Shoshiplatypus

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

Tiny Carpets

I have now completed Tiny Carpet #4, which completes the cover for the second needle book.

When I left you last week, I was working on the cream thread. It didn’t take me long to complete this stage. The border was now complete, and I’d also filled in all the central lozenges.

Here’s a close-up.

Then came the fun part that I developed in the previous tiny carpet – the random background, this time in different reds. Here are the random streaks completed.

It always looks very unpromising at this stage – it seems to overwhelm any design sitting in front of the background, but once the main background colour is filled in, it all works.

You may remember when I shared the original design, that there were small cream motifs between the larger lozenges.

It was only as I was completing the final stitches of the background that I realised I had forgotten to do these. Obviously I couldn’t undo that huge amount of work (impossible anyway, with all the changes of thread, and threads being run in behind etc.) so I decided simply to stitch them on top of the background stitches. I have done this in the past and it doesn’t really show. To make these stand out a bit more, I went over each stitch twice, giving the same result that working with two strands, rather than one, would have made.

I think it looks much better now, and I’m very glad I did it.

Here are the two tiny carpets which make up the front and back cover of the second needle book.

A close-up shot of part of the red one which will form the back of the book.

I really think this is my favourite of the four I’ve done – I wasn’t expecting to like it so much!

Here is the pair of tiny carpets with the black background filled in. I have also embroidered the fringes on the carpets. This time I used two strands of thread, and spaced them out a bit more, and I like the result better.

Unfortunately I miscalculated with the original design for this pair of carpets, and they are one stitch larger on all four sides, which means that if I am to keep the size of the finished needle books identical, I had to sacrifice one row of the black border. I don’t think it really matters, though.

Another detail shot, this time of the top edges of the two carpets, with the black border.

Here are the four completed tiny carpets all together.

I now have a deadline for one of the needle books. The recipient is coming down next Monday, so I must get my skates on and construct the books.

Illuminations!

My new standard magnifying lamp has arrived! You may remember that the old one had started to suffer a severe case of torticollis and also its head was in imminent danger of coming adrift, rescued in time with the liberal application of duct tape.

The new lamp is extremely bright!

The online details said that it had a dimmer switch, and on the illustration you could see it, in the form of a small dial. However, my lamp does NOT have this dimmer switch, which is rather disappointing, especially as it is so bright. I am not inclined to send it back, though, because I had to wait a long time for it, and it came direct from China.

Here is the top of the head of the lamp. It has a very nice hinged dust cover. This would also serve as a fire preventative measure. If you leave a magnifying lens exposed in a sunny room, you are at risk of it focusing the sun’s rays to a point, which is extremely hot, and can actually start a fire. Our sitting room never gets any sun at all, being north facing, and the houses across the street block 90 percent of the light so the room is pretty gloomy at the best of times, so there’s no danger, but it’s nice that the lens is protected from dust and scratches when not in use.

It looks a bit like a toilet seat…

Here is the switch, situated on the adjustable upright. As you can see, no dimmer switch. I’ve left a comment on Amazon under the “not as described” section and I shall be writing a review.

By the way, I do not smoke cigars! The cigar box contains my coloured pencils.

My old lamp had a screw on the side with a plastic knob to turn to adjust the height. This was a very convenient projection over which to hang my iPad and wireless earbud charging cables. There is nothing so conveniently built in on the new lamp, so I stuck a small hook on the side and so far it works a treat. The cables are not trailing on the floor, and they are within easy reach.

The base of the lamp is hollow plastic, on five black castors. It is pretty lightweight, and as is, it is not stable enough to prevent the lamp from tipping over in use. On Amazon they suggested filling it with water, which we did. You can see the central plastic plug. It is now as steady as a rock.

We were highly amused at the instruction leaflet. “Ah, so…” as my hubby immediately said!

MOST illuminating, as you can see.

Food

Recipe of the week

Vegan Apple Pie

I found this recipe online a few days ago, and having such a glut of apples from our little tree, and it being “the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” to quote Keats, I thought it would be an appropriate autumn recipe to share.

The photo doesn’t make it look very nice, I’m afraid. It needs a bit of refining, and I overcooked it a bit!

The recipe calls for almond meal, but I decided to use some of my always available pulp left over from making the almond milk. This is quite wet, unlike almond meal, and I had a job to get the blind pastry case to cook properly. The edges were starting to scorch while the centre was still soft. In the end I turned the oven down a bit and left it for considerably longer than the specified time in the recipe. When it came out, it was a bit cracked, and extremely hard! I thought the whole thing would be a disaster, and I’d have been better sticking to the letter of the recipe, but nothing ventured, nothing gained! I pressed on and completed the recipe.

