WOYWW 479 Cooking Again

I wasn’t intending to join in WOYWW today because nothing had changed on my desk after another busy and tiring week and having a headache every day, probably due to the heat, but it’s cooler today and I decided to move my “desk” to the kitchen and be creative in there instead.

Last Friday we went to another Shabbat meal and again I offered to make the challah. This time I divided the dough into three, as it made two absolute whoppers last time – I took two, and kept one back for ourselves.

I didn’t make sourdough this week because we’ve still got enough in the freezer.

It’s been a hive of industry in the kitchen today!

On the hob I’ve got my stock pot with two packs of chicken thighs with veggies (offcuts from the bag in the freezer) making stock, and I’ll also end up with some lovely tasty cooked chicken and cooked veggies ready to make soup with when I want. At the back is a pan of plain boiled brown rice – so easy – I just covered it with water and simmered it with the lid on until all the water was absorbed. Nicely chewy and fluffy, ready for supper tonight. In the wok I am sauté-ing veggies with no oil. It takes absolutely ages and in the end I added a bit of water and put the lid on and let them steam a bit before increasing the heat again. They came out very dark as they were pretty much caramelised. Very tasty.

Ingredients all ready for curried parsnip soup – chopped onions and parsnips, veg stock from the freezer, and spices. I couldn’t do this until the chicken stock was done as I needed the stock pot.

Making the sauce for supper. This morning I discovered a Youtube channel belonging to “Chef AJ” who is pretty radical, vegan, no oil, no salt… I’m not going that far, but she’s got some brilliant recipes! This is her “Yummy Sauce” in the making, with cannellini beans, lemon and mustard.

The completed sauce. This is absolutely scrumptious!!! Yummy indeed!

The components of our supper, ready to throw together when my hubby comes home. The Yummy Sauce, brown rice, and sautéed veggies. They will make a nice couple of bowls of goodness.

Sorting out the chicken stock. The chicken in the pan waiting to be boned, the stock, and the veggies.

The curried parsnip soup on the hob.

The cooked chicken with the bones removed. I had skinned them before boiling, so it wouldn’t be so greasy. On the right, some home-made Coronation chicken in an old pot from Tesco. I’ve decided not to keep buying this, but to make my own – much cheaper, and more delicious!

The chicken spread out on baking parchment, ready for the freezer. This will stop the pieces sticking together. Once it’s frozen, it will go in bags.

The curried parsnip soup after going through my high speed blender, cooling, ready to be frozen.

We’ve got plenty of food for the week now.

Finally, the aliens have landed!!

Our neighbour gave this to us today. I have no idea what it is, whether it’s an actual alien, or an alien spacecraft. I think there should be flashing lights on those bumps around the bottom.

I think it’s a sort of squash. I am sure I shall find something to do with it, as long as little green men don’t hop out when I cut it open.

Fermentation

I am still doing my fermented foods. This week I made some kimchi which isn’t ready yet – it smells pretty amazing, though, and it’s fairly fiery too with lots of Korean chilli spice in it. I discovered a very simple recipe for an Indian fermented drink this week, which I am trying, called Kaanji, made from carrots and spices in water, and of course, I am continuing to make my kefir.

At the back: kimchi. Tall jar: kaanji. Front left: kefir.

I have decided to try my hand at kombucha (fermented tea) so I have some stuff on order – a gallon jar and some bottles, and a kombucha scoby (this is an acronym for “Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeasts”) – you need this to convert the tea into kombucha. It looks pretty revolting, a bit like a dead jellyfish. Oh well, the kombucha is supposed to be delicious!

Esmeralda, my sourdough starter, is asleep in the fridge.

I need more room in my pantry.

Kitties

Ruby has decided she’s gone off the hammock, and gone off sleeping with Lily at all. I really don’t understand kitties. She’s now adopted a soft cushion on the settee. Before she abandoned Lily, I got this picture of her with one leg over.

