Growing Pansies

Except for one housekeeping chore, yesterday was pretty much an NBS day. I kept plugging away until I had another section finished on the pansies. Now it is 60% finished.

I'll just keep plugging away at it day by day until it's finished. With so many fabrics and little bitty pieces, I have to keep going to the bitter end. Yesterday, I perused my stash looking for border and backing fabrics, and I'm happy to say I have everything I need.

While I was working on the pansy, I hemmed the fabrics from Guatemala where needed and then washed and dried them. They performed very well in the wash with minimal bleeding and very little fraying. Now they're ready to go into the quilt I have planned for them.

One of my favorite quilt shops sent me a discount coupon for my birthday, and so I'll head over there on Thursday. I'm on the hunt for some homespun fabric in a solid black, navy, or burgundy. Possibly they won't have any homespun, but I'm confident I can find something that will work.

The "Stitch" sampler is well under way now. I haven't attempted any of the more challenging stitches yet. For now, I'm sticking with the low-hanging fruit. I'll have to take the piece out of the hoop to do bullion stitch or cast-on stitch, and so I'll do everything else first. When I'm ready to move the hoop, I'll try those.

With my morning stitching finished, I set free the cats. They always start out right here...checking out the field for anything interesting. They're on vole patrol right now, but they also enjoy hassling the squirrels.

In the greenhouse, one of the sunflowers has germinated. I'm watching everything like a hawk right now.

The weather has been sunny, but cool, and so I'm keeping the greenhouse closed up for now. It can get very warm in there, and with all the little pots covered in plastic, I need to be on top of them when the seeds germinate. One weekend, we left some newly planted lettuce seeds covered. The temperatures got really hot that weekend, and when we came home, the poor little lettuce seedlings had boiled in their own juices. For now, I'm checking every day and uncovering any new growth.

It was nice enough last night to eat outside for the first time this year. You might remember my friend Wendy sent a gift of some black rice from Minnesota. She suggested salmon to go with it, and I just happened to have a fillet in my freezer at the time. So I fixed that last night, along with some roasted cauliflower. The rice was so good...kind of nutty. I didn't do anything special to it...just cooked it, and we ate it. So, thank you, Wendy. I believe we can get black rice here too, but I don't think I've ever eaten it outside a restaurant. The salmon recipe is one on our diet, and that was quite tasty too. You can find the recipe for Salmon with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes right here. Super easy and yummy.

Today's agenda looks a lot like yesterday's. A little bit of housework...more sewing than anything else. The kitties are having their morning sunbath, and I'm just about to join them for my morning dose of slow stitching. We're expecting weather a little warmer than yesterday. I keep saying I'll get out for a walk. Maybe today I'll actually do it.