Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Banana Cookies!


Banana Cookies
The best cookies ever! No sugar, wheat, dairy…etc. Makes 12 cookies.

Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas (brown spots and soft is best)
1 cup gluten-free old-fashioned oats
¼ cup Unsweetened flaked coconut
¼ cup Pumpkin seeds
1 tbsp. Chia seeds
1 tbsp. Hemp hearts (optional)
½ tsp Cinnamon
½ tsp Salt

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350. Use parchment paper or non-stick cookie sheet.
Mash 2 bananas in a bowl. Add 1 cup oats, mix well.
Let sit for 5 minutes (important to allow oats to absorb banana)
Add the other ingredients and mix well. Certainly you may add other items as desired (sesame seeds work well) Nuts tend to get soggy, but you may try them!
Drop tablespoons of batter onto cookie sheet, flatten with hands to make cookies.
Bake for 20 minutes, until bottoms are slightly browned.
Store in airtight container in fridge for a week.
Cookies will be soft after storage but slightly crisp when freshly baked.
Enjoy!!

Jeri Riggs 2018

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Single Interwoven star

Here is another variation on the Circular Peyote star .
#2 "Single Interwoven Star". This is worked the same way as the first star, making two separate ones and stitching them together to form the finished element. Doubles means add 2 beads together in single space.
I work counterclockwise in rounds, always going through two beads at the end of the round to " step up" to the next round.

Colors:
A:teal
B: Purple
C: gold
D: Light blue
E: Dark blue

Round 1: string 3 A beads, tie in a circle.
Round 2: Add 3 doubles Color B: 2+2+2, between each Teal bead. Step up to next level by going through first purple bead strung so you come out between the double.
Round 3:  Add 6 color B, one at a time
Round 4: Add 12 beads: 6 doubles color C
Round 5: Add 12: D,C,E,C,D,C,E,C,D,C,E,C
Round 6:  Add 12: D ( E,E,D,D) twice E,E,D
Round 7: Add 18: (E, double C,D, double C)3 times
Round 8:Add 18: [(D,C,D) (E,C,E)] three times
Round 9 : Add 18 (D,D,C,E,E,C) 3 times
Round 10: Add 24 ( Double D, C,C ,double E, C,C,) 3 times
Round 11:Add 24 ( D, C,C,C, E, C,C,C) 3 times
Make 2 of these with second one ending after round 10. Zip them together at edges to form pendant.


Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Stars Upon Thars


Circular Peyote Hexagon Stars by Jeri Riggs

Lately I’ve been enamored of beadwork again, and decided to design an interlocking star pendant, about the size of a US nickel, inspired by my niece’s upcoming Bat Mitzvah, and coinciding with the 75th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz, Holocaust Remembrance Day. May we Never Forget….



Star #1: Double Interwoven Star.
This star is created by the technique of flat circular peyote stitch, and begins in the center with 3 beads. Then beads are added in rounds, and the corners are formed by adding 2, 1, or 0 beads on subsequent rounds. Adding 2 beads in a space I call a “double”. On the following round, you come out between the double beads to add the single bead on top. The next round, you pass through the single bead . Otherwise beads are added one at a time.  I create two stars (one with 11 rounds and one with 10 rounds) and sew them together at the edges to make one pendant. You can attach a jump ring to make it a pendant, or make a bunch of them for a bracelet or necklace.
Materials: fireline beading thread, Delica beads.  size 12 sharps ( beading needles).
First half:
A=purple  beads, DBi35 (3 beads)
B=Aqua Db658  ( 12 beads )
C=Royal Ab, Db 165 (51 beads)
D= Red Db 602 ( 51 beads)
E=Gold Db 31 ( 54 beads)
Round 1: String 3A in a circle, and pass thru a second time. Tie securely.
Working counterclockwise, and going up 2 beads at the end of each round work:
Round 2: Add 6 beads in the round:  (Double B in next space), 3x
Round 3: Add 6 B in the round, one at a time.
Round 4: Add 12 beads in the round, (alternating Double C, Double D) 3x.
Round 5: Add 12 beads, one at a time: ( C,C,D,D,) three times. Note you will come out of the middle of a color C double from the row below, so add same color at tip, and same color in next valley.
Round 6: Add 12: (C,C,D,D) 3x
Round 7: Add 18 beads:[ (C double C ) (D,double D) ] 3 times. The doubles sit above previous doubles on round 4.
Round 8: Add18: ( C,C,C, then D,D,D,) 3 times
Round 9: Add 18: ( C,C, E, D,D,E) 3x
Round 10 Add 24: ( double C,E,E , Double D, E, E ) 3x
Round 11: Add 24 [( C, E, E,E ) ( D,E,E,E) ] 3x.
Make another disc up to round 10, the weave them together so the edges line up and the single color beads from round 11 are shared between both sides. This interlocks nicely as peyote stitch alternates high and low beads on the straight sides of the hexagons.
 You can, of course, use different colors for different effects! Beads are difficult to photograph....


