Woody Artichokes

I always feel so guilty when I let my veggies go bad, so just before they go totally south I eat a ton all at once so I don’t have to throw them away. I’m making artichokes for the first time for dinner, I think they might be a little old, but I’m going to eat them anyway. It’s my fault they are old and so if they taste woody, well, I’ll just have to suck it up. I found a deal on how to prep them to eat here. It’s a pretty good site so I added it to my rss feeds.

Edited in later after dinner:

It was delicious! I made a lemon butter sauce to dip the “leaves” in. The bulgar wheat turned out really well too. I used about 1 1/2 c. water, a teaspoon better than boullion veggie stock stuff, 2 cloves garlic chopped up, salt and pepper, and a handful parsley. Oh and a squeeze of lemon. I’m going to make it a whole bunch. It’s quick and easy and nice with any veggies.

I have to admit I have been sucking on the food front. Eating out too much, eating crap too much at home. No more. I’m finally coming out from under the shadow of senior project junk.
So first steps to regaining my sanity and health?
-eat better, more home cooked veggies and grains and deliciousness. Keep plenty on stock to take to work and the studio with me, and for healthy snacks when I get cravings (like eating a half of can at pringles at 9pm like I just did)
-clean my apartment - this always makes me feel a whole lot better.
-stay on top of my studio work because I’m actually on top of things right now.

I actually ate a good dinner tonight, with great leftovers for tomorrow. And I started cleaning up by tackling the ferret cage, not just cleaning the litter box, but scrubbing down all of it. So wonderful! Tomorrow I’m going to head to the studio and weave, ah, finally, I get to focus on my weaving. Then go to the ceramics room and glaze the rest of my bowls.

Then I’m going to help my friend Carolyn set up her Etsy shop! Hooray! Finally! I’ll post a review of her stuff once we get it up! Her perfectionist tendencies are shiny and wonderful from a customer standpoint because you know everything she will be selling will be shiny and wonderful and yummy and perfect.

________
Okay, so it’s actually the next day! I never finished the post and I am just going to pick up where I left off and finish it up quick like.
________

So I did go to Carolyn’s and help her to set up her shop, take photos of her wears, and made a banner for her. I think it turned out really well if I do say so myself! You should check it out here.

Speaking of Carolyn, she made me this awesome stitch marker to match my sock that I’m knitting. Now I was really worried because I thought this sock was going to look like some kind of tie dye job gone wrong, well, as it turns out, it’s self striping! Holy crap! I didn’t measure it out or anything, it was a total surprise. I have another skein of it in the shop if anyone is interested.

And that is all for tonight, I will see you all tomorrow with update pictures of the On Finishing project!

++ Kristin Roach ++

Thinking of a star trek quote that I can’t quite remember

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Originally uploaded by Kristin Roach

Well there it is I suppose. A nonsense quote from a scene on the holideck. Some how it’s been running through my head, but I can’t quite hear the proper words. I want to say “the further, the farther” but that’s just not quite right.

Anyway, doesn’t matter. Today was just one of those wonderful days where everything I attempted didn’t work out and I was completely unproductive and somehow completely okay and even happy with that.

I went in to see the adviser, she wasn’t there (just this one day too, if I would have gone the day before she would have been, if I could go there tomorrow she will be there). I need to make sure everything is square for graduation. Then I went to get my pots after they had been fired and glaze them, they weren’t out of the kiln yet. Then I went to work on metals, my plastics that I poured this morning didn’t pour right. So by 11 am I had enough, went to the Thai Pavilion, drank a pot of tea and just relaxed. Then went and met up with Carole (the visiting artist at school today), listened to her talk, then we all went (unknown to me that this would happen) back to the Thai Pavilion for more tea for me, lunch for them, and then knit in the window for an hour with her. Then we walked back to the school for the reception for the Fiber’s show, then class. I got a migraine, didn’t get anything done in class because I felt like I was going to puke, then finally snapped out of it, got through a demo.

Then I let the wind take me and helped take a rack off of a car, chatted with my professor and some grads. Then walked my bike home while talking to Jason.

It was a good day. Maybe unproductive, I could have done without the migraine, but good all the same.

I’ll be more specific about some stuff when I know more about it. I’ll also post pictures of lunch and whatnot. I’m too tired right now to get the photos off my camera and upload them, so here is a shot of the show being ready to be hung.

Until tomorrow!

