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After cursing and fiddling with the darning/free-motion foot I picked up for my sewing machine a month ago I finally had time to get it to work properly. The manual for my machine offers no insight and the package the foot came in has nothing printed on it other than the name. I assumed the best way to work this thing was without feed dogs to allow for the implied free-motion. HA HA! Silly me. I also assumed that using an inverted embroidery hoop would give me more control and allow for more even tension on the underlying fabric (wool felt in this case)I found a diagram to this effect. Again HA HA!
The stitches weren't catching and the tension was way off on the bottom. My frustration levels were rising and so was my blood pressure.... then I walked away (in an uncharacteristically grown-up fashion). I came back to my machine days later and pretended not to have any clue as to how free-motion sewing SHOULD work.
As it turns out, my machine would like the feed dogs up and engaged with nary an embroidery hoop in sight. Who knew?
Now that I do know though, I will likely need to buy thread in bulk. This free-motion stuff is fun and hypnotising and burns through thread like there is no tomorrow.
I had some scrap pieces of felt from making larger things and decided to make more cuffs. I love wearing big jewellery and mostly can't afford it. I have some issues with all the leather cuffs out there too. They are a bit boring. In any case, I sweated over making this felt and I don't intend to waste any. So I went out and found some glass beads and shell buttons and did my best to blind myself sewing into the dark of night to satisfy my craving for felt that sparkles. Imagine satisfaction in blinding yourself. I should be locked up!
I am participating in an art fair this December. It's the second time I've done this fair and I really enjoyed doing it last year. Since it's in a gallery they make you go through the whole application procedure. I think it's worthwhile just to keep up practice jumping through gallery hoops. I re-wrote my bio and justified my practices on paper. Being forced to think that way about what you make is dull but usefull.
This is one of the felted wall hangings I made for the show. I used some of the new techniques I learned this summer from Jessica at her excellent felting workshop. I also went out and invested in a darning foot for my sewing machine and spent two afternoons trying to make the thing work (it came with no instructions and my sewing machine manual was no help at all).
It was worth it though. That is a fun attatchment. I can burn through the thread in no time.
My mom and dad were up for a visit and Bad Babs photographed nearly the whole procedure on her camera from roving to rolling and cutting. She had to leave before it was dry so she missed the sewing machine part but it looks like she has the makings of an excellent documentary on the fabulous skills of her daughter. I expect nothing could be more rivetting than an expose on felting.
Yeah, who knew. I was asked about a year ago to make a felted stag costume for my step-father in law. I said sure. The deadline was not for a year, LOADS of time. Naturally I didn't think anything more about it until the mad halloween scramble hit our house in September. At which time I also needed costumes for two small girls. Luckily for me the girls found princess costumes at a thrift shop and were quite happy for me to do nothing other than their make-up. I was pleased enough to be a witch for the third year running. Sadly for me (though a relief to him) I didn't have time to make or find Boss Hog a costume. I was thinking of Sherlock Holmes for him but will have to save that for next year.
I did manage to drag him outside to pose in the stag hat before we sent it off. It was about three degrees outside and the only white shirt he had was thin linen. Boss Hog was a soldier and let me pose him for about 15 minutes before the camera battery died and I let him go back inside. I am a cruel and unusual task master, no?
Here we are harvesting our first crop of potatoes. We are not farmers. We have no idea what we are doing and planted them WAY too late. I think we may have just tripled what we actually planted. Not a wildly successful harvest. But we learned a lot and got our hands dirty and promise to do better next time. Arlo wanted to pick potatoes in her pj's because they have farm animals on them and she thinks she is a farmer like grandpa K.
Grandpa K (who is a certified organic farmer) hooked us up with some seed catalogues. Apparently we're meant to plan our yard just after we clear up from the chaos of Christmas, not in spring, who knew? Not I.
Next years garden will be as many purple and pink veggies as we can cram in to our wee plot. The princess veggies rein supreme around here, obviously.
