All posts by Sylvia

Crafting, Watercolor painting

Started a new project.

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I was on YouTube looking for something better than politics and came across a channel by an artist, Leslie Stroz, 100 Tiny Paintings in a Year. So I thought, why not try. A painter I know from the maker space has been encouraging me to get back into painting. The paintings for this project will be 2 inches high and 3 inches tall or 3 inches tall and 2 inches wide. The blank papers fit in an Altoids tin.

I have a couple of small watercolor sets – one has 24 colors and the other has 12. I have various types of brushes in small sizes and two small jars for water. I can stash some baby wipes in a sandwich bag into another Altoids tin. The entire kit can fit in a plastic shoe box.

Yes, I know. I already have a lot of projects I’m working on. There are towels on the loom that need to be finished. There are still unfinished Christmas gifts waiting to be completed. I have book donations to catalog at the maker space. I have to work up a course on reading sewing patterns that I promised to work on.

I need to wash the kitchen walls and re-paint them and hang shelving so things don’t have to be shuffled around when I need to find a space to use the cutting boards. And so on, and so on. I don’t get side-tracked, I get derailed.

Anyway, I did my interpretation of a Van Gogh landscape from an old calendar which is below. In a couple of days, I will do one of an old outdoor oven that’s in the yard of what used to be a fireplace store.

I think the original painting dates to Van Gogh’s time in Arles.

I have a lot of inspiration pictures from my watercolor classes. I’ll have to scale them down. I guess we’ll see how many I actually will have completed by this time next year. One every three days should be doable, especially as the project is more portable than most of mine. I hope my attention span lasts long enough or if this will be another unfinished thing.

Stay tuned.

About me

Fun times today

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I had an appointment at the fall clinic yesterday. I spent 3 hours being evaluated. I’m cognitively okay. Certain tests for balance were iffy but I did not fall down. The hardest test was heel to toe – didn’t do that well. I lacked stability with my feet in a single line.

The problem with that test was the fact that since my knees have lost so much cartilage, I’ve become knock-kneed. It was hard to put my feet together when my legs are so crooked. Also, I’m only balanced on the first two toes on each foot due to poorly fitting shoes when I was growing up. Apparently, The Crazy Lady AKA Mommy Dearest thought she could stop my feet from growing if I wore too small shoes.

I have some recommendations for ugly old lady shoes. I need to use my cane more, walk slower, and not look around so much. I need to change from bifocals to single vision and reading glasses, although I haven’t noticed any distortion looking downward through the lenses. I just got new glasses, so .i din’t think I’ll change anything yet.

That was a fun afternoon. After my appointment, since I was less than a mile away, I stopped at Costco for a chicken, 2 cases of my energy drinks, some fizzy water, and new pillows. That was $100 gone quickly. When I left Costco, it was snowing and got worse as I was driving home.

Traffic was moving at a reasonable pace so it took longer to get home. I didn’t see any spin-offs, so everyone was on their best driving behavior. I got home safely and let all the worriers know I was okay.

I’ll be finishing up the book later today, but first I need to run the snowblower,

About me

So we got snow

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Not a lot, but enough to shovel. It took me an hour and a half to shovel 103 feet of driveway, 10 feet across. The snow was only 3 inches deep except at the end of the driveway where the plow dumped an additional 3 inches of depth across the end and about 4 feet in from the street.

I just took my time. I could have used the snow blower, but I usually don’t for that little bit of snow. Since I am a year older, I didn’t rush. Besides, I have a series of evaluations at the Geriatrics Clinic tomorrow. At least three, possibly four; I didn’t want to strain myself. They’ll probably have some words about me shoveling when I’m a fall risk. Big deal.

I fall because my knees occasionally give way and then I can’t stop myself from falling. The other reason is sometimes my brain glitches particularly when I shift my eyes to the side, and I lose my balance and fall. Sucks to be old. I didn’t strain anything shoveling, but I’m certain they’ll come up with strategies I need to prevent falling.

The best strategy would be new knees, but I suppose at my advanced age, there’s all sorts of risks. A new left hip wouldn’t hurt either. Actually, it would hurt and probably more than it does now. I had to do blood work and my red blood cell count seemed to be high – whatever that means. It will all be explained.

