A Welcome Day Off

Good morning, my friends. It was good to give myself a day off yesterday. Trying to talk myself into hoeing the garden, I took a walk around. The garden could have used a good hoeing, but I decided it could wait until this morning too. It feels like ages since I've had nothing on my to-do list, and so I grabbed at the opportunity with gusto.

As long as I was out, I took a few pictures of what's going on outside right now. Cherries continue to ripen, but they’re not ready yet. I expect we’ll have some in another two weeks or so.

I captured this bumblebee enjoying the lavender.

The Checkers dahlia is putting on quite a show.

Also, I noticed flowers forming on the Bumble Rumble dahlia. I think it might be my favorite of the dahlias. For sure, it was the one that convinced me to plant some dahlias in the first place.

Checking the greenhouse, I found some tomatoes about the size of tennis balls. These have a long way to go, but the tomatoes and their plants are looking good. Also, we used some of the greenhouse lettuce yesterday. It’s so crispy and fresh.

Back outside, I noticed the apples are about the size of ping pong balls now. Probably nothing will come of these, but I keep hoping we’ll get something useful someday. If memory serves, I might have made apple crisps for two from some of these apples. On the other hand, I can’t be sure the apples didn’t come from one of our CSA shares.

The plums are a little larger than an olive now…like a prune, which makes sense since these are Italian prune plums. They’ll be a little larger by the time they ripen.

This is our cherry tomato. It’s quite a mystery to me. The plant is large and healthy. It has produced hundreds of flowers, and yet, not a single cherry tomato. I study it every time I’m out. I think critters are eating it, and you can see bitten off stems where I’ve circled in red. Still, this doesn’t seem like enough interference that the plant produces exactly zero tomatoes. It seems infertile for some reason.

It occurs to me that it isn’t getting pollinated, although we have plenty of bees around. Also, I’ve read that tomatoes are easy to pollinate, and that simply shaking the plant is enough. Since this plant is outside and it’s often breezy, that seems an improbable explanation. The tomatoes in the greenhouse get a boost in pollination when I use a soft make-up to touch all the flowers. It seems unlikely that would help this outdoor plant, but maybe I’ll give it a try and see.

Okay, so back inside, I had some lunch, and then went to work on the quilting. I’ve quilted all the “spacer” panels between the embroidered and the pieced blocks, and I’ve quilted the top border. I might have kept going, but that seemed like a good place to stop. It’s almost impossible to see the quilting, but I’m showing it to you anyway. You can sort of see the spiky sunflowers quilted over the ones lightest in color. I’m roughly following those petals, and then looping from flower to flower as I go.

Here’s a peek at the back, but it isn’t much easier to see there.

When I reached the corner, I turned the quilt, preparing to work my way across the left side border, and I left it needle down there. This is where I’ll start today, and I expect to finish the quilting by day’s end. Probably, I won’t do anything with the binding for at least another day. Finishing this quilt is my goal for June’s One Monthly Goal, however, and so I’m running out of time.

And then, I moved myself to the basement sewing room and went to work top-stitching The Yoder Sisters. I’ve only been doing the black sections so far. When I’d done all four sisters’ aprons, boots, and hats, I decided to call it a day on the top-stitching. It can get tedious after a while.

Now I’m going back to the blue dress girl, and I’ll start there today. My goal for today’s sewing is to finish top-stitching all the dresses. If I feel like doing more, I will, but I have a feeling the dresses will be all the tedium I can stand.

There were still a few minutes left for sewing, and so I traced Block 8 for Le Jardin, The Birdbath. Some of these blocks were supposed to have applique, but I’m letting the floss do all the work. My current piece still has at least a couple of days work left in it, and so I won’t start on this for a couple of days. Still, I can always breathe easier knowing where my next stitching project is coming from.

All right. So, I have another easy day ahead. I’ll get out early and hoe the garden before it gets too hot. The bird feeders need filling, and those are the only things on this morning’s list. The rest of the day will go a lot like yesterday…mostly sewing. It’s going to be a good day. I hope you have a good day too.

