Blanket and Bread.

Louro waited and waited and the cows came home, the wrong home, because the grass really was greener on the other(this) side. It was a pretty sight that thankfully did not last too long, we sure could have done with more cow poop, but these beautiful beasts would have ruined what is left of our nice stone walls.

This week I am weaving a small blanket, in 2 parts because my loom is not wide enough. I´ll have to sew the parts together much like in the old days when the looms were also narrower. Along with the wool I normally use I am trying a new wool from Guarda to see how it holds up. So far it is proving to make a bit of a mess and lose lots of little fibres as well as contain some dry vegetable matter that I have to pick out. Otherwise, the lightweight blanket is looking pretty good.

We also got the fire started to test our oven and baked this weekend, bread and folares, a sweet bread normally made at Easter. Urze helped clean the bread bowl and liked it. And the baking was generally successful, but we´ll have to make some minor adjustments next time. The bread and cakes go into the oven on palm leaves so as not to stick to the oven floor, get dirty or burn. When these palms are removed they leave the pretty mark you see on the base of the bread. The palm we used is a native dwarf palm, the chamaerops humilis, also used to make baskets, bags, containers, mats, etc.