Last night there was a bit of a mystery with Ruby. My hubby got them in for supper, and shut the back door so they wouldn’t go out again. Next thing I knew, Ruby was out again! The previous night I’d left the door open by mistake and they both went out again, but this time I was sure I hadn’t let them out. My hubby managed to bribe her in with kitty biccies. Five minutes later, she was out again!! We couldn’t understand it. Then I remembered… when my friend came in the afternoon, we decided it was a bit windy to sit outside, so we sat in the flat which is nice and sunny, and brighter than our sitting room, and I’d opened the window and forgotten to shut it! Mystery solved.

We’ve been out for lunch this week as well, and I’ve been working on last month’s accounts (not yet finished) and various other activities too, so I haven’t had a chance to go in the studio. Hopefully this coming week…

WOYWW 477 Cooking Again

Still nothing on my desk. This week has been quieter and less busy than of late, and I’ve taken advantage of this in order to rest a bit. It’s been so hot! Up at the top of our garden there is shade from the apple tree and it’s very pleasant, but down in the patio it would be unendurable to sit for even five minutes!

I had a cooking day today, hence my lateness in signing up to WOYWW – I originally didn’t intend to join today but thought you might like to see my efforts even if they are kitchen-related instead of studio-related!

I had a big Tesco delivery first thing, and as usual, washed the fruit and veg and trimmed the latter so it wouldn’t take up so much room in the fridge. I always blanch the trimmings and freeze them, and when there’s enough in the bag, I can make soup, so nothing is wasted. In the bowl are today’s trimmings – quite a lot! I used to throw away the stalks of broccoli and the tough upper leaves of leeks but sliced up and cooked slowly, and then liquidised, they make excellent vegetable soup; they are full of goodness, and there’s no waste.

While I was preparing the butternut squash, I suddenly wondered if it was possible to eat the seeds. I checked online, and found that you can – they are related to pumpkins and I regularly buy those to put in the bread. Maybe now I shall use squash seeds instead, and save myself the expense! I separated them from the fibrous pulp (which also went in with the vegetable trimmings!), washed the seeds, and dried them on kitchen paper, ready for roasting later.

Here are most of my ingredients, ready for me to start cooking.

I recently discovered “Brothers Green Eats” Youtube channel – these two brothers cook amazing stuff in a tiny kitchen, and I’ve got loads of ideas and advice from their channel. This week I watched a video where they cooked several dishes that could be put in portions in the fridge or freezer for an instant ready meal full of goodness. I was keen to try this, and this is what my efforts today were all about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-2YVb_nPPM

Here is the finished meal, plated up and ready to eat.

Fridge and freezer fodder! What we didn’t eat for lunch today.

From top left: slaw made from shredded cabbage, carrot, sliced radishes, spring onions, sliced mango. To prepare the vegetables I used my VeggieBullet (see photo of ingredients, in the background) which shreds and slices in double-quick time – literally seconds! Bag of fried chicken thighs. Before cooking I boned these, and made stock with the bones, which was used to cook the bulgur wheat. The chicken thighs were fried skin-side down (no added fat) until they were crisp, then turned for a few minutes to finish cooking the meat. Two jars of sauce, the first being a light dressing made from lemon juice, white wine vinegar, olive oil, almond butter, a dash of French mustard, fresh coriander, dill, a little honey, chopped spring onions and a little vegetable stock, blitzed in my high-speed blender. This was used to dress the slaw. The second jar contains a quick barbecue sauce made from tomato ketchup cooked with some paprika, vinegar, a little ground cumin and cayenne and a touch of brown sugar.

Second row: Bulgur wheat cooked with some chopped spring onions and peppers, using the stock from the chicken bones.

Third row: Roasted vegetables – butternut squash, sweet potato, carrot, celeriac (par-boiled for a few minutes in the microwave to soften), broccoli and broccoli stalks, onion, leek, courgettes, garlic and peppers roasted in toasted sesame oil with some chilli flakes, cinnamon, ground cumin and paprika, and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds, chia seeds and brown flax seeds.

Finally, the squash seeds, roasted. I mixed some chilli flakes, ground cumin, ground coriander and cayenne pepper in a little olive oil and tossed the seeds in this before roasting them on parchment paper in the oven. They are super-delicious – really crunchy and with quite a spicy kick! Much better than crisps. The trouble is, each time I walk past the bowl, I have to eat some. They won’t last long!

Next time I am going to roast them plain, and save them to put in the bread. Maybe I’ll never buy pumpkin seeds again!

