late winter eats

last week we tried this recipe for cumin seed roasted cauliflower with salted yogurt, mint and pomegranate seeds from epicurious. It was quite good - and light! (we used nonfat plain yogurt.) I totally recommend it - but the pomegranate and mint and yogurt are a must. The cauliflower on its own is, well, it's okay. But it's still cauliflower, and I'm not wild about cauliflower. We're trying to make it a more regular part of our diet.

I also made a french lettuce soup (with romaine this time) and I liked the pairing together. While the cauliflower dish really feels like it is firmly rooted in the winter season, the lettuce soup tastes like spring.

Every week I check at the market for fiddleheads, ramps, morels, chantrelles...I know I'm about a month early, but I have such a hankering for these spring crops!! I cannot wait to gather nettles for soup again!

winterspring

on the left, the sudden snowstorm that caught me on my way home. I was covered in snow, and I only had a half-block walk from the bus stop! On the right, the weather some 20 minutes later: bright sunshine, the snow that had accumulated already melted.

I am still hoping for a decently warm spring and summer and a good growing season this year. We are getting there, by degrees - after all, the sun *did* come back (of course, then it snowed again later!).

I had some kumquats I needed to eat or use up somehow, so I candied them. The process is pretty simple. You make a simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar, brought to a boil and then simmered for 2 minutes). Cut up kumquats - slices, halves, whatever's your fancy (or leave them whole, but prick the skins in a few places with a pin so they don't explode). Add them to the boiling sugar syrup, reduce heat, and simmer (to be honest, I kept mine at a really low boil instead) for 10 minutes (longer if they are whole). Strain out the kumquats and place in a jar. increase heat and reduce syrup until it thickens. Mine is quite gelatinous (maybe the natural pectins in citrus are involved?). Pour hot syrup over kumquats, let cool, and then either seal up and refrigerate (they'll keep a few weeks like this, in the fridge) or serve over ice cream, whatever's your fancy.

That little jar in the front? Extra syrup. I am saving it for making cocktails - it's really nice!

Still not done tying that scarf. I'm about halfway done with the last side, though - so, soon!

getting it done!

So, a few things coming along. That scarf is half-tied off; I will tie fringe tonight and hopefully have a picture to show you tomorrow! (Failing that - soon! I am spending a lot of time in the archives this week, reading through correspondence organized by name - not date!! - from the first five years of a theatre's life. It does take time!)

I bought the fabric to recover these chairs last summer. Last summer! It's been ... well, over 6 months. But hey, better late than never, eh? We have just two more to do (really, one and a half - one is covered, but I need to get some more screws to reattach), and then it's all done. Just in time for an upcoming feast to celebrate the spring equinox (I'll try to remember to take photos this time).

I bought this fabric to go with the wallpaper. I'm glad we'll be here another year before ... whatever the future brings, because I love it together. So Scandi!

okay. Hopefully scarf tomorrow - off to tie fringe. =)

spring fever running rampant

also, this is adorable. The same part of me that is craving a linen dress is so ready for a springy picnic. And with all those sawn limbs from the plum tree drying in our shed-space (for summer marshmallow roasts!), coming up with a bit of tree limb for the base of this rustic wood cake stand will be a snap. Yes, I know it's supposed to be for a wedding, but like that would stop me.

Note to self: to make before Midsommar. How cute would this be for this year's cloudberry cake?

and speaking of spring fashion bug

how darling is this dress? It's the Marlowe Dress at anthro right now. I suppose $148 for a dress is rather moderately priced for anthro these days, but egads, too rich for my blood - and you know it'll only go to $70 or $80 on markdown, if it even makes it there. Still too much. But it's a lovely dress; it's made of a heavy-weight linen (I've felt it, it's like denim), so it's actually sturdy (not something anthro has offered much recently). It's actually a pretty simple shape, though; the top and skirt are obviously secured between the two layers of the waistband; there are five buttons with loops (not even button holes to manage!) on the left side over a side zip. Armholes are faced, as I'm sure the neckline and side of the dress are, too (and the button loops are secured between outer face of dress and inner facing, on the seam). Patch pockets - easy enough.

I think I need to draft a pattern for this little darling and just make it myself. It would NOT be difficult. Bonus, I can probably sew straighter pintucks (in the detail shots they're a bit wavy), so long as I mark them out carefully and take my time sewing. Anyways, for now, I'm just dreaming about it along with so many other projects (like the Russian Settler's Dress - imagine this sewn from an ivory-and-gold flecked lightweight silk suiting, with columns of heavy rose or even brown embroidery stitched rising from the hem?). Oh, spring and summer, hurry back! I want to plant and wear sundresses again!

breath of fresh air: alabama chanin corset top

here it is! So, we had a snow-week back in January. Or rather, we had half a snow-week, following on the heels of a Monday holiday and a Tuesday where I did not have to go in. It was like a mini-Christmas break. I was, in fact, overjoyed. I'd spent my winter break editing and organizing and emailing and freaking out with nerves before reading at the MLA ... yeah, not so much fun. I didn't paint, I didn't do any of the things I normally do that feed the other parts of my self.

So I enjoyed the heck out of the snow week. Cass took two days off work and we played like kids. We went sledding - my first time ever, if you can believe it! - down some of the steep hills over Lake City Way in Seattle. We made Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes and ate them after every snowy outing for several days, enough that I finally started getting sick on them (in my book, that means you've just had the right amount). I made gingerbread scones studded with chunks of apple for breakfast with lattes or afternoon cups of tea. We made big pots of tea. We made snow angels. We soaked in the hot tub under falling snow (the best!).

