Another Sewing Day

Good morning, my friends. Yesterday looked a lot like the day before. It was kind of a busy morning, but as always, my day started with embroidery.

Having stitched that far, I decided to move my hoop up to be ready for today’s stitching. That takes me all the way to the top, but there’s still more on the left side.

There were a few things on my to-do list. I had one housekeeping chore, and…miracle of miracles…I’ve returned to my treadmill and Bowflex workouts. I’ve done one on each apparatus this week, so that’s two days in a row. Whoa. I’ll miss today with my haircut, but I’ll do my very, very, very, very best to get back to it tomorrow. With summer gardening done, and most any other outdoor activities on hold for a while, there needs to be more in-the-house movement. Use it or lose it, as they say.

So, when I was ready to commence with my sewing, I turned the second corner on the Cats in Pajamas.

And then I went to work on the Zebra. The first of six rows is finished now. The fifth block for this row was laid out. I sewed it together, and then I could sew all five blocks together.

After that, I had time to first block for the second row.

The second block for that row is laid out. More than likely, I’ll have time to sew this together today. No telling if there will be time for anything else today, but I’m also hoping to get around the third corner of my quilt binding.

Okay, so I’m writing fast this morning. I need to head out a little bit earlier than I like, but that’s life. On my way home, I’m going to stop at Whole Foods and try to score some chanterelle mushrooms. They usually have them this time of year. It’s time to make my annual Chanterelle Mushroom Risotto. Mike and I are Jonesing for it. That’ll be for tonight’s dinner, if I can find the mushrooms.

Also, I’m going to try to return a bag of pistachios we purchased on our grocery shopping trip. Usually, I have pistachios on hand because I use them in different recipes. Since I was running low, I grabbed a bag on Tuesday. When I got home with them, I realized they were dill flavored. What??? Does that even make sense? Who wants dill flavor with your pistachios? Well. That won’t work in my recipes, and so I’m going to try to exchange them for the plain old pistachio pistachios. Sheesh. Some people’s kids. (I used to work with a furniture salesman who said that all time time. It stuck with me.)

So that’s it from this end. It’ll be good to get my hair cut. It’s about two weeks overdue, and so it’s at the knife’s edge of driving me crazy. Sanity to be restored shortly. (Unapologetic pun, in case you missed it.) 

Marathon Sewing

Good morning, my friends. We had an epic grocery list yesterday because we hadn't been to the grocery store in nearly two weeks. On our way home, we passed by this pretty tree decked out in its fall colors. I've seen a few of these around with three colors of leaves on a single three.

Thankfully, the shopping was all done and the groceries put away before noon, which left me lots of time in the day for sewing. My first stop was to clip the Cats in Pajamas and get started hand-sewing the binding. Before I stopped for the day, I'd turned the first corner.

From there, I spent the rest of the afternoon on the Zebra quilt. The first four blocks are finished. I've sewn together the three blocks on the left. I'll sew the fourth and fifth blocks together before I sew them to the rest. When I had it this far, I needed to cut more squares in every color. That took up the rest of my sewing time for the day.

Before I turned out the lights, I laid out the squares for the fifth block. I should have plenty of time to sew this together and complete the first of six rows.

The only other thing I have to tell you about is making these biscuits for last night's dinner. We'll finish them off tonight. We had some leftover chili, but we'd eaten all the cornbread I made last week. These Cheddar Bay Biscuits...a copycat recipe from Red Lobster…seemed like a good accompaniment for our leftover chili.

So there's not a lot going on today. I have a couple of things on my to-do list, but it's going to look a lot like yesterday. Hand-sewing will continue on the Cats in Pajamas, and I'll keep making blocks for the Zebra until I run out of time. Since I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow, I'm hoping to get in a good day of sewing today.

When you looked outside this morning, did the sky look a little bluer than it has been in a while? The future is looking just a little brighter this morning. Have a celebratory day, Everybody!

Bind On

Good morning, my friends. There wasn't as much time for sewing yesterday as I'd hoped, but the binding is sewn on the Cats in Pajamas, and that project is on the home stretch. We had almost not a single bite of food in the house for lunch, and so we ended up driving into town for a second McRib. Usually, we limit ourselves to one per seasonal offering, but what the heck, right? 

Before we left, I took some time for slow-stitching.

There's enough done on the left side that I decided to move my hoop to the right to encompass that side. There's still plenty to be done at the top, but it's moving along.

Okay, now this next bit requires some explanation. In yesterday's post, I had the first block for the Zebra project laid out. Looking at the image below, I was still uneasy about the contrast between the two lightest tan colors. In the picture, you almost can’t tell the difference. (I’m looking at the left column, 3rd and 4th from the bottom.) Since I wanted to get started on it, I was willing to live with that, but it was on my mind whenever I thought about sewing this together. My fear was that it would bother me even after it was finished.

