So Close, and Yet So Far

Good morning, my friends. How is everyone doing? According to the clock, I slept an extra hour this morning, as I did yesterday. It usually takes me about a week to adjust to the new time. Sleeping late is better than waking early, I suppose.

It felt busy, and not busy yesterday. Everything on my list was finished early, and so I could focus on sewing. I spent a little extra time with my slow-stitching. When I moved my hoop, I realized I'd stitched nearly all the way from left to right. I'll be glad to have this finished. What remains will fit in my hoop, but I'll have to stitch both the top and bottom row.

I know I won't have enough of the tan floss for the flowers to finish it off. Fortunately, another skein should be delivered today. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm not sure it will be the right color. As I looked at this yesterday, I realized there's a tan color in the variegated floss for the scalloped edge that could be separated out and used if the new skein isn't right. On the other hand, the color isn't perfect there either. I might end up using a different color floss to finish it off. When the mail is delivered, I can make my final decision, but I'm hoping to finish this by this afternoon.

As I was putting everything away, I glanced out the window to see this Peeping Tom staring back at me.

The rest of my sewing day was spent finishing off the Merry, Merry Snowmen. I finished top-stitching the white, and then stitched in their arms by machine. Also, I added a bow to the top gift.

Our dinner was a Dutch oven stew last night, and so I paused here to get that started. It needed about three hours on the stovetop. It sure made the house smell good.

While I waited for that, I finished doing the hand embroidery and sewing on the button embellishments. It's hard stitching those carrot noses. Satin stitch is a rather unforgiving stitch. At times, I was stitching through three layers of applique, and it was hard to push the needle through without poking holes in my fingers. (A wiser person might have used a thimble.) And then, it was hard to pull the needle all the way through. I was using my teeth for that. (I'm sure my dentist would have disapproved of my method.) It took about an hour, but then it was finished.

There are three more blocks to make before I'll be ready to sew this into a finished quilt top. These are the six blocks I have so far.

Now, about that stew...I make so many new recipes that I can't always remember what we liked and what we didn't. Often, before turning off the lights at night, I'm scrolling through old blog posts to see what things I've made that we liked. When I read a post from 2016, I noticed the recipe for Dijon and Cognac Beef Stew where I said it might be the best stew we've ever eaten. 

Well. I couldn't remember anything about it, and so it went on this week's menu. And I didn't disagree with my earlier comments. The Dijon mustard gives it a rich and flavorful broth. We had it with some crusty bread for dunking.

So I've given you the link to the recipe. It's a gift link, and so anyone can open it. I substituted brandy for the cognac, and I used a honey mustard in place of the Pommery mustard. "Pommery" seems to be a brand name, and I didn't have any of that. A recommended substitute was whole grain mustard, but I rejected that because of the seeds. Instead, I used a honey mustard I've had in the fridge for a long time. It worked in the stew, and it used up the last of that mustard. Aside from that, I made it just the way the recipe was written. It calls for red wine and cognac. If you want to avoid alcohol, you can substitute tomato juice, cranberry juice, or grape juice. (Tomato juice might actually be good.) As for the brandy, there are non-alcoholic brandies available. If it were me, I'd probably use apple juice.

Okay, and that brought me to the end of my day. Today is a treadmill walking day, and there's one to-do on my list of housekeeping chores. After that, I'll get to work making the 7th of eight rows for the Lightframe quilt. Here's what I have so far.

Also, I'm hoping to finish off the Girls' Getaway piece today too. Fingers crossed the floss skein will be the right color. If not...I'll figure out something. It may require a consultation with my cats. They always have the best ideas.

A Little Bit of Sewing

Good morning my friends. Did you remember to spring forward? We have a clock that displays the time on our ceiling. When I opened my eyes this morning, I was surprised at how late I'd slept. And then I realized the clock had done the work of springing ahead. Actually, it was my usual getting up time, but the clock was already up and at 'em.

