed to let it sit before grouting. The answer is that grout doesn't stick to silicone. I tried to scrape it out but then decided to relegate this to the "test piece" catagory and start over with a different strategy. 

Food first, then fiber!

A trio of shibori fabric masks.

Food first!

I've continued to cook out of Great Foods without Fuss. I made a lovely curry shrimp, which I paired with a sweet and sour eggplant recipe (the eggplant was heavily modified because of ingredients). I also cooked cod with mint and onions, an Italian recipe, and was frankly shocked at how well mint goes with fish.

I also tried the easy pot de creme recipe.  I don't know where my brain was but I used unsweetened chocolate instead of semi sweet chocolate in a recipe with no sugar. The resulting product was really very interesting but not enjoyable to eat.  I'll have to try it again but with the right chocolate.

Saturday we had a zoom with some friends... DH adorably asked for some tapas, maybe patatas bravas and chorizo. Turns out I had everything I needed! I used The Food Lab's recipe for oven roasted crispy potatoes (I swear they taste crunchy fried but without that much oil), made a bravas sauce with a recipe from the internet, and made chorizo braised in red wine, also from the internet.  Sunday we had ribs off the grill and some cole slaw. I'm rockin' the SIP impromptu "what can I cook with these ingredients" menus. This week it's back to rice cakes and fuzzy water!

DH has chosen one of Rick Bayless' Mex cookbooks for June.

Graduated to the yarn stash!

On the fiber front,

• I raided the hand dyed fabric stash, and make this trio of shibori masks; one for my sister, one for my landscaper, and one for me! I fussy cut some of the other fabric and came up with some crazy designs. I really need to have more mask fun. Anyways, tally 4 more masks to my total. 

• I finished spinning and plying the silk... I now have 250 grams of silk yarn instead of 250 grams of silk roving. 

• I cleaned up the studio and came across a shirt that I'd stopped working on because it had frustrated me, but honestly can't figure out what is wrong with it. Faced with a decision of finding a place to put it or finishing it, I finished it. Photo to come later.

• Just last night I finished weaving my shadow weave project! I now have 3 1/2 yards of 14" fabric; I'll have to wet finish it (and it'll shrink up a bit more) before I figure out if it's suitable for a shirt or if it needs to be a vest. 

And one more photo just because he's so darn cute...

May news

18 masks for ABQ

It's now a month later and I realized I'm neglecting this blog as time passes by... Here's a rundown on the projects I'm working on.

I went on a mask making spree, supplying masks to friends and family; I also sent 18 to my niece in Albuquerque who has been giving them to her friend and co-workers. I'm about masked-out. Today I made three more from some shibori fabric I dyed a few years ago. I'm quite proud of these.

A perfect trio of 3 shibori masks

On the spinning side, I finally finished spinning the 200g of silk I dyed in a Merike Saarnit class years ago; I still need to ply it up a bunch.  I'd like to order some silk from Redfish Dyeworks and use it together in a shawl.

I started knitting again; I cast on Laura Bryant's Double Your Pleasure cowl with a kit I bought at Stitches a couple of years ago; am knitting along with K and T from one of my knitting groups.  I finished the first couple of inches and have realized I need to pull back a couple of rows... Meanwhile here is the yarn.

Double Your Pleasure 

I've also been putting a lot of time into quilting on the Festivus quilt; I'm working on the border but will need to put a few more stitches into a couple of the blocks, as well as do the setting strips. I'd like to finish this soon!

And finally, I'm still weaving a shadow weave piece of fabric destined for clothing. It's slow going.

Double weave on the loom

I've spent considerable time in the garden in the last couple of months, and hoping to be spending more time doing other things in the next couple of months.

Bangkok chicken, rice with
turmeric, roast aspargus and
yummy Slovenian wine

Finally, the cookbook challenge! The April cookbook challenge was Lopez-Alt's The Food Lab. I made a butterflied roast chicken and some amazing crispy roasted potatoes that I'm craving now... I also set off the smoke alarm with the chicken and was forced to learn to clean the oven. May is Great Foods without Fuss by  McCollough and Witt; a fabulous cookbook!  I made the Bangkok Chicken with grilled chicken and will make a curried shrimp dish later this week. There's also a recipe for pot de creme as well that I'll try before the month is out.

Masks of the Apocalypse

The first mask
but best photo

Here we are in the middle of a pandemic. I can't tell you how fascinating it would be if it weren't so horrific! I keep losing track of the time line so I'm going to include a little of that here.

