The Attic

Slogging Towards Thursday

I'm almost afraid to say this, but things are going pretty well in terms of Thanksgiving prep.  (Listening for the sound of shoes dropping....) I made some progress over the weekend (some GREAT rolls baked and in freezer, more in a bit), table set with an interesting centerpiece that eliminated a last-minute trip to the grocery store for flowers later in the week.  I'm especially pleased with that.  It meant I could do ALL the grocery shopping yesterday, late in the day, and all that's left is to pick up the turkey this afternoon. (Done)

Well, almost all.  I got the bright idea to make new napkins to go with the turkey china.  Found fabric, cut napkin-sized squares, dragged out the serger and.....spent two hours trying to rethread it (almost successfully, but fixed the mistake I made quickly) and then whipped through the six of them in about fifteen minutes!  Seriously the best rolled hem I've ever done (patting self on back), but.....my Fray Check to secure the ends is nowhere to be found!  A quick trip to a local fabric store should fix that.  (Done.)

So, those rolls.  I found the recipe on the King Arthur Flour website (or in a daily email, can't recall) and thought they sounded intriguing.  Hawaiian Buns.  Made with pineapple juice and brown sugar and vanilla and butter and eggs.  Unbelievably good.  The recipe isn't going to be easy for someone who is new to bread baking, but it's not that difficult if you have a little experience.  Do it in a stand mixer.  At that, you'll have to do a little hand kneading, but once the dough has risen, it is easy to shape.  Check the website under "recipes".

Next up:  start some Vanilla Ice Cream.  By the way, have you SEEN the price of vanilla lately?  OMG.  I saw a woman nearly have a heart attack in the baking aisle of my market yesterday:  over $16 for a little tiny bottle!  What the heck is up with that?  Well, I googled it and there have been weather disasters in Madagascar that wiped out the crop and....severe shortages.  Just so you know.

More to come....

 

 

 

Crunch Time

I've been falling down on my pledge to post every day in November but there just hasn't been that much blog-worthy the past few days.  Poking at the holiday prep and starting to eliminate some things from the list to keep from getting too stressed!

For example, I had the germ of an idea for a table centerpiece (what was I thinking, putting both leaves in the table for five people?), but the original plan involved doing a flower arrangement in a great ceramic pumpkin bowl/vase thing that I have.  Pinterest told me to use roses and mums, so....okay, on the list.  I did something like that for a dinner party and it was gorgeous.  It also took forever to put together, cost a fortune, and....everyone thought it was a dried arrangement I had purchased.  Seriously?!  

Plan B came to me this morning while I was staging the table, partly to play with some ideas, and partly for a little photo shoot to send to a friend.  I grabbed my pair of antler "sheds" that we purchased in Montana on our last trip before the Old Man got sick, and added those to what I had already.  Oooo...nice!  Then I looked at that damn empty pumpkin and had another idea:  grab the fake pumpkin (very real looking) from the hall decorations and try that.  Yup.  Perfect.  No flowers, although I might see what the yard has to offer.  No last minute trip to the grocery store and I can now get all my shopping done on Monday.  This will save a bunch of time and money....and do you really think my son or the two grandsons would even notice if I did a flower arrangement?  I think they'll notice the antlers, though, heh, heh. 

 

I'm doing rolls today (cake is done and in the freezer) and doing my Martha Stewart impression by making napkins at some point.  Last time I tried that, it was a Thanksgiving morning and I ran the sewing machine right over my thumb.  Broke the needle.  Inside the thumb.  Yeah.  Fun times.  (The end of that story happened six months later when the big black scab finally came off in the shower....and I could see something shiny inside the thumb.  Not one of my best tricks.)

Time to get moving....stay tuned.

 

Bittersweet..

That's how I feel when I finish a weaving project and clear off the loom!  Great sense of accomplishment on the one hand, but then there's that empty feeling (and the "oh, god, I have to wind another warp" feeling) I get when looking at a loom with nothing on it.  Weaving is not done till it's done, though, and I've just completed the first step towards having finished products:  I've cut the towels apart, serged the edges, and am now ready to "wet finish".  This is where the magic really happens, as the fabric becomes more cohesive and little flaws usually disappear in water.  I have to admit that I don't really like the last step....HEMMING!  I might have an easier way to do this, thanks to a new foot for my Bernina, but won't know till I experiment.  

