Welcome to Spring!

Good morning, my friends. It's the first day of spring. Look at you! You made it! It happens to be raining cats and dogs here today. It was a fairly nice day yesterday, though. Smitty enjoyed it from the comfort of his kitty pole.

You might remember we got this smaller kitty pole for him when he seemed to be avoiding jumping to the top of his original taller kitty pole. He's gone back to using both now, and so whatever was bothering him before seems to have resolved itself. We both had the feeling he might be developing some pain in his hind legs. He'll reach his 13th birthday next month...I know! Impossible! But, yes, that's where he is. And if you've been reading long enough to remember when we brought him home for the first time, then just know we're all 13 years older now. It's a sad state of affairs, but the alternative is worse.

While he enjoyed the morning sunshine, I worked on the Rosemary block. Probably I'll finish it this morning, and then I'll start on the Basil block. It will be the fourth of four.

I hadn't scheduled any housework for myself yesterday, but I still ended up doing some. I washed three loads of clothes and cleaned up the main level of the house. For whatever reason, I seemed to have an extra hour or two in my day.

When I made my way to the sewing room, I went to work top-stitching the Easter eggs. I'd already decided to use whatever color matched the background for these. Light blue for this one...

And since I had light blue thread loaded on the sewing machine, I top-stitched the circles on this one before switching to orange for the larger part of the egg. This was the only one that needed top-stitching within the border of the egg.

Then, yellow for these next two...

And pink for this last one.

From there, I sewed them into a runner, added a border, and my Easter Egg Table Runner quilt top was finished.

For the rest of my sewing time, I perused my stash for a backing fabric. I found a few possibilities, but settled on this tiny yellow flower print. Someone must have given this to me at some point in time. I've never used it in a quilt. There is about a yard available, which will be plenty to make a back for the runner.

And that brought me to the end of my sewing day. I'd planned dinner from a very old recipe. These are Swiss-Cheese Veggie Sandwiches. 

The recipe was originally from Betty Crocker's Microwave Cookbook. Microwaves are ubiquitous in modern kitchens, but I'm old enough to remember when they were brand new, magical, and very mysterious. Whole cookbooks and whole classes were offered to teach us how to cook microwave. There were whole stores that sold nothing but microwaves.

This is one of my favorite recipes from that era. I make them when I'm trying to use up blocks of Swiss cheese. It's a mixture of shredded Swiss cheese, thinly sliced cauliflower, diced tomato, and shredded carrot. (Zucchini can also be used in place of the carrot, but I've always used carrot.)  It's all mixed together with a little mayonnaise, salt, and dried dill. Then it's piled on an English muffin and microwaved for three minutes. It makes a tasty combination.

So I checked to see if the recipe was online anywhere. It is not. I'll give it to you right here.

Swiss-Cheese Veggie Sandwiches

From Betty Crocker's Microwave Cookbook

3 Servings

Ingredients:

1 Cup Shredded Swiss Cheese, (about 4 oz.)

1 Cup Shredded Zucchini or Carrots, (about 1 small)

1/2 Cup Chopped Tomato, (about 1 medium)

1/2 Cup Thinly Sliced Small Cauliflowerets

2 Tablespoons Mayonnaise

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Teaspoon Dried Dill Weed

3 English Muffins, cut into halves and toasted

Directions:

Mix cheese, zucchini (or carrot), tomato, cauliflower, mayonnaise, salt and dill weed; spread evenly over muffin halves. Arrange on microwave rack in baking dish. Microwave uncovered on high (100%) until hot and bubbly, 3-4 minutes.

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While I was putting the finishing touches on dinner, Mike was putting the finishing touches on his latest 3-D printing project. He created this sign we'll take when we go to Alaska.

To explain, one of our first sight-seeing stops will be at the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, in Canada. We're looking forward to seeing the many signs there, and this sign will be our contribution. Fun, huh? Bring your own sign if you want. We'll let you use our hammer.

So my first priority today will be to get to work quilting the Easter Egg Table Runner. That will probably consume my sewing time for the day. If there's time, I'll be readying the Jericho's Wall quilt for quilting on the big machine today. It's been hanging out over the machine and chair letting its wrinkles relax out.

Each time I walk by it, I think about how I might quilt it. Probably I'll end up doing some sort of straight-line dot-to-dot design, but I haven't figured out where the connecting dots will be yet. Probably when I have it laid out flat on the machine, something will come to me. I'll just have to wait and see what my hands do with it.

So that's all I have for you today. I hope your spring weather is a little more springy than ours is. It does make for a good sewing weather, though, so no complaints.