A New Day

Surprisingly, I survived my trip to the dentist yesterday. No problems, and so I'm good for another year. I had a couple of other errands to run before heading for home. When I got there, kitties were chomping at the bit to get outside.

Sadie has been helping me with the poppy watch. She's watching the squirrels. The poppy is still looking about the same as ever, although the interior shows a little more each day.

On the positive side, I noticed two more buds on it yesterday for a total of six. We just need a warm sunny day, and I think it will pop open.

While I was out, I checked the greenhouse and I was happy to find the butter lettuce has germinated.

Also, the sunflowers I replanted last week are almost all sprouted now. There's another tray of these to the left of the frame below, and those are mostly sprouted. The tray to the right are new sunflowers and new plantings, and I don't see any activity there yet.

There wasn't much sewing yesterday because I napped during the afternoon. Any time I leave home, I come back exhausted and badly in need of a nap. Sometimes I power on through, but yesterday I succumbed. Still, I did all the quilting on the red part of the bird, filling it in with feathers. (What else?)

I'm a novice when it comes to feathers, and I haven't tried doing anything particularly fancy yet. For these, I made loops on both sides of the spine, making my way across the quilt and filling in the space.

When I reached the end, I made a loop, and then stitched back along the spine, making random flourishes inside a few of the loops. I liked this because it better defined the spine, but it also gave me a way to make any loops too large or misshapen look a little better. The flourish seemed to hide or disguise any problems I perceived.

After filling in the body of the bird, I made one long feather extending down to the tip of the tail.

Here's how it's looking from the back. It's a little hard to see that light blue thread.

While I was making dinner last night, the kitties were lounging in the afternoon sunshine.

Doesn't this rug match my furs beautifully?

I might have thought Smitty was dead if his eyes hadn't been open.

For dinner last night, I used more of the CSA veggies. This one did away with the remaining green onions and the butter lettuce. The lettuce is sauteed along with the other veggies until it wilts. It's an interesting way to use lettuce. The prosciutto gives it a nice salty taste while I used almost no salt at all in the remainder of the dish.

This is Pasta with Peas, Asparagus, Butter Lettuce, and Prosciutto and you can find the recipe right here. I made just half the recipe, and I used frozen peas instead of fresh. If you're using frozen peas, there's no need to cook them in boiling water. Just add them to the cooked asparagus, and you're good to go.

So that was yesterday. Today, I'll continue on quilting the cardinal. I'm hoping to get well along with it today, although I doubt I'll finish. It's a CSA pick-up day, and there's always a little housework to do, it seems. We're expecting drier and warmer weather this week. Fingers crossed the poppy opens soon.