Coloring My World

We made a quick trip to the grocery store yesterday. Actually, we made several stops, and it's good to have all of that finished. I'll need to make another quick trip later this week once I've planned the food for the beginning of our trip. I keep alluding to the trip. I'll say more about it when it gets closer. But all of that to say I was exhausted by the time we got home. Days of canning topped off with a trip to the grocery store pretty much did me in. The rest of the day was spent quietly.

Before we left, I hand-stitched the binding on "The Sea" challenge quilt. Oooooooh... I am so happy with this. Art quilts are hard for me, and this one went better than expected. So I stitched past all four corners, and now it is finished. Here's a peek.

Here's another little peek at the back. I can't remember where or when I acquired this ocean wave/fish fabric, but it was exactly the right thing for this quilt. It's in keeping with my "Field of Dreams" quilting motto: Buy the fabric, and the quilt will come.

As I think I've mentioned, it's critically important that I take along enough hand-stitching projects to keep me busy on our trip. So I spent the rest of the day tracing and coloring the next three projects I'll work on. Since the Snowflakes are very nearly finished, I get to add a "Short" project to the list. "Short" projects are ones that can be finished in one go-round. I have more embroidery patterns than I'll be able to finish in what remains of my life, and so in my five-slot dance card, I include one space for smaller projects. This time around will be this one from Crabapple Hill Studios, called "In the Good Old Summertime." It's intended to be a Fourth of July runner for my dining room table.

I made the mistake of choosing a white on white with a small pattern on it, which made tracing the design more difficult. It's hard to tell the lines on the pattern from the design on the fabric, but we got 'er done. And then it took absolutely forEVER to color it. It's a little hard to see in that image above, so here's the photo from the pattern cover. I might decide to set it differently, depending on what scraps I can dig out of my stash.

When I bought this pattern, I sprung for the floss kit too. Searching through my floss stash, I found I had four of these already wound on bobbins. I'll start with those first.

Then, I traced and colored the 12th of twelve barns for Appalachian Memories. This one is called "Kentucky Chain."

And finally, the 4th plate for "Pieces of the Past." This one traced and colored pretty quickly. I'm using a white "fairy frost" fabric. It reminds me of bone china, but it doesn't photograph very well.

All that tracing and coloring pretty well used up the time in the day.

Earlier, I'd harvested six beets along with their greens to make last night's salad of Roasted Beet Salad with Oranges and Beet Greens. Since I'm kind of done with canning, it was nice to harvest just the beets I needed, rather than the two-arms-full harvesting I've been doing lately. I boiled the beets and blanched the greens while I was doing my tracing. The rest went together pretty easily.

We're threatened with suffocation by zucchini again, and so I served it alongside this Caramelized Onion Frittata with Artichoke Hearts, Zucchini, and Goat Cheese. That was a new recipe to me, and it was pretty good. I thought the amount of goat cheese was a little much, and so I'll cut it by half next time I make it...which will probably be next summer, when we're again in danger of murder by zucchini.

Meanwhile, Smitty was having his usual terrible life. One of my Facebook friends was appalled we hadn't provided so much as a pillow for him to rest his weary fuzzy head. We're trying to do better, so please don't report us to the ASPCA.

Today will probably be a mixed day of sewing and cleaning. I still haven't done a stitch of housework for at least a week. Time to get cracking because I hate leaving a mess in the house while we travel. I haven't decided what I'll work on for sewing, but it will be one of the three goals I listed in yesterday's post. Also, I need to water the flower pots and feed the birds. A busy day ahead, as always. 

Mike just announced he's making waffles for breakfast. Waffles? Count me in!