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...
The turmeric ink often seeps through to the backside.
On the front it looks like a broken egg.
Which led to this little doodle.
I also stitched this while listening to a zoom class.
And worked on this.
I love how the indigo has stained the knitting needles.
I worked in the garden for a few hours today.
One project, making a raised bed with materials that I have.
Today's square.
I made a lot of random marks today...like this.
The green in the bottom is a watercolor pencil, not a pigment that I've made.
Yesterday's dots.
As it dried the indigo and oak/iron dot transformed.
It snowed during the night but there wasn't much accumulation. Rain by about 6 AM and now the sun has come out. Still hoovering in snow temperatures...
it's in the forecast everyday for the coming week.
I worked on stitching blocks together today. It's close to the 6 foot by 6 foot size I am aiming for. There will need to be some smaller blocks along the edges to even things out.
And I experimented with making leaf rubbings with a white crayon and then layering ink over the top.
And then layering photos.
A photo of the backside of some stitching + ink dots + Gibson sleeping in the basket again.
I was able to get some fabric out of my basket...the boys were exploring the dripping faucet in the bathroom (to keep the pipes from freezing).
I also added some petals to the circle made yesterday.
I used white crayon as a resist.
While doing these, I listened to an "On Being" conversation with Nick Offerman. I already had listened to another conversation with Ezra Klein so I knew it would be one I would find interesting. There is so much I love in this conversation I don't even know what part I would share...it's about making, words, how we live.
The conversation is just as much about Wendell Berry as Nick Offerman. If you love Wendell Berry's writing it is worth listening to hear Nick Offerman read Wendell Berry (at around 31 minutes).
One more link...Wendell Berry reading "The Peace of Wild Things."
Today I painted a boat.
Sorry Gibson, you won't fit.
And I stitched a heart.
Every morning I've been making a coffee ring print before settling in to drink my cup of coffee.
Every ring seems to be different.
This afternoon, after making a sailboat and not being happy with the sail, I added another layer of paper and then added more ink.
There was some cat assistance here too.
Something to consider...layers of paper.
And then digital layers.
Inspired by watching Jude making log cabin blocks, I decided to get back to making squares for my "Good enough" quilt. There has been a pause in this project.
I think it was meant to be that the first small blue square found was a moon block. This will be the second moon cabin for the quilt. There will probably be more. A sign of time passing.
Strangely enough, someone I know is positive for Covid today. It's been awhile since that's happened.
There were more connections while listening to the On Being conversation with Ada Limon while stitching...they talked about breath and Covid.
But this was my favorite part, the part I want to hold on to:
"This idea of original belonging, that we are home, that we have enough, that we are enough. And the title comes from when you’re planting a tree and you’re looking for where the sun is the right space, you can draw where the circles are, and they’ll tell you to plant where the circles overlap. So it’s actually about fostering yourself in the sun, in the right place, creating the right habitat. And the right habitat for that, for all human flourishing, is for us to begin with a sense of belonging, with a sense of ease, with a sense that even though we are desirous and even though we want all of these things, right now, being alive, being human is enough. That’s really hard."
One of the strips in this square came from one of the masks worn during the first year.
The year when there was so much we didn't know.
There is still so much we don't know.
Oh the things I want to do...
Grace sent me pine needles, they are much longer than what I have.
I want to try making a basket but haven't gotten there yet.
She also sent me the beginning of a square. I have started adding to it.
A blanket can hold so much.
Community can be far and near.
Thank you Grace.
Today I played some more with pigments.
Doodling with ink.
And then some digital layers, another kind of doodling.
Blending the homemade and local with technology.
It's the world we live in.
This one has a few special details.
Sometimes we need to find different ways to listen, different ways to speak.
Cat approved.
The baby vat:
I am so excited it works!
The strip I did today has better color, I think because the water is warmer.
Here is the post I did on the process last year with links to where I gathered information and inspiration. To recap what I did this year:
Next year I want to make a batch where I use the water that the leaves are chopped in as the water the leaves are fermented in rather than dyeing with it to see if I have a different result.
Here is the first piece of fabric that I dyed as the center square for my Good Enough quilt.
I like the idea that this center square will be bigger...it will be easy to find when I go looking for it.
This morning I thought I'd make a list of everything I wanted to do over the next week and then I stopped myself. The only list I want to make is a "ta-da" list (a phrase from Hazel, thank you again!).
One more finished block for the quilt.
A few strips are from Nancy (thank you again!).
I wandered the garden looking for things to make ink with. I gathered twigs, leaves, and rose hips.
I also found a crumbly brick that I ground into pigment. I am going to try mulling it soon. I was able to break down one of the rocks I found on the beach to a fine white powder.
Some of the rocks will leave a mark when I try a scratch test but I didn't have much luck breaking them apart. I either need to pound harder or try a file.
A couple of the rocks I picked up just because I loved them.
And I listened to this podcast, The Ground Shots, episode #59 "Is there such a thing as an invasive species." It was long (three hours!) but a great discussion of science, history, how we define words....