Cat Days of Summer

Yesterday I read something about "Dogust," which was in reference to the "dog days of summer," only with actual dogs. And, of course, we here at the Three Cats Ranch just sniffed at that reference. We know that these are cat days...each and every day of the year. It was warm yesterday, though. Smitty found his favorite cool spot in the house, on top of the china cabinet. The surface stays cool and cools off his tummy.

Sadie is plotting murder I think. As we go down the stairs, we have to be careful of cats lying in wait.

Yesterday morning, I sat and stitched up November's heart. It took a little longer than expected, but I wanted to get it done.

After that, I needed to get out and water the thirsty flower pots. I'll have to do that again today since it's been warm the past couple of days. While we were gone, the cherry tomatoes ripened in abundance. We're not plucking them from the plant fast enough, and so I'll probably pick all of the ripe ones today. Matthew is coming, and he'll enjoy them too.

Also, I harvested the first of the greenhouse tomatoes. There isn't enough to do much here, but maybe a nice pico de gallo or something else salsa like.

Also, Mike decided he could put off planting last year's Christmas tree no longer. It finally has a home in the center loop of our driveway.

With outside work done, I got to work quilting the Quiltemala quilt. This is going very well, and it's also going pretty fast. The bottom half of the quilt is finished, and I expect to finish the rest of the quilting today.

With the hand-woven fabrics fraying so badly, I'm quilting it rather densely with this motif I call a "square stipple." I was using the last of a grey Superior thread. When it was gone, I switched to a gray Aurifil. I've decided Aurifil threads are the best ones to use with Eliza. When I switched, the machine started stitching so nicely, and even more quietly. I've noticed this before. Making the switch mid-quilt has really convinced me to stick with Aurifil for my Babylock Tiara II machine.

When I quit for the day, it was looking like this. You can see the back in the image below. The quilt back is pieced with the domestic homespun and the remainder of the Guatemala hand wovens. It's difficult to even see the quilting on the Guatemala fabrics.

So I'm pretty happy with how this is all working out. I'm hoping to finish the quilting today, and just possibly, I'll get the binding sewn on too. The strips are cut, but not sewn together yet.

For last night's dinner, I was on a quest to use the CSA broccoli and some of the CSA onions. I tried this new recipe for Bacon, Gruyere, and Broccoli Quiche. It was pretty easy. I used a Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust and the rest went together fairly quickly. It was tasty, and there were leftovers for two days of breakfasts. Can't beat that. I baked it in my toaster oven, and so I didn't have to warm up the house much. Looks good, huh?

I used diced pancetta in place of the bacon, and I sauteed the onions in the drippings from the pancetta. Also, the recipe calls for two cups of milk or light cream. I had just a bit of heavy cream left, and then I added 2% milk to make up the difference. It was a good consistency, and I'd do that again.

Okay, so back to my quilting. I'm very hopeful things will continue moving along smoothly, and I can get that large quilt finished up.