Biblical proportions, pita and Henrietta

 I was reading online while watching Northern Exposure, and just as I read the phrase "biblical proportions", one of the Northern Exposure characters said it. As if he was reading over my shoulder. Cue eerie music..

This is not cooking, it's the prep for making a gallon of laundry soap, castile soap for grating, borax, washing soda, to be dissolved together then diluted with hot water. Done.

This is cooking. Prep for Turkish pita bread from the Bread and Salt blog.

Here's the dough, risen and ready to be formed. I tried a way of rising it which worked fine. On top of the toaster oven set at low, about an hour, great rising, at least double its size.

 

I made it into a log, used the bench scraper to cut into pieces, rolled each out, about ten minutes in a hot oven

And here's the whole lot, most now in the freezer

Except this one, stuffed with spinach and crumbled parmesan, great supper

 

I'm really pleased with this addition to the bread repertoire. 

And here's what I'm reading for an online book club, very readable, and I keep being outraged over the treatment of minorities even though I knew some of this. Well worth reading, I feel it's a moral imperative for an old white lady to read and digest this.

 

My neighbor's husband is home from India, and A.  brought back the container from the Valentine cookies, refilled with Indian treats. 

She never returns a container empty, very classy.  So I lived another lovely day.

Passementerie, dyeing and works in progress

Yesterday,  fast food from scratch. Tuna and cannellini bean fritters with steamed baby spinach, to get my energy up. Sprig of curry leaf plant which gives flavor even just resting on the hot food.

The Tuesday knitting group was great

The dye in the container is Green Shades,  shown by M, an environmentally friendly dye, this one giving that lovely shade she's working on behind there, very similar to the cotton I'm working in.

S. with her lace shawl in progress while she studies my glove pattern with future plans in mind 

Priti the librarian puts out a selection of different books each week to study and borrow. She tells us we're running at least through March, probably into summer then she'll see. I think there may be space considerations if summer programs need the space we're meeting in. We'll see. 

Talk ranged over home care for ill relatives, the local fire commission budget, the insanely warm weather, nearly 70°f this afternoon, blogging, tai chi, Eight pieces of Silk, countertops, green dyeing and more.

Then home to a pot of tea and Textiles and Tea, a great episode, about passementerie, which I vaguely knew from braid on military uniforms. 

But in the hands of  much awarded and acclaimed modern artisan, Elizabeth (Libby) Ashdown,  so much more. Weaving, dyeing, cording, all to create decorative edges for clothes and furniture. 

Elizabeth also makes wallhung art, working on many commissions at the moment. There are only four professional passementerie weavers in the UK, an endangered craft. She's by far the youngest.

She teaches and has written a book to help keep it alive, and she was a ton of fun to see, so full of verve. Her use of color is the modern vision, compared to ancient examples.

Here's a traditional use of passementerie work, on a man's Court outfit. Contrast this with her saturated, exciting colors

You can work passementerie on practically any loom, even a frame loom, though there are special looms for the purpose. She uses a floor loom as you see.

She used to run an open experimental weaving studio, seen here,  but it's in London, the building was demolished, they're still looking for affordable space in the city. She was working on this art form within five minutes' walk of where it was first introduced, centuries ago, London being the center of it.

Here's her book, first printing sold out, second due late March

She's such a great person to have on the series, generous, funny, very happy.

Happy day everyone, and I want to say this, because you can't know how important your words and encouragement are to me.

Fans, poems, geese and daffodils

Good medical report, for those inquiring: BP is startlingly improved, better than in years, thanks to rx change, so yay! My lovely doctor did a little happy dance! 

Then later yesterday I was more or less ambushed by a neighbor, and find myself free cycling her ceiling fan. Without success so far. If no nibbles, I'll text her to come collect it. 

Then today's poem happened and made much more sense

Since the weather and I were up for it, I took a walk,  late winter scenes

Many Canada geese tearing up the golf course and pooping everywhere, we have huge flocks of these protected avian vandals. At a distance, it doesn't do to get close to these aggressive characters particularly now near mating time.

