Friday and Saturday

No blog post from me yesterday.  That's because it's been a busy couple of days, and I have so much to tell you.

Yesterday morning, I worked a while hand-sewing the binding onto the Hello Sun quilt, but then I took off for the grocery store.  I ended up going to two stores because I wanted some clams for dinner last night, and I needed to go to a market that had good seafood.  We are only about 60 miles from the Oregon coast in Portland, and so we are able to get pretty good fresh seafood here if one goes to the right places.

When I came home, I decided to go to work on the Skillet Blackberry Cobbler that has been on my to-do list for a while.  I've made this before and gave you a link to the recipe.  While it is delicious and makes enough to feed a small army, it is a very dense cobbler.  The first time I made it, it wasn't quite fully baked in the middle.  This time, I added a full 25 minutes to the baking time in order to be sure it was completely done in the middle.  The extra baking time meant that it burned a little where the batter touches the pan.  Mike actually liked the little bit of extra crunch, but I didn't care for it.  Still, I left that part behind when we ate it last night...which Mike promptly snarfed up as we were cleaning up to go to bed.  In any case, if you have lots of blackberries, this is a great cobbler.

Once I had that finished, I had a little time left in the afternoon, and so I cut out my July NewFO project, a strawberry table runner. I didn't get very far with it, but today I'll work on it a little more.

When I got to that point, I quit for the day and made dinner.  This morning, I was up early to finish up the binding for the Hello Sun quilt.  Isn't this pretty?

And here it is!

I am seriously thinking of entering this quilt in the Oregon State Fair this year.  I think the deadline for entries is August 2nd, and so I still have time.  I need to look into it a little further.  It's the first time I've felt confident enough about a quilt to enter it, although I did enter a quilt when I went to the International Quilt Festival in Ireland.  The Oregon State Fair seems a good place to start, and so I'll have to investigate a little further.

Smitty thinks the quilt is just great.  It feels pretty darned good on his toesies.

"Yep, I'm liking this quilt."

"I'm claiming this one for the Catio."  [Fat chance, my man, but you do look pretty cute there.]

Then, I had a date with Erik to head down to the Portland Farmer's Market.  It was a beautiful day, and this is the time of year when the Farmer's Market really shines.  So much yummy food to be had.

The berries are the stars of the show right now.

Sorry this picture is a little blurry, but I had Erik hold up one of those blackberries so you could see how big it is.  Big as plums, they are.

The first local tomatoes are starting to make an appearance.

Look at these gorgeous heirlooms from Noti, Oregon, just about three hours south of Portland.

I'm embarrassed to say that I don't think I've ever seen celery outside of a grocery store.  Certainly, I've never grown it, but there you go.  Look at how deep green it is.

But there's more than vegetables and fruit at the Farmers Market.  There are crafts people of all kinds.

Also wine, flowers, cider, and beer peddlers, herb farmers, jams, jellies, sauces, tinctures, vinegars, and the list goes on.  Today I came home with a nice heirloom tomato, a basket of plums, a jar of white napa cabbage kimchi (which I love), and some culinary lavender.  I'll use the lavender when I make Bees Knees cocktails.

Also, I got a box of peaches.  I'm going to make peach chutney, and if there are enough left over, possibly a peach pie.  Something peachy, for sure.

When I got home from the Farmers Market, I had a little project for the handyman to do.  I saw these heavy-weight laser cut quilt blocks from Classic Metal Company advertised in Quilter's World magazine.  As you know, I'm a great fan of barn quilts, and so I had to have one of my very own.  I chose the 24 x 24 inch size in the Bear's Paw block.  They come in all colors, and so I decided on a forest green to match the forest green trim on our house.  Sadly, it was darker than I expected, and so it wasn't going to show up very well against the dark siding of our house.

Mike suggested having a white plastic backing made for it at a local business that does that sort of thing. They cut the 1/8-inch rigid plastic to fit and also drilled holes so we could hang it.  I stood by taking pictures and offering up support while Mike went to work drilling holes.  He used the backing as a template, and then

hung the thing with stainless steel screws at all four corners.

And as it turns out, it looks great with our white garage doors and green trim.  At least, I think it does.

There's a little closer view of it.  Cool, huh?

Now everyone knows...a quilter lives here.

So that just about brings you up to date.  After all that, I think I need a nap before I get going on my table runner.  

And I'll be linking this post to the end of the month linky at 

and to Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.