Winding Down Summer

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I was heading out on a day of many stops. It's my least favorite kind of day...a day spent in the car, heading here and there, accomplishing nothing at home. And there's no place I'd rather be than home. Being away from home makes me tired and cranky.

My first stop was to drop off two quilts for the Northwest Quilter's Expo, scheduled for the end of the month. That took positively forEVER because the woman checking in my quilts couldn't find my name on any of her lists. And my question is this: Why so many lists? Why not have just one list...alphabetical...instead of having a separate list for each category? Anyway...finally I was on my way to Salem to pick up my quilts from the Oregon State Fair. And that leads me to my next gripe: The Quilt Police.

Okay, so here's the thing: It's an added bonus, in my opinion, to get some constructive criticism on quilts I've entered in shows. I've changed my way of doing things on a few fronts and it's improved my quilt-making. From comments by judges I learned that the stitches on my hand-stitched bindings were too far apart. Also, I've learned to be more careful about tension. A judge once pointed out that I'd cut the corners off some pinwheels when I sewed on the binding...and I hadn't even noticed that. So all of that to say that ordinarily I appreciate comments from judges.

Let's talk first about Quiltmaker's Garden.

These were the comments:

Okay...so reasonable comments. "Strive for all intersections to meet precisely." Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, I was pretty careful with that quilt. When I got it home, I strived to find some intersections that didn't meet precisely, and I was hard pressed to find any. But, okay, point taken. Don't be human while quilting. Got it.

Here's where my goat was gotten. The Quilting Snowladies.

These were the comments.

So here's an example of what they're talking about. Metallic thread in cornerstone snowflakes: Good. Metallic thread in block borders: Bad. What? At reading that comment I said aloud, "Oh, Shut! Up!"

And, excuse me, but whoever heard of "traditional colors?" And, excuse me even more, but do traditional quilts make reference to "global warming?" And here's another thing about these quilting "snowladies." Have you ever heard of a snow person with anything other than ambiguous genitalia? So as long as we're complaining about stupid stuff, how about these "lady" snow people? Well. Enough said, and I rest my case.

Moving on. In disgust, I tossed the Quiltmaker's Garden onto the floor unceremoniously while I folded up the Quilting *Trans* Snowpeople. Smitty took that as an invitation. "Go ahead, Smitty," I said. "It was made by a mere mortal, after all. Who cares if your furs stick to it?"

Speaking of Smitty, his painting came yesterday. Isn't this cute? Now I need to find a frame for it.

Even the envelope it came in was cute.

He's a humble cat, and I think he was embarrassed when I showed it to him.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I've been gearing up to bake some bread. The loaf I'm baking is a three-day process, and I started last night by mixing some of the starter with water and white flour. It looked like this when I was finished.

It sat at room temperature overnight. When I got up this morning, it looked like this.

This morning, I'll add some whole wheat flour, rye flour, and spelt flour to it. Then I'll knead it for five minutes. Then it will go into the refrigerator for 24 hours to be baked off tomorrow. I'm actually making two loaves this time around, but I'll start them a day apart. There's still plenty of starter left in the jar.

As for this starter, it's making me crabby too. It's overflowed its jar four times in the past couple of days. It's good to have a robust starter, and I've tried keeping it stirred down. Still, when I'm not looking, it bubbles up and out of the jar. When I got home yesterday afternoon, I had quite a mess to clean up, even though it was contained on the plate. It had hours to dry and it was something akin to cleaning up spackling paste. It's not looking so perky now, is it?

I'll feed it one last time this morning since I'll need it for the next loaf to be mixed up tonight. Then, into the trash with whatever is leftover. Please don't tell me to save it. There's another jar already in my refrigerator awaiting the next bread-baking binge.

This morning I went out to take some pictures. Some of our trees are starting to show their fall colors. This maple tree is down at the far end of the field.

This is the small dwarf Japanese maple in front of the house. It has an orange sheen over its top.

This is one of the Japanese maples around the side of the house.

The seed pods that were bright red last week are changing to a deep wine color.

While I was out, Miss Sadie came galloping up to see what all the fuss was about. This is one busy little lady.

Also, I got back to my slow stitching this morning. It's gone begging the past ten days or so, but now I'll be able to get back to it with some regularity.

Finally, I meant to post the canning tally with the pantry pictures yesterday. Here's a list of the canning I've done this year.

Phew...makes me tired looking at it. And I'm not finished yet. The farmers have committed to another 40 lbs. of tomatoes. Possibly, I can pick them up this Saturday, but it might be next Thursday. I'm hoping for Saturday. Today I'll get out and pick some plums. I want to bake a plum torte with them today. That takes just 12 plums, and it's so easy and quick. Also, I want to try making some barbecue sauce with them, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. It's been so busy for the past ten days or so that the house is an absolute wreck. I must do some housework today. But all work and no play makes me a dull quilter, and so I'll do a little sewing today too. It's high time, don't you think?