Let's get this New Year Started!

I've been doing some cooking this month from Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food.  So far I've baked salmon and served it with a garlic, lemon, and cilantro butter, and tonight I'm cooking a slow cooked pork shoulder with chiles, which we'll have with polenta. This cookbook is as much a collection of cooking techniques as it is a collection of recipes, and I would certainly be a better cook if I read it through!

But instead I've been working on other things. In the garden, I've been dismantling the madder bed, pulling out all the roots and sifting the soil to make sure there aren't any bits and pieces that will sprout later to cause issues. I've got a good quantity of madder drying in the garage and will dye with it in the summer. 

Woven in star fashion

On the weaving front, I've been working my way through Janet Dawson's overshot class. The written lessons are absolutely amazing; the webinars have been okay to good but her teaching style does not necessarily click with my learning style. Regardless, I'm learning LOTS about overshot. I've decided to use the first 2 projects to make runners for the nightstands in the guest room, using a light grey-green 8/2 unmercerized cotton for the weft, and a natural 8/2 unmerc cotton in the weft, with 5/2  mercerized cotton as the pattern weft in a dark green called loden. Instead of making placemats I'm making runners for the guest room nightstands.  So far I'm pleased with everything but the edges... why is it always the edges?  This one is woven in star fashion; the 2nd one will have a different treadling and will be woven in rose fashion. The "fashion" just describes whether there are obvious crosses or poofy circle motifs.

I'll note that I'm using Texsolv cord for the tie ups on the baby Mac instead of the hooks that have given me so much grief; it's MUCH nicer. The Mac, though, is a little small for me and I find after using the Gilmore that the Mac feels more like a toy.

On the knitting front, I finished the Double your Pleasure cowl! I like it.  And it's subtly warm without being overwhelming.  

I also fished out a baby sweater that I started about 2 years ago in a class by JC Briar on how to do set in sleeves. The baby sweater was to teach us the methodology and I figured I might as well do something useful...  I had the best intentions to finish it quickly so I wouldn't forget how. I did find the pattern and the extra yarn and so am finally finishing it!  All I have left is the color, button band, and hiding all the ends.

I'm still spinning away on some purple/brown merino that's been in my stash forever. I finished one of the 5 ounce-ish braids and am maybe 1/3 of the way through the second one. I'll do a two ply then figure out what to do with it!

On the mosaic front, I've got the substrate for the table ready to go. This run of lovely weather has driven me into the yard instead of the studio, but I'll get to it soon.

4 sets of these for my niece and
her family

I made these nifty badges for my niece's family on the embroidery machine! I still need to get them in the mail... I also found the skull with hockey sticks and I'm making some quilt blocks for a machine quilting class; once quilted, I'll make more grocery bags from them, probably for DH. 

Aside from all this, I'm suffering a bit from pandemic-fatigue and I'm doom-scrolling the political news more than I need to. Somedays I feel like I'm trying to swim through peanut butter! Writing all this down is certainly helping me realize I'm actually getting things done.