One for the Bunnies

Good morning, my friends. We had another day of rain yesterday. Not as much as on Thursday, but still…a good amount. We had grocery shopping to do, but I wasn’t going anywhere until I had my slow-stitching session. I stitched up what I could in my hoop…

And then moved it to stitch what remains of the cat. I’ll be able to start on the leaves and morning glories next.

So our grocery list was short. We ended up standing at the check-out stand for quite a while, though. The woman ahead of us asked for several hundred dollars cash back. (Who does that in a grocery store?) The cashier didn’t have enough cash in her till, and that threw a wrench into the works. It’s hard to know what was going on exactly, but it was frustrating. Our groceries were already loaded onto the conveyor belt, and so we had little choice but to wait. Finally, we were on our way home.

When the groceries were put away, I checked on the garden. Sadly, one of the giant sunflowers had fallen down in the rain. Another shorter one was leaning over too. The garden is looking a little bedraggled, but it’s still producing. I harvested another handful of green beans, some more cucumbers, and the first of the corn. Before walking away, I picked all the plums I could reach. They’re good eating right now.

Also, I happened to look out into the bee garden to see another newbie in the form of these black-eyed Susans.

Okay, so the corn: I husked it, and I was curious to see how my new tool worked.

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In the past, I’ve done this with a knife. The problem is that the knife blade comes down hard on whatever surface you’re using…a plate or a bowl. That dulls the blade. Also, it throws corn kernels everywhere. This tool made it a little easier. I could do an ear in less than a minute.

It still threw corn everywhere, though. Giving this some thought, I ordered some 3-1/2 gallon zip-lock bags from Amazon. I’m thinking I can do this with my hands inside the larger bag and avoid getting kernels everywhere. The larger bags will be here within a few days, and I’ll give it another try. I’m happy with the tool, but I think my technique needs more work and more practice.

Okay, and it was late in the day by then. It was a good time to get going on the Bunny Bait binding. Within about an hour, I had it finished.

Here’s how it looks from the back.

As I was packing things up, I looked out the window to see an evening visitor. Do you suppose she heard there were carrots inside?

Checking the calendar, it looks like I have a couple of easy housekeeping chores to do. There should be plenty of time for sewing. I want to make another row of blocks for the Butterfly Garden project. Those should go pretty fast. Already I’m looking ahead to our trip south for the winter, assuming we actually go this year. This would be a good take-along project. I could make up a kit with all the cutting for all the blocks and sew them together on the road. 

If there’s still time, I’ll make another row of blocks for the Jawbreakers quilt.

The cutting takes a long time for that project, and so a row of blocks will probably take a day or two.

Today or tomorrow, I’m going to bake some more muffins. We’ve been enjoying those for breakfast. The coming week is going to get busy as we prepre for our trip to Washington state. I’m going to need to do some cooking, and of course, there will be packing. Also, I’m getting my hair cut and colored on Tuesday and a pedicure on Thursday. I can’t go off without taking care of my grooming needs, can I? 

It’s still gray and gloomy outside. We’re expecting the rain to continue off and on over the coming week. Still keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll get better weather for our trip.

Two Small Quilts

Good morning, my friends. It was another rainy day yesterday. There was a meme on Facebook from a Portland weatherman that said, "Hello darkness my old friend." It made me laugh. Yep...that's the Pacific Northwest for you. We're told we have at least another ten days of gray skies and rain off and on. Hopefully, summer will return, and we'll have good weather for our trip, but we should all pack our rain gear just in case.

As for yesterday's sewing, Sadie was my sewing helper. Together, we got a lot done.

The first thing I did was to sew a border on the Santa Quartet.

And then I gave it its final border. It ends up at 16 x 28 inches.

I’ll use this fabric on the back. It’s been in my stash of Christmas fabrics for a long time.

And I’ll use that same green from the inner border for the binding. I’m going to put this aside for now, but I’ll endeavor to get it finished so that I can use it this Christmas.

Okay, and then I turned my attention to the “Bunny Bait.” This was a free pattern from the Sewing Loft. I needed to sandwich it.  

And then I did some straight line quilting in the stripes of the carrots.

Here’s how that looks from the back. It felt like a bold choice to use that green thread. Usually, I’m trying to hide my quilting.

I’d done a Google search for a “line drawing of a carrot.” I found one kind of like this, and so I quilted carrots in the border.

All the way around, alternating the connecting swirl with each one. It just needed some swirls in the green carrot tops, and it was finished.

Here’s how it looks from the back.

There was barely enough time to get the binding sewn on, but sew it on I did.

Today I’ll probably be able to finish the hand stitching. It ends up at 18-1/2 inches square.

So that brings me to my list of WIPs. It’s a grocery shopping day today (drat), but there should still be some time for sewing. First on the list is to make the second row for the Butterfly Garden quilt. This is my adaptation of the Arcade Pattern  from Fabric Cafe. I’m making it one row at a time, and so I’m curious to see how it will look when I add another row. 

