A Hot Mess!

Well, that was fun, but I'm a hot mess! I think this clown expresses it well.

Our younger son's family, who live a few hours away by car left on Wednesday. Our daughter's family, residents of Wisconsin, were supposed to leave on Thursday, but the flights Thursday and Friday were all cancelled due to weather and/or the impact of Covid on flight crews. (Now, that's a job I wouldn't want to have during these times!) It was stressful for them getting new flights, but it gave us a few more days of fun, and it meant that they were here to help us usher in the New Year.

I had been knitting on my emPower People cowl with Abstract Fiber and Yarn Tahoma in "Ink," and making good progress.

I had a gift of a skein of yarn from the LYS, Fancywork Yarn Shop, from our daughter, for my birthday, so she and my DIL and I went there on Tuesday. I chose the same kind of yarn I recently made my In the Pink Shawlette from, but instead of "Sea Slug," I chose "Jay Blue." I'll have to knit something fancy with it, because it's a solid.

I wanted to get some yarn to make some samples for the shop. They have my books on display, and the owner/manager had come up with the idea to include the patterns for the knitted items that show up in the stories, so a customer could buy one of the books and make something for a child's doll to go along with it. I offered to loan two of my dolls (Dolly and Gabi) to model the Everyday Play dress and the Wonderland Turtle turtleneck sweater. The yarn had to come from the shop, of course, so the customers could buy the same yarns if they liked. I bought a skein of Koigu Wool Painter's Palette Premium Merino for the dress and CO on Thursday. Gabi will model it at the shop.

Then I chose this lovely yarn, Amble Mini in "Walk Me Home," for the turtleneck. The skeins were smaller, so I needed two, but it is also lovely yarn. This is also fingering weight, so you can tell the balls are small. (The measuring scale on my sewing desk also will give you a clue.) 

I had planned to make the turtleneck the size for American Girl dolls, which would fit Dolly, but when I got home I realized I needed thicker yarn for the larger version, so I decided to buy a smaller doll to loan to the shop for the one using this yarn. A little research and size comparisons led me to Glitter Girls by Battat, which are inexpensive, readily available and roughly the same size as Götz Little Kidz. I picked this one, because her outfit should go well with the yarn I had bought.

I still plan to make the larger turtleneck, and Dolly will model, but I need to get sport-weight yarn for it.

Two days after our trip to the yarn shop, I got a call from the manager. Someone had bought a copy of my first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook! (Happy dance!)

Quilters will appreciate this present from our younger son and his family, picked up on their trip to Hawaii: a nice assortment of fat quarters.

New Year's Eve was quiet, but pleasant with family there, although I started to have mild chills, so I put on a mask for this photo of "four generations." (That's Rebekah, Daphne's Little Kidz, just like Pippa, only with freckles.)

Daphne had brought Rebekah and Zachary had brought his Billy, so they had them meet their counterparts in a story they made up themselves. They took photos for the story, too.

Our daughter gave the kids permission to take the Fisher Price My Friend Jenny and Mikey home with them. The other two (Becky and Mandy) will stay here for now.

The family left on Saturday, New Year's Day, and found out when they arrived at the airport that their flight was delayed and they would miss their connecting flight in Seattle. 

There was still the red-eye flight that left just after midnight. They arrived home, exhausted but relieved.

I get my Covid test later today.

Happy birthday to my daughter, Karen!

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: The emPower People Cowl and the Everyday Play dress for Gabi.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs.

What's on my sewing machine: It's cover, but if I'm up to it, I hope to get the sashing, borders and cornerstones cut for the T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: Still the whole cloth quilt. A little progress happened before I got my yarn.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Happy New Year. Mariah suggests they each tell us three things they learned in the past year.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to All About Me by Mel Brooks on the Audible app. 

What's in my wine glass: I don't really know. I'm isolating in my fiber studio, to avoid giving DH my whatever, so I can't look at the bottle, but it's one we've had before.

