Sewing with Pens

Good morning, my friends. Can you stand some more ice pictures? We're still iced in here at the Three Cats Ranch. I've heard this thawing compared to taking a frozen turkey out of the freezer and putting it into the refrigerator. Think about how long it takes that turkey to thaw. Now, insert us here in the Pacific Northwest, and the weather has turned us all into frozen turkeys. It's a completely apt metaphor. Just before sitting down here, I looked out the glass doors onto our icy deck. Can you see that sheen of ice? There's an iced-over patch of snow, but the ice also extends into the uncovered areas of the deck.

We can't get out of our long, steep driveway, which means nobody is getting in either. We've rescheduled our carpeting installation...again. Now, it'll be a week from Monday. The weather is supposed to be warm rain for the rest of the week, and so I'm confident we'll get it done then. Unless another front moves in, and then it's anybody's guess. Also, we're running out of ingredients for making food. We have lots of frozen soups, stews, and casseroles in our freezer, so we won't go hungry. Still, I like to cook. Reheating things day after day is not the kind of cooking I like to do. We're hoping we'll be able to get out by tomorrow, but it's only a guess.

After writing yesterday's post, I took a few more pictures through the window. This isn't the job our snow-measuring device signed up for.

Just outside the living room window, the Andromeda's new spring flowers are encased in ice.

I'm not sure how this will affect the plant this spring. It is a winter-hardy shrub.

Outside the window above our bed, this Japanese maple tree looks fairy-like with all its sparkle.

This is a glazed-over north-facing window. When I take pictures of the mountains, this is usually where I'm standing.

Back inside and underneath a quilt, I did some slow-stitching. There wasn't much to stitch in this area.

I opened it all up for a picture when I moved my hoop. I'm only about halfway across the piece. The left side is all stitched, and that is the most densely stitched area. So, distance-wise I'm about halfway. Number-of-stitches-left-to-do-wise, I'm probably about 2/3 of the way.

I'll start right here today.

In the sewing room, I readied my piece for February's International Embroidery Month project from Crabapple Hill Studios. This is my favorite stitch-along of the year.

These are the colors of floss I'll be using.

Next, I needed to make up the newest block pattern for When Quilter's Gather. I'll admit to dragging my feet about this. Making the pattern is the worst part of this project. I ended up getting distracted when I'd only just barely started. It seemed like a good time to call my son, Matthew, and ask him how his trip to the coast went this week. He was over there d-jaying an event. He had a d-jay gig when he was a college student, and it's a side hustle for him now. We ended up talking for over an hour. I hated to get off the phone when nature called, but I couldn't put off making this pattern forever. Thankfully, Smitty showed up with all four paws to help.

If helping paws are good, a helping tail is even better.

Together, we traced in all the lines.

And then I flipped it over, marked and labeled all the sections, and now it's ready to go.

I'll start there when I head into the sewing room today.

Also today, I'm going to start the process of some No-Knead Harvest Bread. It's one I haven't tried before. It has dried cranberries, raisins, and nuts. Yesterday, I measured out some yeast from my freezer and left it on the counter to bring it back to room temperature. (Ya gotta wake up those little yeasties.) Then, I totally forgot about it until I went to make dinner last night. It needs to rest and rise overnight before I can bake it off, and so I'll get that going right away this morning...while it's still fresh in my feeble mind.

Aside from the bread, there's nothing else on today's agenda. I doubt I can finish off the When Quilters Gather block today, but I'm going to give it a good try. If you're frozen in where you are, then you have my sympathy. Just keep repeating to yourself, this too shall pass.