Ordinary Time

I'm dithering and need some input. I wanted to use up the scraps of handwoven fabric from the jacket I'm making to add some design elements to the big blocks of dark denim. I tried it out today using invisible thread to secure it to the fabric. (This is a practice piece, not the actual jacket.) I was kind of thinking I would go for a loose design, but having done the trial piece, I'm wondering if it's too loose and just looks a wee bit sloppy. The rest of the jacket is pretty classic in its lines. So what do you think? Is this cool and striking or just odd and sloppy? I've been staring at it too long and have lost all perspective or design sense. 

I've mentioned before that I am easily bored by dinner options, so we tend not to repeat a meal in the sane month. We also are routinely trying out new meals as well. Tonight was one of those nights. I had bought some chorizo sausage on a 2 for 1 deal and thrown them in the freezer. They'd been in there for a while (meaning a few months, in case you were thinking years), so I decided to look up recipes which use chorizo sausage. I found Papas con Chorizo (potatoes with Mexican chorizo) and decided it looked pretty good. L. opted to make it for her night to cook tonight.  Everyone liked it. We served it with corn tortillas, Mexican corn, and diced red bell peppers. It was decided that it would be even better if there was some crema to go with it. I looked for crema when I was at Aldi, but it's an ingredient that is very hit or miss if it's going to be available. This week was a miss. At the end of dinner, J. commented that it would be good with a fried egg on top, to whi...

There has not been much to share this week. I've done exciting things such as clean the kitchen (multiple times), comb snarls out of several horses' manes, laundry, and repeatedly drive back and forth to the library. At least it feels as though I repeatedly drive back and forth since I'm currently in a go every day phase at the moment. None of it warrants a blog post.  Today's big event was some of the horses getting their annual teeth floating and vaccines and the sheep all getting their yearly vaccines. I did get this cute picture of Clark while he was waiting for the others to be done.  I also spent quite a bit of time sewing because that has become my go-to avoidance activity this week. I sew while I watch The Great British Sewing Bee and it does a lovely job of blocking out current events for that moment of time.  Plus, I'll end up with a jacket. Eventually. Sewing with handwoven fabric is a wee bit slower than using commercial cloth because there are some extr...

When the apple trees are dropping apples and you have to grab the good ones while you can. If you want to can apple pie filling, that is. This is because only evenly shaped apple fit in the peeler/corer device and I really don't want to peel dozens of apples by hand. So this morning H. picked, G. spun the apples through the peeler/corer, and I took off any last bits of peel and blanched them. We'd done twelve cups of peeled, sliced, and blanched apples by noon.  Then I spent about four hours in the after turning them into pie filling and canning it all. I ended up with 13 pints of caramel apple pie filling to store. Well, there are 13 pints sitting there. I actually ended up with 9 pints to store because four jars didn't seal. The masses are thrilled because this means I need to make pie this week to use them up. I am not thrilled because I really wanted them all for later and making pies was not on the week's to-do list. It really seems as though the failure rate for B...

Because this is a lot even for me. I'm going to start with my decisions as to what I'll be making for the holiday market.  First are guest towels.  I finished my exploratory warp and hemmed and washed everything. Here are what I've decided to make. A red patterned towel, though I'll probably make some in a forest green as well. They will be one of three patterns. This one: And these two: All the towels are hand hemmed. There will also be two types with border patterns on a natural color. Trees: And a red flower-like design: After I weave a bunch of the guest towels, I'll put on a striped warp and make more napkins like these: I'll probably weave a variety of patterns.  Now that I've done the trial run, I'm happy to take orders. I know some of you have expressed interest.  Along with weaving, I needed to do some dyeing because I have a couple of Sheep and Fiber classes coming up and I needed to replenish the fiber I use to teach spindle spinning. Over the...

When it rains heavily, the pony stall tends to get filled with water which means the ponies need to move into the barn aisle for a few days while it dries out. They don't like it; I don't like bailing water out of the stall; no one is happy. J. decided that perhaps if there was a gutter along that side of the barn, the water could be drained away and the pony stall wouldn't flood. So today he added a gutter.  You can't even really see it, can you? What I love is that he put it on so that it blends with the light panel and makes it virtually invisible.  The downspout still needs an extension at the bottom to move the water away from the barn.  This is a better view where you can better see the gutter. So that was the barn, then it was time to move onto sheep. Actually that should be a sheep, singular. Clark is the only sheep with horns and because of the way they curve, we have to keep an eye on them, otherwise they would grow into his skull. As you might imagine, this i...