New Creations

I finished the rug!

It has its flaws, partly because it's the first one I've done and partly because I just didn't care enough to try to make it perfect. It's at home now on the bathroom floor, and I am simply not of the opinion that things that belong on the bathroom floor have any reason to be perfect. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how it came out and definitely pleased that I made it myself, and in two days, no less!
The creative ability God gave people is amazing. I'm far from what you would normally call a "creative person." I can't draw or paint well, I don't sew well, I don't have fabulous design sense, my decorated cakes never fail to be ugly, I couldn't write a decent story to save my life, and I'm not even great at my passion, knitting. But I'm coming to realize that I don't need special talent to create things. I may not have talent, but I do have ability. I am capable of creating things that I find beautiful, or useful, or unique, or thrifty, or some other valuable quality. I can recognize that when I don't have extra money, and I don't have a bathroom rug, but I do have some scrap cloth, I can make my own rug. Or I want some winter wear to keep me extra-warm, and the stores don't sell what I want - I can make a wool hat, mittens, even a sweater, with exactly the material and appearance I want. I love even more that when I create something, it's like a little tiny version of what God did and does as the Creator. I love that He made His creation creative.


A little cooking note - I made red beans and rice for the first time ever tonight, at Steven's request. They turned out surprisingly good. Here's the recipe-ish thing I used (really a compilation and paring down of recipes from the internet).

Soak 1/2 dry red beans all day, then boil those for about an hour, then drain and add fresh water. In the meantime, sauté 3 celery ribs and some chopped onion (maybe 1/2 cup) in 1 tbs. butter. Add that to the beans, along with 1/2 pound smoked sausage, a bay leaf, a little Worcestershire sauce, and a few shakes of Tony's seasoning. Cook 1/2 c. (dry) brown rice separately. In an hour and a half or so, enjoy!

Something old, new, borrowed and blue

That has nothing to do with a wedding.

I'm trying out a new craft. A month or so ago, I got an impulse to make a braided rug. I really can't remember what made me think of such; I've never even known someone who made one. I looked up a bunch of tutorials on the internet. When Steven gathered up some old clothes he was ready to throw out, I cut them up into long strips. I put it all in a bag and brought it with me to the new place, and finally today I got it out and start working on my braid.

I tied a loop to that closet doorknob to hold the braid steady until it got long enough to weigh itself down, and sat in the corner and braided, attached new strips of fabric as needed using a method I saw once on a blog that I can no longer locate. The fabric is all from old jeans and tshirts. The idea is that the center of the rug will be white, spiraling out to light blue, then dark blue. I'm finding that the jersey knit from the tshirts handles much more neatly than the denim, not that that's a big surprise. After a while, I sewed up the beginning end, cut off the extra fabric, and wound up what I had done so far to see how big a rug I had. Here's what that looked like:

I kind of wish I had started coiling it sooner - I would have done more of the light blue, because it's not as big yet as I want it to be. It will work out fine to have a larger dark band, though. I'll probably also try it out as an oval shape before sewing it up, to make sure I wouldn't  rather have it that way. I plan to put the rug in front of my bathroom sink. I just love making things, and it's especially neat to take stuff that was headed for the landfill and create something attractive and practical out of it.

Umm...Hi.

Okay, well, this blogging thing hasn't worked out like I had in mind. Namely, I had actual blogging in mind, and it hasn't worked out in that I haven't done it.  In brief, here are some things I meant to cover in the recent non-existent posts. 

Post 1: Steven and I had some people over a couple of weeks before moving. I made a cake for the occasion. It became, through a series of poor choices, accidents, and general misfortune, the ugliest cake I've ever made. 

Seriously, it was bad. And if that doesn't convey the full horribleness of the cake, then know that it was not intended to be a bundt cake. It was flat; the middle didn't get done, and I scraped it out and covered it with icing. Too much icing, producing the "ant farm" look seen here:

On the bright side, everyone liked the sprinkles and enjoyed the moistness of the cake. I think "moist" does sound much better than "undercooked."

Post 2: We moved from here

With all of this

To Fayetteville. I don't have a picture for that yet. Also, that "upstairs fragile" label was not ours. We don't have an upstairs, but we did have a lot of boxes leftover from someone else's move. We were completely unpacked within a few days, and we're very comfortable here. We've spent time with a couple of old friends, made some new friends through visiting different churches, and learned our way around, at least to the main places we have any need to reach. Now we're mostly just looking forward to the start of school and our time as graduate students. At least, I think I'm looking forward to it...

Post 3:

I've been knitting a little. I've been working on this scarf/shawl, using the pattern Gabriel's Wings. 

I've been adjusting the width of the stockinette and garter bands as I go to suit my taste. I rather like the way it looks with the stockinette bands getting wider with every repeat. So far I've only narrowed the garter to three ridges, but I may bring it down to 2 as I get closer to the end. 

Post 4: I went to the Farmer's Market yesterday. It was very different than Searcy's, in that it was much bigger with a wide range of people. The best way I can put it is that it didn't feel like I was in Arkansas anymore. I bought some corn, purple-hull peas, and potatoes, and supplemented those with grocery store carrots, celery, onion, and vegetable broth, and made a really delicious vegetable soup. I love a good hearty soup, even in the summer. I also love it when I manage to pull off a good meal where all the vegetables are properly done, not crunchy or mushy, the cornbread is golden and just right, and it's all on the table by six o'clock. It seems to happen so rarely that it's a big thrill when it does. 

And returning to my current post. I'm trying to focus my attention this evening on re-learning the International Phonetic Alphabet. I expect to be tested on it at either orientation or the first day of classes, and I also expect that doing poorly on that test will require me to retake a class on phonetics. I do not want to do that, so here I am, studying before school even starts. Ah well. At least it gives me a focus for the last few days of summer - I'd probably be a little down if I didn't know what I needed to be getting done.