Sashion Statement

Good morning, my friends. Did you see what I did there? Uh-oh...I just made my brain fly off in a tangent. So here's the thing: I'm watching this Ken Burns documentary about one of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. I'm only just getting started, but it's all about his younger print shop days. And why did the "s" look like an "f" in those days? Of course, I inquired of my friend, The Google, who knows everything. I'll tell you at the end of this post. I know...so exciting. But I'll let you ponder that while I tell you what happened yesterday.

First, I stitched some more in this section of my Phenology piece.

I'm working my way around clockwise, and so I decided to move my hoop. It's very tempting to put a turkey in there for November, but I think it's worth leaving the fireworks just so I can remember the Guy Fawkes Day story. This is where I'll start with this morning's stitching.

The only thing on yesterday's to-do list was to quilt the sashings on the New Mexico Kitchen quilt. And I'm sorry. It's very difficult to see anything with this black thread on black fabric. I've tried adjusting the light and contrast, but I'm afraid I couldn't improve it much. All the sashings are finished now.

For those middle sections, I changed direction in the middle of the strip. It's indicated with an orange arrow. You can still see my white marks, but those will rub off just by maneuvering the quilt some. What doesn't rub off on its own can be rubbed off with a soft cloth or a toothbrush.

Here's how it looks from the back. It's even harder to see the quilting there.

When I was finished for the day, I laid it out on the floor for inspection. Smitty gave it a good once over on the back...

and on the top.

His inspection took quite some time, but eventually it earned the Three Cats Ranch Seal of Appurroval...which is even more valuable than the Good Housekeeping seal. Cats rarely like anything.

It was late in the day by then. I tried one of the recipes I snagged from the Cooking Light diet before it ceased publication. This is Cantonese-style Shrimp and Napa Cabbage. Happily, another blogger published the recipe on her blog back in 2012 (it appeared in the magazine in 2011), and so I can link to it there. I note she "adapted" the recipe. She left out the tablespoon of ginger paste. We like ginger, and so I included it in mine. The recipe suggests serving it over jasmine rice with some Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce, which I happen to love. I'm always glad to find a way to use Mae Ploy that doesn't force me to drink it straight from the bottle.

This was easy enough for RV cooking, and it was very tasty. Minus the rice and the Mae Ploy, the main dish has less than 50 calories per serving, so it's very diet friendly. For sure, I'll be making this again.

Okay, are you ready for the exciting conclusion of this "s" vs. "f" conundrum? Here's what The Google tells me.

The "f"-like letter is actually the medial "S", or long "S", which is a variation of the lowercase "s". It originated from the Roman cursive "S", which was written like a checkmark with a tail that extended to the right. The medial "S" was the lowercase form of the letter until around the 1100s, and it continued to be used in Old English and throughout English orthography until the 1800s. The medial "S" looks like a lowercase "F" if the bar across the center is removed, or if the bar only extends out on the left side. Unlike an "f", the medial "S" either has no crossbar or only a nub on the left side of the staff. 

The medial "S" was used in many places, including at the beginning and middle of words, before a hyphen, and before the letters "k" and "b". For example, "finfulneſs" would be used instead of "sinfulness", and "poſſeſs" or "poſseſs" would be used instead of "possess". 

The use of the printing press led to the use of only one form of the lowercase "s", and the long "S" fell out of use in Roman and italic typography before the middle of the 19th century. However, the long "S" can still be found in German blackletter typefaces and in the integral symbol ∫ used in calculus. 

So, there you go. You can go happily about your day knowing you've already learned something new. Have I said lately how much I 💗 the internet?

Okay, so today starts the "packing in earnest" part of our upcoming trip to Moab. I'm still going to try to finish off quilting the borders on New Mexico Kitchen. Barring any bad behavior on the part of the machine, it shouldn't take too long. As for "packing in earnest" I've spread out several dishes to cook up over the next couple of days. Probably, I'll need to make one more trip to the grocery store before we go, but I'm hoping to have enough food cooked ahead that we can avoid buying anything more until the last of our five days in Moab. It takes some effort at the front end, but makes the first week of a trip so much more relaxing.

Probably I'll miss a few days of blogging here and there over the next week. It's hard to generate anything of interest to tell you when the most important part of my day is carrying things out to the camper. So let's just say I'll blog if I have anything interesting to say ("interesting," being a relative term). Right now it's time for breakfast and slow-stitching, and then I'll get packing.