Sew and Sow

Good morning, my friends. Yesterday was an exercise in distraction. It meant I didn't get much sewing done, but I did get a lot of other stuff done. Of course, I took the first stitches on the next blocks for The Story of My Day.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had some baking on my agenda. We had quiche for dinner last night, and I wanted to bake some "jammers" to go with it. I first became acquainted with jammers at a Grand Central Bakery near my office in Multnomah Village, Oregon. It became a favorite way to take a break from work, get a cup of coffee and enjoy a jammer. Lo these many years ago, I wrote a blog post about how these are done. You can read it right here. They're basically a thumbprint cookie, only instead of the cookie, you have a biscuit. They're so yummy. I used my own homemade blueberry and peach jams for the jammy part.

When those were safely out of the oven, I went outside to do my gardening work. On the way to the greenhouse, I noticed the tulip that shares a whiskey barrel with the poppies had bloomed. So pretty. I actually don't remember planting anything in this particular whiskey barrel. I always think the squirrels have been up to their usual mischief when I see something like this. It is pretty though.

Inside, it looks like this:

Inside the greenhouse, I could swear the tomatoes had grown another two inches overnight. I decided to go ahead and repot them.

From there, I planted some herbs, and I switched out the chewed off African daisies for some marigolds. Then, I took a little walk around. The cherry tomato has its first flower.

The purple clematis is starting to bloom. This will be covered in purple flowers within the next week.

To its left, the red tulips are blooming now.

They look like this inside.

Around back, the yellow tulips that share their whiskey barrel with the mint are close to opening.

Beside them, one of the rhododendrons is showing its petals. These should be blooming soon.

The cherry trees are especially pretty right now. We've had a couple of sunny days, and so I hope the insects are doing their work to pollinate them.

Back inside, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what to do for the next art quilt challenge. The new prompt will be "Collage." Well. I've made lots of collage quilts, and so the technique is familiar. I spent some time going through old pictures looking for something I might like to do. Long ago, I enlarged and printed one particular photo from our travels. I've been telling myself to make a quilt from it for at least five years. Just to be mean, I'll even give you a peek at the photo.

Oh...I'm sorry. I forgot. I can't show you until the reveal on August 1st. My apologies. (Deceitful smile.)

It seems daunting, but no more daunting than some of the other ones I've attempted. I think I'm settled on making it, but I spent hours trying to talk myself out of it. If I institute the one-hour rule (meaning I work on it for an hour, and then stop...or continue, if I want to), I should be able to get it done. 

When I finally made my way into the sewing room, I perused the fabrics I've collected for the same quilt over several years of traveling. There is one fabric in particular that will be perfect. Maybe its time has come. For now, I have the picture sitting in the sewing room so it's the first thing I see when I walk in. When I circle a photo for a while, I can think of how to get it done. So that's where I am in the process. Stage One: Circling.

The only sewing I did was to make May's block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I'm making the Homestead quilt from the blocks listed in the Quilt Discovery Booklet I picked up at Homestead National Historical Park. The next block listed was the Churn Dash. Here's mine, done in orange for May's color of the month.

This is what the Quilt Discovery Experience booklet says about the Churn Dash:

The homesteader's life and their daily activities contributed names to many quilt blocks. Nineteenth century quilts reflect what women saw around them, and what was important in their lives, such as the churn, a common household item.

A quilt historian says that quilts had characteristics so localized that they could be classified geographically almost as easily as the Yankee twang or the southern drawl. But as the homesteaders traveled West, blending together on the trail and in the new territories, the patterns became intermingled and renamed.

The Churn Dash pattern, for example, has 21 different variations and names. But, whatever the name, one can be certain it was meaningful to the maker, for even the simplest quilt represented a considerable investment of time and energy. And when the cold winter winds blew snow through the chinked cracks of the log cabin, a quilt was a welcome cover, whatever its name.

Here are all the blocks I have for this quilt so far. 

Okay, and so it was late in the day by then. It was time to get to work on my Asparagus Bacon Quiche. It isn't hard to make, but it includes several steps: baking the unfilled crust, frying bacon, blanching asparagus, and then mixing the filling. Then it has to bake for about 40 minutes. When it came out of the oven (the toaster oven, in this case), it looked like this:

I've been making this quiche for decades. It's a good way to use asparagus when it's in season, and it's good for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. We'll be having the leftovers for breakfast this morning. The recipe can be found in A Taste of Home magazine. (My mother loved that magazine.)

After dinner, we found Smitty enjoying the afternoon sunshine on his catio. I tapped at the laundry room window to get him to look at me, but he refused.

Be off with you purrthetic pawpawrazzi.

Here...let me turn this way so I can ignore you more intensely.

Okay, well, maybe he's charging for pictures now. After all, he is an internationally-known model and cover cat for Cosmeowpolitan magazine. What can we expect from someone who is hounded constantly for pictures. Hounded. Or maybe doggedly purrsued. (Did you see what I did there?)

We're back to rain and gloom again today. Earlier we heard some thunder. I broadcast the wildflower seeds yesterday, and so the rain is a good thing. We're expecting more sunshine either tomorrow or the next day, and that will be good for the wildflowers too. As for me, I can no longer drag my feet about the next Tiny House block. I should be able to get it finished today. The sections are cut apart and waiting for me. Next on the list will be to start quilting the Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs quilt. It's time has come. Oh yes, and there might be some housework on the to-do list as well. There's always plenty to do to keep the Three Cats Ranch running. What's on your to-do list for this Thursday?