The apples had the effect of softening the pastry and the whole thing was delicious! I wanted to try this and iron out any difficulties before cooking it again when the recipient of one of the needle books comes for lunch next week.

This is an ideal recipe for those avoiding refined starches such as white flour, and fats such as butter, and sugar. The crust, the filling and the crumble topping contain none of these things, and this dessert is suitable for those who prefer not to eat gluten for whatever reason. All the sweetness comes from the natural sugars in the dates and the apple. I used normal pitted dates for the crust and the crumble, but for the sauce to mix with the apples, I used Medjool dates, which are larger, and deliciously sweet and soft.

This recipe is a winner. I shall definitely make it again. Once the apple season is over, I can use a batch of our stewed apple from the freezer, perhaps adding a little more thickener in order to counteract the liquid in the stewed apple. I am not sure that it is necessary to make the pastry base at all; with just the fruit and the topping, it would make a fabulous apple crumble. When I make it next week, I shall try either with the suggested almond meal, or with my almond pulp again, but this time, before using it, I would spread it on a baking sheet and dry it in the oven set to a low temperature.

Nutrition

What is gluten, and why is it so much the villain today?

A lot of nonsense is talked today about gluten, and huge numbers of people now claim to be gluten intolerant. There are, of course, genuine cases of gluten intolerance, notably in those suffering from coeliac disease, an auto-immune condition where the consumption of gluten triggers damage to the lining of the intestines. Others, who suffer from non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, may react to modern grains which have been affected by the rigours of industrialised agriculture and the use of chemical pesticides etc., or because they have simply had many of their essential nutrients bred out of them over time. Such people may be able to tolerate gluten in heirloom crops such as spelt, farro and heirloom wheat. Heirloom crops have been passed down through the generations without any modification, and are said to be identical to grains eaten by our earlier forebears.

Gluten is a protein found mainly in wheat. As its name suggests, it is glutinous and helps maintain the structure of foods, acting as a glue. It is therefore very useful. It is hard to make good bread without gluten-rich wheat flour which produces the protein structure of the bread that is so familiar to us.

It is very fashionable these days for people to go gluten free, based on very little evidence that there is any reason at all to do so. It has led to an abundance of gluten-free products in the shops, which is of huge benefit for the genuinely gluten intolerant such as sufferers from coeliac disease, but for the vast majority of people, they are just wasting their money buying more expensive gluten-free options when they have absolutely no reason to do so. There is a lot of hype about it, and how it can help you lose weight, boost your energy levels, and even cure autism. A lot of people claim to feel better if they avoid gluten, and for those with no physical reason to do so, this may be due to the placebo effect.

There is a danger in going gluten-free when there is no need to do so. Whole wheat is an excellent source of fibre, and people who avoid it may not be getting sufficient fibre from elsewhere, especially if they are following the standard western diet consisting of a lot of refined foods. Also, gluten-free foods are often highly processed. While gluten itself is not an essential nutrient, it is naturally present in those fibre-rich foods which we need for good health, and cutting out gluten usually means cutting out these healthy foods. Apart from the fibre, these foods also contain many essential micronutrients which you will not be getting if you try to avoid the gluten.

One of the reasons people go gluten-free is to lose weight. There are far better ways of going about this. You can, usually, lose weight by removing entire food groups from your diet, but this is not sustainable because it is inconvenient and unpleasant, and experience has proved that most “diets” simply do not work – people almost always fall off the wagon in the end, and not only regain the weight they lost, but additional weight too. We are all familiar with the concept of yo-yo dieting. Going gluten free is very difficult and inconvenient, and expensive. It is not just a question of avoiding things which obviously contain wheat flour; gluten is concealed in many, many foods where you might not expect it.

If you think you are gluten intolerant, it is very important to get this established by a doctor, and before you start cutting the gluten from your diet. There are blood tests which reveal antibodies which are diagnostic of coeliac disease. If, on the other hand, you diagnose yourself and go gluten-free, these antibodies can disappear from the blood, and it makes it a lot harder for a doctor to make a proper diagnosis of either coeliac disease or non-coeliac gluten sensitivity. If you get tested before embarking on a self-imposed gluten-free diet, you can usually avoid the need to take on this burdensome way of eating altogether, and continue to eat a wide and varied diet, reassured by the doctor that you do not suffer from anything that would warrant such avoidance.

Like many other “diets” that have emerged in recent years, the gluten-free diet is a fad and for the vast majority of people, is totally unnecessary, and can be injurious to health.

I have not included the above recipe for the Vegan Apple Pie with any emphasis on it being gluten-free – it is, but that should only be of importance to those with a definite and established reason for avoiding gluten. I think it is an excellent recipe because it ticks all the right boxes for the benefits of a whole-food plant-based diet – rich in fibre, no added fat or refined sugar, the sweetness coming from the whole dates and the apples. The unsaturated fat contained in the nuts is bound to fibre and is therefore not easily released and absorbed rapidly by the body. The natural sweetness and added flavour from the cinnamon and the dates makes this a truly delicious and healthy dessert. The absence of gluten is neither here nor there for most of us.

