kaberett | Entries tagged with skill acquisition

This afternoon, for "was sadly knitting to help self-regulate while reading the [Benefits & Work] ESA to UC migration guide, and also doing some amount of form-filling", I messed up (part of) a row of the cable pattern including a crossover.

I did not spot this until three rounds later. Thankfully, this was before the next crossover.

... it took me two attempts but I fixed it by dropping only the eight stitches concerned. I have the vaguest rattlings of an intimation of a memory suggesting that this is a thing I have done in some dim and distant past, but it's the first time I've done it with this project (and therefore in like a decade), and I was feeling Extremely Intimidated by it, so I am Proud. Good job me.

Several years ago now, we acquired fruit tree sleeves for the cherry on my allotment. (I am not particularly interested in cherries so am left to my own devices would leave them for the birds; Adam, however, is Keen.)

They mostly worked! In that we got a lot more fruit the year we used them than we have in any year we haven't, and-but-also the birds... pecked significant holes. in quite a few of them. in their eagerness to get to The Fruit.

So we hit the end of cherry season, and we sorted the stockings into "fine" and "need repairs", and after a while A sourced a net curtain to cut up and use for patches, and then... the "needs repairs" box... and the net curtain... both sat around... taking up space in the living room... for, er. Some. time.

BUT THIS EVENING (having this week done a bunch of other mending, including getting the sewing machine out to suspiciously make some fixes to my winter-weight gardening trousers) I have! achieved proof of concept! and patched up two and a half cherry stockings! ... of approximately 10, and at the point at which I emptied both the reel of thread and the bobbin I decided That Was Enough For One Day.

Hopefully things will go faster tomorrow, but -- I am fixing! the things! and making lots of mistakes with the sewing machine! but also learning how to use it in more detail! and honestly this is a pretty excellent project to practise on: it doesn't matter if it's especially neat or tidy, so if nothing else I am learning a lot about how to sew in an approximately straight line while minimally anxious about wasting time and resources...

All of the Sad Bits Of String in the house (except one that's previously been used and is somewhat the worse for wear, which is important only insofar as its elasticity differs quite a bit from everything else) are now A Net. Tomorrow I am expecting to get another 4-6 bits of string, which I am hoping will let me finish a row neatly and then form some of the foundation row for net #2. I am feeling Very Accomplished about my Skill Acquisition and will probably take a photo of my Finished Creation tomorrow and make all of you look at it too.

(There is More String in the greenhouse, and I might manage to bring some of that back to facilitate Further Creations...)

Having exhausted the resources for this special interest, perhaps I will next be able to move on to patching some trousers (with a tentative gesture towards doing so Decoratively), the box of miscellaneous linen scraps I bought off eBay having arrived yesterday, without the colour match I was hoping for but with a much more striking option that will be lovely if I can make it work...

Silicone is not permeable to water, but does (or at least can) have significant gas permeability.

This is relevant to stationery because a lot of "vintage" fountain pens -- prior to about the 60s and 70s -- use ink bladders made of latex.

I have one such pen, currently without a sac fitted, and went down this particular rabbit hole while trying to work out what my best option for getting it up and running again is.

It turns out that fountain pens, much like one of my other terrible hobbies, are (variably) expensive vacuum leaks. What this means for vintage pens fitted with silicone sacs is that you must store them upright basically any time you're not writing with them...

... because otherwise the combination of capillary action (which is how the nib works) and gravity draws ink out of the reservoir. In a pen fitted with a latex sac, this doesn't happen because air can't leak into the reservoir -- but the gas permeability of silicone means that with a silicone sac it can, just by dint of the exterior of the sac being in contact with the atmosphere, so there's absolutely nothing to stop all of your ink deciding to Go On An Adventure, Which Is Widely Considered A Bad Idea.

Ergo I have decided that my mild contact allergy notwithstanding I think it is worth gloving up for long enough to fit a latex sac, which I will then never have to interact with directly again until it perishes, because the pen in question is a lever-filler (as seen on youtube). This will be my first attempt at doing any such thing, mind, so it's entirely plausible that I'll end up with an uncontrolled leak regardless, but hey -- fingers crossed!

(More detail if you want it!)

I've just finished up batch #3 of the injera batter and I think I've cracked it, so one week and one kilo of white teff flour (and two frying pans) later here are some notes for next time!