Talking of break, this is the batch of sourdough I made at the weekend. Marginally better, but still spreading too much. I am going to try with a slightly less hydrated dough, and definitely keep an eye on both the first and second proving so that it doesn’t over-prove.

The structure of the bread is good – the holes could be bigger, but they are shiny as they are supposed to be, and the flavour is excellent. I’m getting there, slowly!

Esmeralda is behaving magnificently, which is great. She is now in her new routine of being fed twelve hours or so before I make the bread, and allowed to grow at room temperature, and after I’ve made the bread, she’s fed again, and put back in the fridge for another week.

I made a better batch of kefir cheese this week as well, taking longer to strain the kefir through the muslin, and gently agitating it periodically, to encourage some more whey to drain through. I didn’t squeeze the bag because it just makes kefir come through into the whey.

With some of the whey I made some lemonade. I added some basil leaves (this is a fabulous combination for a lovely, cold, refreshing summer drink) and blitzed it in my high-speed blender – which was a mistake! It generated huge quantities of foam which took ages to disperse. I think this was caused by the protein in the whey. Next time I shall make the lemonade and blitz it before gently stirring in the whey. You don’t really taste the whey, but it’s adding that extra layer of goodness and lots of gut-friendly bacteria. Can’t be wrong.

Kitties

Not much activity this week. It’s been too hot for much vigorous play but there has been some big game hunting in the jungle (chasing butterflies in the flowerbeds!) without too much success, fortunately for the butterflies. Lily continues to be a Trolley Dolly all on her own. Ruby has gone right off the trolley and now prefers to sleep right outside the bedroom door where she is in danger of being trodden on, and she she is being vigorously dissuaded from this – we have to remove her 5 or 6 times before she finally settles on my hubby’s box of old clothes. They get their little phases for favourite sleeping places and let’s hope that Ruby’s latest choice is short-lived. I told her I only had to put my big foot right on top of her once, and there’d be no more Ruby. It’s funny, but these kitties are never very impressed with anything I say to them. They just give you that look, and go on doing whatever it is you don’t want them to do.

Here is Lily drinking from the bird bath. So much for my hubby’s efforts, putting a nice bowl of fresh water out each day so they don’t get thirsty.

Butterflies

I keep telling the kitties it’s OK to chase the white butterflies (these tend to lay their eggs on people’s precious vegetables!) but not OK to chase the pretty ones. They don’t see the logic of this at all.

Last week I managed to capture this beautiful butterfly, which I later identified as a comma, on our buddleia bush. Isn’t it handsome?

This year, we have far more butterflies than we’ve ever had before, which is a good sign. Buddleia is always a great attraction for them, of course. I found what I think was a red admiral in the bedroom last week, and scooped him up with a chiffon scarf and shook it out of the window and off he flew.

Hopefully this coming week, I might actually achieve some art. Who knows?

This and That

Cooking

Another busy day. I had hoped to complete my cooking yesterday but there were various visitors during the day and that put my schedule out so I had to do it today as the chicken had defrosted.

I made a Middle Eastern chicken tagine with saffron and hard boiled eggs. Unfortunately I didn’t photograph it. I will try and remember to do so when I serve it. The cooking today was freezer fodder so not served up attractively enough to photograph anyway. This recipe had instructions to colour the peeled hard boiled eggs with water in which saffron had been steeped, but this didn’t work – perhaps my saffron isn’t as yellow as it should be; I’ve noticed a distinct lack of colouring from it before. Anyway, I added a teaspoon of turmeric to the water and that seemed to do the trick – they came out a wonderful rich dark yellow! The chicken is served with the eggs between the chicken pieces. I cut the eggs in half longwise. Finally, the dish is sprinkled with blanched almonds fried in olive oil.

I didn’t want to waste the turmeric liquid so I decided to go ahead and make some bulgar wheat as well, to go with the chicken, and I added this coloured liquid to the stock in which the bulgar wheat was cooked, making it come out a nice yellow colour. Once cooked, I added pine nuts fried in olive oil and soaked raisins.

These dishes have now gone in the freezer.

