My tiny life, strike back, and eat well!

Yesterday's Misfits box included  freebie oat milk, which I suppose is good for people who can't drink cow's milk. I can, but I'll try it anyway.

Along with wonderful summer food, so much fresh produce, not a lot of cooking this week. I think it's going to be more assembling than cooking.

Except for processing like zesting and chunking those lemons. They're heavy, so probably juicy.

And the last couple of days have been like this

So I'm currently cribb'd and confin'd in the house,  because I'm old enough to need caution, dangit. Local wise parents kept kids in, too, I noticed, no basketball going on out back.

So, amid terrible SCOTUS decisions, the good ones serving to butter us up before the truly wicked ones came down, I make my tiny life meaningful with making

And here's a great idea I'm planning on applying today

To these newly arrived shoes, comfortable but the color not as nice (!)  as shown online 

And enjoying a beautiful breakfast 

And using this space to have my say, in the words of people more eloquent than your humble old blogger lady

Happy day everyone, especially to the  many of us whose rights are up for grabs. I've got your back!

Textiles and Tea, recycling, peppermint and puddles

Textiles and Tea this week featured Sarah Gotowka, a hugely talented young dyer and weaver, interested in using her art as a way to understand trans racial adoptions and the influence of history on crafts 

Herself a Korean adopted by American parents, she has studied her Korean heritage, particularly in dyeing indigo. 

The Japanese occupation of Korea created a forced labor situation for Koreans in their indigo dyeing. There are parallels to the cruel history of indigo in the American South. 

I missed it online, because of the birthday shenanigans, and had to catch up on the recorded clunky Facebook page, but I did my bessiest for yer.  She's worth checking into.

And Gary, on the grounds of recycling, brought over nice little glass jars

 which I'm also interpreting as a broad hint to make jam and share it, his favorite of everything I make!

I made the warp for the next skirt panel, so happy to be doing it, despite the price my neck is now extorting.

You just can't be prudent about health all the time without going completely berserk from deprivation. Today I'll do some heddle threading. 

Yesterday aside from being a nice memory day, had its share of communication breakdowns, to wit

I noticed when I was over seeing to the fridge arrival, that the peppermint I planted over there long ago was flourishing, and I forgot to bring home a couple of plants.

So yesterday I asked handsome Son to bring a handful of peppermint over for me. I was thinking planting, meaning handful of plants with roots.  He assumed cooking, meaning handful of leaves, especially when I reminded him to identify it by pinching and sniffing. 

So he carefully picked a handful of leaves, making sure not to bring stems or roots.. I've put them in a saucer of water to see if I can get them to root. If not, I'll go over and yank a couple of plants out to start in a pot here.

And current lightweight reading is Miss Buncle's next adventure

And here's a little French girl after many of our hearts and certain dog friends, too

Happy day everyone, stick your neck out, ow!

Handsome Partner's birthday thoughts

 Yesterday we had our chocolate walnut cake dessert with cherry sauce, and chatted about many things including the life of Handsome Partner, the supreme court finally making good decisions, peppermint plants, John Tradescant and others.

 The tiny bouquet, picked between storms, included spiderwort, aka tradescantia virginiana, hence the Tradescant chat.

Anyway, we remembered Handsome Partner on his 91st birthday, and here are a few thoughts from earlier birthdays on this blog

I didn't know when I wrote the first one here, that it would be his last. It's a long post that acknowledges blogistas, too, and.  you might like to check it out 

Happy day, everyone, storms outside, but it's peaceful indoors, in every sense.

New starts, health update, skirt pattern

 Yesterday I put some sprigs of lemon balm into the rooting teapot, and noticed it has tiny flowers I'd never spotted before.

Why, you wonder, do you want to start a plant that currently runs wild, choking everything in its path, escaping the supposedly restraining pots? Because like the other mint relatives, it vanishes completely over Fall and winter, and I fancy trying to keep it as a houseplant, to have some available in winter.

Also I'm just starting to see improvement in my neck issues, where I can think about eventually starting with my fiber projects again. Not yet.

So I needed to create a paper pattern for the woven/knitted skirt. This meant tracking down a newspaper, which I don't have. Gary promised me some ready for recycling, and I went next door to collect.

There followed a lovely chat with a visiting family member I'd met before, where we established we: both alter thrifted clothes to suit, both add pockets where needed, both make clothes without patterns, both use newspaper where we need to make a pattern. Nice convo, punctuated by Gary exclaiming I don't know what you're talking about!

