good for what ails you...

in which our plucky heroine makes Thom Ka Gai...

The super-delicious Thai-style chicken soup turns out to be possible to make, at least a passable homemade version... I will certainly make this soup again from time to time, as even with the specialty ingredients it is less expensive that going out to eat. Plus I was able to use my homemade chicken stock from the freezer, share a tasty dinner with friends*, and still have enough soup leftover two more breakfasts.

I found this recipe in an old issue of Cooks Illustrated. I did substitute onion for the shallots, since homegrown green onions are right on my front porch, and green Thai curry paste for the red Thai curry paste, since I already had a jar in the fridge, and the ingredients are almost identical, green chili vs red chili) I also took a side trip to Hong Phat Grocery over on 82nd, which will become part of my bi-monthly shopping rotation. They have a much wider selection of things like coconut milk, and the lemongrass there is about 75% cheaper than at New Seasons. Maybe next time I will bring back a bag of frozen shrimps and make Thom Ka Goong...

* Vanya and Liz are in the middle of moving, and while I am not really sturdy enough to tote boxes up and down stairs, I figured that a home cooked meal would not go amiss. Indeed, when all the kitchen supplies are in boxes betwixt and between, hot soups and veggies proved very welcome.

SWAP 2018 cardigan progress

in which our plucky heroine is pleased...

My idea, to reverse the colorway to add contrast to the sleeves, is looking mostly the way I had hoped. It would have been even better had I used a chocolate brown fabric paint to stencil the sleeves, but hindsight is 20/20... One sleeve has all the decorative stitching completed, and now I've begun working on the final sleeve. It took me about a week to do the one sleeve, but that included the several long car trips to and from Olympia, as well as quite a bit of downtime used for stitching whilst I was visiting up there...

I am eager to start assembling the actual garment! Looking at the pieces together, I am feeling that the edge binding would be best as indigo blue, once I get to that part of the project. Actually, the sketch I did of the cardigan sort of shows a darker binding around the neckline and edges, now that I think of it...

Different lighting totally changes the appearance of the pieces, the upper photo is pretty accurate, this one not so much. Still, there was some question on SG about why I basted the edges around my pattern pieces. Actually I baste around the edge, and also around the various motifs, prior to all the permanent hand stitching.

When I begin each pattern piece, I cut out the upper layer of jersey and do whatever painted stenciling is needed, let that dry and be heat set, and then carefully smooth that layer onto the underlayer of jersey fabric, doing my very best to match the grainline of the knit. Then I baste all around the upper piece carefully, before I cut out around the edge to get two matching layered pattern pieces. Once the layers are cut free of the underlayer fabric, I also baste around each of the motifs, so that the underlayer does not shift while I am doing the permanent stitching. When I am finished with all the permanent hand stitching, and have cut out the centers of the reverse applique motifs, I remove all the internal basting, but leave the outer edge still basted until I am ready to assemble the garment. This keeps the edges nice and smooth, and only a little bit curled up.

Jersey fabric has a terrible desire to curl into rolls as tight as rolls of cinnamon bark. I have learned a few ways to deal with that, but it is always a concern. For hemlines, I can add a several inch wide band of jersey fabric to the inside, with the "curl factor" in the opposite direction. For adding folded over narrow binding, it is necessary to heavily starch the strips and iron them into whatever folded configuration is needed, otherwise you just end up with rolled up strips of spaghetti

scribal shenanigans

in which our plucky heroine attempts to cheer self up...

At Scribal Night last week, when I saw this appealing new charter design, I immediately wanted to paint it! And contrary to my usual practice, this one simply demanded a somewhat abundant use of metallic paint

The fretted background, and chickadees, reference the heraldry of the current Royalty. The birds are painted metallic silver and black, and I had fun decorating the green border with tiny lotus blossoms and archways.

Once I realised that the background in the side panels also wanted to be metallic golden, the rest of my choices for color and pattern seemed to be much easier; I can use tiny subtle patterns and they still show up well... One of my favorite things to paint is the motifs on their "silk samite" garments.

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Ten jars of strawberry/rhubarb sauce now cooling on the countertop ready to put away. A bit further along towards my goal to refill the pantry with food that will get eaten, and to empty the freezer of the stored produce waiting to be processed.

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January SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	A/C cardigan back	worm bin bedding	bad corduroy
2	12 jars canned pears	restring amber Laurel	paper recycling
3	A/C cardigan fronts	Dad slipper fix	boxes of tiles
4	24 flannel baby wipes	hang envelope holder	old bookcase
5	blood orange marmalade	Dad slipper resole	wood scraps
6	12 jars awesome sauce	x	x
7	charter painted	x	x
8	10 jars strawberry/rhubarb	x	x
9	A/C sleeve	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

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grateful to: Past Me who cleverly put assorted fruits into the freezer for future processing