I also finished making yesterday’s vegetable soup by blitzing it in my high-speed blender. It is utterly delicious – it really makes a difference having a decent stock as a basis for it, and this time I used the bone broth I made last week. I’ve made a huge bowl of really thick soup which will need diluting with further stock when it is served, but in the meantime in its really thick state, it takes up less room in the freezer.

Middle Eastern Meal

Last night we went to my friend’s for another Middle Eastern meal, following on from the one I cooked for her last week. She has the most beautiful kitchen, not large, but quite quirky and full of character, and with a lovely warm and welcoming atmosphere. When we arrived she had laid the table ready with the first dish of food which was bulgar wheat served with lettuce and other accompaniments – she showed us how to make little parcels with the lettuce, and it was utterly delicious.

Doesn’t this look absolutely beautiful?

When we’d got started on that, she brought out the lamb kibbeh. I had been longing to try kibbeh – it’s in my new Claudia Roden recipe book but I haven’t made it yet. Another really delicious dish, this time served with freshly squeezed lime.

Baby tomatoes, Greek yoghurt, olives and kefir cheese (this latter brought by me) to accompany the dishes.

Also to accompany the dishes: pitta bread and a cucumber and yoghurt salad something like Indian raita. This gives a wonderful cool balance to the spiced food – not that this was heavily spiced, but as with most Middle Eastern food, it was delicately spiced so that you got all the flavours, and no one flavour was overwhelming.

For dessert she had made the most fabulous sticky and sweet baclava. These are her two photos.

I haven’t attempted this yet either – it’s a time-consuming process, but the results are well worth it!

To finish our meal, I had brought along my Turkish coffee set, and the coffee all ready to make up. I bought this set in the souk in Jerusalem back in 1998; there are six cups in all, each little brass cup having a white china insert. It is supposed to be on a brass tray but for the life of me I can’t find this at the moment!

To make the Turkish coffee (I got this recipe from an Iraqi junior doctor who was working with my dad before I got married so probably late 1970s/early 1980s), you take a scoop of highest-roasted coffee beans, and about 4 whole cardamom pods per person, and grind them to the finest dust possible. Place this in a small pan with 1 teaspoon of sugar per person, and add water, allowing space for it to boil up without overflowing. Put it on the heat and let it bubble up, immediately removing it from the heat till it subsides; repeat this 3 more times, then decant into the coffee pot and serve. It is very strong and very sweet, and thick, with the grounds still in it. The addition of the cardamom adds an even more exotic twist, making the coffee taste almost like a liqueur. It’s fabulous.

Kitties

Out in the garden all day again, and joining us when we sat up at the top eating our meals.

Lily drinking from the bird bath!

I made a video of this, but haven’t had a chance to edit it yet.

Lily was very annoyed with us this evening after supper when we wouldn’t let her out again, and kept up her crying and stamping her cross little paw for 10-15 minutes. We persuaded her to go on the trolley eventually, but for some reason they’re not that keen all of a sudden. Ruby decided she’d prefer to sleep right outside the bedroom door just where I’d tread on her so this has been vigorously discourages several times during the course of the evening, putting her firmly with her sister and telling her to stay put on the trolley!

Our Garden

Our garden is looking very pretty at the moment, thanks to my hubby’s hard work. The lawn is very brown from lack of rain, though, and the beautiful white climbing rose is now over, but there’s still plenty of colour.

As you can see in the previous photo, all the geraniums he planted this year in the herbaceous border are now in flower.

The large buddleia. Both buddleias are attracting lots of butterflies – some unusual varieties too – far more than we had last year. I have started video-ing them and once I’ve got enough, I’ll compile them together.

Pots of geraniums on the patio and along the path below the steps.

The lovely herb garden my hubby made for me. I often potter out with my scissors and cut them for my cooking.

Knitting

I finally managed to block the multi-coloured socks I finished a while back and they now look quite presentable.

I shall take them to church on Sunday and hopefully someone will take them and give them to the homeless, or hang on to them till the winter – not sure if they are doing the same project again this year but someone is bound to be able to pass them on for me. I’d have finished them last winter if we hadn’t entered that time of ongoing crisis for several months!

Another Outing Tomorrow

Off to Hope Cove with our walking friends tomorrow. I haven’t been before, and apparently it’s very pretty. More pictures once we’ve been!

