Ready to Relax

The past several days have been busy, busy, busy. It's true, I always keep busy with something, but it seems less harried when one is deciding for oneself what comes next, as opposed to acting out of necessity. We had a very nice celebration for our Fourth, and it was wonderful seeing Erik and Mae. Matthew was off camping, and so the four of us enjoyed a small gathering. For yesterday's part of the preparations I made a favorite salad of mine, Sweet Potato Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing. I was terrible about taking pictures yesterday, and so I'm using one from a previous post. I love the combination of the peanut dressing with the sweet potatoes and sugar snap peas.

We brined two chickens, spatchcocked them, slid some flavored butter under the skin, and then Mike smoked them on the Traeger. Toward the end of the cooking time, he moved them to the grilled and grilled them at a high temperature, so the skin was nice and crispy.

Also, I mentioned our tent-camping potatoes. We had these at a buffet once, and they were so good. It wasn't hard to recreate them at home. Red potatoes are chunked up into bite sized pieces along with about half a yellow onion and whatever bell pepper colors you might have on hand. For this dish, I used red and yellow. And then, you just fry them in a skillet with some butter (or olive oil, if you prefer), a generous sprinkling of garlic salt and some pepper. Using a lid helps soften the potatoes. I almost forgot to take a picture, but here you go.

When we were tent campers, we usually had steak one night, and I'd make the fried potatoes, since we couldn't bake them. Then, the next morning, we'd have the leftovers for breakfast. I've heard this way of preparing potatoes referred to as "Cottage Fried Potatoes," and so that's what I call them.

While I was cooking, Mike was outside digging out our old dead wisteria and replacing it with a new one. You can see the new one on the left side of the image below.

Here's an old picture of how it used to look. It was doing beautifully, and usually bloomed twice during the year. 

Then last year, it up and died. No warning. It was so pretty, and we wanted another one. We aren't sure why it died, but when Mike dug it up, the roots appeared as if something had been eating them. There was no sign of animal activity, and so possibly, they just rotted. Hard to say. Whatever the case, I hope this new one does well.

Also, I got a better picture of the now-fully-bloomed wine colored hydrangea. I was really glad the kids were able to see this. It's flowers are small compared to the ones around back, but I love that color.

It's planted just to the right of the new clematis, and so the color in that corner is very pretty. The clematis has three flowers on it now, although I only caught two of them in this photo.

And Mr. I-Must-Hunt-Or-Else was outside with Mike for a while. He caught a mouse and carried it back to the house in triumph. You can take the cat out of the hunt, but you can't take the hunt out of the cat. He simply must hunt, or he is not a happy camper. I blurred the mouse for those of you who are squeamish about that sort of thing. When you live with cats, you get used to it.

In all the busy-ness of the day, I made three of the nine masks on my list.

And I was able to get the top-stitching done on Luna. By "top-stitching," I'm talking just about the stitching along the edges of the applique. For this, I use invisible thread and a 60/8 needle to minimize the size of the holes. Also, I like a foot with an open toe so I can see what I'm doing. I do this with the feed dogs in their regular position.

It's a little hard to photograph because of the invisible thread...which is kind of the point.

She doesn't look much different from my last photo of her.

Today I should have plenty of time to get her to binding stage. I still need to add shading and details with thread. I've selected several colors, and I'll set up the machine for free-motion quilting. When all the details have been added, I'll baste the whole piece to the quilt back, and then do some free motion quilting.

So I'm tired today, my friends. I'm looking forward to a day of mostly sewing. I want to make at least three more masks, and I want to get Luna finished. We have a camping trip planned for week after next, and I want the sewing for others finished and mailed off before we leave.