looking for art

in which our plucky heroine and Nandina have a tinyworld adventure...

I've been charmed by reading about the various "Little Free (fill-in-the-blank)" things that folks are creating, in addition to the popular book exchange Little Free Libraries. Since it was not supposed to start raining until midafternoon, I decided that Nandina and I would take a few hours and go visit PDX FLAG, a Free Little Art Gallery out in the SE quadrant.

It seemed appropriate to take along one of my artist proof prints of the "F is for fun" blocks to share/exchange, and after checking the location on the PDX Sidewalk Joy map, we set out via Tri Met... The journey was fairly straightforward, requiring only one transfer and a bit of a walk, although somewhere along the way Nandina managed to lose one of her boots, which I didn't notice until we were home again! I suspect this is all part of her grand plan to have me make her some "Doc Marten" style boots instead.

While I was approaching the miniature gallery, two more folks drove up to visit it, and did their own art exchange, so it apparently is a lively sort of spot. There were a variety of different styles of wall art, all small(ish), and we picked out one to bring home, and left my little block print on the gallery shelf. I will likely visit there again from time to time, now that I know where it is, at times when I have the several hours to spare...

.
The sign below the Little Free Art Gallery says:
Anyone can
- leave art
- take art
Please leave
- people
- benches
※※※

November SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	6 jars quince jelly	glove thumb re-knit	-
2	tiny tiger stripe dress	-	-
3	-	-	-
4	-	-	-
5	-	-	-
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. there is much whimsy in the world I have not yet experienced, and, I am doing my part to add to that whimsy, via the Advent of a Better Year swap.
2. a mostly moderate weather day, that allowed an excursion
3. another free miniature Ravelry pattern, from designer that created the little witchy hat, the 10 Min Mini Basket! My tinyfolk and I agree, one can never have too many baskets...

Time of Isolation - Day 1221

bizzy buzz buzz, or return of Blue Cedar House

in which our plucky heroine appreciates the amazing efforts of her Blue Cedar House pals; the Acorn Cottage environs had a whole assortment of useful improvements this weekend, in addition to the regular maintenance of weeding out morning glory and campanula and mowing the backyard lawn...


Various salvaged materials, one of the parking strip boxes, and some venerable salvaged fence boards, were recombined to make a new raised bed in the middle of the mulched area in the backyard. Mighty Mindy filled the new raised garden bed and replanted ALL the strawberries... the ones from my Mud Bay friends (Bill and Cathy and Jen), and the ones from Julia. Still need to drape it with netting, after adding some stakes padded at the top, to keep away marauding squirrels. I am determined to get at least a few homegrown berries this year, and eventually dream of homegrown strawberry-rhubarb goodness

Since the lesser of the front parking strip crates moved to become part of the new strawberry bed, the blackcurrant (that has been sitting in a pot for several years) now resides to the left of the hopeful-someday persimmon tree. Some of the sturdy sticks from pruning the ornamental plum have been used to create a support tripod, to encourage it to grow more vertically

Mindy did a bangup job of dry brick work, creating a nice tidy home for the poor blackcurrant. My hope is that with some attention and actual ground to grow in,  instead of a nursery pot, that it will be a happier plant, and maybe produce fruit in a year or two. Blackcurrant is supposedly good for jam/jelly/cordials, but I've never yet tasted any.

The kitchen fridge plinth now has a drawer, (thank you Mr. Robertson) which is a useful place to store rarely used kitchen tools and equipment, like the turkey roasting pan, and the apple peeler gizmo. This is a very gradual project, initially begun in January, and not quite finished yet. There still needs to be some sort of wood finish, probably either black paint or stain on the case, and another layer of plywood on the top to overhang the drawer would also be a help

While her parents were working inside and outside the house, young Laurel helped by using various brush and sticks and things to build an elaborate if ephemeral fairy house in my driveway. She also drew the most adorable flip book animation as a Mother's Day gift for Mindy, but sadly I had no way to document it. I don't remember knowing how to do that when I was six!!

