Soup and sashiko, in turn

 For the second day, I woke at what I thought was the usual time, got up, light was right for about eight o clock, and found it was in fact about nine o clock. So it seems as if my system is declining the offer of a change of time.  Good thing I didn't have to get moving early this morning, because I definitely didn't.

However, soup needed to happen at some point, and here's the makings going on. Today it's celery, flat leaf parsley (some saved out for salad) and carrot greens.  Cream of, that is,  milk being added at the end.

But first, the admiration of the garlic, sprouting happily now after being here for months, and showing life goes on.

And here's the lovely armature on which the garlic rests and grows.  The interior architecture of a simple head of garlic is anything but simple.  This is one reason to cook from scratch.  You get to see these marvels of nature's art.

Then, this pot of green power is going gently, onions, Greek olive oil, garlic, celery, flatleaf parsley and the last of the carrot greens.

Ending in this savory bowl of soup, bit of Thai basil to garnish and flavor it with a licorice taste.

And, in among the various stages of the cooking, I was attending to the Robe.  To be exact, drawing in the pathways for the sashiko stitching.  I used french curves for this, rather than doing it freehand, largely because you can use the curve to anchor the fabric so it doesn't skitter away when you draw.  On other fabric I'd do it freehand.

The box of french curves originally belonged to Handsome Partner for whatever he used them for in the lab.  There was a period when the box did a brisk commute between lab and my studio, because I used them for all kinds of purposes in papermaking, printmaking, drawing, stenciling, all kinds of ideas.  Finally his work moved in a different direction, and the box came to rest in my studio.

Then I had to test out a number of different hoops in order to get moving on the stitching.  The biggest hoop was in danger of crushing the goldwork, aieee, no, not that, and the smaller one wasn't big enough to navigate the spaces between gold and silver work.  So this oval one came in handy, as you see.  It takes in enough design to work on, and juuuuuust misses the goldwork at the top and the silverwork in the middle.

So this will happen this afternoon.  Then I take the work off the hoop, as you do, because if you leave it, say, overnight, it will distort the fabric and that won't be a good thing.  So you rehoop each time you pick it up.  And hour or two between stitching is okay, but not longer than that.

Now that I'm finally awake, I guess I can get on with this.  I'm wondering how long before I adapt to the clock change, though.  I'm exactly one hour behind the clock as I go. Not a big problem unless there's an unmissable appointment.

One of the containers I gave out with the Valentine choc things came back yesterday with two brownies.  Just in time for tea.  So my neighbor and I exchanged vaccine experiences and plans, and it was very nice.  She was apologetic that they were bakery brownies, she not being a baker, and I was very happy to get them anyway. They were good, with choc chips in them, too.  

It actually took me a minute to realize who she was, her hair massive and flowing all over, and a substantial weight gain, and masked.  Then I saw the container, ah, all became clear.  This time last year she was fairly svelte, a teacher on her feet all day long, with a short blond bob.  But sitting teaching at a computer, and with no access to her hairdresser, very different.  Still the same person, so, that's okay.  And she managed to get the vaccine, qualified by both age and occupation.

Someone else got the appointment set up for her, and they drove two hours south to a megasite for it.  But she's happy they did it anyway. Handsome Son becomes eligible by occupation at the end of the month, so he's planning to plunge into the search then.