First Full Day of Summer

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Summer...that is, if you're here in the northern hemisphere. Sorry about you southern hemisphere folks. On the other hand, maybe you're happy for some cooler weather. In any case, James Taylor...you take it from here.

Summer's here, I'm for that

I got my rubber sandals, got my straw hat

I got my cold beer, I'm just glad that I'm here

Summer's here, that suits me fine

It may rain today 'cause I don't mind

It's my favorite time of the year and I'm glad that it's here.

We had such a good day yesterday. Allow me to start with my favorite picture from the day. I spent a good part of the day baking a Lemon Meringue Tart for last night's dessert. The guys have really gotten into this little mini blow torch thing, and so I let them use it to toast the meringue.

Backing up to earlier in the day, Mike was served his favorite Eggs Benedict for breakfast. It's a nice way to start a celebratory day.

By then, I'd already started some steaks marinating for dinner, and I'd made a crust for the Lemon Meringue Tart. It needed to go into the freezer for 30 minutes before I could bake it. Then...Eggs Benedict. And then, finally, I could sit with my feet up and do a little slow stitching. 

I'm making progress. The flowers will take some time, but it probably isn't too soon to start thinking about the next one.

The next one will be Block 8 for Le Jardin. These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Matthew and Mike were busy talking about AI thing...I'll say more in a minute. I interrupted them for the toasting of the meringue.

Looks pretty good, huh?

The only thing left for me to do dinner-wise was to bake some potatoes and chop up some chives. That gave me some time to get back to my quilting. Using the variegated blue thread...

I quilted Winter's block: this Nordic Star. I just gave it some swirly stuff.

From there, I switched to this variegated orangey-brown thread. Such a pretty thread. (Thank you, Ila.)

Autumn's block is this Maple Leaf. I just quilted some veins into the leaf for this.

Finishing up the pieced blocks, I chose this hot pink for Spring's tulip block.

And then I just filled with some wavy lines. And when you're just a sort of intermediate quilter, as I am, wavy lines are almost foolproof. ("Fool." That would be me.)

And that brought me to my final thread change for this quilt. The remaining sunflower fabric will be quilted following the spiky petals of the sunflower design. It's almost impossible to see the quilting front or back, which is just fine by me. I quilted one of these "spacer" panels, and then left it needle down at the next one. There are four of these...three to go...and then the outer border. When that's finished, it'll be ready for binding. 

Probably I won't finish it today. Remember that my wrists demand just one hour of quilting at a time, and I think it will take longer than that. Tomorrow seems more likely.

And since I hadn't been outside all day, I took a little walk around. The only thing new I noticed is that flowers are forming on the echinacea. The bees love it when these bloom.

After filling the birdfeeders, I spent some time top-stitching The Yoder Sisters. Again, I'm starting with black thread since there is more black on these ladies than anything else. I'll stitch all their black aprons, hats, and boots before switching to other colors. Hard to see here, but I had all her black sections top-stitched when I took this picture.

Matthew and Smitty joined me for a while.

With Matthew in the house, Sadie spent most of her day hiding out in her clubhouse. She visited briefly, but kept eyeing the door to the sewing room nervously.

It was getting to be time to start the potatoes by then. I got a start on the green girl's apron, and then left it needle down. I'll pick it up there this afternoon.

From there, we enjoyed our steaks and baked potatoes. It was a truly enjoyable day, and I was happy Matthew came up to spend the day with his dad. On one of our walks, Matthew was discussing how difficult it is to buy gifts or anything for parents, and especially for days like Mother's Day and Father's Day. I told him then that we don't want gifts. What we really want is time with him, and he took it to heart. After dinner, we enjoyed that Lemon Meringue Tart. Matthew gave me those pretty raspberry dessert plates for Christmas one year.

Erik and Mae are off on a camping trip, but they sent us a photo of the egg and pancake breakfast they made on the Blackstone grill with a Happy Father's Day message. They're having fun with their new van.