I’m not going to worry. I have a good 20 years left at least. I’m almost done with the book I’ve been working on. I just need to tip in the text block after I foil the cover, put the book in the press for its final shaping, and let the person know she can pick it up.

My own damned opinion., Stuff

The weather and other stuff

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This winter is weird. The South got all of our snow. I think the combined total snowfall for up here in the north so far equals less than 4 inches. I saw a snowflake a couple of days ago. This is not good.

Not that I want to be slipping and sliding all over the place or falling down and hurting myself, but the lack of significant snowfall will result in low groundwater which means low crop yields, fire hazards, and bans on campfires and fire pits. In the summer, I like to throw some twigs and a log into my fire pit for a small fire that lasts long enough for a drink and a marshmallow or two. Can’t do that with a burn ban.

I was planning a good sized garden this year, but may have to limit myself to only a few types of plants – a couple of tomato plants, some onions, and kale, mustard, and turnip greens. I’m a big greens eater —greens and rice with a little ham or sausage and some chopped onions can make a filling meal cheaply.

I have both a freezer and a dehydrator so I can preserve my harvest. Plus there are several local farmers’ markets all over, held on different days in different locations around the city and county. The biggest ones are on the weekends, but there are smaller ones during the week.

I don’t think I’ll get too many plums this year. The weather has been too warm, relatively speaking, and buds are already appearing on the trees including my plum tree. In March, we’ll probably get a bout of freezing weather, and the blossoms will freeze, so I won’t have a good harvest.

Last year’s harvest was phenomenal. I have several bags of frozen plums and quite a few dehydrated plums are still in the cabinet. I should be good until apple harvest time. I do still have several pounds of frozen apples in the freezer so I’m good there as well. I can make applesauce and pie filling. I only need to buy oranges and bananas until they get too pricey or disappear due to lack of harvesters or outright shipping bans. My frozen fruit stash will do otherwise.

My tiny freezer is full and I should get through the rough times. I might be able to get a couple of friends to go in on a side of some dead animal. Not really. I prefer my meat already processed by someone, not that I don’t know how to cut up a side of beef.

Give me access to the back room of a butcher shop, and I’m fairly certain I remember my cuts from my class in commercial cooking. We got to practice on deer during hunting season. It was a learning experience for us and a lot cheaper for the hunters.

Now that you’re all grossed out, I’ll take my leave and get back to book binding. I had to reformat the last few pages and reprint them. Oh well. The wasted paper will be recycled as pulp at my next paper-making class this summer.

As Snagglepuss used to say, TTFN. Tata for now.

My own damned opinion., Stuff

Sir Farts-a-Lot

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Sadly, I must report that the dog I watch has crossed the Rainbow Bridge. He was a Good Boy. But old age and health problems got him. It’s still tragic because we weren’t expecting him to go this soon.

While the scent of doggy farts will no longer fill the air as it did after certain treats, he will be missed. There won’t be the walks around the neighborhood to sniff the markings of other dogs and the ones he left for them will wash away.

I won’t have my twice a week cuddle buddy on the couch. And the rapid wagging of his tail when I mentioned treats will be missed with his doggy smile. I think the cat will miss him too. It will be interesting to see if she goes to the door in the morning. She knew when he was coming and looked forward to attempting her escape when the door was opened.

I hope he was met by his owner’s previous pets and by my much loved and missed cats when he showed up at the end of the Rainbow Bridge. Goodbye Toby. Be young and frisky again in the afterlife.

Bookbinding, Crafting, My own damned opinion.

I never thought I’d be living in a real life American Horror Story.

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This will not end well. It’s been three weeks and the entire world is aflame, metaphorically speaking. Or maybe it’s hyperbole. At any rate, I have to stop doom-scrolling. I’m making myself sick.

So to change the subject…

I’ve done the final print of the book I’m working on. I have a cover design. The next step is to sew the signatures. After that, comes pressing the signatures and preparing the text block for casing in, trimming the edges, and creating the covers and spine. And then the final assembly. After all that, I will apply silver foil to the cover design. A final couple of hours in the press and the book will be done.

