MarthaJeanne - Thoughts on books and other employments 2021 - fourth quarter

Not going to finish Mary Jane. The reviews seem to indicate that it is not going to get better.

Maybe I'll get the weaving and spinning done tomorrow.

Finished Sweet. Ground almonds are on the shopping list for tomorrow.

Most of the weaving is done. (Yesterday's pensum, not the whole project.) Yesterday morning I was at 5 gm on the spinning. So far today I am at 11 with the goal 15, so that's coming along, too.

I've bought the ground almonds. Tonight's dinner is also baked. I should cook the squash to get going on that. But my back suggests lying down first.

I have now finished the body of the cowl. I'll do the fun, complicated, difficult bits tomorrow.

No, I am not responsible for dinner tonight. Squash can stay in the refrigerator overnight.

ETA I'm now plying the white wool.

>4 MarthaJeanne: squash should be okay overnight.

I bought an Angus bottom round roast for a good price at Aldi's yesterday. This morning I cut it in half, put one half in the freezer, then dredged and browned one portion for dinner. It's now in my slow cooker with half an onion and a cup of baby carrots. I like easy dinners.

Well, that went smoothly. Actually I did make one mistake, as it ended up möbius, which I had not intended. However if anything I like it better that way. It looks quite good now, and should be better once it's gone through wet finishing.

In the meantime the white wool is plied. Also 5 gm of the purple blend. No idea where the rest of the rolag got to. Doesn't matter. I'll wash these and hope to warp the loom tomorrow. Also prepare a few more blends to spin for it.

I'm somewhat surprised to see that Joyce Maynard isn't a first time author. Less than half way through Count the Ways and the author has already loaded her main character with more problems than any three or four people ought to have to deal with. But Eleanor keeps popping back up asking for more.

I have the small loom warped for the tunic central panels. This was a hassle. It would be so much easier if I did it right the first time!

However it is done now and I am ready for the first coloured wool. That is now ready to use. Another is up drying, finished this morning, and I have the next rolag ready to spin. (iPad's dictionary doesn't like rolag. Sorry, that's what it's called.)

Making the rolags on my new blending board is fun. The problem is going to be spinning them fast enough to keep up with the weaving. I will need a new colour about every 10 cm. That means seven or eight each, front and back. However I don't see any problem with using the same one on both, I would just prefer not to double up on the same panel. That should make the second one easier.

I decided to put the white wool on a longer shuttle rather than the ones that work best on the narrow loom. Partly, I'm short of the shorter shuttles, partly because it seemed bulkier than the grey yarn had been. Good call. The longer shuttle is full, and right now would really like a larger shed than this loom provides. That is self-correcting, and by the end of its next stripe should be fine.

Where did I put Crazy Shot? I'll use patterns from there.



Yarns and rolags for tunic project. The blue/green is the same batch. (and yarn not dry yet.)

The book of Lost Names This is one of the better WWII resistance novels.

Tomorrow it will be three weeks since I mailed 'letters' to my mother and sister. It's getting to be time to hear that they got the things.

Himalaya. No.

Pulled 18th century embroidery techniques from a pile that should be "To read" titles, but I see I did read it in 2016. I think a reread might be in order.

Von Füchsen und Menschen This is a good book if you like foxes. How could anyone not like foxes!

>8 MarthaJeanne: lovely!

I had plenty of yarn left, and the weather is still good (today, probably not tomorrow) so I have warped the larger loom with another V-cowl to send to my sister.

Jerry said he would grill tonight if it isn't too windy. The wind is picking up, so I bet we end up with pasta.

Fire alarms sounding in the first town outside Vienna.

>10 MarthaJeanne: Apparently Mom got hers about a week ago.

We watched a documentary about Austrian National Parks tonight. To keep my fingers busy, I did two more blends. Now I want to see how they look as yarn. I have spun the yellow/orange one in the picture and it is about half plied. There is now a mostly red one and a black/grey one with colour bursts.

Mow to figure out a different way of using them, as I am totally not happy with the Crazy Shot trial. Tomorrow is supposed to be cold and rainy. good weather for undoing a few centimeters.

>7 MarthaJeanne: And she ends the book by asking for more burdens.

Das älteste Glücksspiel : eine kurze Naturgeschichte der Sexualität will not finish.

Well I've played Penelope today. All respect for her unweaving so much. and that at night with poor light and not enough sleep. Unweaving is not fun.

I am now happy with this stripe, and tomorrow will play with a new one. I have one more colour ready to weave. I have two that just need washing, one more that needs winding into a skein first, another in the process of spinning and another blended ready to spin. Getting there.

However, I have discovered a pair of warp threads with one in an overhand knot around the other. There are ways of repairing warp. For now I have managed to slip the knot up the other warp thread past the current active warp. If I can continue this until the break between the two panels, fixing will be easier. This is also not fun. I also have no idea how I managed to do this.

Too cold to weave outside. I must find a place indoors to complete the cowl.

I was downtown this noon, so no weaving today. (This is just a time thing. Travel time and actual walking around time eat up about 3 hours. Then a few more of lying down to recover. If I'd been home I could even have worked outside today, but it was all cold and grey again by the time I could have gone out.)

However, I got four spun mixtures washed last night, so they are ready to weave with. I am spinning the next one, and made two new blends this evening. It's fun, but I need to get them spun, too.

>12 MarthaJeanne: Yes, it was lovely going through this again. The drawings are so well done that one could reproduce a copy of the item. I won't, but it's fun to know that I probably could.

https://www.jerrybarton.eu/Miscellaneous/DailyPicks/i-HgGpFp6

It got almost up to 16 this afternoon so I was able to weave outside.

Supper tonight is Ratatouille (bought veggies), baked potatoes and Zander - a lovely European fresh water white fish. I finally found replacements for my favourite enamelled cast iron pans yesterday. They are less high, with a rounded bottom inside. The ratatouille is in the oven in one of them.

And all because I needed more ketchup. There is a greenhouse place near us that is growing fish in one of their greenhouses. The water from there irrigates and fertilizes the vegetables. They actually only grow Wels - like catfish, but they also sell fish from other local fish farms. One summer they had a glut of tomatoes, and started to make ketchup. Not only very good ketchup, but in glass jars you can spoon out of. It is quite popular.

>24 MarthaJeanne: why did you have to replace your pans? I must have missed that post.

I have three aquariums in my house. When I do water changes I pour the "old" water on my plants outside. They seem to like it.

>25 fuzzi: Well, the new ones say 30 year guarantee, but frankly, after 10 years or so of heavy use, even if you try to be gentle, only use wooden implements, etc, the enamel gets scratched and hard to clean (bearing in mind that any scouring will only damage the enamel further.) I manage to get most of the black off with alternating boiling up with vinegar and baking soda. But Jerry gets discouraged easily, and wanted to retire them already a couple of years ago. I vetoed that idea because I couldn't find replacements I liked. I saw these in a shop window on Friday, just what I was looking for, two slightly different versions, both on sale.

The saleswoman was very surprised that I took both, and she thought I was 'very brave' to walk out with such heavy pots. But honestly, once they were fastened onto the seat of my walker, it was a minor difficulty that I didn't have my own seat, and much easier than if I had seen them back when I still got around with a cane. After all, I didn't have to carry the things, just push them.

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Warmer again today. Got the cowl body finished before my hands froze. I'll go out now and start the front diamond.

ETA Got 3/4 done. The sun is gone, the wind is getting stronger, and my back has had enough. So close, but don't want stupid mistakes to happen.

