1/22/23

The Final Four

 Good morning, my friends. Saturday turned out to be kind of a lackluster day. Mike spent the day painting. Kitties spent the day sleeping. I spent the day piecing. There seemed to be little alternative since we had snow in the morning. When I left you yesterday, ice crystals were falling from the sky. Within a few minutes the ice crystals turned to big fat snowflakes. It snowed hard for about an hour, and we had about half an inch of accumulation.


Sadie dearly wanted to go outside, but could only get as far as one paw lifted over the door sill. The thought of stepping out on that white stuff was more than she could bear. 

It was a good day for baking. I had a new stew recipe on last night's dinner menu. The suggested side dish was cornbread, and so I baked up another skillet of my friend Debi's delicious skillet cornbread recipe


The stew was something new to my kitchen. It was a Brunswick Stew made with chicken. We weren't wild about it. It was fine, but it was a five star effort for only about three star flavor. Anything that takes that much time and effort had better be delicious, or it doesn't return to my kitchen for a second try. Oh well. It was good, but not delicious.

My sewing day was spent almost entirely on paper-pieced crazy quilt blocks. 


There was no kitty help for this. Even kitties dislike paper-piecing. When I had 12 finished, I decided to sew the first row of eight together and sew them to the left side of the quilt top. For all I've whined about the paper-piecing, my sewing must be accurate because the borders and crazy quilt blocks have all fit together with no "easing in" required. 


It will probably take a good part of the day, but I'm optimistic that I can finish the final four, and then finish off this quilt top. This is my second oldest WIP. It was started in October of 2019. It will be good to get it to the final stage, and ready for quilting. And since I'm going to need to sandwich more quilts for quilting very soon, it's a good time to be finishing it off.

Today I'll be making another involved dinner in the form of stuffed cabbage rolls. I realized I had two quart-sized zip-lock bags of garden tomatoes in my freezer. I can turn those into tomato sauce by blending them up in my blender, and I'll use that for the sauce on the stuffed cabbage rolls. When Mike and I first moved to Oregon and after Erik was born, I often made stuffed cabbage rolls for the slow cooker. I was a stay-at-home mom and had time for that sort of thing, despite having a baby crawling around. 

When I returned to work, stuffed cabbage rolls fell off the menu for decades. Recently, I tried them again, and they were so tasty. Now I'm back to making them occasionally with a recipe I tried from Cook's Country. These are done in the oven, but I can make them ahead of time. And all of that to say I'll spend some time at that today too. They should be good with all that leftover cornbread. I've linked to the recipe back there, but if you can't open it, you can email me, and I'll be happy to send it to you.

Mike seems to have caught a bug of some kind. He tested for COVID this morning, and this first test was negative. He's supposed to test again 24 hours from now, so we'll see how that goes. Neither of us has had it. I've read that the new variant will most likely infect the so far uninfected. It's become a personal challenge for us to avoid it, but maybe our luck has run out. More on that later. 

For now, I'll do my slow-stitching. I should finish up the piece I'm working on today. If Mike feels up to pancakes, we'll start there.

10 comments:

Barbara said...

Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery. ~ Bill Watterson

Julierose said...

The paper pieced border goes so well with those Pieces from the Past blocks--nice work on these...no snow here--just more rain...hugs Julierose

Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting said...

Sorry Mike is sick. We've avoided Covid so far, too. Hopefully the next test will also be negative.

Jenny said...

You have done very well on your paper pieced blocks. I've only tried this method a few times, and find it frustrating. Your stuffed cabbage rolls sound tasty, I tried the link but it obviously knows I'm not a subscriber so locked me out. I would appreciate the recipe, if you can send it, thanks very much.

Lyndsey said...

I like the paper pieced blocks, they look very good. Sorry to hear Mike is unwell. I hope he continues to test negative. You cabbage rolls sound tasty and fun but it's a shame the stew wasn't as delicious as anticipated.

Astrid said...

Your crumb blocks are beautiful for the stitchery. No snow here in the tropics. We are into the heat of summer now; hot and humid. Sorry Mike is sick, hope the second test is negative too.

Vroomans' Quilts said...

I like to make stuff cabbage ahead and sit overnight in the fridge - the flavors just blend together more. We are getting snow tonight, but I think the valley has about 2" with the hills a bit more.

Magpie's Mumblings said...

Fingers are firmly crossed that Mike doesn't have the dreaded covid. Or the equally dreaded RSV virus. Our #2 son and his family had the latter just before Christmas and it was awful. There's so much going around right now because people have thrown all caution to the winds it seems.
The cornbread looks wonderful but I would have to agree that Brunswick Stew isn't a favourite here either.

piecefulwendy said...

You are doing well with those PP blocks, and the quilt looks very nice. I sure hope you both avoid Covid, or have a very mild case.

Ioleen said...

Paper piecing is not my favourite think to do! You’re doing a great job with your blocks. Like you and Mike, hubby and I have not had Covid and we’re keeping fingers and toes crossed that it stays that way. All the best to you both and the kitties 🐱