Needle and ThREAD: Stitching for Literacy

I feel badly about skipping posts here and yammering on about berries and the garden, rather than embroidery and literacy, but the new website and blog are not online yet, and this is my life at the moment. I am a bit more than a recreational gardener: my goal is to grow much of the food we eat year-round. I truly enjoy it, every part of it, planning and planting, weeding and watering, harvesting and processing, cooking and eating. It’s all a part of the self-sufficient, DIY, healthful, creative lifestyle I want to live.

So be it. No one is forced to read this, right?

We picked the first of the broccoli and cauliflower. I let the cauliflower go a little long, waiting for Mike to do the harvesting–it’s the only part of gardening he enjoys–but it’s still de-yummy-licious.

This is our best broccoli yet! Last year, the broccoli was our sacrificial crop; something I could never identify devoured it, leaves, heads, and all. The year before, the heads were tiny. Our soil is poor. We’re working on it. This year, I planted the broc in the bed with the snow peas. Peas are nitrogen fixers, and I understand broccoli needs lots of nitrogen. I also planted onions around each broccoli plant, thinking they might deter insect or worm pests. It’s a wild guess on my part, but I’m inclined to do it again based on results. The plants look great, the heads look great.

It’s the first year I’ve tried cauliflower. It won’t win any awards, but it will feed us for a few good meals. It lives in the cabbage bed with collards and kale. Something is eating holes in some of the leaves in this bed. I can’t tell what’s happening in the cabbage heads, but the damage doesn’t look too bad. Nothing like the damage to last year’s broccoli.

Tonight’s dinner: shrimp (we caught) sauteed in basil (we grew) butter on whole wheat spaghetti and steamed broccoli and cauliflower just harvested. Big yum!

It’s been more than a week since I baked anything with blueberries, and I have yet to make the Blueberry Pandowdy. That doesn’t mean we’re not eating blueberries, though.

We have blueberry smoothies with frozen bananas, strawberries, yogurt, and maybe some cheerios or almonds or rhubarb or something else.

Or how about some blueberry ice cream? Anyone?

Heading out now to collect more 2010 berries. I’ll fill the tenth gallon bag today and get a good start on the eleventh. It’s a gorgeous day, so up, up, up the hill I go.

A bookmark from the 2010 Stitchers’ Village collection.

The Monday “What have you done lately?” accountability post, where I announce my Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy program promotion goal for the week and fess up on last week’s goal.

Last week, my goal was to work on a project to submit to Kiki Magazine.

Success! It’s by no means complete, but it’s under way, I’m having fun, and I’m happy with it. That’s success, no?

I also mapped out several fun projects I’d like to do for Stitching for Literacy–special limited edition floss colors, a tour to visit schools and libraries, a Battle of the Bookmarks event, to name a few. I need to prioritize them and perhaps farm some out to folks who’ve expressed interest in helping. To that end, my goal this week is to talk with Colleen at Loose Thread Stitchers to get a ball or two rolling.

Your turn. What would you like to accomplish this week?

The first annual Writeoncon is drawing to a close. I’m not being presumptuous when I say “annual”; the Founders have already said they plan to do it again.

I’ve already raved about how necessary and useful on online conference is, especially for those of us in rural areas, so I’ll refrain from doing it again. Instead, I’ll rave about how smoothly the inaugural year went. The site was down on the first day, probably due to overwhelming traffic, but things got ironed out, and posts, chats, and forums sailed along smoothly. Participation has been great, and since the posts and forums will remain open for some time, I expect it will continue. I think Everyone has ideas for where this might go and what it might offer.

• The online KidLit writers’ conference.
• The Bookmark Collectors’ Virtual Convention.
• The online wholesale Needlework Show that is open to consumers.

What online events do you find fun and valuable?

Side view.

Bottom view.

It weighed in at 1.5 ounces, three times the weight of a normal, good-sized berry.

I’m picking strawberries daily, anywhere from two cups to two quarts. Even the 500 transplants are occasionally putting out berries now.

Raspberries are another story. A sad story. I don’t think we can blame a lack of water this year. And we had only one moose incident shortly after the new plants arrived. Poor soil, sure, but come on! Raspberries grow wild next door in very similar crappy soil. I don’t get it. I guess I need to read up on raspberries. Maybe a raspberry bed will be a priority next year.

Two more quarts of blueberries in the freezer today, bringing the total to almost seven gallons.

A bookmark from the 2010 Stitchers’ Village collection.

The Monday “What have you done lately?” accountability post, where I announce my Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy program promotion goal for the week and fess up on last week’s goal.

Last week, one of my goals was to stitch a sample of the pattern I designed for a multi-week needlework mentoring program.

I failed. Big time. I’m still picking fibers (when I’m not picking blueberries). I’ll try to do better this week.

My other goal was to pitch an idea to the fun folks at Kiki Magazine.

Another failure, I guess. I’m convinced it was the wrong idea. What I want to do is submit an embroidered bookmark project for publication. There’s a big difference in the approaches and expectations of the two ideas. I really must pursue the second, not the first. It’s still all about teaching girls to stitch.

So this week, my goal is to design that project. Fun! I’ve been mucking with several designs lately. It’s time to complete one.

How about you–what would you like to accomplish this week?

I’m certain you’re dying to know how the adventure is progressing, so I shan’t keep you waiting.

Thursday, I made coriander bread. After reading recipes for Blueberry Betty, I had a feeling this was the perfect bread for the job.