Giving up on Dalva. All very internal, nothing really happens.

>26 MarthaJeanne: I guess I don't cook enough, I'm still on my first set of Revere Ware pots and pans (40+ years old).

I did get a cast iron skillet from my son last year, and have been enjoying learning how to cook with it.

It's the enamel, which is basically glass.

>29 MarthaJeanne: what's the advantage of enamel cookware?

It's easier to clean (of course counteracted by you can't use metal scourers or scouring powder.) In many ways similar to nonstick coatings, but less sensitive to heat or scratching than those. And if you have really wrecked the enamel it is very visible.

It doesn't react with foods. You really don't want to leave tomato sauce (or anything acidic) in an aluminium pan.

It doesn't rust. Your cast iron skillet probably won't unless you leave water in it for a few days, but when my cast iron popover pans were in a moving box for several months, they did.

In the contrast heavy/light, enamelled pans are on the heavy side. They take time to heat up and cool down.

I have two cast iron skillets for things like fried eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches, pancakes... They don't get washed, just wiped out between uses, and very rarely rubbed out with salt is they really get stuff cooked on.

The enamelled pans get used for stews and sautés. As in, fry up bacon and onions, add in the main protein, and veggies as they get cut up, add wine or broth, and serve the result over your preferred carb.

I've been trying to finish Schrecklich Schön today so it can go back to the library. As is common with catalogues - this is a current exhibit on elephants and ivory in Berlin - I like parts of it better than other parts. When current conditions are discussed and the need to not use ivory, I agree. That elephants are getting rarer and rarer in the wild is horrible. Still, I can't regret that I owned several pieces of carved ivory as a child. It is such a wonderful material! I even saw an elephant in the wild way back then.

I seem to have read most of the English language chick lit that the library owns. This could be a problem.

>33 MarthaJeanne: uh-oh.

I should probably put the blending board and bag of coloured wools away. I keep seeing good combinations, and am delighted with the pile of rolags, but I need to do more spinning and less blending.

Today got up to 13°, with even a bit of sun. I decided to see if I could work long enough to finish the cowl. Just about. My fingers decided they were cold just as I was manipulating the last few threads. I insisted on cutting the warp free. Then I tied those knots inside. It's in the wash now. I think it will be good.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunnier and a bit warmer. Perhaps I can even put a new warp on. This one will be a random selection of left over yarns, mostly commercial.

I have also finished spinning and plying the brown rolags, and am working on the yellow ones. I like the almost wood grain effect of the browns. The yellow is subtle, but much more interesting than just a solid single shade. We'll see how it develops.

I got the loom mostly warped. I kept running out of the yarns I was using, which, of course was part of the plan. One, I have now decided, is not what I thought it was, and probably cotton. Probably not a very good very good idea. Too late now. I still have to move threads to the heddle holes and tie them onto the front beam. Not today.

BTW The whole process takes longer and is more difficult when you are using the full 60 cm, and not just 25.

I also started bread dough, which is nagging me to come form the loaves. But I need a rest.

Bread is now shaped - 9 buns, a small regular loaf and a small fruit and nut loaf.

Husband is on his way home via the pizzaria.

>35 MarthaJeanne: I really liked this one, and its sequel, the rest in the series...not as much.

>40 fuzzi: I've read the whole series several times. That is as much of it as I have. I see no reason to buy the cat books. Actually, I rather prefer the Pegasus Trilogy to the Tower and the Hive. It seems like more was happening. It's been a few years (2017) so the details are a bit hazy.

>41 MarthaJeanne: I read the first cat book, and was very disappointed.

A critical introduction to the study of religion

I thought this was useful, although I'm not sure it really says a lot about religion that can't be said for most other aspects of society.

>38 MarthaJeanne: It was sunny and 15° when I went out. Now the sun has gone in, the temperature has dropped and I have done half of moving the threads. Can't I just start weaving and leave the rest of the warping for later? We're talking 240 ends, of which half need to be moved, and it took me about an hour to do half of those. Still it is progress. Weather promises to hold the next few days.

The brilliant abyss I highly recommend this one. The deep ocean is a fascinating place, and is at risk from human activity.

Second First Impressions is just fun chick lit.

The Letter is very good.

The well gardened mind sounded promising, but it suffers from a lot of blah blah. Giving up.

>44 MarthaJeanne: All warped, and a little bit woven. A fair amount of the warp is doubled sock yarn. Already three problems in those warp threads. One is just stupid, but I'm stuck with it. I only moved one thread, so there is one in the hole and three in the slot. I doubt that it will be very visible. The other two are threads that have worn bits. When I move the warp I will need to see what I can do about them. Right now each has a thin bit in front of the heddle and a thick bit behind the heddle.

The whole point of this project is to use up bits and pieces of commercial yarns to make an interesting piece of cloth without doing any difficult weaving. I do want to change weft frequently, and end up with most of my shuttles empty. I think I need to make sure that I use the sock yarns every two or three changes. I've got a lot of those left over from sewing baby hats for refugees back in 2015-16. A discounter had this yarn and I went slightly crazy buying it up.It's 1/4 polyester and superwash, so not what I would normally buy, but I figured that the hats would need frequent washing in suboptimal conditions, so probably not a bad choice for the purpose. I don't know how many I delivered while the collections were going on. At the end I sent two nieces hats for their babies, and gave the neighbour one for her grandchild.

I spent a little bit of time on my tunic panel yesterday. Either Homer didn't know what he was talking about or Penelope was amazing. Unweaving is much harder than weaving. It takes much longer and you need to see more clearly. Not what I would want to do by candle or oil lamp in the middle of the night.

Finished Damia. All getting very predictable.

Das Buch Alice. The story of a Jewish cookbook author who managed to get out of Austria during WWII, first to England, later to America. But her book continued to be published under someone else's name, even after the war had been over for decades.

>48 MarthaJeanne: There's an article about that cookbook here: https://www.lbi.org/collections/Mahlzeit/alice-urbachs-stolen-cookbook/

Weather's changing. I got work done on the big loom both yesterday and today. I have fixed the two damaged warp threads. I think I like how it is coming. A bit hard to tell as the finished bit it all wrapped up.

I also finished a few skeins of spun yarn last night. They are now ready to use on the tunic when I get around to it.

The right to sex is very, very good.

I was particularly interested in her description of the intel movement. These men don't just want sex with 'a' woman. They want sex with hot blonds or other high status women. One man, asked why they didn't try to have a relationship with obese, disabled, or otherwise marginalized women said, "We don't want to sleep with filth." Come to think of it, maybe those marginalized women don't want to sleep with filth either, and he would qualify.

Gave up on Pilgrims by Kneale I have another by him waiting to be read. (English Passengers) The idea is worrying.

I picked up a stack of remainders downtown today. (They finally got some English books again!) So I'll try The End we start from instead. Umm. No, not that one. Read it before, and gave it 2 stars.

The Gunpowder and Glory Girls should do it.

Danke! Wie Österreich meine Heimat wurde Is not as good as his second book, but still good reading.

>37 MarthaJeanne: Made a zoom loom square with the brown. Very nice, sort fo woody.

>36 MarthaJeanne: Made two more blends because the spinning was not working well. Nice blends, but rather counterproductive.

I have another project in mind for once I have the tunic off the loom. A set of two houndstooth scarves utilizing a lot of these blended yarns. Could be really interesting. I would do a single warp for both scarves.

