A Little of Everything

Good morning, my friends. Yesterday's activities made up for the previous day's inactivity. There were several things on my to-do list, and I managed to get through it all. The weeding isn't finished, and I'll have to do some more today. I think by the end of today's session, it'll be good to go until next spring. 

While I was out yesterday, I took a few pictures of the things that are still blooming. There isn't much, but the echinacea continues to brighten its corner of the garden. 

I'm so happy these plants continue to come back each year despite what winter throws at them.

Two of the four dahlias continue to bloom. This one is the "Checkers" dahlia.

This one is "Bumble Rumble."

The other two, Firefighter and Fuzzy Wuzzy have buds, but neither has flowered yet. 

I hope they hurry up before the rainy season starts.

Before I started in on the weeding, I baked up these Carrot-Apple Muffins with Orange Glaze. The recipe originally appeared in Cooking Light magazine before it ceased publication. Now, it's available on Yahoo. It called for white whole-wheat flour. I just used regular whole-wheat. I made these to use up what remained of a bag of julienned carrots purchased at the grocery store. For the apple part, I grated it on the large holes of my box grater. And these turned out really nice. They're not too sweet.

By the time all that was finished, Smitty was itching to do some sewing.

I made a little more progress on the "Spices" threadwork. Yesterday, I was working with one of the variegated threads. Today, I'll finish up the darker purple you see there, and then, there will be just a little bit more to do with the darkest of my purple threads. I expect I'll get more dimensional depth when I add the darkest thread.

Before I go on, I'd like to answer a question from my friend, Karen.

Q: Would love to have more info on your thread painting. Do you leave the feed dogs up on the machine or sew with them down? If down, how do you keep the stitches even as they appear to be even in the photo? 

A: My machine is set up as if I'm going to do free motion quilting. Feed dogs are down, and my machine (Bernina 750QE) came with a stitch regulator, which helps keep the stitches even. I'm self-taught when it comes to this kind of thread work. I've learned from following some Facebook groups, and with the assistance of these two books.

There are many other books available, but these are the ones I chose. Mainly, I get the basics from reading, and then I just experiment.

In yesterday's mail, I received 2-1/2 yards more of this "Homestead" fabric. I love the simplicity of this design.

I'll use it with what remains of my first purchase to piece together a back for the Homestead quilt finished recently.

For last night's dinner, I tried yet another new (to me) recipe. This is One-Pot Tortellini with Prosciutto and Peas. This was so simple and tasty. And I love a recipe I can do all in the same pan. This is easy enough to do in the RV. It has a cream sauce, barely visible in this image.

There's enough left over for another meal. The recipe called for cheese tortellini. Our grocery store was out the day we shopped, and so I used chicken and roasted garlic tortellini. It was delicious. I've linked to the recipe above. Recently, I figured out that I can use a "gift" link and share with folks who don't subscribe to the NYTimes. If the link doesn't work for you, please email me. It's easy for me to share a recipe using the Paprika app, so I'm happy to share.

Now here's something. Smitty and I have a daily lovefest after dinner. When I head upstairs to change into my pajamas, he always follows me so that we can snuggle on the bed for a few minutes. Sometimes, he's sleeping when I go upstairs, and we'd missed our lovefest for the past couple of days. When dinner was finished last night, I found him waiting on the bottom step. Clearly, he wasn't going to miss out for a third day in a row.

Also, I want you to notice the two strips of double-sided sticky tape on the riser below his ample body. Those are to prevent a naughty little black cat from using that spot as her scratching post and ripping up the new carpet. (She practically destroyed the old carpet in that spot.)

Surely you're not talking about me.

Okay, and I made a little more progress on Phenology. That's where I'm heading next. 

But first...Sunday morning pancakes.

And you folks digging out from the hurricane, if you were here, I'd make some pancakes for you too. Know that you're in my thoughts. I've seen the pictures. It looks positively awful. Take care and stay warm, safe, and dry.