The Black-capped Chickadee

The black-capped chickadee — a staple of the backyard. All year round, this beautiful little bird visits the feeder and flits in an out of the trees in our yard.

Last week, I took a walk in the Saratoga Spa State Park. Not a lot of birds around, but in no time, the chickadee appeared. I saw him first on a tree branch, and soon he was hopping about on the ground. I approached slowly and got within about five feet of him. He went about his business and let me take pictures of him. Such a pretty little bird.

Dreary Day = Make Bread!

Yesterday, I mixed together the ingredients for a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread using the recipe from Jim Lahey's book My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method.

After rising overnight (18 hours total), this no-knead bread was baked for about 45 minutes in a very hot oven. Here is the result:

The bread is going to rug hooking class on Tuesday at Julie Smith's house. Someone else is bringing soup to go with it. Hope it's good!!

Fiber Bowl

A few weeks ago, I got together with some fiber artists to construct a bowl made of all kinds of fiber: fleece, ribbon, cotton quilting fabric, angelina, silk, etc.

We laid our fiber out on a product called Badgemaster (a water soluble glue) in a few layers, and then pinned water soluble interfacing on top. Once the fibers were secured between the Badgemaster and the interfacing, the whole thing was machine quilted and pins removed.

Here is the interfacing side of the fiber sandwich.

This side shows the badgemaster side. You can see the quilting lines of thread.

At this point the "sandwich" was immersed in water for about 20 seconds. All that is left is the fiber and the glue. It was then formed over an upside down bowl. To make the bottom base, I used a round English Muffin cutter and secured a rubber band around it. From there, you have to wait about 24 hours.

These two photos show the fiber bowl after it was laid over the bowl to set.

And here is the finished product!