Baking, Weaving, Living

The wheel turns, and suddenly it's autumn.

Happy October; frog and cranberries it must be fall! 

 

 

For me, fall brings about an urge to reset things, cook, clean, rearrange, close old chapters, and open new ones.

As such, I decided to take a couple weeks away from the streaming space and spend some time just being and doing.

Last weekend, I cleaned my desk, disassembled and cleaned my mechanical keyboard, put away some drying lemon leaves and rosemary, baked my first loaf of sourdough bread, and enjoyed some cooler morning weather here in Las Vegas.

The Second Loaf™

Back up to the weekend before last, when I mixed up some sourdough starter and managed to feed it regularly all week. Come last Friday, things were very bubbly and ready to make some bread. (I was hopeful but not terribly confident, after my last loaf of regular yeast-based bread didn't rise enough and came out pretty dense, although tasty.) After an overnight rise, the sourdough loaf didn't look much different than it had when I popped it into the pan, and I was worried. 

Within ten minutes in the oven, the loaf had magically sprung up to perfect loaf size and started browning. It came out brown, squishy, crusty but not tough, and tasty—the perfect sandwich loaf. As I'm writing this on Friday, September 30, I have another batch of dough on its first rise downstairs in the kitchen, and a jar of starter discard in the fridge waiting to make crackers tomorrow. 

 

Coffee on the back patio is one of my life's small pleasures, and I'm happy to report that mornings are now lovely and cool enough to draw myself and my mug outside to sit with the breeze and the birds. I need to restock the seed feeder, and the hummingbird feeder isn't getting much action (probably due to hanging it so late in the season), but there are always a few visitors nonetheless. Friendly finches, handsome hummers, and pudgy pigeons for the most part.

After my husband pruned our lemon tree, I realized the leaves had a very similar scent to makrut lime leaves that used in Thai cooking. After some swift googling, I found out that lemon leaves (all citrus leaves, really) can be used in place of lime leaves, and I plucked all the healthy leaves I could find on the pruned branches and set them aside to dry.

One of the beauties of living in the desert is that I can set things out just about anywhere to dry and not worry about anything molding or keeping moisture for too long. Now I have a bag of lemon leaves in my pantry, ready for curry-making. They also smell great. Additionally, I have a jar of dried lemon peels and a separate, small jar of sliced, immature lemon slices to use in potpourri/simmer pots later on.

 

 

In crafting news, I started a point twill weaving project a couple weeks back. The warp is made up of a bunch of handspun scraps, with some sock yarn leftovers thrown in to beef up the width. 

It's going well, though I haven't worked on it in about a week because I've been trying to find a solution for adding a set of single heddle blocks behind the double heddle blocks in the front. The idea when I ordered the double set was to have space for three heddles, for projects such as these. It turns out, however, that there isn't enough clearance between blocks for the second and third heddles to move.

With a pencil and a small hacksaw, I've been slowly working to take a chunk out of each single heddle block, in order to slide them over the back support beam. When this project comes to fruition, I will be happy to share photos and a how-to with you all. Until then, not a lot of weaving is happening, because I'm having to hold up or push down that third heddle manually every time I need to use it. To add insult to injury, there are a couple of warp threads that aren't playing nicely, and I have to manipulate them by hand, which is difficult when I have only one hand free!

 

It's going to be a beautiful scarf, and a labor of love, for my well-deserving husband. 

They're all learning experiences, aren't they?

I made him a pretty cool hat, too.

I had big plans this year to wrap up my WIPs and start several new projects. As expected, many of those projects are still sitting in the queue, a WIP from this year is still on the needles, and my oldest WIP is about to reach its birthday on October 17. Life happens that way sometimes. I've learned more about myself and how I like to spend my time, I've done some pretty cool projects in between, and I'm still working toward future goals.

Once the scarf is off the loom, I have loose plans to make items for the long-awaited shop re-opening. I could look at this as motivation and/or pressure to get on with things and get going, but instead I'm choosing to look at it as a fresh start of sorts. I have the outline, and I'll fill in the blanks as I go.

What's for sale will be completely different from the Freckled Fiberworks we all knew in 2020, and I think that's exactly what I need. I'm 31, I have more stability in my life than ever, and I can take the time to make things I truly enjoy, and to share them with you all.

I'll leave you with a prompt I'm still reflecting on. My Co-Star app—as skeptical as I am about astrology—has been very good for self-reflection prompts over the past several months. 

 

"What do you want from this journey?" 

 

Feel free to comment below if you have any thoughts you'd like to share; I'll reply to every single one, and I'll share my thoughts in my next post. 🧡

 

Until next time, stay cozy, stay crafty, and make time for you. Happy Autumn! 🍂