2017–The Year in Review

Warning – Long post, photo rich

Another year has flown by, and my goodness, what a year it has been. Here is my annual review of what has happened in my life over the past twelve months.

Mum

The most significant event was the death of my mum on 9th December. She was 96 and was ready to go. Over the past few years her quality of life had deteriorated greatly and she spent the final couple of years in residential care, almost completely deaf and unable to do much. I often think that the progress of modern medicine may have succeeded in prolonging life, but if the quality of that life has deteriorated to the extent that it no longer holds any pleasure, what is the point? I am absolutely against euthanasia, but do not hold with “striving officiously to keep alive…”

Although during my adult life, my relationship with Mum was not what it might have been, I have many good memories, and am grateful for many things – during my childhood she was always there for us, with a hot meal on the table when we would arrive home hungry from school; she was always taking us out for walks, outings to the seaside with our little friends, and providing memorable birthday parties and so on. I learnt my home-making skills from her and am so grateful for the knowledge passed down through the generations from mother to daughter, so often lost these days when economic pressures make it necessary for mothers of small children to be so often out of the home in paid employment.

My hubby

All through this year my hubby has been far too busy, rushing around and hardly being at home. This has made him very tired when he has been home, dropping straight off to sleep in front of the TV etc.! I had been on at him for taking on too much, and the need to remember that he is no longer 30 years old! Then, at the end of November, he slipped and fell, and broke his leg, and he has been immobilised since then, walking with difficulty on crutches and not being allowed to put his foot on the ground. It has been touch and go whether he would need it pinned but they seem to think he’s doing OK for now, but he’s going back to the fracture clinic in four weeks’ time and they will make the final decision then. He is going to be in plaster for a long time, it seems. During this whole time he is unable to drive, and we have been very stuck, but our wonderful friends, neighbours, people from church and family have been very supportive and helpful, taking us out when necessary for hospital appointments and other engagements, doing odd bits of shopping and helping with things at home.

One friend said it was a good thing he was immobilised for a while because it would make him stop and rest a bit! Also, being unable to rush around all the time, he now has time to sort through all Mum’s papers and deal with things following her death.

I have found this whole period a great strain because I can deal with our normal life OK, managing what I have to do and factoring in the necessary rest times, but with my hubby so out of action, I have not only had him to look after, but have also had to do a lot of the things that he would normally be doing, and there have been times when having to keep constantly on the go, and simply having too much to do, it has all got too much for me and I’ve lost the plot and thrown a wobbly. I find that with my ME brainfog (and probably residual chemo brain – this has definitely affected my memory and concentration as well) that I tend to cave in under too much stress and don’t deal with it too well. I have also been carrying the anxiety about my present state of health, not to mention the stress associated with Mum’s death and all the extra things to do because of that, and then Christmas in the middle of it all.

I yearn for a period of peace and quiet and our lives returning to some sort of normality.

Health Issues

It has been another significant year for me, health-wise. In 2015 I was successfully treated for bowel cancer, and throughout 2016 I enjoyed better health than I had done for years, with the eradication of my ulcerative colitis after the removal of my entire colon. My ileostomy was very settled and easy to manage throughout the year, and I believed that this would be the story of the rest of my life, but in the autumn of that year I developed a parastomal hernia.

At the end of January this year, this caused an obstruction which necessitated emergency surgery and a two-and-a-half week stay in hospital, very poorly, and taking quite a long time to recover. A simple sutured repair of the hernia was performed by a general surgeon and as anticipated, this failed, and by the autumn the hernia had returned, and it is now in the same state that it was at the beginning of the year, causing me to be fearful of another blockage, and history repeating itself before my specialist colorectal surgeon can perform a proper repair and insert a reinforcing mesh.

I was due to see him before the year’s end, but this has not happened, and I now have to wait till mid-January to see him. I am hoping that now that the hernia has returned, and knowing my history, he will be prepared to have me in for elective surgery before it causes me another obstruction.

My system remains free of cancer, which is something on the plus side. I have seen the oncologist twice during the year and she is very pleased with me. I continue to suffer from peripheral neuropathy as an ongoing side effect of the six months of chemo I had in 2015, and this may or may not clear up; whatever happens, it is a small price to pay for survival!