I’m also working on some simple notebooks in case the Maker Space decides to participate in any sort of artsy sale this year. Whenever we have have one of these events, I do well. Well in a relative sense. I sell handmade junk journals, blank books, zines, and book related items such as book cloth, bookmarks, and repurposed books.

I make way more money than I put into the items with regard to cost of materials. I really don’t factor in my time because I make things to use up the myriad supplies and equipment I have purchased over the years and to keep myself from just lying around on the couch scrolling through Pinterest and Youtube or re-watching Supernatural, Buffy, or Star Trek/Wars for the umpty-hundreth time.

Not that I actually watch any of those. Yes, one or another is playing in the background to provide voices so I don’t have to listen to the noise in my head. I discovered that there is an actual name for the music I hear in my head – Musical Ear Syndrome. So instead of just the incessant buzzes, mumbly sounds, and dings of tinnitus, hearing what sounds like the 1930’s and 1940’s style big band music and carnival calliopes is a real thing.

Chalk it up to my black and white youth. I watched old movies from that time period. And most of the television shows were black and white or if they weren’t, I watched them in black and white. My family didn’t get a color television until just after I started college in the late ‘60s. I watched the first season of original Star Trek in black and white. I didn’t know there were red shirts until I finally saw it in color. It was just that certain people seemed to be targets. I thought that maybe the aliens thought those guys were important and they were going for the leaders.

Silly me.

Mostly me, My own damned opinion.

I am wavering between terrified and not terrified

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I’m the sort of person who looks like I can be from all sorts of countries. I have been asked if I’m Sicilian, Israeli, Spanish, Native American, Indian, Arabic, Black, and several other nationalities. I am the sum of my ancestors going back centuries. The earliest occurrence of my last name in this country appears in 1725. The newest will probably arrive in the next few days or months.

I have no desire to have to prove I belong here when my family goes back generations before most of our current politicians ever showed up. Particularly that person who looks like a giant cheese puff and acts like a toddler. I am totally disgusted with the current political situation. Pandering to an egomaniac starts wars. Wars end badly for all concerned except the dead. They’re past caring about who was right and who was wrong. No one really wins.

I have no desire to encounter those to whom I look like I don’t belong here. I’ve gotten those funny looks my whole life. I confuse people. They don’t know where I fit on their ethnicity scale. I can look and act like an upper class twit or just your average passer-by. I’ve lived in all kinds of neighborhoods. I’ve been poor and I’ve been better off. Right now I’m just middlin’.

I am concerned about my Social Security. Losing it would mean a few set-backs. My house, food, and utilities are more or less covered. It might get cold without Canada’s electricity and oil. I have ways to keep warm and cook food. I might have to give up my car, but I have alternative transportation. I would still have my basic necessities. I wouldn’t be able to afford craft supplies or new books. I might have to give up the internet. The public library is walking distance and so is the grocery store, relatively speaking. I can walk the two miles.

I live in a tiny former farmhouse in a neighborhood that used to house families that worked in the fertilizer plant or at the meat packing plant. The area was built up after the last big war. I say “last big” war because we’ve been in a constant state of war, either a shooting one or a political one, that seems like forever.

In the last 60 or 70 years or so, we been involved in almost every war, small or large in other countries, because we want the world to be like us. And actually a good portion of it is turning into us —- mean-spirited, aggressively attacking other countries, destroying cities, killing for religious reasons, political differences, skin colors, resources, and any other stupid reason the war-mongers can come up with.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t fight, although what damage a tiny woman armed with a cast iron skillet can do, I can’t say. Maybe they’d die because they laughed too hard. I can tell you there’s some guys out there that probably used to get together and and go, “hey, remember that time we tried to get that woman out of that house and she stood in the door swinging a skillet on a rope at us until the cops showed up?

Public speaking intimidates me, unarmed bullies, not so much.

Bookbinding, Crafting

So what’s next?

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I’m ready to complete the book I’ve been working on. We met today and I turned over the final draft for a read-through before I print and bind it. As I’ve said before, this is a one-off commemorative volume. We’ve settled on the binding and the decoration for the cover. I have a nice batik print as the background for a silver foil starry sky and fireflies to be added.

I’ll do the final printing next week and finish the assembly and binding the week after. I’m not charging for this. If I am offered something, I might accept it, but I can’t price pain. Bookbinding and making are things I like to do. I charge a nominal sum for book repairs when I do those.

