Pangur Bán

Cold weather tends to bring out the "in" in the animals.

Here's Pangur Bán enjoying a moment by the Woodstove.

Coasting

In a previous post The Fuzz mentioned going in to the Art Blooms to paint "pottery".  Well, actually it was Tiles, they worked on.  These are used out in Little Branch for coasters and such.  But being ceramic, they do have a tendency to break on occasion.  Some replacements were needed.
Since the studio was, unfortunately, closing, they chanced upon a 50% off deal.

They were there most of the day as it takes several coats of the paint to produce bright colors on the finished product.

It was necessary for The Fuzz's Sweetie to make a run over to Hardee's for some Gut Grenades to go with the cider.

But eventually the job was finished, and left for the kiln.

So here's some pre-kiln pix.

And a look at some of the finished "Coasters"

Snow? (Morning Report)

And this is pretty much it.

It is still cold though, 15˚.

Snow? (22:20)

So, here is the update.

Around 16:45

The birds were working the feeder pretty good.

At 19:00

Snow was still falling.

The Fuzz was wondering if the tarps would hold.

But by 21:00 it had pretty much stopped.

It is supposed to stay cold however, so what little we have will probably still be here in the morning.

Will there be school?

Apparently not.

Snow???

Well, it looks like we might get some this time.

In fact there are a few tiny flakes falling at the moment.

As you can see, the pooch has decided to hole up for a while.

School turned out early, but whether it will amount to anything remains to be seen.

But The Fuzz is prepared, we hope.

Mother of All Toaster-Ovens!

The Fuzz and His Sweetie have a little system worked out to help preserve their sanity since his retirement.

Once a week, one of them will spend the evening and night over at the Old Place.This has the added benefit of keeping up with things over there.
Then, after a lonely night they will meet up for breakfast at one of the local restaurants.
One of their favorites has one of those "Thrift Stores" located beside it.  This one is run by the Veterans.  The Fuzz and His Sweetie slipped in* the other morning after breakfast.  Whilst perusing the various items, Our Fuzz came upon this gem.

This must be the Mother of All Toaster-Ovens!

Now it just so happens that since there no longer is a cookstove** at the Old Place, a toaster-oven would be useful, and in fact they already have a $2 one from the Goodwill.

But this was tempting.

Check out all these features.

But $30 for a thrift store toaster-oven?

It was tempting, but The Fuzz just had to let this one go.

*This, of course, was not the first time.  The Fuzz actually purchased his only suit here when he needed one for a wedding!

**It turned out that the old stove from the trailer had a tendency to give the occasional electric shock.  So it was discarded .

Alas, Poor Art Blooms

In some previous posts, The Fuzz has mentioned activities he and His Sweetie have been involved with at the Art Blooms Studio.  There was a Henna Night, and the recent Book Boiling Event.
Well, it looks like the good times may be coming to an end.  Due to some problems with the building, and some other circumstances, the place will have to close down.

Over the weekend, The Fuzz and His Sweetie took the Not So Young Anymore Daughter over for the last chance to paint some "pottery".  They spent most of the day there and had finn.
The place and people will be missed.

Ice Age?

Here's one for y'all.

So, what do we have here?

With the Weather Service calling for more cold weather, The Fuzz got out a pix he made a few days ago.

It happens that Wednesday morning, The Fuzz and His Sweetie have a Cat Related Expedition scheduled to the Big City.  The Fuzz with his OCD tendencies has been looking ahead at the weather predictions. (as if they meant anything)

But this 13˚ business reminded him of this shot of the frost on the window.  So he decided to play with it a little, which is always fun.

But, perhaps things won't be as bad as they expect that morning.

And Y'all Yankees can sneer all you want.

Book Projects Cont.

The Fuzz chose to sew this booklet together rather than to resort to the crudeness of staples.  The first thing was to print up a cover on a piece of His Sweetie's card stock.  Everything was folded and put into the proper order
Next he got out his sewing awl* and went to work.

INSIDE

The awl make a simple lockstitch, much like a sewing machine.

OUTSIDE

This turned out pretty well for a first attempt.  This one has only 17 pages, and is really just 1 signiture.  Next time, The Fuzz hopes to try something a little more ambitious.

*This is actually a dangerous tool.  Once while sewing some heavy leather, The Misfortunate Fuzz broke a needle.  He still has a piece of it in his finger!

Book Projects

Some might be remember that Our Fuzz at times attempts to write a bit.  Retirement give an excuse (and time) to mess around some.   One of his interests has been making books.  He and His Sweetie have researched bookbinding on line and in real books as well.
Well The Fuzz thought he'd give it a go.  He has a few stories he would like to make some hard copies of.  But this isn't as simple as it appears at first.  There's a lot one has to work out.  If one is only intending to bind a bunch of single sheets together, it can be pretty simple.  But when one starts to look at binding something into signatures, and the signatures into a book, things get more complicated.
So The Fuzz decided to start simple, with a simple booklet.

This still called for laying out the pages in the proper configuration so that when they were printed, folded and bound, everything would be where it was supposed to be.  And this would have to be done for both sides of the papers.
One suggestion was to make a mockup with the proper number of pages, and go from there. That's what The Fuzz pretty much expected.
But after some more online research, he found a couple sites with programs just for this purpose.
The first step is to make the book into a pdf.

Then you can get this.  There was a second file for the other sides of the pages.
This software* arranges things so that the pages will be in the right order once both sides are printed and they are folded and put together.
Then, all that was left was to print it, and put it all together.


*Bookbinder

A Warm Spot

With all this cold weather, the doggies do manage to get inside at times.

Here they are in one of their favorite spots.

Book Boiling ?

Since retirement The Fuzz and His Sweetie have become involved with this Art Journalling class at a local studio.  Over the Holidays the project was "Book Boiling".
So, what exactly is this "boiling" of books?  You may well ask.
It does involve hot water.
First the papers were cut and folded into what will become the "signatures" of the finished books.

The idea is to place vegetation of various sorts between what will eventually be the pages of the book.

Then this is tightly clamped together and dropped into a pot of boiling water for an hour and a half (or more).
This does take a while, so while they were boiling away there was pot luck dinner, and time to catch up on other projects.

When the bundles are taken out, the plants have dyed the paper in various ways.

Since they have been folded together both sides have been colored.

The paper is then left out to dry for a while.

Here's some of the ladies admiring their work.

Christmas 2013

Well once again it's been a while since we heard from that Slacker Fuzz.

There as been a bit more work done on that roof.  But it is not finished yet.  Part of that has been due to the weather, and part to just general busyness.  And of course, the Holidays!

The Fuzz, His Sweetie and the Not-So-Young-Anymore Daughter were off to visit family for Christmas.

Christmas Eve was our traditional Eggnog and Cookie event.  We know this seems to be a major Fire Hazard, but we assure you, everyone was quite safe.  The eggnog was excellent, especially with a bit of rum, just for flavor of course!

Christmas Day was presents and Skyping and phone calls with some of those unable to make it personally.  This was followed by dinner.

The Fuzz and his made it home safely that night.  Then it was time to hit the sack, and hopefully get some rest before he had to leave early the next morning.

It's just a busy time of year.