Year End Review 2017

Experimental doll. 

It is the day of New Year's Eve.  I usually try to take a look back and see what I have accomplished this year in my crafting endeavors.  I generally approach this with a bit of dread because I always feel as if I have not gotten anything done.  Generally I am surprised when I go back through this year's posts.  I have completed quite a lot, even though it does not feel that way.

Please note:  the photos may be all over the place on this post.  Whenever I make a long post, the blog platform gives me a lot of grief over positioning the photos.  I finally gave up on adding captions.  In order the pictures are: experimental doll, pin cushions, spiral bowl, needle keepers, wall hanging, lap quilt, star and leaf quilt, painting, sandworm, Jupiter sphere, and challenge quilt.  Sorry if the post looks messy. 

At the beginning of the year I set a rather loose set of goals for the year.  I find that setting too rigid a schedule causes me to become stressed and frustrated rather than enjoying the process.  Some years I am able to meet all the goals.   Other years, like this year, I only partially met those goals.  Life sometimes gets in the way of the things I want to do.  Other times, I was out there having so much of a good time that I could not even get into the studio.  At any rate, there were things I accomplished this year and things I did not. 


The goals I set for 2017 were fairly modest.  I wanted to make a doll of a Flamenco dancer, refurbish my painted Jupiter sphere, and make a quilt in a Star and Leaf pattern.  The doll and the quilt were large projects.  Refurbishing the Jupiter sphere was a moderate project.  Other than that, I planned to do some work with my quilting guild. It seems like a small enough agenda, but I also did a few other projects along the way. 

The Star and Leaf quilt, a large quilt 72" x 72" (182.88 x 182.88 cm.) is put together and half way through the process of being hand quilted.  I confess, this quilt would have been completed if I had followed the quilting suggestion that came with the pattern.  However, I chose to go off on a quilting tangent, and this quilt is only half way finished.  The way I began quilting it, each block takes about six to seven hours to quilt.  I work on it steadily, but sometimes I just have to put it down for a while and come back to it when I am in the mood. 

The Jupiter sphere has been repainted.  I recently showed a picture of it on the blog after I painted the base coat.  Since then I have done more work on it, but have not had time to get on the blog.  The holiday season had me tied up every day one way or another.  I was exhausted, even though I had a nice time.  I will be showing pictures of the completed sphere after the first of the year.

The Flamenco doll never made it beyond the initial planning stage.  I made a basic sketch of my idea for the doll, but that is as far as things went.  I was doing so much quilting and hand work this year that something had to fall by the wayside.  However, this project has been slated for the new year.  I haven't given up on it.  This doll is an ambitious project.  I could have started it earlier this year, but I hope to enter this project in the state fair in 2018.  The rules state that the project must be made in the year that it is exhibited.  I have held off starting until after the 2018 begins.  I did not think I would have time to finish the project in time for the 2017 state fair.

So now that I have reviewed my goals for last year, it is time to get on to what I actually did in 2017.  I began the year working on an experimental doll.  It was an attempt to use an existing doll as a mold for a papier mache doll.  I wanted to see if I could modify the position of the doll's arms and legs and make a doll with a different stance from the original doll.  The result was a doll named Barbara. 

Another experimental project was a spiral paper bowl.  I had seen some objects on Pintrest made from spirals made of paper and thought I would give it a try.  I did make a bowl, but it was not very sturdy.  However, it was a great fidget project for sitting and watching television.  Making the spirals kept my hands busy whiles viewing shows.  That left my daytime crafting for other projects.

The rest of the projects for this year were almost all textile projects.  I completed 18 pin cushions for my quilting guild and 20 needle keepers in folk art shapes for gifts.  The pin cushions were sewn on the machine and stuffed with fiber fill.  The wool felt needle keepers were all hand work.  It seems like these would be fairly quick projects, but they were not.  I spent days and days stuffing the pin cushions.  The blanket stitch on the needle keepers took much longer than I thought it would.

Although I have not finished the Star and Leaf quilt, I did complete two other quilts this year.    One was a small scrap quilt made from some leftover fabric.  Fabric has become so expensive that I try to use up what I have before going out to buy more fabric.  I was making this quilt for display at my guild.  The other was a small quilt for the paint chip challenge.  You had to go to the store and pick out paint chips with paint names that started with the initials of your name.  From all the combinations of paint chips with your initials, you had to find colors that coordinated enough to make a quilt.  There were many paint chips to choose from, but the problem was the fabric hunt for colors of fabric that matched the paint chips.   Then you had to put the quilt together.  Those two quilts kept me busy for the better part of the year.

I am also working on a quilted wall hanging of an elephant.  I take that with me to the sit-and-sew.  I got bogged down on that one because I decided it needed to have beading on it.  I wanted to make it look like an elephant that might have been outfitted with fine fabrics and gems as if it was in some sort of royal procession; perhaps one that might have been ridden by some raja in a bygone era.  I don't exactly know where this quilt is going.  I have one more section to bead then I will begin quilting it.  Sooner or later I will finish it.

I always want to make something to add to my Halloween collection.  This year I was pressed for time, so I did a painting.   I don't usually do paintings.  I think this one came out pretty well considering.  My other Halloween project was an edible project.  I made a Sandworm from the Dune series.  It is actually a cinnamon roll recipe set to look like a creature from a science fiction series.  I did not come up with the idea, I saw it on the internet.  It was fun,and my friends really enjoyed seeing (and eating) it.