My weight loss journey

Starting in 2014, I was on the 5:2 diet invented by Dr. Michael Moseley. On this diet you restrict your intake to 500 calories for two days a week and eat normally on the other five. We had just returned from holiday and I was shocked to discover that I weighed 14 stone 1 lb (197 lb) and decided that “it’s my age” and other excuses did not wash, and I had to take myself in hand. I had to abandon the diet on the instruction of my colorectal surgeon during 2015 when I was dealing with surgery and subsequent chemotherapy for colon cancer. During that year I lost only 1 lb, but resumed again in 2016. I kept it up until last summer, when we had more or less transitioned to the whole-food plant-based lifestyle, and I realised that calorie counting was not the way to go, but reducing calorie density, bulking up on whole foods rich in fibre. It was liberating to abandon the partial fasting, and my weight continued to fall. My hubby has also done extremely well with this way of eating, as I have already mentioned.

Yesterday at my weekly weigh-in, I reached a significant milestone! I have now lost exactly 5 stone (70 lb)! I am not particularly anxious about the exact number of pounds I weigh but felt I had to mark this particular achievement! I am not really trying to lose any more as I am now at a very healthy weight for my height, with a BMI of 21.1, which is bang in the middle of the healthy range of 7st 13lb – 10st 10lb for my age and height. Great news, eh? OK, it’s taken me 6 years to achieve this target, but this is the best way to do it – slow and steady. That way, there is less chance of it going back on again.

With the change of lifestyle to whole-food plant-based, there is very little chance of my regaining the weight anyway. I do not like to call this a “diet” because that implies “going on a diet” which is nearly always temporary and unsustainable, and people nearly always regain what they have lost. This lifestyle is sustainable, and it has many more benefits than just weight loss. I have absolutely no intention of going back to my old habits which brought on all my problems in the first place. I am living proof that it works, and it is easy to do, and most enjoyable as well!

Here are some “before and after” pictures for you.

Me in 2010:

The weight had continued to creep up since 2010, and I’ve lost quite a bit of weight since that 2017 photo was taken.

A couple of before-and-afters of my hubby. The first one was taken last summer.

Look at him now! – at least, a couple of months ago. He’s lost a bit more since then.

Kitties

“I am slipping down…”

“Hmmm… I wish I was as comfortable as that.”

The next day: “Here we go again. Ruby is in the most comfortable spot yet again.”

“Ahhh… comfortable at last!”

“What are you doing out there? Come in and give me my tea!”

Trying to read with a lapful of cats isn’t always easy.

Health Update – or not!

Still nothing from Exeter, but I live in hope, now this new bloke has assured me he is on the case.

My telephone appointment scheduled for last Thursday with the physio about my bladder was cancelled because she was off sick.

I had an email from the optician telling me my eye test was due, so we booked an appointment, but this has been postponed for another week because my hubby has another commitment on that day. I am concerned that my cataracts are worse and hope he will recommend that they are removed. My eyesight definitely isn’t as good as it was.

Clothes

This week I am modelling for you the first of several multi-layered tops that I have got. I got them from various market stalls etc. Today I am wearing the purple one which I really like because it’s got sequins and lace on it, and simply because I love purple! I am wearing it with my really baggy black harem pants and – you’ve guessed it – purple socks. I am also wearing a necklace made with purple glass beads.

The weather is getting colder, so I find it more comfortable to wear this kind of outfit with one of my infinity scarves. Even though they are not tight around the neck, they make an incredible difference and keep your neck nice and warm. I bought several from Ebay last year and altered them because they were too long.

Just look at our glorious dahlias! These ones are particularly handsome.

Back view of the outfit. I really like the back of this one.

The end of my plait looks like a piece of chewed string! This is partly because I’ve clipped some of my hair up on top and it’s made the ends uneven. On the subject of my hair, I have noticed that in the past few months since going whole-food plant-based, my hair has got thicker, and my plait doesn’t taper off nearly as much as it used to. When I was young, it was thick all the way down too.

Gate-crashing update

Remember this?

This is how it is now!

A couple of days ago, after searching without success for a replacement for the broken gate hinge, my hubby took it to someone who welded it back together again for a fiver!

The gate post has been glued back on, and repointed, all done by my hubby. The only thing that’s still broken is the large geranium pot, but turned around to face the house, it doesn’t look too bad. Later, when everything has died down, he may replace the pot with another big one from the garden.

He’s done a great job, hasn’t he.

Have a great creative week, everybody.