You remind me of my Aunt Marge. In her Wisconsin house, she had a large bedroom devoted just to her sewing. She didn’t let many people in; but I got to peek once.
When she moved to a condo in Florida, and was finding that activity too difficult, she gave up her fabrics; but started a yarn collection. Instead of sewing, she could be sedentary with knitting and crochet work.
Not that you are in any way sedentary! But I’m imagining your fiber and yarn stashes to be comparable in scope.

Much too big!

Much too big! Fabric, too.

Oh, and since I spend a lot of time in bed, I really can't be called sedentary. At least most of the fibrearts make me sit up for a while. Afterwards I'm usually ready to lie down again.

Speaking of which, I've done another section of the tunic, and should have the first centre panel done tomorrow. This was 'Spanish lace' in yellow. Not the first time I've tried it, but the first time I've liked the result. Also got another set of rolags spun and plied. Also a zoom loom square with the pink blended yarn.

Watched Hatari thus afternoon. I loved that movie, way back when, and certainly saw it more than once in the 60s. I even enjoyed the last time I saw it, which was probably a few decades ago. Today it seems very long and drawn out with lots of quite brutal animal catching scenes.

I have made big progress on the tunic panels. The knotted warp thread is fixed, and I'm on the second central panel.

Tonight's supper is a chickpea, pumpkin, coconut curry. Chapatis from the freezer. I roasted the pumpkin earlier. I'm just not sure if I have fresh ginger in a usable condition. Wrong recipe. I don't need the ginger. Just Lemon grass.

>51 MarthaJeanne: ew. I think we know who the filth really are.

One of the books I'm reading now is Im Schatten deiner Flügel by the other Lohfink brother. They are really rather amazing. I have not enjoyed everything so far, but they are both very fine theologians. Norbert Lohfink(SJ) is an Old Testament scholar, and these essays/sermons are very inspiring. It has been translated into English. No idea how good the translation is, but the base text is amazing.

I read part of Sister outsider, and decided that I do not have the patience right now to finish it.

The Pope. Interesting.

Last night my bedroom lamp suddenly started to flicker and make noise. So we changed the bulb. Still did it. This morning I was able to check that the upper socket worked, the lower socket was bad - with both bulbs.

So we unplugged it, and Jerry took it across the hall to test. It worked fine. So I moved the lamp back and it's fine. Whatever caused the bad contact must have been knocked out by moving it.

BTW, he witnessed the flickering and noise. This was not just me and a Caipirinha. I'm glad it's sorted. Reading was difficult last night.

>61 MarthaJeanne: The chapter on the book of Psalms as a whole is great. I enjoyed his afterward to Münsterschwarzacher Psalter, and this expands on the thoughts that interested me there. Very, very exciting! In the Shadow of your Wings seems to be out of print and overpriced as a used book, but many university libraries have it.

I did some weaving in the basement. I don't have things set up well. The loom is too high if I'm on the sofa, plus it slides around on the tile floor. I did a good bit anyway, but quit when my head started yelling, 'This needs some yellow!' I have since found yellow (a nice bland one, just what I need) and a couple of other old yarns that will blend nicely.

Actually, the yellow and lime green would work well together. Maybe one on the up heddle and the other on the down heddle for a while.

Did someone comment on stashes recently? This won't begin to touch how much stash I have, but it is a start. Maybe.

The funniest thing was a quilting class I was in several years ago. This was one evening every week, Maybe 10 participants, most of us women with some experience. And one man who had never sewed before. His mother had died, and he was confronted with her quilting stash. He didn't feel he could throw or even give it away because it had meant so much to her. So he came to learn how to use it up. We would work for an hour or two, then take a break to drink a cup of tea or coffee and browse the shop before getting back to work. By the third or fourth week the man was buying as much new fabric as any of us.

Another batch of weaving. The extra yarns I found work well.

I bought a book yesterday. Textiles of India

I was at the bookstore, and decided that I hadn't been upstairs for a while. And for some reason I decided to stop in the art department to see if any new interesting textile books had shown up.

Up there on display! Oh, dear. Big, high up, probably heavy. I asked for help getting it down, and the salesman was very happy, 'Finally someone is looking at this lovely book!' Apparently he had ordered it, and was disappointed at the lack of interest. I admit, I still haven't even glanced at the text. But who can look at little black and white letters when they are next to big colourful photos of the most beautiful textiles, generally both a whole picture and a great detail photo. Hmmm. This one the detail is of an elephant, nice elephant, but what I would want to copy is the peacock. The big picture is clear enough to enlarge the peacock to my preferred size, and the detail shows me how the whole thing was worked, even if I can't see it in the peacocks themselves.

Anyway, the book cost about 3 times my normal upper limit. But how could I leave it in the store?

Besides it was my birthday, and I deserve a really nice birthday present, don't I?

Speaking of birthday presents, a farm shop we visit fairly often was giving away jars of my favourite ketchup for their birthday. I made sure I picked one up yesterday. Also other shops I visited had things finally in that I had been waiting for.

But I like the book best.

Happy Birthday MarthaJeanne! So glad you had a good one. Nice find and so timely!

Bad day. I guess I've caught a cold. But I spent a lot of time looking up covid breakthrough symptoms. When Jerry got home we went and had me tested. So, it's just a cold or the flu, and we don't have to quarantine. I still feel like *****, no energy for either weaving or reading. Still, it could be worse. I found a box of apple juice with ginger. Very good tonight.

I had borrowed Daniel Hope's CD Air from the library. I could listen to music today, and this is a lovely collection of baroque music. I need to buy a copy.

I still can't believe I bought the book. I'm still very glad I did.

>68 MarthaJeanne: I'm so glad you got that book. It needed you...

We did a bunch of shopping today. One stop was to an electronics store. Really to replace a nonfunctioning power cord. Easy, the man from the store went right to the right place and checked that it really matched. Then I wanted a CD player. Again a salesman showed us exactly what I wanted. In fact, I'm listening to Air right now. And it seems that the sound, besides being quite good quality, is very directional and drops off quickly. Perfect for me. Just the thought that I can take it down the next time I weave is great. Jerry also needs to replace office computers. They had one that he liked, and that salesman found the one they had in stock. So we left the store very happy.

Then we went to the mall to buy soup (goose creme) and sandwiches for supper. Jerry went off for the soup, and I slipped first into the health food store. They had the wool socks I use for slippers - after a few years the soles get too thin to be warming - they also had my favourite shampoo where I could see it, and whole spelt flour which both my normal suppliers haven't had lately. The sandwich place was as good as normal. Supper is settled and will only take a few minutes to put on the table. I'll fry up a few croutons to add to the soup.

We actually had another stop planned, but decided to head home as it would be a shame to spoil such a good record.

>72 MarthaJeanne: sounds like a splendid day. You must still be getting birthday credits.

Jerry's first comment to me this morning was that today is not a good day to warp my loom outside. At that point it was raining at 8°, so I tended to agree with him. However, by early afternoon the sun was shining, and 12°, which isn't warm, but for November is fairly decent.

The 'use up old yarn' came off the loom two days ago. It is an amazingly attractive piece of fabric. But now I'm ready to explore houndstooth further. I have put a 4m warp on using commercial yarn for the light and half the dark (green). The green alternates with my recent homespun that I have blended. Using a 32/10 cm. heddle, I am using 80 ends. This will make two scarves.

The first one is mostly green. I wove 20 piks and then an area of houndstooth - enough to use 7 of my yarns. (There are 10 in the warp.) Now I'm back in the green with stripes. I plan to repeat the houndstooth and border at the other end. The second scarf will probably be straight houndstooth. As you can see, some of the yarns read as houndstooth, and some (like the yellow) really don't, but I think it's attractive.



