Lots of Sewing

There was nothing but sewing on the agenda yesterday, although I will admit to getting a head start on tonight's dinner in my wanderings. We've been taking Sundays off from our diet menu and I make something we both really like, calories notwithstanding. The colder months are the best months for cooking. It's the season of the Dutch oven, and food cooked low and slow is always so tasty. Besides, it makes the house smell good, which just makes the food taste better, if you want my opinion.

So anyway...Mike requested Coq au Vin for this Sunday. I've only made it once before, and it must have been in 2011. The recipe calls for salt pork, and I was excited to get a hunk of salt pork out of our freezer. When I pulled out the frozen salt pork, it was marked 2011, and so I figure that's when I last made it. And, yeah, that salt pork is out of the freezer now, but it's not going into the Coq au Vin. I do have my limits. And, bummer, our grocery store no longer keeps salt pork in stock, so I decided to use pancetta instead. We'll see how it turns out. Coq au Vin takes two days to make. Today I just have to put it in the oven and let it go to town. Actually, it's not going anywhere other than our bellies. But that will have to wait for tomorrow's telling.

As for yesterday, I went to work on the next five blocks for Mulligan Stew. As I've mentioned before, the patterns for this quilt can be found in this book

and you can read more about it at this old blog post. There are several projects in the book, and I'm making the Mulligan Stew quilt because it uses all the blocks. When it's finished, it will look something like this:

This is my oldest UFO, and I've been working on this quilt positively forever. I'm planning to big stitch hand quilt it when it's finished, and so I expect someone else will have to finish it after I'm dead. Any volunteers? I've been making the blocks five at a time, and I'm happy to say that I now have 50 out of 60 blocks. These are the ones I finished yesterday.

As you look at these, know that the actual symbol that would have been used along the road is to the left of the block name.

The stories can be interesting and emotional, and so I share some of the ones I like best. This one caught my eye because he's talking about Vancouver, Washington, just to the north of us here. I know right where that rail line is, although it isn't operated by SP&S any more.

Here's my quilt block:

I liked the story associated with this next one too.

The story got me wondering about the sow's ear purse. Of course most people are familiar with the adage...

Nevertheless, at least one person has actually done it! You can read the post about it right here, and there's a picture of a purse made from a sow's ear. It isn't silk, of course.

With that aside, here's my quilt block:

I choose the fabrics trying to match the ones that are pictured in the book. This is a scraps-only quilt, although I did cut some fat quarters along the way. Some of these fabrics are homespuns, but most are just regular quilter's cotton.

When this block was finished, the quilt purrlice showed up to supurrvise.

Is this the book you're using?

Hm...this rotary cutter blade is dull. How can you even cut anything with this?

And what about this here...honestly, I don't know how humans get through life at all.

You do know that your cutting would be more accurate if you had the entirety of the ruler on the table, right?

Okay, well everything seems to be ship-shape here, although I have some grave concerns about your technique.

But if you'll just follow my gaze in this direction...look with me...follow my eyes...you'll notice that my catnip bowl is empty.

Which makes this next block so entirely appropriate to the moment.

And this one, because I think his next move was to take a nap. Quilt purrlicing is so very exhausting.

And so there they are. Five more blocks. Ten to go.

From there, I was kind of undecided about what to do next. The Chicken Buffet blocks are calling to me, and so I got out the next one and looked it over. It really would be so much easier to do if Big Bertha were back on the job, and so I put it back. I'll just wait for her to feel better. Maybe I'll do two next time around.

Instead, I took a look at my white board. This is how I keep my projects organized. Way back before we left on our trip, I had about a dozen sandwiched quilts on this list. Now I'm down to just two...Wind in the Whiskers, which is under my needle, and this little St. Patrick's Day table topper.

I'm planning to finish that one no later than January.

After that, I'll need more quilt sandwiches. This next list contains all the flimsies that still need sandwiching. Since I have to set up a big saw horse table in our garage when I sandwich quilts, I like to do them all at once. The top two on this list also need to have backs made. The ones with big dots behind their names are small enough to sandwich inside the house. I'll let the weather help me decide whether to do them all out in the garage or whether to stay inside where it's warm.

Which brings me to this final section. This includes the quilts where all the blocks are finished, but they aren't yet sewn together. There is only one there, and that seems like the obvious project to work on next.

I'd already pulled a bunch of fabrics from my stash to finish it off, but I didn't know if I had enough of any of them to bring my vision together. Sadie was a big help here.

Oh, I'm feeling very pawsitive about this one...it sets off the colors of my furs purrfectly.

All of these are divine. You have my complete appurroval to use any or all of them.

And sew it shall be. I have enough of everything. There is even a large enough piece for the quilt back, and so I'll be able to finish it off without purchasing any more fabric. It's a little like getting a big coupon payback at the grocery store. That's where I'll start today.

Toward the end of my Coq au Vin preparations yesterday, I got out my sourdough starters and fed them. We're having Thanksgiving at Erik and Mae's house this year (Hooray!). I'm bringing sweet potatoes and cranberries. Since the kids have such busy lives, we haven't seen much of them lately, and thus, there have been only limited opportunities for spoiling them. I decided to make a couple of loaves of bread (one for Erik and Mae, and one for Matthew), and so I needed to get the starter fed and activated for baking. I'll use what I poured off the whole wheat starter in those loaves. When I left it yesterday evening, it looked like this. The rubber band marks the level.

When I got up this morning (about 12 hours later), it looked like this. So, yahoo! That puppy is active. I won't get started on the bread until Tuesday, and so it'll get a couple more feedings between now and then. I'll have to watch it carefully to avoid any spillovers.

It's another chilly morning. Sadie knows the right thing to do.

Today I expect to finish off the latest Sundress block, and so I'll need to trace out the next names for the Shop Hop quilt. After that I'll get to work sewing Home & Heart into a flimsy. It's going to be a good day. I hope you have a good day too.