And now, TA DA!

That did not go as planned....two missing photos!  Will add later...stay tuned.

There we go!  Black one is MINE, all MINE!


 

Thanksgiving Prep Marches On

Maybe crawl would be a better word.  I'm dead in the water today, not even a piano lesson, because of a serious issue with my oven.  Today was the only appointment available....sometime between 11-4.  I'm dangerously low on coffee, so I hope they come early enough to get that errand done!

So, I did some laundry, researched some recipes, ran the dishwasher, emptied the dishwasher, and made this little beauty: 

Which no one will eat but me.  However, I LOVE Cranberry Orange relish, and could eat the whole thing, so win-win.  Easy recipe:  cook 1 bag of fresh cranberries, 1 cup orange juice, plus finely grated rind of 1 orange, and 1 cup of sugar till the berries pop and it starts to get thick.  It will get even thicker after it chills in the fridge for a day or so.  Mine, all mine....

Update:  repair guy called and sounded REAL enthusiastic about driving to my house from wherever he was (not) and announced he's just going to order the part (that he replaced only three-four months ago) and he'll see me when it gets here. GRRRR!  

Fingers crossed the oven works okay through the holiday (he "thinks" it will be fine)...... 

 

Oops....

Never got around to the blog yesterday...I think that's my first miss so far in November.  My excuse was a rather hastily arranged visit from a cousin of my husband's...came for lunch and stayed most of the afternoon catching up and reminiscing.  He's become quite a vagabond in his retirement, and that's how the invitation to pay a visit came about:  I saw a picture he posted on Facebook of his van parked beside some dunes on Cape Cod!  Well, that means driving right by CT, no matter which way he headed back west!  

In spite of my visitor, I managed to weave for quite a bit yesterday morning and am determined to finish off my length of plain weave fabric (or napkins, although that's not looking good at this point) today.  If it kills me.  I'm far enough ahead on the Thanksgiving planning that I can spare a few hours....as soon as it warms up a bit.  I really wish the Old Man had put a bit more heat in that space when he was using it as a woodworking shop!  I was tempted by a more efficient electric space heater at Costco last week....might have to get it if the Weather Guessers are even close on the long range predictions for cold and wet this winter.  Damn the expense...I need to weave!

I've been trying to set some Weaving Goals for the next year (close enough to 2018 to be doing that) and find that the two Vavstuga classes I'll be taking will determine some of the direction.  The Rosepath pillow class with Anna Ostlund, visiting teacher from Sweden, will be a bit different from other classes I've taken:  the looms will be beamed, but I will have to thread and sley the loom myself.  And do the tie up, all of which is something we normally do in pairs.  Anyway, some practice wouldn't hurt.  I also want to "practice" weaving Rosepath.  Don't want to be the dunce of the class!  That's late August.  Soon after that I will go back for a class on Swedish Rag Rugs....that's pretty cut and dry, probably 4-shaft, no issues, so I won't factor that one into my schedule.  Unless I really need a rug somewhere :)

In light of my "realization" the other day that weaving for gifts might not be the best use of my weaving time, I also realized that I will have more time to plan some larger projects for me, or at least for my house.  We did a lovely lace pattern in one class that is ideal for curtains, and I do need curtains!  So, that project will get bumped to the top of the list.  I'm also fascinated with the idea of weaving fabric for clothing.  Simple stuff like vests, jackets, skirts.  Frankly, I'm not in love with the Saori weaving, and I just don't "get" some of the "unstructured" items I see on Pinterest and Facebook groups.....I'm thinking more Harris-style tweed and Chanel!

You'll have to stay tuned to see how this planning all turns out.  Maybe I should start by finishing this apron (wove the fabric at Vavstuga) for Thanksgiving!

Weaving Thoughts

I had a great idea for a blog post this morning, just as I was coming to, and then totally lost the idea.  Drives me crazy when that happens.....but.  It came back to me as I was in the studio weaving this afternoon!  I took a few pictures of everything more from MY point of view, actually weaving, rather than the normal camera point of view, and that got a few things going. 