I was working mostly off a recipe at The Daring Gourmet, with reference to Exploratorium and Injera Review.

( Read more... )

The key points, as I have identified them, for the next round, are: only a 48h ferment if I'm preseeding it with a sprinkling of sourdough starter, and while longer is probably necessary if I'm making it up in a clean bowl the point to use it is the point at which it's puffing itself up proudly; even heat distribution on the lowest possible setting; put the lid on to trap the steam (to let it steam itself) pretty much ASAP; remove it from the heat and subsequently the pan pretty much immediately that it's solidified entirely (so, yes, a glass or otherwise see-through lid is very helpful for this).

For my next attempt I'm going to reseason the cast iron and see if "very low heat" + "immediate lid" + "shorter cooking time" makes it work in that context, because if so I think that would be preferable to using the non-stick frying pan for our purposes. I'm pretty sure a lot of the problem with the first two batches, in ways I wasn't quite understanding at the time, was in fact that I was overcooking them in precisely the way that recipe #1 warns inevitably results in Sticky Disaster.

(Is it obvious that I'm really pleased with myself for persistence and skill acquisition? Because I super am.)

[2017 | 2018]

( Cooking. )

( Growth. )

( Academia. )

( Health and embodiment. )

( Travel. )

( Personal and other leisure. )

Intentions
I didn't pick a word for 2019, but 2018's was connection, and the narrative I'm constructing for myself now is that I didn't want a new word this year because I still had plenty to work on in that general vein.

I spent a lot of 2018 reflecting on (and struggling with) feeling lonely and isolated. My decreasing capacity for journeys outside the house solo has been further limiting my ability to socialise. I'm no longer feeling that isolation so acutely; in large part I think that's down to (thanks,

nanila & those of you who carried the torch this year) having made a quiet decision to post something on Dreamwidth every day visible to people other than me. I decided at the beginning of the year that I didn't want to announce that it was what I was doing, because it felt like setting myself up for failure; I've occasionally felt as though I'm "cheating" by including my Monday todo/tada posts as A Post For The Day. But: it's been a really positive experience, overall. There were two days I ended up posting a little after midnight (and backdating for the sake of making my calendar view look nice, hush), but -- I ended up making fewer posts that felt like placeholders than I'd been expecting, and I've been really enjoying the sense of community and comfort I've been getting from your collective engagement and our ongoing conversations. Thank you.

I've also managed to renew some family connections: I started inviting my godcousins over for films and afternoon tea, and have been gradually attempting to invite more people over in a way that feels sustainable and nurturing. (I have a lot of guilt around this; it's a work in progress.) I've supported A in spending time with his families. I have worked on fraught relationships with close people. It's hard, and also, I feel much less alone.

botanical illustration colouring book, showing example and part-coloured page

1. Vegan waffles. What do? We've tried this recipe with almond milk and it stuck to the waffle iron hideously, even greased; we reduced the sugar some and it stuck less, but still stuck. We are a bit reluctant to Invest in flax seed etc etc etc so would be Interested In Your Recommendations. Our default eggs-and-dairy waffles are smitten kitchen's & very happy with them we are, too.

2. Bathroom grout. PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME THE WAY OF THE BATHROOM GROUT. It seems to me that living in a hard-water area there is Nothing One Can Do to stop it getting grotty, and if one scrubs it it... scrubs off... and needs replacing... and is even grottier in the meantime... and I am intimidated and dismayed by all of this, basically, but I want to learn how to Fix It and indeed if there is any way to stop the problem arising in the first place. (Presumably a better option than scrubbing the scale is to apply descaler and then very gently & tenderly remove it when the sponge side of a sponge?) (In related news: turns out I was avoiding cleaning the bath because I felt A Moral Obligation to use up the Open Bottle Of Bath Stuff, of uncertain vintage and provenance, in spite of the fact that I was allergic to it, resulting in... never cleaning the bath... until I peremptorily summoned A in the middle of a shower last week to Request that he tell me to be Sensible. Bath: now clean.)

3. ... oh right that was my third How Adulting question: I have some hiking trousers that have unhemmed themselves & torn a bit. I've stuck the hem back up with the ironing webbing Stuff (i.e. got A to do it when I got scared of the iron) but I also want... to do it a bit of a hem... and I'm intimidated. I have access to a basic sewing machine and also a desire to learn some hand-sewing principles. Advice & guidance?