The chicken house has been moved adjacent to the old garden bed, and once I acquire some hens, they can happily turn the bed, eat the weeds and bugs, and have a nice spot for their initial foray into the land of Acorn Cottage... I will, of course, fence off their space from the rest of the yard, and will gradually build chicken hurdles, and chunnels to allow for more rotational grazing...

The salad table, now dense with tasty greenery, has been moved out of the direct southern sun exposure to the more shady side of the front porch.

Here is the new improved summertime porch configuration: salad table more shaded, and two chairs and a small table for pleasant outdoor time in the shade. Yet to come will be a canvas sunshade on the south end of the porch; one of the last errands we ran before my pals had to hit the road for their long drive home, was to the big box hardware store to get a large canvas tarp, which I'll be configuring to match the slant of the porch roof, and will hang from the rafters. I'd also like to do some refurbishing of the chair cushions, once I look through my fabric stash and see if there is anything "upholstery" weight.

of cabbage and not kings...

in which our plucky heroine considers progress made and imagines future improvements...

I started this quilt top about ten years ago. It is my interpretation of the "Moody Blues" design by Kaffe Fassett, done in a low contrast combination of indigo blues with accents of warm chocolatey brown...  his original quilt was made with more colorful fabrics. I am not much of a quilter, since the repetitive work I enjoy in my embroidery and knitting is instead intensely dull when piecing patchwork.

Indeed, I have made only two quilts in a long life of handwork and stitchery. I made a double monkey wrench quilt back in the early seventies, before I went away to college, and I made a log cabin photo quilt for my parents 50th anniversary.

This quilt top is only about a quarter completed, and once I find the many heavily curated fabric pieces I cut out for it, my current plan is to send it off to my online pal Cricket, who loves to quilt the way I love to embroider... She will turn it into a delightful thing for me, and in exchange I will make something for her that she will find equally a joy to have in her home...

(and just to keep a note of it here, I really like the simple border this woman chose for her version, with the narrow inner border with occasional triangles, and the plain outer border...)

:::

At the beginning of August there was the first glimmer of how the small bedroom here at Acorn Cottage could be improved... This past Sunday Kateline and I made a start on phase one, which will involve a vast amount of decluttering and reorganising. Each time a room or space is worked on, the things that don't belong end up either in their proper home, or in one of the two bedrooms. The proper home for fabric and the concomitant notions is in the small bedroom which is intended as a guest room/sewing space. It is obvious to me that to reach the level of function that I desire, there will need to be not only sorting and improved access, but a fair amount of culling of "material objects"

In the interest of documenting "before and after" improvement, these pictures will show more or less where the starting point is... though after our efforts on Sunday four grocery sacks went to Goodwill and two went into paper recycling... The state of the room is not very pretty right now, though there is room to deploy the guest futon, which has been moved to under the window wall on the north side of the room, which means that this is what you see when you open the door:

If you sit down on the futon, you see the closet wall, and the small bit of wall space next to the door. The closet formerly had a random assortment of sewing notions and "things" in the wire baskets in the white shelf unit. I don't know what wire baskets are actually intended for, I find them powerfully annoying. Kateline suggested that they be used for storing bedding for the guest futon, which makes a lot of sense, and that when guests are there they can store clothing in the empty baskets if desired...

The lower portion of the white closet unit has nice shallow drawers... I think that they will work well for storing a selection of small fabric bits, which I do use for things like bias binding and clothing embellishment. Looking online, found a clever way to fold fabric using a template; while the fabric bits are not nice regular fat quarters and yardage, but rather "cabbage" (collective noun for textile scrap), it should be possible to do something similar, and the intention is to store the pieces vertically, so as to have all the bits visible and contained neatly.


The west wall has some useful shelves and thread racks, but the entire wall (aside from the threads) needs emptied and sorted, as the space is being very poorly utilised. The older computer, needs to have my useful data removed and stored. The "desk", which is only a hollow core door, will be removed; the goal is to have only wall shelf storage here, for things like notions and possibly sewing patterns and other supplies and maybe more fabrics. I hope to have nothing piled or stored on the floor, and to be able to keep the folding sewing tables and ironing board corralled against this wall, under the shelves and in the corner of the room. That will allow easy access to one of the only two electric outlets in the room which is centered on this wall.

