Stacks-o-Books

I'm getting a little nervous about the tardy delivery of my book press.  I was to receive it about 2 weeks ago.   I contacted the maker, and he had yet to mail it!  Argh!  Sure, he had hurt himself and was on crutches, and is possibly an older man that can't get around very well...OK, good enough excuse but I really really want to get it.  So, I've stalled out a bit with the books since I have yet to experience the satisfaction of finishing one.  The last step in the process is to glue the endsheets of a book into the cover, then press in the press as it dries.  The process takes about 24 hours.  Talk about cutting it close with all these books waiting to be finished for Christmas.  Maybe tomorrow...

In the mean time I'm trimming our $5 Christmas tree that I found at the neighborhood Walgreens.  Originally a whopping $19.99, the tree was discounted by 50% AND I had a $5 coupon.  It's very fake, but that's OK for our little house that contains a soon-to-be 10 month old that would enjoy tipping over a tree and eating fallen pine needles- had this tree been a real live one. 

Also keeping me busy is this stocking that I made with a free Amy Butler pattern I found here.   

Caramelized Onions and Apples

 I felt like experimenting a bit in the kitchen for dinner so I looked through the cupboards to see what I could find to work with.  We still have about 70 pounds of onions left from the farm, so I wanted to use some of them, and we also have quite a few apples from the co-op that are starting to soften.  I caramelized the three onions for about 35 minutes in olive oil and butter, then added the apples (sliced, cored, and peeled) for about 1 minute more, added some white wine (about 1 cup), and let things simmer for about 5 minutes. The apples were soft, but not mushy, and the onions were sweet as can be. I served them alongside a potato sausage and side of quinoa. I helped make the potato sausage last Saturday at my Grandma's house, but that's for another entry. I was planning on taking a picture of the finished plated meal, but things got crazy with Fredrik needing to get to bed and Peter and I scarfed down our food before I could take a picture. The last picture is what remained in the pot.

Getting Organized

The room that is my studio is becoming more like a place to create things and less like a closet.  FGH and I took a stroller ride the other day to the local ACE and then walked the mile route on Summit  back home with a bundle of 4' dowels in hand.  The dowels now house some of my paper, book cloth, and ribbon.  Not only is it beautiful to look at all these papers and ribbons against the wall, but it will surely add a longer life to them.  The papers had been stored flat on the floor just inches from an exersaucer that now tends to scoot around a bit when FGH is in it.  I also decided to take an hour or so to organize my beads.  Many beads found there way into the garbage.  I went from having "no" beads to match the books I'm working on to "lots" of beads.  It's amazing how I couldn't see them when they were all mixed together willy nilly.  It's a pleasure to have time to be organized. 

I "won" a book press on ebay a couple of days ago.  I'm super pumped to get it.  It's a handmade wood press from Beech Hill Artisans in Maine.  It's brand new, has room to press many books at once, and looks beautiful.  I  have 3 books ready for it, and 13 that are really close.  Woo Hoo!  Hurry up, mailman!

Turtles

I decided to make turtles yesterday. I made A LOT of them.  I made these in high school with my friend Heather.  There is no homemade carmel involved, so they are easy-peasy.  I started with two pecans (the turtles feet???) , topped with 1/2 of a square carmel (the little ones in plastic wrapping), melted them at 350 degrees until they were a bit flattened but not bubbly, then cooled and dipped them in chocolate.  There is no almond bark on these turtles.  Half of them were dipped in Ghirardelli dark chocolate, the other half in Ghirardelli milk chocolate.  Delish.

The Tale of the Missing Bonefolder

Not long ago, Peter and I were throwing all sorts of things into our fire pit at the farm.  Moving day was approaching and all the junk in our house and in every other building had to go somewhere.   Clothes that had been demoted even from the status of "work clothes" were burning alongside some mothy magazines and a moldy drapery that had been hidden, fermenting,  in our basement.  These things were even too nasty for recycling.  Later, I was inside feeding the baby and thinking about filling up a few more boxes when Peter came through the door with his hand behind his back.

"Guess what I found," he asked.

"My bonefolder?" I replied after a thoughtful pause.  He handed me my bonefolder.  I have no idea how I guessed, since it had been lost for FIVE years.  It must have been in one of the boxes of vintage magazines that we had just burned.  He had found it amongst the smoldering ash.  

So here I am, a few months later, using my bonefolder again after a 4-years-of-farming hiatus.  It's great.  Bookmaking has always been looming in my life.  In college I was fascinated by it, and after college I've had little spells where I've made a stack of books and sold them at an art fair here and there, or at a gift shop once in awhile.  I have been missing all the precise little steps.  For those of you who don't know what a bonefolder is, it's a tool, made from a bone, that is used to fold paper and smooth out air bubbles in book making.  

The Next Chapter

Swirling Tree is a notebook of ideas, experiments and thoughts as I make a big transition in my life from farm to city and as a new mother.  Here goes!