A friend recently had a birthday party of the "sit in a garden and Use Up Some Of My Art Supplies" variety, and I spent a nontrivial chunk of time frozen up in terror at the idea of Doing Visual Art In Front Of Other People, because I would be Bad at it and they would Judge Me.

Eventually I screwed up my courage to the sticking point, comandeered a small greetings card set up to be coloured in & the watercolour pencils & a mug of water & a paintbrush, and started going.

And... really enjoyed it? I was terrified, but also I... enjoyed it? I enjoyed it.

I like botanical illustration. I like watercolours. I've been too intimidated to actually pick sketching back up since I stopped doing field sketches for work. (Apparently drawing landscapes for the purposes of geology doesn't ping my Art Inferiority Complex, who even knows, even as I spend a lot of time and effort and energy and care over Picking The Right Colours.)

I was talking about this with C, when I went down to Kew with her to look at Chihuly's art & colours & light just brazenly Out There All Over The Place, as we were browsing the shop; I grumbled about the lack of Proper Botanical Illustration colouring books.

A few days later she texted asking for my full postal address; a few days after that, as I've mentioned, a copy The Kew Gardens Flowering Plants Colouring Book showed up for me. It was second-hand and very cheap, because it had already been partly coloured in, which -- as I've also mentioned -- was pretty much perfect, because it meant I wouldn't freeze up in a panic about Ruining It.

sebastienne and

me_and both got me watercolour pencils; I recalled that a local charity shop had a bunch of decent paint brushes at half price; and I have been ever-so-slowly starting to work my way through the book. I started out with beginning to fill in bits the previous owner had partially coloured; there's some works-in-progress ongoing, there. I'm also, in a more concerted fashion, starting to work my way through the untouched pages, one by one, in order, thereby circumventing the decision paralysis of getting caught between "I want to do the plants I'm most enthusiastic about first because I'm most enthusiastic about them" and "I want to do the plants I'm most enthusiastic about last so I'll have learned as much as possible by the time I get to them".

Botanical illustration of bitterroot, printed in black and white then coloured in using watercolour pencils

Of course, immediately after scanning this I spotted the bud I'd managed to skip over, but There We Go.

I have learned a lot over the course of gradually filling this out, including: what specialist watercolour paper is made out of, and why; the different preparations of watercolour paper, and resulting effects; why people like sable paint brushes, and how they're made, and why they're not currently (readily) available in the USA; and a bunch of theory of How Pigments Even.

I'm trying to work out how to balance competing factors of "colour intensity" versus "structural integrity of wood-based paper" (with a side of "how do I get the darker shades the example images are printed with?" to which I think the answer might be "own a bunch of darker pigments"). I'm messing about with techniques (laying down dry, then painting over; picking up pigment from the pencil on a damp paintbrush and then painting with that; drawing onto wet paper...). I'm comparing the properties of the two sets of pencils. I think I learned a lot between the right-hand flower and the left-hand flower.

I'm really enjoying myself.

Another complicated braid, this one somewhat tidier, with Bonus Leaf.

This has lasted a three-hour round-trip commute in a Very Warm Tube, many meetings (some of which outside), and two hours at the allotment, a significant chunk of which was spent ripping up carpet, hence the bonus leaf. It is not a great photo but I think it nevertheless illustrates that (1) I have finally got my head around what the "wrap it around the central braid in a spiral" section of the instructions was attempting to communicate, and (2) this is Definitely Working For Me as an option.

(Brief foray into lab today, and it transpires that this is also pretty much as satisfactory as I had anticipated, which is a great relief in anticipation of upcoming Long Lab Days The Last.)