Kristin

Unexpected Brightening of the Day

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Originally uploaded by Kristin Roach

Sunday I was heading into the ceramics room to work on the last of the wheel thrown work, trimming and decorating, the final step. I was feeling kind of overwhelmed still and I hating coming in to work in the basement of the art building on such a wonderful sunny day. I heard some music… “who is playing their music so d*** loud, stupid college students, grr grr grr” I thought.

Then I got closer and closer to the art building and then there, right in front of the door that lead to the ceramics room was a full group calypso playing kiddos! They ranged from the little girl there to about 17, plus one guy who I’m guessing was a music major at NIU. It was so refreshing and good and appropriate for the sunny day. I stopped and took pictures and listened to 3 songs. I could have stayed for the whole event, but work finally pulled me away.

It was so sweet, so nice, so full of energy. All of the drummers were working unison, I could believe how good they sounded considering how young they all were. Lovely!

Maybe not exactly stopping to smell the roses, but pretty much the same idea.

See you all again soon!

Kristin

Traveling Midwest

For the longest time now I have wanted to get out of the midwest, it seemed like such a dull uninspired place… then I realized that I was the dull uninspired person. Once I changed my attitude, it was like everything around me was transformed. Everything was interesting. Then I had another realization, a lot of people are still looking at their surroundings like I used to. With the Traveling Midwest series of paintings, I want the viewer to see how I see and feel about things how I feel about them. Like the 4.5 hour drive from mid Illinois to mid Iowa I do about once every 6 weeks to see Jason, most people’s first reaction is “Oh my, I’m sorry, that is so boring of a drive”. Well, it all depends on how you see things. That is where the inspiration for these first paintings came from, specifically driving in the midwest. A lot of the pictures that I took were while I was a passenger in a car driving around in the midwest, or a driver.

That was the official part of my senior project. I also am in the Fiber’s department show and in the group bfa show at the Olsen gallery. Oh and the performance is also part of my “senior project”. It’s been a lot of fun. I really feel set to get out into the world and start showing in more galleries and hopefully get into some residencies.

The BFA show was this past Friday and it was a smash. Good music, pretty good art for the most part, and good food. We even had a rootbeer keg and ice cream so everyone had root beer floats to their heart’s content. Yummy yum yum. As I said to some friends earlier, I’m sure I’m bias, but it was the most fun I’ve had at a BFA show in my last three years of going to shows here. We were serious about the work, but when it came to the closing reception, we had a good ol’ time just hanging out and getting sentimental about the future. Good times.

Here is an updated photo of the installation:

I have been taking photos everyday I knit on it to show the growth of the objects. I actually did 22 rows on my lace scarf today, so I was pretty proud of that.

On another note, I joined up with a local s n’ b group and we met up at the bar, drank, knit, and had a good ol’ time there too. Carolyn and I walked there together, Mary joined later, and then we all walked home to my place together and just sat around knitting and chatting until about 11pm, then I hit the hay hard again. Another 9+ hours of sleep. Ah, so nice.

Well, I need to head off to class. Metals, then I’ll have to stay in my studio for a bit to make some paper, then maybe ceramics. I still need to pull that one handle, which I’m being very unsuccessful at. I’ll get it eventually!

Until Tomorrow!
Kristin

ps - clm is in the shop, so make sure to check that out!

On Finishing

So what is On Finishing about? Well, two things mainly. The public meaning has a lot to do with demonstrating the act of knitting and bringing awareness to the length of time. I want the viewer experience the process of knitting by allowing them to see the growth and completion of the different items.

It kind of came out of experiences I have had at the yarn shop. To sum up over and over again I hear similar stories of friends and relatives just thinking that knitting a lace blanket with a 20 row lace chart on size 2 needles and yarn that looks like thread is no big deal. I want to show people the duration of knitting and crochet as well as the act itself.

The other side is of a more personal nature. I learned to knit 3 years ago when i moved to DeKalb. I really just wanted an excuse to join a group, the knitting group, and get some social hours. I fell in love. I learned to crochet and sew shortly there after, have started Craft Leftovers, been in a handmade market, spoke at a conference, then green prairie fibers happened, and now possibly being published in a book as a guest designer, and my first tutorial in a magazine this fall. And all from just tapping into those crafty genes I have by learning to knit. Well, now I’m moving away from dekalb, and after three years I have a pile of unfinished projects. I want to bring this chapter to a close, declutter my stash, finish what needs finishing, and move on the next exciting round of things. So that is where the title comes from.

It’s week two and have yet to finish anything, but I’m now close to finishing a scarf and a baby blanket and getting closer to finishing the other items all the time. It’s exciting to see their growth.

