Little Dudes 2013

Dear little dudes and dudettes,
I am happy to inform you that I have been invited to collaborate on this wonderful Berlin based project. Yes! I am going to make a dude. And you can make one too! All the information you need you can find on the little dudes site. There will be an exhibition with all the little dudes and also a book that will be launched on the opening night with the little creations. You just need to download the template and be creative. I will show you the progress of my little dude over the next month, little sneak peaks here and there. It will be super fun.

Should I weave him a poncho or make him a patchwork eye patch? Or both? Only time will tell.

So what are you waiting for? Get creative! Create a little dude. :-)

Hexagon patches and wind chimes.

I have embarked on a long journey. I started making patches for a quilt using hexagon blocks. It will be a hand pieced project and I have estimated that I may need a little over a thousand pieces. At this moment in time I have managed to make about 30 patches, so I clearly have a very long way to go. I decided to use my african fabrics. I had a lot of small left over pieces and figured this project was the perfect way to put them to good use. Of course I will need quite a bit of fabric for this quilt and so I have my pile of fabrics out and ready to go. I estimate that at this rate, if I worked on nothing else but making the hexagon patches I would have all the pieces I need in one month. But then I would still have to piece them all together, which I supposed would easily take up another month of solid work. and even then that would just be the front of the quilt finished. Perhaps this time next year I might have a hexagon patch quilt..

I have also started to get the wool ready to make a jacket. I am still very keen on the idea of making a ´bog´ jacket or a variation of it. You can read more about this kind of jacket here. A friend of ours Kent and his lovely parents came to visit us this week. I was very happy to learn that Kent knits. I gave him some burgundy, white and blue wool and he is going to make me a pair of mittens and a pair of knee high socks. I can´t wait to see what he comes up with. We have not figured out an exchange yet but surely it will be something woven, a bog jacket, who knows.

The rest of the week was spent making wind chimes to cheer up the garden and hopefully distract sneaky hungry birds from eating our corn and sunflower seeds. I hope that of course it does not have the opposite effect. I also took this opportunity to make the garden a little brighter and added some coloured strips of fabric. The town of Meimão is throwing its annual party next week so I may as well start getting into party mode. There will also be a cake contest and I am keen to enter it. I have not decided what cake to make yet. Perhaps the watercress cake would go down well, or maybe a zucchini or a beetroot cake just to use something seasonal. I hope I can make a winning cake. The prizes, if last year is anything to go by, are rather appealing as I am sure you will agree. The first prize may well be a whole leg of prosciutto or some cured meats like chouriço. If I am lucky I will get the second prize which could very well be some kind of blender, although a food processor would come in quite handy since I broke the one I borrowed trying to make nettle pesto. Even a small truck load of manure would be an excellent prize, perhaps I could suggest it to the organizing committee. 

Blue and Green

Maria and Thorbjorn came to visit. Maria fell in love with a blue and green scarf. She loves this color combination. And so this little scarf went off to Denmark with Maria to keep her warm come winter time.

I also like the blue and green combination and realized my long awaited trip to Lagos was on the cards. Perfect blue sky and crystal clear green water. By pure and magic coincidence my friend Filipe was sailing through with his dad on their boat, called "Mil Milhas", on their way from Peniche to Alvor. They invited me for a sail. I could not refuse. It was brilliant and served as much needed refreshing inspiration.

Curiously when I get back to the studio I plan on weaving a red "bog jacket". Go figure.

Bag, berries, beets.

The last couple of weeks were spent making the most of what I had most of. I had cherries of the sweet and sour varieties, red currants and gooseberries. The sweet cherries were preserved in jars with sugar water. The sour cherries I used to make a liquor we call Ginjinha. To make Ginjinha you need sour cherries, sugar, cinnamon stick and the magic ingredient is Aguardente, which is "Firewater" distilled in this case from the seeds and skins left over from the wine making process. It is strong. As it turns out the best Aguardente in town is made by a lady, Laura, who gave me 2 bottles of the fiery liquid for the purpose and in exchange as a thank you I gave her a draw string bag. I think I was better served with this swap. The Ginjinha will be ready for drinking one year from now. 

I also made jam with the few gooseberries I had and got just one jar. The less is more maxim I am sure can also be applied to this situation. At least this way I will not get sick of eating the stuff. The red currants I made into jelly, but I think that it turned out a little runny. It is delicious, nonetheless, and good to eat with yoghurt or spread on roast meat or with peanut butter and cheese... yum!

The seedlings I pleaded to grow back in March have soared to towering heights. I present you the first sunflower in bloom. To make us all a little happier.