I have handled so. many. support. requests. So many. (So many.)
alexwlchan has written A Bunch of bugfixes and I am v proud!
momijizukamori has tentatively Fixed a problem that was making the support board Very Unhappy and I am approximately 95% pathetic gratitude by volume.
I am increasingly convinced that the way to make scones Work is to tip out the bit that has actually stuck together, mix More Liquid into the remaining, and only then try combining the lot of them. (The previous batch I took this approach to did work; today's batch was... less successful, because I forgot to and didn't.)
A is a sweetheart and got me a Larger Bucket for proving my bread in. That I... should probably actually use, whoops.
Today I have arranged loaning one acquaintance a car battery charger, and acting as a friend's proxy for the EU elections. Hurrah for communities and interconnectedness.
Tomorrow I will (among other activities) be seeing my mother, at which point I will be picking up A Wide Variety Of Artefacts from the Mouldering Ancestral Pile (that she ended up driving back up-country for me after the most recent round of house clearance, because there was no way I could carry even a significant minority of it back on public transport). I am not sure A is quite emotionally prepared for this reality, but there we go; I look forward to providing you all with an inventory.
Two more things from the knife skills course: we were taught how to make garlic paste, which I utterly failed to understand in the moment but which Adam has subsequently patiently explained to me at home and Now I Can Do It; we also had explained to us A Trick for Mangos, being that if you roll them gently from side to side they always end up resting in the same place -- with the seed parallel to the horizontal. I am excited by all these things.
I skipped out on therapy on Thursday by dint of my therapist having forgotten the session and me not reminding them (in the way I ordinarily would) because I Didn't Want To; rather to my surprise I received an e-mail later that evening, in which they pointed out that they didn't have me down for a session and inquired as to how I was doing. I've just e-mailed back to request an appointment net week, and even -- having written up my notes from the previous session -- I'm cautiously looking forward to it.
Lots else to look forward to next week, as well: a trip to Kew, a birthday dinner, some time at the plot. Maybe planting my tomatoes on, even. I'm currently feeling relatively relaxed and relatively optimistic and relatively cheerful; long may it continue. (And if it doesn't then, well, that too shall pass.)

It's my birthday in two weeks' time, so today Adam & I spent the morning at Leiths School of Food and Wine waving knives around, this being last year's birthday present. (It was delayed by surgical recovery, and then availability over the summer, and then buying a house, and then Belfast, because apparently we have done A Lot Of Things in the last twelve months.)

I really, really enjoyed it - every hour or two I'd glance up, catch sight of the clock, and be a little startled by how much time had passed. So here, have some notes.

Access

Leiths were informed at the point of booking that I'm a wheelchair user. There was some discussion (via phone calls with A and e-mails with me) about how to make me as comfortable as possible; I was offered a lower worksurface (so I could remain seated in my wheelchair), a stool provided by the school, or the option (suggested by us) of me bringing in my own (adjustable) saddle stool. We ended up deciding that I'd bring in my own saddle stool and show up a few minutes early so we could get set up before general introductory material, but it was made very clear that I could at any point say "actually, I need a lower table after all" and This Could Happen. I get the impression that if anyone else had wanted a stool at any point during the class they could have requested one and it would have been provided with absolutely no fuss. On the day, everything in terms of set-up went very smoothly.

The building has level access, though it's via a short and fairly steep ramp with a pull-to-open door at the top of it. There were no shortage of people around to open it for me, however, even if I hadn't had Adam with me. Inside the building reception is then off to the side through a slightly awkward door (it's clearly not part of the main day-to-day operations!); there's a cloakroom, a lift, and space in the kitchens to leave bags, and I was able to leave my chair close by me in the kitchen as well.

Evacuation plans are a thing. In my case I Really Hate dealing with detailed evacuation plans because in fact I can walk out even if stairs were involved (in that if I can't walk out I won't have made it to wherever the venue is so it's a moot point), so my evacuation plan was "if I gotta I'll walk it"; I got the impression that had something more involved been required they'd have arranged for that too.

We were prompted to drink water at regular intervals. I might have had a bit of difficulty reaching the handwashing sink had I been remaining in my chair, largely due to the position of the bin for paper towels, but I expect that would have been moved had I needed it. I was at one end of the table (there were about twenty of us plus the instructor), and sometimes struggled to hear the instructor's voice, especially as there was another class (macarons) going on in the other half of the kitchen; I was on her left and she was right-handed, so also sometimes couldn't see demonstrations in detail. Instructions were given verbally and were also (in slightly condensed form) available in writing (not in large print by default); our instructor has apparently spent some time teaching knife skills to blind and visually impaired people, so has a bunch of established techniques for that, though I imagine that works less well in the large group setting we were in. However, teachers circulated post-demonstration and encouraged questions, left-handers were identified at the start of the session and put in positions where they'd be able to chop easily, and I'm absolutely certain that had I asked to be placed close to the instructor that it would've happened without a problem. We were also encouraged to take notes throughout.

This was overall a genuinely positive experience for me in terms of access. I'd been worried about it, but in fact it all Just Worked.