So all this was accomplished while traveling out of town for seven trips this year.   As I said earlier, I really did not feel as if I had made much progress on anything this year, but I actually did get a fair amount done.  I hope this year will be better.  At least, I hope that I will be able to work on projects that will further my crafting goals for 2018.

Jupiter Ball Redoux - Part 1

The original painting.

Long time readers may remember that in 2015 I made a hypertufa gazing ball and painted it to look like Jupiter.  The ball sat outside for a long time.  By 2017, sun and weather took its toll on the ball and it became faded and the paint was flaking off in the polar region.  I decided the ball needed a makeover.  I started the project this spring, but had so many trips and projects going on that the project languished all year.

Paint faded and flaked off over the years.

The ball had originally been painted with acrylic paints.  I knew that at some point they would fade, but at that time I thought when the time came I would cover it with stained glass and make it into a mosaic gazing ball.  In the end, I decided that I was really quite fond of my Jupiter ball and would like to repaint it.  However, I did not want to end up painting the ball every few years so I decided to use enamel paints rather than acrylics.  This is where the trouble started.  I was unsure how well the enamel paints would work over top of the acrylic paint and sealer and whether the acrylic paint would continue to flake off, taking new paint with it.

Paint removed with a power tool.

I felt I had to get the old paint off the ball before I could put new paint on the ball.  Although the paint was flaking off in some places, the rest of it was thoroughly adhered to the ball.  I made a trip out to my local discount hardware place for a wire brush.  As is many times the case with this discount hardware store, the wire brush was really not the best quality.  After a couple of hours with this thing I started using a much sturdier wire brush from my husbands tool kit.  After a few more hours of diligent brushing the paint was still barely scratched off in a few places. 

The new enamel base coat.

I decided I needed to go to Plan B: a power tool.  I began using a grinding angle with a masonry attachment.  Compared to the wire brush, this tool took off the paint quickly but it was still a couple of hours of work.  The tool was fairly heavy and before I was able to figure out the best way to hold it against the curved surface of a sphere I made a few gouges in the ball.  To smooth out the worst of the dings, I kept grinding away at the ball.  It is a little bit smaller than when I started; and probably not quite as round.  Furthermore, when the ball was cast, the surface was relatively smooth.  The grinder left all sorts of score marks and I was very disappointed with the look at the time.  Later, I began to think of these marks as a feature.  I am sure that I could have eventually found a way to smooth the surface, but it would have taken a lot of time.  At that point, I set the project aside, partly through frustration and partly because I was so busy that I was not getting into the studio for weeks at a time. 

I did make one attempt at restarting this project near mid-summer.  I made it out to the craft store and purchased the enamel paints.  That was another discouragement point.   I needed to use air dry enamel paints rather than bake in the oven paints because the ball was too large to fit into the toaster oven that I have dedicated for craft projects.  The craft store had a very poor selection of enamel paints. Mainly what they carried in air dry enamels were paints for painting on glass.  Most of the colors appeared to be either transparent or muddy.  I decided to do what I could with what colors I could mix together.  I started painting the base color on the ball. Each color had to sit for at least an hour before another coat could be added.

At this point, the ball is not finished.  I have painted on the base coat and done a little work on Jupiter's red spot.  It has taken a while to get this far but the results have been encouraging.  The striations caused by the angle grinder have become an asset.  It gives the ball the rough look of Jupiter's roiling atmosphere.  The transparency of the paints will cause me to use more layers of paint than before, but that may add to the look of the planet's storm clouds.  I still have a long way to go on the painting of this project, but I think that with more layers of paint that the sphere will be restored to something of its previous condition.  At least it will be restored enough to put it back outside. 

Check back next Sunday to see the progress on the sphere.

First Snowfall 2017

We had our first snow of the season this weekend.  It was a bit of a surprise for many people.  Although it is not unusual for us to have some flurries by now, we don't generally have heavy snow this early. 

At first the weather forecast was only calling for two inches (5.08 cm.).  That was not getting a lot of attention from people.  Then, by late afternoon, the forecast changed and started calling for 8 to 12 inches (20.32 to 30.48 cm.)  That probably caused a stampede at the grocery store.  When the word snow is uttered, people rush to the grocery store and wipe out the milk and bread.  I did not go to the store as I had been shopping earlier in the week and was well stocked with food. 

There was a good deal of concern about power outages.  Many trees still had leaves on them.  The heavy wet snow could bring down branches on the power line.  There were thousands of people without power, but this time our neighborhood was spared.  Our neighborhood was once referred to by some power company employees as a "frequent flier" when it came to having power outages.  This is due to our neighborhood being ringed by lots of Poplar trees.  These trees grow tall, but are very rigid.  When there is a high wind they tend to snap in half.  However, there was almost no wind with this storm, just snow.  Other than an occasional downed branch here and there our neighborhood was pretty much intact. 

Yesterday, my husband and I went for a walk around the neighborhood.  We enjoy looking at the beauty of the trees all covered with snow.  We encountered only two people while we were out.  A teenage girl was busy rolling snow to make a snowman.  The second was the UPS delivery man.  Incongruously, he was wearing a medium weight jacket, and shorts.  He gave us a beep and a wave as he drove down the street.  I guess he was recognizing us because we seemed to be enjoying the shared sentiment of being outdoors in the snow.