After finishing yesterday's post, I found myself in dire need of a nap. I'm not sure why I was so tired, but I'm chalking it up to a busy week. There was all the excitement of finding our furnace not working on Wednesday, followed by a lengthy grocery shopping trip. And then there was the fun trip to the zoo, and all the walking that entailed. Friday was an easier day, but then Saturday had me up and out early for the farmer's market. It was all good, but so many days in a single week just caught up with me yesterday. Usually I only nap for about half an hour, but yesterday's nap was longer...and refreshing.

So that left little time for sewing by late afternoon. Sadie was my helper cat.

It's hard to see in this image, but I've top-stitched everything except the white snowmen.

Today, I'll finish that off, and then I'll do the machine stitching of the arms. From there, it'll need some hand embroidery of the faces, and button embellishments sewn on. Also, I'll want to add a bow to the gifts on the right. It sounds like a lot, but I expect to finish it off today.

There was a little bit of daylight left. Looking out the window, I noticed buds on the star magnolia. This is one of my favorite blooming things in the spring.

It has such pretty and delicate flowers. Here's an image from April of 2023. Seeing all the flowers in this image makes me realize it will be blooming soon.

Also, I noticed more of the mini iris in one of the whiskey barrels. 

It's a floor-mopping day, but aside from that, I can focus on my sewing. I didn't get in any slow-stitching time yesterday, and so I'll spend a little extra time on that this morning. I'm close to finishing this long piece, and I am going to run out of the floss I'm using for the little flowers. 

Another skein is supposed to arrive in tomorrow's mail. I just hope it's the right color. To my eyes, this looks tan, but the color name is "Spray Green." Hm. The picture on the website looked right, 

so fingers crossed. If it turns out to be the wrong color, I have another bobbin with a color that is just one number off from the original (367). The color is slightly different, but I might just use it anyway.

Okay, so there's plenty of sewing on today's agenda, but I'm going to give myself an easy day. With so much excitement last week, and then springing ahead, it seems like a good day to replenish my energy level. Blueberry oatmeal pancakes will get me off to a good start on the week.

Morning Meandering

Good afternoon, my friends. I'm late for our chat today. Erik texted me late yesterday afternoon to inquire whether we "should" go to the farmer's market this morning. And, I'm always up for the farmer's market, even when I don't need anything. I just love hanging out with my kiddos, and the market is always fun too. 

So that's what we did. I stuck to my guns about not needing anything. Instead, I bought something I absolutely don't need...fudge. I believe my love of fudge is already well established, so how could I pass by this box of yummy delights?

In the top row, from left to right we have chocolate orange, chocolate cherry, almond toffee, and lemon. On the bottom row, from left to right we have pistachio, original chocolate, marionberry, and cookies and cream. I ate the marionberry already since Mike can't have those seeds. Think of it as a life-saving precautionary measure. Those are going to be pretty darned tasty with our afternoon cup of espresso.

We've been having some lovely spring weather here. Sadie was so excited yesterday, she was charging all around the yard and up and down trees. I barely caught her as she paused to change direction here.

Later, I caught her squaring off with this squirrel. Who do you think wins this fight?

So, while I was doing my slow-stitching yesterday, I was considering what kind of sewing project to take along on our trip to Alaska. Our trip is around 2 months long, give or take a week or two. It seemed if I chose one large embroidery project, I could keep myself busy the whole time while simultaneously saving space in the camper. 

So I perused my list of longer projects, and came up with this BOM I downloaded years ago from Kaaren Johnston. I've looked all around to find it online again...either for free, or for sale...and I can only find it on her website where it originally appeared on The Painted Quilt. Her blog has been inactive since 2016, and the pattern doesn't seem to be available elsewhere. Also, I tried clicking on the links there, and they seem to be inactive. I clicked on one link and requested access, but I've received no reply. I'm afraid those links are dead, Jim.

It consists of something like 15 stitcheries all sewn together with some scrappy blocks. I'll trace out all the stitcheries ahead of time to take along. The sewing-together part will happen sometime later. For now, I'll just focus on getting the stitcheries prepared to take along. Already, I've discovered I have the floss I need for this project. Having just one color is an added convenience for a take along project. She used a different red, but the one I have will work just fine.

