Back again...

It's only been six years! Life got busy...Facebook came along. Our garden has expanded beyond my wildest imaginings. The "kid" graduated high school...and then attended five years of college...and graduated from college!  We lost our wiener dog, Moose, and a new little gem, Jasmine, aka "the Jasmanian Devil" joined the family. Takashi retired!
So...I'd like to document some new ventures - like making umeboshi! We'll see what happens...

Rugs & Dogs

Once again time has run away from me. Summer has come and gone. The garden was challenged by cool weather this summer but we did add blueberries, raspberries, some fruit trees and a few other things.

Here is the "Mini Sarouk" pattern that I recently finished – except for whipping and binding. This project was a joy from day one until the last loop was pulled. There may be some minor revisions…or I may just leave it as is. Now I just have to get around to dyeing yarn to bind the darned thing. And maybe figure out how to make fringe.

One reason I have been particularly busy is the addition of a new family member: Sasuke was born on August 4, 2010 in Salem, Oregon. We drove up on September 25 to bring him home and he has certainly won me over. He is a very sweet puppy…and smart! I believe that he is a healer and I hope to be able to write about that at some time.

Introducing Sasuke to 8-year old Musashi - who has been an "only" dog for two years now – was more traumatic than I had anticipated. Sasuke came to us weighing in at TWO pounds and Moosie thought he was a squeaky toy. After a week or so of constant supervision, they are now the best of buddies. They play and sleep and do doggy things together and really seem to love one another. Yep…change…takes time…

Catching up….Hooking

Mid-April almost always finds me at my favorite rug hooking camp at Friends by the Sea in Rockaway Beach on the northern Oregon Coast. This was my 10^th year to attend in the 15+ years that I have lived on the West Coast. It's always such fun to see the same wonderful women I've seen year after year.

What a joy to have one's only task be to hook and create and learn. The food is wonderful and "cinnamon break" mid-morning is always a treat. This year my classroom was in the Lodge which is a great spot away from the bustle of the other classrooms.

My teacher was Carol Fegles and she is so gracious and generous. I took a trip to Eugene about a week before camp (yep, cutting it close!) to discuss my project and get some ideas for color-planning and dyeing. I decided to take the plunge and use Prochem dyes. I have used Cushings for years simply because when I started out I inherited a shoebox full of them. It seems that I never have one color to complete a formula so am constantly buying more of these annoying little envelopes. Carol ended up scanning some samples and sending them to me via email. From there, I chose a few colors, placed an order and within 3 days had my dyes. Of course this was over Easter weekend which is a super-busy time. So just days before camp began I was hustling to get dyeing done – some of it was still drying when I packed it up to drive up the coast.

This was a wonderfully relaxing rug camp – a real zen experience. Much of that had to do with the atmosphere Carol creates in class and much of it had to do with the project. I had decided to hook Jeanne Benjamin's "Mini Sarouk" (New Earth Designs). Her patterns are top-notch – on the grain, very clear, and high quality backing. I LOVE this pattern. I am really only using 3 colors – Forest Green, Gold/Toffee, and Evergreen…the "white" is a light wash of Straw (which ended up being dyed in an electric roaster at camp).

Here is what I got done at Camp...this may take a life time... 

Carol introduced me to a #2 cut – oh my! I fell in love! I've done a lot of #3 (3/32 inch) and have ventured in to 4-6…but never #2! It's like 2 threads…amazing. Of course I had to buy a new cutter head for my Bliss and was shocked to find they have doubled in price. Unfortunately when I got home I couldn't find the darned thing even after massive searches. Thanks to the generosity of hookers everywhere, Saundra from Delaware, sent me hers as she had never used it. I will be eternally grateful! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

10 Minute Challenge Update

I've been really consistent in keeping up with the 10-minute challenge. This is a pattern called "Water Nymph" that I must have started over ten years ago and had about 1/5 done. I kept trying to get the background darker and in so doing ended up felting the wool too much so it was very difficult to pull through the burlap. To top it off, I was using a #6 cut which is HUGE for me. I remembered that I had bought a Hartman hook back at Cape May so I dug that out and voila! It was much easier to do. Now that it's done, I kind of like this rug!