Later in the day, my husband went outside and cleared the snow off the automobile windows and roods.  By afternoon it was snowing again.  I guess we might have received another inch or so.  Overall, we received eight or nine inches here.  Due to the temperature remaining slightly above freezing, the streets and sidewalks remained clear.  It was nice not to have to shovel the walkways or dig out the driveway.  I guess we will have to go out again this morning to clear the car windows and roof.  We will be waiting until a little later until it warms up a bit.  It won't get too much warmer, the forecast high today is only for 39 degrees Fahrenheit (3.89 C). 

My husband snapped a few pictures of our backyard.  The trees look so beautiful covered with snow.

Cabin Food and Cooking Strategies

Earlier this year I had blogged about some of my strategies for serving up tasty meals at the cabin without having to spend so much time in the kitchen.  I love being at the cabin in cold weather and it can be fun to cook on the wood stove up to a point, but I don't really want to spend my entire time up there cooking.  Also, the weather can at times be warmer than expected, and if it is too warm, you don't necessarily want to be firing up the cook stove.  Once the stove heats up the cabin it takes a long time for the place to cool down.  So I have to have strategies for multiple ways to put a meal on the table.   I also do some cooking ahead to speed things up while I am there. While "quick" is a relative term, I think you will find these recipes worth the effort.

Of course a soup or stew is great on the wood stove.  You can have the stove banked low and let the food cook in a long slow simmer.  To make the cooking up there a little easier, I sometimes brown the meat and onions until the meat is cooked through and then freeze them.  It saves a little time on the cooking and cleanup while at the cabin.  The potatoes and carrots go with us whole and I cut them up when I'm ready to start the stew.  I throw in a can of tomato sauce and some frozen peas and the stew is on the stove to simmer until ready.  I once tried to cook the stew in an electric frying pan when the weather was too warm to start up the cook stove.  It cooked, but it just did not taste like stew.  It was hard to get the potatoes and carrots to cook through.  The vegetables needed a longer, slower cooking time.

Three bean soup is one of my favorite soups for cooking in the mountains.  It is delicious and ready in a matter of minutes.  Saute some onions, garlic, and green pepper.  Throw in a can each of kidney beans, black beans, and re-fried beans (mashed pinto beans), add about a salsa (I use our homemade, canned salsa), a can of chicken broth, and chili powder about 2 teaspoons, pepper and cumin.  Easy on the cumin, I use only about a heaping quarter teaspoonful.  Start there and add more spices to taste.  Depending on the type of salsa you use, you may not need any more chili powder.  If you use a mild salsa, adjust the chili to your level of heat.  Or, throw in some chopped fresh jalapeno pepper.  After that, the mixture only has to simmer about ten to fifteen minutes.  We usually make fresh bread baked outside on the grill to serve with the soup. 

This recipe makes a big pot of soup.  The good news is that it freezes well.   After eating soup for a couple of meals we put the rest of the soup in the freezer and bring it home for later use.  Even better, it also tastes great over macaroni.  You can use it to stretch the portions out for extra servings.  It makes a great Tex-Mex style chili mac.

As I mentioned earlier, it is sometimes too warm to be worth heating up the cook stove.  This is a huge stove.  Once this cast iron stove heats up it stays heated up for hours.  I needed other ways of cooking the meal to make sure I can get a meal cooked other than depending on cooking on a wood stove.  I have done some experimenting with alternate means of cooking.

These recipes can be cooked in an electric skillet, but the results are mixed in an electric skillet.  And depending of the size of the skillet, it could be a problem with handling the volume of stew or soup.  We have a hot plate, but I get concerned about knocking a large pot of stew or soup off the burner.  Although our hot plate was rated at 1500 watts, it was that wattage split between two burners. All in all, it is only good for heating small portions.  We also bring a Coleman camp stove up with us and can cook on the porch if necessary.  You are not supposed to cook with those inside because of carbon monoxide build up.  We use the Coleman stove for cooking items that need high heat for relatively short periods of time, such as boiling potatoes or making hard boiled eggs.  Generally, this stove is used only for emergency cooking.  Up in the mountains we sometimes have electricity outages.  There are a few million trees growing near the power line.  When something falls on a line we can be without electricity for a while.

I am becoming enamored of our small roasting oven.  You generally see these small ovens on sale around Thanksgiving.  The oven cooks very slowly, and I am not sure how well the temperature is calibrated, but it does work.  A stew or soup can be put into the roaster oven in a Dutch oven and cooked using the oven like a slow cooker.   It makes for a long slow cook, which is great for a stew.  Our main problem with using the roaster oven was that it is heavy and hard to get down from the attic.  We started storing it wrapped up in plastic bags under the bed.  (There was absolutely no other place where it fit.  Space is at a premium in a small cabin.) Storing it downstairs made it much more usable.  Before finding a place for it downstairs we avoided using it if at all possible.  We have to use a heavy duty extension cord with this.  The makers saw fit to add only an eighteen inch electrical cord to the appliance.  If you decide to use one of these ovens, make sure you have an outlet nearby for it or make sure your extension cord is rated for the wattage of the oven.  Using a cord that cannot take the wattage could be a fire hazard. 

Anyway, those are a couple of my recipes for up at the cabin.  I have a couple more, but I will put them in a separate post next Sunday.  This post is getting a bit long.  Check back then for more cabin cooking recipes.

Cabin Trip November 2017

Fair weather for the trip.

I actually wrote the blog post last Sunday, but the internet was overloaded with people shopping online for the holidays.  I was not able to upload my photos, so I thought I'd put it off for a day and try again.  Unfortunately, the next day was cyber-Monday.  I still wasn't able to upload the photos.  Today is the first day I have had tine to get back to the blog, so here it is, better late than never.  I plan to post on Sunday again as usual.

