A Day of Slow

Slow simmering, and slow stitching: that's how I spent my day. It was a nice change from yesterday when I was quite busy having a lot of fun.

The kids were over for dinner last night. I wouldn't say we were in a pensive mood; in fact, we were quite celebratory for lots of different reasons. You wouldn't know it from the pictures, however.

It's looking an awful lot as if someone received some very bad news. Truly, we did have fun together.

Matthew and Valerie came bearing gifts from their trip to Alaska last month. They brought something for everybody, but they chose wisely for me when they chose these nine fat quarters of Alaska regional prints. Absolutely perfect.

Thank you, my dears.

Mike grilled our favorite Oysters Rockaway, a recipe we cooked up on one of our trips to the Oregon coast. I've been dying to feed it to the kids ever since.

Also, Margarita Grilled Shrimp Skewers:

And to round out the our seafood fest, we had a Fire and Ice salad, and our favorite Seafood Pasta with Lemon-Saffron Herb Dressing. That last one is a family favorite. It always feels sort of luxurious to be using saffron. I was lucky enough to receive some from my dad when he and his wife took a round-the-world cruise a while back. They scored some while visiting some exotic place...Morocco, maybe. I've kept it hidden away under lock and key in a very dark place ever since.

And we finished off with the peach pie I baked yesterday. Yum.

So this morning I was feeling pretty darned lazy, but I finished off the last of the six smallest blocks for the Vintage Tin quilt.

I'll probably regret eating dessert first on this one. I still have the four largest blocks to go before I'll be ready to sew this quilt top together. Not sure which one I'll start with, but eventually I'll have to make a decision. You can see the largest ones across the top and down the middle in the image below.

Just looking at this, I'm guessing I'll work from the bottom up. That decision can wait until later, however, because now I need to make up a new stitchery. 

The Quilted Snowladies are up next. The next block is called "Just a Snowin', and a Sewin!" It's ready to start now. Do you see the cat?

And I'm making up another stitchery since this is the only sewing I'll have to do on my trip. Obviously, I don't want to run out of stuff to stitch. I chose one of my "short" projects, meaning one block and it's finished (as opposed to the quilt blocks I've been working on for my larger projects).

This is such a cute piece. The stitchery without the border will be trimmed to 22 x 15 inches, and so it's a rather large piece. Today I was able to pull together enough embroidery floss for the whole project, substituting colors for the ones suggested on the pattern. The background fabric is cut to size, but I still need to trace it. I considered using Sticky Fabri-Solvy, but decided against it. It isn't a terribly complicated design, and I'll enjoy stitching it more if I don't have to stitch through all that thickness. Besides, the Sticky Fabri-Solvy is expensive, and I want to save it for the more complicated designs that are harder to trace.

My 20 pounds of tomatoes have been reduced substantially, which accounts for the slow simmering part of the day. I canned another six quarts of pasta sauce, which makes me feel as if I've just won the lottery. We do love that burst of fresh tomato flavor in the darkest part of winter in Oregon. I still have plenty to make some more salsa tomorrow. If I have enough left over, I'm going to try a red tomato chutney or else a tomato jam. And I'm not forgetting about my plums either. There is still plenty to keep me busy in this final week at home.

It was a good weekend at the Three Cat's Ranch. I hope you had a good weekend too.