Second on the 2nd

  This event is where we share a past blog post on the 2nd of the month. Our hostess is Bleubeard and Elizabeath, find link in my right hand column

  I decided to go back to a cooler month in 2010 and share one of my natural dye posts. The first 10 years we moved here I did allot of rust dyeing and natural dyeing Here is a link to the original post


the photos will enlarge just click on them-I didn't mean to post this already I hit publish instead of preview ha ha

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Hand Dyes After the Final Rinse and Line Dried

The colors will always not be as bright as you see in the dye pot, but I am pleased with this project. They came out very earthy and primitive looking, and will make a nice quilt project.

A couple of the pieces came out a bit uneven in color, but I like that in my hand dyes-I know it is because the fabric was over crowded in the pot-but I think this gives the fabric more interest.

Saturday Afternoon at the Movies

Inspired from CJ's blog. We share movies that we love to watch more than once.

I am a bit late this morning, as I was outdoors from 6:30 am to 11:00 am spraying very invasive poison ivy and poison oak that has grown crazy this year do to this extreme heat and humidity here, along with rain that we do not normally get after Memorial Day. I sprayed 4 gallons and by the time I finished it was too hot to be outdoors anymore and I thought my right hand was going to fall off from hand squeezing the trigger so long. lol and could not believe it that a wild animal probably the raccoon that comes in at night to see if I left kitty food out, bit into the side of this very expensive brush killer and I had lost over half the concentrated bottle-now why would they think that's food?? ha ha

   Ok back to the movies, 

          one of my favorite actors has always been Tommy Lee Jones. I remember back in the 70's he stared on One Life to Live and I always thought he was too good of an actor to be on one of those day time soap operas. My father started watching that show on his day s off (smiles)
  In 1983 he did a movie called Nate and Hayes. My husband and I had gotten the vhs or beta tape and just about wore it out. This was an action movie that was just allot of fun to watch.  Before those Indiana Jones movies came out.  
   I think I will surprise my husband and see if I can find a dvd of it.

Here is a clip from the beginning

\\
and here is a clip towards the end of  the movie

I was amazed how many movies Tommy Lee Jones has done-here is a list of his career, and you can click on any of them for more information

Homemade Pizza Crust Recipe

  I thought I would share my pizza crust recipe with you all. It is one I have used with success every time for over 30 years now.

  We prefer a deep dish type thick crust over a thin and crispy crust. You could make this thinner by making two large pizzas instead of one.

   I like to bake pizzas on my stones, or in my 15"  cast iron skillet. Of course you can use a couple smaller cast iron skillets too.
  We picked up this cast iron skillet at a farm sale near where we lived in Illinois. We were all packed up for the last trip down to our Missouri property ( we moved everything we owned by ourselves over a few years) when Hubs says "lets check out this farm sale before we go". He bought this wonderful skillet for $10.00-so I always smile when I bring it out to use.

  I have also baked a pizza right on the Weber grill in my cast iron. I always bake the crust first for several minutes before adding the toppings. After baked first I sometimes add a thin layer of mozzarella cheese on the crust first and then add sauce, toppings and lots of cheese on top.

             Kathy's Almost Famous Pizza

This will make a large deep dish type crust or two 12" thinner crust pizzas.

1 package active dry yeast
1 1/4 cup warm water-make sure not hot or will kill yeast
3 to 3 1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt-I omit
1 can or jar of pizza sauce-I love Classico brand or Contadina 
brand
1 pound low fat mozzarella shredded cheese
Your choice of toppings  I like to use Italian sausage browned and drained, sliced olives, mushrooms, sweet pepper

Note: for the flour I would suggest starting out with 3 cups total working up to more as needed. Some flours you need different amounts. I love spelt flour for this recipe-everyone always raved about it. Or I use King Arthur all purpose flour. If you want to you can add a little whole wheat flour with the all purpose flour
   I have used this recipe with Bob's Red Mill all purpose 1 to 1 gluten free flour with so so results as it does not always rise well, I think a beaten egg or two would help out.

Instructions:
   
In mixing bowl. sprinkle yeast on warm water stir to dissolve. I like to let this sit til it bubbles a bit-a couple minutes. Start with two cups of flour and mix very well. I  also like to sprinkle in an Italian dried herb blend to the dough. Stir in more flour as needed to make a dough ready to knead-except no knead for gluten free flour. Knead for 10 minutes. add a little flour as needed.
    