Then, as we were driving into town for lunch, I remembered there are two shops in town that have small inventories of fabric for sale. I figured I might be able to pick up a color I liked better. Sure enough. When we got home, I laid the first color on top of the just-purchased color, and I liked that a lot better.

And that looks so much better now that I have the squares sewn into a block. This took a lot longer than expected. Somehow I got things out of order, and so I had to unsew and resew several of them. When it was finished, it looked like this. This is Block 1 of 30 blocks. 

Okay, and I was determined to get the binding sewn onto the Cats in Pajamas. That took the remainder of my sewing day, but it's ready for hand-sewing now. I'll get started on that today.

So when I said there wasn't a bite of food in the house, did you wonder if we were going grocery shopping at some point? Well, yes, as a matter of fact. We were putting it off until today because the first Tuesday is senior discount day. It doesn't save us a lot of money, but it's still worth the wait if we can make it work.

That's going to cut into my sewing day some, but I'm hoping to get well along with the Zebra today. If I can get the top row of blocks finished, I'll consider that a good day of sewing. 

What's going on in your sewing room today?

An Everything Day

Good morning, my friends. Well, my extra hour in the day stretched to accommodate all my favorite activities: Cats, Gardening, Quilting, Cooking, and Photography. So let's just see where it all began.

In the cooking category, I baked a batch of Chocolate and Pistachio Biscotti. I've made these before, and they're supposed to be dipped in more chocolate. We liked them as is, and so I bagged the whole chocolate dip at the end. These will be nice with our morning coffee.

Biscotti isn't hard to make, but it is a time-consuming process. 

In the gardening category, it was nearing lunch time before I was able to get out and cut back the dahlias. They're safely stowed in the garage for the winter now. While I was doing that, Mike very cleverly gave the poppy a new barrel. You can see one of the older, falling-apart barrels in the background of the image below. We'll switch that one out next spring when we plant next year's cherry tomato.

As for the poppy, Mike gave this quite a bit of thought. He first removed the wood and rings from the old whiskey barrel, which left him with a sort of "poppy cake." It was too heavy to lift into the new barrel, and so he took a machete and cut it into fourths, like a pie. Then, he could safely lift it into its new barrel while barely disturbing the plant. Yay! I've been worrying about accomplishing this without destroying the plant. Now, it's done and ready for blooms in the new year.

In the photography category, I noticed this perfect spider web on one of our red-leaf maple trees. I'm assuming the spider was inspired by Halloween. So, of course, I needed a picture of that. We often get these big garden spider webs this time of year, but it’s rare to find one that goes the full 360 degrees.

In the quilting category, I was ready to quilt the border on the Cats in Pajamas. I scrolled through heart motifs on Pinterest, eventually settling on this one. It's really just a heart-shaped feather.

That was pretty easy to do on the quilt. It took about an hour, and the quilting was finished. It's a little hard to see, but you can get a look at it along the left side and the top of the image below. From there, I took it downstairs to square it up. 

In the cat category, or cat-egory, Sadie took one look at that and claimed it.

This looks like a delicious spot for a nap.

Why yes, I think this will do purrfectly.

It took some convincing, but eventually she decided to nap in the bed provided for her in the sewing room. That gave me an opportunity to square it up. I might have sewn the binding on, but I was kind of tired of wrestling with it by then.

Besides...the fabric had been delivered for Matthew's Zebra quilt. I'd hoped for a little more contrast between the two in the upper left, but this will do. 

So, I started by cutting one 4-inch strip from each color. (I already had the white in my stash.) Those were cross-cut into 4-inch squares. I can get 10 or 11 from each strip.

The original grid is 25 columns by 30 rows. (I've added two rows to each side to make it queen sized.) So, I drew a 5 x 5 grid on the pattern, and I'll make it one grid-block at a time. There will be 30 blocks in all...six rows of five blocks.

Now I've done the cutting and laid out the first block. I was getting kind of tired of sewing by then, and so I covered it with rulers and left it there.

Today I'll start sewing it together. Before I do that, however, I'll get the binding sewn on the Cats in Pajamas by machine. Hand-stitching will probably commence tomorrow. If I’m feeling really energetic, I’ll sart on it this afternoon.

So that was a busy day. While I was waiting for various baking times on the biscotti, I was able to get my to-do's for both yesterday and today finished. Today is going to be all sewing, all the time. Probably I’ll do the laundry, but laundry and sewing are a good partnership. I'm hoping to have a lot accomplished by day's end. Happy Moanday, Everybody!

