Slow Sewing Only

Good morning, my friends. It was a gardening day yesterday. I'm happy to have things mostly wrapped up for the winter. Before I started on that, though, I spent some time stitching the next Tiny Treasure. It looks like one treasure per day will probably be my limit. This one has stem stitch, satin stitch, seed stitch and fishbone stitch.

With that finished, it was time to get outside. I walked around to see if anything was still blooming. Although I didn't plant anything in the annual pots this year, the snapdragons and pansies came through like heroes.

The pot to its right had some other colors.

There's a single flower on the blue hydrangea. There's no color editing on this. It really is that blue.

Likewise for this Pow Wow Wild Berry echinacea. It really is that color. I considered cutting back the long bloomed-out stems of the echinacea, but I've read the birds like the seed heads. I ran my finger across them, and indeed, lots of tiny seeds popped out. I'll leave them for the birds. 

Surprisingly, some of the lavender is still blooming. This should have been finished months ago.

There are still some flowers on the mint too.

Okay, but enough of this wandering around. I needed to cut back the peonies and the dahlias. That's all done, but I couldn't bear to give up on this Firefighter dahlia. It has yet to bloom this year, but it's getting so, so close. I'm really hopeful we'll see something from it before the rain returns in earnest.

It was hard to cut the other dahlias back when they're still blooming in profusion, but it must be done. I saved the prettiest of the flowers and put them in a vase to enjoy them for just a little longer.

Okay, so with that job done, I wandered around looking at the fall color. The maple tree at the far end of the field is mostly all red now.

The Japanese maple beside our patio is turning orange.

This dwarf Japanese maple at the front of the house is just getting started.

This is one of the Japanese maples toward the back of the house.

With all that going on, I didn't spend any time in the sewing room yesterday. Truth be told, I probably needed a break from it. This morning, I'm meeting up with Matthew for a late breakfast. It's always good to catch up and hear what's going on in his life. If there's time this afternoon, I'll get busy with the borders on the Fantastic Felines.

We had some barbecued chicken thighs for dinner last night. Pretty easy since Mike is the barbecue chef at our house. It was a good chance to try this recipe for Roasted Carrot Rounds with Honey and Cranberries. This was a recipe I found on Facebook. I neglected to take a picture of mine, but this is the image that was included in my database.

Generally, I'm not a great fan of cooked carrots. They're okay in soups, but if I'm going to eat them as carrots, then I only like them if they're roasted. This looked so good in the picture, I decided to give it a try. It was easy to do. The recipe suggested adding toasted pecans or walnuts for added crunch, and so I did that. I added them along with the cranberries since I figure five minutes at 400°F is probably all the toasting they need. Also, I omitted the fresh parsley. I can never use a bunch of fresh parsley before it goes bad. It seems as if it's mainly there for decoration and color. Some will say it brightens the flavor. In most cases, I don't use it. If I want parsley, I'll stick with dried. 

So here's my slightly adapted recipe. 

Roasted Carrot Rounds With Honey And Cranberries

adapted from a Facebook recipe

Ingredients:

3 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch thick rounds

1-1/2 tbsp olive oil

1-1/2 tbsp honey

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Salt & black pepper to taste

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions:

Prepare Carrots: Preheat oven to 400°C. Toss carrot rounds with olive oil, honey, cinnamon, salt, and pepper until well coated.

Roast: Spread carrots evenly on a lined baking sheet. Roast for 20–25 minutes, flipping halfway, until tender and caramelized.

Add Cranberries and Nuts: Remove tray from oven and sprinkle cranberries and nuts over carrots. Roast for another 3–5 minutes, just until cranberries soften slightly.

Serve: Transfer to a serving dish. Drizzle lightly with extra honey if desired.

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Okay. So, I'll be taking a day off from blogging tomorrow. We'll be participating in the No Kings protest in our little town. From here, I'll get on my soapbox and tell you what I know about the protests. No need to read on unless you want to. However you're planning to spend your No Kings Day, please stay safe.

So, we're ready to rumble. We remade our "Hands Off" signs from the protest last spring. We were in Alaska for June's No Kings Day, and so we didn't participate in that. We're ready to go this time around. Our signs are finished.

Here's a graphic I saw on Facebook, and it seems good advice if you're planning to protest. I'll add it here for anyone who's interested.

And now it's time to get on my way. I'd like to get in my morning slow-stitching before I need to leave. Unless I get arrested and detained tomorrow, I'll be right back here on Sunday morning.