buttons – Loving Sixty Five

I’m back!

May 3, 2018 lovingsixtyfive

I’ve been buried in wool, thread, buttons and whimsy. Just completed four commission pieces. What fun!

The client, Rosalie. Her mother worked in the NYC garment district and was a phenomenal seamstress. Rosalie brought me a silver and black knit suit her mother was working on shortly before her death. Her mom would likely cringe at my stitchery.

I’ve been taking sewing lessons, so my skills have improved…sort of. The three little purses below include mom’s knit and her jazzy buttons, Grandma’s “funeral sweater”–a black wool sweater she always wore to funerals, and cashmere Rosalie chose from my vast collection of shrunken sweaters. One bag is for Rosalie, the others for her cousins.

The bumblebees had to go on the back so as not to compete with the blingie buttons.

The big purse below includes the same stuff as the little ones, but I added shirred seams from the shoulders of the suit jacket. That is the “wrong” side of the fabric.

Again, bee needed to be hidden, so it’s on the pocket under the flap.

The back of the bag gets really wild. Rosalie gave me a blue cufflink that had been her dad’s. He sounds like a marvelous dandy. He put on a smoking jacket each evening after work!

Rosalie wanted me to incorporate some argyle from my collection. This purse got pretty wild.

Now, on to clean up my workspace and get back to coloring all the illustrations in Shel Silverstein’s “Falling Up.” It’s a Christmas gift for grandkids. There are one-hundred-seventy-nine pages. I’m on number twelve…

Knit Wit

September 5, 2017 lovingsixtyfive

We’re home! Our long car trip from Palm Harbor to Waco, Dallas, Liberty Missouri, Chicago, Nashville, and Atlanta resulted in lots of listening to books on discs and tons of knitting!

I found three new victims to foist my scarves upon. It’s getting harder. All my new friends live in Florida. They don’t need warm scarves.

The first I completed was one I’d started on our last road trip. I only knit on the road, so it’s been living in my big yellow Banana Republic knitting bag for months. I gave Jim’s sister Eileen the completed funky patch and button-laden item. She lives in Chicagoland so her neck will need warming in a couple of months.

My original plan was to give it to Lynn. But she will get the next one I finish.

The second piece is for our friend JR’s Aunt Nancy. I was working on it when we visited them in Liberty, Missouri. She liked the colors and made the mistake of telling me. I just packed it up. It goes into the mail tomorrow. Surprise, Nancy! A weird scarf on the way.

20170905_111043 — This photo is too blurry, but I’m not ripping open the package to take another picture. You get the idea. All my pieces come with a bumblebee attached.

The third scarf is for JR’s girlfriend, Melinda. She lives in Boston. It gets cold there too.

Melinda specified the colors she would like.

While in Chicago I spent two hours digging through buttons at an Andersonville resale shop. I discovered the place last summer and made a beeline there as soon as we got settled in our rental. Jim and Bronson waited for me patiently at Starbucks while I was in my happy place. I’ll go again next summer too. Not that I need more buttons, but it’s delightful to find unique ones.

The view from my perch as I dug through buttons.

I’ve already used the bright blue diamond studded button. It found a home on Melinda’s scarf.

These two containers are the tip of the iceberg. I looked at every single button in this bucket as well as five ancient cookie cans. Yes, I am obsessive/compulsive.

20170819_151658 — The forty-eight dollar’s worth of buttons I just couldn’t live without. They really needed a bath.

I’ve begun another scarf, but packed it away until our next big car trip. My poor arthritic hands are happy for the break.

Now we are home again. The locals are stocking up on water in case Irma hits us hard. We bought two cases. When those are gone I guess we’ll be reduced to swilling wine.

Hopefully, we’ll only have another month of hot and humid. It’s truly oppressive here in the summer. It rained so much our neighbors very kindly crossed the street and drained water out of our pool. I’m happy they still like us in spite of my many post-cards bragging about the awesome Chicago weather we enjoyed.

Counting Down the Days

How knitting saved my marriage

On the Road with Team Shepard

Road Trip!

Such Joy! We’re in Illinois.

August 15, 2017 lovingsixtyfive

I am so behind on my blog. We had excellent adventures in both Dallas and Liberty, Missouri. But those will take more thought and energy to write than I have in my weary fingers tonight.

Instead, I’ll give a quick rundown on our arrival in Illinois. We left Liberty Missouri this morning. We had our first ever Denny’s breakfast experience. Shame on me, I’ve been a lifetime Denny’s snob.

Denny’s was convenient and inexpensive, so we checked it out. Who woulda’ thunk they would have gluten free English muffins? I have been avoiding carbs. But GF English muffins were irresistible. I ordered mine “buttered in the kitchen.” The waitress, upon delivery, said, “The cook has never had anyone ask for a gluten free muffin buttered, only toast.” Huh? Butter is such great food group. Number two only after cream cheese.

Then we were on the road. We listened to Devil in the White City. I read it when it first came out. Jim rarely wants to read anything I read. Maybe he thinks I like “chick lit?”

I’m enjoying this book as much the second time around as the first. While absorbing the 19th century Chicago Worlds Fair and a whole lot of murder, I finished a scarf and began another.

We had to stop at Michael’s in Liberty for more yarn. This new scarf is for our friend JR’s girlfriend, Melinda. Plum, blue, cream. I’m looking forward to vintage button shopping in Chicago’s Andersonville and adding plum buttons to my collection.

We drove. We listened. We crossed the “mighty Mississippi” for the second time in one road trip. Pulled into our hotel about three p.m. We hadn’t had lunch, so we planned an early dinner. At about five I said, “Honey…can we eat soon?” Jim glanced at his self-winding watch and suggested we wait until closer to dinner time.

