Rorschach played in my head with those
fabrics I dyed last week. John kept
seeing things and so did I. We didn’t
necessarily see the same thing but there were a lot of insects and bugs! Anyway I saw these in this piece and had to
play.
I think
it was the pupa stage that caught my eye more than anything but there had to be
an adult stage as well, and the fabric had provided that too.
I added
some Inktense pencil to give depth to the background but the only thing I added to the pink
fabric was a very slight metallic sheen from some Lumiere to the adult as a lot of beetles
have that irridesence to their carapaces.
Freemotion quilting and a jewellery headpin with silver bead for the pin and it was finished.
Someone was a slight distraction at the weekend.
And I made a Thing! No recipe as such. I had been having a pre Christmas rummage in the larder and found a couple of bags of dried fruit and glacé cherries, you know the sort of thing that lurks. I put all it all into a bowl and added some brandy, sherry, glug of honey, juice and zest of a lemon and a splash of water for lack of orange juice and left it while I thought of what to do with it. I had also found a bag of premixed shortcrust pastry but I knew I didn't want to make mince pies, I wanted it to be a little more though I didn't have many ingredients really. I made up the pastry and lined a 9inch square loose bottomed cake tin to a depth of about 2 inches. I poured in the fruit which had now been soaking for about four hours and were much more plump and topped it off with a Bakewell topping, without the almonds, made with 5oz butter beaten to death with 5oz caster sugar, 2 eggs added and 2oz plain flour folded in. In the oven for 35 minutes and this popped out.
It is (was) very yum and quite rich but the sponge bit meant it wasn't overkill on the fruit. Lovely with vanilla custard and would be worth doing again with the nuts too.
And finally this is Oscar watching The Frozen Planet with us on Sunday. He was facinated by the little mice under the snow but when I took the photo the owl that was after the mice appeared on the screen.
It didn't catch him, honest!
.