Catching up…Quilting

Time…never seems to be enough of it. Or perhaps there is simply an abundance of wonderful things in my life that continuously overflow. I am grateful that so many activities bring me enjoyment. It is a constant challenge to be diligent in discerning what is mine to do – and what is not! I am learning to say "no" to those things that do not make my heart sing and know that these same activities may be just the blessing that someone else is looking for in their life. Release it. Let it go. And on to the fun.
So many projects since my last post!
Here is the paper piecing put together – not sure what it will become. There are many possibilities.

Mid-March, my friend Sue and I took another class at the local quilt shop in how to use a new product called "Texture Magic". You sew it to your fabric using either a grid pattern or meandering and then steam it and it crinkles up – magic! It was a bit tricky to do but we had fun. Here is the tote I made during the class:

I do enjoy quilting and would LOVE to do more of it but I am trying to sharpen my focus on hooking at the moment…and then there is knitting, beading, scrapbooking, maskmaking…and on and on it goes.

Paper-Piecing Magic

Mid-February found me taking a paper-piecing quilt class at the local quilt shop. This always looks waaayyy too precise for me but a friend was taking it so I went along for the fun of it. What a GREAT technique! I fell in love with paper piecing. It's absolute magic. All one has to do is follow step by step and TRUST. Ahhhh, maybe it's not so easy.

Here are the two blocks we completed in class…

Now here's the tricky part. Paper piecing is really easy BUT one must plan in advance. Carefully sketching out the fabric placement, cutting all the pieces and arranging them in order takes some concentration and time. But it is well worth it. Here's the first triangle for a piece I'm working on. I just cut out and sewed the fabric for one section to see if I could even do it all on my own! Yesterday I cut out the fabric for five more triangles and hopefully this will work for the design I sketched.

So … here's the problem. Time. I need more of it. This month I also spent a day working on masks for a mask-making party that is coming up in March. And then there's scrapbooking. And don't forget beading. And the list goes on and on, Oh…and then there's work!

10 Minute Challenge

I finished the Fall leaves mat at the end of January. It felt good to be hooking with a #3 fine cut again. It is much slower going but certainly more control in shading.

The next project I picked up was one with finches on a fence that had not been started.  I started hooking a couple of flowers but for some reason was just very unhappy with them and finally set it aside.  This is the point when I probablywould have tucked my hooking away and not get around to starting anything new.  But having taken the 10 minute challenge I begrudgingly forged ahead.

I pulled out a piece called Water Nymph which I started quite a few years ago- probably more than 10. I put it away because in dyeing the background, I kept trying to get it darker so dyed and redyed until the wool felted too much. It is very thick - almost blanket-weight -and somewhat difficult to work with. When I was at Cape May a couple of years ago, I picked up a primitive coarse Hartman hook with a wide shaft and that has made the job a bit easier. Here is how it looked when I picked it up February 9.  This is in a #6 cut and is moving along fairly quickly.  How exciting!

Spring

I just love that Spring arrives so early on the Oregon Coast. Last October I planted some bulbs in a planter – something I intend to do every here. This is one of the tulips that has bloomed over the past two weeks. Flinging her petals open to the sky and sun each day, and closing up at night, it is so lovely.