We made one last trip to the cabin this year.  The weather favored us although the forecast leading up to the trip was all over the place.  At one point it said there could be rain, snow, and ice pellets (firmer than sleet but too small to be hail?)  We changed our plans a couple of times, but as the date for the trip became closer, the weather cleared.  For once, we were not leaving in rain.  However, as the day progressed, the sky turned gray.  A cold front came through, but it was a dry front with heavy winds.  After we arrived at the cabin the weather service put out a travel advisory saying that high profile vehicles should stay off the road until after the wind abated.

Kudzu loses its leaves in cold weather.

Generally the weather was nice for this time of year.  Some days it made it up close to 50 degrees Fahrenheit ( 10 C.)  At night it was close to freezing, give or take a degree in either direction.  We did not have any precipitation while we were there.

Trees are bare at higher elevations.

The nights were chilly.  We have some radiator heaters, but much of our heat comes from a wood cook stove.  Once the fire dies down it can get pretty cold.  Some mornings we woke up to a nippy inside temperature of 46 degrees F. (7.78 C.)  We were an amusing sight in our thermal wear with an extra shirt over top, two pairs of socks, and our sleep hats.  We stayed under the covers for as long as we could, but sooner or later we had to get up and start the day.

This will be our last trip up for the year.  Our primary mission was to get as many leaves as possible out of the yard.  All the leaves are down now.  The last time we went up there many of the trees were still a leafy green.  Also, there were plenty of apples down that needed to be picked up.  I think we moved three tarps of apples.  I made an apple pie with some of them.

Shadows falling on the cabin.

My husband worked on the upstairs floor while we were there.  He finished the underlayment on the last trip.  This trip he was working on leveling the floor prior to installing laminate flooring up there.  The floor has to be very level to install laminate.  If there is more than an eighth inch of difference in the floor it could cause the laminate to crack.  To get the floor level, he has been using layers of tar paper to build up the floor in spots where it was low.  Wouldn't you know it, with twenty feet (6.09 meters) of floor left to finish he ran out of tar paper.  It is a long ways to a hardware store, so the rest of the floor will have to wait until our next trip up in the spring.   Tar paper is sold in 100 foot rolls (30.48 meters) so I guess we will forever have roughly 80 feet (24.38 meters) of tar paper left in the shed.

Locking up for the winter

Our first night there, we rescued a lost hunter.  He was a young guy, no more than eighteen or twenty.  It had been fully dark for over an hour before he found us.  He said he had been walking for hours.  He had an app for his phone that was supposed to show him the way back to his vehicle.  Unfortunately, either the app would not work when there was no signal or the app was not a very good one.  I guess he was inexperienced enough to rely on technology and did not do anything to mark his way through the woods.  When his app did not work, he could not find his way back.  My husband had to drive him to look for his truck, but it was not where he thought it was.  There is one place on the mountain where you can get a cell signal.  The hunter was able to call his father and have him come pick him up to go searching for his truck.  He was reunited with his family if not his vehicle.

The guy was very lucky that we were at the cabin.  There was no one at the other cabins until the next day.  There are no more cabins higher up on the mountain. You have to go over the mountain and well down the other side before there is another one.  And most of those cabins are not occupied year round until you get a good way down the mountain.  He could have been walking for hours more.  Also, the day had started out warm, so he was in a short sleeve shirt with insulated overalls.  By the time he found us, a cold front had come through and there was a high wind.  I am sure he was chilled through and through.  Fortunately, he had a flashlight.  It was just at New Moon, so it was very dark.  If we had not been there, I am not sure his batteries would have held out all the way over the mountain.

I guess there are lessons to be learned from this.  Technology is great, but you cannot always rely on it.  If he had marked his way through the woods as he went, he could still have found his way back.  Weather can change very quickly in the mountains.  If he had carried a jacket or some windproof layer, he would not have been so cold.  So yes, this guy was very lucky to have seen the lights of our cabin.  But no one should depend on luck when they go into the woods.  Be prepared.

Update on the Star and Leaf Quilt

I am still working on hand quilting the Star and Leaf quilt.  I am at the half-way point on hand quilting this project.  It is a large quilt; 72" x 72" (188.2  x 188.2 cm)  There is a fair amount of quilting on it.  Each square has taken approximately six hours of quilting.  At the half-way point, that is roughly 72 hours of had quilting. 

I am kicking myself now for adding in all the extra decorative quilting.  The extra quilting added a lot of extra interest to the quilting, but it sure has been time consuming.  I have actually considered whether I wanted to go back and rip out some of the decorative quilting so that the leaf blocks did not take so much time.  I really don't want to do that, but it is tempting.  Now that I have reached the point of no return, I guess that it is just as easy to go forward with things as they are. 

Needless to say, I am thoroughly sick of the project by now.  However, I continue on because I refuse to quit.  I did take a break during the summer.  Even with air conditioning, sitting under a warm quilt is not very comfortable.  Now that the weather has cooled down, I am back to work on it again.   I doubt that it will be completed by the end of the year.  Getting ready for the holidays is going to come in to play in the next couple of weeks.  The weather has stayed warm so late into the year that I am having a hard time realizing how late in the year it actually is.  This is one project that will get finished when it is finished.  Hopefully that will happen before the weather turns warm again.

