Cold but bright sunshine today, good for walking.
News, views, art, food, books and other stuff, with the occasional assist of character dolls. This now incorporates my art blog, which you can still read up to when I blended them, at https://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com. Please note that all pictures and text created by me are copyright to Liz Adams, and may not be used in any form without explicit permission. Thank you for respecting my ownership.
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Tree question, stitching updates and planting
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Stitching, renovating, Misfits and cabbage
Early morning start on stitching today and I really enjoyed just doing whatever suggested itself. I've left the book fabric intact for now, so I can see the different pages as they emerge.
Misfits came, too, minus a couple of items, but I'm not near starving. The swiss cheese was going on top of the second cabbage casserole, the cheddar into it.
The chocolate covered almond bits are highly nutritious (!) vital dietary component.
Later, here's the casserole
The top was browned and it was pretty good. That's the cabbage sorted.
Later Gary came over to bring me in to see his latest renovation, or endless renovation. He seems to be rebuilding the entire fireplace wall now. Not sure why, it may be one of those one thing led to another situations that happen to him.
Happy day everyone, I hope good things happen to you today.
Tab and slot book, ANZAC Day
Thursday is ANZAC DAY, which I mark every year. If you're not familiar with the tragedy of the Dardanelles in WW1, and the blunders which cost so many young Australian and New Zealand lives, Google is your friend. Today we honor all the women and men in combat, and veterans.
As a mom I make ANZAC biscuits (cookies in north America) and give them to friends to honor that courage. They're based on the cookies that ANZAC moms sent to their sons in combat. They were a taste of home, they shipped well, long voyage in those days.
I omit the coconut the authentic ones had, and use honey because golden syrup isn't available here. But they're still good
Chewy, good stuff
I also got on with my fabric book, making the wall hanging into a tab and slot deal.
This was a nice experience. I know how it works now
Then I went on to new stitching, prepped unbleached muslin for upcoming book, ironed it into sections without cutting.
I also made a cool discovery. I accidentally made indentations into the muslin when stray threads got ironed in, leaving tracks.
This is a great way to plan a design without markings
So I put down a piece of twine and ironed over it. One side makes an indentation, the other side an embossment.
So I embarked on a new stitching, why not, using the indentation as a channel to lay the thread I couched down. .
Just random stitching, trala. Really enjoying this. This might end as another slot and tab, don't know yet. It might have some Indian quilt techniques. Maybe beading, I feel an attack of beading coming on.
I do know that Ann Wood, check her website, is a model teacher of process.
Gary has been busy helping a neighbor dig her garden last couple of days so I haven't seen him other than a flying visit to ask me about ants on a houseplant cactus!
Happy day everyone, and be sure to spare a thought for everyone in combat of all kinds right now and their families.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
New friends, Textiles and Tea
This morning was about stitching my pages, just folded back wrong sides together, and stitched around with embroidery floss. The slot and tab thing happens later.
Here are three pages, one side then the other
Then the afternoon was Tuesday Knitting Group, and since school was out today, we had the pleasure of a little girl starting crochet, while her mother looked on.
Another knitter taught her the start of Granny squares, and I found a sample of them in my bag, to show her, this notebook with gs covers, seen from both sides
It's my purse notebook, made when I had a surfeit of embroidery floss.
And while the granny squarers worked,
the mom and I had a great convo about Indian textiles. She knew quite a bit about the kawandi I'm interested in, also kantha stitching and Gujarati stitching, the kind with the tiny mirrors embedded, so we were very pleased with each other. She took a picture of her daughter with me before they left, very cool
Other chat ranged over young people starting crafts, artists and musicians finding everything new all the time, how knitting is not work, it's entertainment, wire jewelry, and more. Cheerful, no apocalyptic chat.
Then home to Textiles and Tea with Demetrio Lazo, a wonderful weaver and dyer from a long family tradition in Oaxaca, who teaches as well as makes massive rugs in traditional and newly creative designs. He has children one of whom is already committed to a career in weaving in the family business.
He teaches weaving and dyeing workshops, as well as producing sought-after work of his own