Snow & The Kingly Court

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Snow, oh beautiful snow:

Snow-onionheads 
One nights' worth of snow resting on garlic chive seed heads.

This one is just for Robert!

Studio-view-snew 

Huxley came with me to the studio on Thursday. He's been having a bit of a challenging time falling back into the rhythm of things after his teacher was off sick for three days, so to give both of them a break, we took the day off. When I do that, I'm always reminded of bringing him there as a teeny-tiny two week old baby (that's how fast I was back in creating. I didn't have a choice, as I had a large show 6 weeks after he was born). I didn't do any toxic work when he was with me, and we used to only go for a few hours every day. There was a play area set-up with a nice rug, a sheep skin and toys, in a very large free-form play-pen. Somewhere, there must be some photos of that. Once he hit 8 months though, it was no longer possible, he just cried and cried and simply wanted to be on me, not just in the same room with me. So much for the fantasy, that he could grow up in the studio with me. This lead us to have him go to daycare for 3 days per week until September 2007 when he started at the Waldorf school for 2 days (8:30 – 3:30) and 2 days (8 am – 6pm) at the daycare. Now, this year he is at school every morning form 8:30 until 12:30. Details I'm providing, because there might be one or the other artist mom out there who is wondering how I did it. 

The main thing I wished to have known/had, way back when is a Beco Baby Carrier I only got one of those when he was about 3, and mainly for hiking, but I have said many times, that a proper back-carrier would have meant that I could have kept Huxley with me at the studio for longer. 

So back to now…. Here is what we did on Thursday.

While I had my hands busy, Huxley played with my little drill, put tape onto an old chair to make it more comfy, (It's fun at mami's studio, as not many things are creatively off limits), and built a pretend castle set-up with his animals. Note, that the "elephant" was a dragon-horse that the knight was riding. I love the fantasy play going on right now. The Waldorf school really encourages this kind of play, as do we at home. I've seen other children, that have had the early academic "training" and they already at 4 and 5 don't play like this. 

The-court 

I dyed felt crowns. Many of them will be for our Waldorfschools' Winterfair, the other ones will be available through The Olive Sparrow, e.g. right here. I will post images of the finished pieces when they are ready. Last year the school was selling them for $30 each, and sold all 10 pieces I gave them. 

Crowns-dyed 

Huxley modeled one for me:

Crowned-king 

Quite a kingly presence, isn't he.

Then Huxley wanted to direct some photos and told me exactly how to pose with the crown:
Huxley-direction-crown 

This weekend, I'm finishing the crowns for th
e school and on Sunday we're planning to go back to the farm to go riding again. BTW, in the background of the picture above, there are some unfinished paintings, some specially dyed fabric that I will do a separate post on and also a huge 4' x 6' abstract that is in the works, and yes, I'm sitting on a spare bench from our last mini-van, my studio couch and napping place. Oh studio naps, how I covet thee.

Back-Tack

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This is my first time participating in BT4 organized by Alison of 6.5 St. and Nicole of Craftapalooza. I had some bad luck with my first partner, in that conversation was never established from her end. Now though, I've got a new partner: Pam from Hortensia. 

It is in her honour that I am posting some very unseasonal pictures here (we're expecting 10 cm of snow over night – gulp – )…

Tulips-front

Pink-tulips

Tulip-path

Spring-house

Tomorrow, pictures of what will happen tonight. One thing I know, it will be beautiful, it always is. 

A medley of Things

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There was some fabric coloured at the studio, with the sun behind the clouds

Solar-dying

some I'm not showing, but that I love so much (a girl has to have some secrets…)

Then there was a "Party with Everything" that I attended with my wares

Party-with-everything

At Dvorah's house on Saturday evening, while rain turned to sleet.

Then there where the 2 day old piggies, born at the Royal Winter Fair

2-day-piglets

Today, I'm not allowed to go to the studio, as there is a laundry basket full of papers that need to finally be sorted and put away. This will ad greatly to my feeling of getting stuff done at home, after I also re-arranged the under-the-stairs clothes closet and the back room. I'm trying to get the house in order for Advent. 

And, what are you up to?

