An Everything Day

Happy Wednesday morning, my friends. Another Valentine's Day has come and gone. It's time for the next holiday...or special day. Not all "special days" are "holidays." So we'll just consider St. Patrick's Day a "special day." Working is still required. Unless you're retired. Then nothing is required. We've given up on you. Of course, you may have your own requirements. For me, it's slow-stitching. Here's yesterday's inchy. It includes backstitch, stem stitch, fly stitch and pistil stitch.

With it being Valentine's Day yesterday, I was in the mood for something special. It was my treadmill walking day...no way I was getting out and walking in the snow. I spend a half hour on the treadmill, and that was precisely the amount of time the pie dough would need to rest before I could bake some little pies. So I pursued that course...making the pie dough and then walking the treadmill. Then, it was time to add the filling and bake them off. When they were finished baking, they looked like this:

They were baked in wide-mouth mason jar lids. So cute. Add a scoop of ice cream, and you have yourself a fun little dessert to make the day special. My recipe came from Christina Lane's Dessert for Two cookbook. You can find a similar recipe on her website right here. The crust recipe is just the same, although you can use refrigerated pie crust for this too. As for the blueberry pie filling, I made it this way:

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon zest (optional)

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon (12.5 grams) granulated sugar

2 teaspoons flour

After adding the top crust, just brush it generously with some beaten egg yolk, dust it with sanding sugar, if you like, and then bake them in a 350°F oven until the crust is nicely browned and the filling is bubbly. I do mine in the toaster oven, and it takes about 30 minutes.

Okay, so it was time to get sewing then. I selected my fabrics for the Bunny Go Round.

When Smitty heard there were going to be bunnies in the sewing room, he brought his most handsome self to the party. He likes bunnies.

This was probably the fastest quilt I've ever sewn together. It ends up at 24 x 24 inches. I was considering adding a border, but I don't really want it any larger than it is.

After that, I puzzled over how to add the eyes and the whiskers so they would be consistent from block to block. Certainly, the eyeballing method will not get me there. After futzing with different rulers for about 20 minutes, I figured out to set my 5-1/2 inch square with the 5-1/2 inch point at the corner of the block, and then to set the buttons on either side of the one-inch mark. Perfect.

The whiskers were a different story. How can I make the whiskers so they are the same length and orientation from block-to-block? I puzzled over this for quite some time. Mike came in and offered some suggestions, but none of them were really going to work. Finally, it was time to start the stew, and so I decided to stop there and think about it for a while.

Before leaving though, I pulled a binding fabric (on the left below) and a backing fabric (on the right).

As we were dropping off to sleep last night, the solution came to me. I'll use freezer paper to make a template, and this is too complicated to try to explain in words. I'll take lots of pictures as I do it today and show you my method.

Okay, but the fun was just getting started. I was making Beef Bourguignon for dinner, using Ina Garten's recipe. (I have to check the spelling of "bourguignon" every time I write it.) You'll see that in Step 4, I was supposed to add some cognac (I used brandy) and then ignite it to burn off the alcohol. I wondered about the necessity of this step, but decided to do it anyway and Whoosh! When she says to "stand back" she isn't just kidding. That stuff is volatile!

It burned for about a minute. When it started to crackle, I put the lid on the pot to put out the fire. Enough is enough. And then I continued on with the rest of the preparation. As I mentioned yesterday, I serve mine over mashed potatoes rather than toast. Here's how it looked when I served it up.

It was delicious. It isn't difficult to make, but it does take a while to cook. If you want to give it a try, just start about 3 hours before you want to eat it.

In other news, I received this happy mail from my friend, Darlene. She made that little heart-shaped leather pouch. Isn't that cute? And inside...two lollipops! What a fun little gift to receive on Valentine's Day.

Thank you, Darlene. That was so sweet of you!

Okay, so I was going to set up my sawhorse tables for making quilt sandwiches today. I'm afraid that will need to wait until tomorrow. I want to finish the Bunny table topper, mainly just to get it out of the way. I've added the batting to it. I want to sew on the buttons and whiskers through the batting before adding the quilt back. When I add the back, it will be ready for quilting and binding. I'll probably keep it simple with some sort of meander.

There's plenty to keep me busy today, so I'd better get to it. Also, I'll be switching out my Valentine's Day decor to St. Patrick's Day stuff. So many special days...so little time between them. With Easter coming, that Bunny table topper needs to get finished.