Finally, bread, Tuesday knitting group, Textiles and Tea

The endless cold rainy weather finally pushed me to making bread. Yesterday's soup, of tomatoes, chicken and chickpeas, in a broth of chicken and dandelion greens, needed an accompaniment.

So here's whole-wheat, AP and chickpea flour, big loaf to cut into four, three now in the freezer. 

It's got great flavor and you see a nice dense texture. The crust is crisp, not hard. This is so much better than the bread I bought for several weeks till I got my baking mojo back. One slice is as satisfying as a couple of the air filled shop loaves, even though they were wholegrain with seeds and good stuff.

This is helping with my current struggle with being a civilian again, no medical people hovering and advising and encouraging, neighbors off high alert.  There's a lonely re-entry phase and it's not easy. 

The drama's over, things are pretty smooth, and all the people have gone away again. I wonder if old people who often consult doctors are in need of personal attention as much as medical guidance.  Anyway, I knew there would be a letdown and it's here. 

It's made room to be more distraught about the endless bad political news, so I need a new coping strategy. I'll let you know if I find one. 

Activism I always have, and here's where I remember to say thank you to readers, particularly new and helpful commenters. 

You are more important to my mental health than you know. Much more, particularly the good humored people, who, despite their own struggles, are still generous enough to encourage me.

I continue to be a bit accident prone, in the style of the Three Stooges. Today's feat: I managed, while rinsing a cup, to aim about a pint of water up my bathrobe sleeve, then when I looked down at it, it poured back over my feet. So by seven am I'd already changed to a second, dry, robe and socks.  This wasn't the coping strategy I had in mind.

But this sustaining lunch was a good step 

Cod baked with butter, salt and black pepper, with fresh apricots, celery including clippings of foliage from the celery heart growing in the kitchen.

Today's Tuesday knitting group was my reentry! Welcomed back by old friends, and there were three new people all wanting to learn. So, our usual great teacher absent on family business, two of us heroically offered to teach crochet. They were all adept and it was a fun session.  So good to be back.

In the foreground, my crocheting staggers on

Lovely stitch pattern for a headband.

In between learning and showing, talk ranged over antique dolls, garage sales, Indian embroidery, grandchildren, weather, flying with knitting needles, the Dollivers, "Amelie", and more. 

Then home to  Textiles and Tea with Johanna Norry,  who works in collaborative and solo weaving,  with photography, examining personal and social history.  She's a professor of textiles with degrees both in textiles and anthropology.

two collaged family photographs of the same people, different times

A relative whose figure was described more than the crime she was accused of, a social commentary.

This is an indigo painted piece, woven ikat style

here's one of my favorite techniques, clasped weft, dramatic results but simple in execution, a collaborative pair.

This is a cross stitch selfie, 6" x4", with about 100 hours of work in it. She designed it with an app then stitched the result.

here are photographs of her daughter and her, woven together and paired with a collaged weaving

Happy day, everyone. Mine certainly was.

The reveal

 The cooking and baking day yielded 

Carrot, sweet potato soup 

Whole-wheat, oat and chickpea bread with cumin seeds

Cordial from fresh limes and lemons with turmeric, honey, ginger and molasses, seen here draining 

Mayo in the background that didn't emulsify but did taste very good, so it works as an extra flavor, a spoonful trailed over the soup bowl to serve.

So now even if I have no interest in cooking for the next few days, I'll still eat well. Supper was a bowl of soup, slice of new baked bread, glass of cordial. The cordial is quite intense, so you dilute it to drink.

Happy day everyone, I hope everyone is holding up okay. Ted says sit in the sun, it's good.

Remember you're somebody's guiding light 

Photo AC 

Misfits, stitching and spuds

 Yesterday's Misfits box was small but good. I didn't order potatoes, because I was expecting a local supply.

I ordered the Imperfect Foods multigrain bread to check it out. Turns out it was classed as imperfect because it was a little bit lopsided! Otherwise fine, as you see, breakfast toast

Beats me why the normal shape of baked goods won't be acceptable to stores, but oh well.

Speaking of breakfast, I usually have half a pita with greens and fruit, often spinach and blueberries. Here's a variation I liked, dried cranberries with a leaf of  romaine that fitted into the bread, very pleasing.

About the potato supply, Gary hauled this over last night, for me to harvest. 

I'll do this in a while and show you tomorrow. Likewise weaving which I haven't got to yet.

But stitching is moving along, just a pleasure to work small on individual sections. Here's where we are to date, planned and designed, ready to stitch

and completed, waiting to be eventually placed

and here's the next one, still in the thinking stage

I like this color combo quite a bit. 

There's a lot of Albers style color thinking here, colors changing dramatically when they're next to different others. 

If you don't know this blog but love embroidery, especially whitework, take a look. She doesn't post often but it's so worth waiting for. Fils et Aiguilles,  meaning threads and needles, that order works in French better than needles and threads,  written in French with onboard English translation

I think this designer whose directions she was following Hiroko Takeuchi, is the artist who designed that calendar I showed you each month last year.  

Happy day, everyone, Gary fixed the doorbell, turned out to be a simple fix, not buying a new one, after looking at wireless, easily installed ones. Hoping  your problems and doorbells have easy solutions.

Art my way, and finally bread

 I couldn't wait for the Art Shaped book to arrive, so I tried out my materials with my own way of doing it.

I'd seen this image

and liked the concept of a landscape with fissures and confused shapes, but I wanted an aerial view. I didn't look at this picture again, just went from the concept into the materials and had a good time. 

I learned quite a bit about manipulating card and paper by hand. Darrell does a lot of precision cutting in his work, and maybe I will too, after I study his book. But tearing and squashing is more my style.

Here's a step by step, to where I am now. I had to work on the fteezer top and the kitchen island, because the table is covered in jigsaw puzzle. But the light is good.

Left is a painting done on my hand dyed fabric cut and  reassembled tumbling block style, which I decided to use as a base. Good size, already wired for hanging. It's ready for a new life.

 

And found I had to cover the surface with bits of card stock when  tape wouldn't stick.

Under way squashing and tearing and sticking, rock formation ideas

Then I added in tissue paper, for more detailed softer shapes 

And here's where we are till tomorrow, when I paint it, outside, not wanting vapors from the spray in the house 

The colors are irrelevant at this point, just stuff I had lying around, including some of those small rapid paintings I did last summer. They're getting a second life. They'll be painted over.

At first I thought I'd spray the whole thing with the dark green enamel I have ready, then pick out highlights in liquid metallic acrylic. 

But now I think I'll spray more sparingly, to see if occasional visible colors work like rocks. We'll see. This was a good day.

Meanwhile, while I was tearing and squashing snd sticking, nature was creating a wonderful artwork right there as the sun moved round.

I also finally baked bread this afternoon, whole wheat with a bit of white and a cup of oats.

And when I sits I reads, so now that This Golden Fleece is done, highly recommended, and Beasts in my Belfry, likewise, I'm into (writer, not actor) Elizabeth Taylor's complete short story collection. 

 

She's pitch perfect. You have to keep stopping to make sure you see what she did there.  I'd read "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont" ages ago and noticed her point of observation is very much like William Trevor in his short stories. It's a similar perception, rather than similar writing.

So that's where we are, and I'm about to order Misfits and see if this week I can get anything on my list, before thinking of a tuna melt for supper, home-baked bread, a favorite easy meal.

Happy evening everyone, follow your own lead, the others are all taken. 

That's at a minimum, which is also the puzzle answer, but you knew that.