A Slow Day

Good morning, my friends. Our day didn't start out slow. We had to drop off our truck...again...and now we'll have to pick it up...again. This air conditioning problem is turning out to be more of a bugger than expected. Oh well. No one has died...yet...and so we count it as a good day. After leaving the truck, we did our grocery shopping. We were home before lunch time, and that left me with a whole day of slow-stitching ahead. 

First, I had some lunch, and then I sat straight down and went to work on my Sashiko piece. It's going pretty well. I thought all the stitching might be tedious, but I'm finding it to be very relaxing. And after grocery shopping, that's always a good way to go. Here's your peek.

After working on that for a while, I stitched on the binding for a while. I've turned two corners, and I'm about halfway around.

It was about 3:30 p.m. by then. There was still time in the day to finish sewing together the Scrappy Plus quilt, and...ta-da! That's a finished quilt top. It ends up at 60 x 75 inches.

I went searching through my stash for something that might work as a back, but I came up empty. Looks like I'll have to buy something. I haven't even started shopping yet, but I'm hoping I can find something that won't break the bank. 

It might be a good time to visit The Cotton Patch south of here. On the last day of each month, they have backing day when you get a 25% discount on fabrics purchased for a quilt back. You have to bring in your finished quilt top. The Cotton Patch is in a new location, and I've not been there yet, even though they moved some time ago. Maybe it's time to pay them a visit. Unfortunately, "backing day" is on the last day of any month. If the last day falls on a Sunday, then backing day is on the previous Saturday. So, it looks as if I've missed my chance in August. There's no reason I can't hold off until September. Marking my calendar now.

Okay, and so I have a couple of recipes to share with you. The first one is Tortellini with Snap Peas and Pesto. This one was originally published in Cooking Light magazine (sniff), and it's super easy. I have a lot of mint in my garden right now. (If you have mint, you have a lot. This is well-known universally.) It was a good way to use the mint and some basil I picked up in the grocery store. Basically, you make a pesto, and then you cook the tortellini and sugar snap peas in the same pot. I used Butoni tortellini, which cooks in three minutes...the exact amount of time needed for the sugar snap peas.

Then for last night's dinner, I tried this Dumpling and Smashed Cucumber Salad with Peanut Sauce. I've given you a "gift" link to the recipe there. You should be able to open it, but if you have trouble, you can always email me and I'll be happy to send it to you. I took a picture of mine, but the one that accompanied the recipe was more appetizing.

"Salad" seems like the wrong name for this, but whatever. It was super easy and quick to make. Just FYI, I read the comments to the recipe first. Based on what others had said, I used just a quarter cup of boiling water in the peanut sauce, and it turned out to be just the right consistency. We liked this. Definitely, I'll make it again. I'm happy that potstickers are widely available in the freezer sections of most grocery stores these days.

Okay, so today is going to look a lot like yesterday. We need to make yet another trip into town, and we don't know if the truck will be ready today or not. Probably not, and so we're not planning our day around that. We have a couple of errands to run, and then I'll get back to my slow stitching. It's going to be another slow day. If there's time, I'll start quilting the Sweet Dreams baby quilt next. 

The new baby should be arriving within the next couple of weeks. It would be nice if his quilt were ready for him. Happy Friday, Everyone! The weekend is coming!