Prepare your stone, or cast iron skillet with a little olive oil and then sprinkle corn meal generously on the bottom. Shape your dough in the pan and let rise for 30 minutes. Or you can let dough rise in a bowl and then spread on your pan-I have success either way.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees f

Prepare your toppings, if browning meat brown and drain, shred your cheese. If using fresh onions or sweet peppers I like to saute them a bit first.

If you let your dough rise as ball-spread out now onto your pan. Place your pizza crust into the oven for 7 minutes or til top no longer feels doughy.

Layer your pizza with toppings and bake 10 to 15 minutes.

Enjoy!!

T Stands for Tuesday & Fabric Journal Page and Pizza

Happy Tuesday everyone,
     
     T Stands for Tuesday hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth (link in my right column) is where we share a drink related post. You are most welcome to join in the fun.

    Speaking of the weather we finally enjoyed rain and a cool down. We really really needed the rain, hand watering is just not the same. 
    Things are looking better in the veggie garden. I have blooms on the zucchini and cucumbers. The beans, cabbage, one broccoli plant, a couple pepper plants are looking better now. I will have around 6 indigo plants they are growing better now too. These indigo plants look completely different from what I had grown a few years ago. I had been gifted seeds from a dyer whose blog I followed She lives in Europe.  Those didn't get enough sun where I planted them, so they never matured enough for dyeing.
    In the big tubs the tomato plants look lovely, however one plant got totally eaten down to the stems over one night. Usually that is from those horrible large worms that love tomato plants but I did not see any What ever it was hope they don't find my other plants.

   My task I gave myself this past week was to finish my April journal page before the end of the month, and also to clean in the utility room. That is a small room but loaded with food grade buckets of foods, drinks and things. I did get the second big freezer cleaned and rearranged, went through all the buckets and found things I forgot about. I wasn't able to complete the work over the weekend as my allergies and asthma are now getting worse again. Late tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday) I can finally see the doctor.

   I had made a couple really nice videos of my journal page last night and again this morning. When I am not feeling good my voice is hard to hear so that really came through in the first videos. I got a good one-wanted to load on you tube this morning-which has to be done by 8 am for less data useage-well you tube was taking 3 hours to load-craziness. I even made another video that was shorter this morning and that needed 2 hours and 30 minutes-that is just crazy and would take up all of our data for sure-we have primitive satellite internet so it is much slower than what is available in the cities. I am always thankful though for the internet being so rural.

Sooooo I will be sharing photos instead. 

    I am quite pleased with the results. During April I did allot of 3 mile walks and I did the National Parks and Earth Day virtual races.  I had made several extra pages for my journal so next up is to make an extra page for my races.
  I can see now that my journal is going to be really really thick-I may need to split this into two 6 month journal books We'll see how it goes.

The photos will enlarge full size for better viewing just click on them

First look at page:

In April we had a very cold month for the most part with no spring-well maybe a couple days. We had hard freezes, hail, snow flurries and did I say cold?-wintry  So I wanted to show that with this silvery fabric I found in my crazy quilt fabric stash. I added pretty glass beads and blue stone beads, snowflakes. I made those dots-or hail-with puff paint-let dry-and then went over them with gel pens. I also was brave and stamped two snowflakes right on to the wool-so glad that did not shadow or smear.

The Baltimore oriole birds arrived end of the month, I ended up using 3 very large bags of oranges for them. I grabbed a piece of re claimed cotton fabric (when I was quilting more I liked using cotton clothing from the resale shops instead of buying expensive quilt fabrics)  that had allot of mixed colors in it and I then went over it with gel pens 

   The April full moon was the pink moon or fish moon, we had a Friday the 13th so added this black cat glass bead too. We had several ducks fly into the ponds and visit for a while. The large blue bead is a handmade blown glass bead and I needle felted silk noil for more water.

