Stitching, Sewing, Growing, Baking, and Hunting

Wait...what? Hunting? Yes, hunting. Do you want to see what a bad cat looks like?

The first thing this little lady did yesterday was to bring a terrified and fast mouse into the house. Mike captured it under a bowl, and then liberated it to the outdoors before it was too badly damaged. When I went outside a little while later, I found this. And, what exactly is going on here?

Well, it seems that even though Mike gave the mouse a good head start, the kitties rounded it up again. There it is right there.

So, they harassed the poor thing for the better part of an hour yesterday morning, but I think it escaped in the end. When I checked later, the kitties had moved on, and neither the mouse nor its remains were anywhere to be seen.

When I went out, it was to see if there were any cherries left in the trees. And there were! Oooooh...they're getting closer and closer.

The ones in the tippy top of the tree are probably ready for picking. The ones we can reach are still mostly not, but we'll keep checking. I have an idea the raccoons are marking their calendars too, planning for their overnight marauding sweep. It would be nice if we could get enough for some barbecue sauce or some chutney. If not, I'll just pick some up at the farmer's market.

The bread still had a couple of hours to go on its second rise, but eventually, into the oven it went, one loaf at a time. First loaf out...

Second loaf out...

The second loaf didn't have the "oven spring" of the first loaf. I suspect it's because it had an extra 45 minutes of time before going into the oven, and the yeast was probably pooping out about then. If I'm going to keep baking two loaves at a time, it might be worth investing in a second Dutch oven for baking. Lodge makes one that isn't too hurtful to one's bank account, and it would be convenient to be able to bake them both at the same time.

One loaf is going to a friend, but I cut into the first loaf when it was cool. It has a pretty crumb too.

While I was waiting for the bread to bake, I got back to work on the Heart & Home block. It's been several days since I had time for embroidery. I stitched most of my hooping, and that took me nearly to the top of the piece.

Then, I moved my hoop to encompass the northeast corner, and that's where I'll pick it up today.

After that I headed out to the grocery store. Man, there were a lot of slow people in the grocery store yesterday. Ordinarily, I'd reward myself with a bag of M&M's for not murdering anyone, but the diet, you know. I had other plans for the diet, as I'll mention in a bit.

Finally, finally, finally, I was able to make my way into the sewing room. I'm still hoping to get another row sewn on before month's end. My goal is to finish a row per month, and that will bring me to a December flimsy. Since the last time I worked on this, I decided I'll put the blue sashing and yellow cornerstones around the outer edges of the quilt, and not add any border. I'll just bind it without doing more. It's going to be a large quilt even without a border. So I needed to add that to the top and side edges, and I did that first. Here's how it's looking.

After that, I was ready to make the blocks for the third row. Oh, but wait...

Were you thinking of using these rulers? Some attention to my catnip bowl would impurrove your chances significantly.

Well, I know better than to argue with that logic, so we took care of his needs, and then I got to work on the blocks.

The first one was from a quilt shop I visited in Tucson called Quilter's Market. You can read my blog post about it right here. When I checked the internet to see if this shop is still open, the link was dead. They have a page on Facebook, but I have a feeling this shop is no longer in business. The web link found there goes nowhere either.

When I visited this shop, I wasn't yet collecting "regional" fabrics, but I picked up one that was perfect for my purposes. In the city where Saguaro National Park is located, what else could it be but Saguaro cactus?

Next up was this shop, Bernina Sewing & Design, in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Here's the blog post I wrote about it. There were several quilt shops in Las Cruces when we visited this trip, and I recall liking this one very much. When the ladies there learned I was visiting from Oregon, they invited me to pick out a fat quarter as a gift. Also among my selections was this one that I'm using in the quilt. You might recall I used this one in my Solstice to Solstice quilt (yet to be finished). The block I made using this fabric was to celebrate my Cinco de Mayo birthday.

The shop appears still to be open, but perhaps under a different name. Clicking on the link to the website takes me to a shop now known as Be Sew Creative. You can check it out right here.

My time in the sewing room was limited yesterday since I got a late start, but I had time for one more block...this one from Quilt Corner in Beaver Bay, Minnesota. This was a great shop we visited while on our way to Split Rock Lighthouse. You can read my blog post about it right here. For my regional print, I chose this one in honor of the terrible roads we encountered on our drive that day.

Checking the internet, they appear to be still in business, but without a web presence. I find a page on Facebook for them, but no web page.

So it was time to stop for the day when I got that far. As I was checking my email afterward, I came across a new recipe for Bread Pudding for Two. Oh. My Gosh...I love bread pudding! So I read the recipe which, as it turns out, was published two years ago. The author was doing a campaign with Hershey's chocolate at the time, and she used Hershey's kisses in hers. The kisses (eight of them) were to be chopped with a sharp knife. And I said to myself, "Self, why would one chop up Hershey's kisses when there are perfectly good chocolate chips available?" And I couldn't really come up with a good reason, except that chocolate chips are made by Nestle, not Hershey...and yes, there are others, but Tollhouse cookies. Puh-leeze. Do not say another word, and don't even entertain the possibility that one might use a different brand. So, anyway...

I hopped right on that, because the diet, you know. (You knew I'd get there eventually, didn't you?)

And this turned out great. Chocolate chips were perfect...no chopping required. I used two tablespoons in each. The original recipe tops them with another Hershey's kiss. I happen to have Dove chocolates on hand...they're our after-lunch guilty pleasure while we drink our cup of espresso, and so I just plopped one of those on top of each when I took them out of the oven. Otherwise, I made them exactly as the original recipe states. And I encourage you to give this a try. It takes about 40 minutes total, and so you can easily whip it up after dinner. By the time your meal has settled, dessert will be ready. Oh yes, and I used ramekins instead of mugs. Perfect.

So this must be my week for appointments because I have another one in downtown Portland today. I'm not sure why I planned so poorly for the week, but there you go. I'm still working at getting caught up on my housework too. Here's the thing: I never mix housework with grocery shopping. It makes me turn into the Incredible Hulk, and no one wants that. Hopefully, I'll get back into the sewing room later today.