The east wall is partially quite functional, it has sturdy shelving that is currently holding lengths of fabric large enough for whole garments. The futon was formerly tucked underneath the shelving, which blocked the other of the two electric outlets. I would like this wall to hold most of my useable fabric collection, and hope to add another narrower shelf, at waist height, to store my sewing machines and serger when they are not in use. As is obvious, there is quite a way to travel before this space is clear, functional, and beautiful... as I keep telling myself, incremental progress is still progress.

:::

today I am grateful for the internets, which allow me to keep in contact with friends and family near and far, and which allow me access to "the reference library that never sleeps"...

may this gratitude counteract despair

a few Friday fragments

ManyHands Marketplace - Saturday November 30th - here at Acorn Cottage

One of the things that will be for sale at the ManyHands Marketplace, the holiday season gift sale some of my crafty pals and I will be having here at Acorn Cottage - wool felt cardinal ornaments, currently being watched over my catface needlebook. I can sew the birds whilst riding on the bus, but their little glass bead eyes need to be stitched in a more stable environment. There will be needlebooks for sale also, cat faces, and owls, and pug faces too oh my...

Our plucky heroine is considering the possibility of custom catfaced needlebooks, wondering if the intersection of those who like to sew, and those who love their cats might be a good place to offer commission possibilities - a special treat for the recipient, and profitable for me?

:::

On an entirely different topic, this fabric is astonishingly hard to photograph well... it was handwoven for me by Britta Hall, and is a wool birdseye twill with a navy warp and a russet brown weft... the fabric is dense but flexible, and is delightfully soft. Once I steam ironed it and smoothed it out, the final dimensions are 3 yards at 23 inches wide... some of it is intended for a warm wintertime hood (it is not scratchy at all, so will not need to be lined!), shall need to think about what the remainder will become.

the Bad Backyard, redeemed

For a while now our plucky heroine has been working on a little woolen cloak for Laurel (daughter to pals Mindy and Bill),  a cloak that would be similar to but not identical to the one that I made years ago for Young Heather, which is now being worn by Heather's daughter Elli... Elli and Laurel are best friends and roommates. In exchange for my labor and with generous kindheartedness, Mindy and Bill offered to come down here to Portland and help with the project of reclaiming...

...the really Bad Backyard :

...a year and a half of neglect will be a real challenge to turn around, and will require a lot of asking for and somehow finding help of various sorts...I don't know what it will take to bring this space back to useable, but will surely involve more than just me, probably some equipment, and some time from someone with a truck.

the former pathway to the back yard


the north side of the yard is still somewhat passable


the deserted chicken yard, intended to be home to future garden beds

the main part of the yard - waist high weeds...I suspect if I had quadrupedal livestock this would be a treat rather than a problem, it looks a lot like Matron of Husbandry's pasture photos - the issue being that it is not part of someone's back 40, but my very own tiny urban backyard

:::

This weekend, they were able to come down here, along with my dear oldest friend Sharon, who was willing to help childmind Laurel whilst the Mindy and Bill managed to get an amazing amount of work done on Saturday before the bulk of the rain and wind arrived here...

The pathway back to the yard is now passable!

random bits of fencing stacked near the shed, pear tree weeded and mulched with comfrey, and look! there is flat space visible and the blackberry vines are in the yard waste bin instead of under and around the shed doors.

Standing at the gate to the yard, you can see the corner of the (stupid) deck and the overgrown apple, and all across the yard it is no longer a hayfield

See!! Amazing work was done with a much beefier weedeater than the dainty little electric one I have. The chicken house has been moved to the future location.

