More Paint

In light of yesterday's success in reviving an older abandoned piece, I tried "fixing" another today.  This one just didn't have a good color balance - too many close shades near each other.  I mainly just strengthened some colors and shifted a few on the color wheel a notch. It looks better, but it's still not my favorite.  I seem to run into trouble whenever I use a true red in a piece along with a pinkish red.

Mandala Make-over

This is a mandala I found half-painted in one of my folders. I had set it aside, as I really hadn't liked where it was going.  It was weakly colored and really just didn't speak to me. I've been working on it the last few days and (for better or worse) finished it out, darkening up and changing a lot of the colors. There is only so much that you can do with watercolors before you get mud and there is no real going back, only forward.

At least I can move it into the finished stack, where it will again wait an indefinite amount of time before something happens.

After:

Before:

Good Morning

Have a cup of caffeinated sunshine.

Things Done and Left Undone

Spring Break has drawn to a close and the reality can now be tallied. One always goes into a holiday week with great thoughts of getting some of those little things done.  We had the whole family home this week and did enjoy some good time together, and because we just stayed at home we're hoping everyone is rested up.

Undone:
Taxes - I've got a few more days, right?
Framing/finishing - deadline for photos of the new stitching stuff for the online show is today. Today!?!
Beer - we've been planning to start a batch of Belgian brewing.
Beer bread - and I was going to bake bread with the spent grain.
Etsy - was going to load in all of the excess/unsold merch from the psychic fair.
Newsletter - part of getting ready for that online show.

Done:
Psychic Fair booth - it was a great weekend
Potatoes and onions - planted
Dandelions and other uninvited herbaceous pests - greatly reduced in numbers
Stitching - models are stitched
On-line needlework show booth - loaded, except for photos as mentioned above.
Sushi - made some
Music - made some
Knitting - knit some

Kids went back to school this morning, starting a fresh quarter. (I don't know how, but my son actually woke up before the alarm - he had been sleeping in past 1pm each day.)  Husband is back at work.  Dog looks a little forlorn with the nearly empty house. All the regular chores stand waiting their due: the laundry, dishes, scrubbing and vacuuming. And thus begins another cycle.

Finishes

Didn't mean to be cruel and show only the backs of the recently framed pieces.
Here are two by Hannah. You will recognize (likely) Frederick the Literate, by Charles Wysocki.  I forget who designed the sampler one. She's currently about half way through a tiger picture called Blue Eyes, one of those photo-realistic solidly stitched types.

And you have already seen these fronts, I just had to get them presentable for the Nashville Show. Just Rosy on top (charts at the printer now) and the Oatmeal Quaker (already available) below.

The last three items on the bed are a set of new releases. I'm not sure when I will be leaking photos of them. It's such a strategy game that I don't fully understand.  Share now & get people excited? Make them wait so there is something new at the actual show they haven't seen?

I hadn't posted up all of my Christmas finishes yet, so here are some more pictures.  I knit this hat for my sister -it's shown here modeled by my brother. It was by far the best received hand-knitted gift I've ever given.

Close your eyes for the next picture if you are embarrassed at the thought of animals procreating in the wild. This was the hat my brother got to keep for himself.

Boring ol' socks for my hubby:

Fingerless mitts for my friend, who might appear to be suffering from jaundice, but is not. Also, the computer insists of putting the photo upside down, regardless of the fact I flipped it and saved.

Ah, it feels good to empty the camera.



It's a Wrap

I wanted something besides another cup of tea this afternoon, so I made up a glass of this stuff - Lo-Han-Kuo Beverage.  We call it "Not Tea," with references to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  You can find it at any Asian grocery.  As I prepared my cup and boiled the water, I found myself terribly amused at the amount of wrapping involved.

Let us peel back the layers to get to the product...

• Outer plastic wrap
• cardboard box containing
• twelve smaller cardboard boxes each containing
• a plastic bag which holds
• waxed paper which unfolds to reveal
• ta da: two little cubes that look like bullion cubes.