At the very least there won't be others like them.

I had to fix my cape today. It's a lovely dark blue wool cape that I bought from a Latin American market stall when we lived in Geneva. The collar extends into long scarf pieces that can be wrapped around the neck. One of them I added crewel embroidery to. The top buttonhole was no longer holding the button properly, and it turned out that the whole area was about to fall apart. There is also a patch under the button. I started thinking that if we still lived in Geneva, and if the stand was still there, (it's not. I checked a few years back on our last visit) I would have to go and complain. Then I laughed. We moved back to Vienna twenty years ago. Except for the button area it is still in great condition in spite of being one of my favourite outer garments any time the temperature isn't too low. Not complain. This is great quality.

BTW I also am wearing one of the embroidered blouses I bought at the same stand. So soft and comfortable! When I bought them they were off white, but detergents have bleached them over time. I'm also wearing these often, twenty years later.

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Scarf is up to 120 cm.

Someone I Used to Know is a good chick lit with alpacas and fostering.

Just saw that I had read part of another by this author and hated it.

Because of you This was just so good.

I've made good progress on both weaving projects today. I really need to concentrate more on the tunic panels. Oh, yes, and on spinning off all these rolags

>74 MarthaJeanne: lovely!

Disadvantage to using one warp for two pieces. I've finished the green scarf, and I WANT TO SEE IT! Oh, sorry. But it will have to wait while I weave the second one.

A Princess for Christmas has a lot of rough spots, and lots of details won't stand up to closer inspection, but it's fun.

Junge Wilde This is a fascinating book about adolescents - both human and animal. I'm sure both young people and their parents would find that they understood the process a lot better if they read this. I'm also sure some of the parents would be frightened along the way. My advice: keep reading. The final chapters will make you feel better. 4 1/2 stars

This afternoon I heard/felt a loud thud that shook the whole house. Scary! Jerry has since discovered that a WWII bomb blew up near here. It was probably within a couple of kilometres from our house.

ETA It was a 117kg American bomb that had to be set off where it was found because it was in the National Park in an area they couldn't get vehicles to.
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On a lighter note, I have made progress on both looms as well as spinning.

Traditionelles Gebäck auf dreierlei Art This was interesting to read, but even the recipes that used some whole grain flour mixed it with white, making the recipes uninteresting for me.

I should enjoy Before the rains. It's the type of book I usually like, it's about India, and I have enjoyed other books by Dinah Jefferies, but I guess I just don't like the main character. I've read over 100 pages and don't want to read more.

I had a bad night last night. However the pain woke me early enough that I could medicate. The glass that I dropped didn't break, and the water didn't hit anything important. Could have been a lot worse.

Then I realized that I saw lights out my roof window. I put my glasses on, and there was my old friend Orion beautifully framed in the window. I had just been thinking that even in the 12 years we have been in this house we have lost so many stars, and I hadn't seen him in so long. On the long train trips to school in India, my younger siblings fought over the upper bunks, but I knew that in both directions I could see Orion out the window from the lower bunk, and he guarded my sleep. And again and again over the year I have enjoyed seeing him. Probably the only constellation I can reliably recognize. (Except maybe the southern cross, but I only saw that once, and have no expectation of ever seeing it again.) He let me know it was good to sleep again.

>85 MarthaJeanne: I used to see Orion out of my bedroom window in Canberra, coming over the ridge to the east of the house, in the very early morning in July. That was when I knew it would get warm again.

It's not going to get warmer here for a looong time.

Remember was boring. Nothing I hadn't already read about many times before.

>85 MarthaJeanne: when I see Orion I always look for Sirius, the dog star.

There's banana gingerbread in the oven. Should have done it earlier in the day. I overdid things yesterday, and have been trying to recover today.

I did quite a bit on the scarf. I'm over 100cm, but it's not going to be as long as the other one. I'll do the houndstooth as long as I can, then 13 piks of cream and finish off. (The hand spun piks need enough space to get my hands in the shed. I can use the shuttles with less space.) This will probably be 130 cm on the loom. Somewhat less finished, not counting the fringe.

I probably should wash up my baking dishes. The dishwasher is on strike and the repairman comes on Tuesday. It's one thing to leave them for Jerry when he just has to load them in the machine.

Prisoners of Geography I found this very informative.

Just laying the tunic pieces out to see how it will look. I could also try with the orange towards the centre. The original pattern had knit sleeves, but my threads are so different, that I don't see that working. I think I'll just wear it over a turtleneck.

I still have to tie the fringes on the second piece. (I might end up hemming the neck edges, or I could turn over a short piece and let the top fringe hang down.) Then both pieces and a small mat go in the wash machine for finishing. The mat is because I had enough on the second panel, but too much warp left to waste. So I just wove with white wool as far as I could. Off the loom it is 20cm x16cm + fringe.

Only problem is that I'm so close to finishing the scarves, and then I won't have any warps to weave on. I might get lucky and there might still be one or two days when the weather is fine enough to warp a loom outside before next May, but I can't count on it. Just not space in the house. And if the temperature really does get into double digits, and the sun is out, and the wind is bearable, there is still a fair amount of raking, cutting down plants, and so on that ought to be done. Today is 6° and very grey.

Oh! That is lovely!!

I have given up on Genesis (Tonelli) Just too much physics for me.

I've figured out my next weaving project if I get day when I can warp the big loom. I found some purple sparkly yarn in my stash, and there are 10 balls of the stuff! If I make a long warp - 5 meters or so alternating blocks of the purple and the cream I am using in the scarves, then the same in the weft in a large check pattern, I can cut the finished piece in half and sew it together to make a blanket of sorts. Still a bit narrow, but I'll see how much of the purple is left. I could always do a separate panel to put between the main ones. I'll need to buy more of the cream next chance I get.

The forgotten village is very good. Except for confusing the meaning of finite. "The redundancy money wasn't finite, sadly." If I had quit my job in return for a redundancy payment, I would be happy if it weren't finite.

Finished the scarves. Very happy with the green one. The other one could do with another 30cm length, but is also very nice. They are in the wash machine now.

I quickly plied a small amount of a turquoise blend this morning, washed it and hung it up for a few hours to dry. I was able to use it twice in the second scarf. Probably silly, but it felt right.

I chuckled when you wrote that you need more yarn.

Whatever will you do this winter if you can’t get the big loom warped soon?

I can keep spinning, crocheting, knitting, embroidering, quilting, better not do any more patchwork until I've quilted the tops I have already pieced, but there is other sewing, ... not to mention reading. I'll keep busy somehow. Just, I've had a good run of weaving, and have really enjoyed it.

Oh, and can I get the tunic put together tomorrow? I'll be going to the library and the yarn shop on Tuesday (after the dish washer gets fixed), and since I like to show off, it would be good to wear the tunic. I basically have 8 choices for the front - two pieces with two ends each and either green or orange framing. The back is just which end goes up. Not a lot of real work. Shoulder darts, then joining things up.

I've got a full 250m ball of the cream, but 32/10 cm heddle over 60 cm. means 192 ends. Even if only half of them are cream, I can't get a 5m warp out of that ball, never mind weft. (I need 480 m if the warp is exactly 500cm.)

Just last night didn't really do it for me.

On the other hand, last night I had basically decided that Nix wie Zores could probably go back to the library without being finished, but I gave it a second chance. I'm not sure why she stuck this other stuff at the beginning, but now I'm in the middle of fun Jewish anecdotes. It gets read.

