Beauty break, and reading

Here's a quilted piece I'm showing you with the permission of the maker, on Spoutible,  because it's a great handling of color and color progression

Just enjoy it! I could talk color theory but let's not. Just let it work on you. She's a gifted artist in quilting, and I thank her for permission to show you.

Friday morning I spent more time than I expected to on the Yeung Man Cooking recipe, 30 minute curried lentils.

 Here's the cast of characters, with substitutions. No red chili oil, so I used the same quantity of that fiery Indian condiment Gary's neighbor sent recently, no coconut cream, so I used Greek yogurt. No spinach so I omitted it. No basmati rice so I used brown.

No red lentils, so I used brown. None of it mattered, because it's strongly seasoned and  came out well.

It's a great meal but you really have to be in the mood for all the stages. Even I, usually dauntless, was a bit daunted once under way with baking the tofu, rinsing and cooking the rice, rinsing the lentils, dicing onions and mincing the garlic and hot pepper, and toasting the seeds.  Yes, did I mention crushing the cardamom pods..

I also served it differently, with the curried mixture over the rice instead of beside it.

I definitely like his idea of adding crushed cardamom pods to the rice. Very aromatic,and they come to the surface, so you can easily find and remove them.

Anyway this was good, despite many stages, and I'll do it again. Meanwhile this is enough for several meals. I like knowing I have dinner ready before I even get up in the morning.

I'm reading several books at once now and this one has eclipsed the others

It's a wonderfully written journey, head to toe, of the landscape of the human body, by a medical practitioner in several fields who is also conversant with the history of medical practice.

When I was studying life drawing I often thought that the human body was like a landscape, with hills, valleys, folds and intersections. This book reminds me very much of that experience. He's respectful of patients as well as of the mechanisms of the organs.  

One of his most stunning chapters is about the eye and how it processes light traveling across the universe in nano seconds to illuminate what we're reading.

Pretty good, but less exciting, is

A recommendation from Susan Hill as being in the style of Barbara Pym. Older widowed woman, living in a hotel happily, helping sort out, or interfere in, the lives of younger family members and a former lover. 

 It's okay, mild enough, but no resemblance to the piercing intelligence of Pym.  I don't think Hill has grasped the point of Pym. I shouldn't be surprised, since she doesn't get Austen either. 

She seems to read to find out what happens, when that's the least of your concerns with Austen or Pym. She does grasp Anita Brookner, but then Brookner's more evident, a wonderful writer, painting a clearer image of a world, and without the irony I love in Pym and Austen.

I don't think Pym and Austen are alike, just that they provoke work from the reader, as a participant, not as a passenger.

I just finished yet another reading of 

the first Heyer I ever read, as a teen, recommended by our history teacher! She was interested in the eighteenth century historical accuracy of Heyer's depiction of  France and England, and we were interested in the romance angle.

Waiting at the library are 

and 

Both are Hill recommendations or at least mentioned warmly in her year of reading book. The second is a volume of the Cazalet Chronicles which I read and loved years ago online and I think I'd like to revisit it as a paper book.

Susan Hill gave me a few good ideas, despite my carping.

Friday morning I Signed The Heatpump Contract. The Rubicon is firmly behind me, along with the contents of my wallet.

Happy day, everyone, and remember, when you're sighing about floating apostrophes, "would of" and damages being mixed up with damage

Great artist reunion, complete with portrait

Today was a long and lovely lunch meeting with old friends, all artists, and we plan on not letting it go so long again.  Hoping for monthly meetings, complete with show and tell.  Last year the west coaster was in the East and I missed that lunch through very bad timing with about of strep.  We also may need a name! we're what remains of a large artisans guild, way back, and someone suggested Remnants!  as in fabric, several of us being quilters, I add quickly.

Today I asked the favor of having everyone there, one of the six unavoidably unable to get there, put out her hands for a group portrait.  

This is so much more meaningful than smiling faces, nice as they are.  One pair of hands wielded the camera, hence the number doesn't add up!  What does add up, fast, is the combined ages of the participants, but never mind what it is!

These are the hands of women who know a thing or two, and have created wonderful artworks, designing and creating knitted marvels, quilts, crochet, mixed media, beading, stitching, worlds contained here!  many years of making art, learning, teaching and sharing. And all with plans for future projects.

Such generosity of spirit, too, very caring, full of news, one member newly returned from the west coast, one newly married at a later age, and wearing the diamond engagement ring of her late mother in law,  one,wearing a ring created by her stepdaughter, and  who completed a quilt created from an oil painting by her mother, one who exhibits and teaches, well, several do that.  And so on...one still an active artist in her 90s, and all engrossed in creating and making lives for themselves. 

Music in several lives, too, your blogger who plays several instruments, and whose late father in law was a jazz drummer, Mari the quilter whose husband was a jazz saxophone player, and who herself plays harpsichord.

And since the quilt was the centerpiece of the event, complete with workbook showing all the stages and planning, including a pic of the painting from which the idea came, here it is

Mari M created this and many others, all as gifts and all accompanied by its own workbook.  One young relative commented that she must really love them to do all that work, once he'd seen the workbook for his quilt!

I'm glad we got a picture before it goes to its destination.  Her next project is a tshirt quilt, from a collection of music themed tshirts from her husband, and that one she plans to keep for herself.