Folk Art Needle Keepers for Holiday Gifts

I completed the needle keepers that I was making for holiday gifts.  I have blogged about them earlier in the process, but at that time I did not have all of the designs complete.  I have made needle keepers in the shapes of fruit, which is a folk art theme.  There are apples, pears, oranges and pomegranates.  I made multiple needle keepers in each design.  I saw these idea in a quilting magazine years ago.  They were so cute that I knew that I would make them sooner or later. 

These simple fruit designs are just one idea for
needle keepers.  It would be fairly easy to make
them in any shape by tracing the outline of a
picture and adding a few simple lines.  For example: could make needle keepers in the shape of dogs, cats or birds for animal lovers.   With just a few lines you can create a stylized representation of just about any object.  If you don't have a picture of something in the size that you need, use a copier to adjust the size.

It was a fun project, but as with many hand made projects, they took a good deal of time.  I'm glad I started on them this summer because I could make them without feeling rushed.  The time is not really an issue if you are only making one of them, but I was making five of each pattern.  Most will be given out as gifts.  I know many people who sew.

This project is not exactly what I would call inexpensive.  I used 100% Merino wool felt.  The weight and texture is much heavier than the craft felt seen in most stores.  Also, I had to order the felt online.  The fabric stores where I live did not carry it and what wool they did have were in shades of brown and gray; not exactly what I had in mind for this project.  When ordering, there was a half yard (45.72 centimeter) minimum.  I have a fair amount of the wool left over, but that may be a good thing.  I saw another felt project that uses many of those colors.  I may have next year's hand made gift project picked out already.

 This morning is a cool autumn morning.  The trees have finally started to turn into shades of orange, red, and gold.  I thought I would include a picture from the yard.  It is a sight that I don't want to forget.  It won't be long before the leaves are all down and the yard looks bare. 

 

Sandworm - A Halloween Fun Food

I am updating the post with photos of the baked Sandworm.  Other than that, the post is still the same.

Halloween will be on Tuesday this year.   That means that a lot of Halloween parties were held this Friday and Saturday.   Although I was not going to a party or having a party, I was going to a Dungeons and Dragons game.  We normally bring food because the game starts at 6 pm.  Since it was so close to Halloween, I wanted to make something special.  This year I decided to make a Sandworm, a fictional creature from a Science Fiction series called Dune.

Many Dungeons and Dragons players are fond of fantasy and science fiction genres.  The Dune series written by Frank Herbert is not only a book, but a motion picture.  In Dune, there is a product called Melange, generally referred to as "spice".  Melange is said to improve general health, give long life, and also give some prescient abilities.  It is rare, and the most valuable commodity in the inter-stellar community.  The spice is said to look and taste something like cinnamon.  It is mined on Arrakis.  The mining of the spice attracts sandworms; huge creatures that are native to the planet.  The series has many complex plot lines, but every reader is going to be familiar with the sandworms. 

At one time I used to have a science fiction themed food potluck party.  People were invited to bring food made to look like foods in one of three categories:  foods shown in science fiction films, foods made to look like something in a science fiction film (example a cake that looks like a space ship),  or for those not that familiar with science fiction just something about science in general (example:  a salad laid out to look like Saturn and its rings.  I had this recipe for the Sandworm from that time, but had never made it.  It looked like  a lot of work.  As it turned out, it was.  But, I'm glad I made it because it turned out to be a real hit with the our players.

Rather than go into the whole recipe here, which is quite lengthy, I am including a link to the recipe.  kitchenoverlord.com/dune-week-spice-filled-sandworm/
The recipe is basically a recipe for cinnamon buns, but with a twist.  It also has some Garam Masala in it.  Garam Masala is a mixture of ground spices: cumin and coriander seeds,  peppercorns, cardomen pods, cloves cinnamon stick and nutmeg.The flavor of cinnamon is there, but with another flavor that is hard to describe; somewhat peppery, somewhat sweet, somewhat savory.  In the Dune series the flavor of "spice" varies from one time to the next.  The unusual flavor of Garam Masala leaves the taster with a sense of mystery; cinnamon, but something else as well.

Anyway, I made the recipe.  I took some pictures of it before it was baked, but in the rush to get finished and out the door I never took pictures of it once it was baked.  The photo shows it with aluminum foil stuffed in the mouth.  That helps to keep the mouth open so that it has a gaping maw to show off the rows of teeth.  Once I arrived at the game, one of the players took some pictures with his phone, but has not yet sent them to me, so I do not have photos of my finished product.  However, on the link above, there are photos of a baked sandworm.

I do have a couple of comments on the recipe.  First off, the teeth, made of slivered almonds were brittle.  They tended to break apart while they were being inserted into the dough.  The teeth also tended to brown quickly and can burn.  It might be worthwhile to cover that area for a few minutes to help keep the almonds whiter.

The other comment was on baking time.  My sandworm turned out to be shorter and fatter than the one shown in the link above.  The length and thickness of the sandworm will affect the baking time.  I have made cinnamon buns before and had the center come out still wet and doughy if I only cooked by the recommended time.  I used an instant read thermometer to check to make sure that the center of the bread was done.  Generally, bread is done by 200 to 210 degrees Fahrenheit (93.33 to 98.88 C).  If I had pulled this loaf at the suggested time, it would not have been done in the center.

In case you don't often make bread, you should know that this recipe takes a long time because yeast breads have to rise.  In this case, the bread has to rise twice.  Generally an hour to an hour and a half for the first rise, and another thirty minutes for the second rise.  So plan on having a considerable amount of time available if you want to make this recipe. It was a fun food for Halloween, but it took the better part of a day to make it.