It'll take me some time to trace out all those stitcheries, but I'll do them a little at a time. First, I'll need to score some background fabric. For that, I'll wait for the new quilt shop to open near me. It'll give me something to buy when I nose around their new store for the first time.

From there, I spent the afternoon fusing the applique for Block 6 of the Merry, Merry Snowmen. 

I'll work on the top-stitching today. When it's finished, there will be both machine and hand embroidery, and I'll need to sew on the button embellishments. There's also a bow at the top of the stack of gifts. This will keep me busy for the rest of the afternoon. 

For grins, I wanted to revisit my mention of the shark Halloween costume from last week. I've saved the costume all these many years thinking a grandchild might wear it someday. Since the grandchildren never materialized, I've been adopting other people's grandchildren when I want to make a baby quilt or do some other kid-related sewing. After mentioning the shark costume, I climbed up into the attic to have a look at it. It was dusty from so many years of sitting untouched, and I wasn't at all sure how well it would do in the washing machine. And then I realized it either needed to get washed and passed along, or else discarded. It was doing nobody any good hanging in our attic collecting dust.

So I washed it on delicate cycle, and then hung it to dry. I worried those teeth made from felt would shrink in the dryer. And lo and behold, it washed up beautifully. I sent it along to one of Matthew's friends from high school who has three little boys. Last night, their dad texted this picture to me. You have no idea how happy this made me.

I learned this morning they're expecting their fourth child in September. Another baby quilt for me to make...yay! (Baby quilts are my favorites.)

Okay, so that's all I have for you today. Don't forget...tonight's the night!

(Image credit: Image by pikisuperstar on Freepik)

I'm actually fine with the time change, although I find the "spring forward" half to be the more difficult adjustment. Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to see us stick to one time or the other. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Our local weatherman put it pretty succinctly with this chart on the news last night.

To explain: If we were to switch to year round DST, early winter sunrises in Portland would be near 9 am. So, not only would your kids be waiting for the bus in the dark, they'd probably be starting school in the dark as well. Conversely, if we were to switch to year round standard time, it would be light enough to do things outside around 3:30 am in June. Yeah...no. I want darkness that early in the morning. All of that to say chalk me up as a vote for leaving things as is. You are free to disagree, but here's something to keep in mind: nobody is listening to you or to me. 

All right. I'm plum tuckered out after all that excitement at the farmer's market this morning. I'm going to take a nap and then get busy with my sewing. 

It's All Happening at the Zoo

Good morning, my friends. To quote Paul Simon, "something tells me it's all happening at the zoo." For sure everything that happened yesterday happened there. We had a beautiful day for it. I purchased tickets for timed entry the day before, and we were supposed to enter the zoo at 1:00 p.m. I wish I'd thought of it before I decided on that time because I realized later the baby elephant would only be open for viewing between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Not knowing what we'd encounter on our arrival, I worried we might miss out.

When we arrived, there were signs indicating the parking lots were full, and suggesting we drive back the way we came about five miles to park at the light rail station. From there, we could take light rail to the zoo. And that would all be fine and dandy, except I was worried about getting there too late to see the baby. Happily, Mike with his sharp eyes, saw someone pulling out of a spot. We hurried our way there, only mowing down three people in the process (kidding, of course), and we got into that spot. It was even close to the entrance. I'm telling you...we must be living right. Or maybe having our water and heat go out all in a single week, the universe smiled on us and gave us that parking spot.

So I took dozens of pictures. They aren't the best pictures because I was often shooting through a fence or a net or a window, but I'll show you the best of them. And we hurried to the elephant enclosure, walking past this first grouping of animals as quickly as the crowd would allow. These are mountain goats.

There were several inside this enclosure.

A little farther on, we spotted this sleepy black bear. And you probably know that zoo animals don't concern themselves with the pictures you're trying to take. They just continue on sleeping or eating or whatever else they feel like doing.

Here's a bald eagle. I expect we'll see lots of bald eagles in Alaska.