***Editors note: I crassly forgot to mention that the stunning hat I am wearing in this photo was made for me by the lovely Postmodern Hausfrau. A thousand appologies. It is knitted and, while I didn't ask, I wouldn't put it past her to have invented the pattern for it as well. Delightful as always.
Boss Hog and I eloped. We were both in school and living in different provinces and had only enough money to fly to be in one place to be married, not enough for dresses and flowers and wedding-y stuff. I often plan my virtual wedding in my head and think one day we might act on it and renew our vows with the girls. I feel like that one photo album is missing from the history of our little family.
How great is it then that my little brother and his sweet lady have decided to tie the knot in a proper, grown-up person, wedding. I have by no means become rich, but I did go out and buy some new shoes to wear to the blessed event. I have no idea what I had on my feet when I got married. I suspect I wasn't even wearing shoes. But these babies are making up for all that now. I love these shoes. I'm considering marrying them myself.
Here's a picture of Boss Hog and I on the ferry up the sunshine coast of BC to visit Grandpa N. We have so many pictures of us doing the very same thing over the years, we had to take one more.
Nearly my whole life I spent right next to the sea. I can remember spending whole days jumping off a dock working on my perfect dive. I went back and forth on the ferry so many times from the mainland to the islands during the summers that it never occurred to me that I would live anywhere else.
Now I live 6 hours drive from the sea and I didn't really know how much I missed it until this last visit home. We took the girls down to the beach the first night we were in town and it was perfect. The tide had just come in and the water was warm. The dinner hour had just passed so most of the people had just left. I dived in and swam in the buoyant salty sea and when I popped my head out I realised that my kids thought the sea was gross. Arlo could not bear to be touched by seaweed and Eden just wanted to collect shells. This is the ocean, I thought, dive in and love it for heaven's sake!!
But there it is. My kids will grow up with lakes and rivers and will no doubt harbour deep suspicions of the things lurking in the deep waters of the ocean. It's a bit sad to me that neither of my girls seems to be a fish like their mom. I guess that's how BadBabs must have felt when I turned out to be a fish rather than an ice dancer. I'll just have to wait and see what it is the girls choose.
I know, really, does it get any funnier. I just had to post and get it over with. No more puns, at least not in this post, I promise.
We are back from a wild August of super fun. We went camping with two other couples and all our kids in Rock Creek. We came home for 12 hours and drove to Vancouver to renovate my parents guest bathroom. From there we went to stay in a hotel for four days while Boss Hog was at a conference. Then on to Sechelt to visit Grandpa N and back to my parents for one more night before coming home and getting back in the regular school year groove.
Whew. It is tiring just to type all that. It was actually a lot of fun and we did see so many people that we don't get to spend regular time with anymore that the craziness was worth it. But man am I glad to have my bed back.
Since we've been home I have dyed, and felted and sewn and am currently working on some new posters for our Friends of the Library Society. I haven't even stopped to photograph anything. I think it's because when we were packing up for our marathon vacation I made sure I packed a clear tote full of little traveling projects to work on when the kids napped and in the evenings. I checked and re-checked to be sure I had a bit of everything for any crafting whim that swept me up.
And then I forgot the box. Seriously. Even Boss Hog looked a little worried that I might rip the curtains down at the hotel and sew them into a dress with dental floss. I made it through nearly a whole four weeks without making anything. I think it was good for me to be a bit more still, but I have been in a bit of a making frenzy since we got back.
This wool I dyed with CIBA acid dye to make felted chair pads for our new kitchen chairs. I love the colour but have only made one chair pad so far and think that it kind of sucks design wise. I am waiting to get a bit farther back into the making groove so that the rest of the chair pads are more interesting. Wish me luck.
It didn't seem fair to only make dollies for the girls we know so I invented some monsters for the little boys we love. These two are slated for a couple of special little boys we will see when we go camping next week. My dad though monsters should not have hearts on them but I found it physically impossible to leave them off.
