French style shallow poached pork steaks

Hello, everyone.  Recently I tried making shallow poached fish. It was great, even with swai. (Swai being tricky to make tasty.) This inspired me to try the method with something else.

The method, on Youtube. This is from Chef  Stepháne. 

I had some pork loin steaks. Following the method, I salted and peppered both sides. Also I chopped up a shallot.

Put shallot into nonstick pan and added the meat.

Added broth (chicken because it's pork) and wine and so on as in the recipe, which I found in his cookbook that was on hand. (It's hiding in a recipe for fish with tomato and onion reduction or something like that, I just skipped the part about tomatoes etc and the rest was as in the video.) Put the cover on and let it gently cook just like in the video.

Finished as per the video and put it on the plate. YUM! And completely low carb.

The newest fidget is finished

Hello, everyone. I had posted about this fidget before. At the time it was a Work In Progress. Now it's finished.

The whole thing is about the size of a dinner plate. It will fit comfortably in a lap or on a tray table.

It's a little hard to see the French knots in the ballerina's tutu, but I think y'all will get the idea. I prioritized tactile textures in the fabric choices over bright colors, so a person can run their fingers over the various fabrics and embellishments while watching the birds or a television show.

So good to have something finished. Now on to other WIPs!

Testing the formatting; a new fidget

Hello, everyone. The last post I made from the phone app came out looking really crazy. The desktop post after that was fine. I'm trying again in the phone app.

I found a piece of hand embroidery in the stash the other day and realized that the stitching is very textural. Added a faux-suede heart with decorative stitching and couched down some lace bits by hand. Then it sat for a few days.

Today, after trying out in-the-hoop quilting with an end to end pattern for the first time, I had a chunk of quilted satin. I sewed the embellished embroidery onto the satin and sewed the unit onto some poly "flannel" )the kind used for baby sleepers) and attached the circle to some pre-quilted black cotton.

At sewing club our president demonstrated a new way to cut bias binding. (She found a video on the internet and was impressed. ) 

And I'm ready to seam and press the new binding for the fidget.

Wow the formatting went crazy in here

 Hello, everyone.

My computer shows the pictures I uploaded--did that post from my cell phone--but they're huge and the sidebar things are displayed on top of the photos. I have no idea what happened, but I think the people in charge of maintaining Blogger have messed around with something (to "fix something") and it broke something else. Documentation is our friend!

A photo from May 2023 for today, to test the way it will appear when posted:

I believe this is one of the Holy Week parade platforms in Sevilla. Anyone who knows, please correct me if I have gotten this wrong. Note the beautiful shells on the right hand figure's robe.

Edited to add: this was posted from my desktop and it came out fine. Maybe the issue is in the Blogger app?

Elena's Progress

Hello, everyone.  In addition to training for our return to the Camino, I  have been working on the cleaning of my "new" sewing machine, Elena. (The other Singer is named Isabel.) The treadle setup works, but I was going to try winding a bobbin and discovered that the clutch didn't engage to separate the needle mechanism from motion during bobbin winding. 

After looking up the problem on various antique-sewing-machine web sites, I knew that the clutch know might have lint behind it, and that there is a special washer that has to be placed correctly for the mechanism to work.

I undid the little screw on the knob and removed the knob for cleaning. (There was a lot of old oil on the metal.) This is the special washer as I found it: 

The washer looked like it had oil--it did--so I took it off to clean. The "reverse" had even more...and a brand label.

Almost impossible to see.

Still hard to see in this photo after cleaning, but it is stamped "SIMANCO USA" and I think the part number is there also.

After consulting with DH I decided that the stamped label is supposed to be the front, and when I returned it to its place I set it with the stamped letters showing. And had to turn it around because the first time I apparently set it on upside-down.  

Now, when I turn the clutch knob, it allows the needle to drop down to where gravity pulls it, but then the needle stays there while the wheel turns for bobbin loading.

Another interesting thing about Elena is that, while she appears to also be a 66-1 machine, her presser foot bar is aligned with the foot attachment screw on the side, like more modern machines. (Apparently someone went through the involved process of changing out to the newer type of presser foot bar?) Isabel has her presser foot screw at the *rear* of the bar. I will not be able to interchange feet between them.

I am anticipating using either Isabel or Elena when a bag project in process now gets thick. The electric motors just aren't up to the level of toughness that the old flywheels are.