So, let me just say a little here about this whole AI lesson Matthew and Mike were embarking on. Most people are familiar with the AI generated images appearing everywhere on social media. Our family is in agreement that AI shouldn't be used to create art. Just our opinion...no agreement required. Art should be created by nature and people. In any case, AI has more capability than just that. And rather than go off on some long-winded explanation, a practical application for Mike would be to ask it to create "models" that he can print on his 3D printer. It will be able to do anything he could do with his brain a lot easier and faster than he can do it. For fun and learning though, this is what they did yesterday. (And Mike, who is not easily impressed, was blown away by its capabilities.)

First, Mike asked it to make a 2001 Corvette. It's first attempt was kind of a failure, but when he gave it instructions in a different way, it came up with this:

Okay, so not too impressive. What impressed him was that it used the photographs provided, turning them over and over, in order to pick up details before it created the image you see above.

Hours later, they were having more fun with it. They asked it to create the image below by telling it to "create a picture of a duck, very scary looking, but soft and cuddly, on the moon, and something interesting is doing to happen." Here's what it created:

Finally, he showed me the image below last night. For this one, he told it to "create an image of a 2001 Corvette convertible, flying, with Oregon license plate with the letters SO YELO." (That's his license plate.)

Okay, so that was our Father's Day...very enjoyable. 

And what could be better than following a good day with the first full day of summer. I have in mind to get out and hoe the garden this morning. We're expecting hot weather for the next couple of days. Possibly I'll put it off for a day or two. It didn't seem too bad when I was out yesterday. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking it depends on how much energy I have for that. 

Happily, the next couple of days are free of most obligations...no housekeeping...no grocery shopping...no nothing. I should be able to get in some good sewing time. I have as goals to get the Seasons quilt to binding stage. Also, I'd like to finish the top-stitching on the Yoder Sisters. I've selected a back for it, and I'll be readying it for quilting down the road. 

That will bring me back to the "Small Quilts for Quilting" section of my white board. Next up will be to quilt the Hawksbill Honu quilt.

The quilting should be kept to a minimum for this, I think. I'll probably quilt some reeds using a matching blue thread, and maybe some bubbles around the turtle...just a little bit. And then I'll do something in the border. I haven't decided yet. 

Right now, I'm off to do some slow-stitching. The rest of the day will happen as it happens. It's nice to feel free of obligations after the busy past couple of weeks. The weather is lovely here today. I hope you're getting some nice weather for this first day of summer too.

Fleet of Foot

Good morning, my friends. And if there are any dads out there reading...then, Happy Father's Day to you!

And, wow. I am feeling so much better this morning. It was good to have my energy level back yesterday. I went a whole 24 hours without once using my inhaler. Things are definitely looking up.

The morning started with a few things on my to-do list. For the route I was taking and the order of tasks, it made sense to just have a little walk around first. The flowers are wowing me just now. This is the variegated hydrangea.

Honestly, I can’t get over the beauty of this clematis. The flowers are about four inches across. And look at that deep purple with the strip of red down the center. Incredible. They might have taken over first place for my favorite flower.

Oh…but it’s hard to beat my current first place finisher. The checkers dahlia is nearly open. Whoa. Eye-popping.

And the Stargazer lily. It is covered in buds. This is just the beginning.

And then there’s this funny little thing. If I’m remembering right, it’s a yellow calla lily. It comes up most years. Sometimes it flourishes and blooms. Sometimes it comes up and never does anything more than what you see below. Sometimes it just doesn’t show itself above ground at all. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I’m told it was a mild winter here. Maybe we’ll get a flower from it this year.

The red leaf lettuce is getting big enough that we can start picking leaves off of it. I wouldn’t want to take much, but I think we can start to graze a little for sandwiches and the like.

From there, I went to work filling the bird feeders. As I was hanging one of the hummingbird feeders, I noticed the purple hydrangea is blooming as well. This is one of two flowers, and there will be many more.

So, it was nearing lunch time by then, and I had convinced myself to bake the Moravian Sugar Bread. It gave Mike something to snack on as a Father’s Day treat this morning. He’ll get his usual Eggs Benedict too. I’ll say more about the bread in a minute. For now, just know I put it in the oven, and then headed to the sewing room to fix the necks on the two middle Yoder sisters. 

