On to Spring!

Hello Everyone! The wintery weather continued from the end of last month to last week and now we have a very Springlike forecast. I am going to acknowledge right at the beginning that I have no video to share this month. I need to think of interesting 10 second snippets of the projects to share. Luckily, there is plenty to show this month as the exploration of pies continues and progress on the box was made.

The first pie to be examined was a savory kale pie. This pie was the opposite of last month’s vegan beet pumpkin – it had lots of butter in the crust and filling ingredients included sausage, mozzarella cheese, eggs, and cream. For all the pies shared this month, one of the first steps was a partially baked pie crust:

Do you see the butter pooling?

Here is the filling of the kale pie that was placed into this partially baked crust:

Another crust was placed to top of the pie before the whole thing baked again to reveal this treasure:

Very flaky, decadent crust – the filling gave me the comfort and very unhealthy sensation of a pizza. It was a perfect meal during our very cold and snowy weather.

The other two pies baked this month were pumpkin using the last pumpkin from garden plot 2020. First a pumpkin chiffon pie with many eggs and second, I had some leftover filling so I added more pumpkin and coconut. 

They are basically the same pie so I liked them equally. Again, there is not much sugar and the pumpkin is not overly processed, so they are quite different from the mass produced pies one sees in the store.

The box is moving along. The bottom is completely finished and when time allows, I will venture with the top. I started covering the outside bottom with fabric by centering a motif. I used good old Elmer’s glue for attachment.

Then I flipped the box and fabric over. I finished the short end by folding one fabric end and glued to the other fabric end and corrugated cardboard underneath. 

I finished the long ends by folding the edges and sewing with very simple looking stitches using embroidery floss. These stitches were difficult because the box sides made impossible angles, but it worked. For the top, I may switch strategies and fold the fabric and glue the long end and sew up the short ends. Here is a close up of my primitive stitches.

And here is a shot of the fully lined box bottom, the motif even matched when folding the fabric short end wise. I left the sun in the photo as the fabulous light from the south windows is to be basked in this time of year.

Next came the dividers. I started with the short dimension again.

This worked out pretty well. I reinforced the fit with glue. I probably did not need to fold the fabric over on each end of the dividers. I think that is a legacy from my sewing to always fold ends in, but here it is not the cleanest finish.

Next were the lengthwise dividers which I decided to do individually and reinforce with glue. The same finishing issue but I think it came out fine considering I have never made a box before.

The dividing spaces were not meant to be uniform as the different sizes allow more diversity in the storage of jewelry. The pieces for the top have already been cut and adjusted – we shall see how easy it is to make the top fit the bottom.

I hope the start of the year has been productive and enjoyable despite all that is going on in the world. There have been some definite miracles here at Planet Nice including the reading of two books (from start to finish). The first was Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson which was the choice for the One Book One Community program – the book is a quick read and presented almost like poetry, what is not written explicitly about is as important as what is written. The second is A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin – after multiple past failed attempts at reading the book and watching the gory HBO series, I did accomplish reading the first book. It is very soap opera and has such rich text that it is not a book you read after a long and tiring day at work. The reading requires concentration and a handy phone which you can use while looking up words and such that are not familiar (think the dictionary while reading The Canterbury Tales or Shakespeare in high school).

My schedule has changed recently so I may need some leeway time wise in getting out the next post. Until Then! All the best.