The entire yard is visible, the dread hazelnuts have been ripped from their assorted abodes, and the feral rosebushes have been cut back so the side yard is accessible. A definite dent has been made in the morning glory population, though much more need to be removed. I can visualise where the future garden beds will be, and the future hen yard and chunnel.

Work parties are wonderful, I need to arrange a few more of them!  The poor neglected backyard, that has been de-evolving since my cancer diagnosis, is starting to turn around. With help, there will be some beds created to fill with homegrown veggies and fruit, and over time the yard will eventually become the oasis of useful beauty that was my original intention. Now there is space to plant the apple tree I have a gift certificate for, to lay out the plan that Master Gardener Sharon helped me create, and to step by step improve the outside as well as the inside of the house. I walked through fire to get a future that included me being alive for it, I want another thirty years, and I want to make this place the home it can become...

Thursday thoughts

Handwork on a tunic for my friend Seb Barnett, basic rectangular construction, but I figured that since ATW is not till the end of next week, that time spent riding transit between now and then meant adding some embroidered embellishment would be an option. Double overcasting on the neckline edge will add strength, and I plan on adding some simple decorative stitchery around the front yoke just for pretty...

:::

There are some small apples on the brushy growth from the damaged apple tree! On consultation with my tree guru, the small apples were thinned to about a big handspan apart, which yielded a small bowl full of green apples. These may go in the freezer till there is time to make some apple pectin, and maybe some lavender blueberry jam...

:::

Gah! almost lost the last hen... had fallen asleep way too early Tuesday night, like at around 8, when it was still light out, so apparently forgot to close the LoneChicken up... woke up about 2AM to the sound of chicken screaming... ran outside and managed to chase off "something"... ran back inside for flashlight, banging shin on clothesline pole that had fallen down in my haste outdoors... spent about an hour looking for hen, found her minus a few feathers... couldn't catch her till I thought to go inside and get the burden cloth (big canvas square) and drop it over her... chicken back in henhouse with the door shut, and now I am wide awake! Next on the agenda after ATW: building a chicken run or a chicken tractor... for sometime this year there will be new young hens that will actually lay eggs, and I want there to be some slightly more secure arrangements.

Really the LoneChicken is not doing well, chickens are flock animals and are unhappy alone. She doesn't want to come out of the chicken house in the morning, and then heads back in there midafternoon even though it is still light out. I don't want a "pet" chicken, my hens are livestock, not pets. She is not tame, and, of course, she is the one that was not laying eggs at all. Really the thing to do is to connect with my knowledgeable friends and turn her into hen soup, a transition I have never done, though I have eaten meat for most though not all of my life. It is a dilemma...

kibbles n bits

Tonight was the debut of our actual Neighborly Roundtable - the table set out on the corner for folks to come and share the bounty, whatever it is, of our local yards... and it was quite the success!

The corner neighbors (M & Co) went around the local blocks tucking sweet little notices into doorways so that there was some pre-Wednesday evening publicity. A few more neighbors came by, lots of chatting, lots of sharing: lettuces and greens, raspberries, homegrown flower bouquets, tart green apples, celery starts, a few recipes... As the Acorn Cottage garden scene is rather nil right now, but the fresh herbs are doing well, I made up mixed herb bundles to share. There is a planned pickling workshop later this summer, and some of us will be doing a fruit jam canning shindig sometime soon.

≈ : ♥ : ≈

V had asked me to come along to the Dragonsmist SCA demo at the Hillsboro Farmers Market last night. Brought cloisonne wire-bending as a demo craft, and while not the most eye-catching of activities, not only were there a few interesting conversations, but the three hours in social company ended up being quite productive; the wires for one of the pelican medallions are completely prepared! Yay!

Hadn't ever been to that market before, quite far from home (for me) it is an big weekday evening event, and with a different demographic and a different mix of vendors. Who knew that there was an active olive mill and orchard, with over 11,000 trees planted in the last six years, located about 25 miles from Portland?!? Artisan prices of course, but still a good local resource.