The response has been very positive. Many happy waves and while I’m working in the shop, not in the window, I hear a lot of people walking by saying “oh did you see the girl knitting? that is just so neat, I hope I see her again. How nice.” Some people advert their eyes though like I’m doing something obscene in there, which is funny. I notice older women seem to like it the most, younger woman are curious and a few have even been inspired to come and learn how to knit. I even have some guy friends who want me to teach them how to knit after I have told them about the project.

This week it will be corresponding with the fiber departments Thread Bender’s Union Show at the school. We have a gallery packed with current works. I actually have a piece there too. I’ll take some pictures and post those. A friend of mine, Carole (aka Frau Fiber) is coming down for the opening to give a talk on her work, look at some grad students’ work, knit in the window with me, and go to the reception. The reception is Wednesday, April 23rd from 4-6ish. There will be food and me and if you are in the area, come on by! It will be a fun time for sure!

Oh and after just getting the On Finishing installation up, I was interviewed by a reporter from the local newspaper! You can see the article here.

I have so much more to share with you all, but I think that is quite a bit for one post already. I’ll try to post again tomorrow.

See you all soon!
Kristin

ps - the show was a smash, you can check out my flickr page for all the new photos, I’m going to be posting about a lot of them in the upcoming days too.

Going Car Free

For the longest time I have a had a love hate relationship with my car… well mostly hate. Traffic and bills and now gas. Sure I like being able to haul stuff around and go places with ease, but at the same time, I don’t like driving at all and love riding and walking more, even in the worst of weather.

As long as you have proper gear on, riding in the winter, except in extreme icy conditions, is no harder than riding in the midst of summer heat. Believe it or not, but the winter before last I rode my bike up into February and it was really only with the hassle from friends (yeah, I caved to peer pressure) that I started driving. You know the routine, “you look so cold” “It’s freezing out” “you are going to get so sick” “your face is red”. Granted there were some days I felt like my ears were going to fall off, but that was more from my own stupidity of not getting the proper head coverage. As much as I love my hand knit stuff, there is nothing like microfiber head coverings for going under a helmet. So I’m already planning my winter attack, as well as my summer. I found a great site called IceBike, that is all about riding in the winter through the book “How to Live Well Without Owning a Car”.

I’m going to try going car free this summer when I move to Ames and see how I do. It will be a month long trial and in that month I will plan out for winter cold emergencies as well as job routes, social events, and errands. At the end of the month, if I make it without a car, I will sell mine. This has a two fold purpose. One I will instantly get some money to shove into savings for another two months worth of not having to find a job (I have enough for about two months now) and two will lead me to much future financial savings. Plus, Jason will still have his car, so in a pinch he has agreed to let me borrow that for trips out of town. He pretty much doesn’t use his car anyway except in deep winter because he has a motorcycle. At 50 mpg, it’s much more efficient for him to get around town in. He is trying to get me to get a bike to and I have to admit, that 2008 Ninja 250cc looks pretty sexy, but for now, a bicycle is where my heart is.

This leads me to my picture deluge: Bike Trailers! Oh what a fabulous thing that I didn’t even know existed! I mean I did, I just hadn’t given them much thought.

This one is really neat from Wike, but at $500, just not in the budget, but wow wee! how great for trekking around town and to the community garden, not to mention in the home garden because you can get wheels for it and use it as a garden cart!

I’ve given some thought to this type of trailer, but I would really like something that has sides to it.

I saw this one today at my local bike shop and I really think it might be the thing IF I decide to buy one.

While looking around for trailers, I found this guy’s site that shows how he built his own. I’m starting to think that might be the ticket for me!

And then I found this guy, who is in the process of building a bike camper trailer, how sweet!

He’s like a Leonardo De Vinci with bike construction, amazing!

And then looking more on flickr, I came across this group. It’s a collection of pictures of bikes with trailers!

So I think with a little patients, I could build my own. I have a pretty good wood working as well as metal working skills. A basic metal frame, but with wood sides, like a little wagon trailer. I can solder and weld so I think I won’t have any issues.

The other thing I learned about today was the Ragrai ride across iowa, from river to river on each border. I missed the deadline for this year’s sign up, but i’m going to train for next year. It’s a relaxed pace 471 mile ride over the course of 7 days. You camp out every night in tents and ride all day. Sounds great! It would be something to look forward to and work towards. I know I can do 20-30 miles no problem, so I will hopefully be doing 50 by the end of the summer, daily commuting in the winter, and then work up to 100 miles a day. Like going to des moines and back from Ames. I think it would be pretty neat to ride all the way to the qc from ames and just camp out on the way there, make it like a three day ride there and three day ride back.

