It's a Start

Good morning, my friends. Our weather has improved significantly here, and we had a pretty view of the mountains this morning.

It's hard to see the mountain for the trees. I feel a need to say something about this photo. It was taken from the living room on the main floor. Ordinarily, when I take a picture of the mountain, it is from our bedroom window on the top floor. Mike was sleeping this morning, however, and so I didn't want to disturb him. I could take it from my upstairs office, but there's a screen on the window there, and so no dice. Oh well...so the living room it is. We used to be able to see three mountains from our living room window. Here's another picture I took more than ten years ago, while standing in our field. You can see the trees were not so tall back then, and we could still see Mt. Adams on the right.

Getting back to yesterday, we dragged our feet getting out the door to go grocery shopping. My slow-stitching took priority. Here's yesterday's inchy. We backstitched the aqua border on the right side and added some fly stitches. Then we filled in the green leaves on the rose with a feather stitch.

When we got home we needed some time to chill out, although the grocery shopping wasn't too bad. Our list was relatively short.

Finally, later in the afternoon, I made my way to the sewing room and started on my quilt for the "Maps" prompt. I'm kind of excited about this quilt. The reveal will be May 1st, and so until then, I can only give you hints and peeks. As a hint, I'm making 6 different traditional quilt blocks. They fit with the theme, but not in the way you might think. My goal is to do two per day until they're finished, and then I'll start piecing the quilt together.

The first block was made with these fabrics:

Here's a peek at the finished quilt block.

The second one was made from these fabrics and pieces.

Here's a peek at that one. Intriguing, no?

That was all I had time for. I might have accomplished more if I'd had some cats, but no. When I went upstairs, I found Sadie watching the news with Mike. She was not at all pleased about the outbursts during the State of the Union address, and she was especially put off by that outfit Meowarjorie Taylor You-Know-Who was wearing. (Sadie can be catty about other women sometimes.) As you might guess, Smitty and Sadie are very purrlitically astute.

There was no time for sitting and watching the news for me. I listened from the kitchen while I tried out this new recipe. Two pound bags of shrimp were on sale yesterday, and they were buy one get one free. So, I got four pounds of frozen shrimp for $15.99...a pretty good deal. I already had this recipe on the menu, but now I'll be making more shrimp dishes in the near future. This one is called Coconut-Lime Shrimp.

My picture wasn't as good at the one from the NYTimes. 

It was so tasty, and easy enough to make in the RV. That's cilantro sprinkled over the top, but if you don't like cilantro, you can leave it off. It's also cooked into the dish. I used to be one of those people for whom cilantro tasted like soap, but I've gotten used to the flavor, and now I like it. The recipe link is included before the pictures. As always, if you can't open it, feel free to email me, and I'll be happy to send it to you.

So I'll continue on with my traditional quilt blocks today, and then I'm starting on a "Fun Finish" project. (Fun Finishes are quilts that can be finished within a single week.) I've worked my way through the list of WIPs on my whiteboard, and so I've come to the "Quilter's Choice" place. My choice for this go-round is to make a little table topper for Easter...this one called Bunny Go Round.

Honestly, I can't remember where I first encountered this pattern, but I'm almost certain I found it for free. It originates from In the Doghouse Designs and was featured in Quiltmakers 100 Blocks Volume 10. You can find the link to the free pattern right here.

That's today's agenda. Breakfast is next, and then I'll see what the day's inchy is.