Fig and Thistle

I’ll be deleting this blog on Sunday.  Please join me at http://figandthistle.blogspot.com and you can read my inane posts from 2008 on!  I’ve made the decision to not use a stats program on the new Fig and Thistle.  I’m going to try to write more for myself and my friends (in real life and the blogosphere) and try my best not to vie for attention.

I’m back at blogger now!  I revived The Blog Jar (my blog since 2008) and rechristened her Fig and Thistle.  I’m deleting the WordPress blog next week. 

Visit me at:  http://figandthistle.blogspot.com

Please update your reader/feeder/tracker thingies.

Holla!

My embroidered felt-flower wedding bouquet. I had fun making it!

I think I may love embroidery more than my yarn-crafts.  Although I will admit I’m smitten with knitting patterned dish cloths at the moment, my first love is floss, needle, and hoop.

There are many things to love about embroidery, but what I like most is the versatility.  Simple stitches… complex stitches… minimal colors and/or lines… tons of colors and/or designs… an exercise in one stitch or a palette of many stitches… plain fabric or print clothes…. Well, you get the picture.

a gift for some wedded love birds

I can remember vividly two stitching projects from my childhoods.  One was a blue, burlap cloth that I embroidered with Native American symbols for a school project (I can remember working rows of satin-stitched upside-down hearts) and a blue cloth sampler with my name and a few doodads (I remember loving stitched daisies at the time).  I have no idea why I put embroidery down sometime after the age of eleven, but I have a feeling it had to do with listening to Riot Grrrl Music, writing bad poems, and reading Sassy magazine and feeling like stitching (and baking too) were things that the Patriarchy used to Oppress me.  It didn’t matter that I loved it, by golly I had a righteous anger to maintain!

I still haven't finished this fruity tea towel; I've been working on it for over a year!

I picked embroidery back up after college when I found myself battling an awful episode of depression.  I was reading, but I had ceased writing for the time being; it just zapped the energy out of me.  Reading was great, but that’s an awful lot of intake.  I need to be producing something.  And there we have it… embroidery and to a lesser extent crocheting.  I stitched and stitched and stitched.  The first thing I made was a tea towel riddled with embroidered teapots and teacups for my mom.

Hankie for Dad

I’m a slow stitcher, so I don’t produce a lot.  For me it is more about the tranquility of the experience (well, most of the time it is tranquil, I do end up swearing a good bit) than the number of items made.

......flooooosssssss..........

Right now I’m working on an August stitch-along.  That’s right.  Here it is September and I’m still working on an August stitch-along and I’m nowhere near finished.  Oh well….

Basically I’m just learning/practicing different stitches using a vintage pillow case.  I think this might become a pillow or it will be placed in a hoop and hung on the wall.  We’ll see how things shake out.

Now I think I have an urge to play in some floss…. g’night!

Today is a short-post kinda of a day.  It is so AUTUMN out today.  I’ve been to JoAnne’s so I have new yarn and needles to play with and a stack of books and it is grey and rainy and cool.  In other words, I’m not feeling all bloggy today. In fact it is the perfect day to watch an episode or two of…

Let me start by saying that I’m not a “die hard” fan.  I love the show, but I’m certainly no expert.  What I must like about this vintage, dramatic, Gothic, campy soap is…. watching it with Hope.

Yup… my eleven-year-old daughter ADORES Dark Shadows.  We started at the beginning and we’re working our way through all the episodes (thanks, Netflix).  We haven’t even gotten to Barnabas yet.  Hope likes the creepiness and the melodramatic glances and — dear god — the lines.  It is also especially hilarious to watch her crack up over Caroline Stoddard’s dancing one minute and then curl up next to me on the couch the next minute in fear.

I’m looking forward to the forthcoming movie, but I must say I don’t picture Johnny Depp as Barnabas.

Alright.  That’s it for today.  Dark Shadows… love ‘em.

