Finally someone to carry on!!!

I had been waiting for this day for weeks.  I went out early this morning worried I couldn't find enough flowers for a centerpiece as the garden is dried and parched.  But the Oregon grape was loaded with purple berries and that combined with perovskia, yarrow and autumn clematis made a stunning centerpiece.

The table had been set the night before with my best china, crystal, linens, and silver.

For years I have written about my DH's beloved sour cream rolls baked for him by three generations of women...his grandmother, his mother and me.  Although everyone in the family loves them, no one wanted to learn to bake this time-consuming recipe.

But yesterday my Seattle granddaughter Sydney  and her beau Tanner arrived to learn how to bake them. This recipe is a two-day effort.  The first day the ingredients are mixed and then it needs a slow rise in the refrigerator overnight.

Here they are beginning.... not for the calorie conscious as you start with a whole pound of butter and two cups of sour cream.

It was Sydney's first experience with kneading a yeast dough but Tanner is an experienced baker and it showed.  

Just like on television when this batch of dough was ready to be refrigerated  there was another batch  I made the day before that I could whisk out.... all risen and ready to form into rolls.









This dough needs to be rolled out and folded again and again and again until you have at least nine buttery layers.  No short cuts here if you want flaky rolls.  Then they are cut into strips, twisted, and folded into knots, dipped in sugar and baked.

As an added challenge you have to do it quickly so the dough stays chilled.  It took a bit but they got more adept and the knots were neater and neater.




I just can't tell you how relieved I am that this family recipe is now passed on even though it skipped a generation.. I was afraid it was going to die with me.











Of course the final judgment was made by grandpa who over the last 80+ years has eaten thousands of them..  After his expert taste test he gave their rolls two thumbs up.











Then we all sat down to  dinner together to celebrate.  The menu was:

shrimp gazpacho

watermelon, cucumber salad

braised beef

multi-grain pilaf

squash with kale

fresh baked dinner rolls

 

 

 

 

And dessert was puff pastry cones filled with Italian pastry cream on a huckleberry sauce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the last time I'll use this china.  I will pack it now and label the boxes for Sydney for when she is settled.  It is a full service for 12 so it will take a few boxes.

 

 

 

 

What you see is not what you have to have!

Sunday I  will be able to get back to my magpie pendant but I wanted to share how my final design comes about.  I both stitch and paint birds a lot.  They are my favorite subject in fact.  I start by looking at as many images as I can and look for something in each image  that appeals to me.  I do start with a few guidelines

1.  I want my bird doing something.  It has to be more than botanically correct.  I want it to be  eating flying etc. anything to give it a little personality.

2.  Except for owls, I avoid straight on views of a bird head.  Always want it side view or 3/4 view.. even better at a tilt.







3.  I make sure my birds most identifiable feature is seen... color, markings, etc. Of course with magpies it is the black and white.

4.Be aware of their feet... They look awkward without feet and feet can add to the balance and activity.

5.  The bird and pose has to fit my space...With buttons it is a circle which is sometimes a real challenge.  With CQ it was usually a square or triangle.

I do not hesitate to crop off a body part such as ears or tail to make an image fit. BUT  the important thing is to make the eye think that it is still there..

A magpie has an extraordinarily long tail and in this image someone has just shortened the tail and it looks funny.  

 By the time I actually do a rough sketch my magpie on the disc it is a composite of bits and pieces of all the images I looked at.











Below is a tip from 2012 on ways to modify an image to fit your space.  It so happens I use this tip all the time mostly for button painting..  some times a subject does not suit itself to a round button shape and sometime changing an image makes it more interesting... Here are two examples... A rooster in full strut  is not conducive to a small circular shape but if I make a copy and a reverse copy and cut them up I can fiddle with position. By lowering the tail and reversing the head, it is much better for a round shape..

 The same is true for a quail in this position...a strong diagonal which heads right off the block or button.   By reversing the head, it is more interesting composition.

If you liked playing with paper dolls this tip is right up your alley...  

What's a 1-armed, nearly-blind woman to do?

What's a 1-armed,  nearly-blind woman to do to keep busy for another 3-4 weeks in a cast?  What I am doing might surprise you as it certainly surprised me...  In 2009 I started Robin Atkin's Bead Journal project and my initial plan was to do a bird  a month  and finish it as a tribute to the Dept. of Wildlife's "Bird Weekend" which they held in my garden for about 10 years...

I started with great enthusiasm and finished four parts, partially  finished two more and by then working with only beads became too tedious and boring so I packed it up and put it under my bed.  But nine years later when I started thinking about magpies I dug it out with renewed interest

The bluebird was about 90% finished so I gave it a try.  I need help threading the needles but learned long ago is all you need  is to run a needle through a pile of seed beads and they just jump on the needle.  All the outlining was done and it is very bumpy and random so being precise is not an issue and I was able to work in short spurts and finish the bluebird.









