Large Loads of Limes

I had to look back in my garden notes to see if it is normal to have limes in the summer, and it is definitely not. Our Key Limes are not supposed to come until November at the earliest. Usually I am giving away bags of them along with the lemons around the holidays. But here it is the middle of August, and ripe limes are falling off the tree by the dozen. Inexplicable.

This was just one day’s haul, a week ago.

The Piemaker used a favorite recipe from a couple of years ago, Key Lime Pound Cake.

As always Southern Living makes it look so simple yet elegant. The recipe is here.

Note: the recipe asks for butter and shortening – I have never used shortening and don’t intend to start now. We just use all butter. And of course we double the lime juice and zest simply because there is so much available.

Our version looks simple but not at all elegant.

It has a deliciously potent lime flavor and a surprisingly light texture (for pound cake).

I think this pound cake recipe could be easily adapted for other flavors, but for now we will gladly use it to contain the tide of lime juice.

Greetings

My inventory of handmade greeting cards was running low in the category of “masculine,” at least in the opinion of the male half of our household. I decided to make a new supply of cards, focusing on masculine themes and colors, rather than my usual florals and glitter and pinks and purples.

This is my kind of card: girls, flowers, butterflies, pink, lavender, and yellow.

I actually had to force myself to pick up the unused colors in my paint box: tangerine, rust, brown, olive, black. Once I’d covered a few sheets of paper with splashes of these unfamiliar hues, I added a few random dollops of “my” colors.

I got out some rubber stamps and stamped over the paint. Astronomy, zebras, antique hardware, old cars; those all seem okay for men’s greeting cards.

After some matting and collaging and more stamping I had a good two dozen manly cards in the orange, green, and brown colors.

I decided some pink therapy was in order, so I tried out some of my pearl acrylics in lovely colors like Cameo, Wisteria, and Cranberry.

Next came the pretty stamps: birds and flowers and ladies and happy children. It was interesting to see how different the stamped images appeared, depending on the colors of my paint on the background paper.

After cutting out the stamped images and layering them, I put together almost 30 more cards.

All together, I ended up with an even more lopsided card inventory (now totaling approximately 300 cards for women and 24 cards for men), and I haven’t yet gotten confirmation from the Piemaker on whether he considers my new “masculine” collection acceptable for him to send or for his friends to receive.

Anyway it was fun to mess around with paints again, and a good exercise to use a few new colors.

Katrina

A Crafty Collection

Pic-heavy post today; I just couldn't resist sharing some of these beauties. It’s another of my collections: Golden Hands magazines from the 1970s.

click on photos to see larger

I bought one of these in a used bookstore just a few years ago, not knowing there was an entire collection to be had. After finding a few more in a magazine bin at a thrift, I realized there must be a whole series. I tried to resist, but it was futile.

I’ve picked them up here and there when I could find them for $1 or less (some are going for $10!). I’ve actually been pretty lucky, and my collection is now close to 60 of the total 70+ magazines issued. I’m not picky about condition, as long as they have all their pages and nothing has been spilled on them.

The magazines were published by Marshall Cavendish in the early to mid-70s. People in the UK probably know the magazine better than we do, but it was also popular here in the US. Viewed today, the aesthetic veers between timeless classics (above) and outfits that are so dated they are almost back in style (below).

The amount of information packed into each issue was incredible. 

Beautifully intricate embroidery patterns



Monthly home decor projects too

Usually it was a combination of knitting, crochet, applique, embroidery, lace, quilting, and sewing projects, with patterns. Plus there would be examples of museum pieces of quilts, carpets, or embroidery, articles about fitting, patternmaking, fabric care, and styling. The idea was to collect all the magazines and have a complete “beautifully illustrated needlecraft encyclopedia.”

One thing I love about pre-digital magazine photography is that the lovely models have their blemishes and body hair intact. Isn’t it refreshing to see a human woman on a magazine?

 

The male models were also handsome but realistic.

I could overlook the sideburns and, uh, ascot(?) but I'd have to banish the cigarillo.

The illustrators are the unsung heroes of each issue, as far as I’m concerned. J. Rankin was a regular contributor, although I was not able to find out anything about her in a quick internet search.

Look at the incredible detail in these drawings by J. Rankin.

My other favorite illustrator is B. Firth. Her name shows up on technical drawings of patterns, stitches, and techniques, as well as fashion drawing.

excerpt of instructions and illustration by B. Firth



From an article on shirt dresses - I think this is so pretty you could frame it



I was able to track down a B. Firth – I think she is Barbara Firth:

When she was three, she began drawing plants and animals, and when she was eleven years old, her family moved to the country, enabling her to spend even more time sketching the flora and fauna around her.

After leaving school she studied pattern cutting at the London College of Fashion. She was offered a job in the Marks and Spencer design department, but turned it down in favour of a job on Vogue knitting books, producing step-by-step illustrations of knitting, crocheting and dressmaking. It was with Walker Books, however, that Barbara was able to do illustration work in her favourite field – natural history – and has gone on to illustrate many award-winning books. She now lives in Harrow, England.

 “I have always been biased toward illustrating natural history, so it was a joy to be able to draw pages and pages of bears,” Barbara Firth says of her collaboration with Martin Waddell on Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear?, the first of their classic Big and Little Bear series.

Doesn't that sound like a wonderful career!

I hope you enjoyed these amazing images (and your internet connection didn’t time out). I use the magazine more for inspiration than reference, but I would agree that Golden Hands creates a complete if somewhat disorganized "beautifully illustrated needlecraft encyclopedia."

Did you (or your mom) get issues of Golden Hands in the 1970s? Do you remember making anything from its pages?

Katrina

Very Generous Friends

I meant to report this fabulous bonanza some time ago, but it somehow did not make it on to my busy blog schedule. The Piemaker grew up in Northern Arizona and is very fortunate to still have many of his lifelong friends there. Some of them now have a small but exceedingly productive farm on the river in Cottonwood.

This Google Earth image of Cottonwood (red dot in center) has a lot of green, the indicator of a concentration of water in the desert.

A mixture of rich soil, clean water, aptitude, and good fortune have given these guys year after year of incredible bumper crops. So far this year, they have donated more than 1500 pounds of their produce to local food banks, in addition to provisioning their families and friends for months to come.

After a recent visit, the Piemaker came home with loads of tomatoes, peppers, squash, cukes, corn (maize) and other goodies after a weekend harvest party. They even had an assembly line going at the vacuum-packing machine since there was such an abundance of corn.


I was so excited by the sheer abundance that I couldn't hold the camera still. All of my photos are blurry.

But what do we do with blurry photos? We make them even more blurry!

"Still Life with Tomatoes" courtesy of Photoshop's watercolor filter.

Salads and soups and stir-frys, oh my! 

Katrina