Oh, and dads, just so you know, these are not dolls, they are ACTION FIGURES.
Oh knitter of beautiful sweaters! oh most gracious of hostesses! oh most wonderful cook and maker of sweet things!! oh most lovely of ladies, PH I sing your praises!
I mentioned to PH on the phone right after this package arrived that the girls were beside themselves with joy at the sight of their new sweaters. They were pinging around the room dancing, shrieking, hooting their kidlet joy at the marvelous gift of sweaters. It was, of course, nearly 30 degrees inside and fearing they would whip themselves up into heat stroke I made them take off their new treasures (very unpopular move) and drink some water.
They could not help but make their very funniest of faces for the camera they were so giddy with joy and heat. When they finally tired of pulling horrid faces (thanks to the teaching of their 8yr old boy cousin who is a faces expert) they allowed me to photograph them with their regular faces and Eden's is still all red from the heinous pulling and stretching required to achieve true hilarity.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you THANKS
Your sweaters are divine and make me reconsider my string-a-phobia.
For Eden's birthday I made her a dolly. I always struggle with buying her stuff. She, like most kids, has too much stuff. Too much stuff she never even plays with that comes from far off lands where the kids have no stuff at all. Yeah, I'm the downer mom who shows up at your kids party with homemade stuff that has no box or flashing lights. Things that don't make sound effects have little appeal in this day and age it seems. So, naturally, I subject my kids to this too. They get the prototypes usually. This time though I made Eden's dolly (she named her Rick for reasons unknown) first and thought I would make Arlo one next year for her birthday. 
As you can see Arlo had a different time-line in mind. She kept asking if I was making her a blue dolly too. And when exactly will she be ready mom? Is she done yet? Is she ready now? Can I have her? The blue dolly you made for me, like the one you made for Eden, is she done?
I've mentioned before that Arlo usually refers to herself as a boy, so I was surprised how eager she was to get her own dolly. Two days later she got her dolly (who she named Lella) and was only slightly disappointed that she didn't have blue hair (how was I to know?)
The black haired dolly was the original (Rick) and was inspired by the dollies made by Emily at Inside A Black Apple. I love the way she does her felt dolly hair! But I wanted much bigger dolls, like a little sister for each girl. Eden and Arlo are pretty happy with their dolls but I only had time to make clothes for Rick, Arlo is concerned that Lella is chilly so I best get to work.
Doesn't it look delicious?!?!? It was beet, celery, purple cabbage, spinach, carrot, cucumber, garlic, tomato and ginger. And it was ok but a bit too cabbage-y methinks. Next time less cabbage and more spinach, maybe less garlic too. It was hard to see the juice come out of the juicer after adding one clove of garlic so I didn't know if I'd be able to taste it or not. So I chucked in one more clove and it was a bit potent.
So how did this happen at all you wonder? Well Dark cloud recommended a book by Michael Pollan called 'The Omnivores Dilemma'. I read it and it was good, a bit gloomy but worthwhile. Then I ordered all the rest of his books from my library. I am reading 'In Defence of Food: an eaters manifesto' now, and while it is not a great read, I think it has some interesting ideas. Like how western eaters tend to miss out on eating nearly enough veggies, in particular the leafy green ones. And he goes on to tell us what we are missing and how we are short changing ourselves by eating too many seed/grain based foods. Ok, ok, like your mom always said, eat your veggies. I figured if I was truly so deficient in the greens I needed to kick start the reintroduction with a big glass of goodness rather than trying to eat my weight in salad.
Boss Hog (normally an irritatingly functional eater) thought this was vile. And poor Arlo who comes running if she suspects anyone is trying to drink juice without sharing with her...let's just say she was significantly disgusted.
It wasn't very delicious but I think there is potential to make it 1000's of times more palatable without forgoing all the goodness. Cheers to greens!
