bee creative

favorite pumpkin this year

eating from the garden: flat bread with grapes

This was so incredible!  Inspired by a recipe that I found in an old Herb Companion magazine I had, I added grapes and rosemary, plus a sprinkle of salt, pepper and sugar, to the top of some bread dough.  I used a no-knead bread dough recipe, cooked as a flat bread. 

I'm going to try again with some grapes that I froze and see how that turns out. 

recycling: the pillow quilt

The pillow quilt is growing.  This is the quilt that I'm stuffing with down from a reclaimed comforter that I was given.  The fabric is all from scraps or my stash.  I'm learning a lot about my sewing habits as I work on this.  Really about how I approach creativity in general. 

What I've been learning:

1. I'm interested in texture and color.
2. I don’t care about details (like matching corners on quilts) and yet I want to look closer, I like looking closer at something.
3. I'm not capable of doing anything that needs any attention too late in the day or anything that requires a noisy tool.
4.  That means, for evenings processes that are repetitive are best (hand sewing, knitting); things that are meditation in motion.
5. Language and stories are important to me.
6. Ideally I want my materials to be recycled and sustainable.

7.  I like mixing new techniques and old.
8. The stash isn’t what is frustrating, it’s the lack of organization.

eating from the garden: rose hip jam

For many years now I've wanted to do something with the rose hips from one of my rugosa roses.  This year I tried jam. 

It's very tasty and makes a good jam with minimal effort (if you cook the hips first and then strain out the seeds), but what I really want to try it for is a sore throat.  It's supposed to be helpful.

There is helpful info on rose hips here and here. 

eating from the garden: Highbush Cranberry Ketchup

The berries actually came from my mother, but I do have two small plants started in mine. 

Mom picked up the plants at a native plant sale and planted them a couple years ago.  They are now loaded with berries each year.  This year she decided to take some to her local farmer's market to see if anyone would buy them.  As it happened, someone came along and shared that the berries made a wonderful ketchup.  I love homemade tomato ketchup and was excited to try something that might be similar. 

Mom used the recipe her customer gave her.  I tried this one from Raintree Nursery (first one listed, I had some organic corn syrup I wanted to use up).   The picture below shows the seeds after I smashed the puree through.   

It's good, but I like this ketchup best cooked on something (like meatloaf), rather than as a dipping sauce.   

Inspire Me Thursday-Carve

For Inspire Me Thursday.

As it happened, I had some linoleum block in my stash.  So that's what I carved.  I did a few prints, and a couple turned out fairly well.  But as I was washing up the block, I decided this was what I really liked the best.  I'm letting the paint dry on the stamp right now. 

the latest socks and the tale of the runaway yarn

These are my latest socks-in-progress.   If I had choosen this yarn for a first ever pair, I would probably have given up in tears.  It was very difficult to get started.  Easier when I switched from metal needles to the bamboo. 

It made me realize that different yarns and needles have different rhythms that have to discovered before they are easy to do. 

As for the tale of the runaway yarn, visualize ball of yarn being dropped at the bus stop, rolling down the hill, with me in hot pursuit. 

This may be a tad egocentric, but I was amazed that I was the only one laughing....

Fall raspberries

Found in the garden this weekend.  Such a treat for the middle of October. 

This is a fall producing variety of raspberry-I can't remember which one.
I just have a couple canes-enough for nibbling.   

Inspire Me Thursday- Nervous

Here's my response to the Inspire Me Thursday prompt for the week.  It sure seems appropriate given the state of our world.  I decided to just go with the basics.  One of the things that makes me nervous is going up ladders. 

This is a photo that I took and then altered.  One of the filters wasn't working correctly, so there is some text that is hard to see in the image.  Sometimes when something doesn't work out the way I want it, I add another layer of paper, but this time I decided to just leave it.   I have a print once rule, so printing again wasn't an option.   

I've realized that some of my recent responses are really journal pages.  At some point they will be bound together. 

confessions of a lazy sock knitter

Well, one thing to take off the project list.  I finished the socks.  Here's the embarrassing thing.  I kept knitting socks and then sliding the toes off on to stitch holders or other knitting needles and then starting new socks rather than just finishing off the toes by doing the kitchener stitch. 

Last weekend I sat down and finished the toes on 10 socks.  I am now very comfortable doing the kitchener stitch.

The other thing that makes me laugh is that because I buy most of my clothing second hand, often the  most expensive article of clothing I'm wearing are my socks!