April brings lots of song birds and more owls-I love all of their songs. The brown fabric with the stamping was also from my crazy quilt collection of fabrics

In April I did many 3 mile walks-this month I am still having difficulty walking do to swollen ankles-sigh. I decided to add some glass beads and those leaf beads to make a path. More needle felting too. The brown is Navajo  Churro wool and the greens are silk noil and also a synthetic fiber that came in as packing material in a box my husband got in the mail The Canada geese pair were still here and sitting eggs in April. I stamped onto a piece of my corn husk papers-I have one sheet left now

Our Wisconsin friends came for a visit, and the hummingbirds arrived Our rabbit family is still around-they are cute to watch scampering around.

After I took these photos I decided the ducks flew in as a pair so I am going to sew on another duck bead

And I have these nifty glass owl beads that I think I will sew one of those on too

     Next up: I am anxious to try the eco printing on papers. My new iron water will not be ready for about 6 weeks so I am thinking of making up a solution of alum for the fixative-mordant. Stay tuned-we have a busy week ahead plus I need to check if I have something I can use for a steamer in my craft pots. 

    I had not made us homemade pizzas in some time. Sunday I decided to make Hubs a "real"pizza so he would not have to put up with my gluten free crust and I made me a pizza with a new mix by Bob's Red Mill. Their original version of this mix from years ago I was baking with as a flour but did not make a nice pizza crust. Their new version is awesome-so I am happy I found another good one. 
      Aldi stores have a very good line for gluten free and they had a really good gf pizza crust mix that everyone liked-but one day they decided to change it without saying so and it was terrible. So am happy this new one is a good one.  
      I am a from scratch cook-baker always but this gf baking is never always good or even edible from scratch so I have resigned the fact to use some mixes.

Wheat crust pizza I baked his in a 15" cast iron skillet

  Gluten free version I baked on a stone

While going through buckets I found one at the bottom of the stack with gluten free beers. I rarely drink beer never did-most have gluten-but I found one made with sorghum that is like a dark European beer-love it. My Wisconsin friends bring it down for me
    Perfect to go with my pizza

 In the beginning of the week when we still had a hot day I decided on a root beer float for a treat I used frozen vanilla yogurt (No vodka added this time)

I found a package of these stainless straws Some were bent like this one some not, some shorter and even came with a brush for cleaning I love these

Happy T Stands for Tuesday  everyone, I always enjoy your visits

Making Mordants-Fixatives

My project for a couple days now-I am slow these days-is to clean the utility room-it is a small room but totally packed.

  Two large-long Sears commercial deep freezers-which I have now gone through and defrosted. Washer and dryer and a deep utility sink. 
   My house has no storage space, no closets, no kitchen cupboards, no basement no garage you get the picture. So my boxes of canning jars sit in the small middle space of this room stacked high-until I get the hallway done, tiled and get my commercial style shelving up so I can finally organize my canning jars etc and other food stuffs. That will be very helpful to me.

   Anyways-I have a box with two large glass jugs that I put together for iron water and copper water-both for use as a mordant-fixative for natural dyeing on cottons, wool, silks. This is in this room as well.
     Learning that the Kitchen Witch makes and uses iron water for her fixative in her eco dyeing I needed to take a look at this. I would have to go back to my old blog at least 10 years-oh my how time flies-to know when I set this up. I did allot of natural dyeing back then along with allot of rust dyeing. I keep a big pile of rusty things under an oak tree nearby.
   I should have taken a photo but the iron water was no more-had turned to moldy water and the iron pieces in there were no longer rusty. Hubs said they looked like they had been blued ha ha.
   So of course all this was taken outdoors to empty clean and find new rusty objects and make new iron water-which will take up to 6 weeks. Here is a how to link I think instead of alum water I am going to use a spray bottle to spray my hemp papers lightly and then soak the leaves etc in the iron water before setting up the eco printing onto my papers.

   My copper mordant was pretty much evaporated and a little moldy too. Lovely blues though on the inside of the glass. I didn't want to mess with this right now so I just filled that one up with vinegar.

  The mimosa trees are prettier than they have been in several years. They must really like the hot humid temps we've had,they also went through several hard freezes in April. 
   My first batch is pretty much dry now. I took the short stems off the main stem and placed into a box to finish drying. I want to gather another batch. I also thought I would dry some of the flowers and see what I can do with them in paper making.
    I have lots of pine needles here so I am thinking of experimenting with them in paper making too perhaps the green ones as the dried will not break down but can be added in as textures.