And her mouth is full of ice cream cake! It's hard to believe that she has been here for four years. Some days she seems so much older that I forget she is still so little. Eden is careful and cautious and precise. She loves reading and baking and talking about being a ballerina. She hates getting wet accidentally, peas and being woken up. She can be so much like me that I fear her teen years. And yet where would I be without her.
You never know who you will get when you have children. They are their own people from the moment they arrive and come with so much to teach their parents about patience and love and wonder that it makes your throat ache just thinking about it.... now I am feeling a bit weepy....
I know that having kids is not the only way to live a full life. But in my life, I know that Eden and Arlo have made me a better person. Hopefully, I can give them respect and freedom and the ability to be whoever they were meant to be.
One more fruit to love from the Okanagan. We are blessed to be in such an abundantly productive agricultural area of the world. These raspberries came from Boss Hog's mom and step dad's farm where they have an ENORMOUS organic raspberry patch. So enormous in fact, that both the kids were too tired of picking raspberries and putting them in their mouths, that they started stealing berries out of the buckets BH and I were picking into. The cheek.
Strange as it may seem we did not make any raspberry jam. Eden and Arlo love eating frozen raspberries so much that we froze all of the 30ish pounds to be devoured through the winter as is or in the occasional batch of muffins.
So it seems I didn't make anything in this post at all. The berries were grown with love though, and I think it gives them a homemade taste.
In a mad fit of canning the other day I decided to try to can some sour cherries. I am not such a fan of adding cherries to things but I think it is the fault of the cruddy ones littering my grocery store shelves. I had a craving for cherries in the dead of winter when I was pregnant with Arlo and bought a can from the store. They were horrible. HORRIBLE. Then I got a jar from a specialty store and wow. I am a changed woman. I no longer hate cherries but have now become a slave to canning my own to guarantee yummy-ness. I think I may only love sour cherries though. And to my surprise, I discovered a sour cherry tree in my yard. I don't think it has ever produced until this year (we've lived here for four summers) and the cherries are about thirty feet in the air. I'm not sure I'm willing to risk life and limb and spend a sweaty day in the kitchen for really good cherries. Ask me again in the dead of winter.
I found a pattern a while back when Fabricland was having a sale for a cape. I know, capes can be a bit dicey, but I do love a bit of costume-y glory in an outfit so I went ahead and bought the pattern. The idea was always to make a short cape rather than the floor length ones pictured on the pattern but then I decided it would be great to take some of the wall-paper felting techniques that Jessica taught at her workshop (to be blogged about later), and make a fantastic felted short cape.
Since felting requires a bit of commitment in the way of making the fabric I decided to make a mock up out of some corduroy to test the fit and length. Postmodern Hausfrau had some good tips on cape length that really helped. I started out with the hem hitting my wrist and I looked like a huge green box with legs. The pattern only called for one button at the throat but it seemed both a bit twee and also wanted to choke me to death, so I opted for four buttons. I think on the final felted one I will group two buttons together at the top to prevent any pulling in the neck area.
The only other thing I changed on the pattern was to line it. I had some super synthetic lining kicking around in my stash that was a good match colour-wise but makes the hood essentially useless, it just slides off my hair. I realise there are no pics of it with the hood up. I'm not sure if I like it or not. Somehow I feel REALLY Hobbity with the hood up and since the cape itself puts me in a potentially Hobbity, Historical Re-inactors category I want to err on the side of caution. I might try a mandarin collar version next to see how it looks.
Dearest PH and kidlets came to visit for a week two weeks ago and I am still missing them. The thing about our visits is that we spend so much time talking that we didn't take any photos. We had a lot of fun and so did the kids but it will all be lost to our fading memories. This photo was the best I got of all our kids, Fritz, Arlo, Eden and Liesel, and it was taken as Boss Hog loaded their luggage back into the car to drive them to the airport to leave. I did get two pictures of PH and I right after this, but I refuse to post them as both of us look like boiled hell. The price of a week packing in as much kid fun in the day and way too much chit-chat into the dark of night for the mommies. Next year it is our turn to make our way east to visit them and I will spend the whole time with my camera in my hand.