Friday, May 04, 2018

Washing out


Front view, finished!
Back view

So, the washout with cellulosic dyes (on linen, cotton, rayon) is a long process. I generally wait the 24 hours to cure, then rinse in gradually warmer water, then do a hot wash with Dawn dishwashing liquid, then hot rinse. This seemed to take forever, and I finally threw the whole thing ( vest, 2 sckein scarves, 2 yards of fabric) into my washer, with some regular detergent, and ran it on hot. This yarn, after all, is advertised as machine washable, so...

Laceweight skein
When i removed it from the wash, I was disappointed by the amount of lint that was shed by the yarn, and the fibers everywhere. I was really worried I had ruined it! But after drying in the dryer for a bit, and unraveling the extra at the top and finishing the shoulders, I hung everything to dry overnight, and was very pleased in the morning! The green did not take as well as I had hoped, and there were a couple of white spots where somehow the dye did not penetrate ( despite pre-washing), but on the whole, some success! I hope to do more of this this summer, and to write up the pattern for the Jonquil Vest..

Thursday, May 03, 2018

Gradation Dyeing








Now that it is spring, (and nearly summer), it is warm enough to dye ! I like to batch my Procion-dyed cellulosic fibers outside, when it is over 75 degrees out, and yesterday was set to hit 86. Which, for the beginning of May, is strange. Everything in the garden grew 6 inches yesterday!
I have been possessed by gradient yarns, and the idea of smooth color progressions on linen yarn. I wanted to try my hand at making my own, so I dug out my old knitting machine and tried to knit a blank on it. That was an exercise in frustration, as my machine was not cooperative, and I despaired of achieving my aim.
Over the winter I had designed and  knitted two lace vests in some white alpaca/wool yarn, and dye-painted them with acid dyes, which was very fun and satisfying, so I wanted to try the same process with my favorite Euroflax linen yarns. I managed to knit one vest, and then did some research and found this lovely gizmo: NKOK Singer knitting machine
This is marketed as a toy, and it is a wild pink plastic, but does work surprisingly well for its cost, which was an amazing $23. As I intended to use it for knitting dye-able lengths only, it was a bargain, and certainly a useful item. It worked pretty well, after I found some clamps to attach it to the table and got the hang of the tension and speed of rotating the little crank. My arms got very tired! And I had to untwist the resulting tube many times, but after 2 hours, I had a useable length of knitted yarn. After knitting up two skeins of linen into 6 ft snakes of yarn, I was ready to mix up the dyes.
I wanted a progression from green to turquoise to blue, with smooth color transitions, and being a more casual and not so scientific dyer, I was not sure which of the 5 blues I should use. I have a lot of Procion MX dye powder which I have used over the years to dye cotton fabric, and loved the color I saw at the Prochem booth at MQX show, which was Intense Blue 406, but I also had Bright Blue 404. I figured I could use all four colors and see how they turned out, so I made up 3 cups water to 6 Tsp urea, and made concentrate as follows:
1 tsp Brightest Green 711 in ½ cup Urea water
3 tsp Turquoise 410 in 1 cup ureawater
2 tsp 406 Intense blue in a cup of ureawater
1 tsp 404 Bright blue in ½ cup ureawater
Then I divided my dye into 13 plastic cups which I numbered.
So #1 was all green,
2: 7 Tbsp green and 2 tbsp turquoise
3: 5 Tbsp green, 5 Tbsp turquoise
4: 2 Tbsp green , 7 Tbsp turquoise
5: Turquoise
6:  7 Tbsp Turquoise, 2 Tbsp 406
7: 5 Tbsp turquoise, 5 Tbsp 406
8: 2 Tbsp Turquoise, 7 Tbsp 406
9: all 406 Intense blue
10: 7 Tbsp 406 and 2 Tbsp 404
11: 5 Tbsp 406, 5 Tbsp 404
12: 2 Tbsp 406 and 7 Tbsp 404
13: all 404

Meanwhile, the yarn and vest ( and some PFD cotton I had in my stash) were soaking in Soda ash and water  ( ½ cup soda ash to ½ gallon water).
Once I was ready, I squeezed out the soda ash solution, and laid out the vest on top of the fabric, and , using a sponge to apply the dye, with gloved hands, began applying the dye in numerical order, onto the vest. One of the “scarves”( 500 yards of Fibra natura laceweight linen)  I divided into 12 equal sections with locking markers, and dyed that one  last, skipping the green so I went directly to jar #2. The other “scarf” was one skein of Euroflax, and I did a more spontaneous progression. Leftover dye was poured on some remaining white cotton I had in my stash.
Using a sponge was great, as I had more control over the placement of the color, and could dab it on, blending the colors as I went.
I dyed everything in plastic bins so I could let it “batch” for 24 hours and remain wet and undisturbed. No one wants cats with blue paws!
Tomorrow: washout and dry!! It is so hard to wait!!