Sadie was my emotional support cat for this activity.

So I mentioned this in yesterday’s post. I needed to very gently and carefully use my pointy-nosed tweezers to pry up the fused applique just enough to slip a small…maybe about 1/2-inch…square of fabric underneath. Then I could fuse it down again. And this turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. There. All fixed.

And, it wasn’t as obvious on the sister with just one braid, but I decided to give her a neck too. With the rest of her sisters all having necks, I was afraid she’d get the FOMO, and we can’t have that. Besides, we couldn’t have any of these little ladies walking around as if they’d been guillotined somehow.

Okay, and it was about that time that my bread was reach for the next step. When it came from the oven, it looked like this.

It’s a multi-step process to make this bread, taking a little longer than expected, but a lot of the time involved is just waiting for this thing or that thing to happen. Before it goes into the oven, you use your fingers to press deep holes into the dough. Then, it’s covered by a brown sugary/cinnamon topping, and then melted butter before putting it into the oven. When it comes out, it’s cooled for 20 minutes in the pan, and then flipped upside-down and cut into 9 pieces (or whatever size you want).

I snagged a piece that was warm, and it was really very nice. The dough is made with mashed potatoes. I thought Mike’s description of it was spot on: It tastes like coffee cake, but coffee cake has a dense dry crumb. This has the flavor of coffee cake, but the texture of a dinner roll.

I’d like to try this again with a couple of changes. First, one of the readers’ comments suggested covering the top with the sugar topping before making the finger indentations. It seemed like a good idea when I read it. Nevertheless, I think I might have gotten more of the sugary-cinnamon goodness into the interior of the cake if I’d done it as suggested in the recipe; that is, make the indentations first, and then sprinkle the sugar, making sure to get it deep in the indentations. 

Second, looking at the pictures that accompany the recipe, I’ve realized it probably was not supposed to have been flipped upside down. The sugar should be on top. It seems to me, it would need to be cut in the pan first, or else the pan would need to be lined with parchment before baking to enable the cake to be easily lifted out of the pan…top up. And all of that means I must try it again, and soon. When Mike really likes something, he says “it needs more practice.” This one definitely does. 

I should say that I also followed one of the readers’ suggestions to use instant potato flakes. Since I happened to have an open box, that seemed worth a try. I made it in the microwave, as suggested on the box, omitting both the butter and salt. I did include the milk. Here’s a link to the recipe if you want to try it yourself: Moravian Sugar Cake.

Okay…finally I could get to my sewing. I finished quilting the sashings on the Seasons quilt.

And that was the last place I wanted to use the tan thread on top. From there, I switched off to the yellow spool…this one:

It seemed a good plan to check my tension. Looks good on top…that’s the top line with the yellow arrow…

And the bottom looks good enough too…the bottom line with the yellow arrow. 

And then, with this being the Summer Solstice and all, where else would I start but with this summer block. This is the Summer’s Sun quilt block from Quilter’s Cache. I started around the center square and quilted radiating sunbeams from there.

It was nearing time to stop by then. I decided to thread the machine with the variegated blue…this one:

Checked the tension and left it needle down. That’s where I’ll start today.

It’s anybody’s guess how much time I’ll actually have for sewing today. With this being Father’s Day, there’s Eggs Benedict to make for breakfast. Also, Matthew is coming up today to spend some time with his dad. They’re both engineers and my understanding is that they are going to discuss AI things. (Don’t ask me.) He’s going to stay and have dinner with us this evening. I’m marinating some steaks for that. It’ll be a simple dinner. Mike will BBQ the steaks, and I’ll make some baked potatoes. Also, I’m baking a Lemon Meringue Tart. That was always on the menu for Father’s Day, but it’ll be nice to have Matthew join us. 

So, it seems as if I have another busy kitchen day is ahead of me, but I’m happy when I’m in the kitchen. I’ll do as much sewing as I can, and it will be a good day. I hope y’all enjoy your day as well.