March 10, DH's workplace asked people who could to work from home, as did many employers in the area, hoping to slow the disease.  He was in work for part of a day later that week, and we saw our tax lady, but otherwise were pretty much home.  The following week, March 17, the Bay Area started "sheltering in place" which means that only essential workers go to work; restaurants and bars are closed, as well as most retail businesses; schools are closed. Since then, the order has been extended to May 3. Since 3/17, I've left the house to go to the grocery store, to get takeout food, and to exercise. No one has been here, although a week ago they lifted the order slightly to allow gardeners to come to do services effecting fire mitigation; so my guys started cutting down the grass on the slope below the house this week.

My favorite; it's symmetric
on the other side

Is it difficult? Not really, unless I think a lot about it. I have plenty to do and Zoom and other video conferencing technologies have allowed me to stay mostly in touch with my social groups. Yet I find my brain fuddled and that I'm not particularly productive. Plenty of exercise and garden time lets me sleep but hasn't restored my cognitive function. I'm working on a plan to feel more in control, at least of the things I have control of.

Dark glasses make me
less selfie-conscious

So what am I doing? I'm using Zoom a lot and have been answering a lot of questions on how it works...  I've been working with folks from the guild to try to make the online presence better and to get people connected, going so far as to figure out how to do HTML tables. It's not that hard, but took me a bit to dance my way around it.

On the fiber side, I'm continuing my work on the Festivus quilt and have finally started weaving but I'm stuck because I can't decide on my weft color!  I also started making masks, for ourselves, friends and family; I have made 13 so far, 2 of which are unallocated. Next step is to start sending them to my Niece in ABQ who is a social worker and says she can find homes for as many as I can make. 

What's up next? Aside from work in the garden, I want to get back to the mosaic studio, do some weaving, and make more masks. I suspect masks will be a theme for awhile.

Q1 '20 Finished Things (6)

For Q1, I clearly did a small subset of what my goals were... between an overly aggressive list and being distracted by the pandemic, I still managed to complete 6 things:

Wove a Rebozo from the yarn I dyed in Fresno.

Created a small and a large mosaic piece during my Esalen Class.

Knit a pair of socks from 20 year old yarn.

Knit the Lake Breeze Sweater AND put a zipper on it.

Finished the 2nd table top to match the first one .

This totally cracks me up

I also had some progress on:

The eye mosaic: I have some of it glued down and a plan for the rest.

The Festivus quilt: I've got a number of blocks completely quilted, working through those.

Shadow weave fabric of my own design for the study group: It's slow to warp, as I'm lacking the concentration, but I'm about 1/2 way through the warp.

And these are still on the list:

Finish the woven jacket with the knitted sleeves (I need some courage)

I need to do some other sewing thing (I have a top pattern I want to trial)

And I need to pick up a spinning project.

For Q3, I also would like to start an ikat project and start knitting something.

March Cookbook Challenge and Table Top

The March cookbook for the cookbook challenge was Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking. Tonight I cooked duck a l'orange! It was darn tasty. We'll be eating that for a few days... I think if I made it again soon I could do better but we still enjoyed it. I'll need to freeze or render the duck fat...

And since I'm limited in how many times a week I can go to the grocery, I asked Scott for another challenge; he picked Fiery Foods that I Love. I made the Spinach, Arugula and Meat Pie; it's pretty much a spicy tamale dough filled with spicy beef, spinach, etc. It's about 5 meals for the two of us, so most of it will go into the freezer tomorrow.

It needs a couple coats of sealer and then a glass of wine!

My Darling Husband hasn't decided on the April cookbook, but I think we have enough food in the freezer to last awhile...

Between  cooking, weeding the yard, and looking at exponential graphs, I haven't gotten much done; I'm still working on the Festivus quilt, but I grouted the second table top today! I'll do some analysis on what I would have done differently, but I'm VERY pleased with it. I had a few edge tiles pop off while grouting; I taped them on and later glued them with Liquid Nails. Tomorrow I'll fix the grout on them, and start sealing it; it'll be ready to be mounted to the table by Tuesday, the last day of the quarter.

What's next? DH has asked for a table by the grill to rest his glass of wine on when I grill for us... and I need a new table top by the Adirondack chairs. I ordered the table bases, which will be awhile as no one is working; and I have two substrates but no design. I won't know if I have enough glass until I come up with a design.

I have nothing to report on the fiber front. I've been so focused on the Festivus quilt and the table top, and cooking and gardening, that I haven't done much else. Hoping to get a warp ready to weave this week!


ETA: Just realized I never noted the Feb challenge. It was the Commanders Palace Cookbook. I made a gumbo and their cornbread which was awesome but it set off the fire alarm and nearly got the fire department dispatched.

Sheltering...

We're a week into "shelter in place" due to the Covid 19 virus; my darling husband has been home for a week longer than that. You'd think being stuck at the house would make me more productive, but I've been cooking a lot more, and doing house cleaning and yard work! 

So what have I been doing? 