We took the kids down to Boss Hog's mom and step-dad's organic farm the other weekend (probably close to three weeks ago, truthfully) to pick strawberries and we came home with close to thirty pounds of delicious organic berries. I hadn't expected so many and even with the new enormous fridge had to go into immediate jam production. Fourteen pounds of strawberries into jam in one afternoon made for a very sticky kitchen and two very sticky little girls.
Down on the farm, Arlo was right in the berry patch stuffing everything into her mouth that she could reach. Eden however saw that she didn't have to venture into the patch to get berries. All she needed to do was to stand near Grandpa and ask repeatedly "Grandpa, do you see anything big and red?" and sure thing Grandpa would pick the best berry, pull the stem off and put it right in her mouth without her ever having to set foot in the wet (it finally rained) berry patch.
As far as the jam was concerned, I used a new method of cooking the jam to 220 degrees F, rather than using the cold plate testing method which I find tests my patience to no end. I also started looking for jam recipes that don't require extra pectin because the need to jam sometimes comes on unexpectedly with the arrival of a friend's surplus fruit (here in the Okanagan it happens pretty regularly throughout the summer). The strawberry jam worked well but when I used the 220 method for the black currant jam it was a bit stiff. Not that anyone around here minds, they eat jam like the world is coming to an end. Any jammers out there I'd love to hear your tips.
Oooh baby, it's time to carb-load! We are having this again. Thanks to my auntie and uncle for the flour mill they got us when we got married. Thanks to my in-laws for growing organic spelt for us to grind into flour. Thanks to our egg man, John, and his perky lady hens for laying such nice eggs. Thanks to the girls for getting flour everywhere and enthusiastically cranking out the spelt-ghetti.
Eden thought she died and went to heaven. She HATES tomato sauce and was filled with joy when I presented a bowl of fresh pasta tossed with butter and freshly grated pecorino cheese. She even requested a sprinkling of parsley (she's so sophisticated).
My stove cratered last week. I would set it at 250 and it would suddenly rocket up to 450. Not awesome. So we started to hunt around for a used stove. We found one. And how. We found a couple who were downsizing and moving to follow their grand-babies east. They had both a fridge and stove for sale. Since our fridge is of the same vintage as the newly deceased stove, we thought we should pick up both to be on the safe side.
Lets just say I made these hair clips because I need to go to the farmers market to make back some of the cash we dropped on the appliances. A fridge and stove are purchases I don't want to make very often. So the ones we found are only four years old and are pretty much 120 times fancier than the ones now resting in the garage. My fridge makes me feel unworthy. It is a beast. It is the clear focus of our diminutive kitchen. The stove has two separate ovens and, though it is certainly fancier than what I had in mind, I am rapidly rationalizing it's presence here by way of it's superior efficiency. I am an appliance slut it seems.
I have been a bad blogger, I know. And I didn't make this cup either. But, I'm sure you'll agree it is lovely (if you don't then maybe holding it in real life would change things). It was made by Cathi Jefferson. I bought it last weekend at Creative Chaos, apparently the largest craft show and sale in Western Canada. I have some issue with the name of the show implying that the art/craft just happens in a whirlwind of unstoppable creativity rather than by the blood and sweat of persons so inclined to work themselves ragged for nearly no money. Maybe it's just me, but I think the lousy name sets the tone for the whole show. And not a good tone generally.