The quail was the other partially finished one and it  is about 80% done and so I am starting on it.  I should be able to finish this by next week.  I can only work in short segments of time as not only do my eyes tire, but the two useable fingers poking out of the cast get sore.  But it is so pleasant to have something different to do for a bit in the evening and I was ready for a break from the jewelry.

Even if I don't finish the last one, these six would be enough with pictures to make a great memory piece.  I never dreamt this project would ever again see the light of day again after all these years...





And the last one is a momma robin and has not a single bead on it....  It would give me a real boost to finish this project as those weekends were so special and I still have all the pictures.... so I will probably give it a try anyway and with luck could finish about the time the cast comes off.  You can read more about the bead journal project and class here.




And as I kept thinking about it,  I realized I'd never actually done a block with a magpie....only thought about it and the calendar block I thought was a magpie was actually a red-winged blackbird for the month of August. Just a little memory glitch again.

A cast, the day shift, and a dementia scare....

 Recently I posted about taking a fall and spraining my wrist.  Well after  couple weeks in a splint it was not getting better...quite the reverse.  Went to my doctor and she had x-rays taken and it was not only broken but broken in such a way that it was not going to heal without being immobilized.....so now I'm sporting this lovely blue fashion accessory .....

With previous casts I always have them yucky fairly quickly so now I cut the fingers off a rubber glove and cover it.
I am trying to type with one finger on left hand so LOTS of errors.

Thank heavens it was my left arm.




The day shift has arrived.  Every year I write about the huge old apple tree across the driveway which has literally thousands of apples..  They have started falling and every night the deer come and clean them up... but now so many are falling that the day shift is here.  Despite the drought my deer go into winter fat and healthy.
Without the deer I would be knee deep in rotting apples.








I had another kind of scare this week.  I take my mobile phone with me when DH drops me off at the doctor and he goes somewhere and drinks coffee and reads the paper and I call him when I'm done.  This last time I forgot my phone and with the ex-rays the visit was going to be much longer so I was going to have the receptionist call DH.  For the life of me I could not remember his mobile number.  I could visualize all the right digits (123579) but not the order. And the harder I tried the more confused I became.  Luckily he was worried that so much time passed and came to check on me.

But I realized I needed to know that number.  First I put it in my wallet and then I put sticky notes all over the house.... (on mirrors, doors, cupboards, bedstead) and I think I have it committed.  Anything like that immediately has me thinking dementia. And if I ever do get a tattoo it will be my husband's mobile number......

Answer to button question.

Andrea read the button-painting tutorial and asked a question and blogger would not give me her email so I could not answer.  But she persevered and reached me through Etsy.  Since the answer was going to be lengthy I thought I would post it here in case anyone is curious how I started or where I got buttons and what about those pesky holes.  Her question was: "When you use putty to plug the holes on the buttons do you take the putty out when you’re done? Which is more desirable?"  and "Where to buy buttons."

I started painting buttons about 15 years ago and I did them to add to each round robin block  as a personal touch.  For a long time dear Susan Elliott kept urging me to paint and sell them... It took a while but I finally listened to her...  At that time a woman sold buttons on Ebay under the name Button Glutton.  She had bought a house that had an outbuilding that was packed with inventory from a turn-of-the-century-button factory.  I initially bought her lovely 1 1/8" blank mop buttons as she posted them on ebay and finally contacted her and bought all she had (400) at $1 a button. After I went through them I bought all her 1" buttons...now long gone.

 Then I started painting the vintage ones with a wire center shanks.  I still have about a quart of these antique ones left.

 The shanks in the center were a problem and I handled it in several ways.







First I incorporated the metal "nub" into the designs....the nose on the rabbit.










Another solution was to take the shank out and paint a design around the hole and someone could attach it with a bead that would blend with the design.











But to answer Andrea's question  often when I fill a hole or holes with putty I add a metal shank to the back.  These shanks are readily available on Etsy.



Now the question where to buy buttons... The really old ones are so expensive anymore that it is not practical to paint them to sell.  The antique 2" ones of mine which I used to paint pet portraits are all gone now. I did the portraits for $25 and I only see this size for sale for $20+ per button unpainted.   I never see the quality vintage 1 1/8" and 1 1/4" ones at any price. The ones you see on ebay and etsy are thin, warped and very poor quality. I have been painting for the last couple years on really nice, high quality MOP blanks I found and adding shanks to them.  I did the same as before and bought in bulk when I had the chance.

Now having said all that.... who says it has to be mother-of-pearl.... I just happened to start with gorgeous antique ones and became addicted to the luminosity of MOP.  There are perfectly lovely plastic buttons that would work just as well and I have some fantastic old flat brass  ones I've used for barns but would be good for anything...

And I used some of the cheap warped square ones and painted on them to use to back the anniversary quilt...fantastic.