What's my tip of the week: Black-eyed peas don't have to be pre-soaked, but if you think to do it, they cook faster. Here's my favorite recipe:

Simple Spicy Black-eyed Peas

Servings: 8 1C servings
Prep time: 22:21
Categories: Dinner, Main Dish, Vegan, Vegetarian, Winter
Source: Adapted from Parade magazine


Ingredients:
2 C dried black-eyed peas
6 cups water

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves ( minced or pressed)
1 bell pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano ( crushed)
1 teaspoon dried thyme ( crushed)
2 (24-1/2 ounce) cans chopped tomatoes (do NOT drain)
1 (4 ounce) can diced green chilies (do NOT drain)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar


Directions:
Either presoak beans overnight or don't. Rinse and add to water and bay leaf in slow cooker. Cook presoaked beans for 4 hours on low (or 6 hours on low if they aren't presoaked), until just barely tender. Drain and remove bay leaf or not.
Combine oil, garlic, onion and bell pepper in a skillet.
Sauté over low heat until onion is translucent.
Add the cooked onion mix and all remaining ingredients to the black eyed-peas and set slow-cooker on low. Cook for an additional 1 1/2-2 hours, or until peas are soft.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Masked Ball

A family friend picked up 82 masks from me on Tuesday. This is what she picked up.

She's a surgeon who works at the local hospital, so she could take them to work. I already had these cut out.

I've been continuing to make masks, which will get picked up when I have a sizable amount, enough to make it worth picking up. I'm using the pattern they provided. They provide the filter and the nose piece or wire. Here is the tutorial I wrote to go with their mask. A link to the original pattern is included in the tutorial, as well as a link to rotary-cutting instructions. One of the preferred fabrics is quilting fabric, of which I have a plentiful supply. I'm up to 115 total for the hospital.

Meanwhile, our total cases for the county is up to 70, as of Friday night when the last reporting period ended. Two more cases had to be hospitalized.

We've been enjoying our sprouts.

We're growing them from sprouting seeds I bought through iHerb.

I have been unable to get more whole wheat flour, which is what I use to make my bread. I'm now down to my last 5-lb. bag, so I have been experimenting with adding wheat bran and wheat germ (toasted) to unbleached white flour to make bread. This one was made with 1 cup of whole wheat to two cups of white flour with my additions. It turned out OK.

I used 3 lbs. of frozen tomatoes to make spiced tomato jam. The recipe made two pints.

The pups are getting shaggy. Rocky needed to go to the vet to get a shot, so I gave him a good brushing. Dusty was really dirty from chasing the ball on the trail, so I brushed him and then gave him a bath. I was regretting having given our old dog clippers to our groomer in Park City before we moved here. I hadn't used them since we lived in Indonesia in the '90s, so why keep them? Little did I know.

Social distancing at the vet's was easier than I expected. We called from the parking lot. The vet tech opened the door. We let go of the leash and Rocky trotted across the parking lot to the door. After being weighed, vaccinated and checked, Rocky was brought back to the door and released into the parking lot. He came right to the car and was ready to get back in. We never got within 12' of another human being, although Rocky did.

I was getting the dolls ready for the photo shoot for Friday's story, dressing, fixing hair and then standing the doll on my cutting surface as I went on to the next. After finishing the fifth doll, I turned around and saw this.

Of course, I had to look to see what they were all looking at. It was the bicycles on the top of my fabric cabinet. The dolls come to life in my stories. Sometimes they really seem like real little people to me.

I haven't done much knitting since starting on the masks, but I have a little progress on Charlie's Kep. (See below.)

In other news, spring has finally come to our place.

Actually, tulips are blooming elsewhere in the neighborhood, but our front yard doesn't get as much sun, due to a beautiful huge fir tree in our front yard. (We need to replace the bushes. They cover the windows in the spring and summer and can't be pruned back anymore.)