Ended up talking a bit with R about sauerkraut, and now am eager to try making some. Apparently homemade is very different from the canned stuff, and it is a quick ferment/culture that sounds rather accessible. Cabbage, a little salt, and some live culture whey of some kind (that clear liquid that seeps from yogurt should work...

≈ : ♥ : ≈

Thanks to the creative minds of my friends, I've several new ideas for salvaging the "bluu-muu-muu" japanese wanapi dress. Not sure yet what direction to go, but no longer feeling stuck... even thought of a rather steampunkish variation, not really suitable to the current fabric, but an interesting idea to keep in the style database inside my head.

Mushroom love

On Thursday, friends arrived to stay here this weekend, and from Olympia brought these beautiful homegrown shitaki mushrooms. My Mud Bay compatriots are a great inspiration in turning yard into microfarm; one rather unusual thing they've done is inoculating logs with mushroom spawn, with delectable results. I'm thinking about a mushroom quiche, with some of the new eggs... after all, it is Pi Day!

~ :♥: ~

And yesterday, there was a small package on the front walkway under the mailbox...it was... my package from the mushroom swap!

What fun to unpack: a knitted mushroom, just starting to ripen, with the gills showing, made by Sonya of knitsonya herself, our inspiring and inspired coordinator; and a most curvaceous dancing mushroom, from feathergirl, complete with a tiny handmade snail

And my remaining morels are delighted to meet a long lost needlefelted cousin, from east of the Cascade Range, thanks to Sara M of ibbyskibby; The morels are accompanied by a charming vignette of mushrooms on a moss covered slice of log from RaynaAnd centered on my front windowsill is a lovely patchwork handsewn beauty that came halfway around the planet from the UK to find a home here in the Pacific Northwest, (should settle in well, we have a very similar climate!) Thank you Sandra of miaumau
I am just delighted with the five mushrooms I received, all so different from one another and all so creative. This has been a great swap; if you're interested in seeing all the amazing variety that was created, check out the "Field Guide" flicker collages here and here.

~ :♥: ~

Now back to my regular pre-teaparty activities: baking housecleaning and sewing

outside a comfort zone

Finally completed the mobile for the 2009 swap. It was challenging to find suitable materials in the desired colors, I do very little with golden brown earth-tone, and I just had a hard time getting inspired for some reason. All my initial ideas just seemed too cute for me to stand making them, I try to make things that are a good balance between what I would enjoy and what seems appropriate. I'm feeling drawn to less figurative, more mid-century mobiles these days. Check out the wonderful mobile in this living room (September 1954, click the picture to enlarge).

I finally remembered that I had some scraps of indonesian silk-rayon ikat in rust and flame color, which ended up as raw-edged overlay on wool-blend felt, cut into vaguely ameoba shapes. I hope the recipient likes it. Here are the initial materials, and the whole thing laying flat.

I am as tired of being cold as I am of being hot in the middle of August. Must find a way to get some of the needed repairs done...

Last week, rambled around in some places I don't often go. Took the streetcar up to 23rd and walked around window shopping. Found a giant 4" tea ball that will work perfectly for making kombucha, and the closure looks durable. And I found a second magnetic test tube flower vase, so I can have flowers in the kitchen as well as the bathroom. I've often reflected on the way that window shopping is the vestigial remnant of the gathering part of hunter-gatherer. When I was a girl, my best friend and I (when we were not trying to figure out how to get off the planet and which of our classmates would make appropriately diverse spaceship crew) would play with our Barbies, but not the way intended by Mattel. Our girls were proto-survivalists, needing to survive in a post apocalyptic suburbia, and we cruised the neighborhood for suitable foodstuffs, berries and roots and pods. We fashioned doll clothing from leaves pinned with long thorns, and whole environments were built against the hedge in her front yard.

Anyone out there have a pickup truck and be around during the week - daytime? I need to get a cubic yard of leaf compost hauled, for my garden. I'll happily trade enameling, or whatever...

In which there is a change in the mushrooms...

