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. 

Top page shows tab, meaning slits top and bottom, bottom one slot, which enables the tab page to slide through and sit with tab and slot working together .

Next shows the spine, all the pages seated.

Here I'm turning the pages 

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. 

Forgot to blog! Better late..

Today was all rain, all the time. Handsome Son visited this afternoon, repeatedly sampled the ANZAC biscuits, and pronounced them good.

We decided not to take down the winter, red felt, front door curtain yet, still cold. The summer, green and white striped canvas, one can wait a couple more weeks.

And here's the updated, improved, weaving area

 

The box of tools slides under the stool after each session. I realized that some of my mistakes were the result of poor light, since I'm working against the window,  with the work in shadow.

So I installed a light I made years ago from a coffee can and a light fitting. Can and shade decorated  with handmade paper.

Tomorrow I do an incoming Freecycle, trays I've needed for years. And Handsome Son brought me a box of his winnowings to Freecycle for him. 

So maybe that balances my bringing in a couple of trays? 

About the Haggard Hawks puzzle, instead of my just giving my answer, especially since I think there are more than one answer to one of the clues, why not post your answers so we can compare notes?  Go!

Happy whatever's left of the day, everyone, I'm wondering if I can find an ark on Freecycle, solid rain for over 24 hours, and days more to come.

Tiny bouquet, warping and Textiles and Tea

Yesterday I found carpets of violets, chickweed and henbit everywhere I was walking, so a few flowers came home with me

Short lived but lovely. Sitting on an antique piece of crochet I acquired with a lot of other pieces on Freecycle years ago.

And I set up the next scarf, this one for me, handwash wool. I used a long knitted scarf to measure the warp length. Much longer than the first, where various mishaps shortened the warp threads as I went.

This is half the threads threaded onto the heddle, the warp being strung between the post on the windowsill and the pasta machine clamp on a heavy chair. The color is Forest.

In the afternoon, ready for Textiles and Tea with Maria Sigma, I baked ANZAC biscuits (cookies in north America)

A couple of them went next door to Gary along with a rapid lesson on the significance, and he'd never heard of any of it, so now he knows.

Then I was ready for t and t

with this young Greek weaver, who moved from Athens to London to continue her textile education. She's devoted to sustainable materials and methods, natural colors and a minimum of loom waste.

She's in galleries in New York, London and Athens and works mainly on commission. She's also written two books, one of them for children. Take a look

The piece shown above the books has touches of silk, but she uses mainly wool and cotton, and avoids loom waste wherever she can, or finds ways to recycle and reuse it. A very modern outlook. She's also an engaging personality. 

When the interviewer asked her about her favorite tea, the usual icebreaker, because "you're in London, you must drink tea" she burst out laughing and said "But I'm Greek, so, not so much!"

And yesterday I came across this

Thought you'd like it.

Happy day everyone, I'm off to thread my heddle. Literally. No double meaning there.. just keeping my heddle happy..

MicroSeason 13

First hard frost last night. My happy eyes knew before I checked the temperature, that the pollen is over for the year, yay, I can spin again. 

We're at MicroSeason 13, birds finally at the feeder, Carolina wrens and juncoes. So their wild food supplies are low enough, after the frost, to send them to my patio.

Here's an indoor planting update:

Rose of Sharon seedlings

Moringa seedlings. Every part is edible, I have to look up cooking uses.

My ginger, continuing to grow indoors after a summer outside. A while yet before I can harvest any.

And here's an enchanting way of seeing

I've had a few requests for the recipe I used for the ANZAC biscuits. There are others, but this is the one I used, well, adapted.

Oven temp 325°f, about 9-11 minutes, longer is crisper, shorter is chewier. I baked a couple of extra minutes more because mine were a bit bigger than instructed. 

Golden syrup not available here, I used a combo of molasses and honey. No ap flour, used whole-wheat. No brown sugar, but the molasses I used would work on the white sugar I used. I don't like coconut, so used a cup of oatmeal, 2 total, instead of one cup each oatmeal and coconut. 

It still worked, despite all my hacking.

And I can't resist showing you my favorite graphic on a commerical product, the Riddle of Samson on the golden syrup can.

It was the riddle he put to the Philistines as a wager. Various translations, and the one I knew went: 

Out of strength came forth sweetness

Out of death came forth life.

The answer: bees making honey in the carcase of a dead lion.

This is from the olden days of ad copy, which assumed a working knowledge of the Old Testament. They ignored the fact that golden syrup isn't honey, though!

ANZAC biscuits for Remembrance Sunday and other stuff

This is partly my subconscious at work. Yesterday I had a sudden urge to bake ANZAC biscuits, ANZAC being Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Did so

Then today realized it's Remembrance Sunday, poppy wearing in some places ss a remembrance of the poppies flourishing in the battlefields of World War I, as a result of the upheaval and deaths on the land, a grim fertilizer.

Today remembers everyone, all wars, including the brave Australian and New Zealand soldiers who crossed the planet to fight at Gallipoli. These biscuits are based in the recipe devised by women to send to them from home, sturdy enough to survive the journey and still be edible. I'm honoring them all in a small way.  And this includes Veterans Day, it's all related 

And while I was baking in international mode, I made a loaf of Irish soda bread. Why not.

And, after watching and  doing screenshots and editing and all that that entails, as the BBC used to intone, a wonderful presentation about the textile treasures in the Tudor court, for another post, this seemed like a good idea