>99 MarthaJeanne: Getting there. The decisions were fairly easy. I have the shoulder seams done and 3 of the long seams. One more, and then I need to try it on and decide how I want to do the side seams. It occurs to me that the only nearly full length mirror in the house is the one Mom made me put in the guest room (aka sewing room, summer bedroom, ...) closet for her. We went to IKEA together and she paid for it. I'll need that. In the meantime, I'm getting cramped sitting here, so I'd better move around some.

Later: Oh, I like it! I just pulled the front over the back for about 7 cm above the waist to give it some form. It still needs to have the seams pressed and the fringes trimmed. Tomorrow. I'm very tired, and neither hot irons nor sharp wheels are good to play with when you aren't quite all there. But I will proudly wear it tomorrow.

Gave up on Anders frei als du

I got nearly halfway through. I'm not the intended audience for this, but I can't think that young people don't recognize when they are being preached at and the story is only there to sugarcoat the message.

Beautiful! What a pleasure you’ll have wearing them!

>100 MarthaJeanne: Nix wie Zores is now finished. 3 1/2 stars. Too much Topsy around the stories.

I bought a couple of clever laundry baskets that have built in collapsable legs. Then added large pipes with bungee cords leaving a free area for the heddles. When I can weave again, I should be able to find the things I need.

>104 2wonderY: Yes, it's a real pleasure, particularly when someone says something on the lines of, "What a lovely tunic! Wherever did you get such a fashionable piece from?" "Oh, I took it off the loom a few days ago." ...

Pride and vanity are deadly sins, I know, but they feel very good now and again.

Mister Pip Interesting book. I keep wondering if it would have meant more if I were familiar with Great Expectations? In the end I rather doubt it.

I added a braid of warp threads to the tunic across the back at the shoulder seams. It is just a smidgeon wider than the central panels, and will keep from falling off hangers or down my shoulders.

----

The government has just announced that from Monday everybody, and not just the unvaccinated will be in lockdown for three weeks. On the one hand, I can relax about the library books that were due on Tuesday and can't be renewed. On the other hand, the Christmas market on Freyung opens tomorrow, I am desperate for more indigo cloth earrings, as the Easter and Christmas markets haven't been happening, and they do wear out, get lost ... but do I really want to be in that crowd? Maybe. I love the market, and it will be colder on December.

I am so tired of shopping with a mask. I am so tired of there not being anywhere to go (like textile markets). I miss people. We went out last night. The food is now take out style, even if you eat in. I miss the old menu. But during the various lockdowns we have eaten it as take out, when allowed we have eaten in, and we have developed a friendship so that the couple spend time talking to us when we go. So even if I'm not crazy about the food, I enjoy the social interaction. (Yes, I wore the tunic. Yes, she liked it.)

Apparently everyone else really liked A town called solace. I finished it, but only gave it three stars.

I went downtown today for a last run at shops. I spent a lot at the bookstore. But most of the other things I wanted were not available. I had a chat with the Czech indigo person at the Christmas market. He assured me that although they don't have earrings on the stand now, they had planned to bring them on Monday with more stock. Now it will be Monday in three weeks.

Then I couldn't reach Jerry to get picked up. My phone had charge, but no credit. Finally found a pay phone. And we had trouble finding each other. Luckily I could receive calls.

Got home rather disgusted that I had wasted the sunny, fairly warm day that way. After a rest I decided, rather stupidly that I was going to warp the loom. It wasn't really 13° any more. The sun was off the garden. But I went on. It kept getting darker and colder. And I hadn't screwed the vices enough. When I got the flashlight Jerry came out and held it for me. He also helped with winding the warp onto the back beam. It was in the middle of that that the loom came free from the table. But he found a way to hang up the flashlight, hold the loom steady, and do the actual winding while I kept tension on the warp. I could not have finished without him. by the end I had no feeling in my fingers and was stumbling around. The temperature had dropped to 7.6. I have to deal with winding the last bit and tying on tomorrow. Inside where it is warm and I can see.

I've used over half of the purple, so the weft stripes will be twice as much white as purple. That should work. I had actually more or less arranged to do this in the back room of the restaurant we went to on Thursday. That was before the lockdown was announced.

You poor dear! Hot tea or cider for you!

Glutton for punishment.

I have found two yarns that blend nicely. One is a fairly thick wool, no labels. A shade darker is some suri alpaca, very thin and fluffy. Suri is frustrating stuff. It feels wonderful, but the fibres don't bind to each other well. The resulant yarn is not elastic. It has no 'memory', so it droops more than drapes. If I use the thicker yarn for the warp, and the suri alternating with it for weft, I should get a nice scarf with the added silkiness of the suri. Or even occasional bits of the suri in the warp. These are a turquoisey green. Very pretty. Would go with anything I own.

So now I know what I want to warp the smaller loom with.

Note: these are yarns from my stash. It is virtuous to use up stash. Re the purple blanket. That is also using up stash, even if I had to buy white yarn to do it.

--

We're going out to eat fish today. Last chance to eat out for three weeks. We are not going downtown to do it. Last time (a year ago) we ate out downtown the evening before a lockdown, there was a terrorist attack a few blocks away from where we were eating. Our timing was good. We left the restaurant just after the attack, saw blue flashing lights drive by, but were out of the City area before it was all closed down.

Dear Santa Christmas Chick-lit. Fun, but predictable.

We went to the Hirschstetten Christmas market. That makes three in the past four days. Very low key. The stall keepers are eager to sell as much as possible, not sure if the promised reopening in three weeks will really happen. But I noticed that you could actually get to the stalls and buy things, which is usually quite difficult. I bought a pair of gloves. They are a bit too big, but they have houndstooth panels on the backs and should be quite warm.

I think though that I will make wrist warmers of zoom squares. Those can be pulled down to protect my fingers on the walker, but pushed back to use my hands for other things. I so dislike constantly pulling gloves on and off again.

I just read in ABC that our Christmas market visit was 'under a clear blue sky.' Could have fooled me. Grey in grey with even a bit of ground fog, is what I remember.

Warping is all done. I think this is going to look good.



I did find one mistake in the warping where I had taken 5 loops of the purple through, but the fifth slot also had white in it, so I just pulled the purple out of the slot. I'll have a 10-11 m piece of the purple to cut out at the end.

>115 MarthaJeanne: There is no grass growing under your feet!!

The Tower and the Hive Yes, this series went way downhill.

Sisis Weg This is a new biography of Empress Elizabeth of Austria up to 1865. Very interesting.

After Pilgrims, English Passengers was going to have to grab me fast. It didn't. (>52 MarthaJeanne:) I should know better by now than to pick up books that have won lots of literary prizes.

I'm willing to work at nonfiction. I want my fiction to be relaxing.

>114 MarthaJeanne: I told Jerry to put up his picture of the market on Sunday. You might also get a view of someone in a handwoven tunic pushing a walker. https://www.jerrybarton.eu/Miscellaneous/DailyPicks/i-8wJfkdB/A

I got a fair amount of weaving done today including working over a knot that I missed when setting up the warp. It was small enough to go through the heddle hole, and I made sure it was only in the working zone for a short time. This is one reason why you shouldn't warp a loom in the dark.

I've also done a few zoom squares. I want to make wrist warmers of some of the squares. I figure each one needs 9 squares, and they can be various colours. I have no intention of making the two hands match. They should be ready by the time I can go shopping again. It's a lot easier if I don't have to take gloves off and put them on again every time I go into a shop.

