Still Smoky on Saturday

The smokiness has improved in our area, but there's still plenty of haze. It's possible to barely make out the outlines of the mountains off in the distance, but little else. We're heading over to Seaside, Oregon, today. Seaside is on the coast, but we'll be inland just a bit. I'm hoping the air quality is better over there since we'll be outside most of the day.

There was no sewing yesterday, but that doesn't mean I wasn't busy all day. After writing my blog post, I got to work on the Pumpkin Pie block.

You might notice those basting stitches through the middle and around the outside of this piece. My embroidery pieces are always backed with something, and Meg Hawkey gave us a piece of muslin to back our pieces while we were at class. At home, I would have spray basted those pieces together. Since there was no spray baste available, we were encouraged to baste them with thread. I was compliant, but ordinarily, I wouldn't do this. The other way I've backed embroidery pieces is with an iron-on stabilizer. I use Pellon 931TD or else Pellon SF101. The former has been less-than-satisfactory lately. I'm suspicious Pellon has changed the formula somehow, and it wants to crinkle up unless I use a very cool iron. When my current supply is used up, I probably won't buy more.

This piece is just one block, and I'm thinking of making a small wallhanging from it. I can envision using two pumpkins from the pattern I used for this Pumpkin Patch table topper a couple of years ago, and then putting some kind of fall border around it.

A little later in the morning, I got to work on the Small Batch Tomato-Jalapeno Jam. This was super easy, and I think it might have replaced Amy's Tomato Jam as my new favorite. I used all tomatoes from our own plants and a couple of jalapenos from our CSA share. Then I cooked it down in a frying pan. With such a wide and shallow pan, it cooked down fast.

About 20 minutes later, I had this.

It was boiled frantically over high heat and stirred frequently. When it was syrupy, I called it quits. For tomato jams, the seeds and skins are left in for texture. As for the jalapenos, the recipe calls for 3 tablespoons. I had just a little more than that from two jalapeno peppers. We like a little kick, but I'm leery of using too much, and so I took the ribs and seeds out of one of the jalapenos.When it was processed, it looked like this:

My yield was four half-pints. And let me tell you...that is some tasty stuff. I can't wait to try it on my eggs this morning. You can find the recipe right here. As I said, I used two jalapenos. Next time I'll leave the seeds and ribs in both. Also, with such a shallow pan, an immersion blender was out of the question. I just mashed mine up with a potato masher and called it good.

After lunch, it was time to head down to Salem to drop off my quilts for the Oregon State Fair. It was a slow trip, and nothing to write about. When I got home, I found Mike hard at work installing hooks on the side of the RV to support the catio. It was an essential job since we'll all be heading over to the beach next week. Here's how it looks from the outside.

You can see a kitty's eye view from the inside.

The old RV had a window that slid to the side, and so the opening wasn't as large. The catio barely covers this window opening, and so the kitties have plenty of room to come and go. There are some little "stoppers" we can add to the frame to allow a half-open position if it gets too drafty. There's also a screen if ever we want one there.

As I mentioned earlier, we're heading over to Seaside today. I'd much rather stay home, but I don't always get what I want. That might surprise you. With that in mind, I'm making the large garden salad that was requested of me. There won't be any sewing today, but I might come home this evening with some good pictures from the day. Only time will tell.