Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

Wastin' time. That was me yesterday, although I never really liked that song. It could have been my theme song for yesterday. Do you ever wake up, knowing you have all the time in the world, consider how much you're going to accomplish, and then sit around all day doing nothing? I kind of think it's the way we recharge, planned or not.

The mornings have been darker here. I took this picture this morning at around 6:30 a.m. It would have been bright sunshine in July, but the sun hadn't even cracked the horizon this morning.

Even on lazy days, I never waste time when there's dessert to be made. There are still tons of plums on our tree. I've made barbecue sauce with them, eaten them straight from the tree and from the many bowlfuls I've brought into the house. I've made caramelized plum sauce and caramelized plum shortcake. Also, plum torte and "magic" apple plum cobbler. A few of you have asked why there's no plum jam on that list. It's because I still have about 12 jars our neighbor made last year before she passed away. Yesterday I considered making a plum streusel cake, but then remembered I already had a recipe set aside for plum crisp. And there it is.

And this may be my favorite plum recipe of the season. I know...I say that about all the plum recipes...but really, this one is really it. It was super easy to make, and that topping is crispy as a cookie. We had it with ice cream last night. Yum. The recipe calls for 12 plums. I always think they're talking about spring plums unless I'm told otherwise. Spring plums are larger than the Italian prune plums I'm working with, and so I used double the number of plums in mine. It wasn't too much, and so I'll make a note to myself for future reference.

Now, I imagine you're wondering whatever happened to that diet we were on. Well, yes, we did take a break from the diet. We've managed to maintain our weight loss despite all the summer fruit desserts, but we're still determined to meet our original goals. We've set aside October 1st as our new D-Day...as in "Diet Day." I promise not to talk about it much, but rest assured, we're keeping those old goals in mind. It was good to take a break from the meal planning that goes along with it, but now we're ready to get back to it.

As for the other ways I wasted the day yesterday, I made some progress on the latest Sundress block. As I've mentioned, that tiny red chain stitch is going to take forever. And, really, with so many embroidery patterns sitting on the shelf, I don't want to spend the rest of my life on this. I'll keep chaining away, and eventually it will be finished. The rest of the stitching is kind of fun. I like the colors in this one.

By late afternoon, I made my way to the sewing room and finished the top-stitching on the Starry Night wall hanging.

Originally, I had a different back picked out for it, but then changed my mind. I'll be using a different one. Honestly, I have no idea where this fabric came from. I think it fits the definition of this meme I saw recently: Fabracadabra!

So here's the magic fabric. It's a rather large scale, which is why I'm using it. It needs a quilt back to show it off properly.

I absolutely have no recollection of buying this fabric, and so I'm pretty sure someone snuck into the house with it and hid it in my fabric bins. Whatever the case, it's going to work great for my wall hanging.

So, now it's sandwiched for quilting.

Also, I dug through my bag of scrap bindings and came up with these green ones. They aren't exactly the same, but the greens are close enough that I can piece them together and it'll be fine. I love it when I can find a use for those leftover binding strips.

My little quilt label there in the lower left corner is just lying there to remind me to sew it on the back before I start quilting.

There probably won't be time for this today. I'm getting my hair cut (just a trim) and it's also a CSA pick-up day. I'll spend some more time on my Sundress this morning, but then I'll have to get a move-on. If I don't get to it today, I'll have some time to work on Starry Night tomorrow.