After that, I cut out and fused the applique pieces to the background fabric for the next Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs block. After that, I traced in the embroidery lines. Anni Downs is an Australian designer, and so "favorite" was spelled the British way, with a "u." I went back and forth about whether to Americanize it, and decided to go ahead. My tracing deleted the "u." This change is offered up with my sincere apologies to those of you who prefer the former spelling. Hopefully, this change won't start any new wars.
It was time for lunch, so Smitty joined me in the kitchen for that. He'd already wolfed down his treats by the time I was ready to sit down with my sandwich.
If you're wondering about my sandwich, it's one of my favorite discoveries from the Cooking Light Diet. It's supposed to be served open-faced, but I like the second slice of bread for ease of handling. It's one-quarter of an apple, sliced thin, with a slice of Swiss cheese and two slices of prosciutto. Also, one side of the bread is spread with peanut butter. (The Cooking Light diet usually substitutes almond butter for peanut butter, but the calorie difference is negligible. I prefer peanut butter.) Anyway...it's such a tasty sandwich and I eat the same lunch almost every day. Oh yes, and I cut the remainder of the apple into slices and eat that too. It's a tasty, filling, and refreshing lunch.
Speaking of the diet, Mike and I re-started it in earnest a couple of weeks ago. There have been some things to use up, and so we've only been following for breakfast and lunch. As of this coming Friday, we'll be doing it for dinners too. With Christmas approaching, we won't be completely faithful for a few days coming up. Nevertheless, it's the beginning of my 20 in 2020. I don't know what Mike's goal is, but mine is to lose 20 pounds by the end of 2020. We've had good results with this diet in the past, and we've been able to maintain our former weight loss, even if we never reached our original goals. It's been about two years since our last go-round, and so maybe we'll hit our goal weights this time.
With lunch behind me, I got back to top-stitching the applique pieces, and now this block is ready for hand embroidery.
I'll start on it as soon as the snowmen are finished. The second of the three is nearly finished, and so it shouldn't be too long.
Sadie was my faithful companion during this whole sewing session. She loves the quilts-to-be-quilted pile for her napping pleasure.
As I was tidying things up, Smitty joined her. Looks like it's getting close to dinner time.
For dinner last night, I tried something new. This recipe for Turkey Wild Rice Soup is a good way to use leftover turkey. I neglected to take a picture of mine, and so I'm offering up the picture from the recipe online.
It calls for 2 cups of "cooked" wild rice. I wasn't sure how that translated into "uncooked," and so I inquired of my friend The Google. It informed me that wild rice cooks up to 3 times its original volume, and so I used 3/4 cup of dry wild rice cooked in 2-1/4 cups of water to be added to the rest of the ingredients. It ended up a little more than two cups of cooked rice, but if you ask me, you can never get too much wild rice. And this soup was really tasty and filling. I'd like to try it again, cutting the fat by using whole milk instead of half and half. Also, I think the amount of butter could be cut by at least half. And, yeah, the recipe as written isn't diet food. My thanks go once again to my friend Wendy who sent me a supply of wild rice from Minnesota a while back.
This morning I was back to work hand-sewing Semper Fi. Now I've turned the third corner, and I'm well along the way to the fourth and final corner. It will be good to have this one in the finished pile.
As for today, I need to make up a grocery list and do the some housework, but there will be plenty of time for sewing too. I believe I mentioned several weeks ago that I wanted to catch up on the Garden Sunshine blocks,
and so that will be today's goal. There have been three released since the last time I worked on it. I believe there is just one installment left, and then I'll have all the blocks for sewing it into a finished flimsy.
4 comments:
Wow, that's a really cool binding on Semper Fi! And congrats on getting all the blocks for Garden Sunshine. I don't know what happened, but looking at yours makes me realize I have missed enough of them as to render the ones I got saved useless. Oh well, truly, that's how I usually roll. Sad. I save the instructions with every intention of sewing, but long about 3 or 4 blocks in, look, there's a squirrel, and I never go back. Yours turned out fabulous tho!
Bailey has perfected the art of eating, then staring at me and doing her pop up puppy impression until I feed her again. Often, she allows only only 5 minutes to go by, sometimes less. It's become one of her best tricks. How do you overcome the death stares? Or, more accurately, the pitiful, starving Feed Me Now stares?
It delights me to know that there's a little Minnesota in your soup :-) It looks delicious! Smitty is very well behaved at the table. Wilbur would be right there, sniffing that sandwich, which also looks tasty. I'm going to eat whatever I want today; I'll behave tomorrow. Maybe. Your Americanized spelling is fine with me!
I usually eat my breakfast at my desk at work. The other day when Hank (our part-time office dog) came in, he stopped for his usual slurp of water, then up to my desk, shoving his head under my arm and stopping about an inch from my breakfast sandwich! Silly boy. He is learning that he has to wait to get the last bite. :) Hank is a Newfoundland mix and the sweetest woofie you'd ever get to meet.
That wild rice turkey soup looks delicious! I want to make some split pea soup with the ham & bone I have in the freezer. Maybe throw in a carrot too. We'll see.
I love a striped binding on the diagonal, and a red binding as contrast to the rest of the quilt, so you have ticked off two boxes for me there! VERY nice! You always seem to speed through so many projects, and I am humbled by my inactivity. But I did make a whole quilt this month already, and hand quilted it too! A Tri-Rec's tree quilt that measured completed at 12x14"! Taking it this weekend to a wedding, it is part of their gift!
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