A Sewing Day

Good morning, my friends! We had a day that included a little of everything yesterday. I got out my sewing machine for the first time this trip, and I'll have some time to do some more sewing today. It's still dark outside as I'm writing this, but my spirits are bright. There's nothing like a day at the sewing machine to set the world right. 

While we ate our breakfast yesterday, this was our view:

Having their kitty hammocks right over the table isn't ideal, but it's the best place for them. If we were to put them in a different window, the kitties would be launching themselves from the furniture. The furniture is made from leather...or maybe it's "pleather," I'm not really sure. In any case, their claws make holes and scratches in it, which is why we keep it covered with small quilts most of the time. Still, it does give them an opportunity to scrutinize what we're eating and hand out diet tips with each bite. 

After breakfast, I did some more work on my current slow-stitching project. I've filled my hoop...

and now I've moved it to the last position before I finish it off. This shouldn't take too long. I think this is my favorite basket so far.

While I was stitching, Mike got Smitty out for a walk. Sadie went for a "watch" on her catio. You can see Smitty in the lower left corner of the image below.

Sadie seems completely at peace with her indoor-only status, but she runs to the catio whenever Smitty goes out and snoopervises his comings and goings.

And all of that snoopervising puts her in the mood for a nap. She really loves that morning sunshine.

We wanted to get some avocados since the whole week's menu includes chunks of avocado sprinkled on pretty much everything we're planning to put in our mouths. It's a short drive north from where we are, and then our favorite Mom & Dad fruit stand is just off the interstate.

They had different flavors of honey and pretty bottles of olive oil.

And lots of avocados for $5 per bag. We found Fuertes and Hass (Mike's favorite).

And here's a new one on me...Bacon Avocados. Really?

Also, a nice supply of citrus. Our friends Deb and Tom already gave us a bag of lemons, oranges, and mandarins from their trees, or we would have been all over the citrus.

They also had garlic, tomatoes, and persimmons. It's all grown locally. We're told that most of the avocados sold in grocery stores these days come from Mexico. Here, at this stand, they are California avocados...the very best kind.

We don't have any honey with us and so we picked up a jar of this avocado honey. It's a dark amber color, like maple syrup.

And two bags of avocados. They aren't quite ripe, unfortunately, but it shouldn't take them too long. There are five avocados per bag, which makes them about $1 per delicious avocado.

We had Barbecued Sirloin and Blue Cheese Salad on our menu for dinner last night. I'd hoped to use some of the avocados for that, but we'll give them more time to ripen and try to be patient. As for last night's dinner, I made some Quick Pickled Onions. 

I substitute the pickled onions for the shallots in the salad recipe. And the salad was so good. I didn't take a picture of ours, deciding instead to dive right in with both hands and my face. Here's the picture from the recipe, though.

You need to be a fan of blue cheese (or else leave it off), but it really adds a lot to this salad. I had some at home that I brought along to use up on this salad. And the dressing is delicious. I used rice vinegar in mine and regular mustard because that's what I had on hand. I linked to the recipe back there, but if you missed it, here it is again.

Okay, but I'm getting ahead of myself because earlier in the day, I set up my sewing machine at the dinette. I like sitting there next to the window. I had the sun shade pulled down because the bright sunshine was warm coming in. Pfelicity was serviced after our last trip south...her first visit to the spa of her life...and she was sewing nicely.

It's not a bad place to sew. My chair is a little low. I'm going to do some sewing again today, and I think I'll add a pillow to boost myself up a little. My goal was to sew together the ten French Roses blocks I brought along. The pieces are all cut and pinned together. I just need to sew around the edges. Here's the first one:

When I kitted these up before leaving home. I added the thread I was using and the scissors I was using the cut the backs. (If you've forgotten how these are made, you can see my old post right here, where I went into some detail about it.

These are made from my huge stash of flannel scraps, given to me or exchanged with quilters far and wide that I don't know. It was kind of fun poking through them. Of course, there were a lot of juvenile prints, probably used for making baby quilts. But I still enjoyed seeing the frogs, and dogs, and dinosaurs, and soccer balls sent to me by some folks. It told me something about the people who sent them.

Am I the only one who sees a fried egg in the one below?

When I got to the fifth one (below), I was getting tired of sewing.

Mike has an appointment to get the wheels aligned on his truck today. While he's gone, I'll finish the rest of them. Finishing these up is my goal for January's OMG, and so I'll be glad to get them finished and my goal for the month accomplished. If there's still more time for sewing when those are done, I believe I'll start sewing together the quilt blocks for the Posies quilt top.

Okay, so that was yesterday and the plan for today in a nutshell. We had some lovely weather yesterday. I'm hoping for a repeat today, and I want to get out for a walk. There are lots of pretty blooming things in this park, and I'd like to show you around. We've been pretty happy here so far. We think this might be The Place we've been looking for in Southern California.