Better my Life campaign - Laundry!

In other news as part of bettering my life campaign I’m starting to slowly go through the process of replacing all my cleaning supplies with more natural eco friendly solutions, whether is be vinegar and baking soda (the best cleaner of all time) or Ecover, which has become my favorite cleaning product hands down. I’ve tried a few different types over the last year and felt they were replacing chemicals with chemicals derived from citrus (which as it turns out I’m highly allergic too, restricted breathing, hives, the whole nine yards. Just say no to citrus solvents, yuck!). Anyway, Ecover is really great, there bottles are 100% recyclable, even the lid, and their site is so fancy, you can just click on the part of your house you want to clean and it will show you their products for the problem area. So nice. Plus my local coop sells it, so I’m supporting a clean living environment, a environmentally friendly product, and my local businesses. It’s a win win. Also, it smells nice.

I have been trying to plow through all of my laundry today, which has been accumulating for the last, oh, well, since the beginning of the semester…. yikes! I work at a consignment shop and it has been very easy for me to amass a mass of clothes over the last two years. First step was I went through all my clean clothing and got rid of two bags worth, one to Encore (the consignment shop) and one to the Salvation Army. Now as I’m washing all my dirty clothing I’m making a conscious decision of what will go back into my closet. This is what I’ve been asking myself:
Does it fit - this is a big one for me, I’m always buying too big of clothing.
Is it cute or do I just wear it when everything else is dirty?
Is it stained, ripped, ugly?

And then if it does fit, it is cute, and isn’t stained (to studio clothing this doesn’t apply) then it gets to stay. Otherwise, it’s out you go.

I also went though my coat closet today and got rid of about 10 pairs of ratty shoes I was too emotionally attached to. The time is now to get them out of here. I also re went though my bedroom closet and got rid of 6 more shirts.

Let me tell you. It feels reallly good to purge unnecessary things.

So back to Ecover, I finally used up the last of my laundry detergent and comet (for counters, sinks, toilets and the like), so I hoped on over Duck Soup Coop and picked up the Ecover laundry detergent and soft scrub. It set me back a bit, but it’s completely worth it. I am pretty sensitive to chemicals and my ferrets even more so. It makes me feel good that I’m not giving them or myself cancer just by cleaning. Going back to the comment of it smelling nice, I really don’t like the smell of laundry detergent, but Ecover has a wonderfully crisp but mild scent of tea tree and rosemary. Lovely! I’m excited about doing laundry, crazy!

One strategy that I have decided to employ in order to keep my laundry under control is to only have three one load size laundry baskets. Once one is full I’ll pop them into the wash. The thing is that I sort my clothes by three things:

Clothing for the dryer.
Clothing to hang to dry - whites
Clothing to hang to dry - colors

Hopefully this will help me stay on top of it and not let it get out of control again.

So that is that for today!

Have a good time until the next time!

Kristin

Cookbook Give Away Winner!

I’m finally getting back on the ball here! The winner of the last book give away contest was Sheila who said:

“my favourite healthy dessert would have to be granola with mangoe and natural yoghourt! Looking forward to my first craft leftovers!”

That sounds really good to me! There were a lot of really great healthy dessert ideas thrown around, here is a round up of them:

I am going to have to think a little bit about which book(s) to offer up next, so be watching for it!

In other stuff, I’m doing well and I’m plowing through all my projects! Hooray! I’m taking my camera with me to the studio today, so I’ll have some pictures to post soon.

Best wishes everyone!
Kristin

Is it Spring Yet?

Lately life has been a stressful pile of you know what, but it’s all for the good in some kind of cosmosis of building character way. I could deal with less character building and more drinking tea and knitting.These last couple of weeks have really been difficult for me, starting with the changing of my BFA show date one week before we were due to hang it. Since then I have been trudging through life, just trying to get things done. It was such a huge relief really, even though at the time it cause a large amount of stress, to have that deadline pushed back. Hopefully after this week, 4 projects due all around the same time, things will become a bit more calmed down. I will still be spending my time in the studio finishing paintings and planning the show on April 18th though. Not to mention making some 30 lb of junkmail into sheets of paper for an instillation in the Olsen gallery. Oh and don’t forget, next Monday I’m installing and starting the performances at the Yarn Exchange. So as you can see, even with the elimination of this week’s deadlines, even more comes looming up for the next week.