And beetroots that were grown from seed are also rewarding me now with delicious and beautifully vibrant treats. My friend Ben who came to visit cooked up a storm and made the tastiest lemony and limy beets I have ever tasted.

Warm and fuzzy.

This saturday we gave away our first gift hamper. It was composed entirely of products from our veggie garden. The hamper contained: 3 onions, 4 beetroots, mint sprigs, bay leaves, a bunch of pigweed, red currants, oregano, 3 jars of dried flowers to make tea, a dozen eggs, and a CD. The red currants are as tasty as they are pretty. And as you can see things are going well in our garden. I am super happy that we have enough for us and to give.

The CD in the hamper, did not grow in our garden but it was recorded here in Meimão so in a roundabout way it also grew here in our backyard. It is Charanga´s new Album. Going by the name of "Borda Tu", which means "Embroider", it is a break beat influenced Portuguese electronic folk mash that is sure to liven up any party. You should check out their site. And if you happen to be in Lisbon this Saturday, the 13th of July, you can go to their album launch.

Meanwhile, we are struggling here with extremely high temperatures, averaging 40 degrees celsius over the last week. I can´t complain really, otherwise these stories will turn into a list of weather complaints, "too cold", "too hot", "this rain is too wet" kind of blog. But the interesting thing is how fast we forget how cold it was when all of sudden it is always so hot. Last winter due to this very same temperature dementia we forgot to collect pine cones during the summer. Pine cones come in really handy when you need to light a fire in your fire place. Just a little hint. So today we climbed the hill, sweating profusely, to collect pine cones to keep us hot during the cold season. Couldn´t think of anything worse, like trying on a wool jumper in the middle of Summer.

Some pretty fresh fabrics I bought at the market, samples of 70´s curtain fabrics. just to cool us down a bit.

And back to wool again. A couple of weekends ago I went to a festival in Sortelha and there was a girl selling hand spun and died wool. The project is called Lhana, and has its roots in Duas Igrejas, a small town in Miranda do Douro, in the region of Trás-os-Montes. The wool is wonderful and is died using either natural or synthetic dies. If you want to buy wool you can get in touch through this email, lhana.info@gmail.com. I bought two skeins, both hand died, the grayish one was died using black berries and the yellow one using Reseda Luteola, commonly known as Dyer´s Rocket or woold. Now I have to think up some cool project to use this wool. Best done with a cold beer in hand.

Manecas... my first intern.

Manecas, my first ever intern, finished his woven scarf today. Manecas was brilliant and a super fast learner, I was very impressed. He helped with setting up the loom and from there he took over. He chose the colors to use, filled the navettes, and wove all on his own. He is a true natural. And he was very happy too with his work as can be seen from the photos. Manecas made his scarf over four sittings of about 2 hours each. One day we set up the loom and the others were spent weaving, 20 cm a day. I only helped with the last 18cm. I think it was a really fun experience for Manecas, who even mentioned that he wouldn´t mind being a weaver. For me it was very rewarding to see how happy my first intern was through the whole process and to see him learn so fast.

If that story was not enough to get you all happy on the inside, I leave you with Bela Luísa. She is the newest addition to the family. She is only 2 months old and extremely well behaved and very mellow, except for when she bites my ankles with her razor sharp teeth. According to Ti'Domingos from town she is going to be a good dog because she has four eyes and those are the best dogs. The extra 2 eyes are those brown spots above her own pretty, pretty eyes. And if you are wondering about her name, Bela Luísa, it is another name for Lucia Lima or Lemon Verbena, and is my favorite plant to make infusions with. Very soothing!

David´s Link Jacket

David´s green woven wool jacket is finally finished. I will be sending it off to the Blue Mountains tomorrow. As soon as David gets it he will start designing the buttons and will make me some buttons for my jacket too. I am very excited. You may remember David Loong from an earlier post. He makes the most wonderful jewelry and had made me my beautiful fibula. This jacket is my way of saying thank you.

David asked for a green jacket. I was free to choose the wool and so I opted to make the jacket from different shades of green. At first I thought it was going to look like a Christmas tree but I am very pleased with the result.

I used all 100% portuguese wool. I have to thank my model André Neto for being so brave and wearing it for these photos today in full sun and temperatures averaging 35, real feel 40 degrees. In the Blue Mountains it is getting cold and so I am sure this garment will be very welcome. According to David, at the moment, the spinach in his garden is "like an amazing showpony variety from the front of a posh cookbook", perhaps when they come around to take those photos David can wear his matching jacket.