Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Felting!



I have been needle felting for a bit now(you can see some of my work here)..and thought I would try wet felting. It's a much different process then needle felting.

The way wet felting works is you layer drafts of roving(about 4-8 layers) on to bubble wrap.
cover your piece with tulle fabric and wet it carefully with hot soapy water.
Rubbing gently as the piece gets wet and soapy, then more vigorously.
Every few minutes carefully remove the tulle and replace also making sure you turn the piece over to get both sides. That is the 'felting' process. Then begins the 'fulling' process.
You roll the wet piece up in the bubble wrap, tulle, and bamboo mat.
and roll it, and roll it, and roll it, opening it up every few minutes to change direction and check it.
Finally you rinse in hot water, then cold. Squeezing out the water, blotting on a towel and rolling it flat with a rolling pin.

Here are some photos I took during the process.

base layer of white and the design on top

work area ready to go

Hot soapy water at the ready

piece covered in tulle, rubbing has commenced

fulling the piece

before rinsing, but finished

drying

the finished piece

I lightly stitched to a store-bought piece of felt and hung.
What do you think? Not too bad for my first effort. It's just a small piece, maybe next time I will go a little bigger.
Love to hear your comments!



Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The Big Night

 Our new dining room chairs finally arrived from exotic, far away Canada after 8 weeks. And they look great...well worth the wait!
Since we now had chairs we decided we needed to have a dinner party to test them out.
We invited our neighbors Joan and Bill and Judy and Roger.
After getting a date and time set we needed to figure out what the menu was going to be. We decided on a Timballo. If any of you have seen the movie The Big Night (see clip here) you'll recognize it.
It is also called Timpano, because of it's drum like shape. There are many variations of the recipe and we've combined a few different ones to make ours.
This time out our Timballo consists of sauteed eggplant and garlic, turkey sausage cooked in wine, mozzerella and parmegiano reggiano cheese, pasta in marinara, marinara and hard boiled eggs all layered in a pastry dough lined bowl.
Here are photos of our cooking and assemblage:

diced eggplant and garlic, smells so good while cooking

  
turkey sausage simmering in wine thru the steam, freshly grated cheeses
pastry dough rolled out
fits in the bowl! whew!
all ingredients ready for assemblage
starting the layering
ready for the oven
bakes for approximately one hour 50 minutes
Out of the oven and successfully flipped! Needs to rest upside down in the bowl for at least 20 minutes
Getting the Spritz aperitif ready, cin cin
Table is set... great looking chairs!
The Timballo was a success! Buon Appetito!

We had a wonderful time with our new friends. Good food and good company.
 
oh yes.... the chairs were very comfortable!


Sunday, January 27, 2013

Sun, Moon and Kitty Cat

In true Bend fashion they do a full moon ski at @MeissnerNordic and perhaps on any other size moon as well! We decided to take advantage of the mild night time temps (25 F) and have a ski.
It was fun and we just might have to do it again!


The full moon peeking through the trees and clouds

At the Meissner Hut, the light in the distance is Bend


Jim at the fire pit warming up.... 

Cameras at the ready!
Earlier in the week we got out for a road ride!
No matter where you are and what you do there is a vista to be had!
And this blog post would not be complete without a few pix of our kitty!
 
We got him a cat tree, and he loves it!
and it's the prefect height to get great pix of him!

all that playing,climbing,scampering wore him out!

Friday, January 11, 2013

A week in the life...

She likes sweet potato!
...of official Bendites/Oregonians.
 Well, we have settled in nicely and are able to get out and enjoy our surroundings...wanted to share some photos of our week.
tsk likes to watch the deer come by
he is a true Bendite now!
Aspen Grove at Shevlin Park

Inside the covered bridge

covered bridge over Tumalo Creek

Jim skiing at Swampy Lakes.... that or a Yeti....

up up up
Sweet little birds.....
Gray Jay
ok... so they are also known as Camp Robbers...
a little fireside dining

It's official!

one of our many views...
We have barely scratched the surface of all there is to do in Bend and the surrounding area. Check back as we share our discoveries. Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

We Made Bread!!

I made a major life breakthrough! Finally overcoming longstanding obstacles. The perfect New Years Day resolution! I made bread. Though this may seem such a minor thing to some, I on the other hand am yeast afflicted. Yeast impaired, a Yeast-ochondriac. If I read a recipe and it calls for yeast I know to turn the page and move on. I am a yeast flop.... until today!!!! WooHoo! 
A bread recipe that had yeast in the ingredients... but looked easy, as if even I could do it.
So I tried it....
Behold! It has risen!

Getting ready for the cast iron pot

Just out of the oven

Cooling on the rack

Freshly sliced... and YUMMY!

I would recommend this recipe to anyone. I found it on Pinterest. The blog post and recipe is here 
I will try some of the other versions as well. 

Chicken Parm Meatballs.
 We made another pinned recipe to have with our bread. The chicken parm meatballs.
Both recipes are keepers!

Bon appetit!