(All the granny square assignments can be found on this page.)
I just looked at the Flickr group at the finished afghans, GORGEOUS! Wow! I am so glad you guys kept going with it and didn’t wait for me to post. I love how different each one is!
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Let's just say my diet as an adult is drastically different than the diet I had as a kid growing up in North Carolina. Don't get me wrong, I have nostalgia for the fried chicken, cornbread, overcooked beans, and sweet tea that I had in my youth, but haven't eaten most of that in many years.
But sometimes, I get the urge to eat something from my childhood.
Like the other night. I was making crab cakes with tartar sauce and decided that we absolutely had to have hushpuppies to go with them. Those little fried bits of dough that I always ate with my fried calabash shrimp as a kid. When done right, they are just the perfect combination of sweet and savory, and really quick to make.
Note: You can add corn kernels in addition to the cornmeal, and add diced onion instead of onion powder, but I make these the way I remember them, which is with no hint of vegetables in them.
Hushpuppies
Makes about 24 Tablespoon sized puppies
Ingredients:
Canola oil
1 cup all purpose flour
2 cups yellow cornmeal
2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp onion powder (or 1/2 of an onion, finely chopped)
1/4-1/2 cup milk
To Make:
1. Fill a heavy bottomed pan or pot with about 2"-3" of canola oil (you want the oil to cover the hushpuppies when you drop them in). Start heating the oil over medium heat.
2. Prepare the dough. In a bowl, mix the flour, corn meal, sugar, salt, baking powder, and onion powder with a whisk until combined. Add the milk, starting with 1/4 cup. Mix in just to combine, the dough should hold together when formed into spoon sized balls. (Only add more milk if needed.)
3. Drop spoonfuls of the dough into the oil and allow to fry, untouched, for about 5 minutes, or until light golden brown. Remove from oil with a strainer and put on a paper towel lined sheet to drain.
These don't keep well, so only make what you'll eat.
Enjoy!
Two months ago, before challenging myself to sketch every day for a year for The Sketchbook Project,
– I fully believed I could not draw.
– I would have never started any drawing I managed to force from my brain with a permanent marker (only a pencil I could erase).
– I did not believe that doodling amounted to anything other than doodling.
– I would stop drawing as soon as I felt I had fully developed my idea in my head and would never look back at what I drew with any reflection.
– If something looked terrible, I immediately stopped.
– Sketching was not relaxing to me. It felt forced and akward, even when the occasional inspiration to draw actually came over me.
– I felt I did not have time to develop the skill of drawing or sketching.
I have already learned so much about myself since I started this personal challenge.
Sketchbook Doodling from Blair Stocker on Vimeo.
Music is Mike Mills by Air.
Download this month's computer desktop wallpaper here. See all of 2012's inspiration wallpaper here.
I am ready to get down to work this month! So many ideas, and with the kids back in school, I have time to see them through. Here's what's inspiring me this month:
– Simple images drawn with black lines
– My daily sketches (sketchbook #1 is almost filled).
– Wool of any kinds… felted sweaters, wool yarn
– old book pages
– feathers (they have even taken over my blog banner). Ian and I have been collecting them on our walks to and from school.
– My BSR, which I have plans for this month.
– Documentary Lovers– I am addicted to this website. You're welcome.
– Fall looks like this (but not the prices!)
– Soon-to-be released memoirs like this.
– Interior designer Miles Redd.
– Artist Carla Sonheim (who is right here in Seattle, who knew?)
– And thinking about sharing movies like this with my soon-to-be 14 year old daughter, and pointing out my favorite scenes, like this one. (She probably won't even get it all, but I feel like every teen needs to see these movies).
Holy cow, its October!?!
First let me say I let Friday slip by without a granny square sampler post, so sorry! I have not had a lot of time to work on mine in the past couple of weeks, so there was really nothing to show. But there will be, I have picked it up again and am catching up all around, I won’t leave you hanging. More pressing matters came up over the past couple of weeks, like family visiting, School House Craft, and making rice pillows.
We had cold toes and needed new “warms”.
Turkey’s Dilemma, acrylic and gouache, 12″ x 12″ wood panel
Echo Star, acrylic and gouache, 10″ x 10″ wood panel
These will be going to New Hampshire in a few weeks. I am still very much in love with painting quilt squares, and as you may have guessed, that’s what these are. The whole process is enjoyable to me. To start with a sketch, then move to a painting, and perhaps even eventually to a physical quilt. Or not.
I have been working on these pieces for the past few weeks. The process went from love… to hate… to love.. to loathe… to love, with each of them. Which I have discovered is part of the process. I never felt those polar opposite feelings on quilts or other projects I’ve done. With my quilts, it either works or it doesn’t, and I tend to know that early on. Pushing past that moment of total loathing is somewhat new for me. (You would be surprised at the number of projects that get discarded.) Usually, I hate wasting time on an idea that just isn’t clicking, I have no patience for what doesn’t feel like its going anywhere. But something about painting and the process of adding the paint layers, over days or even weeks, doesn’t make it feel like a hopeless cause in quite the same way. Usually, when it starts looking awful, I know its time to rinse the brushes and call it a night. It always looks at least a little better in the morning sun. And sometimes a lot better.