And the daffodils are pushing through, against storm damaged trees, which will probably be left to lie, feeding future lichen and fungi growth and sheltering small  animals and birds.

Yesterday all the migrating robins suddenly showed up, trees full of them, as if the commuter train had pulled in. We have year round robins, too, and this is a different community of them.

The scarf continues, a bit hard on the fingers, using a large hook with a fine thread, but the results are pleasing.

And Emma Mitchell gives us another bouquet from her garden to soothe and calm the brain

It's that time when suddenly I'm having to find or get various documents for the condo, chimney inspection, get items printed out to fill in and sign, this year water heater replacement due, it's a lot. Handsome Son is doing what he can, but I always dread the process. Also the costs.

The management tells me I'm more in compliance than most owners. I think this is because I'm not combative with them about it, though some requirements are a bit out there. Largely the township's rules, and the insurer, not blaming the HOA this time.

Happy day everyone, I learned some new online platform methods yesterday, always something new and fun to learn.
 

New item from Misfits I've added to my order, worth a try. Is anyone familiar with them?

It occurs to me that this is a helpful thought, after the discussion on Mary's blog today about abuse and surviving.

And this doesn't go wrong

I've been needing this with the current state of the world.

I did my Eight Pieces of Silk, what I could remember, while my kettle boiled today. I find it helps to do exercise in that kind of time frame, since I can't just do it without time boundaries, not my style.  I certainly can't keep up a lot of repetition as some practitioners do. But I do my thing. 

I was practicing in front of the kitchen window which overlooks the street, probably amusing local kids if they noticed.

Doctor today, still tracking bp. Hence this abbreviated post, need to leave the house when I normally take my time writing.

Happy day, everyone, breathe!

Visible Darning and Punching With Angry Eyes

Yesterday more visible mending, the handspun and knitted house socks becoming more darn than sock. I always get out the darning egg, usually find it's too small and end up using my eyeglass case.

While I worked I watched a Ash YouTube weaving episode where they 3D printed their own heddle! To create a commissioned medieval reproduction piece. Ash is a hugely entertaining YouTuber, very much recommended. Makes costume for cosplay LARPS,  social commentary, an every-fiber-art expert, just worth following

and then on to Atomic Shrimp, here cooking items he's foraged. Another channel worth your time, endlessly interested in nature, foraging, cooking, creating items, with a nice little dog, Eva, who takes part in practically everything. And a patient and encouraging wife.

and here's the completed socks ready for wearing again.

I revived my qi gong practice, Eight Pieces of Silk, eight exercises with names like Holding up Heaven with Both Hands, Pulling the Bow, and Punching With Angry Eyes. I like the punching one, great stress reducer for the solar plexus. And you can ki-yip  on that one, that sort of scream that gathers your strength, the kind weight lifters do. 

Happy day, everyone, enjoy screaming and punching if that's where you are today.

Quiche and other chat

Yesterday the spinach quiche came to pass, in the cast iron pan, which I like because you start the dish on the stove top, bake it and you've used one pan, also cast iron is great for baking.

Here's the mixture, onions, fresh spinach, eggs and cheese

Coming out of the oven

And served with a handful of cilantro working as a green salad. Three more meals like this, because it heats up nicely.

That fortified me for the Friday knitting group, which was a quiet affair this week, no new work to show you. Conversation ranged over allergies, since mine have started, proving spring is springing, nuts, shellfish, Valentine's day cookies, covid precautions, heating in public buildings, septic systems, wells, flowering trees, absent members, and the Sock Ministry. 

Happy day, good weekend, everyone. 

Two years today since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We really must pass the aid bill. Aside from the humanitarian urgency, it actually provides employment all over the US, where weapons and ammunition are manufactured. This is a point overlooked by people opposed to helping Ukraine. Aside from their fighting our proxy war against the ambition of P***n.