• I finished the socks. They're a little loose but should shrink a bit in the washer.

• I finished the green sweater but haven't taken any photos. DH says it looks fabulous, but honestly had I tried it on in a store I would have reached for the smaller size. It's wonderfully warm though... I may try to shrink it up a bit when I wash it next.

• I've swatched the Razzle poncho but haven't hit gauge yet. It's a little frustrating.

• I'm threading the loom with my shadow weave project; at 35 threads per inch it's slow going and I'm not motivated. I have 6 of 15" threaded so far and should try to do a little bit every day.

• I'm working my way through the Festivus quilt; we're watching a lot of Netflix in the evenings so I think I'm getting a lot done; I need to spread it out and check my progress. I'm working on all the blocks, then will do the setting strips, then the border. 

• Lastly, I'm spending a lot of time in the mosaic studio. I finished all the motifs on the table top and spent about 3 hours working on the border yesterday. Can't wait to finish! I also have a couple of small 3-D pieces in progress, more on them later...

Double indirect method of a motif: applying the motif to the substrate

This is the second part of how I'm using a double indirect method using Frosty contact paper to transfer a part of a mosaic (I'm calling it a motif) to my table top substrate. I'll be switching back and forth between photos of a red and a green mosaic, sorry!

The green motif is complete and laid out on its Frosty. Cut a second piece of Frosty about the same size as the first and laid it sticky side down on the motif, then rub it onto each piece of glass for extra adhesion. After that, flip the piece so you're looking at the backside, and carefully peel off the Frosty; if you press down on the pieces and roll the Frosty back on itself, you have a better change of the pieces staying in place. 

Apply thinset thinly to the area on the substrate where the motif is going; use a notched trowel to thin it down a little more. Note that if you're using transparent glass, you may need to back butter the glass pieces so you don't seen the scratch lines through the tessera.

I used a piece of cardboard like a pizza peel (thank you Emily for the idea!) to slowly set the motif onto the thinset, adjusting position as needed. Don't drag it around too much but you can adjust it a little.  Press all of the pieces lightly into the thinset. Give it a little time to dry, then peel off the frosty very carefully, doubling it back over itself and pulling slowly. The thinset should be goopy enough for you to reposition tesserae if they're not where you want them.


Wait a bit longer until it's stiff but not set, and check all the grout joints to make sure you don't need to do any cleanup. You don't want the thinset to come up further than 1/2 up the tesserae. Also clean up around the edges of the motif if your thinset goes beyond the edges of your motif.

I did all 4 of the larger motifs this way with a minimum of fuss. The red and green motifs were applied to the substrate in less than 15 minutes! The smaller ones didn't need it. Three more motifs and I'm ready to fill in the background.

Double indirect method of a motif: getting the motif ready

I learned the "Frosty" method of mosaic from Ilse and Wilma last fall at the workshop in Watsonville. It's a double indirect method, pretty much the same as using tile tape, except the Frosty can be peeled off before the thinset is set and the tiles can be repositioned if needed. I'm not going to detail the double indirect method, or how tile tape is used... Maybe another time but it's readily available information so I'm going to skip it here.

Getting the Frosty ready

One of my frustrations on the last table top was getting some of the motifs to look round enough. I did all of those with the direct method, where I laid out the pieces on paper first, then move them one by one to the mosaic. Anyone who's ever done this knows that the pieces never sit in the thinset they way they do on paper. Why? I'm going to suggest it's my lack of experience but I don't really know.

I thought I'd try a modified method of the Frosty method for them and see if they could be applied to the table top as sub-pieces, hoping this would help me keep things round. I've done it so far on 3 motifs and love it.

Tape to table, sticky side up,
start putting down glass.

I sized the Frosty to be a few inches larger than the motif on all edges so I can handle it easier when I apply it. I drew a circle the same size as the motif from the table onto the back of the frosty, then traced with my Sharpie so I could see it on the other side. I added some axis lines and marked the center. I didn't use a protractor, but I think I came pretty close to eighths.

I then flipped it over, removed the backing, and taped it sticky side up to my table. I added a center and some red squares and then drew in a few additional ideas.

All done and previewed on the table top!

 I kept cutting and placing glass. The stickiness of the Frosty holds the pieces in place while I work, but I'm still able to reposition or replace pieces. For example, I started with a black center, but didn't care for it, so swapped it for red before eventually settling on yellow (see below).

Once the motif was finished, I previewed it by laying it in it's place on the table top. Hypothetically I could make a whole bunch of motifs if they were all the same size, then place them as I saw fit.

I'll describe the steps to use thinset to adhere the pieces to the table in another post.

The black center was okay, but
not what I really wanted.

Next I tried a red center, meh.

Loving the yellow center.