Coffee is so central to my life.  This may seem like a hyperbolic statement, but it truly isn’t.

As a child, my mother had an old-fashioned coffee percolator.  I remember helping my mom make coffee each morning and listening to the rhythmic-whoosh-suck-grind of the pot.   When we had guests I was in charge of brewing the coffee and offering a cup to each guest.  My coffee consumption consisted of Folgers with milk and sugar up until high school.

I lived in a rural, backasswards town, so I was never really involved in the coffee shop culture until college.  In high school I made maybe a half-dozen trips to the nearest coffee shop, which happened to be about 20 minutes away.

In college I dashed in and out of the local coffee shop (well, the three local shops) for the occasional cup of joe.  I came in for a medium cup of coffee or for a quick stop for scones with college friends and then it was back to campus.  I did consume massive amounts of not very good, hastily choked down coffee in college, but I wouldn’t have termed myself a coffee freak.

Graduating from college in 2004 was a pivotal moment in my coffee life.  I graduated and stayed in Gainesville to work and all my friends pretty much left or they were consumed with senior year.  I was so lonely.  I no longer had a place to discuss movies or books or politics. Then I found myself wandering to The Coffee Shop of Horrors.

I was (still am) an introvert so I never spoke to anyone at the Coffee Shop of Horrors.  Listening to the conversations around was great fun, but I mostly hunkered down in a seat and read my eyeballs out while consuming cup after cup of delicious brew.  During my time there (before they closed down around 2006ish) I noticed a very tall, handsome guy with a mohawk with an addiction to coffee, but I’ll reveal who he is later in the post.

When that coffee shop closed, I began going to Starbucks.  The other coffee shop in town had turned elitist and would kick readers out after 30 minutes.  At Starbucks, I began broadening my horizons.  Instead of a cup of coffee I had cappuccinos and lattes and espresso shots and cafe au laits.  I tried syrup shots and french pressed brews.  I began to develop my coffee palette. I tend to love light to medium roast coffees with a wee bit of sugar or milk, lattes with warmer notes (pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, french vanilla, hazelnut), and I figured out the best way to drink French Pressed coffee (very hot, very dark, and turned into a cafe au lait by adding a fair amount of hot, steamed milk).  Oh, and the tall, mohawked guy was there; I noticed him and he noticed me.

The tall mohawk-wearing guy is Sam.  And it is impossible to talk about my love of coffee and the significance of coffee shops in my life and not mention Sam.  Coffee (and then tattooing) brought us together.  I think we got to the point where we were both at the coffee shop so much we began to say hello and we didn’t even know each others’ name.  Then we started chatting over cup after cup of coffee.  In the space of a year we moved from running into each other at the coffee shop, to dear friends catching up at the coffee shop, to Sam Taking Me to the Coffee Shop in a date-like way.

A new coffee shop in walking distance to my home opened up the same month Sam and I began officially dating.  Hello, Inman Perk.  Now we had a locally-owned shop to go to.  Inman Perk further progressed my coffee nerdom.  I went from a customer to a Regular.  I’ve learned how to pull a good shot, a bit about roasting and blends, and I might smell like espresso most of the week.  I even worked the odd shift or two in the summer.

In the three years Sam and I have been together we’ve had birthday parties, baby showers, gatherings, wedding planning sessions, an adoption celebration, and nearly every date-day at Inman Perk.  After our wedding we went to Inman Perk for coffee.  I think that part of the reason why Sam and I work so well together is that we like the same elements of coffee shop life:  great conversation or solace with company.  We can sit around with our lattes and chat with friends for hours or we sit next to each other with our solitary pursuits (me – reading, Sam — drawing) and we are perfectly content.

Now I know why an alcoholic shouldn’t marry another alcoholic; Sam and I increase coffee consumption in each other.  Every trip we take features time spent in a coffee shop.  We compare the atmosphere and the coffee to coffee shops we’ve known in the past.  In fact, we drank so much coffee on our honeymoon I thought I’d be sick.