  I needed a bit of a break so I decided to share this post about how to make iron water especially. Off to cleaning


  

Saturday Afternoon at the Movies

  Inspired by CJ to join in and share  Saturday movies

                What movie has really made an impact on you or what films can you watch over and over and never tire of? Post either the movie poster, DVD cover or even a screenshot in a post. No need to explain.

This week I am sharing: 
                 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

    I remember when this movie was released;  I had graduated from high school in 1967 and this movie came out in December that year when I was in college.
   It really brought an awareness back then as allot of racial tensions were going on, and sadly the message is still important today as we still have racial tensions.

     I have watched this movie several times and enjoy it every time I see it. I was looking for something to watch on the tv tonight (Friday) and it was just coming on.

   This was my favorite scene on what Sidney Poitier (actor) said back to his father in the movie

More information here and also here I learned more of the history of this movie and it's actors I didn't remember that Spencer Tracey had died 17 days after filming.

Cast Iron Summer Recipes on a Friday

  Now that it is a bit cooler-finally-for a few days, I am thinking of setting up my dutch ovens outdoors over the weekend and bake a pie. I have fresh lemons in the frig and we love lemon meringue pie so that may be what I bake-not sure yet depends how I feel.
   I also have a Bobs Red Mill gluten free raisin bread mix I may just bake up in the dutch oven as well. (knowing that bread should bake up better smiles)

   I thought I would share some links to delicious food cooked-baked-grilled in your cast iron pieces. These links have some really nice dishes of all sorts.

From    Bon Appetit   large variety of 50 recipes-they all look                                               delicious from meats-pizza, veggies more

From   Southern Living  Using your cast iron on the grill

From   Epicurious   Lots of recipe ideas here as well over 30




Here is a photo of one my last lemon meringue pies-sooooo good baked outdoors

   I had closed down my weekly cast iron Fridays do to lack of participation, interest for a weekly event Soooo since cast iron is my choice kitchen utensil both indoors on my big Wolf stove and outdoors I thought I would still share recipes from time to time on Fridays
   It has been dreadfully hot and humid here the last 6 weeks which has taken me away from bringing out my dutch ovens. I am thinking September and October will be my main months this year to do that.

   Hoping some of you may have gotten those cast iron skillets out and baked up or grilled something since our last visit to cast iron.

  And if you can't get outdoors either here is a recipe for skillet smores in the house-of course you could make this outdoors in a 
dutch oven as well here is the recipe   





At the same site I also found grilled peach smores-now those sound and look delicious!





Happy weekend everyone!!

test & Update how to get email notifications

Hi everyone, I am going by Mia's instructions for comment email notifications-could some one reply to this post so I can test it?

   Thanks much

Ok update-I did get this to work-- here is Mia's post on how to do it.
  I did need to follow the instructions twice before I got the email from Blogger. Also, it does Not work when set to moderate comments-so I turned that off for now. 
     I have had to set to moderate because of spam comments-I seem to get at least one a month and I don't like them posting on my blog-however I can delete it once I see it.
   Thank you Mia

Upside Down Brownies Ready to Serve

    I had some left over fresh pears and pineapple that needed to be used up in the frig. So I thought I would use these up and bake into an upside down brownie. Too hot for the oven, too hot to bake outdoors over the coals, so I brought out my slow cooker which bakes cakes and such pretty nicely.
   I diced and sliced the fruits up in small pieces-added to the bottom of my slow cooker and added the last of my wildflower honey (about a tablespoon) and sprinkled on some coconut sugar. Sprinkled on some baking spice.  I set the slow cooker at medium high temperature and let it all cook down while I was doing other house stuff.
    After a couple hours the fruits were broken down, tasted delicious but I had a bit too much liquid-so I sprinkled on some instant tapioca to thicken it up. Once that was cooked down I had just a little liquid left which I poured off.
   Next up I mixed up a gluten free brownie mix and scooped it all over the fruit. It took about 45 minutes to bake.
  It flipped over really nice-I set in some parchment paper up next to the brownie and then flipped it over onto a cookie sheet.
   Soooo delicious especially warm.

