Bundle of Lime

With so much going on lately, I have felt really scattered and unfocused. I haven't had much time left at the end of the day to do anything creative but just today, I managed to finish an art quilt that I have been working on for a while. You might recognize this first picture from this post back in March. I started with fusible interfacing and some silk and cotton scraps from various other projects, and began creating a background by just playing around with the overall layout. Once I was satisfied, I filled in the holes with more scraps in a contrasting color and then ironed the pieces to the interfacing to hold everything together. In this process, I was careful to maintain the frayed edges of my fabric scraps in order to keep them as part of the composition. Next I began experimenting with free motion quilting technique, using an orange thread to contrast the fabric pieces. This was my first attempt at free motion quilting ever! I like the end result but I had...

I recently returned to the idea of completing my thesis (and therefore my MA in Geography). Literally just a couple of days ago, after about 10 months of hemming and hawing over what I had written and what I still have left to do and thoughts of maybe scrapping the entire thing to find another topic, I decided that it's time. And I'm serious. And this level of seriousness calls for cookies. This is one of my favorite cookie recipes of all time. It's simple to make and the cookies have such a wonderful texture to them once they're baked and even after they have cooled off. The original recipe came from the side of a shipping box from Vitacost , of all places. It caught my eye immediately because it's gluten-free. The original recipe has no flour whatsoever, which had me intrigued. Here is my slightly-tweaked version of these oh-so-yummy-tasty-mouth-watering morsels of chocolate chippy goodness. Ingredients; 1 cup of nut butter (I used almond butter but an...

One of my favorite things to do is to try new things in the kitchen, and lately I have been trying to stick pretty strictly to the less-processed foods. The other day, I stumbled across Dr. Joel Fuhrman on PBS. The premise of his dietary suggestions, from what I have gathered so far, is that eating whole, unprocessed vegetables, fruits and beans as the bulk of your diet can help create boundless health and energy, and even thwart quite a few of the common health issues that we see so frequently these days. And while he seems to support a primarily vegan (or at least vegetarian) diet, the important part is to make the bulk of your diet consist of fresh produce, beans, nuts and seeds.  I have been fairly happy with the keto-diet approach to eating that I have been following lately, with the exception of one aspect...I have not lost any weight. I am happy to have stopped gaining weight but it's been a little discouraging overall. So I decided to see what Dr. Fuhrman has to say, f...

Just because I haven't been over here to post lately doesn't mean that I haven't been indulging my creative side. On the contrary, I feel as though I've had the luxury lately of immersing myself in it. I've been reading this book  recently, along with this magazine and this one too . And in a bout of cleaning, I recently ran across my old stash of Cushing's Perfection Acid Dyes that I used when I was dying wool yarn regularly. Having never used these dyes on silk before, I decided to do some research to see if they would work on silk. According to what I found, these acid dyes work on "some silks" so I decided to do some experimentation. The test swatches above were done using natural silk duplioni purchased long ago from Denver Fabrics . After the testing was done I decided to dye some fabric! This piece above was dyed using straight Terra Cotta in an acid dye bath (I use white vinegar). It was soaked until most of the dye was taken up...

Happy New Year to everyone! This morning I received an email from Eve Agee . I don't know her personally but I signed up a month or so ago for her mailing list. This particular email addressed the idea of New Year's resolutions, and suggested that rather than making resolutions (which often are broken or forgotten), choose a theme or vision for the year and create a focus around it. Some of her examples were the "Year of Joy," "Year of Health," and "Year of Love". Once you have chosen a theme, she then suggests that you create a visual aid of some sort like a painting, collage, drawing or even a list. As you think about your theme, imagine what it's soundtrack might be and how you would explain it to a child. The idea is to allow these exercises to get you deeper into your focus and to attach positive emotion to it. As I read through the email, this idea really resonated with me so I thought I would take a few moments to do this for myself ...

  Disclaimer: Some of these pictures may not look all that appetizing but trust me, these are really good!   I have been exploring recipes for easy "snacks" that fill me up and fulfill the requirements of the way I have been eating lately (see information on ketogenic diet in case you are interested). I love anything made with coconut and have recently discovered that coconut oil is definitely my friend (I cook with it, add it to my tea, etc). Not too long ago, I decided to try a recipe for  Coconut Oil Candy 'Fat Bombs'  from the Eat Fat Lose Fat blog , which turned out to be a hit. Not only does one fill me up in between meals if I need a quick something, but it also satisfies any cravings that I might be having (which are fewer and farther in between) AND they are very tasty.   I followed the recipe here directly, using 2 tablespoons of Stevia in the Raw and 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder (I used exact amounts listed for the other ...

I don't know how we got to the end of November already but here we are. The Midwest had a couple of really nice days around Thanksgiving Day so I can't complain but as of today, we are back to the cold windy weather we've been experiencing for the last couple of weeks. I don't envy those who have already had more snow than we have gotten in Nebraska (which hasn't been much at all). I should be embracing some inspiration to knit warm sweaters, make hearty stews and drink hot cocoa. Instead, I have found myself struggling to do much of anything that doesn't involve my couch, a blanket, fleece pj pants and my four-legged companions. In my previous post , I made some body butter using shea butter as a base ingredient in  this recipe . To follow up, I also made the same recipe using mango butter instead of shea butter with the intention of comparing the two. After a couple of weeks of using both body butters, I have to say that it is a toss-up. The shea butter i...