What's on my needles: Still Charlie's Kep.

What's on my sewing machine: More masks

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Beliefs and Facts. The dolls discuss how to tell the difference between a belief and a fact.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Right Behind You by Rachel Abbott, then The Man on the Mountaintop by Susan Trott and Smouldering Fire, another novel by D. E. Stevenson and then The Golden Orchard by Flora Ann. Now I'm listening to An Argumentation of Historians by Jodi Taylor, another of The Chronicles of St. Mary's series.

What's in my wine glass: Montevina Skyland Ridge Zinfandel 2016. Excellent!

What's my tip of the week: We're being encouraged to wear face masks these days, but experts have been saying it's more for the protection of those around you than for the wearer. This week NPR reported on a innovation that new research indicates may make home-sewn face masks "match or exceed the filtering capability of medical-grade surgical masks."

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

Off in All Directions

This has been a week of adventures, so first the progress on the Maine Memories Cardigan. 

Just a few inches to go before the bottom ribbing. Then on to the sleeves! For more information, see "What's on My Needles," below. 

Remember the fabric from last week? The Victorian outfit for Jolena is finished.

I used the pattern "Carrots" by Luminaria. It was made for an American Girl doll, which is shorter and much more...um...full-figured. I printed the pattern a little smaller, but otherwise made it as-is. It was still really big in the waist, so for the dress, I sewed the Velcro on the back so it overlapped more at the waist. If I make this again, I will adjust the dress bodice back pattern piece to fit better, maybe for the pinafore, too. I closed the pinafore with a heart-shaped button over a snap.

Also, the sleeve cuff was a bit small for Jolena's left hand (they are different, right and left) for her long, graceful fingers to get through easily, so I would make the cuffs open and close with a snap at the seam. I can get her hand through the cuff, but it's more of a challenge than I like in my doll wardrobe. I didn't do any of the topstitching, preferring to sew the lining at the waist and cuffs by hand, but made two horizontal tucks in the skirt to add a little more pizzazz to an otherwise very plain dress and pinafore. I had planned for this ahead of time and added 1" to each skirt. I also didn't have a large enough piece of the pinafore fabric to have one long strip, so had to piece the pinafore skirt. To avoid having a seam right in the front, I cut the front in one piece and the back in two slightly larger pieces, to allow for the back opening hem. The dress skirt is still all one piece.
Jolena was very patient throughout. She's a doll, after all, and dolls know how to be patient.

Another issue was the fact that the dress fabric was a very obvious directional print. To refresh your memory, here are both fabrics, as posted last week:

They could be flower buds or perhaps artichokes, but they are all lined up and facing the same direction. I was very careful when cutting out the pattern that the artichokes lined up on the skirt and cuff, and all of them throughout the costume were right-side-up. I was glad I noticed the directional print before I cut!

Speaking of artichokes, we went back to our Meet-up friend Tom's place for another Italian dinner made by him. Artichokes were the first course.

The next course was a bean dish in sort of a bruschetta sauce on lightly steamed kale. (He usually uses arugula, but all the stores were out (snow storms have kept the delivery trucks at bay). This was delicious, too.

Next we had an ice cream dish. It was made from whipping cream, lemon juice and sugar, and it was very tasty. (I forgot to take a photo of it.)
Then we had a fish dish. It was cod, cooked in the Italian way. (I didn't get a photo of it, either, but it was pretty and tasty as well.)

Then came the big adventure of the evening. The pasta course came out of the kitchen...

...and slipped out of Tom's hands directly on top of my wine glass. Bits of glass and wine went everywhere. He had us all get up and move to the living room, while he and his sous chef cleaned everything up. We, regretfully, didn't eat the pasta, because we couldn't be sure there wasn't any glass in it. I will have to use some soda or white wine on my favorite yellow turtleneck, but we ended up laughing about it.

We were getting a bit full, anyway, and Tom still had dessert for us. We dug in before I could get a photo. (You'll notice the tablecloth is gone!)