Diet

I began the 5:2 diet in the summer of 2014. I had to take a break from the diet throughout 2015 while undergoing cancer treatment, but I resumed it in 2016, and this year I reached my target weight, having lost a total of 4 1/2 stone, and losing 10 inches around my waist! I have a tremendous sense of achievement over this as it proves that it can be done, and through diet alone as well, because with my ME I am unable to take sufficient exercise to make any difference to weight loss.

I am absolutely delighted to have been able to get rid of clothes that are now too big for me (trousers and leggings that wouldn’t stay up!) and to have an excuse to buy some new things, but above all, to be able to get into some old favourites again! For years my friends were telling me to get rid of these clothes because I should be realistic and accept that I’d never again be as thin as I once was, but I have proved them wrong. I had a lot of clothes that I really loved, and couldn’t bear to part with, and they are now wearable again. This makes me feel good, good, GOOD!!

Here’s me in my Afghan Nomad Dress (which I made years ago – definitely in the 1990s as this photo was taken when we lived in Plymouth:

And again, on Christmas day this year:

Here are my “before and after” pics – the first was taken in 2013 (the year before I started the diet) and the second was taken this May. I  can’t believe I looked like that…….

Kitties

Another significant, and sad event during this year was the death, only three weeks apart, of our beloved old kitties Beatrice and Phoebe.

Phoebe, aged nearly 14, developed bowel cancer and had to be put down; she had also suffered from grand mal epilepsy for the last couple of years of her life, which was extremely distressing. After she died, Beatrice, nearly 17, seemed utterly lost without her, despite the fact that they were never that close. She lingered in all Phoebe’s favourite spots as if looking for her to return, and went completely off her food, until she became so weak and obviously heart-broken and grieving, and she was put down three weeks later. We knew that both of them, being in poor health, would die this year, but we never thought it would happen so close together.

Then followed six weeks with no kitties in the house. This is only the second time this has happened to us in over 30 years of marriage, and it was very hard!

We found our new babies online, and at the end of July we drove over to west Dorset to collect them. Amazingly, they were born on our wedding anniversary (24th May)! We won’t forget their birthday in a hurry.

Here they are at 5 weeks, when we were first introduced to them (we couldn’t have them till they were 9 weeks old).

This is what they look like now – I can’t believe how much they have grown!

Lily and Ruby are now (unbelievably!) seven months old, and so much part of the family that we cannot imagine life without them. They are an utter delight, full of personality, and so pretty too! I’ve done lots of blog posts about them – far too many to provide links for, and I have also made numerous videos of them which are on my Youtube channel.

House

Back in March we discovered dry rot under the kitchen floor, which was a worrying thing because we knew it would be very expensive to deal with.

It turned out to be only in one small isolated area and although costly, a lot less so than we’d been led to believe, which was a huge relief. Work began in April.

It meant that the old-fashioned cupboard in the kitchen had to come out (it was a pain to use anyway, so no great loss) and we then had to wait until July before the carpenter was free to come and make me a beautiful walk-in pantry.

During this time I used the kitchen in Mum’s flat (which occupies half the downstairs of the house) – very small and cramped, but perfectly adequate!

The new pantry completed:

The whole unpleasant matter of the dry rot turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the new pantry has made my life so much easier, and I continue to be thrilled to bits with it. I made some extra shelves to house all my supplies, and I made some decorative labels to go on my jars, and the whole thing looks fantastic!

Food

Considering what else has gone on, I’m happy to say I have been able to do some baking and cooking this year. I find this very therapeutic.

I went on a bread baking day too (my hubby won the ticket for that).

Finally, I cooked my first Christmas dinner for over ten years.

For our annual family get-together after Christmas, I made four puddings:

Cancer Group

Our monthly cancer Cakeathon continues but we are now meeting here at my home instead of at the cancer support centre. Numbers have dropped off somewhat over the last few months because people have been busy with other things. I bake regularly for these meetings. One of our members had a coffee morning in aid of Macmillan’s this year and several of us attended that, and we baked for it too. I am perpetually grateful for all the wonderful friends I have made through getting cancer.