Itty-bitty-little-tiny-treasures

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Since 4' x 6' (122 cm x 183 cm) is the other end of the spectrum of paintings currently in the works, these 6" x 6" (15 cm x 15 cm) and 8" x 8" (20 cm x 20 cm) pieces do seem puny.

These are the little reworks mentioned a couple of days ago. Some will go to the Magic Door Gallery, the others are still available. 

Blue-8x8a
8×8

Blue-8x8b
8×8

Blue-8x8c
8×8

Blue-6x6a
6×6

Blue-6x6b
6×6
Blue-6x6c
6×6
Blue-6x6d
6×6
Blue-6x6e
6×6 (sold)

Blue-6x6f
6×6
Blue-6x6g
6×6

I purposely post images that are a tad blurry to protect them from CC infringement.

Planning

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Before I go into the planning details for my family cooking, which is the topic of todays posting, I would like to introduce "Odillon", Huxley's friend I made for him for last X-Mas. Odillon also has a full set of clothes, but Huxley did not take to him until I made Odillon the same doggy-costume that Huxley has. Boys and dolls? Huxley is more interested in his stuffed friends, currently a large dog from Ikea., but his friends, as he calls them are very important to him and play a very significant part in his imaginary play. 

But here, without further ado, Odillon:

Odillon

So, planning and cooking. For the past ten months or so, I have made it my mission to try and learn more about cooking. I have years of experience cooking for my family, for myself, I even had a very short stint many years ago in baking cakes for a catering company. 

Last year, I listened to My Live in France by Julia Child. It was inspiring to hear that she didn't cook like a whirlwind until she was in her 40's and ended up with the rest of her life engulfed in cookery. The best way to learn more about cooking, I thought, was to just get a whole bunch of cookery books and start trying out recipes. I accumulated about 12 new books and love looking through them as I'm going to sleep (strangely enough, I don't wake up hungry and go raid the fridge). 

So, almost all of the books are now sitting beside my bed, with the intention of flagging all the recipes that I would like to try out. Sadly, when I go to bed, I am so sleepy, that within minutes I fall asleep. Hence my plan, as follows is still in its beginning stages. 

Plan to learn more recipes and make discoveries along the way:

1. Go through the books and flag pages of recipes that make my mouth water, are do-able, vegetarian, healthy (more or less), are meant to become family favourites.

2. Photocopy all the flagged recipes

3. Sort them into folders (order still to be determined)

4. Pick 2 copies per week (ensure that I read through the whole recipe to gage time needed in preparation) and incorporate ingredients into weekly shopping trip.

5. Decide on day to try recipe

6. Go back into cookbook and annotate recipe with notes

7. Share my findings with friends, family, blog readers

I will post a list of the books that I'm getting inspired by, but not tonight (grin), tonight, I've got pictures of my latest 3 books added to the stack. If I die before I cooked from these, at least they where amazing eye-candy, something important to me at this point of my cookery-adventures. 

Aleppo
DH and I love middle-eastern cookery and this book is an amazing book. Full of stories, gorgeous pictures and do-able recipes. I saw it in the bookstore, got it from the library and had to possess it. Not Vegetarian, but with all the meat substitutes out there, much can be accomplished. Also, the vegetable recipes are what sounds delectable.

Soups
A recommendation from Ellen, Lilly's mother and a great cook. She is a cookery soul-buddy. This has all the right ingredients to teach me new ways of soup-prep. Also nice pictures, and lots of information about how ingredients work together. 

Tassajara
This had to come and live with us, as it is a fully vegetarian book about lunches, picnics and appetizers. With Huxley needing lunch for school, DH working from home and appreciating ready made good food in the fridge, and our love for hiking, it fits the bill. Haven't spent much time with it, but there is a detailed list of spreads and bread combination ideas. 

I will do a separate post about my darling Tessa Kiros and her books and how they have changed my cooking over the past year.

To me, cooking is just one other way to be creative. Recipes are a guideline that can teach you the framework for nourishing your loved ones, without limiting you to follow exactly. In the end, I'm reminded of my mothers comments when I first learned to cook "If they don't complain about the food, you know it's good, otherwise, they will ALWAYS let you know".