Here's what it looked like on the outside. The crust is pound cake soaked in rum. Then there were various layers of whipped cream with toasted almonds and almond extract. It was yummy, and I'm glad we had room for it.

We ended the meal with a "dose" of Tom's homemade limoncello. Tom passed out dark chocolate to eat first, which really brings out the flavors of the limoncello.

We had to move out of our house for a few days, because we're having our cabinets painted. We moved in with my DBIL, Jim, who lives just three blocks away. We took him out Saturday night to Olive Garden for dinner to thank him for putting up with us. It was great. I have enjoyed restaurants in this chain before, but had forgotten that Olive Garden had such wonderful food and attentive wait staff.

I stopped by Sunday after church to check on my kitchen. It looks sort of like an alien species from a science fiction movie has taken up residence and spun its cocoons everywhere.

Here's another shot. They are also doing the bathrooms. When they are done, we have to put all our stuff back, and I'll take another set of photos.

We've had some snow, including Friday morning, when I had to walk over to the house to let the painters in at 7:00 AM. I took the dogs, so they could at least get a walk in if we couldn't go later in the day. We have managed to walk the dogs each day. They have stayed with their "Uncle Jim" before without us, and he visits often, so the pups were comfortable at his house and actually quite happy to have their "pack" all together for walks, especially when it's a sunny day.

The Wisconsin grands have been having snow, too, and much colder temps than we have had. Here's Miss Daphne with our DSIL.

Sunday the Annie Award nominees were announced. "Missing Link" received 8, tying with "Frozen Two," we were very excited, especially since our son Peter and his team were nominated again for FX (effects). Here's a screen shot with the nominees in that category,
"Best FX for Feature." You can see his name listed under "Missing Link." 

The awards are January 25 at 7:00 PM. I don't think they are televised, but you can watch live online...and we will!

You may remember that he already received an Annie for Christmas in 2014, a joke present from me. She stands on a shelf in the family room in their house even today. (The Annie Award doesn't really look anything like this.)

We're hoping his team wins this time.

Happy MLK Day, those of you in the US.

What's on my needles: The Maine Memories Cardigan, from Midcoast by Jennifer Steingass. It's a pullover, but I find cardigans more useful, so I've added a steek in the front middle. Ready to CO for the MKAL for the Rose City Yarn Crawl. First clue is due out today.

What's on my sewing machine: Another Victorian outfit, this time for Billy.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Storytime. Finding themselves with time alone, the dolls get busy cleaning the house again.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The Tower by Gregg Hurwitz. It was an interesting psychological action story, and worth a read/listen. Back to Blowout by Rachel Maddow.

What's in my wine glass: Casa Santos Lima's Red Blend Portugal 2017. Always nice.

What's my tip of the week: Out of dog treats? Cheerios (or any version of them) work just as well. The dogs love them, and they are inexpensive and low-cal (if you have a dog with a weight problem).

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

New and Continuing Projects

First the new. I picked out these fabrics from my stash to make a victorian doll costume.

I hope to get it made this week, because I need it for Valentine's Day, and January 20th, we get the first clue in the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Knit Along (KAL), so I'm running out of time. It will be a challenge to get it done, as this will be a busy week.

I've made some progress on the Maine Memories Cardigan. The project is past the sleeve division. You can see the steek stitches in the center front. The pattern is for a pullover, but I'm always throwing off my sweater and putting it on again, so it made sense to make this as a cardigan. Now it's just knit straight until the bottom ribbing, then pick up the stitches that are on waste yarn to make each sleeve, which have a colorwork pattern at the wrist.

It was another challenge, because the pattern started in the center back, with short rows in the back, and moving the beginning of round to the middle front meant rewriting the directions.