The self-winding had run down hours earlier. Jim was unaware of the time. I pointed out it was, in fact, dinner time. I’m not a happy hungry person so Jim grabbed our “Miss Mamie’s” 10% off coupon ( after first checking out reviews) and we headed to dinner.

It was yummy, and I have enough left over for tomorrow’s lunch. I have put a note-to-self on top of the cooler to remind us to take the chicken out of small frig in the morning. Along with Jim’s wee-teeny cinnamon bun. The pre-dinner bread basket included two. He gobbled the first before his meal; the second will be breakfast.

Jim’s ribs. He said mine are better, but I suspect he’s buttering me up.

Our waitress, Elaine, has celiac sprue. She felt my pain at missing out on the bread basket. But I had the marvelous morning GF English muffin, so for a celiac that’s splendid. She loved our service dog!

The weather here is a fabulous 80 degrees. The grass is soft, not the saw blades of Floridian lawns. I adore living in Florida. But not in the summer and never the lawn.

Tomorrow Chicago! We already have two Tate babysitting gigs lined up. Life is stupendous.

Serves 10

Ingredients:

2 small bulbs fennel
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 T. good olive oil
1 T. unsalted butter
2 pounds russet potatoes
2 C. plus 2 T. heavy cream
2 1/2 C. grated Gruyere cheese
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter inside of 10 cup baking dish.
(10x15x2)

Remove the stalks from the fennel and cut the bulbs in half lengthwise. Remove the cores and thinly slice the bulbs crosswise, making about 4 cups of sliced fennel. I recommend using a mandoline slicer. Saute the fennel and o nions in the olive oil and butter on medium-low heat for 15 minutes, until tender.

Peel the potatoes, then thinly slice. Again, I used mandoline and it made the slices perfect. Mix the sliced potatoes in a large bowl with 2 cups of cream, 2 cups of Gruyere, salt and pepper. Add the sauteed fennel and onion as well.

Pour it into prepared baking dish. Press down to smooth top. Combine remaining 2 T. cream with 1/2 cup Gruyere and sprinkle on top. Bake for 1 1/2 hours until potatoes and browned and bubbly.

Allow to set for 10 minutes and serve.

My notes:
This would NOT have been enough for 10 of the hungry Easter group. Knowing we'd be 12 I did about 3 1/2 pounds of potatoes and 4 cups of Gruyere. Forgot the part about sprinkling extra on top, but that was fine.

Sadly people were hoping for seconds and we didn't have any. Next year 5 pounds of potatoes, double the cream, 6 or more Cups of cheese. These were simply wonderful!

Thanks again, Ina. You always come through.

These are dangerously delicious and gluten free! Made them today to take to a party this evening. They are sitting on the counter just daring me to eat another one. Already had three. Oink. My daughter, Mo, turned me on to the recipe. She also taught me to use a scoop and silpat mats. More on those in a future blog post.

I used a #40 cookie scoop, baked on Silpat lined half sheets for about 18 minutes. You can also line the cookie sheets with parchment papter.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups (335 grams) packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups (450 grams) smooth peanut butter
Coarse-grained sea salt, to finish

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the light brown sugar and eggs until smooth. Whisk in the vanilla extract, then the peanut butter until smooth and completely incorporated; you shouldn’t be able to see any ribbons of peanut butter.

If you’d like to get those pretty striations across the top of the cookies, chill the dough by freezing it in its bowl for 15 minutes, stirring it once (so the edges don’t freeze first), before scooping it. If you’re not obsessed with these markings, you can scoop it right away. Scoop or spoon the dough into balls — Place on prepared pan. For the tallest final shape, place the tray in the freezer for 15 minutes before baking.

Sprinkle the dough balls lightly with coarse-grained sea salt just before baking. When finished, cookies should be golden at edges. They’ll need to set on the sheet for a minute or two before they can be lifted intact to a cooling sheet. Trust me, you should let these cool completely before eating so the different textures (crisp outside, soft inside) can set up.

Do ahead: You can definitely make the dough in advance and either refrigerate it for a couple days or freeze it longer. However, if I were going to freeze it, I’d probably go ahead and scoop it first. You can bake them right from the freezer.

Check out the Smitten Kitchen website for further info. She said she got the recipe from Ovenly, a site I now need to look into!

2 tsp. fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp. whole fennel seeds
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1/3 C. good olive oil
1 lemon halved and sliced 1/4" thick, cut off and discard stem ends.
1 yellow onion halved and sliced 1/4" thick
2 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 chicken, cut up (Ina says 4 lb. butterflied, but I'm lazy and just buy it already cut up.)
1/2 C. dry white wine such as Pinot Grigio
Juice of one lemon

Preheat oven to 450.
Place thyme, fennel seeds, 1 T. salt and 1 tsp pepper in small food processor (I use my Nutri Bullet) and process until ground. Pour olive oil into small glass measuring cup, stir in ground herbs and set aside.

Distribute lemon slices in 12" skillet (I use large Le Creuset) and distribute onion and garlic on top.

Place chicken, skin side down, atop of oniion and brush with about half oil/herb mix. Turn chicken skin side up, pat dry (Ina says this is important!), and brush with remaining herb/oil mix.

Roast for about 30 minutes, then pour in wine being careful not to pour directly onto chicken. Roast another 10-15 minutes until meat thermometer in thickest part of chicken registers 155-160 degrees.

Remove from oven, sprinkle with lemon juice, cover skillet tightly with aluminum foil and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes. Sprinkle with salt, and serve hot with pan juices. The onions and lemons should be included. The lemons are edible and fabulous.

After cooking this go buy Ina's "Cooking for Jeffrey." She is simply wonderful.

Tag: buttons

I’m back!

Like this:

Knit Wit

Like this:

Such Joy! We’re in Illinois.

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: