Dig it like a shovel

– I’m the lyrical Jesse James

Its lunch time, I’m hungry and the Hubby isn’t going to go grocery shopping till tonight. What to do?

Make soup.

2 minutes in the garden =

12 snap peas, 1 young onion, 1 small japanese eggplant, 4 large swiss chard leaves, a sprig of oregano.

Saute bulb of onion, eggplant and chard stalks in local, organic butter till soft.  Add chopped snap peas, chard leaves, chopped oregano and a splash of Long Trail Double Bag. Bring to a quick simmer. Add 1 cup chicken stock, 1/2 cup milk or half and half, chopped onion greens and salt and pepper to taste. Bring it all back to a simmer then enjoy!

The only thing that would make this the perfect lunch would be a slab of fresh baked bread but I haven’t gotten that far today. Soup and beer it is.

Lunchtime reading? Popular Mechanics - Energyland: The race to cheap, sustainable power. by Elizabeth Svoboda.

Toots

Just to be the next

– I’m the one who wants to be with you

This spring I had the great joy of helping to bring a treasured family heirloom back to life.

Over the winter I had a lovely woman named Ann in my Crochet 1 class at WEBS. Towards the end of the class run she brought in a great big bag and asked if I could look at what was inside.

It was a thread crochet bedspread that her mother had made in the 1920′s, and it had been made with butcher’s twine since crochet cotton was too expensive. Now, Ann raises show dogs, Golden Retrievers at the time and about 20 years ago one of those dogs “got to” this bedspread and did some damage.

She asked if I would take a look at it and consider repairing it. Well, I did and I have and boy, was it interesting.

To start, it is King size. Big. At first glance it looked as if I would have to replace about 8 motifs that had been damaged. On closer inspection I found much more damage and unraveling bits that just couldn’t be saved. 16 motifs and all the joining stars, a few more motifs showed their damage as I went along and also had to be replaced.

Then I looked for an appropriate thread to use for the repair. I found nothing in any butcher’s twine that compared, they were either the wrong size of too white. In the end I used 8/4 Cotton Carpet warp from WEBS in Ivory. It isn’t a perfect match but it was the closest I could find.

This bedspread and I got to know each other over the months that I worked on her. I called her the other woman, she spent a lot of time on my bed. I talked to her right from the beginning when I had to take 2 days just to figure out the construction of the basic motif. 2 whole days. Why? Because in that lovely solid single crochet ring there are no increases for 7 rounds. No, you read that right. Working consecutive circles of crochet that need to get bigger with each new round so the piece will lay flat when done and I’m not doing anything that makes them physically larger.

Somehow it works.

Ann is happy to have a piece of her mother back and I am happy to have helped. I’m thinking about using the same fiber in the Colony Green color for a table runner and placemats. Oh and I’m writing up the pattern so you can make one too! Hopefully by summers end.

I’m off to prep for a class tonight, from which you will also receive a pattern More on that next week. Enjoy the week my chickadees.

Toots