Two Little Finishes

Fortunately, my shoulder pain subsided yesterday, and I was able to finish up most everything I had planned. The planning happened before the pain, and so there was a little more than I wanted to attempt. Still and all, I finished a good bit of it.

First, I finished the 9th of 12 of the Snow Globes blocks. This one is called "Cottage."

This being Sunday, I'll be linking up to

The lighting in my sewing room makes it hard to get very good pictures of these, but here are the nine I have finished so far.

After that, I needed to do some cooking. I prepared dinner for some guests we're having a week from now. Since we're going to be camping next week, I wanted to have it finished ahead of time. I made this Turkey and Artichoke Stuffed Shells with Arrabbiata Sauce. It's a bit of a production to put it together, but it makes enough food for an army. I filled one 13 x 9 baking dish with stuffed pasta shells and sauce, and then there was enough for another 8 x 8 baking dish of stuffed pasta shells and sauce. Now, both are in the freezer. I'll make the larger one for our guests, and Mike and I will save the smaller one for some future date.

Also, I made the mix for some Cantaloupe Ice Cream. We always get melons in our CSA shares for a few weeks out of the season. They're the best melons I've ever eaten. Farmer Jess posted this recipe, and it looked really good. So I mixed it up and then let it sit in the refrigerator to cool until later in the day. When I churned it up at the end of the day, it looked like this:

We had it for dessert while we watched TV, and it was really good. I left the cantaloupe a little bit chunky, but I think I'd go for a more pureed version next time around.

When the cooking was all done, I finished up the last three blocks for the fifth row of the Shop Hop quilt. This first one was from a really nice shop in Pacific Grove, California. You can find the web presence for Back Porch Fabrics right here. We were in the area to visit the Point Pinos lighthouse,

and so this fabric with ocean waves rolling in seemed just right. You can read my blog post about it right here. There were so many pretty fabrics in that shop, I had a hard time getting out the door without buying the place out. Even as I stood to purchase my fabrics, I kept leaving the register and grabbing more off the shelves.

The next one was from Quiltique in Henderson, Nevada. We were making a circuitous route home from Mike's retirement celebration at the Corvette School. Traveling through Boulder City, we visited Hoover Dam, and then spent a couple of days enjoying the area. I was fortunate to get a chance to meet up with Heidi of Red Letter Quilts at Quiltique. (Looks like Heidi has been MIA on her blog for a while, although I have seen her on Instagram lately.) Anyway, we'd been enjoying the blooming cactus all along the way, and so I chose this fabric.

As for the quilt shop, you can read my blog post about it (and meet Heidi) right here. While there, I found the perfect fabric for the backing on this quilt.

The quilt is so much larger than I ancitipated, I'm just hoping I have enough now. Just as I wrote those words, I went in search of more. I was able to find it online, and so now I have a huge quantity. I'll probably be able to make more than one quilt from it. Quiltique appears still to be in business, and you can find its web presence right here.

Finally, this one from Organ Mountain Quilt Shop in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We've passed through Las Cruces so many times in our travels. On this one trip, I managed to get in visits to three different shops. Las Cruces lies at the foot of the Organ Mountains, and it is a beautiful area. You can find my blog post about it right here. (I'd only been blogging about six months when I wrote it.) This fabric made me think of Mexican pottery, and that's why I chose it. It was long before I had an idea to make this quilt. Unfortunately, this shop is no longer in business, which is a shame because it was a nice little shop.

Okay, so I had the row sewn together, and then I sewed it to the rest of the quilt. Here's what I have so far.

There are still 24 more fabrics (3 rows) to finish before the quilt is finished. My goal is to finish a row each month.

The only other thing that happened yesterday was Mike hanging our new "Welcome to Our the Cat's Home" sign at the front door. Love it.

Today I'll need to make a quick trip to the grocery store, and then start packing food for our trip next week. The old RV goes away this morning, and then Mike will move the new one (I'll have to stop calling it "new" now) up closer to the house for packing. Tomorrow morning we'll pack our clothes and then we'll take off for a few days of forced relaxation. I don't know if I'll be blogging while we're away. The laptop is going with us, but it always depends on whether we have internet access. Time will tell.

As for tomorrow, I'll be back with a post for

Are you entering a quilt? I decided to dig into the archives for tomorrow's entry. More to come on that.