catching up to silly saturday

Hello! It’s been a bit since my last post, but lots of things are developing around here, and that’s taken away most blogging time (and all IG time). Mostly interesting stuff, but can’t discuss yet.

What I can offer today is a suggestion to try a tasty citrus fruit next time you see some at your grocers.

Called Blood Oranges over here, because of their colour. I discovered, after reading the Wiki article about them, that the one I ate, and did not like at all, just wasn’t ripe.

Seems they’re sort of tangerine-like, and not like regular oranges at all!

They sort of remind me of persimmons, which can look lovely, bright and shiney orange. You’d think they were ripe & ready to eat, but YUCK if you try. You have to wait until they start getting black and gelatinous and quite rotten-looking. Then they are sooooooo good!

In my very limited experience, blood oranges won’t appear that yucky, but might seem slightly shrunken, like a citrus that’s drying out. The outer skin might start showing red streaks.

If what you buy doesn’t look ripe, leave them to ripen! Mine have been aging in the bottom of my fridge in a drawer. Which reminds me . . .

Time to get another out and enjoy . . . . . . . Do tell if you’ve tried them!

Post Script!

PS/Thought I’d just add that today’s blood orange tasted quite orangey. Guess it’s like a chocolate box – you never quite know what you’ll get!

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silly saturday

Guess who’s still around? I know they take their time, but . . . .

As seen early this morning. Click for previous appearance. . .

silly saturday

From chaos to . . .

Order!

silly Saturday

Start your Saturday with some laughter!

One of my favourite profs is Dr. Sophie Scott. This 15-minute video brings out interesting facts about why & how we laugh… but the important thing, IMHO, is that we do laugh.

Hope everyone’s feeling a bit less stressed now, and more in keeping with the season. 🎉

Let’s get to that interesting fabric with the pins. It’s been ageing in stash until I finally realised I’ve been wearing my long denim skirt a lot more this past year. It’s already at least a decade old, isn’t fading or wearing out, but I’d like to have another, similar skirt please!

Enter this remnant, part of a trade with Anne (The Compulsive Seamstress ). So it’s British and therefore rather special. The weight and stretch are just about equal to the denim so I’ve started handling it.

You know what I mean ~ what kind of stretch does it have, and which direction(s). Will it be too stiff? Do I really want something relatively light in colour at the bottom of an ensemble??

What do you think about those selvage edges. huh? I looove ’em, especially the fringey one! It has to be a design feature…

I did some pinning, thinking about a 3/4 finished length with slit to the knee on the left, and am playing with what kind of placket & closure I want. My blue denim has an elasticated waist with side seam slits,. All I do is pull it on & off, easy peasy. I’d like something similar for this.

Must admit Helen’s Closet Arden pants pattern came to mind, but there’s not enough yardage. And no, the thought of a shorter version doesn’t tempt me because of the extended heat/humidity here in the southern U.S. This isn’t a lightweight fabric.

Will report back eventually, I promise! You know how it can go with the creative process. Something else more urgent could come up and this gets pushed aside, to be picked up whenever. Those Works In Progress (WIPs) so many of us have . . . 😉

Will say toodles for now, Lovelies! Do let me know if you enjoyed the TED talk. Dr. S is a favourite. (I recommend all my vocal students watch her 2017 Royal Institute Christmas Lecture. If you’d like to see a live larynx in action & hear a mosquito duet, have a meander over here to my “delsotherstuff” site.)

Cheers, Lovelies! Hope your weekend is wonderful!

❣️ 😘 ❣️ 🎄 ❣️ 😘 ❣️

silly Saturday

What could be swallowing a metal fence post?

Whatever it is, it can’t/won’t reach those higher bars!

Greedy tree roots!

A Brooklyn transplant and I were lamenting the absence of good ethnic food here in the south as he was car-sharing me over to Aldi t’other day . . .

Fresh from our joint lament, I discovered ground lamb in Aldi’s meat section, neatly packaged in 1-pound packs.

I like lamb! Mom used to fix it only at Easter, as dad didn’t appreciate it. When I was living north of downtown Chicago around the Lakeside neighborhood, there was a great little family-run restaurant with lamb on the menu. Even before that, while IBMing in California there was a sublime Mediterranean restaurant . . .

Cutting to the chase — If anyone has a ground lamb recipe they’d like to share, do tell, ’cause I’m searching.

🔎 👀 🔍

silly saturday

Thought I should make mention of the Agatha Raisin Season 2 that arrived last weekend and was immediately watched.

The first season had been 8 or so of the usual 45 (or was it 54?) minute episodes, all based on author M.C. Beaton’s books, using the same titles as the books. (Thank goodness!)

Some characters were changed/added/subtracted, and Agatha herself was upgraded from the 1990’s to the 21st century. I thoroughly enjoyed the first season repeatedly for several years, all the while wishing they’d done more.

Surprise! Surprise! They did, and I’d missed ’em, thus last weekend’s little orgy with Season 2 (and Season 3 winging it’s way as I type). These episodes are double the length, which feels just right. But there were only three – aghhhhhhhh!!! So I watched them twice. 😆 🤣

Ms. Beaton (a.k.a. Marion Chesney) was also the author of the Hamish Macbeth detective series, as well as a series of Victorian novels that I never read.

