Scant Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It rained, and rained, and rained yesterday. My goodness, we're pretty well tired of the rain. It's spring! Bring on spring! On a positive note, my forays outside to fill the birdfeeders have revealed lots of little shoots on the landscape shrubs and daffodils that are heading up to bloom. All we need is some warm weather, and we'll be seeing a lot more. Already, in the valley, we're seeing blooming trees and flowers, so things are looking up despite yesterday's deluge.

We had grocery shopping to do. I needed some fresh bean sprouts for one of our menu items this week. Our usual grocery store doesn't sell them. They gave up years ago after several recalls. I was told by the grocer that the store bears the cost when fresh produce is recalled, and so they just gave up selling them. And all of that to say that we needed to make a stop at another store across the street. They share their parking lot with the new quilt shop. I knew the grand opening was today, and so I caught this picture as we drove by.

Yeah...it's not a very good picture, but the most important part is shown below. See that? March 22nd. That's today, my friends. I guess you know what's on my agenda for today.

I'll be on the hunt for a background fabric I can use to trace out the embroidered blocks for our Alaska trip project. Recall that I've selected this Raggedy & Friends pattern. I'll trace all the embroidered blocks before we leave, and that should keep me busy while we're traveling.

I have plenty of scraps and yardage for this, but I need a neutral for the embroidered block backgrounds. Also, I'll be looking for anything I can use to finish off the Kitchen Herbs piece. I've already pulled some fabrics from my stash that can be used, but there's no harm in looking, right? 

Speaking of the Kitchen Herbs, I started on the fourth of four blocks yesterday. Probably I'll have this finished up by tomorrow.

Before I did any other sewing, I had in mind to make some Apple Cobblers for Two. My favorite apple is "Envy," and I almost always buy apples at the grocery store. There's some truth to that "apple a day" idiom. Don't believe me? Check out this article from PubMed Central:

My personal experience is that...um...how should I say this? It prevents clogged plumbing. 

So, anyway, when I picked some apples at our last grocery shopping trip, I selected five from the bin marked "Envy," but when I ate the first one, I realized they were all "Galas." And not to diss anyone's favorite apple, but I don't care for the Galas as eating apples. They're fine for baking, but I choose something else when I'm eating them plain and raw. 

So, I now have Envy apples for my eating pleasure, but I was looking for something else to do with the Galas. The Apple Cobblers knocked off two of them. There's one left, and I'll use it in some muffins. For now, I wanted to make these. The recipe would have me making these in ramekins, but they bake up all the way to the top of the ramekins, and then...where are you going to put the ice cream? And, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal to eat apple cobbler without ice cream. Taking no chances, I do mine in mugs. Coming straight form the oven, they look like this.

After giving them a chance to cool, they sunk into the cup, leaving a perfect place for a scoop of ice cream.

When we ate them last night, I had a sudden brainstorm to add some caramel syrup to them. Yum. There's more than one way to skin an apple. These are super easy. You can find the recipe right here, but don't forget to add the caramel syrup.

So with all that going on, I didn't have a lot of time for sewing. Thankfully, my sewing cat was there to help out.

When I left you yesterday, I was still trying to decide how to quilt this last Easter egg.

I had in mind to select a fancy stitch that started in the middle and circled around. I could put it at the intersection of the seams. So, I tested one out, just to see how it would stitch. When it was complete, it looked like this:

And I liked that. The thread tails would be buried. Sadly, when I tried stitching it where the seams intersected, it ended up just a big knot of yellow thread. I had to take it out. With batting and intersecting seams, it was too thick to stitch properly.

So then my cat and I had a discussion about what to do. We both decided straight stitching was the best option.

I would like to have done something more interesting, but this is what I ended up with.

So that was all the sewing I managed for the day. I expect today I'll be able to get this to binding stage. I'll use that same dark blue for my binding (unless I see something I like better at the new quilt shop).

As I'm writing this, the store has opened. I never planned to be there when the doors opened. I'll give the crowd time to clear out a little, and head down there a little later. For now, I'll continue on with my slow stitching. It's Sewturday today, and so it's going to be all sewing, all the time, with exceptions made for quilt shop shopping. Sounds like a perfect day, no?