PowerUp! Webinar

PowerUp! Webinar

Ten-Minute Challenge Update

Despite an incredibly busy schedule these past few weeks, I have kept up with the ten-minute challenge and am particularly grateful for this commitment now. More days than not, the ten minutes are just that – ten minutes – but it keeps me moving forward. A great thing about all this is that I'm dealing with some really old UFOs or Un-Finished Objects. Without time to choose and color plan a new project I find myself picking up projects that were started in the past.
This is what I've been working on. It is from a mini-class I took at Rock River Rug Camp back in IL in 1988. We picked up some fall leaves, traced around them and hooked them. I had hooked about 4-5 strips – and in a #3 cut – that translates to 3/32" strips! I have no idea what wool I was using but I left those few strips in (on the tip of the large maple leaf). I've been using some shibori dyed wool that I never thought I would find a use for! Bright orange is not something I ever dye – thanks to Wanda Kerr for encouraging me to stretch during an online dye class she did last Spring.

10 Minute Challenge

Amazing what can be accomplished when one simply makes the commitment to give a certain task attention for a small amount of time each day. I have completed the "Wood Rose" project, a pattern designed by Laura Pierce. Having taken the 10-Minute Challenge on September 21, I forged on when frustrated by trying to match dye formulas (note to self: take even better dye notes!), when I might not have otherwise done so. I was pleasantly surprised to find some yarn for whipping that perfectly matched the background wool.

Now I need to settle on my next project – perhaps one of those UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) I have stashed away in the back room. Heading into a busy time at work, I am tempted to take a break from the challenge, but just like going to the gym, I know it's easier to keep going than to take a break and try to start again!

Imagine what could be accomplished in every area of life if we just gave it a little bit of attention…

Christmas . . .

Well, even though most of the cookies have been consumed, I did take a couple more pictures. These cashew cookies are another standby favorite. The recipe is from a wonderful woman, one of my first mentors – "Cillar". She was a second (or third or once removed or something or other!) cousin to my mother. I always saw her as such a free spirit. She died way too young – in her late 40's perhaps? My first degree was in early childhood education because I so admired the work she did with Head Start as it was beginning in the 60's. She and her three children lived in Iowa City; her husband was a funeral director and as kids we used to love playing in the funeral home. Her daughter Melissa was the maid of honor at my first wedding. One time while visiting her, everyone had somewhere they needed to be and I was left alone at home all evening. Cillar handed me a little book that she thought I might enjoy reading to pass the time. That book was "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" by Richard Bach and it resonated deeply within me. Amazing how a cookie can take you down memory lane.
Christmas was very quiet and very enjoyable. Dante went to Medford to visit his mom and friends we usually spend holidays with were out of town. A dear friend came over and we prepared prawns the size the rib eye steaks, homemade pasta with leeks, and salad. It always comes back to food, doesn't it? Sue helped me work on a current quilt project…a perfect way to spend an afternoon.
We've been talking about playing mahjong for years and Christmas Day seemed like the perfect time to learn. Takashi hasn't played in nearly 30 years, claiming we needed to have a special table to do so. About four years ago, we bought the materials to build a table top that would sit on top of a card table so we dug out the materials along with the mahjong set, downloaded some tips on playing from the internet and found a book at the library that explained Japanese rules in English. Takashi has a well-worn book but since it was all in Japanese we weren't trusting him to guide us.

Mah jong is an incredibly complex game and we didn't get far…but we will try again…maybe.
My favorite Christmas activity is always the Christmas Eve Candle Lighting service. There is something magical about the story, the music, and the candles that touches me every year. And it just isn't Christmas until I've heard "O Holy Night".

Christmas Baking

Christmas baking has started early … we're going to a Christmas party/dinner tomorrow and bringing dessert. I haven't made my mom's wonderful "Mrs. Claus's Fudge" in years. Oh my! It's just as wonderful as I remember.
I do make cherry coconut bars every year – at least one double batch. I wonder where mom got this recipe? It is absolutely wonderful…here it is:
Pastry: 1 cup flour    ½ cup butter    3 tsp. confectioner's sugar
Filling: 2 slightly beaten eggs    1 tsp. vanilla    1 cup sugar    ¾ cup chopped nuts
¼ cup flour    ½ cup coconut    ¼ tsp. salt    ½ cup quartered maraschino cherries
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, butter, and confectioner's sugar with hands until smooth. Press into 8 inch square pan. Bake 25 minutes.
Mix filling ingredients. Spread over top of baked pastry (no need to cool) Bake 25-30 minutes or until browned.
I always make a double batch and put it in a 13X9 pan.
And no…I'm not sharing ;-)