How excited was I when I found Cathi Jefferson and her amazing pottery there? So excited I bought a whiskey cup! I spent last winter trying to cultivate a taste for whiskey in the cold evenings after the kids went to bed so, obviously, I needed a whiskey cup anyway. And what a lovely one this is. All covered with silver dollars. Mmm. Lovely. Almost makes me want to drag out my clay and reclaim my title as 'potter' but.....
yeah, it gets better. Dearest Boss Hog really came through for my birthday this year and organized a felting workshop for me here at my house with Postmodern Hausfrau. Jessica from Funk Shui is actually coming to my house for a whole weekend of wool. Pretty great. I am so looking forward to PH coming with wee Fritz and Liesl. Eden and Arlo are going to go bananas when they realize that we are having a whole week of sleepovers!!
As for my absence here recently. I agreed to do the concession for Susan Paisley's dance school recital two weeks ago. It was five shows of amazing dance, Eden is going to get signed up for ballet come fall, but it totally taxed the ability of me and my kitchen to mass produce cupcakes and caramel corn. As a result, I have been spending most of my time since then proving to my family that I still love them and am capable of producing delicious dinners, not just special treats that they are not allowed to taste. How cruel am I, making dozens of cupcakes and not giving the girls any? Just ask either of them and they will tell you. Not sharing is mean. I have taught them well.
Nothing like a time crunch to make you try a new medium. My friend surprised us all by giving birth to a sweet baby boy three weeks early. Needless to say my powers of organization do not stretch quite this far. I had bought an organic cotton sleeper and a stuffy bunny (which Arlo was quite upset to have to wrap and part with) but had not had a chance to pick up a card. And thank goodness for that.
I searched about a bit on the net for inspiration and made myself a paper flower card. I have not given paper the credit it is due and for that I am sorry. I was telling my friend Robin about a book I was reading that took place in North Carolina before the Revolutionary war. I said the thing that struck me more than the wilderness in the book was the nearly complete lack of paper for people to write on. It made me take more care with recycling.
And from that I have progressed to a love of the beautiful Japanese papers. Another dear friend gave me a package of paper ends from Paper Ya in Granville Island and these bits are what I used for this welcome to the world card for sweet baby James.
I felted and felted and felted and when I was done I still had pieces of unused felt left over. You know the little pieces that are too small for most anything. But still you feel that all the work it took to make that felt should not be thrown away. So I thought a minute and came up with felt and fabric cuffs. I love cuffs. I usually love leather cuffs and can't afford the truly great ones. Not to mention the tiny town factor. I am not a fan of driving for two hours to browse in shops in nearby towns. If I have a spare two hours I would rather spend it solving problems and finding new ways to do things than driving. Call me crazy.
I made about ten different cuffs with different fabric and felt colours and decided to wear this one. It is subdued for me ( I have to work not to leave the house looking like an Easter egg) but I like it and have been wearing it a lot. Yeah!
The down side is that my sewing machine is packing it in. Too much sewing on a pretty inexpensive machine that I bought just after Eden was born. I really have my heart set on a Bernina. Postmodern Hausfrau has one and I have used and loved it. They are hard to find though unless you are willing to buy new and sadly, though I am willing, I am not able to spend that kind of cash right now. If anyone has a sewing machine recommendation to pass along I would appreciate it.
These hair bands were really fun to make, like little felted collages. I made five that are all roughly similar and love them immensely. However...(ominous tones) I look TERRIBLE in a hair band. I have a long, narrow face and need all the bangs I can get to not look like a forehead monster. I would like to blame this on a genetic abnormality that does not allow for head band wearing but Bad Babs is a total head band devotee.
I have never seen my dad in a hair band so maybe I can yet blame this on his side of the family? (he only has brothers and I haven't seen any of them sport a head band either, so it's possible that they all have the same problem {since neither of my uncles will ever read this, I can reveal that their actual problem is baldness which makes them de facto forehead monsters without hair bands}).
