Category: Blitherings

Japanese Knot Bag – Sewing Mojo!

I really enjoy sewing, but it has gone by the wayside as I have pursued painting and drawing. Determined to get other areas of interest back into my life, I have taken a few days off from the above, decided to limit it to a max of 2 hours / day, and then decided I needed a simple project to get my interest in sewing back.

It worked!

I looked up bags to sew – free patterns, too – and found a lot of them. The Japanese Knot Bag caught my eye, and this video from http://www.hellosewing.com got my immediate attention. First, the instructions for the bag are written here, and then there is a free pdf for the pattern, and finally there is this video! What a treasure trove of information.

My two cents is watch the video, slow it down a bit, and read the web page. I enjoyed the project enough to research more about the knot bag. On YouTube a lone you will find a variety of tutorials and bag styles. The one I made is from the pdf at hellosewing.com; it is small and will make a good bag for small knitting projects, such as socks.

I was too lazy to dig through my stash of fabrics; instead, I went to the local JoAnn and found sale material and bought enough for 2 purses. I made one yesterday, and total time was about 2 hours, beginning to end. I watched the video, slowed down by 50% to catch a few things, such as seam sewing early on and then how to turn the bag right side out. (Hint – through the opening of the longer strap!)

This is the bag, completed. This is a batik fabric and it is lined with a navy bluish solid color. The handles of the bag are really 2 different lengths. See below!

To close the bag, you pull the longer strap through the opening of the shorter strap. This closes up the bag, cinching it a bit, and the long strap then acts as a handle.

Then my machine presser foot handle decided to die – but it is, I think, a simple fix, and we should be back in business. I have another one to make!

A World of Calibans

Well . . . I prefer the land, the tree, the ocean, the field. I prefer not people or buildings.

But, I must put aside my prejudices to progress in painting. Andy Evansen’s watercolor course has challenged me to such. I did people, reviewing proportions and where the elbow ends and the knee. People are 7.5 to 8 heads tall, depending.

Buildings and people – crowds – hmm. I usually avoid them, being the reclusive and exclusive and somewhat misanthropic. Nonetheless, they exist. So do buildings. And value studies! This is like trying to fit my tiny foot into a tinier shoe – painful, painful.

I tried this painting in watercolor by starting out on used paper – the reverse of other studies or failed paintings. Cheapness does not do me any good. I was not getting anywhere except PO’d.

I do not like being PO’d.

A new sheet and voila! Life, while not sweet, definitely improved. And I did a crowd of people, and buildings in a plaza, and only one solitary, lonely tree suffocating in the midst of civilization.

This was probably the most challenging painting I have done so far in any class . . . but I lived! Any good? Who knows.

Only Honey Oatmeal Cookies

One thing I really get sick of is googling “honey cookie recipe” and finding recipes loaded with sugar and a tablespoon or two of honey added. The point is, I want only honey for a sweetener. I could easily walk around glued to an IV of pure sugar and be happy – and addicted. Honey does not have the same addictive quality as sugar as far as I am concerned.

Oatmeal Cookies made only with honey for sweetening!

So, I came across a recipe at last at Amy’s Healthy Baking blog. I am totally delighted. No, they are not super sweet, but they are soft and chewy. I think my cookies came out a bit less soft than hers, but part of it is my oven – it tends to run hot – or cold – depending on its mood and time of month. She says 325F – and mine was up to 347 and 364 at times. I’ll get it down. The other issue could be I didn’t weigh my ingredients, but just did a rough measure. As a result, it could be my dry ingredients were in greater quantity than she calls for. But who cares? The results are tasty! I added walnuts, too, and more raisins, but I am something of glutton in that regard.

INGREDIENTS 

  • 1 cup (100 g.) instant oats (I used a mixed oat hot cereal mix that I have been eating up)
  • ¾ cup (90g) white flour (you can use whole wheat, gluten free, etc.)
  • 1 ½ tsp baking powder
  • 1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 tsp. nutmeg, mace, allspice, cloves, or any combo thereof
  • ⅛ tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp (28g) coconut oil or unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
  • 1 large egg, room temperature
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • ½ cup (120mL) honey (could use maple syrup or agave, too)
  • 1/3 – 1/2 c. raisins, rehydrated
  • 1/2 c. chopped walnuts

INSTRUCTIONS

  • Whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the butter or coconut oil, egg, and vanilla. Stir in the honey or agave. Add in the flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated. Fold in the raisins. Chill the cookie dough for 30 minutes.
  • Preheat the oven to 325°F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone mat
  • Drop the cookie dough into 15 rounded scoops onto the prepared sheet, and flatten slightly. Bake at 325°F for 7-9 minutes if your oven runs hot; 11-14 per Amy if your temperature is spot on. Cool on the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Yield: 14-15 cookies

Notes

I highly recommend you go to Amy’s page – link is above – to get specific info. I need to work a bit on this recipe, but it is a keeper in my opinion. It is a real cookie! So much could be done with it, too, as a basis for other cookies, too. The lack of sweetness may need a slight increase in salt to round out the flavor. Also, I didn’t chill the dough.

I did test cookies, too. The first two were baked for 10 minutes. They held together well and were nicely browned, but not as soft as I might like. The second round were baked for 7 minutes. As per Amy’s instructions, I let them sit on the pan for 10 minutes before removing to the wire rack. They seem a bit raw in the middle, and are crumblier than I would like in a cookie. Maybe 8 minutes would be better.

Using honey seems to mean needing a lower cooking / baking temperature, and perhaps a longer cooking time, too. Mine were dryer and my oven was variable, so the results were different – but still delicious.

At last, a cookie sweetened only with honey!

We Had a Girl! (Monarch Butterfly That Is)

We have milkweed planted throughout the yard as well as in containers. The other day – just about 3 days ago – I found a new chrysalis hanging from a flower pot. I watched it change from pale green to darker shades.

This morning, I went out to look at the chrysalis, but as I had hidden it behind some other plants, to keep it moist in the hot, dry wind, I didn’t really get a good view of it.

Then the gardener came – and blew everything everywhere. When he left, I looked, and the chrysalis was empty. I hoped the butterfly had not been blown out of its home before it could become a butterfly . . . actually, I was really upset! I was sure I had been stupid not to tell the garden to stay away from that area. I was convinced the butterfly-in-waiting was dead.

And then I bent down, and before I knew it, a monarch butterfly fluttered to the ground. It was her – definitely a her as there are no scent markings on her wings!

In time, I got her to climb onto a milkweed branch and carried her to a bigger plant. She sat there for a few hours. I took this video and some pictures. A bit after doing something in the house, I went back out. She was still on the bush – but then she flew off, over the fence and into the sky.

As the World Turns . . .

In today’s world, change and upheaval seem to be the norm. Stability is something we want but eludes us. I think this interview with Bertrand Russell, done in 1952, says a great deal.

And from thoughtco.com, some quotes on history:

Voltaire
“History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.”

Napoleon Bonaparte
“What is history but a fable agreed upon?”

Karl Marx
“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

Winston Churchill
“History is written by the victors.”

Thomas Jefferson
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

John Maynard Keynes
“Ideas shape the course of history.”

William Shakespeare
“There is a history in all men’s lives.”

Mark Twain
“The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”

Henry David Thoreau
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”

Alexander Smith
“I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.”

Robert Heinlein
“A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.”

Marshall McLuhan
“Only the vanquished remember history.”

Mohandas Gandhi
“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”

Stephen Covey
“Live out of your imagination, not your history.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.”