I think they really missed the mark by not having an additional layer of plastic wrap on the twelve tiny boxes. Seriously, moisture or dust or anything could have contaminated the product.

In the Dark

We have a very pleasant fluorescent fixture in our bathroom.  The ballast died. Went to two stores in town to find replacement, but nothing similar was in stock. Mail ordered ballast. Elapse ~ week.

New ballast arrives and is perfect fit. Yeah. But we broke one of the tube holders. Having seen them at the hardware store when we were shopping for ballasts, we assumed them easy to replace and tossed them out. Next day and three hardware stores later, found that we were unable to  find the correct match.  Mail order parts. Elapse ~ week. Sadly these don't fit either.

We need the snap-in models, not the slide in models like "No #1".  We also learned we couldn't mutilate the tabs to force it to fit and stay in.  We also need a clearance of about 1" rather than the 1cm in "No #2".

It's so frustrating to know exactly what you want, but be unable to shop for it. One positive note, the teenagers have spent much less time in our bathroom.

Squash Bread

As the proud owners of a 40+ pound Giant Blue Hubbard squash this fall, we've been trying different recipes to make use of this tasty resource.  Besides making "pumpkin" pie with it for Thanksgiving dinner, I tried this recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest" for squash bread.  It is a basic yeasted wheat bread with pureed squash mixed in. They recommend any winter squash (acorns, butternuts, etc.)

1. The sponge: 2 T dry yeast, 1.5 C warm water, drop of molasses. Mix and set for 5 minutes.
2. Add: 2 C white flour, 2 C whole wheat flour. Mix, cover and set in a warm place for 30-60 minutes.
3. In a separate bowl, mix 2.5 C mashed, cooked squash, 3 T molasses, 0.25 C melted butter, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, 0.5 tsp cloves.
4. Add the squash mix to the risen sponge.  Add flour 1 Cup at a time, alternating between white and wheat, as you mix the dough.  When it gets hard to mix, begin kneading.  Knead for 10 minutes, adding flour as necessary.  You may need 6-8 cups additional flour in this step. Place covered in a BIG oiled bowl and let rise in a warm spot for an hour or until doubled in size.
5. Punch down the dough and knead a little bit more. Shape into loaves and put in/on greased pans. I made one bread loaf plus 18 large dinner rolls. I make dinner rolls by dividing each portion into three parts and rolling each into a ball, then putting the 3 balls into a muffin pan socket.  Cover dough with damp towel and let rise for an hour or until doubled again.
6.  Bake at 350 - 375 until done. Loaves take about 40 minutes, rolls about 20.

 Very tasty. If I had remembered, I would have thrown a handful of pumpkin seeds (obviously, the peeled ready to eat kind) into the rolls as I was making them as was suggested in a different recipe I saw.

My big loaf leaned a little, maybe because it had to share an oven rack with the turkey, which was a space hog.

Hats Off

In my continuing efforts to keep the Horner heads warm, I have added another knit cap to the collection. This a pattern by Anna Zilboorg that has been bastardized to accommodate using a much smaller gauge yarn by adding extra pattern repeats and sneaking in many extra rows.  All in all, I think it came out quite cute.

And, for another fun finish (well, the stitching part is finished, but I've not made it into anything yet.)  I got this idea from seeing a QR code made of a waffle with chicklets and chocolate chips.  I know I am not the first to do this in stitches, but when the idea struck, I could NOT RESIST.

Please, please, pull out your smart phone and scan this baby! I was just so tickled that it worked.  Isn't technology amazing!

Circus

It's been a circus of a week. My laptop died last Wed and I've been slowly pulling my life back togerher. It's amazing how much of my daily activities were impacted.

So with many hours sitting and rwloading software and configuring things, I've had some downtime waiting for things to install. There is still much to do, but I have regained basic functionality.

This has been my knitting project for those moments. It will be the central vertical back panel of a cardigan. The yarn is noro in some colorway that makes me think of a sunset over Circus Circus.

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