For our dinner today I got out my heavy grill pan and got it good and hot and grilled up (indoors on gas stove) a pork sirloin roast--turned out just like I grilled it outdoors. That was one of my best cast iron investments. I used pork jerk no salt seasoning-I found this spice when I was going through all my spices and herbs last month.  I also grabbed a small cast iron skillet and saute'd fresh mushrooms and onion in grape seed oil. Before serving I added a splash of fig balsamic vinegar. Served with a huge fresh salad and steamed fresh asparagus-good eats.



Visitors enjoying watermelon rind, stale breads, cracked corn

 This raccoon usually stops by after dark to see if I forgot to bring Miss Calico kitty's food indoors or not but lately he or she stops by early evening to see what is being offered 

When I drove back from our little rural post office to pick up our mail and was driving home on our long drive way-up ahead-how sweet-a Mama deer and twin fawns. The fawns were newborns as they were so tiny. I stopped the car so as not to scare the little ones and let them get into the woods.  There is a couple paths on our driveway where the deer cross. I never think to bring my camera along with me Hopefully Mama deer will bring the twins up close to the house soon

You can see we have tall grass all around in the back. It got hot so fast here that it is not safe for Hubs (health wise) to get on the tractor and cut it. I am thinking there is allot of paper making grass out there ha ha.  We ended up hiring our friend's grand kids to cut grass around the house-but with the grass so tall now in other areas-one can't see where the rocks are to cut with lawn mowers-so hopefully we will get a cool down soon so he can start mowing it down.

T Stands for Tuesday & Flowers and Journal Page

Hello Everyone,  
   Another T Stands For Tuesday is upon us. Hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth (link in my right hand column) where we share a drink related post. You are most welcome to join us just show us a photo of your beverage in your post.

   Saturday morning early, I went out in the garden to do a thorough watering and pull a few weeds. I ended up working til noon. My main veggie garden is just  dying. Don't know if it is the intense heat we are having daily or if there is something off in the garden soil again-probably a bit of both. Sadly I have lost most of my indigo plants and what is growing is really small. I think I am going to need to get a bale of peat moss and mix it in the soil again to loosen it up more. It does have lots of compost and such in it but the base here is heavy clay and rock. We have lived here since the end of '03 but I always forget that this soil needs lime added every year-it must just leach out through the rocky soil or something. I remembered early winter and put some on it then so perhaps didn't have enough time before spring-although I did plant late this year. anyways the main garden will be a bust-hopefully I will get a few cucumbers, perhaps a cabbage, and some beans I may try a fall garden this year.
   The zinnia area is beginning to bloom and the perennial sunflower is beginning to bloom too-so far the deer have not bothered it or found it-(smiles) It is stunted from the freezes last April- only half the height it should be. I have flowers though this year-happy dance. The deer love love sunflowers

Trumpet Vines just beginning to bloom

Our mimosa trees are blooming---so time to harvest the leaves for the most clear yellows I have found from a natural dye stuff. I learned about this from the natural dye book by Liles- I have a pretty large library of natural dye books and this in my opinion is the best one out there.  So many natural dye books have lovely photos but are very very vague with the information you need. This one is detailed.

 

Once dry just strip the little leaves off the stems

      Sunday I decided to take the day off and work on my wool pages- fabric art journal. My muse must have been with me as my ceiling florescent light turned on this morning in my craft room. (I have my art journal posts labeled as fabric art journal-so if you want to see more you can search under that label)

   I made a little video of my April page so far.

  
I was browsing online to learn a bit about tea bag art over the weekend-as I have been amazed with the art that many of you have created and shared. I thought perhaps I could do something with them for the atc swap with Elizabeth. Found this artist and thought the works were just so amazing and inspirational and I love it too that the tea bag tags were left on allot of them   Ruby Silivous.  I am no painter though. Are any of you familiar with this artist's work?