A somewhat shorter and fatter sandworm turned out to look really great.  When the bread baked, it really looked like it had folds in its skin.  In the Dune series, the mouth of the sandworm was said to be eighty meters across.  A fatter sandworm seemed to give that impression of the huge.  I will post pictures of the baked sandworm if I get the them.  In the mean time, I only have the unbaked pictures.

Check back for the latest on my craft projects next blog post.

Cabin Trip and Photos from the Road - October 2017

On the road in the rain.

Once again, we are heading to the cabin in the rain.  I am not sad about this.  We have had a very dry period up here.  We needed the rain.  Everything has been very dusty.  It just seems that every time we head up there that it has rained.    At least the rain had cleared by the time we reached the mountains.

New hay in the barn.

We were up at the cabin for a week.  October is a wonderful time to be at the cabin.  The daytime weather is still fairly warm and the nights are cool.  You can really tell that the climate change is happening though.  It used to be that the second week in October was the height of leaf color up there.  Everyone wanted to be up there then.  This year there is very little color so far.  The leaves are still green.  They seem to be turning from green to brown and then just dropping.  Even the sugar maples, which drop their leaves sooner than some of the other species, still have some leaves on them.

Cloudy sky.

On our last trip up, the apples were not quite ready to pick.  This trip many of the apples were on the ground.  There were still plenty to pick though.  I brought home two crates of apples.  This year the apples were smaller than usual.  I think the dry conditions had a lot to do with that.  Although some  states have been dealing with hurricanes, record breaking rainfall and flooding some areas of Virginia have been dealing with a dry spell.  We went twenty days without any rain; and in areas where it did rain, it was only a brief sprinkle.  This clearly affected the size of the apples. 

The cow statue is still there.

The apple tree had hundreds of apples on it. Some of them were so high up that we could not reach them even with the apple picking basket on a tall stick.   It is amazing how much fruit just one tree can produce.  The ground under the tree was so thick with fallen and rotting apples that it was difficult to walk among them. The decaying apples attracted yellow jackets.  I had to rake up the downed apples and move them before we could begin to pick.  I raked them into a long line and then started shoveling them into the wheel barrow.  It took six barrow loads to get all the apples under just half the tree.  Fortunately, the yellow jackets were so drunk on the fermenting fruit that they were very docile.  They weren't in a mood to fight and would just move off while I was raking up the apples.

Very little color in the trees yet.

There were yellow jackets down below as well.  We took a day off from our labors and went to the Wine and Garlic festival.  I had not yellow jackets flying around at the festival before.  Just to check and make sure memory was not misleading me  I asked my husband whether this was a trick of memory and he agreed with me that the yellow jackets were not usual in this number and that we had not seen previously them in the festival area before.  Usually, it is a little cooler this time of year.  We normally are in a long sleeve shirt or are wearing a fleece, but this year everyone was in short sleeves.

Old barn is still standing.

The festival was wonderful as usual: good wine, good food, and good music, and of course lots of garlic.  Garlic samples are served raw.  You can go from booth to  booth and sample many different types of garlic and garlic flavored products. Some garlic is mild, some hot and peppery.  Some people sample to buy for home use, others are there to purchase bulbs for planting.  Eating raw garlic is part of the fun of this festival.  There is a reason that the slogan for this festival is "It's chic to reek."  Yes, you had better like garlic if you want to come to this festival, or at least plan on eating some in self defense.  My neighbor once said that when his relatives returned from the festival and got out of the car that he could smell the garlic coming off of them from a quarter of an acre away.

This year they were serving samples of black garlic.  I had not seen it there before.  Black garlic is an interesting product.  It is made by heating bulbs of garlic in humidity controlled conditions for up to forty days.  The garlic is heated between 140 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit (60 to 77 C.)  Over time, it turns black.  Although it is sometimes referred to as fermented, it is not a true microbial action.  The process is a Maillard reaction, the same action that gives flavor to meat by browning it.  (Information source: Wikipedia).  The result of this process is a bulb of black garlic.  The taste that is somewhat sweet and carame-like with a slight under taste of charcoal.  At least this is my impression of it. 

After the festival, we spent our week working at the cabin.  Although there are still lots of leaves on the trees, the yard needed to be raked.  When I was a child, I used to love playing in piles of leaves.  Now it is one of those chores that I don't look forward to anymore; raking up tarp after tarp full of leaves.  By the time we are done, we are bone weary.  On some level, I am sure that it is good for us to work so hard, but it does not seem that way while we are doing it.  Especially since we are up there for such a limited amount of time.  We feel the pressure of a deadline of trying to get the task completed before we have to leave.  It makes us work harder and faster.

I'd like to say that we are closing in on improvements to the cabin, but somehow I think there is always going to be some project on the horizon.  This trip my husband removed all the peeling drywall tape in the attic, replaced it, plastered it and sanded it.  When the plaster was dry, he painted the ceiling.  This was an even bigger task than it sounds.  First off, the ceiling slopes down from the high point down to a knee wall.  He can only stand in the very center of the space.  There is also furniture up there as well as cabinets storing all sorts of small items that are needed at the cabin:  nails and plumbing parts and all that sort of stuff.   All of that had to be moved from side to side as he worked on the ceiling.  Even though it was covered, the furniture had to be cleaned up afterwards because of all the sanding dust. Now that this task has been finished, the attic is now ready for new flooring to go in over the plywood underlayment.  That won't be happening until next spring.  