The bread was oh-so-yummy, and there was plenty for the Betty and for just plain eating.

Friday, I made the Betty according to this recipe from the Yankee Magazine website, although I wanted bread cubes instead of bread crumbs. Another recipe called for cubes, so I don’t think I was being terribly contrary, but, yes, sometimes I have trouble following directions. Technically, it’s Blueberry Brown Betty. The “brown” refers to the sugar used.

This was pretty good, but not The Best. I wanted more bread and more sugar. Our wild blueberries are much more tart than the domestic variety. I think the coriander bread was a great choice.

Today, I made a Blueberry Crisp and a double-sized Blueberry Buckle (with extra blueberries per Mike’s preference), both of which will head south early in the morning to be consumed by people other than me.

I also picked about a half-gallon of new blueberries. Five gallons of 2010 berries in the freezer, and counting.

I’ll either go back and try a cobbler again this week, or I’ll move on to the slump. I’ve actually made a slump before. Next weekend, I’m looking forward to a blueberry pandowdy. That’ll be another first for me.

Last summer, while the inlaws visited, my MIL selected a Dinah Shore cd to check out from the library. I can still hear both of them sing,

Shoofly pie and apple pandowdy
makes your eyes light up,
your tummy say ‘howdy.’

I’ll probably be singing that all week.

Many thanks to Anna for inspiring this kick. I’m having fun discovering new uses for the ever-abundant blueberries. My blueberry dessert-eating friends are grateful, too.

After the last Walrus post, Anna pointed out that there’s far more behind the retiring-designer situation than pattern freebies on the Internet. Yes, ma’am, there sure is. How much shall we discuss?

Becca asked what we can do. Well, here’s one thing.

There’s been political buzz about Net Neutrality for some time. The Internet currently has a more or less level playing field. Data is data, and it all moves at the same pace. Info from the Funk & Weber website travels the same way and at the same speed as info from YouTube or AOL or CNN.

Net Neutrality is good for small businesses and people who want access to them. Verizon, AT&T, AOL, and Google, however, would be happy to have priority distribution. On the Internet they would create, info from AOL would zip right along because AOL paid for priority while info from Funk & Weber would be relegated to the slow lane because I don’t have the budget AOL has. If you want to see my site, you might have to be very patient.

It’s a croc.

Are you as sick of this crap as I am? Why can’t Big Business simply be happy with their Big Business? Why must they always seek more, more, more?

If you want to support the small business people in our small needlework industry, add your voice to those demanding Net Neutrality.

Send a message to Congress and the FCC. Tell them that you want equal, easy, and speedy access to small business websites. You can add your own words to the standard message in the box. I put mine at the top. Feel free to use strong language.

Next, sign Senator Al Franken’s Net Neutrality petition.

Ask any independent shop owner, small manufacturer, or designer and s/he will tell you it’s exceedingly hard to run a small business. That we have to fight off the greedy sharks of Big Business is just rude.

Well, I have failed to use all the 2009 blueberries before harvesting 2010 blueberries. We will not discuss the extent of my failure.

They’re ripe. I have 2 1/2 gallons of 2010 blueberries in the freezer and, at the moment, zero 2009 blueberry desserts in the house.

Last weekend’s blueberry Betty didn’t pan out. It requires bread, and I will first need to make the bread. I think I’ll do that tomorrow. I found a recipe that uses raisin bread, but I am not a raisin-in-bread fan, so I’m thinking I’ll make cinnamon swirl bread or North African coriander bread instead. Mmmm…bread!

Instead of the Betty, I returned to the cobbler theme that was ousted by the dumpling recipe. I was lazy and in a hurry, and I didn’t make the biscuit dough right. It did not turn out well, not cobbler-like at all. It was cakey and too sweet. We will revisit the cobbler another time. (The biscuits for the strawberry shortcake were yummy!)

Then I made the crumble to send south. It was the recipe I’d used before, which I thought was pretty good. Unfortunately, our power went out just after I put it in the over. The oven doesn’t work when the power goes out. (The next oven will NOT be power-dependent.) It was out for a long time. The crumble sat and sat and sat, the liquid soaking into the topping. In the end, it was less than perfect.

It’s a darn good thing I’ve got more blueberries, no?

So…bread tomorrow, Betty on Friday, and crisp on Sunday (old, reliable recipe) to send south on Monday. And more picking every day.

I don’t currently own an e-reader (Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc.), but I expect I will someday. I like printed books, and I’ll have shelves upon shelves of them for as long as live, but I’m not opposed to the e-book revolution. I’m all for saving trees and decreasing the dust-collecting stuff in my life.

I’ve been learning about enhanced e-books and iPad apps, etc., and I have a question.

One of Darwin’s finches. Props to the first person who can tell me why I chose this image for this post.

Reading a book is different from, say, watching a movie. The brain is somehow more active when reading. Reading is cognitive exercise in a way that movies are not, and, thus, are in some way better for our brains.

Enhanced e-books are adding images, audio, and all sorts of other things to the text. Some enhanced e-books for kids include audio of the printed text, among other things.

My question is: At what point does the enhanced e-book become more like a movie than like a book in terms of cognitive exercise?

If we were to draw a linear scale showing the degree of cognitive exercise with movies on the left, audio books in the center, and books on the right, where might enhanced e-books fall?

Do we know what it is about books we have to keep when enhancing–or what we have to avoid–in order to not compromise the cognitive exercise?

Will enhanced e-books increase the level of cognitive exercise in a text, or will they decrease it?

Thoughts?