Here is the situation.  I'm finishing a batch of towels that were planned for Christmas gifts and planning the next project on both looms, when it hit me.  I ASSUME people want my handwoven items, but what if they really don't?  Okay, I know a few people really seem to like the towels, runners, whatever, but there is a problem there....some like them so much they don't want to USE them!  That's nice, I guess, but they are TOWELS.  Cotton towels.  Then I recently found out the other side of the story....someone who gets an occasional gift towel informed me in no uncertain terms that she didn't want any more, had too many towels.  So, on the one hand I get "too precious to use" and on the other "oh, god, not more towels".  Yikes.  Makes me wonder what all those brides were saying about me after the showers.  Yeah, I wove sets of towels for gifts.

That got me thinking: am I totally wasting valuable weaving time trying to get gifts off the Christmas list when they may or may not be appreciated?  Have I given too many towels?  Maybe I should get a little more self-centered and start weaving for myself!  I have SO many things I want to try, so many rugs I need for MY house, so many curtains, table cloths and blankets!  Well, you get the picture.  Now, I'm not blaming the people who get these towels for gifts necessarily, but myself for possibly inflating their worth.  In terms  of a gift.  One, maybe.  A second one?  I can see where that might be an imposition!

Something to ponder, for sure.  This is one of the reasons (I guess this idea has been percolating for a while) I decided to weave off the last few yards on the huck towel warp as plain weave.  Whether it becomes enough for napkins, it definitely becomes valuable fabric in my stash for projects down the road.  It could be a pillow backing, lining in a tote bag, or, those napkins.  The other reason for a premature end to those towels is that...I accomplished what I set out to accomplish (master the monster loom, try changing tie ups) and it wasn't all that much fun.  However, I got at least six or seven towels and a nice table runner, plus whatever yardage, so that's all good, too.

Now to figure out where I go from here.  Do I weave what I want to weave, with no outside recipients in mind, or do I keep weaving for gifts?  Wish I knew.  I also wish I knew where those darn photos are!

 

 

Veterans' Day

This day has always had two meanings for me.  The obvious is that my father, who died a few months before I was born, gave his life for this country and this flag, over Germany in 1944, in World War II, European Theater.  He willingly left college to enlist in the Army Air Corps, and left for England barely a month after he married my mother.  He was a Ball Turret Gunner in a B-17 and was shot down in a dog fight on August 16, 1944.  His remains are buried in the American Cemetery in Neuville-en-Condroz, Belgium.  

The other meaning is that it was my grandmother's birthday.  We were always very close, perhaps because she cared for me for a year while my mother was recuperating from tuberculosis.  I guess I bonded with Gram.  Still miss her.

I'm still struggling a bit with the new Mac operating system, but will beat it into submission eventually.  Waiting for my photo files (I know, I know, I have saved way too many....will purge one of these days) to update.  The good news is, when I do finally get one into the blog, it now is right-side up.  Something to do with cleaning out cookies.  I had a cute picture ready for today's post, but I might be able to get it in from the phone.  Will try. (Hey!  It worked!)

Wonder what this could be?  Stay tuned to find out!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Yesterday was one of those days.  If not for a few good things, I might have been tempted to crawl into bed at 4 pm!  On balance, could have been worse.

One good thing was getting another thing off the Thanksgiving Do-Ahead list and into the freezer.  I decided to make a batch of Peter Reinhart's Cranberry Walnut Celebration bread, something I've made and loved in the past.  If you don't have this great book (The Bread Baker's Apprentice) the Celebration bread is worth the price of the book alone!  I might have broken the new mixer in the process of kneading the dough, but that remains to be seen. That's the Bad.   I'm so far not impressed with the mixer, anyway.  The bread came out great, and is now in the freezer.  Onward.

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Cold as it was, I managed to get a little weaving done, but brain wasn't really in it.  While puttering around on the computer I suddenly found my computer screen frozen, with a big, ominous warning about "trojans infection my hard drive" superimposed upon the official cover photo for Apple's Help page.  Uh, oh.  But, wait....I'm not that gullible and I've danced this dance before.  It took a while to find the actual Apple phone number, not the one that "Rajid from Apple" tried to convince me to call, and got set up with an Apple tech who was able to get a screen shot of my computer over the phone, and guide me through the process of checking the entire computer.  Scary, but everything is now cleared from the computer that might have been causing the issues, and there is a malware program installed.  So, watch out for "phishing"....these people are devious.