Coffee shops are unique places, I can’t compare the atmosphere to any other social gathering place.  I have a little espresso machine and a coffee maker and I can buy Inman Perk coffee, so why do I go to the coffee shop?  It isn’t just for the coffee, but for the companionship, the great places to read, and generally atmosphere that feels home like to quirky folks like myself.  But if you take the coffee away, I probably wouldn’t go.  It has to be that perfect marriage of coffee-deliciousness and coffee shop loafing.

By the way, I had intended on posting this earlier in the afternoon, but I didn’t get around to it…. because I was at the coffee shop.

EDIT: Silly me!  I forgot to tell everyone to click on the pictures to access the recipes.  Blogger fail!

There are many reasons why I love baking; partly it ties into the joy I get from making things with my own hands.  Partly it is all the textures and smells.  And of course, the deliciousness of it all.  But mostly I love baking because it makes everyone happy.  Sure, folks enjoy a meal, but present someone with a warm loaf of bread, a tray of cookies, or a delectable cupcake and the effusive love you get in return is priceless.

Here are a few of my most favorite baked goods:

Pumpkin Scones

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

Giant Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Orange Spice Scones

Okay…. now I have the urge to bake something!  LOL!

Back in April I saw somewhere on the blogosphere an “alphabet” challenge.  Basically folks blogged a topic for each letter of the alphabet, Monday-Saturday, through the month of April.  I thought it sounded interesting.

I’ve recently felt a bit lackluster about blogging and so I thought I’d try this alphabet challenge through the month of September.  So as long as the babies aren’t sick and the computer stays alive I should be blogging most of the week.  I also decided that I would make this a very positive blog experience; the each letter of the alphabet will reflect something I like.  This means no P is for Palin or F is for flooded library or J is for Justin Beiber.

Let’s get started.

A is for Autumn

Autumn is my favorite time of year with Winter as a close second.  Autumn is a strange bird in Georgia; it may come early, or late, and — sometimes — not at all.  Today is September first which in my brain signals the start of Fall.  The temperature may be up in the 80′s, but things feel more autumnal.  This morning I woke up and looked out my window.  A grey day, drizzle, strewn leaves, and a quick crisp breeze jingling wind chimes.  Yup… Autumn is certainly on her way to Georgia.

But why do I love Autumn so?  Well, I present to you my top reasons for loving Autumn:

Weather:  I hate hate hate summer.  It is so blasted hot and humid.  I love the cooler temperatures that allows me to…
…Wear cardigans:  it may be because I’m a library girl, but I adore a cardigan especially when paired with textured tights, a skirt, and something I’ve made with…
…Yarn:  Yes, I knit and crochet year round.  But being indoors on an early evening with a cat curled up beside me and a pile of yarn to work with is delightful.  It is one of my favorite quiet evening pursuits along with…
…Reading:  Of course I read everyday, but Autumn reading is something different.  Out come the thick classics, ghoulish short story collections, and frightening books.  On the weekends I find myself with a large stack of books and an equally large mug of …
…Something hot to drink.  Pumpkin spice lattes, pots of Earl Grey, warm milk, or a peppery chai accompany me on my reading binges.  The cooler weather begs for the warmth of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.  The spices also show up in my …
…Baking:  maple scones, pumpkin bread, ginger infused cakes, or just plain loaves of home made bread turned to cinnamon toast scent my kitchen with the essence of autumn.  Of course all of this baking means more…
…Walking: Walking for exercise and pleasure.  This summer it has been too hot to take Atticus on long walks.  Now I envision donning him in tiny nerd cardigans and taking him on long walks to look at Autumn leaves.  Autumn leaves have the most amazing…
…Colors:  orange, brown, rust, yellow, and deep purples scattered with hints of green make up my autumn palette.  Gone are the garish, bright colors of summer and in with the warm, comforting colors of Autumn.

Helloooooo, Autumn!