bee creative

comfort food square

I am wondering if I can come up with 19 shades of brown for a comfort food square for the GOOD Enough COVID 19 quilt? 

I have a problem with peanut butter.

It could be something worse though.

In an effort at portion control I made these:

For 12 cups you need:

1 cup of melted chocolate chips + 1 Tablespoon Coconut oil

Peanut Butter

A mini muffin pan and liners.

Salt if needed

For each cup: pour roughly 2 teaspoons chocolate to coat the bottom, add about 1 teaspoon peanut butter in the center, top with approximately another teaspoon of melted chocolate.  Sprinkle with a bit of salt if desired.

Refrigerate until firm and store in the fridge (these will melt easily).

Thoughts:

These will turn out as good as the quality of your peanut butter and chocolate. Use what you like best.

With my favorite peanut butter, these are best eaten in one bite or they are messy.  This can be resolved by adding other ingredients like powdered sugar. The recipes are out there to be found. This version cannot be sent to someone you love if you are inclined to share. On the plus side, a recipe can!

Peanut butter and peanut spread are not the same thing.  I bought spread by mistake a couple weeks ago and regretted it.

Now I need to start collecting brown fabric for today's 15...

 

m followed by n

From my journal this morning...

September 3rd, 6:05 AM

M…migrate, moment, map, meditation

The alphabet might be a map.
Migrate, movement…animals, plants and people.

N…nest, night, nurture. Narrow. Some of the strips on Good Enough have to be very narrow to fit.

I like the narrow crooked ones the best.

Night...it is getting longer and the days shorter.  Moving towards a balance, at least for a little while.

Yesterday's moon, fabric dry.  Barely visible. I am not sure where that really golden color went.

On Jude's post today I wrote... "Some letters are hard to leave, they are little gifts…the words." 

M feels that way.  There was one other word that I thought of this morning but then forgot.  Should have written it down right away... memory, sometimes it's not as good as it could be. Maybe melody? No I don't think so but that's a good one too. 

 

making is good medicine

More "m" words and thoughts...

Making, to bring something into being.

Today I worked on "Good Enough."

Thinking again about the reading I've recently been doing in Your Brain on Art, about how the arts (in a very general broad sense) are considered good for your health. 

One of the reasons I started Good Enough COVID 19 was to give myself a focus during a very stressful time. 

It became a lot more than that.

A kind of mending.

I need a few more blocks to finish up. 

Medicinal plants.

This is the first year I've had echinacea come back in the garden. I think it's because I put it in a raised bed with good drainage.  It's right next to the mint which is also thriving. 

Gardening is a kind of making too, but one done in partnership.

It's a new Moon today, a growing moon, the Harvest Moon.

Today I picked apples, pears, a zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, peaches, tomatillos and the first of the grapes. 

Also a handful of herbs.

Food is medicine too, especially herbs. 

And...

the indigo vat is working again so I experimented a bit with moon making. 

Walnut first, then marigold, and then a dip in the indigo vat.

  It's a kind of magic to me, the way that plants can make color and how indigo goes from green to blue.   

I am wondering what it will look like dry...

 

 

 

gee willikers or something like that

The alphabet… thinking about d, d for defining.

My alphabet game isn’t just about defining the words that are important to me, but also defining self. What is it that I value? Who am I?

G words…gratitude seems over done but it is such an important word so here it is, on the list.

Gibson…he thinks he is the star of the show.

He is goofy boy. 

Good enough COVID 19 took a bit more of a break than I intended.  I do now have fabric for the back.  It is pure coincidence that the color way is called "Grumpy Birds." (Spincycle)

looking

This morning...

The colors on or of the rocks caught my eye.

And then the shapes; the way they were stacked and the way they have been formed.

On the other end of the park; the color of the water, the reflection of the light and the piers, where the light is absorbed.  

The table is cleared off again, ready to quilt again.

But still, just looking today. 

healing things

Yesterday I spent a few hours working on the quilt that I named

GOOD enough COVID 19. 

The name had a lot to do with letting things be good enough during difficult times. 

As I've worked on it another name has come...

Holding Breath.

 One of my reactions to stress over the last few years has been holding my breath.  It's kind of ironic because at least once a day, while at work, I coach an upset child to take a deep breath. 

There are other reasons the name fits, how the cloth used for masks held our breath the most obvious.  When I think about the years we lived with Covid as a pandemic, so much of it will be about breath.

Filling the gaps between the squares.  What is working the best for me is to:

1. stitch 3 sides of a strip
2. place it right side to right side with one of the blocks
3. stitch down the fourth side along one of the blocks
4. flip the strip over to cover the gap
5. stich in place

 

 

As I work towards piecing all the squares together, 6 feet by 6 feet, I think a lot about distance, about making things fit. 

This is the other memory I will  hold on to as I think about the pandemic.

And then I started thinking about bandages.

That was random, but maybe not.

The theme might have been continued by making calendula salve but really it just had been on the to-do list for too long.

I think of this as healing our environment...waste stream, invasive, ruderial.

The golden is buddleia, in process, and the khaki is the bindweed pigment, mulled and with a binder added. 

When the bindweed pigment was wet I thought it looked like the color of Gibson and Timber's eyes. 

Bindweed, morning glory...coming back to thinking about names.

Does healing start with naming?

 

keeping busy, with breaks

Some more playing with pigments:

This piece of brick was soft enough that I could use a rasp to powder it.

Added a little stone fruit gum and I had paint.

Dots are always good.

I also spent some time canning and loading up the dehydrator this weekend.

This made me smile. 

And there was some sewing.

With breaks.

Everything that fits together has been sewn together, but some of the squares just are not cooperating. I am basting those squares to a 3 foot by 3 foot section of the backing fabric.  Where the edges overlap neatly they have been sewn down.  In other areas I am going to have to put a "filler" piece. And in some areas I will applique a strip over the edges to cover where there would be a raw edge. 

To borrow a phrase from Jude, I think this could be called

"design mending..."

 

busy day

Finally finished the tank top and am very happy with it.  I will be making more with scraps.  The fabric was from this top and a skirt that I made and never really shared here.

The rest of the scraps from these three projects will be used for twine or stuffing a pillow form.

I am officially calling this #1 of my "waste not" project (50 projects made from things that might be considered waste/garbage).

I also started the last square for good enough COVID 19.

I used one of Jude's little houses for the center.

It seems so appropriate since so much of covid was about staying home.

The yellow is some of the fabric I dyed with marigold.

Today I used the leftover dye bath to make a lake pigment.

And I started an indigo vat (fructose), bundled up a pillow case that I had dyed with fresh indigo a few years ago that needs a refresh, and worked in the garden for a few hours.

Should sleep good tonight.

lunch break

Sitting outside on my lunch break today.

A breeze, the cottonwood was noisy but just right.

Stitching the last few strips on this square.

 

 

almost there

Almost finished with this square.

I really love the cloud.

 

I need two more squares and then I will finish putting the top together, 6 feet by 6 feet for social distancing during Covid. 

It's cat approved.

 

 

another quilt square

No rain in this cloud, a happy summer cumulus cloud.