Wanting to know a bit more about the Scots author who died last year, I located these two articles (here and here), which gave me additional insight into her character and writing.

Incidentally, she thoroughly approved of this whole series. In 1998 she penned a book in the Hamish series, Death of a Scriptwriter, which ought to tell you how she felt about that telly “adaptation.” 😬

From Folkwear Pattern’s August newsletter comes a very interesting-to-me note about a book on indigo, Indigo – The indelible color that seduced the world. I had no idea the real deal is indelible, and that Columbus’ ship sails were made from denim.

NPR, our national public radio, did an interview with the author, Catherine McKinley, some years ago. At just 13 minutes, it was most enjoyable!

This past week has also been an enjoyable respite from the previous week’s triple digit “feels like” temps. (You know, when a high temp plus higher humidity makes the air feel like you could wear it.) Alas, next week it sounds like we’re going back.

Dummm-dee-dum-dum. . . . . Something tells me that cardi I was thinking so hard about earlier ain’t gonna be uppermost in thought . . . . and that microwaved-not-baked cake will return . . . .

silly Saturday

Oooo! A squidgy package !!  From Canada !!!

I had visceral reactions to autumnal colours last Autumn . . .

. . . and thought about  realised I might vowed to myself to get more autumnal colours into my closet . . .

Now I’m finding fabrics in autumnal colours, even in summer weight fabrics !

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. . .

 

🤣     😉     😆

silly Saturday

Remember this Thursday’s Virtual Tea! That half-eaten plain scone is from Mrs. Beeton’s book. Recipe to follow ~

It’s that time of year and I, for one, am a bit busy. How about your good selves?

Join me for Virtual Tea this week and we can talk!

Over here, our postal peeps are done in… A few small bits of fabric were sent from Georgia at the end of November and are still “in transit.” Good thing they aren’t anything for the holiday.

Earlier in December several pattern companies had sales, so I got   busy ordering PDFs, then downloading the files to send off to PDFPlotting for printing.

Because of the C problem, my apartment complex’ office can’t receive oversize packages. (Patterns come rolled in a long box, not folded flat.)

Remembering that, I called PDFPlotting and asked about a better way to ship. Got an answer right back with an alternative (UPS) for  only $2 more. Well worth it — no hassle getting them right to my door in 2 days. Phew!

Then Vogue Fabrics sent word they were having a short-but-sweet fleece sale. I realised my winter wardrobe was getting is threadbare, assessed the new patterns, and ordered fleece. After the dust sorta settled I ordered again.

The day I realised the Atlanta cotton wouldn’t arrive this week  BOTH Vogue orders arrived. Talk about a Happy Dance!  The last night of the sale I decided to order a bit more . . . . . .

What can I say… it’s been a tough year.  😀

3 of 4, washed (brown’s drying). The top navy (& brown) are for pants, gold & green (below gold) are for tops.

 

silly Saturday

🧙‍♀️ silly saturday 🎃

Happy Hallowe’en ! ! !

     🧙‍♀️     👻     🎃     🎃     👻    🧙‍♀️

 

silly saturday ~ soft furnishings

The fronts

A minor achievement this week: 2 small pillows stuffed, sewn up and completed.

Ta-dah ! ! !

These are the fronts.

Love that hat, but ain’t too keen on the corset. But it’s red, so that’s okay.

A bit of searching round t’internet and I found this panel is actually part of an entire quilting series.   Hmmm .   .   .    .     .       🤔

A bit more thinking about it, as we know we do with something we really want to enjoy to its’ fullest potential  .   .   .    .     .       🤨

Taking a deep breath, ignoring my fierce promise-to-self not to buy any more fabric, I decided to acquire just a teeny bit more.

But only so’s the whole rest of the original purchase could be used and enjoyed to the full, instead of always regretting I hadn’t used x or y instead — y’know what I mean?   🙄

Next week a small squidgy package is due .   .   .    .     .

 There’s more to come, Lovelies!  🤣   😆   🤣

Silly Saturday

A pile of Oatmeal Chews

Also Known As  the Virtual Tea Party continues!

For several reasons.  First off ~~~

I forgot to thank Cathy (nanacathy2) for her suggestion from several posts ago that I look for the telly program Heartbeat.

BritBox carries it, but only the first season.  😡  However, there are more episodes listed on YouTube.

Huge Thank You’s, Cathy — I loved it! Both for the scenery and for the look back at how restrictive the 1960’s were for women. For instance, there’s no mention of the brave Dagenham sewing machinist women at the Ford plant, and their strike for equal pay for equal work.

For those who don’t know about Heartbeat, Wiki says, “Heartbeat is a British police drama series set in 1960s North Riding of Yorkshire based on the “Constable” series of novels written by ex-policeman Peter N. Walker, under the pseudonym Nicholas Rhea, and broadcast on ITV in 18 series between 1992 and 2010.”

The other reason to celebrate is New Zealand’s re-election of their Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who’s been a shining light through the C-19 crisis. So many of us outside New Zealand are delighted for her, and for all New Zealanders!