When I initially started working on this swap, my additional self-challenge was to use what I already had; the mushroom stems were made from pieces of an old wool scarf, with the cap overlay made from the bits of felted yarn fringe. When I ran out of fringe, I thought to myself "no problem, I'll go to the yarn store and get some matching yarn to finish the project..."

To find matching yarn proved to be astonishingly difficult, and after trying four local yarn stores, I found a thinner yarn that looked more or less okay. There are myriads of greyish-tan wool yarns out there, all too yellow, or too pink, or too dark, or... I am cursed with a picky eye for color, and the yarns that the store clerks thought looked the same were just not. The thinner yarn is not really amenable to being couched down, but with a little experimentation, I realised that I could do an irregular blanket stitch over the surface of the mushroom cap, and that would give a rather more stylised, but still effective, morel. (I'm thinking about making some for my Etsy shop)

~ :♥: ~

Several months ago, I took this online test for color differentiation, and found the results to be rather interesting.

~ :♥: ~

and here is a picture of the springtime that is on the way; a patch of snowdrops in my front yard

Fabric fungus...

As I enjoy handicraft, I find that crafty swaps are hard to resist. The time available is a constraint, of course, but this Handmade Mushroom Swap, hosted by the creative and talented knitsonya, promised both a fun challenge and a delightful result. Who would not like to add a few tiny artist-made mushrooms to decorate their cottage...
I decided to use only materials that I already had, and was inspired by a creamy off-white felted scarf and some scraps of Harris Tweed from a long ago jacket my father wore, to try something different than the usual "cute mushroom with spots". Somehow the materials were saying "make us into a morel". So I did...

This is my second attempt, and at 3 1/2" the mushrooms are a little bigger than I'd hoped, but still well within the swap guidelines. I used some fender washers for the weighted base to keep such top-heavy 'shrooms stable, covered with some additional felted wool, this time from a dark green motheaten lambswool vest recently sent to me for just such crafty purposes by my Mom, (thanks Mom! you are getting one of these for your curio cabinet) ...for more mushrooms swapping goodness,
check out the flicker group

Seven Days of Happy: Day 7

...well, I'm only a bit late posting this, just never got around to the computer yesterday... Ironically, my happy thing is that technology allows us to keep in touch. That I can see holiday pictures from Berkeley, get messages New Zealand and receive good wishes from friends all over the sweet world makes me a very happy girl. Yuletide greetings to all, from Acorn Cottage here in snowy Portland!

~:~

I love beautiful handmade ceramics, so it was a pleasant surprise that my Sekrit Santa gift was a wee white pottery pipkin, made by the oh-so-talented Gwen-the-Potter.

... I found the perfect spot for it

atop the shelf-cupboard next to my front door. I love all the off-white colors together.

(I was trying to figure out what the collage mirror was reflecting, and I realised that it is the sculptural japanese paper lantern, and a tiny glimpse of the paint-by-numbers winter landscape on the opposite wall)

be prepared...

After my one student finished up, and headed back to Seattle with her husband (we checked the webcams for I-5, didn't; look too bad from the parts we could see) I decided that I needed to get out of the house, briefly. It is dark, and cold, and the wind is really Howling in the fir trees down the block. If I had an electricity-generating wind turbine on my roof, instead of the turbine attic ventilators, I'd be really delighted.

- - - ~:~ - - -

Gave the hens some warm water, and some "warm hen porridge" I concocted from leftover tofu and crackers. They looked at me like I was crackers, and went back into their cozy nest box. Well, I tried, I know they need water, but I can't force them. I'll try again tomorrow morning. Smokey loves this kind of weather, doesn't understand that I do not, at all. If I could work at home all winter, with enough housey-warmth that it wasn't onerous, and a full pantry, so all I had to do was look out the windows at the pretty white landscape whilst I was warm and dry and fed, indoors, well maybe I'd feel differently. I'm working on getting my life to that point, and a modicum of working at home is happening, like this weekend. Yay! (...now to move forward on keeping the house warmer during the two or three months where that is an issue)