Bible Study Group

This has been ongoing too – our numbers remain small but they are so faithful and I am grateful for that! We completed our course on the Tabernacle, and have done occasional sessions on the Feasts of the Lord to coincide with the calendar dates on which these fall, and we began a major course on Prophecy, interrupted by a short course on Salvation (since the subject was raised by one of our members – we are very flexible about what we do!) – to be completed in the New Year. There is a lot of work involved in preparing the sessions, including designing the PowerPoint slides (which are creative and fun to do) but I find it very fulfilling, and just lately it has been something which has encouraged and built me up in the middle of a lot of troubling events.

Art

As a result of everything that has gone on this year, I have found it very hard to find the time, energy and concentration to do much art at all, and my studio has lain neglected, a sad, dust-gathering dumping ground, for far too long. I have got new stash which has been sitting around for months not even opened. I hate the fact that it is always my creativity which suffers the most when the pressures of life encroach. When time has become available, I have found that I am too tired to do anything, which is an ongoing frustration.

However, I have managed to achieve something!

Mamhead Album completed:

This was a project I worked on for several months in 2016.

I made another little book as well, this year, called “Second Wind”:

which was my first attempt at a Coptic binding.

I had hoped to finish the other book I have been working on by the end of this year but with the pressures on me over the past few weeks, this hasn’t been possible. This is a book giving examples of all the different techniques you can use with Infusions.

I also made a selection of simple stamped cards to replenish my stash:

I made a couple of cards for my hubby, one for his birthday and one for our anniversary, both mixed media with Infusions.

I have done some Zentangle in the iPad Pro this year. This was my best piece.

I did some other digital art using the Procreate app as well, including this picture, following along with a Youtube tutorial, and adding the silhouettes of some trees to make it my own:

I also continued with some digital mandalas which I save as outlines, and can then colour  as I wish.

This year I acquired an excellent video editing app for the iPad Pro called Luma Fusion, and have been able to make a lot of videos (mostly of the kittens) to upload to Youtube. Very convenient, very user-friendly. One of the best things is being able to use the iPad as a video camera so no transfer of video from one device to another is necessary. All I have to do now is rig up the iPad over my work space instead of my normal video camera.

Continuing with my ongoing embroidery project to make drapes for the bed half-tester, I’ve done a few more pieces, including these:

I’ve also done a bit of knitting, getting involved with a project at church to provide socks for the homeless.

This was supposed to be completed by the end of November, but with everything else going on, I haven’t finished the rainbow pair yet. However, I have been reassured that the project is ongoing, and someone will make sure my socks, once completed, will find a recipient!

That’s pretty much the sum total of art done this year. Not a lot to show for a whole year, is it, but other things certainly have intruded in my life big time this year!

Looking back on last year’s annual review, it’s interesting, as always, to re-read my intentions for the coming year and see how well I’ve done. As usual, the answer is, not very well!! Perhaps I should cease from this unprofitable exercise because every year, I fail!

Here’s what I intended. And whether I succeeded.

• Not making so many cards. Yes, but I didn’t do much else either!
• Books. Yes, to a limited degree.
• Boxes and 3-D objects. No.
• Textiles in my mixed media work. No.
• Felt. No.
• Finish all those UFOs (UnFinished Objects). No, no, no. Hopeless! They remain UnFinished.

So as usual I didn’t do too well on the resolutions scale.

Oh, I can’t help myself – I’m going to list some of my intentions for the coming year, despite what I’ve just said!!

• Finish the Infusions Mini-Album.
• Start using my as yet unopened Distress Oxides.
• Make more books.
• Make more boxes.
• Do more mixed media stuff and incorporate different materials including textiles.
• Make some upcycled clothing from all the bits I bought in charity shops several years ago.
• Definitely finish some of those lingering UFOs.

We shall see how well I do in the coming months!

After such a rollercoaster of a year, I am hoping for a more peaceful year ahead so that I can draw breath a bit, and get back to normal, and have more opportunity to develop my creativity. Also, now that Mum is no longer with us, maybe my hubby and I can have a bit more time together and go on more outings as the weather improves.

Wishing all my loyal followers and friends in Blogland and beyond a very happy and fruitful year ahead.