This is your mind on plants Interesting.

>119 MarthaJeanne: Nice! Very couture. Love the next picture too - the sechuan pepper branch.

>122 2wonderY: Even more fun, the tree has been shedding both leaves and berries. The night I warped the blanket both of us discovered how good it smelled when we walked across that section of the terrace. Really love my szechuan pepper tree.

----

Isn't it bromantic? It is probably not fair to judge a series when you jump in on book 4. However, it didn't throw me out of the book. I won't be reading the rest of series.

Letters to Camondo De Waal writes so well! His prose is just a delight to be immersed in.

Kleine Geschichte des "schlechten Benehmens" in der Kirche (A small history of "bad behaviour" in the church)

When I saw this title in the list of new books the library had acquired, I just had to read it. I was sure it would be fun. It was! Fuchs taught Roman Catholic liturgy at the University of Würzburg, and has written many books on the subject. This book deals almost exclusively with Germany from the Middle Ages to the present. Exceptions are several references to the Netherlands and to Pauls letters to the Corinthians. Fuchs makes a point of including Protestant examples, and how they differ from Catholic expectations.

Yes, it is fun to read about how certain bad behaviours have come and gone over the past few centuries, but the real point of the book is to make everyone who is regularly involved in church services or just church visits aware of how their own behaviour falls short of what would be desirable.

BTW I told my husband what the common faults of organists are. He said 'Not a problem.' His organ is at the front of the church, not up in a high place in back, so he isn't tempted to read magazines during the sermon. Also, he can't drown out the congregation to alter their tempo because even with all the registers, it just isn't that loud.

I just reread my ebook of Ballet Shoes. I know, very old fashioned, but I do like Noel Streatfeild. I think I'm going to reread my collection.

I pulled out the afghan I made for my niece in 2012. Actually, not hers, but I made two each of the 25 squares - some knit, some crocheted, all spun from natural undyed wool, each square in a different pattern. This is my copy. Hers had a heart with initials and date of their wedding in the central square. As I recall, that was rather a problem - I was pretty much a beginner at spinning at the time, and the red yarn I spun wasn't really good enough for stitching. However, by the time I was done with the project I was a much better spinner than I had been, and had also learned a lot about different wools and spinning them. Anyway, by making two it wasn't too hard to give one away.

Anyway, there are a lot of places where this is beginning to fall apart. I just darned one hole. The yarn doesn't match, and !horrors! is actually the commercial yarn I'm using for my weaving. I don't suppose Erica's is in any better shape. Too bad. I was very proud of them. I should use some of the white I spun recently to replace parts of the border.

Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty I am so horrified by the lifestyles of both sisters. I need to stop choosing books that play in Manhattan.

Music: A Very Short Introduction An interesting essay.

Miss Benson's beetle Lovely!

Ich ging durchs Feuer und brannte nicht

'Another' WWII memoir by a Jewish survivor. This one is different as she managed to survive as an U-boot in Germany. (English title: The Nazi Officer's Wife) This is very well written. She didn't have to remember all the details from scratch, as her friend in Vienna saved all the letters she wrote to him over the years. I can certainly recommend this even to those who have already read a lot about those times.

Tennis shoes This is a lousy book. Even Noel Streatfeild can have a bad day.

Nearly done with Vesper Flights. This is a collection of short essays on a variety of subjects to do with nature - mostly birds.

Just found this: "In my experience if you go out hoping for revelation you will merely get rained on."

Many of the essays are very short, all of them are very good.

Toi, toi, toi! Pannen und Katastrophen in der Musik
This is a book of anecdotes about things that can go wrong for classical musicians. As usual, the anecdotes themselves are sometimes interesting, and sometimes not. Being in a long series of similar anecdotes does not improve matters.

If you like classical music and are trying to learn German, you could do worse than to work your way through these anecdotes, one at a time. Otherwise, you can probably skip it.

Tomorrow a new gas boiler is being installed. The old one, probably at least 20 years old, has been doing its job less and less well, and the landlord finally agreed something must be done. Originally we were told that just the boiler could not be replaced, so we would be getting a new heating system including hot water sometime this summer. Then, eventually, after we had turned the furnace on for the winter, they said that wasn't going to work, but we would get a new boiler. A week or so ago we were told that it would come tomorrow. Fine, no argument. It has been delivering less and less hot water week by week. Besides, we are in lockdown, so where would we be going?

I have tidied up my laundry area, put away the ironing board (after emptying most of the ironing basket). I even moved the boxes that were stored on the stairs. I even swept the stairs and hallway down there. I hope it's enough, and that once Jerry has moved the recycling from the top of the stairs that they can get things through.

Oh, yes, and I'd better take my shower early tomorrow.

In the process we came across several garments that can be taken to Caritas. And also things like the box Steven's set of Narnia books came in. Did you know that I have several vacuum storage bags never opened that were hiding in a bag down there? I mean, I thought I did, somewhere. That will be welcome; I was wishing for one just a few days ago.

---

BTW, I don't manage weaving every day, but it is progressing quite satisfactorily.

Warum Brot uns nicht Schadet I'm not going to finish this.

The author is a retired professor for nutrition on a Dutch university. He takes a very positive view of the safety of current food products (as long as you don't overeat). I keep finding myself saying, "Yes, but ..." For example, he claims that artificial sweeteners are good because they replace sugar, which itself would be harmless except for the calories. But recent studies have shown that the sweet taste causes other changes in the way we eat that may actually end up causing weight gain.

So, on the one hand, he quite rightly downplays the risk of certain things that have been blown up online. Yes, milk has hormones in it. Hard not to when it is produced in female animals because of their hormones. So, if you don't want cow hormones, don't eat dairy products. The amounts are minimal. He also points out that our food has a lot less transfats in it than even a few years ago. Right, and that is because people got worried about it, had laws changed, and stopped buying the high transfat foods. We do need to be aware of what is in the foods we buy.

For the record: I do not use artificial sweeteners. I eat a lot of dairy.

I am now reading Nerds retten die Welt. I can't complain so far about the content, but all the footnotes are replaced by QR codes that take you to internet links. I asked Jerry to check - they work, but I find it obnoxious that you need a technical device to even see where you are being sent.

Complications is fairly typical Danielle Steel except that she introduces too many 'complications'. The three stars are probably more from it being her than that the book deserved them.

We have hot water again. He even left things fairly clean. It was a bit up in the air at first, because the new one was taller than the old one, which meant that the chimney connection needed redoing, but he seems to have dealt with it.

>138 MarthaJeanne: That seems as if it went fairly painlessly. And gave you a reason to clean up.

Yes, amazingly painless. The plumber was gone for quite a while getting the things he needed for the work on the chimney. He had forgotten that because of the lockdown he couldn't just go to a nearby hardware store. But he managed.

And for the other, we could do with a lot more cleanup, but yes, some got done.

>103 MarthaJeanne: lovely, simply lovely. My eyes appreciate the combination of colors you have used.

>119 MarthaJeanne: I see you!!!

Lots to see in that photo, kind of a "Where's Waldo" composition.

The markets are supposed to reopen on Monday. At least in Vienna. National decisions are due to be made tomorrow.

>136 MarthaJeanne: Content is also bad. The interviewer knows just what she wants to hear, and is determined to get it. Not finishing.