Home again, ready to measure, make paper pieces to try on 

Here's the Notebook Of Thinking, which was also the Notebook of Learning Hindi

The Hindi was an ill-fated local adult school class where the somewhat inept teacher went back to India after three weeks, and we all got refunds.

Anyway the notebook being one I'd made, it's gone on being useful, and here's the current project with math.

The original idea was to weave straight panels (note that panel means vertical strip, horizontal pieces having different names), and knit wedge shaped pieces to alternate with the woven panels, to create an A line effect.

This involves figuring out the measurements of the wedges,  top and bottom and doing some tricky decreasing to get a smooth narrowing. Hm 

Then a rush of brains to the head! Why not just knit straight pieces, the width of  the hem end, here 2.5", and do the adjustment when I stitch the parts together, slanting the woven sections together at the top to create the wedge shapes. This will increase the bulk at the waist and I have an idea how to fix that. 

So here's the nyt, more useful than usual

I've tried this around me, and it seems to work. The two sides come around to meet. One big advantage of weaving and knitting to size is; all selvedges, almost no seam allowance needed.

So much easier. Now all I need is the neck to calm down -- it's already buzzing and jabbing from yesterday's pattern making -- and I'll be off. This feels so great, to be making again. Everything else feels like treading water.

Today's Handsome Partner birthday celebration will be an indoor event, owing to endless thunderstorms and inches of rain. We did escape the local tornado warning.

Happy day everyone, whatever the weather.

I have some Handsome Partner birthday thoughts which I'll save till tomorrow, there being a limit to how much I can stuff into one post. I marvel at bloggers who comment that they have to look for material. Mine's like the lemon balm of ideas, escaping all over.

Bunnies, apricot stuff, chocolate cherry dessert

 Yesterday this little guy hopped in front of me for a couple of blocks, just keeping out from underfoot

before he made a right turn to join his friends. There's two or three babies, tumbling about and chasing each other, not quite old enough to run when they see a human.

And I made what I expected to be apricot jam, using dried apricots I'd soaked overnight.

When suddenly after boiling just a couple of minutes, just starting to gel, it seized. I now have a kind of apricot version of hard sauce. It tastes just fine, but isn't jam 

I've noticed this kind of weird result before with using unrefined cane sugar rather than the white refined kind. I think the chemistry's different in some way. It's edible but not the consistency I had in mind.

Here's how it looks today.

 I transferred it to a plastic tub to make it easier to access.

And since tomorrow's Handsome Partner's 91st birthday, Handsome Son is coming over for a little celebration.

 

I made a dessert involving chocolate walnut cake, cherry sauce and chocolate icing 

And since it involved cutting a well in one slice of the cake for the cherry sauce, the cook got an afternoon tea preview taste of the cut out parts of dessert with added cherry sauce  

We celebrate his birthday as a memory, because he died on the evening of Handsome Son's birthday in August, so we keep that day for handsome Son.

I've been reading about language lately and thought I'd mention why you see me using the word nice fairly often. 

I had a dogmatic high school English teacher who tormented anyone who  used the word. It was LAZY, STUPID, CHEAP!  And we suspected she meant the user as much as the word. 

So I was traumatized out of using it. Then a few years ago I realized I didn't have to listen to Mrs. Butler any more, and I could say nice if I wanted to. Nice, nice, nice. It felt free. And nice! Neener! 

Too funny, since she no doubt went to the great English class in the sky decades ago. Despite this quirk, she was a great English teacher and a nice woman (!)

Happy day everyone, use the words you want, you're entitled!

The growing season, and a new idea

 Yesterday I planned on shakshuka, but only had three eggs till Thursday, so I had a change of plan. I'd already substituted chard for bell peppers since I don't like bell peppers a lot, particularly the current price. So I thought I bet chunks of hake would work here.

Onions, garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, cumin, hake, there's probably a name for this which I don't know. 

I drained the tomatoes and the liquid will go into the next spaghetti sauce.

It was very good, the fish cooked just enough to flake. The flatbread is vital for getting all the sauce. And I'm having the second half today.

Meanwhile Nature is busy. Remember back when I chipped a favorite teapot and started using it to root cuttings?  No? Well anyway here's a healthy group, two kinds of begonia

Now potted up, and joining their friends.

Outside somebody's creating lace from Gary's collard greens

The daylilies, Stella d'oro, are getting tuned up. I have these all over, including other people's gardens and around the dumpster enclosure. It's very easy to grow and divide.

And my cheap dollar store seeds are booming

The lavender got to its destination overnight, amazing, and was well received, like this

So all's well, and happy day everyone! Let's hope our plans work out or at least we have a backup if they don't.

Count on Zelenskyy to have a backup, always