- - - ~:~ - - -

So I decided, that since this arctic cold is forecast to last a week or so, to get another quart of milk, and to see what there was at Goodwill. Getting dressed to go out was a production. longjohns - wool socks - rain boots - already wearing a wool jumper and longsleeve turtleneck - (since the combination of wool sweater and Goretex rainjacket was less than warm, I switched to plan B) - SCA wool coat - Irish mohair scarf - embroidered tourney blanket wrapped and pinned as a cape - then a silk kerchief and my AnTIrian Viking hat. I looked quite a sight, and had I fallen over, I might have bounced... walking was really dicey. The sidewalks were a mix of crunchy and icey, and the roads were just all ice. Tomorrow will be special. After I get tired of enameling tonight, I'm going to recut the two pairs (grey fleece, and teal velour, ah well, warmth before beauty) of ginormous longjohns that I found at the Goodwill to fit my much shorter legs.

- - - ~:~ - - -

Happy happy phonecall yesterday. We sorted out some of the details of the sewing for new sink trade. I need to do some more detailed sketches, and make a template of the actual faucet piping, (and I'm thinking that probably also the drain fitting as well). And in exchange I will be making an interesting woolen winter coat, lined and tailored in a historical but not Viking style. I love projects that are challenging but do-able. I will be on the lookout for black wool, dense but not too thick, once I have some idea of the style. And someday, eventually, Acorn Cottage will have a copper cloud sink (grin)

11:23 pm: noisy night
The wind is HOWLING, not just high in the treetops, but round the corners of Acorn Cottage. I'm going off to gather the candle lanterns and matchboxes before bedtime, Just In Case.

Dog-food soup

I installed the new version of Firefox, since it kept begging me to do so every day. As I occasionally do, I then proceeded to irreparably screw things up. I got upset about the way they'd changed the bookmarking websites process, and on-purpose but totally unintentionally deleted about two thirds of the websites I'd bookmarked. Not as bad as the time I deleted C's address book from the jointly used computer. About as bad as the time (as a computer-using newbie) I deleted all the "ugly" fonts, including one that Windows needed to run properly. That I fixed by re-installing Windows, but I'm not sure that C has ever totally forgiven me for the little address book mishap...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Having been a hermit for the whole summer,I'm going to be brave and start having folks over to visit. Tea party this month on Saturday afternoon, September 20th. Theme will be "the Toroidal Tea Party" I'll get out the bucket of beads, and find some wire/pliers/etc. Come on over and play, bring beads or whatever... As always tea and snacks are provided and foodly contributions welcomed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Started writing about my waay too much time online last night reading serger reviews, then pushed some button on the keyboard and my text disappeared. Just as well, I was getting rather grumbly. The short answer is the the reliable machine that many many people love, is distributed by Walmart. Yuck! Also was useful to find out that some of the other low end machines I've seen around, are regarded as frustrating boat anchors by other users. Move along now, nothing is happening here...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My blacksmith friends came to visit this afternoon, picked up the leftover cloth bits and their tunics that were used as models for their new clothes I made earlier this Summer. We hashed out the details of the ironwork that I will be getting in (partial) trade, before too long there will be a spiffy forged pot-rack above the stove here at Acorn Cottage. Whoo Hoo! I will need to find a nice long board to attach to that wall, since there is no real likelihood that there will be wall studs where I want them to be. Hmmm maybe add wood trim all around the room at that level... will have to do some sketches...could look vaguely Arts and Crafts... would be a bit low for a freize/picture rail effect, but I need to be able to reach the pots and pans! Ideas they are a-jumping

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, and about that soup...I noticed at my local New Seasons that they were selling sawn-up chunks of lamb leg bones, really meaty chunks, labeled as from their usual producer/farmer, in the freezer of treat food for dogs. Packaged by the New Seasons butchers, fresh that day, my guess is from the "boneless rolled lamb leg roasts" in the big refrigerated case of treat food for people. SO I bought some, and put it in the crock pot. With some barley, and some carrots and onions, and some herbs. And you know what...Scotch Broth is delicious. When times get hard, the weird get clever...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~