10 Minute Challenge Update

Continuing my commitment to the 10-Minute Hooking Challenge has been…a challenge. I am grateful that I made the commitment during sabbatical in order to establish the habit before my return to work. While the 10 minutes is now closer to actually being 10 minutes than the 90 minutes it was turning out to be, I still see progress and it keeps me motivated. I must remind myself that much of my inspiration for Sunday talks comes when otherwise engaged in creative pursuits such as hooking, quilting, etc. Why do I always seem to make "work" be difficult?
So here is the current project that I started November 9. It would have been completed over a week ago had I not had to struggle with dyeing more background. After several tries, I got some that was just a tad bit lighter – it worked well in the center of the piece. Today I redyed some a bit darker to use around the edges. I think this will work…hooray!

Dyeing Frustration

Here is the progress on my latest 10 Minute challenge rug.

Unfortunately I ran out of background wool – arrgghh! I have notes and was fairly certain that I knew which formula this was – the piece I had been using was something I dyed when playing around with the "wandering" dye method last Spring. The color is off…too bright. It is simply Cushings "wine" over gray Dorr wool and is quite beautiful but not the same as I've been using. After further digging through notes, I think perhaps that was wrong formula…should be wine over light blue followed by mulberry. Hopefully I can carve out enough time to quickly dye that tomorrow.

As I was hooking this piece, it became evident fairly early on that I would not have enough wool for the background but knowing that I had the formula, I kept hooking. I did hook the background at all different points around the pattern in case whatever I dyed was a tad bit off but as you can see, this is just too different. Back to the dye pots!

Entrelac

Finally took a picture of the entrelac scarf. This is such a fun pattern! I am not much of a knitter but this is do-able even for me – just don't look too closely.

Entrelac Distraction & Thanksgiving

I haven't been posting for a few weeks but I have a multitude of excuses, the first one being – entrelac! I've never been much of a knitter – every scarf seems to turn into a triangle and I never knew how to correct mistakes or go back and make adjustments. About one year ago, my dear (and VERY patient!) friend, Sue Whitmore was actually able to teach me to knit socks. I was hooked! I've made about 7-8 pairs this year. Then this Spring while in our local yarn shop, The Wool Company, (a wonderful shop and the owners are delightful), I saw this very unique scarf using entrelac technique. Entrelac is a knitting technique used to create a textured diamond pattern. While the end result resembles basket-woven strips of knitted fabric, the actual material comprises interconnected squares on two different orientations. Check out a tutorial for this scarf at http://knittyotter.typepad.com/otterknits/2007/03/entrelac_scarf_.html. After many read-throughs and a couple of false starts, I enlisted Sue's help once again. After a couple of afternoons of knitting and ripping out, I think we've finally got it! It's such fun but requires quite a bit of attention in the beginning. I haven't taken a picture yet but will do so soon. Just don't look too closely!

The main reason I have not been posting is that I returned to church – yep, sabbatical time is over. I attended last week for our annual Thanksgiving breakfast and Gratitude service. It's one of my favorites. Whoever wishes to do so is given the opportunity to express their gratitude or share a story. It is a touching and inspirational service. Afterward, we decorated the church for Christmas since tomorrow is the beginning of Advent. Here's my Board President…

Another reason I love Thanksgiving is that it is our wedding anniversary. From my wonderful husband:

  On Thanksgiving 1998, Takashi and I were married on the back patio of my childhood home in St. Charles, IL.  All three of Takashi's kids flew out from OR & CO, my brother and his family came from VA and my sister and her husband came from MN.  Fortunately Linda is Methodist pastor so we were able to be very relaxed about the whole thing.

