Friday, August 14, 2009

Not cotton candy, but it plays one in blogland





I have now carded and blended and recarded the fleece I dyed the other day, and I really like the effects. It's soft as a cloud, amazing how far it came from the fleece you saw weeks back, which was all potential. And the colors are pretty nice, clear, and we'll see what they look like spun up. Couldn't resist organizing the current output into a sunburst of color.

Some of the rolags are one color, others are blended, two colors usually, and all are ready to spin and take their place in the current tapestry.

Which I'm rethinking. The original cartoon is too complex for the dpi in this piece, so I'm simplifying it and using more blocks, fewer little interstices. And I'm thinking of throwing out all but my own homespun, since the colors of commercial yarn kind of flatten the effect. Fortunately tapestry is slow work, so there's plenty of time to consider and reconsider without heartbreak.

We now have a date for the Installation of the Flooring! Wednesday after next. They promised not to come before 10 a.m. to let HP get all his nursing care completed and be moved into the kitchen and set up for the day out of the traffic.

So now all I have to do is move all the artwork off the walls. About 40 pieces, some fragile. And get the books out of the bookcases, six large ones. And move the various small ornaments out of harm's way. I've started every time I go upstairs, which I do a lot, to take an armload of books with me, just to put a dent into the task. HS will help a bit at the weekend, but his free time is mainly meant to take care of HP on Saturday.

And it is a good chance to rethink the whole house! HP's eyes roll at this, so typical of Herself, he thinks....but I can make over the big bedroom, now only used to store supplies for HP, into my yarn/spinning/library/keyboard/flute/recorder/sheet music for all above, area. Of course, the fact that a lot of the floor area is taken by a large bed is a mere trifle.

Then some of the books won't come back down again. But HP's books will, since he loves to be surrounded by them, even though he scarcely gets to read them now. He's reading more on CDs than print, because it's less tiring to do.

So all this is going on, along with the spinning and carding and fiber art planning, and the gardening planning -- divisions of various plants, mainly daylilies, to give away.

And for the next big batch of pesto. Yesterday I made the first pesto of the year, having just finished up last year's harvest in a terrific ravioli with red sauce I made (ravioli made using wonton wrappers of course, stuffed with shredded chicken and fake crab and spices and minced veggies, made and frozen a few days ago).

The basil is in a container, planted as seed, and it's amazingly good, so I'll get at least one more batch before I get tired of the idea! I use minced basil, best olive oil, crushed walnuts (don't like pine nuts much), garlic, parmesan grated, all mixed, then pressed into ziplock freezer bag so that it's thin and flat, then I freeze it. It stands on its side like a thin book in the freezer, and you just unzip, break off exactly the amount you need and zip it up. Last for ages this way without going off.

Aside from that I plan to take the rest of the day off.

1 comment:

  1. Those are mighty gorgeous rolags (there's a sentance I will probably never type again in my lifetime!). I love freezing things that can be used as you need it, and pesto is just that sort of thing. Now it's in my head, I'll have to make some today :O) Congrats on your flooring progress!

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