When we left, we drained the plumbing in preparation for winter.  We hope to make one more trip up before the cabin is closed for the winter.  However, you can't trust the weather up there.  There have already been freeze warnings issued for that area of the state.  We don't want to have the weather change and have a hard freeze happen before we get a chance to get there.  My husband's next vacation days won't be until the week of Thanksgiving and it is very possible that there could be a hard freeze before that.  One year we went up planning to stay for a week a little before Thanksgiving and the temperature was forecast to drop to minus five degrees F (-20.55 C).  After all the work we have done on the cabin, we don't want to risk having a plumbing problem.  We will have to drain the plumbing again if we make another trip.  

I have added a few of our photos taken from the road.  Even though there are only a couple of routes to take to the cabin, the scenes are always changing.  We look for some landmarks that are like old friends.  The fiberglass cow that stands in front of a cattle farm is one of those landmarks.  I think that one time the cow was up for sale, but it is still standing there.  Perhaps they changed their minds or perhaps they found that some things don't sell very well.  Enjoy the photos.




 

My Latest Halloween Collectible

Long time readers know that I am very fond of my Halloween collection.  I try to add something to it every year.  Some items have been purchased, and some items I made myself.  I try to add something to my collection every year.  There are plenty of Halloween objects out there,  but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  These days, I tend to try to only purchase something that is really a work of art in and of itself. 

This year I found such a really fascinating object.  It is a resin replica of two skeletons.  It is also a shelf sitter.  The lower legs of one of the skeletons are "jointed" with metal rings so that the legs will move.  There are many skeletons out there, but this one has an incredible amount of detail.  I don't generally see skeletons of this quality.  Once I saw it, I had to have it; although, it did come close to the boundary of the limit I allow myself to spend on a collectible. 

To a certain extent, collecting is waste of money.  If I had to sell them, no one will ever want to pay what they are worth.  Everyone wants a bargain.  So collecting is really not about the money or even the item itself.   It is about the chase; the search for the next illusive item.  It keeps life
interesting. 

If you collect Halloween items, don't be discouraged or turned off by cheap, disposable objects.  Because these objects are ephemeral, there will be few left years down the road.  If you have kept one of these disposable items for a long time, they could be worth some money.  I have a replica of a small Halloween lantern that I had in the 1960s.  If I had kept that little lantern, it would be worth about $45.00 today ($38.36 Euros).   That is not a fortune, but it is much more than the dollar or two that it cost back in the day.

This is a photo of one of the bookcases in the house.  It has some of my favorite pieces on it.  Halloween items have taken over nearly every room. I have made twelve Halloween dolls, a Halloween themed quilt, and a quilted wall hanging, as well as a couple of handmade masks, rattles and a couple of paintings.  Halloween stuff is everywhere. 

Anyway, I just thought I would introduce my newest piece.  I will be blogging about a few more of my pieces throughout October. 

A Painting for Halloween

It's the first of October, and that means I am gearing up for Halloween.  I have an extensive Halloween collection and I can't wait to get it out.  This year I did not made a new Halloween item.  At the end of September, I decided that time was so close that I would do a painting instead.  Well, sort of a painting....  The background and moon are painted, and the lettering and witch are stenciled.  I used a round lid to draw on the moon.  The paint was so translucent that it would not cover up the light pencil drawing.  Trying to cover it up was just making things worse, so I decided to quit while I was ahead.

I made my own stencils.  The witch stencil was created by tracing a small wooden witch from the craft store onto a piece of manila file folder.  I used letter stencils to create the words.  All of the forms were cut  out using a craft knife with a sharp blade. 

I used the cut out portion of the witch to help me determine where to place the witch on the moon.   To make the witch stick to the canvas, I used a piece of painters tape rolled over on itself so that both sides were sticky.  Once I had the placement where I wanted it, I placed the stencil over the witch and made some small registration marks on the stencil so I could line it up once the witch was removed.

When I finished the background and moon, I was almost hesitant to put on the stencils.  I have had trouble in the past with paint bleeding under the stencil no matter how carefully I painted.  I was particularly worried about the witch because she had small cut outs that might be prone to moving around.  I found some craft advice that worked.  In some magazine long ago, I read a suggestion to spray the back of the stencil with craft adhesive and let it tack up for three to four minutes.  I used Elmer's Spray Adhesive and let it sit up as directed.  It worked well.  The adhesive was tacky enough to stick and keep the paint from infiltrating under the stencil, but was dried enough that the stencil came off without leaving residue. 

Originally, I was planning on adding Oct. 31 above the words, "All Hallows Eve", but it made the paining look crowded.  Overcrowding also took away from the background.  I really liked the background and decided I would rather have more of that rather than have more words.  I guess people will figure out what day it is from the painting.

This year has flown by so fast.  I can hardly believe that Autumn is here.  The trees are already dropping their leaves.  At this point, the leaves are just starting to turn color.  Some of the dogwoods have already turned red.  The Forsythia in the yard, have turned a deep burgundy, but the cool morning and warm afternoon weather is tricking them into thinking it is spring.  Many of the bushes  are turning purple and blooming with bright yellow flowers.  I guess I can relate to the Forsythia.  I am not quite ready to let go of summer either.

A Backyard Oddity

I had planned to blog about my needle keepers today, but I have something else interesting to  blog about.  My husband came in from outside and said, "You have to see this.  It looks like the tree is growing a brain. "  So yes, I had to go see it.

