Nevermore

Good morning, my friends. We're back to our dark skies and drenching rains today. I'm worrying about you folks up in Washington. We have a trip planned in your area for next fall. I'm hopeful we won't have to change our plans after all the flooding y'all have experienced. That's a long time from now. Hopefully, it can all be set right between now and then. And if you're one of the folks whose home I saw with water up to the eaves...well, you have my sympathy. Having to change our plans is a miniscule inconvenience when compared to what you're having to deal with.

My yesterday started with me stitching Tiny Treasure #26. This one stitched up pretty quickly. I could have done another one, but I didn't. This one has back stitch, stem stitch, straight stitch, and French knots.

We had a floor to mop, and I went for a walk on the treadmill. After that, I was free to sew. I made the quilt block for the 8th of the Northern Wilderness blocks. 

And then I sewed the remaining background pieces around it.

And then I added the applique raven.

Now I've added some iron-on stabilizer to the backs of each. Ordinarily I don't use stabilizer when I'm doing fusible applique, but the first block wanted to pucker up some with the top-stitching, and so I'm backing all the blocks this time around.

It was late in the day by that time, and it seemed too late to get started on the top-stitching. The machine is threaded with monofilament now, and I've switched out the needle for a 60/8 microtex needle. I'll get busy with the top-stitching today. Despite all those nooks and crannies, I should have plenty of time to finish these off.

When I wrote yesterday's post, I'd intended to include a picture of the moose we saw in Alaska. These have been fun to make as I remember things we saw on our trip.

Some other blocks with scenes from our trip are the Eagle.

We saw these guys in Homer:

Also...the fireweed.

When we arrived in Alaska in June, the fireweed had not yet started to bloom. Eventually, we started seeing it everywhere, lining the roads as we drove along.

It's been fun revisiting those memories as I make the blocks for this quilt. 

Okay, so finishing the applique was the end of my sewing day. I had a new recipe to try in the form of this Turkey Tetrazzini. This was just one way to use up some leftover turkey. I made just half the recipe and baked it in an 8 x 8 baking dish. When it came from the oven, it looked like this. The topping was made from panko, parmesan cheese, and a little olive oil. It was good.

That was supposed to sit for ten minutes before we tried to eat it. I used that time to toast some garlic bread. That turned out to be a tasty way to use some turkey leftovers. With the peas and mushrooms in there, I figure this for a one-dish meal, but the garlic toast was a nice accompaniment.

The one thing I'd say about this recipe is that in Step 4 it has you add butter to the pot of mushrooms you've just cooked down, and then whisk in flour and cook, whisking frequently. Then, you are to slowly add broth and cream and whisk until no lumps remain. And that seemed kind of dumb to me. How can you whisk something when you've got a pot of sliced mushrooms to deal with? I just added the flour to the broth and whisked it in, then added it to the pot. That worked out fine, and it was a lot less awkward.

Okay, so today I'll get busy with the top-stitching on the Northern Wilderness blocks. When those are finished, I'll be to the quilting section of my white board. But since Eliza hasn't come back from her vacay yet, there will be no quilting for me. Instead, I'll move to sewing together the quilt blocks from the Shop Hop 4.0 project. These are the blocks:

They'll be sewn together as you see them here, and then I'll add a border or two to the outside. I took a peek inside its box yesterday and noticed I'd pulled some fabric from my stash. I suppose I intended to make a border from that, but I'll have to be certain I have enough.

There are a few other things on today's to-do's, but that's a good place to start. Next up, I'll stitch another Tiny Treasure. We're looking at another day of rain and more rain. It's good sewing weather.