This Thanksgiving was small in number but huge in food...just 5 of us.  The turkey with apple-cranberry glaze was brined using kosher salt, crab boil spice packet (yes, I use that for pickles too) & coriander and was the best ever. The brining was accomplished with a large plastic bag in the canner using two other water filled bags engineered to allow the bird to be surrounded by the brine.  The menu was rounded out with sausage-chestnut stuffing, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, glazed pecan carrots, pear harvest salad, Bandon cranberries, fruit jello mold, and Parmesan knots.  Then there was dessert - Dutch apple pie, pecan tassies, and pumpkin bread with cream cheese filling. 

Speaking of apples - here's one that was left on the tree - Takashi picked it on Thanksgiving and we had to weigh it - one apple = 1 3/4 pounds!

Here's an uninvited holiday visitor who has been driving Musashi the Wonder Weiner dog crazy!  He sits out on the deck bench and eats apples out of my bucket of apples to be used later...

  

Another Project

This week I pulled out my sewing machine and some fabric I bought in Japan two trips ago. I decided to make a table runner and placemats. I topstitched around the edges but did not do any quilting on them yet. We used them on the table tonight and I still haven't decided if I want to do some "meandering" quilting on them or not.

The days are flying by and I feel a sense of urgency as the time to return to work draws near. This weekend I cleaned out more kitchen cabinets; we've cleaned out our garage, the backroom of the rental next door, the shed, and on and on it goes. Hmmm, I think Takashi may be happy to have me return to work!

More Fun in the Kitchen

We have been enjoying some wonderful meals lately…rediscovering some old favorites and trying some new things. We all enjoy tabletop cooking. We've have been using an ancient butane burner that was getting crankier and bordered on being dangerous. Takashi found a great new burner online for only $20.00. We ended up buying three of them – one for our wonderful neighbor/tenant and two for us so we can more easily accommodate more dinner guests. Time to try some new dishes!

Nabe is "one pot" cooking prepared at the table in a clay pot with water or broth using a variety of ingredients . We've been fans of shabu shabu (swish swish) for years – we usually use beef, cabbage, tofu, mushrooms and a variety of other vegetables which are cooked in the pot and then dipped in ponzu sauce with some grated horseradish. We picked up some halibut down at the fish market and it was wonderful!

Last night we made chestnut rice, a traditional fall dish to go with our Korean tabletop barbecue (we used shrimp, peppers, oyster mushrooms, and shitake for the barbecue). I love chestnuts but roasting and shelling them is not easy!! It was worth it though – here's the rice with chestnuts and shitakes in the rice cooker with a little sake added to the cooking water. Yum!

Takashi also made mochi last night for the first time – pounded it by hand – he is looking online at this very moment for a mocha maker! It was delicious coated with kinako – roasted soybean flour. It disappeared before I could get a photo.

Fun in the Kitchen

Having some extra time has allowed both Takashi and I the opportunity to play in the kitchen and it has been very satisfying. I've rediscovered the joy of making my own pasta – it started with the udon and has continued since then. And canning! Oh I had forgotten how much that feeds my soul. One thing I've never made is pickles. The growing season on the Coast is just not conducive to tomatoes but we had to at least try since we have the deer fence this year. We had a few ripe ones but mostly we had a ton of green tomatoes left. I had a few of the spices used for pickles but not all of them so went to the grocery store to pick up some premixed "pickling spices" – yowzers! – expensive! As I looked at the ingredients, I thought, "Hmmmm, this seems familiar." So I checked out the box of "crab & shrimp boil" – yep, almost identical and a fraction of the cost. What the heck, I decided to try it. I threw in some whole garlic cloves, fennel, onions, and jalapenos. Here's the result:

They looked okay…so I put one jar in the fridge and the rest in the pantry. Last week, we opened up the first jar and were amazed! These pickles are absolutely delicious! All three of us really liked them. Guess what we're planting next year?