Spooky Sewing

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to November! Sheesh. Can you believe we're into the "holiday season" already? And it’s my favorite time change of the year. For the past week, I’ve been making a list of all the things I’m going to do with my extra hour of time. 

Truthfully, time seems to fly by any more. I feel as if we just got home from last winter’s trip south. It makes me think of a conversation I had with one of my graduate school professors. Her name was Maria, and her social work career was spent working with the “frail elderly.” I recall her saying once that she asked her clients, does time just seem to go faster and faster as you grow older and older? Yes, was the answer. I believe it. 

We won't be heading south this year, and so we'll get to experience the crappy winter weather here in the Pacific Northwest first hand this year. It's okay by me. I'm just as happy to stay home, but I will miss seeing our SoCal friends. Today is going to be relatively nice. We’re going to get outside and do a little yard work. Gazing out the window at the moment, it’s still foggy, but we’re confident it will burn off.

But let's just back up for a minute and talk about yesterday's sewing, shall we? The first stitches were taken on the Snow Day project.

And this being the first of the month, it's time to set a goal for November's

My goal for November will be to complete the embroidery for the Snow Day piece.

As I was packing things up to move on with the rest of my day, I glanced out the window to notice the color on one of our showier trees. No color editing on this...it really is that red.

Okay, and I had a couple of easy housekeeping chores to do, but then I went to work finishing up November's gold star. I needed to make and trim 24 HST's.

And then, I could sew it all together.

And, yes. I'm feeling pret-ty smug about having November's star done already. Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Since there won't be a new color in December, I'm already thinking December's star will be pulled from my "multi-colored" bin with a focus on fabrics with a black background. 

From there, I was ready to get busy quilting the Cats in Pajamas. My goal was to quilt the eight "spacers." Each was done with this same upsy-downsy heart motif.

When they were all finished, I laid it out for a picture. In this image you can see all the different motifs I've used on this quilt so far.

Here's a peek at the back.

Just the border remains for quilting, and I'll make that my first priority for today's sewing. Probably I'll do the same "half-hearted" motif I used in the vertical sashings, but I want to spend some time on Pinterest looking at other heart-related motifs I might use in the border. With any luck, this will be ready for binding by day's end. 

If I can get the border finished, I'll move directly to squaring it up and machine sewing the binding. The binding is from that same background fabric pictured above. 

My next project is on hold just now. I'm awaiting the fabric I ordered before I can get started on Matthew's zebra quilt. My tracking number promises it will arrive today. I'm hopeful. 

Also, I'm hopeful y'all survived this year's Halloween visitors. Sadie went dressed as a black cat.

Every year...same costume. You'd think she'd outgrow it, but she is a small kitty.

Today will probably be our best day of weather for the week, and so I'm going to cut back the still-blooming dahlias. It's time to be moving them into the garage for the winter. Mike will load them into the tractor bucket for that since the individual pots are pretty heavy. 

Also, we’re going to try to transplant the poppy into a new planter. We started with five whiskey barrels shortly after we moved into our home in 2002. Over time, they’ve rotted and fallen apart. So far, we’ve replaced two of them. The poppy needs to be done now so that it can grow again in the spring. (I might end up having to reseed it.) That will probably wrap up my year of gardening until next spring. 

Next spring, we’ll endeavor to replace the other two whiskey barrels. One has our cherry tomato growing in it, so that will be easy enough. The other has mint growing in it. We could probably just fill the new barrel with soil, and then set it beside the current rotting mint barrel. It would probably start growing there all on its own. If you’ve ever grown mint, then you know I’m not kidding.

So for today I'll focus on getting the Cats in Pajamas to binding stage. Also, I have a couple of easy housekeeping chores. Mike has requested biscotti, and so I’ll probably do that too.

Happy November, Everybody. And if you haven't voted already, please do. Our democracy is counting on you.

Haunting the Kitchen

Good morning, my friends. There wasn't much time for sewing yesterday since I spent a good part of the day in the kitchen. Before anything else could begin, however, I needed to finish off the second block for the Quilters' Retweet.

Here are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Okay, and I had a lot to do in the kitchen yesterday, as I'd planned. My first task was to bake some cornbread for last night's dinner. I've made cornbread many different ways, but this recipe from my dear friend, Debi, is the best one I've found in my 72 years of living. Debi's recipe makes enough to feed a family, and hers is baked in a 10-inch skillet. I've scaled the recipe down to one-third the original, and I bake it in an 8-inch skillet. It makes a good amount for two.

While that was baking, I had time to shower and get dressed. I'm glad I did because I would have still been in my pajamas late into the afternoon if I hadn't. The cornbread was ready to be taken from the oven when I returned to the kitchen. 