And we hurried, hurried, hurried to see the baby elephant. And SQUEE!! THERE SHE IS!!! Her name is Tula-Tu, and that's her mom, Rose-Tu.

As you might guess, there was a crowd of people in this shelter. I was having to hold my camera over my head to get an unobstructed view of her.

There were nets holding what appears to be alfalfa over their heads, and the adult elephants were reaching up high for this treat.

She's so tiny compared to her mom.

Back outside, we enjoyed the sweet, sweet fragrance of the blooming daphne. Our daphne at home doesn't even have buds yet, so it was nice to see this...and to smell it.

And whatever this is...it was blooming in abundance.

After seeing the elephants, we stood in line for some elephant ears. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Food of the gods, I tell you. That and a shared bottle of water stood in for lunch. So healthy and nutritious! And delicious!

Walking on, we saw the chimpanzees.

This next one was sitting right next to the window of his enclosure, and seemed to be enjoying all the attention he was generating from the crowd on the other side of the glass. Eventually, he turned his head and then turned his back, still sitting in the same spot, as if to say, "Be off with you. You are boring me now."

It's a little hard to see in this next image, but this is a mama orangutan holding a baby. The baby is on the left with its back to us, resting its head on her shoulder.

Continuing on, we came to the outdoor elephant enclosure where we saw this immense bull.

This next little guy was in the enclosure with the lemurs. Apparently, they come in more colors than just gray. The round yellow eyes are definitely all lemur.

Here's another one in the color we're more accustomed to seeing. They are so danged cute.

This one came right up next to the window, not two feet away. It sat down, and then wrapped its long tail up over its shoulder...to keep warm, one assumes. Later a friend joined him, and they both wrapped their tails over their shoulders and over one another.

And you might remember how much I love the lemurs. I purchased this fabric at a quilt shop in Lawrence, Kansas, on our Eclipse Trip last year.

And I swear one day I'm going to make a quilt from this image. We saw these lemurs at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, Florida.

Moving on, these are hyenas. They couldn't be bothered showing off for the crowd.

This next one is one of those big monitor lizards. This one was about five feet long from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.

This is a mongoose. These little guys keep Hawaii free of snakes.

We saw some pretty birds inside the aviary. I believe this next one is a hadada ibis.

These next ones are marbled teals.

This is a spur-winged lapwing. It had long skinny legs that looked too wimpy to support its weight.

This pretty goose is an African pygmy goose. There were several of them swimming in the water feature there, but this was the only one I could get a clear view for a picture.

And, finally, this pretty guy flew up and perched right next to us, clearly wanting me to take its picture. It's a golden-breasted starling. 

Back outside, we saw three black rhinos.

Moving on, we saw two giraffes.

These birds were inside the enclosure with the giraffes. They seemed to be buddies. I'm not sure what they are...vultures, maybe? Condors? Not sure.

There's the other giraffe.

Also inside the giraffe enclosure, we saw this young gazelle.

Moving on, we saw this giant porcupine. Sorry it isn't a very good picture. I was picking up reflections in the glass. This guy was surprisingly large...maybe the size of a large dog.

And whatever this is...it was about three feet long.

There were flamingos and roseate spoonbills.

This was the best image I could get of one of the bats. It was dark in there, and I was shooting without flash. These guys hang upside-down from a fencing material. It's interesting watching them use their clawed wings to move about their enclosure. And they are large like a squirrel.

A sleeping tiger. There was one other in this shelter.

And this is a red panda. Sorry it isn't a better picture.

And that was our day. On the way out, we stopped off at the gift shop, and I picked up a refrigerator magnet. It was just a happy thing that it has an elephant on it.

So, we had fun at the zoo. Seeing the baby elephant was a thrill. 

It's been two full days without sewing. I'm getting weird, nervous, and thirsty from the lack of time in the sewing room. I'll remedy that today. There are just a couple of easy chores on my to-do list, and I want to get in a Bowflex workout. Aside from that, I'll get some sewing done. I'm hoping to get a good start on the applique for the Merry, Merry Snowmen. First, though...slow stitching.