Most of the books I make are junk journals. That’s a fairly new type of book making – new as in the last ten years or so. It’s become a hobby or a business for lots of crafters. The difference between the forms of bookbinding is that junk journals are easier to make and the supplies for junk journals are found in your daily mail, your sewing box, your scrapbooking supplies, and around the house.

No special equipment is needed except a box cutter or scissors, a metal ruler, a cutting mat, assorted papers, and fabric scraps, glue, tape, a needle, and heavy thread or embroidery floss. For decorations, old greeting cards, magazine pages, and scraps of paper will suffice. Crayons, paints, colored pencils, ink pads and stamps are nice, but you don’t need to go overboard.

Most supplies can be gotten in the crafts section at the dollar store. For instance, Dollar Tree sells pokey tools, rulers, cutting mats, glue, inks, stencils, and other art supplies for $1.25 each. I was able to outfit my beginning bookbinding students with tools for a bit over $10 each. The costs came from their fees.

For junk journals, I use any old cardboard and the book cloth is made with iron-on interfacing. The stitching of the signatures is done directly on the spine and rarely covered up. Embellishments and pockets are added to hold snippets of papers and journaling cards. They are books to be written and drawn in. If something rips, a colorful tape will bind it together and become part of the decorations.

The type of binding I doing on this slim book involves more complicated assembly. I have the last of my archival quality book board to use. I will use the last of my acid-free tissue to line the fabric that will cover the boards. My industrial paper cutter will be used to assure clean edges. Acid free glue will hold cloth and boards together. Linen thread will bind the signatures. This will be a volume to be handed down to generations.

Once it is done, I will post a picture. Or maybe I should post pictures that show each step of the process.

My own damned opinion., Stuff

Food math – rotisserie chicken style

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Is it worth driving 8.3 miles and paying $65 a year to buy a $5 chicken twice a month? Or is it better to drive 2.7 miles and pay $8 a chicken unless I buy 2 at $6 each? Or is it better to drive 5.1 miles for a $5.99 chicken that’s the size of anemic parrot that gets eaten in two meals by a single person and makes slightly strange tasting soup? It’s the seasonings, not the freshness.

So I’m talking about three different stores here, Costco and two other multi-location stores that are also in town but don’t offer the same foods at all of their stores due to size differences.

The Costco chicken was huge compared to what I usually buy. I have a square container that can hold one of the brick shaped two quart cartons of ice cream. Every rotisserie chicken I have bought before the Costco chicken fit snuggly in that container and I could press the lid shut.

I had to put foil over the top of the container because I couldn’t use the lid for that chicken. I ate a leg or a thick slice of breast or thigh every day for an entire week. I finally tossed what was left at the end of the week into my giant soup pot with water and seasonings, carrots, celery and onions and simmered it until the carcass fell apart.

My original intention was to put it in the slow cooker, but it didn’t fit. So it cooked in the big pot and after picking the meat off the bones, I added noodles, and ate thick, meaty, chicken noodle soup for a week. So I’m debating in these perilous times, (bird flu reducing the chicken population, you know) where I should go for the best chicken value. Ultimately, they all become soup. What matters is the flavor and how much chicken winds up in the bowl with the noodles and veggie bits.

I saw large white free range eggs on sale for $9.99 a dozen at one of the local stores. I don’t eat that many eggs and lucked out with some local eggs at $3.49 a dozen. There were empty spots where some other egg suppliers were not able to supply eggs.

For baking, I have powdered eggs. For eating, I usually throw 10 eggs into my rice cooker for hard boiled eggs. I have some from a previous dozen to boil and by the time I finish eating those, the ones I bought last Sunday will be ready for boiling.

I should check with my son as to whether his friend will be able to supply us with eggs. Or maybe, I’ll use some of the lumber odds and ends and wire fencing that I’ve got in the garage to make a chicken coop and a run. A license costs $10/year to keep 4 chickens. I could build a winter shelter in the back end of the garage with hay and a heat lamp or some sort of heating set-up for them. I think the math works out to around $4.75 per egg, factoring in the food, shelter, and the chickens themselves. Quite the bargain, right?

Something to think about.