It's a Beautiful Morning

My son, Erik, gets to work before the sun comes up these days. It was nice to receive this photo from him first thing when I looked at my phone this morning.

That's our beautiful city taken from the east bank of the Willamette River. On the left side of the image, you can see the Fremont Bridge. Nice shot, Erik.

Heart & Home is coming together nicely. Yesterday I finished sewing the nine-patch blocks together. There are 32 of these.

From there, I had to settle on a fabric for the sashing. You might recall I purchased a couple of yards of this fabric when I needed some black on white for the black and white blocks of Rainbow Jubilee.

There are birds in six of the nine embroidered blocks for the quilt, and so it seemed like a good choice. First, I sewed the horizontal sashings together. The nine-patches are cornerstones.

I had a few doubts about the bird fabric until I sewed the first row of blocks together. When I laid it out, I was pretty happy with the look of it.

You'll be happy to know that Smitty has recovered from the humiliation of the previous day. He went up into the Clubhouse with no mishaps yesterday and, apparently, no hesitation. When he came down, he demonstrated how well fabric works as a yoga mat.

Before quitting for the day, I had another row of blocks sewn together.

There is one more row of blocks and then two borders before this becomes a finished flimsy. I'm hoping to get it finished today, but I need to make a short run into town and also do a little housework. (I hate it when life intrudes into my sewing time.)

Smitty has been requesting a little alone time outside in the afternoons. He sits in the same spot on the corner of our deck. He meditates for about 20 minutes before asking to be let in again. He uses the extra-long length of his tail to keep his toes warm.

Back inside, it's time to report back to you on the outcome for the pickled Brussels sprouts I made a few weeks ago. (Cue the Brussels sprouts haters.)

I was supposed to wait two weeks before tasting them, but I have absolutely no ability to resist tasting something new, and so I opened one jar and tasted it right away. It was okay, but let me tell you, opening these early will yield a stinky product. They mellowed quite a bit over the next week, and in the interim, I ate the whole opened jar.

So yesterday, I decided to try one of the jars that had been given an appropriate period of time to rest. The stinky smell was completely gone, and they tasted really good. There is mustard seed, celery seed, and turmeric in the mix, and so they ended up tasting a little like a bread & butter pickle. I'm pretty happy with this recipe. Mine was adapted from one I found online. The online recipe seriously underestimated the number (and size) of jars I would need. In fact, the post where I found it states these are done in half-pints and then shows a picture that is clearly a pint jar. Oh well...whatever. So anyway...I'm not linking to that because it's wrong on many levels. My recipe is different in several ways. Here's how I did it.

Pickled Brussels Sprouts
Yield: 6 pints

Ingredients:

3 lbs. brussels sprouts
5 cups white vinegar (5% acidity)
2 2/3 cups sugar
1 1/3 cups thinly sliced onions
2/3 cup diced sweet red peppers
2 Tbs. mustard seed
1 Tbs. celery seed
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. red pepper flakes

Directions:

Wash Brussels sprouts and remove stems and rough outer leaves. Boil in salted water for 4 minutes (4 tsp. pickling salt per 1 gallon water). Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, combine vinegar, sugar, onions, peppers and spices in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, distribute the onion and pepper pieces evenly among 6 clean, hot pint jars. Fill jars with Brussels sprouts, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Cover with hot brine, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened clean paper towel. Add lids and rings.

Process 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. Add 5 minutes of processing time for every 1,000 feet of elevation gain.

So there you have it. As I mentioned, there are a few things on my agenda besides sewing today, but I'm still going to try to get Heart & Home sewn into a flimsy. I'm kind of excited to see it all finished.