requests

I hate it when I have problems with the computer at home.  It has been one of those days and I do not know why.  At least I finally found a brower that worked!

My long weekend was lovely.  I really did not do any thing special but I did have a request for cake.

A time consuming cake.  A cake that had been seen on the Great British Bake Off.  A Swedish Princess cake.

I made marzipan and fondant for the first time from scratch.  I ran out of chocolate.  I learned new skills.

Would I make it again?  No.  It is not to my taste.

I would make the sponge, the jam, and the cream patissierie again.  Even the creme pat mixed with whipped cream but I would assemble it very differently.  I felt the top layer of whipped cream did not add anything and it was the only reason the marzipan was there.  Next time, I may try it as more of a layer cake or an opera cake.  

The flavors have been requested again but not this style of assemplage.  But that is life with experimentation.

quietness

This weekend for Houston was all about weather.  Hurricane Patricia actually was forecasted to effect us and it did.  The first effect was that the people around me seemed to behave as if Armageddon was coming.  No, we were not going to be hit by a hurricane.  Yes, we were going to get rain and wind from the last dying bits of it.  We could have possibly been a lot of rain.  It was not Armageddon but that was the behavior I saw when I had a few errands to run.  

Do not go to the grocery store!

Instead, I tried an old recipe that I have had success with many times but never at the barometric pressures I was experiencing except during an actual tropical storm or hurricane.  Then, I usually do not have power to bake.  There is always a way to make tea.

I made kouign amann.  Yes, the bake took twice as long as normal which was extremely frustrating but in the end, there were lovely laminations and flavor.  I have decided that I am no longer going to try the individual ones but just stick with the family style.  I have a feeling the last proof should be longer so I can get more layer definition but no one around here will mind if I keep doing that especially if there is creme patissiere around to dip it in.

I have been asked for more yeasted cakes.  I like this idea.  With tea.  And I love the idea of being a hermit when the world outside my door seems to be going mad.  Yes, it was a lot of rain.  No one died this storm.  Not Armageddon.

how do I start making a sweater?

I have been coughing so hard that the muscles over the left sides of my ribs hurt.  It is an old injury that I aggravated while I was taking care of a very sick Koda Bear in Sitka.  I thought I was doing better but I have no stamina.  And the slightest cough hurts.  It is hard to feel creative but it is easy to sit and spin.

I am working with some lovely Corredale fiber that I have cleaned and carded.  It is not as soft as I might like but it has the most gorgeous chocolate color.  And I learn more every time I spin and card.  I put on a strange audiobook that was getting good reviews but I returned to the library almost immediately.  Much too odd for me.  Especially with a head that is not working at full potential.

After I got the first bobbin full, I started on a sweater that I have been thinking about since I saw it in the Interweave Crochet last winter.  It reminds me of  J Crew sweater I wore out about twenty years ago.  It does get me a new one but I am having such a problem concentrating on the pattern that it may take until next fall to finish it!  

Yes, my head is not in the game either.  The yarn currently varies a lot in width which is why that bit looks like it is not straight.  It is the same number of stitches but I hope blocking will really help.

I will get better.  It is just slow.  My creativity is basicall at the point of spinning mounds of fiber.  Not very interesting at all.

survived the day

I am breathing.

It was a difficult day at work and by the end of it, all I wished to do was sit at my sewing machine.  So, that is what I did.  I finished cutting out a shirt and made some nine squares.  There is a quilt in my head that is trying to come out.  These squares are actually for the quilt that will end up in my chair or bed at some point.  I make one unique nine square and put it aside for the quilt that will stay in this house.  Not like we need another quilt but I do not turn down quilts.

The time at the machine was good.  Today was a tiring day at work and my cough is coming back.  But a shirt is started and more quilt blocks are being put together.  It is not really much in the grand scheme of things but with a short evening ramble that included frozen custard, it is a nice break from the madhouse.  Now, if I can survive the rest of the week.  I have to keep reminding myself that it is a nice paycheck.

More nine squares tomorrow!  Or spinning?  Or dough under my hands?  I need more people who need bread and it will get to them before it gets bad.  But that is just life.

bits of what I brought home from Alaska

I really did not think about souvenirs on our travels.  My thoughts were more along the lines of pictures and experiences.  But then we entered a fabric store in Juneau that catered to quilters.  The fabric store was quite exciting because another shopper, who was from South Africa, got woozy and fell over.  I sat and talked with her until she felt better, my parents sat in the lobby, and while I looked at more fabrics, my Beloved walked her down the stairs in the building.  

The thing I liked about the fabric store is that they carried Alaska artist Barbara Lavallee's work as quilting squares.  I had seen the prints as prints, note cards, and post cards but the quilting squares spoke to me.  I walked out with too many but now I am going to make a quilt of them.  I just have to have enough energy again to get started.  The cough is better!

I also came home with this bronze of a momma polar bear and her cubs.  The bronze has a titanium finish to give it colors.  The family joins a pewter bear and a dragnet.  Koda Bear thinks the animals who watch over me when I sew are pretty cool.  They all sit at the end of my sewing machine.

Now, I have to make my souvenir.  But that is pretty normal.  I have some wood block prints to hang near my sewing machine as well.  Sitka was a lovely place for art.