( As for the actual learning... )

I am enjoying reading your reviews-of-the-Gregorian-year, so here is a contribution from me. <3

( Read more... )

In my last post about the NHM there was a Good Bat Fact I failed to include: the pitcher plant that has evolved to be a bat roost. It doesn't bother eating insects any more, really, even! It lets the bat catch them for it! It is So Good.

Meanwhile, I am currently in the Peak District; A brought me up this way yesterday. Prior to setting off, however, we had Things To Do in Enfield: we'd been expecting our ex-landlord (!) to come by to pick up his Misc Shite (incl. half a box of Cuban cigars, obviously) from the garage, but by the time he'd come down with a bug on Friday we'd already made plans around existing in Enfield 'til early afternoon, so we stuck with those. First up was a local repair cafe, where I got someone who knew what they were doing to tell me how to fix a slipper sock and also a fabric bottle holder for t'wheelchair; A got talked through mending some trousers in the other half of my slot. (Skill acquistion dates are the Best Dates.)

Following this A very Patiently drove me out to Waltham Abbey so that I could collect some freecycled Phormium tenax clumps; my mother is fond of the stuff and wants to deposit some in the grounds (ha) of the Mouldering Ancestral Pile, so when I saw it going I very cheerfully said "yes please". A had... not quite appreciated that these plant clumps were going to be almost as tall as me, and sort of trailed after me going "... what the fuck, Alex" as I loaded them into the back of the car... before taking me on a tiny single-track road ("not suitable for HGVs") through a tree-tunnel in London, what even, it was an excellent adventure. (And then I heeled the plants in at the allotment, where I also fed the compost bin and went LOOK AT YOU AREN'T YOU A SPINACH, before we went home to eat lunch and feed the tomatoes and actually pack.)

Today I have mostly been attempting to build LineageOS for the new kitchen tablet (it has been An Adventure but is now almost 25% done), along with cooking some of the quince (quince and rhubarb cobbler, using allotment-rhubarb that I dragged up with us) and A Lot of roast dinner for seven. I am shortly to curl up in a sleepy pile, and Lo, It Will Be Good, and there are Rocks and Pointy Bits and Sheep and I am very contented.

-- but should you own a OnePlus One and be in the habit of breaking your screens, this guide to replacing them has by-and-large worked very nicely indeed for me.

It is missing the details that (a) you might want some double-sided sticky-tape to hand, (b) you gotta unplug the antenna to actually remove the motherboard, and (c) there's a plastic retaining clip for the top ribbon for the screen. It's also written with the expectation that you are not someone who uses HF routinely, and therefore that you need BIG SCARY WARNINGS to NOT USE EXCESS FORCE where in fact my problem was, very consistently, needing to use more force.

Additional resources I found helpful: a youtube video that gives more detail on removing the battery, levering up the screen, and how to disconnect the antenna (9:15ish).

I tried using the suspicious microwave ferret as a heat source but it was insufficient, so I used an encozied hot water bottle instead.

Culinary skills acquired:

whetstone use (after a fashion)
baby's first marmalade
Kardemummebullar
cheese-making! (paneer; an ambition for the next year is mozzarella)
pasta (gosh but wrangling the machine is An Adventure)
macarons (via the magic of Italian meringue)

Miscellaneous other skills acquired:

finished the Duolingo Turkish tree
seriously levelled up in hair-dying skills (including managing a pretty good rendition of this general principle on a friend with a hair type I hadn't previously bleached or dyed, but I'm also pretty pleased with a peacock-shades oil slick, and Adam's current rainbow gradient from roots to ends)
submitted baby's first first-author paper, with Significant General Academic Progress, particularly with respect to Having Boundaries
acquired a physio/exercise regime that works for me (and then promptly let it lapse, but having acquired the principles I can come back to them)
substantially levelled up in technical writing on a reasonable and sustainable schedule
so. much. emotional. regulation.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

who only by moving can balance

only by balancing move

achievement unlocked!

stubbornly acquiring skill

current developmental stage: "look what I made!!! ... you didn't LOOK"

[stationery] this week in learnings

[food] injera!

notes on adventures: a gregorian year

[art] Impatiens flaccida

SOME QUESTIONS

[frivolity] messing around with colour

Bog mummy: levelling up

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[tiny adventures] Knife skills - fruit, vegetables and herbs

notes on adventures

tiny adventures!

Not that this is likely to affect anyone but silveradept--

Notes on a Gregorian year

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April 2025

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