He had pulled some type of gall off of one of our cedar trees.  It did look almost like a brain with its folds and creases.  We know that it really is not a brain, but our imaginations were working overtime.  Just recently in the news we had been reading about the theory that many complex systems develop some type of self-awareness. 

I have been searching on the internet trying to find trying to find a gall that matches the look of this particular gall.  I haven't found one exactly like it.  It could be an insect gall, but I am thinking it is an immature form of a fungus called Cedar Apple Rust.  It requires both an apple tree and a cedar tree to host this particular fungus.  Guess what?  We have both an apple tree and a cedar tree.  So the odds are pretty good that this particular gall is that type of fungus.  What I have read on the subject so far is that once the spores are released, the horns dry up and the gall falls off.  I have not been able to find a photo of one after it has dried up so far.

Apparently this fungus starts as a brown gall.  After a couple of years it grows protrusions that look like horns.  Then it turns a slimy bright orange and releases spores that attack apple trees.  The gall is not that harmful to the cedar tree, but it is damaging to the apple tree. 

Now that I am thoroughly horrified at the thought of a slimy orange something hanging from our trees I will be out looking for the galls in force.  I don't want to lose my apple tree or take this fungus up to the trees in the mountains.  However, it does need both hosts for this particular fungus to take effect, so hopefully it will not be so much of a problem up there. 

Literature on Cedar Apple Rust suggests one method of treatment is to remove the galls from the cedar tree while they are in an immature state.  That could prove to be problematic in this case.  The tree has grown quite tall.  I am guessing somewhere around thirty feet ( 9.1 meters).  They can grow up to sixty-six feet (20.12 meters) tall.    There are also fungicides that can be used.  I am not sure that fungicides will be all that helpful.  The apple trees can be affected up to a couple of miles from the cedar tree.  I guess I need to call an extension agent and get some more information.

Road Trip September 2017

Boat on Stonehouse Lake.

Last blog post I was blogging about two small state parks the my husband and I went to while we were out and about at the cabin earlier this month.  I did not have room to post pictures on the last post, so I wanted to add them here.

We first stopped at Stonehouse Lake State Park.  It is a small, but nice park.   The park has a 41 acre (169,521 square meters) lake.  It has a children's play area, bathrooms, grills, picnic tables, benches, parking area and a boat ramp.  This lake is part of the reservoir system.  You are allowed to use boats with electric motors or use oars, but gas powered motors are prohibited.

Photo taken on top of the levee.  Water gauge is in the distance.

Stonehouse Lake

You can fish here, but you need a license from the state in order to fish.  It seems from something I was reading on the internet that you have to have a special permit to fish at night.  They have Large Mouth Bass and Sunfish here.  At one time, they stocked catfish, but are no longer stocking them.  There were some rules posted regarding the size fish you were allowed to take.  My husband and I found the rules a little confusing.  Could you only take fish smaller than a certain size?  If you caught one larger than the restricted size were you supposed to throw it back or could you keep it?  I guess if I were planning on fishing I would explore the rules a little further.

Water fowl at Thrashers Lake Park

As I blogged last time, each park had a large levee built between the lake and the valley below.  On the levee there was a 12 foot high (3.65 meters) water gauge.  This gauge was positioned quite high up on the levee.  There was a sign next to it asking people not to touch the gauge because it the water reached that height that it was time to sound an emergency.  I would hate to think the lake quickly filling to that height or that such a large volume of water could suddenly tumble into the valley below.   It is hard to see in the photo, but the water level gauge is the pole that appears to be in front of the vehicles in the parking lot below.

Valley below the levee.

Thrashers Lake State Park was very much the same, but the lake was a little smaller at 36 acres (145,687 square meters).   Gasoline boats are not permitted on this lake either.  At this lake we walked out onto the boat ramp and were greeted by a duck that was hopeful that we were bringing snacks for it.  This lone duck was different from the other water fowl that were gathered at the edge of the lake.  They were fairly far from us so it was hard to tell whether they were ducks or geese.  I think that they might have been migratory birds.

At this lake there was a sign saying that the county allowed some bateaux to be moored here.  The sign advised you to stay away from the craft.  A bateau (plural bateaux) (sometimes spelled with a double t)is a flat bottomed, shallow draft boat that is pushed with long poles.  Depending upon the style, it may also has a steering rudder at the stern.  They were used extensively for river travel during the colonial period (roughly, 1607 - 1776).  Some bateaux were smaller and used for travel, but others were larger and used to move goods such as furs or tobacco. 

Submerged bateaux.

The bateaux stored at the lake were of the smaller variety.  At the moment, they were pretty much submerged by rainwater.  It was easy to think that they might have been just abandoned as wrecked vessels, by I expect that with a little bailing out that they would once again be ready for action.

Thrashers Lake

Virginia has its own special type of bateau.  It was invented by Anthony Rucker (the elder) in 1775.  The first mention of its use was in an account book of Thomas Jefferson.  He was present for the first launching of the craft.  (Source:  Wikipedia).  Although bateau had been used for quite some time, this design was significantly different from the others and eventually the heirs of Anthony Rucker received a patent for the design.

There is an annual event in Virginia called the James River Batteaux festival.  It starts in Lynchburg and ends in Powhatan, a distance of 120 river miles.  I expect these craft moored at the park were used at that festival.  For the festival, some people will dress in colonial style dress or a river driver's outfit which is knee length pants, a loose white shirt, and a straw hat.  You can find pictures of the festival by going to Google images and entering James River Batteau Festival.

Anyway, that is my blog post for this week.  I will be back to blogging about my latest craft project in the next blog post.