I'm trying to make panettone today. I love panettone, and used to buy it several times during the Christmas season. Then one year I had a recipe, and decided to see what home made, whole wheat panettone would taste like. Let me tell you, once I had tasted it, I could no longer eat the store bought stuff. On the other hand, this is not a simple recipe, with several risings, adding more ingredients each time. You mix a starter in the evening, and plan on spending most of the next day fiddling with the dough. I probably would have passed if I hadn't gotten the mixed fruit yesterday. There is no point in putting it off. On top of the lockdown, today is a public holiday, so no point in leaving the house.

My recipe says it has reduced the number of rises, but so far I have added the hot milk, the butter, and some flour. At the same time I am supposed to mix 2 eggs and 4 yolks with sugar and add that in, but I'm giving myself a rest first, so that's an extra rise for the dough, I guess. The recipe makes a lot, and it never tastes quite as good after being in the freezer, so I need to find local takers for some of it. (Yes, if I'm going to do it, I'm not going to halve the recipe.)

Oh, just in case I get too bored, we have three overripe bananas again. And then there are the 4 egg whites. I usually use those for Mohn macaroons.

Aaaaarg! Cannot find that cookbook! Also the panettone will have walnuts instead of pine nuts. I remember a time when I always had them at home, and used them a lot. That was before my youngest son had a very good friend who was allergic to them. That was years ago now, but they still aren't back in my normal ingredients.

Anyway, eggs are in. Fruit, etc. is in. Now rising.

>145 MarthaJeanne: I made panettone after reading about it here on LT, maybe in your threads. The recipe I used wasn't as complicated as the one you describe here, and it was really good.

Hmm. I think I might make it this weekend...

The loaves are formed and rising. In the over set to 30° - the kitchen is just too cold for yeast dough this time of year. Anyway, I should have cleared the oven in time for Jerry to make supper.

American baby I found this fascinating, partly because my brother was adopted from Hong Kong in the early sixties.

Der Krake, das Meer und die tiefen Ursprünge des Bewusstseins
(Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness)

Another book I'm not going to finish. It's not really about octopuses, but rather a philosophical book about consciousness. I'm a lot more interested in the octopuses. I was reading the German translation, which didn't help. Not that the translation is bad, just harder to read.

Flying angels is one of Steel's better books.

Most wanted is more suspense than I'm really comfortable with, but it was a good book.

Christmas at Holiday House This is a very nice Christmas Chicklit story. Several others are waiting for it, so I read it quickly to pass it on.

>153 MarthaJeanne: That sounds like something I’d enjoy, and my library has it on audio. I put a hold on it.

I was downtown today. Judging by the things I had wanted to get, but didn't, it was not the best of trips. The bookstore had a lot of non-regular customers, but magazines didn't come in during lockdown. I only got about half the things I was looking for in the luxury supermarket. However, I am very pleased with what I did get. (I was almost out of my favourite gin.)

Then there are the other things. The earrings I have come to count on from Christmas and Easter markets. Finally a new supply! I found a lovely stained glass creche passing a shop near the bookstore. First one of the season. Then at the market I fell in love with a Mexican creche. It folds up into a metal case about the size of my iPad, but not as thick! The woman also had a Bolivian creche that didn't really do it for me, but she started unpacking a smaller version to fill the space of the Mexican creche. So sweet! I haven't even seen the whole thing yet, but I had to have it. She was so thrilled that I was 'open' to different creches that she added an angel to my bag.

Final highlight of the trip: I was in the elevator going down to the subway with a woman and her baby carriage. She just had to tell me, all the way down, how lovely my tunic is. Well, I know that, and I assume that you know that, but it is nice to hear it from a stranger.

Good trip. Pictures will come when I have unpacked the creches.

Definitely a feel good trip!

But in that picture you don't really see the musicians:

That mat is a zoom square - 4", 10cm. We're talking little, but so sweet, and very Bolivian.

>158 MarthaJeanne: Very nice! I’d have been sorely tempted too.

>157 MarthaJeanne: lovely!

I have several nativity sets, different styles, but this year I'm leaving them in the Christmas box as our kitten is too young and rambunctious, she would break them.

Little book of wool and silk embroidery

A tiny book, but very workable patterns.

White Boots Very typical Streatfeild.

Today a woman went mad in the supermarket I must be missing something, as the general ratings are high. The stories have no real plot. They peter out instead of having a real conclusion. Even after reading so many stories about the narrator and her husband Howard, I don't have any feeling for who they are. Two stars seem generous. The best thing I can say is that the book was short enough that I could push myself through it.

After the last border was a very good book. Not always easy to read, but well done.

Textiles of India is such a beautiful book. (>68 MarthaJeanne:). I have now officially read the whole thing.

It does weigh over 3 1/2 kilos, so it isn't very movable.

>165 MarthaJeanne: I've heard that type of tome described as a "coffee table book", the big beautiful volumes that are mainly there for show.

>166 fuzzi: Yes, but. I didn't buy it for show. I bought it because I wanted to see the lovely textiles. I will probably try copying some of the embroidery. Because it is large (26.67 x 4.67 x 34.62 cm) and on good paper, it is heavy. But the size and paper quality mean that the photographs are also large and printed so that you can see details. I haven't bothered looking at the matching Textiles of Japan. I might enjoy leafing through it, but it wouldn't fascinate me and give me the joy this does. But, then, I didn't spend four years in Japan as a child.

BTW, I bought The Indian textile sourcebook earlier this year. I've recommended them for each other.

>158 MarthaJeanne: And you should see the one I didn't buy. We went to the Schönbrunn market yesterday. I managed to spend a fair amount of money, but did not buy any creches, or Christmas cards. There was a stall selling tin figures. Most of them were flat, and if of interest, then too much like creches I already own. But there was a group of figures that I just loved. Very Near Eastern. Mary reclining on the ground? rugs? near the Christ child. Besides several other figures in the same style, there was a coffee tray. But it was two sets each well above €100. I can't see the expense. But I am covetous.

The Henna Artist is very good. This is planned to be a trilogy. My OverDrive also has the second book, but the third doesn't seem to be out yet.

Halleluja : wie ich versuchte, die katholische Kirche zu verstehen

A young German journalist, female, not church related, was asked to spend a year shadowing a Roman Catholic priest. Neither was converted, but both learned to understand and respect the other's life. I gave this 4 1/2*

I'm still here : black dignity in a world made for whiteness 4 1/2 stars

Under Jerusalem

This is an interesting book about a very confusing subject. Really too bad nobody caught the typo in the map that heads up each chapter. (The key shows 300 metres, not 500.)

Lost & Found Now that I have finished this, I wonder why I bothered.

The beauty in breaking This is a book about healing, not just about medicine. 4 1/2

>174 MarthaJeanne: Added to my list. Looks good.

Busy day. I went to the library and picked up the four books I had on hold. I also chose three other books to fill my account. Then we went to the vaccination centre, and got me my booster. As I had hoped, it was fairly quiet. I did get wheelchair assistance, but we didn't jump queues because there weren't any. The final wait was a bit long before we got taken back to the car, but when you consider that we had no hassles getting through all the red tape, that was minor.

With Christmas coming so soon, I suggested a trip to the shopping centre for supplies I want over the weekend. We also bought soup and sandwiches to take home for supper.

By the time we got home we had been out for over four hours, and I was pretty tired. And I still had those seven books to enter, as well as five I had bought yesterday. There was one book that rather confused me towards the end. It was entered, and I couldn't find any combining, researching author CK, even editing of data to do. Does that really happen?

I'm trying to make pies. I have made a large batch of pie dough.