And that leads me to the announcement I just made on Craft Leftovers. I will no longer be attempting to write patterns every week. I will be blogging about living your life creatively and resourcefully; sharing what I have learned for myself and what I have found elsewhere. Sprinkled with a good dose of craft projects and artist/crafters that I value. I think that’s a much more manageable approach. CLM will still be on schedule and what not though, so don’t worry about that. The next issue will actually be going into the shop April 20th.

I’m kind of excited about the focus shift off of me on craft leftovers. I think that even after I move I will keep up these posts as well as free patterns that I write sprinkled in. It will be good.

And all that leads me to something else, flipping out about the show date changing. Here is the story of how my life has changed in the past two weeks:

I found out that my show had changed by exchanging cards and another girl in my class saying “Your show is when? I’m supposed to have that week to set up for my show.” Oh no. We both do a freak out and long story short, my friend and I are BFA students and she is a MFA student, so our show was moved, with no definite reschedule date. In the next hour I proceeded to lock my keys in my car, loose my lady moss mitten (on the way in to the store to call the cops to have them unlock said car), and, in a very funny pathetic way, eat fried potatoes from the deli with one mitten on and crying while waiting for the police to come. It was a sad point, but I think it’s pretty hilarious now. I mean, I was standing in the rain with one mitten on, eating potatoes and crying, what a site I was!

The next days I was hit with every emotion and lashed out at everything around me. Even after the show issue was resolved I was in some kind of crazed emotional mush. It hit me, I’m not sure when the exact point was, that it really wasn’t the show, or my keys, or falling out of my bed and hurting my neck, or slamming my thumb in a cabinet (yeah, more of that same day) that was making me really crazy (sure annoying and stressful, but I was loosing it), it was the lack of me taking care of myself.

So I have been re-evaluating and trying to take care of myself. What have I been doing? Well for starters, no more vending machine food, no more lattes or coffee period (except decaf, yes I know it has caffeine in it, but it’s moderate), I am on my forth week of baking all of my own bread and hope to start making my own pasta too, regular laundry days, and scheduled in reading time. Also, making sure to get at least 7.5 hours of sleep every night. Oh and doing my dishes twice a day and spending 20 mins a day cleaning up.

It has completely improved my mood. I’m happy to say that I’m almost finished with my first book. It’s called Simple Prosperity and when I get done with it I want to write up a full review. To say the least it has completely changed the way I look at other people, community, consumerism, and re-enforced what I already knew about gardening and being content with less. Retail therapy is just straight out the window and I am now more aware of what makes me, as a human, happy. What a great book!

I have ticked 2 major projects off my list by making to-do lists each day for just that day instead of the whole week and with the help of good friends. It feels manageable. I just write down 10 small things I want to do that will take under an hour or two to complete all together and no more than 3 major projects to work on. I read about it I’m not sure where, but through Keri writing about being mindful, something I too have been trying to do for last year. She writes states it all so nicely, so I’ll just ditto what she said. Thank you Keri for sharing.

I’m hoping to put together a series of smaller posts about what I am doing and attempting to do in my effort to be more mindful. I am going to try to start posting twice a week. It keeps going for two long and I seriously miss you all.

Now on to something kind of fun. Here are some of the panel pieces I’m working on for my show. Each panel is about 30″ x 30″.

And a sweater vest thingy I’m working on:

Well, I need to get to that said studio and keep working on those three big projects for the day. Talk to you all later!

cookbook give-a-way

cookbook give-a-way

Originally uploaded by Kristin Roach

So it’s a day late, but if that’s okay with you, i’m okay too!

I’m going through my cookbooks this week and have a stack to send off to new homes. They are all pretty good, but for some reason or the other, I just haven’t made one dang recipe from any of them. I guess that’s my rule. If I have something over a year and haven’t used it, it needs to go.

This week’s give away is for two health conscious cook books. One from the American Heart Association and the other is a Flip Book for Cooks. They both have all the nutrition information and serving sizes. Good stuff.

So this week’s question:
What is your favorite healthy, guilt free dessert?

Please leave a comment with your answer to be added to the drawing for the books. Make sure to enter your correct email when you comment so I can get in contact with you when you win

And it’s not the second week of the month and I’m going ahead with a give away. I’ve decided to start doing a book give away every week until the move in an effort to debook my library. So around the midweek (wed or thurs) I’ll post the winner and the new question for the week

I’m doing the same thing over on Craft Leftovers, but with craft supplies. It’s a mailing list contest though, so you have to sign up for the mailing list to get the craft trivia questions.

See you all later!

rt 23

rt 23

Originally uploaded by Kristin Roach

My friend that I went shooting with last night.