  I have been drinking more waters this past week-citrus waters, fruit juice and sparkling waters, water with fresh mint leaves, also a coke zero once in awhile-I rarely drink any soft drinks except in the summer  Thought I would try this one since there is no caffeine in it and compared to others low in sodium no sugar. Pretty nice for a treat over ice and I think a scoop of vanilla ice cream would be good too.😃

  This Monday morning as I finish up my T post I am enjoying a cup of roasted dandelion-chicory root naturally decaf beverage with cream in my favorite Yellowstone National Park cup

I am hoping Mother Nature is being kind where you live. Oh and I almost forgot I wanted to mention those of you that only visit on Tuesdays and wish to see my hemp handmade papers-I posted three blog posts find the first one here and then just continue to the next two posts-I am very happy with them-and learned mostly I needed to cut the hemp fibers as small as I can possibly get them

Happy T Stands for Tuesday

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all of you fathers 
    Both biological and those of you that have been a father to someone who needed a father. 

(photo found online)

Saturday Afternoon at The Movies

  Inspired by CJ to join in

 What movie has really made an impact on you or what films can you watch over and over and never tire of? Post either the movie poster, DVD cover or even a screenshot on your timeline. No need to explain.

  This week I am sharing the Twilight Saga-I loved the books so much that I have re read them all at least 10 times now. I missed these films at the movies, but then we don't go to the movies any more so I bought the latest set with lots of extra features included.  I will re watch these several times for sure-I have already blown a few weekends re watching. (smiles)

This Morning's Paper Making-Finishing Up

  This morning when I got up my goal was to finish making papers with the hemp fiber that was left from the four pieces I made late yesterday. I also wanted to add in the cotton rag pulp and perhaps some kona pulp.  
   The kona pulp blended right in with no problem once the fibers were wet. The cotton rag is also very fine-finer than if I would have cut up cotton from scratch for sure-I discovered yesterday that some of the cotton rag was grabbing on to some of the longer hemp fibers and that is what was causing the problem of clumps-not just the cotton rag alone.
    
  So this was time consuming as I filled up the blender 3/4 full of water and took sharp scissors and cut up the hemp as small as I could. Next time I am going to take friend Barbara's suggestion and see if I can use my paper cutter to do this-would save extra work on my good right hand. Since the fiber needs to be cooked first I am wondering how small I can go?

 I ended up doing some sheets with cotton rag added to the hemp, some with the kona pulp added to the hemp, and some with both.

  I also realized this pulp slurry needed lots of water for better papers. I ended up pouring the blender full of pulp slurry into my pan and then adding more water. I dipped in and then the rest was pretty much hands on adding more pulp slurry with my hand over the paper being made. Lots of water just made this process work better.

  I am very pleased with the results-they are not all the same and I ended up with 13 sheets. The last sheet I added a good handful of kona pulp to what hemp was left and got a nice last sheet of paper.

Here are photos of the pulps and the process-for those of you especially reading this that have never made paper before.

   To begin I really like Grummer-he is probably 80 or 90 years old by now ha ha He has good tutorials, simple kits and supplies-I think geared for creative fun for all ages. I think his prices are reasonable too. Of course you do not need to buy pulps-I love making papers from recycled papers and dry grasses and corn husks and materials that are free. This project came about to make papers that I can later eco dye.  I bought the simplest kit but if you know someone with the time and is handy you can make the tools as well.
    I had never seen paper being made before. We did have art classes way back when I was going to school but we never made papers. Something that was on my to do list once retired. I thank Barbara for the inspiration-keeping it simple-and just doing it and having fun.

photos will enlarge just click on them:

Hemp fiber after being cooked with washing soda, and rinsed.

This is me cutting all this hemp fiber up smaller

The pulp slury

Dipping in to form a sheet 

another view

Next step take the wood frame off-pick up the rest and place in another pan

Place the plastic sheet on top and press over with big sponge-we need to get the water out

flip over now- screen is on top-press again with sponge

Take the screen off, move over to table-add a couch sheet-sheet to absorb more water-flip over-remove plastic sheet and add another couch sheet.

Place something heavy to weight it down-I do this until the next sheet is ready. this is a huge encyclopedia-perfect for this project

I take off the top couch sheet-add a dry sheet-flip over and remove bottom wet couch sheet-move over to table to dry

many of these papers are still wet so they will be lighter-but the browner ones have the kona in them 

I am actually eager to try another batch soon using much smaller hemp fibers. My papers do not have the fabric hand that the one I had gotten as a gift does. That piece was quite thick and just felt and handled like a piece of thick soft cloth.  These are soft, feel like fabric but they don't bend like a piece of fabric does-these feel moe like handmade papers.