Fiber Fool

I’ve been rather caught up in holiday preparations and such so I’m woefully behind in my blog reading and comment responding. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up over the weekend…

Last night I had a crazy dream. Let me preface it by saying that I am in desperate need of a haircut but still have not found a hair dresser that I like, despite the fact that I’ve lived here since June of 1999… I’m also feeling a bit frustrated by the weight plateau I’ve been on for several months now…

I opened oversized glass doors with art deco-inspired brass handles and entered a very posh looking salon and spa. Most horizontal surfaces were marble and the the fixtures holding the mirrors were also art deco brass. There were large oriental looking plants everywhere to break up the large space and cut down on the noise. The air was tainted with the pungent smell of nail acrylic and acetone mixed with fancy herbal hair products.

Behind the curtain was this HUGE contraption that looked vaguely like a slightly oversized staircase. At the very top was a large red LED read out. She said I needed weigh myself on it and my weight divided by 10 revealed how many visits I needed to make to the salon before I got one of their magic curling irons. I climbed onto the first step and the read out blinked “PROCEED UP.” It continued to read that until I was at the top step and had to crouch in order to not hit my head on the ceiling. The the read out blinked “NOT WORTHY!” When I descended the tall lady informed me that I was much too fat and too unfashionable to be worthy of their curling irons. Then she kindly asked me to never return to their salon.

Then I awoke…

A skirt for Amber…

A skirt for me…

A bag keeper for mom (upon request)…

And Holy Skirts by Rene Steinke.

The above were all taken November 3rd, same as last week’s Maple edition. The following were taken on the 8th and the leaves are now all gone as we had sustained winds of about 30 mph with gusts over 50 mph early this week. I’m sure glad I caught them before they were all gone!

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For some more Eye Candy, check out Chris’ hand dyed Flatiron socks!

And, want to see the unfuzzy Queen of Diamonds Socks? Check them out at Spin-Off!

Each year at the Lincoln Center here in Fort Collins there is a Hall of Trees where area businesses have booths that they decorate in the latest holiday fashions. These booths are set up along the hallways of the center. In the ballrooms of the center there is a rather large craft fair. I’ve been to the hall of trees a few times in the seven years I’ve lived here but have never paid the admission to go into the craft halls. That was, until this year.

While Drew has been busy with write-ins on Wednesday nights I have been heading to my water aerobics instructor’s home to teach her to knit socks (she’s doing great, BTW). From that encounter we have several new people in my aerobics class who are also knitters. One of those gals was part of a booth there, so Susan and I decided to go check out the Hall of Crafts this year.

There were many booths with things from well designed and made jewelry to kitchy Southwestern art that tends to be popular here, to inexpensive friendly plastic lapel pins and magnetic fridge frames. I do not think I’d bother to pay the admission to go every year. There was little there that I was tempted to buy or inspired by and I suspect there is a frequent return of vendors.

There was one booth that I *loved*! It was the Elisabethan booth run by a woman from the western slope. The booth contained all kinds of recycled fashion from mittens made from felted sweaters to hats, scarves, shirts and funky skirts. With Susan’s keen haggling we both went home with new hats. It is even funnier because Susan is not a hat person, LOL! But it looked awesome on her and totally matched her outfit too. I found the booth so inspiring that I’m hoping to sew a fun and slighlty funky skirt for my sister for Christmas that will utilize a doodle of hers that I stumbled across this weekend. I have a few other ideas I suspect I’ll explore in the coming cold-weather months too.

Now if only the headaches, sore throat and cough would go away so I could make some forward progress on all these creative ideas running through my head!

I think it must be my Swedish genes, but I *love* tart fruits. Give me rhubarb or cranberries anyday and I’ll be in seventh heaven. A few weeks ago we saw the first bags of cranberries in the grocery store. I’ve had this great dessert idea in my head for a couple of months now and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the cranberries. However, my idea is a form of cobbler which is best fresh from the oven and we haven’t had people over for a while. But, on Friday a couple friends came over for dinner and some games and I finally got around to trying my hand at cranberry gingerbread cobbler!

Basically I used my family’s peach cobbler recipe, added gingerbread spices to the batter and orange juice and orange zest to the cranberries. Next time I’ll tweak a few things such as pre-cooking the cranberries as I would for my cranberry sauce, but cooking them only until they pop. I’d also up the spices and molasses a bit more. For those feeling adventurous, the recipe as I’ll make it next time is below…

Kristi’s Holiday Cobbler

Fruit:
1 - 12oz bag Cranberries
Zest and Juice from 1 Orange
1/2 C Sugar
~ 1 T Flour or Cornstarch

Batter:
1 Stick Butter
1 C Flour
1 C Sugar
1 C Milk
1/2 C Molasses
2 t Baking Powder
1/2 T Ground Ginger
1/2 t Ground Clove
1/2 t Ground All Spice
1/4 t Grated Nutmeg
1/4 t Ground Cinnamon
1/2 t Salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Place fruit ingredients in saucepan on medium heat. Heat gently until many of the cranberries have burst, and remove from heat.

Melt butter in a 9X9 glass baking pan in the preheating oven. Mix the batter with the remaining ingredients. It should be about the consistency of thin pancake batter.

Pour batter into the baking pan followed immediately by the fruit mixture. DO NOT STIR. Place back in oven and bake for about 45 minutes.

Let cool 15 minutes. Best served the day of baking, slightly warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

It may be a while before we have enough people over to make it worth baking again, so if you give it a try drop me a line and let me know how it was! Enjoy!