I managed to use some of the tomatoes I have in the freezer to make jam. I used this recipe. It made about three cups. It isn't anything like the recipe I used to use, but it's tasty and nice on toast or in sandwiches. It's very basic. Next I'm going to try something with honey instead of sugar, with chilis and spices in it. It was easy to get the peels off the frozen tomatoes. The recipe says to squeeze out the juice and seeds, but I left them in, because the tomatoes were still pretty frozen. I just cooked the jam longer to get it thick enough.

Our Kalanchoe plant is starting to bloom. When it's done, I'll prune it, as it's getting a bit leggy, but it's a cheery addition to the house in the dead of winter.

Tuesday we went to another town hall, this one for Jamie McCleod-Skinner, who is running for Oregon Secretary of State. She's the tall lady in the middle of this group photo. She's wearing a mauve shirt under a blazer. The strawberry blonde lady next to her is also running for public office. Her name is Eileen Kiely. She is a candidate for Oregon State Senate. I'm to her right (you may recognize the cardigan) and DH is to my right and slightly behind me. There was another candidate there, Carina Miller, who is Native American and running for another State Senate seat. All three ladies were very impressive in their grasp of facts and ability to handle questions. I hope they all get elected. The room was packed, but we were the only ones brave enough to come up to get a group photo. (Photo by Eric Lint.)

We have a new addition to our family: A Eufy RoboVac35C. We've named her Beatrice, or Bea for short. She's our new cleaning lady. Dusty was a bit dubious at first, but now he just ignores her. Rocky seemed much more curious. He followed her around and let her bump into him. We picked up all the stuff on the floor (rugs, dog toys, etc.) and watched her work. I found she did a better job if I moved the chairs out of the room until she's done. She works until her battery gets low, and then she goes looking for her nest, which is in the kitchen. She docks herself there to sleep until her battery is charged again.

We got some snow on Saturday and Sunday.

During a break in the storm, we took the pups to the wilderness for a run. In this photo, Dusty looks as if he's using his ears as wings to take off from the ground.

It's hard to tell here, but Rocky was running. It was good to see him happily running, because he woke up Friday morning with a stiff neck, and I had to take him to the vet to get checked out. This is the third time in his life he has had this problem, always after some physical activity. It has been several years since the last time. We came home with some Vetprofen, which is an anti-inflammatory medication. Clearly, it worked. The pups and I went out again on Sunday, but it was snowing, so I didn't take any photos.

In other news, our younger son, Peter, who works for Laika, sent us this photo of himself with the Golden Globe Award Laika won for Best Animated Feature for Missing Link. I take it that each person who worked on the film was allowed to have his/her photo taken with the Award. (He is standing in front of one of the sets for the film. It's one we saw when we visited the studio.)

Our DDIL2 snapped this photo of their niece, Elsie, who is my honorary granddaughter. She's growing up fast.

This will be a busy week for us, because we're having our cabinets painted. They will paint all the cabinets in the kitchen and all three bathrooms, so we will need to empty all the cabinets and countertops. They expect them to start on Wednesday. The color below on the left is pretty close to our wall color throughout most of the house. The grey color on the right is the color we plan to use on the cabinets. Our grant countertops have this grey in them, along with the wall color, and black and white.

We'll move out for about three days while the painting is done. Apparently it's a very smelly process.

What's on my needles: The Maine Memories Cardigan (see above).

What's on my sewing machine: A Victorian costume for Jolena.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: "Writing Differently." Emil finds Mariah and Charlotte learning to write Arabic and Hebrew. They explain to him how the languages are written from right to left, and the letters are completely different.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still Blowout by Rachel Maddow. Not much progress this week.

What's in my wine glass: Apothic Red Winemaker's Blend, 2017, one of my favorites. 

What's my tip of the week: Keep a 1-cup or larger jar with a lid handy for when you need to peel a boiled egg. Fill it half full with water, drop the egg in and close the lid. Shake the jar up and down and back and forth until you can see that the shell is nicely cracked. Take the egg out of the water and peel. It will be easy! (Don't try this with a raw egg.)

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.