When Cass went back to work, I put my favorite Christmas carols on (so as not to drive him crazy) and I started this project. I've wanted one of these Alabama Chanin since I was in high school, although back then it was Project Alabama that made them. A few details, in case you are curious, Project Alabama (you can find their pieces at some anthropologie stores from time to time now) has abandoned Natalie Chanin's founding values and relocated operations to China. Since then, Chanin founded Alabama Chanin which continues to operate here in the US, where they keep American stitching/embroidery/quilting traditions alive, pay a decent wage to women who are needed at home - often to help raise grandchildren in an intergenerational living situation, use organic cotton jersey dyed with natural dyes and strive for zero waste in their business.

In short, Natalie Chanin is one of my heroines. I have great admiration for her ethics, and for her aesthetic vision - they really do create beautiful garments. However, as these garments are one-of-a-kind AND sewn entirely by hand, I've never been able to afford one of these tops. Imagine how excited I was, then, when Chanin started putting out craft books with PATTERNS for her clothes in the last few years. I own all three. I'd been intimidated about the time involvement, but with a week of falling snow outside my window, I was happily bundled on the couch and well stocked with cocoa and movies, sewing away. It came together remarkably fast, really - even with all those eyelets, which did take more time to sew than anything else on this top.

I made a medium, but used the length from the size XL to make sure the piece was long enough for tall me. The medium's a little bit too big, but I like that it doesn't squeeze my hips. I think I'll use the size small for the tank dress, which is the next piece I intend to make from Chanin's new book, Studio Sewing and Design. I'll use my burgundy merino jersey for the outer layer and grey rayon jersey for the inner. Cozy and warm - it'll be a beautiful winter dress.

I'll probably start this in May or June; I want to be able to take the panels with me when we go to Paris (I'm giving a paper at a conference at the Sorbonne in July - isn't that crazy??), because I love embroidering on planes. Handicraft is such a fascinating way to meet people, especially (I've found) from other countries. I have had the nicest conversations over the years (and over an embroidery project) with a Korean woman in Santa Barbara who sat and had coffee with me one summer morning while I embroidered a linen skirt for Midsommar, with a German lacemaker at our local coffeeshop, with the stewardesses of Iceland Air who cheered me on as I stayed up through an entire transatlantic flight embroidering my friend's wedding veil (it was a photo finish, that project - I was working until 10:30pm the night before the wedding!). There's just something about it, it draws people in.

And apparently it draws me in, too. Hello? Still there? Bored to tears yet? Okay, back to (real) work, then. I'm almost done with that scarf (the tapestry-weave in undulating twill); I should have that to post soon. And then, I think, on to some machine sewing for a change. It's snowing here but I have the spring fashion bug - and a new/old Anna Sui blouse pattern that I think is just the ticket for some springy pastel-striped silk I've had in my stash for years.

a new experiment

well, there hasn't been much going on lately - sorry for the lack of posts. I did finally finish my Alabama Chanin corset top - pictures forthcoming; I've already worn it to school once. The knots are kind of itchy, but it's pretty amazing to me to own a hand-sewn garment now.

This is a basket of lichen. Now, before the eco-police come knocking, a caveat: these lichen were harvested off a dying plum tree that a friend and I are taking out by hand. I figured, I may as well make the best use of the materials as possible.

(Axe, I'm having trouble logging into my flickr account, but I did get the message. No rush on those recipes, I'm happy to wait - and plenty to do in the meantime, what with taking down a tree without chain saws.)

Oh yes, people, we are taking down a tree with a pair of hand saws and a rope. It's kind of awesome. We had our scary bit last week, when we took down a branch that was probably too big a chunk of tree to take down in one go. We were worried about it landing on the garage and smashing windows - quite exciting for a while. We both were laughing a bit with nerves and I think the consensus was: "we should not be doing this." But we did it, avoided failure, and picked lots of lichen while sawing the tree into manageable logs and breaking down the twigs.

which brings me to these guys. So, I sorted them. The Old man's beard (usnea, down right) makes a yellow dye. The cabbagey-rosettes in the back can be used for a darker yellow dye. The glass on the left is the valuable one: oakmoss. Not common in the states, it's still harvested by the ton in Europe for the cosmetic industry (it has a sweet-earthy scent which lingers quite a long time, and is traditionally the base for the "cypress" family of perfumes). I couldn't get my hands on the hexane (natural solvent) or I would have been making my own oakmoss absolute (a sticky/gummy oakmoss perfume - because you can't distill oakmoss into an essential oil, it's too fragile). Alas, I settled instead on using the oakmoss for dye as well.

Oakmoss is not used for dye anymore, as it grows so slowly that dye production would quickly hunt it to extinction. However, when used for dye, it produces a natural purple dye. That's right, folks - purple. One of the more difficult colours to attain naturally. In fact, the purple dyes extracted from snail shells were a technological advancement over oakmoss - and once it was discovered that snail shells could be used to produce purple dye, the oakmoss dyeing industry (or so I read) basically disappeared.

So here's how it works. It's in this ammonia-water liquid and I have to shake it up once a day for the next 6-12 weeks. Even on day two (pictured above) the water is turning red. I accidentally put the oakmoss in way more liquid than I ought to have used; it is supposed to be a thick slurry. However, this does make it easy to shake - I'll just treat this as a less-concentrated dye and add more of it when I dye in the spring.

Kind of exciting, isn't it? I'll be sure and let you know how it turns out. Hopefully it won't be a colossal bust.