A pumpkin pie is in the oven. But I want mince pies, too. Usually I buy those, but the ones I like are always a bit of a problem if delivery is delayed, as they have a very short sell by date. This year the store didn't dare order them. (Although, as I recall, last year they never made it onto the shelves. The other customers were grabbing them out of the carton at a tremendous rate.) But supply chain problems anyway, Brexit, and Covid all together were too much.

Anyway, I bought the mincemeat, but I like to dilute commercial mincemeat with chopped apple, and the only apples around the house are on our tree. I don't like this (flavourless) variety. They have lots of worms. They have been frozen several times already. Maybe Jerry can get me some, or maybe he will look at crowds in the store and give up.

BTW Our shops close at 13:00 tomorrow and open again on Monday. We did a shopping run this morning. The store was crowded, but they had all the cash registers open, so once you got up to the lines it was quite fast.

My arm is a bit sore, but otherwise I seem to be fine. Tired, yes, but not noticably more than usual.

Got the mince pies in the oven.

BTW The arm is quite tender, and I was very tired last night.

I’m glad the booster hasn’t knocked you down. Oldest daughter and her family just got theirs too, and it wiped them out for a few days.

Finished A Lab of One's Own. All I can say is, if you haven't read it yet, you should.

>178 MarthaJeanne: I make one mincemeat pie for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas...only half of the household like it.

I use my grandmother's recipe, which is two bricks of condensed mincemeat crumbled up, 3 cups of water, a handful of raisins, and one whole apple, diced. This year I bought a Granny Smith apple, and used golden raisins. After it simmers for 5 minutes or so the recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of dry sherry to be added. We don't drink alcohol, so I use cooking wine which works just fine.

The ham is in the slow cooker, so next I'll make the pumpkin pie filling and bake the pies, in a couple hours. I'm relaxing until then.

Merry Christmas!

I like the British individual pies. I made 18 out of the same amount of dough as I used for the pumpkin pie. I used one jar of mincemeat with two chopped apples. (Elstar) Then I added a good slug of cachaça (Brazilian, don't call it rum). I thought it worked out very well. My pans each take 6 pies, The dough came out even at 18. When I had filled them I had just a bit more filling, so I went around adding more until it was all gone. No leftover dough, no leftover filling.

Jerry has eaten one or two so far, but basically I am the one who likes mincemeat. None of the boys liked it. But it's not Christmas without mince pies. And I'm picky. I probably could have bought some, but not the brand I like. At the store that didn't order them this year (Brexit, and extra supply chain difficulties. They have a very short shelf life.) we had a nice chat about how good Mr. Kiplings cakes and pies are. They usually only carry the Christmas mincemeat pies. But their other pies are one of my first purchases when we go to England. Maybe someday again.

Something else that I insist on is red cabbage with the goose. Luckily they make very small frozen packages. It's not even that I like it that much, but it is supposed to be there.

I made cranberry orange relish this morning. Mom used to make a raw one - quarter your oranges, remove the seeds. Now put the pieces and the cranberries through the meat grinder and sweeten to taste. But I'm not sure I could find the meat grinder. So I made a cooked one. I added a slug of the cachaça to that, too.

We bought precooked (sous vide) goose quarters - one of each, and Jerry has cut up potatoes to go with them along with mixed fresh cut up veggies.

Tomorrow I will make a potato dough for a leftover goose strudel. I have learned over the years that you have to spread the dough out on baking paper that has a thick layer of mixed crumbs and cheese. Then you add your chopped up leftovers with whatever additions you fancy. Roll the whole thing up and bake. Any uncrumbed dough gets a tough skin on it. One of the Prater restaurants does this with leftover hamhocks. I have no idea how they actually do it, but this is my version.

Die Macht der Maschen This was interesting. Probably good for anyone who knits. I don't think I'll keep it, though.

Our restless heart I had to keep reminding myself that although I enjoyed City of God, I really struggled to get through Confessions That was decades ago. Should I try again?

>183 MarthaJeanne: I decided that creamed goose over biscuits was easier.

The Invention of Wings This is very good.

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Another very good book is Wildblumen der Lobau / Wild flowers of the Lobau The Lobau is the Viennese part of the Danube Wetlands National Park. It is right around the corner from us. Jerry gets there more often than I do these days. We were curious when we heard that three women had put this book out.

Being able to identify plants in German and English (and Latin) is helpful for labelling his pictures. I rather like to know what's growing in the garden, even if it's also labelled 'weed' my mind. (German now uses Beikraut instead of Unkraut.) And if it grows wild in our garden, it is also in the Lobau.

This is not a book to put in your pocket on a walk. Too big and too heavy. But the photos are excellent and the descriptions really good. The copy in my hands is from the library, but we will by our own copy soon. Oh, yes, as you would expect we are not really strangers to these women. We aren't close acquaintances, but move in similar circles.

I won't read all the plant descriptions, but I will finish reading the information at the front of the book. It is very good and worth spending time on. Also not a bad idea to make sure I know terminology in both languages.

Frauen Unterwegs

This is a history of female pilgrimage. Starting with the famous early female pilgrims: Helen, Paula, Melania, Egeria, the author moves on to medieval examples through to modern pilgrimage forms. Was and is pilgrimage different for women?

Habibi & Hawara is the cookbook of an interesting restaurant concept, combining Austrian and immigrant cooking. However I found it disappointing. **

I read all the pages that are black on white. I marked the book down a star because all the little comments from various people are white on colour. I can't read that.

None of the recipes interested me. Discarded.

The Mother of All Questions

The last time I was at the library I needed to ask a question at the info stand. When the previous patron left, I noticed that she left a book lying there. The librarian moved it a bit more to the side. As she turned away to find my answer, I noticed that the book was in English with the subtitle 'further feminisms'. When my main business was done I asked about the book. No, it wasn't from the previous patron. Nobody quite knew why it was there. I was welcome to take it. So I did. Luckily, because it is a very interesting book.

I gave In every mirror she’s Black 2 1/2 stars. To start off with, if you don't understand the Swedish conversations you are rather lost. I could google it because I was on the iPad. I don't think any of the three black women's lives rang true. In the end it all circled around Jonny, who wasn't really there. But it was enough to destroy all three women.

I suspect that Party Shoes will be the last book I finish this year.

The year ends with lovely weather. 15°, sunny, light breeze. So I went out and warped my smaller loom.

As I said in >112 MarthaJeanne:, I'm using two yarns:

A very fine suri alpaca yarn used double.
A fairly thick mystery wool, just a shade or two lighter. I have several balls but no information.

Both are from my stash. Some of the wool has been damaged. I could not warp from the outside of the ball, but the inside was fine.

I'm using the 20 /10 cm. heddle, so this was a much faster warp than last time. Now I just have to wind shuttles, and away I go!

I should have used the 30 heddle. This is giving me a weft faced fabric, which is not really what I wanted. I'm experimenting with leno for the suri stripes.

Not leno all the way across, only for the suri warps. This will actually look quite good I think.

In leno, the warp threads are twisted. At the bottom you see a bit where I worked the leno all the way across. In the later stripes just where there are suri warps. This loosens the texture for the whole pick because the twists take up space.

This is not what I was expecting, but I think I like it, and I am not going to redo the whole warp!

Gave up on Doctors and Friends. I read about a third of it, but it seems to be getting darker and darker. I just don't need that right now.

My count for the year 2021 seems to be 386.

To read is down to 223.

>196 MarthaJeanne: !!!!

About one a day is fairly normal for me.

>194 MarthaJeanne: I find your descriptions of weaving, well, interesting. Really.