So Close, and Yet So Far

Good morning, my friends. How is everyone doing? According to the clock, I slept an extra hour this morning, as I did yesterday. It usually takes me about a week to adjust to the new time. Sleeping late is better than waking early, I suppose.

It felt busy, and not busy yesterday. Everything on my list was finished early, and so I could focus on sewing. I spent a little extra time with my slow-stitching. When I moved my hoop, I realized I'd stitched nearly all the way from left to right. I'll be glad to have this finished. What remains will fit in my hoop, but I'll have to stitch both the top and bottom row.

I know I won't have enough of the tan floss for the flowers to finish it off. Fortunately, another skein should be delivered today. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm not sure it will be the right color. As I looked at this yesterday, I realized there's a tan color in the variegated floss for the scalloped edge that could be separated out and used if the new skein isn't right. On the other hand, the color isn't perfect there either. I might end up using a different color floss to finish it off. When the mail is delivered, I can make my final decision, but I'm hoping to finish this by this afternoon.

As I was putting everything away, I glanced out the window to see this Peeping Tom staring back at me.

The rest of my sewing day was spent finishing off the Merry, Merry Snowmen. I finished top-stitching the white, and then stitched in their arms by machine. Also, I added a bow to the top gift.

Our dinner was a Dutch oven stew last night, and so I paused here to get that started. It needed about three hours on the stovetop. It sure made the house smell good.

While I waited for that, I finished doing the hand embroidery and sewing on the button embellishments. It's hard stitching those carrot noses. Satin stitch is a rather unforgiving stitch. At times, I was stitching through three layers of applique, and it was hard to push the needle through without poking holes in my fingers. (A wiser person might have used a thimble.) And then, it was hard to pull the needle all the way through. I was using my teeth for that. (I'm sure my dentist would have disapproved of my method.) It took about an hour, but then it was finished.

There are three more blocks to make before I'll be ready to sew this into a finished quilt top. These are the six blocks I have so far.

Now, about that stew...I make so many new recipes that I can't always remember what we liked and what we didn't. Often, before turning off the lights at night, I'm scrolling through old blog posts to see what things I've made that we liked. When I read a post from 2016, I noticed the recipe for Dijon and Cognac Beef Stew where I said it might be the best stew we've ever eaten. 

Well. I couldn't remember anything about it, and so it went on this week's menu. And I didn't disagree with my earlier comments. The Dijon mustard gives it a rich and flavorful broth. We had it with some crusty bread for dunking.

So I've given you the link to the recipe. It's a gift link, and so anyone can open it. I substituted brandy for the cognac, and I used a honey mustard in place of the Pommery mustard. "Pommery" seems to be a brand name, and I didn't have any of that. A recommended substitute was whole grain mustard, but I rejected that because of the seeds. Instead, I used a honey mustard I've had in the fridge for a long time. It worked in the stew, and it used up the last of that mustard. Aside from that, I made it just the way the recipe was written. It calls for red wine and cognac. If you want to avoid alcohol, you can substitute tomato juice, cranberry juice, or grape juice. (Tomato juice might actually be good.) As for the brandy, there are non-alcoholic brandies available. If it were me, I'd probably use apple juice.

Okay, and that brought me to the end of my day. Today is a treadmill walking day, and there's one to-do on my list of housekeeping chores. After that, I'll get to work making the 7th of eight rows for the Lightframe quilt. Here's what I have so far.

Also, I'm hoping to finish off the Girls' Getaway piece today too. Fingers crossed the floss skein will be the right color. If not...I'll figure out something. It may require a consultation with my cats. They always have the best ideas.