From there, I got to work on a new recipe I'd received via email from America's Test Kitchens. This was another skillet recipe for Cast Iron Hot Fudge Pudding Cake. I attempted to scale this one down as well. The original was baked in a 10-inch skillet. I scaled it to one-third the original and baked it in an 8-inch skillet. When it was ready to be taken from the oven, it was supposed to be bubbling, puffed, and pulling away from the sides of the skillet. Except for the "puffed" part, it looked ready. And I could tell right away that this didn't work at all. Some recipes just don't work out when scaled down, but it's still worth a try. Frankly, I'm not sure a full-up version of this would work.

It ended up the consistency of a brownie, and it tasted okay. We had it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It wanted to stick to the pan, and so it wasn't any better looking when it was scooped into a bowl. Oh well.

We enjoyed it, but I won't make it again. I already have a recipe for a chocolate pudding cake for two in the form of this Chocolate Self-Saucing Cake for Two. It's another I adapted from the NYTimes to make it a "for two" recipe. If you click on that link, scroll down for the recipe. Also, I already have a tested recipe for a Gooey Skillet Brownie for Two. From here on, I'll stick with the ones I already know will work out.

So I had one more thing to do in the kitchen. I was trying out a new recipe for Slow Cooker Chili. Since the early days of our marriage, I've made chili in the slow cooker using this recipe for Tex-Mex Chili from a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. A while back, I created an unwritten rule for myself: If I already have a good recipe for something...don't keep trying new ones to see if I can improve on it.

Still, when this recipe came out from the NYTimes for a different Slow Cooker Chili, I was tempted to try it. It had some interesting ingredients, including beer and maple syrup. It also had lots of different spices. The last time I made chili the way I'd made it for decades, I found it needing a little more flavor. This one seemed worthy of a test. Here's how it looked when I served it up last night.

We both liked it a LOT. This will become my new slow cooker chili recipe. You can find the recipe right here.

Okay, and as I mentioned, the chili recipe used lots of different spices. Here's where obstruction of justice enters the scene. Justice would mean I was done for the day. However, justice was obstructed when I discovered a mouse had gotten into my spice drawer and chewed through a couple of sandwich bags of leftover meat rubs. Oy. What a mess. It wasn't the first time either. Maybe I'll learn not to store things in sandwich bags here. 

To explain...this is my spice drawer. It's located under my island cooktop, and so it's a very handy spot.

Thing is, our house has a daylight basement. That's where my sewing room is located. Mice find their way into the space between the main level floor (where the kitchen is) and the basement ceiling. It's at ground level, and so I'm sure there are little cracks in the foundation where they can get in. We used to set a trap in that area, but then Smitty discovered and created his He Man Woman Hater's Clubhouse. (Sadie has claimed ownership at this point.) He discovered he can jump from the water heater into this space. Here's a picture of him from several years ago. He still looks kind of kittenish here. As you look at this photo, realize you're standing on the floor looking up.

The kitties spend several hours up there each morning. Usually they're just napping, but sometimes they catch a mouse. We no longer need to set a trap because the kitties keep it patrolled. Since were gone on a trip last month, the mice have had free rein to do their dirty work. From this area, they can climb up the gas "plumbing" and get into that cupboard under my cooktop. Oy. 

So that was a long story to say that after spending hours in the kitchen yesterday, I really didn't need to spend even more time emptying my spice drawer, cleaning things up, and then putting everything away. There's really no way to stop the mice from doing this sort of thing when the kitties aren't around. The real lesson is to store things in containers their little mousy teeth can chew through. Bastards!

And all of that to say it was late in the day before I managed to get any sewing done. All the pieces are cut now for November's gold inverted star. I'll get this sewn together today, and then I'll get back to my quilting.

This time of year always has me thinking about what project I'll do for next year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Well, thank you, Pinterest, for bringing this project to my attention. This came through my email yesterday, and I had to go straight to the designer's blog to purchase the pdf download. This is Cats in Hats from Sew Fresh Quilts. Is this cute, or what?

So that'll be my next Rainbow Scrap Project. Now I'm excited for January to roll in so I can get started on it.

There are just a couple of housekeeping chores on the day's agenda, but I can have them finished in less than 15 minutes. The rest of the day...sewing. Sewing, sewing, sewing. But first, I'm going to take the first stitches on the new Snow Day project.

This being Halloween, watch out for spooks. I'm pretty sure I say this every Halloween, adapting it year to year to add another year to the tally. In 24 years in this house, we've never had a single trick-or-treater. Even when children lived nearby, they never came down our dark driveway nor anyone else's either, I imagine. The houses are too far apart on our hill for anyone to spend that much time walking. There are plenty of densely populated neighborhoods in the valley to haunt.

Spooks or no spooks, it's going to be a good day. I hope you have a good day planned for yourself too.