Cute as . . .

I've never much thought about the expression, "cute as a button". I picked up this little set on sale the other day. And that's just what they are. They are cute--nothing more, nothing less. I'm calling them my "dalmatian" buttons. I don't quite have 101 of them, but definitely enough to spice up a black t-shirt. I'm not sure when that will happen. Probably not this weekend. I'm about to head off for my Friday classes and I'm sure to collect a lovely swag of homework to occupy the next few days. The buttons will have to sit on the table and encourage me.

Colour of a Different Kind

Cooking for one, day after day, isn't my favourite task. I tend to either keep it simple--you can fit several different food groups into a toasted sandwich quickly and easily--or cook up a family sized batch of something or other and freeze portions for another time. One thing I don't do often enough is fresh salads. A few lettuce leaves on the plate doesn't count. The topic came up in conversation yesterday when I was talking about the frustrations of grocery shopping. Just recently I walked in to the fresh food section of a local supermarket, basket in hand, looking for something to turn into dinner. After several minutes of wandering around, I put down the basket and walked out again. I just couldn't get enough thoughts together in my mind to pick out the right combination of ingredients to turn into something both attractive and realistic. On the other hand--perhaps as a reaction to my previous failure to choose--I came home the next day with several fresh beetroot bulbs . . . and no plan for them. My friend L is a trained foodie. She too has the challenge of cooking for one. I asked her what I could do with fresh beetroot. She suggested something like this: Grated beetroot and carrot; chopped celery and spring onion; a bit of grated ginger root and some orange slices--wow! It was chewy and satisfying. It was interesting enough to justify a side-trip to the greengrocer on my way home. And in case you're thinging I'm all too virtuous, I added some crispy bacon for a salty protein boost. I was so excited that I took a photo!

New Media

I mentioned yesterday that this week's homework for Design class consisted of a lump of clay. Here's last week's lump:The last time I had clay to work with was in my first year of high school. I was twelve years old. Working with such a different medium now is certainly stretching me. Apart from the novelty of the tasks we've been assigned, there are all sorts of practical challenges. We're supposed to roughly shape the lump and then allow it to dry to just the right stage where it can be carved without making dust. Last week I let the clay get too dry. Now all I can do is sand it lightly--outdoors so I don't fill my lungs with fine powder. Yesterday I got carried away with shaping the wet clay. I ended up with an exciting form which was too fragile to handle. I left it for the rest of the afternoon to harden. By bedtime some areas were firming up nicely while others were still wet. What to do? I gently manouvered it into a plastic bag and taped it up. I'm resisting the urge to check on it this morning. I have to take my car to be serviced today. It will have to wait until I get home. Meanwhile my meals have been relegated to a bowl held in my hand. My kitchen table was already half-covered with stitching stuff. Now there's all sorts of clay stuff filling the rest of the space.

Stitching Again

I ran out of week before I ran out of stitching homework last week, so I've had to do a bit of catching up. This is my feather stitch sample. We're still working on colour blending using the six-stranded embroidery cottons. Plus there are a couple of new stitches to use each week. I've found it challenging to use a set stitch and a set combination of colours while designing something with an overall sense of purpose. This time I've kept it reasonably simple, and that's helped.
My car is booked in for a service tomorrow. I'm planning to sit at a nearby cafe and stitch away until it's ready. It seems like a more pleasant and efficient use of my time than getting home and back again on public transport. So today I'm going to switch my attention to my other homework--it's currently a lump of clay sitting on the kitchen table. But first I need to take care of another form of stitching. My dog Macc in now two-weeks post-surgery and it's time to go back to the vet for a check up. The wound seems to have healed really well. That should mean his stitches can come out and his Elizabethan collar can go to. I won't be at all sorry to see the end of that phase in his recovery.

Egg Essentials

I continue to be intrigued by eggs--those little packets of incipient life! And yet they're a simple household commodity. There's been a fair bit of controversy lately about the genuineness or otherwise of the "Free Range" labelling in supermarkets. I have to confess to feeling just a bit cynical when I came across this:
In a carton of a dozen free range eggs, each a uniform warm brown colour, beautifully clean except for one little feather clinging to the top of the first one--just where it would most likely be seen when checking for cracks before popping into a shopping trolley. It's a lovely thing in its own way and at the same time as I felt a warm fuzzy pang for the mother hen, I wondered whether there's just a worker at the processing plant with a pile of perfect little feathers, dabbing one onto a representative egg in every dozen. Oh well!

Colour Choices

I always look forward to that stage in a course when the teacher says, "now choose something you like"! It came on Friday afternoon in our Colour Theory class. The invitation to choose was even more welcome by the time I'd slogged through a couple of hours of homework yesterday. I've done a fair bit of colour theory and colour mixing in the past, so I decided to base several of the colour mixing exercises on a colour I don't like. I chose an orange as my key colour and developed complementary, split complementary and analagous colour schemes around it.

Then it was time for the Happy Homework: choose a photo you like because of it's colour combinations. I decided to sift through photos from a few years ago rather than choose something recent. I also decided to choose something I haven't already got on display in my home. I wanted to come to it fresh.

Of course I don't know what we're going to be asked to do with the picture we bring, but for now I'm satisfied with just enjoying the colours.

Princess Promise

I was thrilled to find a few buds on the Silver Princess gum outside my studio last weekend. This morning I had a good look at the Princess tree in my front garden. It's covered in big fat juicy flower buds like these. I'm just chafing with anticipation. The huge gum blossoms are a large part of the attraction in these slender Western Australian natives and I've been waiting to have some of my very own. I'm guessing that the unusually wet summer has helped, since the tree at the front has been there at least twice as long as the little one at the back and this is the first time either has shown any sign of flowering. More pics coming soon!