For the last um, five years every single present I have sent dearest Dark Cloud has been late. Not just a bit late either. A lot late, like a month or two late. So imagine how exciting it was to talk to her the other day and hear that her birthday present had arrived early. I made a very strangely sized quilt. It's not big enough for a bed and too square even for a single bed but maybe good to wrap yourself in while you watch a movie. I don't make very many quilts but I really liked making this one. The black flowers fabric is one I bought years ago and could never use for fear of not having it anymore. Now I know it has a good home though and I can relax and hunt down more dream fabric. Not much of a struggle I'm afraid. Happy Birthday Dark Cloud Blue Sky!!
Last Saturday I took part in a Mayfair event with a group of artisans. It went really poorly. Now I feel compelled to evaluate how I am interacting with the world as an artisan.
This was the fifth art/craft sale that I have done in the years since I graduated from ACAD and every one has been as miserable as the last, even though they were spread across a whole province and five or six years. At each event I talked to the people around me and regardless if they were jewellers, potters, doll-makers or soap makers, nobody was making any money. I can say personally I barely made enough to compensate for the time I stood there selling, let alone enough money to buy more supplies. And by all accounts I did better than some. I know most people don't intend to spend more than ten dollars at any one booth so I made a lot of hair clips, pins, cuffs and I had homemade candy (cashew brittle, caramels, chocolates etc...) to buoy up the bottom end of people who only intend to part with their change. So anyone who was selling paintings or silver jewellery had a really rough day.
I'm optimistic that at fairs like Renegade Craft Fair people come to buy and revel in the abundance of handcrafted items at their fingertips. But also still wallowing and willing to believe it is a myth. I need a break to figure out how to better approach the world. Continue production and sell through Etsy? Go conceptual and apply to Art Galleries? Get a loan and go to Renegade?
I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to make things happen quickly so naturally I am gripped with panic and feel a decision would help but as Postmodern Hausfrau pointed out this morning, we are yet young, with little kids and there is no rush to take over the world. This week anyway.
And on the plus side, I now have lots of time to take nicer picture of all the things I have made to show you.
Now that I've got the caramel recipe sorted out and tested to perfection I decided I needed to try a few new things with it. So here they are, the first test and ooooh baby they are fine.
They are roughly home-made Twix bars, but so much better they hardly bear the comparison. The bottom is vanilla cookie that I then poured hot caramel over. When that was cool I cut them into sticks and dipped them in milk chocolate finally sprinkling them with chopped toasted almonds. Mmmmm....
The only things I'll change for next time will be sprinkling the almonds onto the hot caramel and then dipping them in chocolate and sprinkling the tops with finishing salt. How dreamy is that?
One of Boss Hog's favourite things in the world is starting the day with a nice, reassuring bowl of home made granola. He is the type to enjoy the same thing every day and, truthfully, can be a bit of a functional eater. This kills me because I am the type to want something different every day, but every day it must be something tasty, not simply nutritious and filling. I do like a bowl of granola occasionally, with thick yogurt and frozen raspberries if I have them. So, since a dependable breakfast = true love according to Boss Hog I have been doing my best to keep him supplied.
I bought organic almonds, coconut, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and dried cranberries and raisins from Rancho Vignola, a fantastic fruit and nut supplier located in, of all places! my small town. I added a cup of each of the nuts and seeds to 12 cups of organic old fashioned oats. In a sauce pan I combine one cup butter, one cup of liquid honey and a generous tsp of ground cinnamon and poured it over the oat mixture in two 9x13 pans. Bake at 300 F stirring every 15 mins until golden and toasty all over. I add the dried fruit after everything cools and Voila! I am beloved by Boss Hog until we run out of granola again.
After cursing and fiddling with the darning/free-motion foot I picked up for my sewing machine a month ago I finally had time to get it to work properly. The manual for my machine offers no insight and the package the foot came in has nothing printed on it other than the name. I assumed the best way to work this thing was without feed dogs to allow for the implied free-motion. HA HA! Silly me. I also assumed that using an inverted embroidery hoop would give me more control and allow for more even tension on the underlying fabric (wool felt in this case)I found a diagram to this effect. Again HA HA!
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