Scary, huh?  Losing three hours yesterday afternoon was definitely the Ugly, but, all's well that ends well.  I hope....

Also speaking of things computer, I upgraded to the new operating system, High Sierra, the other night. My Support Desk tech told me it was "awesome" that I had done so (heh, old lady, indeed!) and I need to spend some time reading all the little tutorials, but one thing I noticed is that my Typepad photos transfer into the blog right side up....YAY!  Well, if they come in at all.  I'm still trying to find the photo of that bread, but that's probably a Cloud issue.  I will add it, if I find it.

Winter seems to have made an early appearance, after some balmy days in the past few weeks.  It IS almost mid-November, but wind chills of 15 degrees today?  So not ready.  A good day to stay in where it's warm.....but I can't.  Desperately need to make a dump run (recycling can wait till a warmer day) and have a hair appointment this afternoon.  (In my old age, I like getting my hair "done", although it's now called a "blow out" because there are no rollers or bonnet hair dryers involved, as back in the old days :) I have done this several times for special occasions because it feels good!  Amanda gives a nice little scalp massage (purrrr) and gets my hair straighter than I can.  I found out several weeks ago that she has some "regulars" who get blown out every week and gives them a nice discount.  Count me in!  I don't go out to lunch or dinner, I don't get my nails done....this is now my little weekly indulgence.  After that, maybe a trip to the wine shop....but maybe I'll let that go till tomorrow when it gets up to 40 degrees.

Off and running....stay warm!

 

 

 

 

 

I've Got Nothing...

Seriously, not a single idea for a post.  Something popped into my head earlier this morning, but....it's gone.

So, I'll talk a bit about my piano lessons.  They are going better than I have any right to expect, after 25+ years totally away from piano and the problems that come along with arthritis in the hand.  I've been amazed at the phenomenon of not regressing over so many years, but almost advancing while I was off doing other things with my brain!  Not complaining.  I had some moments earlier on with this teacher of thinking that she might not be the one for me, but that is settling down, and I seem to see progress on a week to week basis.  Now, I'm putting my foot down on the "adult recital"....too stressful.  Been there, done that, and one little recent "casual" group situation (she calls it Round Table) convinced me that I won't participate again for a long while, if ever.  She's okay with that, although she keeps trying to rope me in.  Bottom line, I handed over another check for 8 lessons yesterday, so I'm sticking with it for the foreseeable future.

Thanksgiving stuff.  I still have no idea what to do for dessert.  I saw a great cake on Pinterest yesterday, though, and might think about it.  One of these "rustic" cakes with very little frosting on the sides.  Hmm, that means the cake layers have to be PERFECT!  Not sure I could pull that off.  The cake itself was gingerbread...yum!  Another thought was to do a spice/gingerbread cake roll, with ice cream filling and buttercream frosting, but decorated like a fall log.  I have a cake pan somewhere that makes a cake in two parts...put together, it looks like a pumpkin.  Another possibility.  Today, since I managed to stop at the store yesterday for dried cranberries and walnuts, I'm planning to start that bread.  It's been a hit when I've made it in the past.  Maybe some plain rolls, too.  

The weekend forecast is for record cold (Mother Nature has such a delightful sense of humor....) so good for inside things.  Weaving, maybe winding a new warp, knitting (I have a baby gift I need to make), holiday prep, cleaning, gathering donations for the Thrift Shop, the list is endless.  

What I love about winter....great sunsets!  

(I had something else to post, but I upgraded to High Sierra on my Mac last night and there are still a few things, like photos, not cooperating.  Maybe tomorrow.)

Getting Ready For Winter

Today was the day to get new tires on the RAV 4.  Fortunately, Toyota Service was running a sale:  buy three, get one for a dollar.  I packed a tote bag with supplies for a 2-hour stay in their waiting room: iPad, phone, earphones (not everyone is considerate of other customers, just saying), snack, beverage, magazine, and music to listen to while I did some knitting.  

Forgot the knitting.