If I have any more time for sewing, I want to make another row for the Jawbeakers quilt. These blocks are fun to make, but the cutting takes quite a while.

The last time I talked about this quilt, I confused some folks by calling it “Jawbreakers.” The pattern is Gumballs but since I already made a quilt I’m calling “Gumballs,” 

I gave the green one a different name. Get it? Jawbreakers? Gumballs? How’re you gonna know which is which until you attempt to chew it? 

Okay…so the dreaded grocery shopping trip. It’s a short list today. We’re eating a lot of stuff from the garden right now, and so we don’t need a lot. I need to get out and check the garden too, but it’s been so wet. I’m hoping to get out there today. Things are probably not growing much in this cold wet weather.

So, off I go. Another busy day ahead. What are you doing to keep busy today?

Rainy Day

Good morning, my friends. It rained most of the day yesterday. Watering the flowers is officially off my to-do list until next week sometime. We're expecting more rain today, and possibly tomorrow. It's fine by me. You might remember several years ago when we took a fall trip and ended up cutting our travels short to return home because of a wildfire threatening our neighborhood. Happily, things are getting a good wetting down as we anticipate this year's fall trip. This rain will go a long way toward greening up our field.

My day started with chopping, chopping, chopping and mixing, mixing, mixing until I had a pot full of apple-pear chutney fixings.

It took two hours to cook it down to chutney consistency, and then about another half hour to fill, lid, and process the jars. When it was finished, I had seven pints of Apple-pear chutney. You can find the recipe for this in yesterday's post.

As I've mentioned, this is good with pork...pork chops, ham, ham sandwich...but it's really good spread on a toasted slice of baguette with a sprinkle of blue cheese. I'm kind of mad at myself because the mixture included two cinnamon sticks that were to be removed before I ladled it into jars. After the jars had been lowered into the canner, I realized I'd forgotten to remove the cinnamon sticks. Doh! Oh well. It won't hurt anything. Someone will just find a surprise. Perhaps I should post some sort of reward for whoever finds the first one.

While that was cooking and processing, I went to work hand-sewing the binding for the Tulip Time quilt. This was originally a free pattern from Inspired by Fabric. I turned it into a little kit when we traveled south last winter. Now, it's a finished table topper, 26 x 28 inches.

Here's a peek at the back. This will make a nice little table topper for next spring.

It was getting late in the day by then. I wasn't really feeling like doing any more sewing, but I took the time to square up the Santa Quartet and decided on some fabrics to finish it off. I'll give it two borders, and I'll use that same green from the inner border for the binding. 

That shouldn't take long, and I expect to finish the top by day's end.

For my next quilting project, I'll quilt this little "Bunny Bait" quilt. It's another of the projects I kitted up to take south last winter. This was another free pattern from the Sewing Loft. It was intended to be part of a larger quilt, but I just made this one block. It shouldn't take long to quilt it. Already, I have some ideas about what to do with it.

Okay, so let's talk about this mystery trip I keep hinting about. We're still more than a week away from our departure date, but here's where we'll be going. As I believe I've mentioned before, we've lived in Oregon since 1978, but we haven't spent a lot of time sight-seeing in Washington. We’ve visited Washington’s national parks, and we spent a few days in Spokane. Usually when we're traveling in Washington, we're on our way to somewhere else. We decided to stay close to home this time and see more of the sights located within the boundaries of our neighbor to the north.

We're going to do quite a bit of hiking for this trip, and we’ll spend some more time exploring Olympic National Park. We'll also spend some time tide-pooling at one of the beaches on the Olympic peninsula. LaConner, Washington, is on the itinerary at the recommendation of a friend. There's a quilt shop and a quilt museum there. We'll visit some state parks we haven't seen before, and we'll see the Grand Coulee Dam. Mike has seen it before, but I have not. 

There are a couple of other sight-seeing spots on the map, but we'll talk more about those when we reach those destinations. This, of course, is all dependent on the availability of fuel. It seems no one is talking about shortages at the moment, but anything could happen. Also, we'll have to make adjustments for wildfires and poor air quality. The worst fires I've heard about in Washington are well east of where we'll be traveling...for now. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate. At this time of year, anything could happen.

All right. So, it's a new day. It'll be another rainy day, and that's just fine with me. It means any to-do's on my list will be confined to the indoors. Sewing will get a lot of my attention today.

Tales of Tails

Good morning, my friends. Okay, September 1st is over, and on we go with what remains of summer. It was a good day for sewing here. There was enough progress made on the Plaid Cat that I decided to move my hoop. The green stripes on the cat need to be stitched first because the purple stripes are stitched over the top where they intersect. I'd taken the green stripes about as far as I could go without moving to a different position.

It made sense to me to move to where I could stitch the tail.

Smitty helped with that decision.

Smitty will tell you that a cat's tail is its most impurrtant appendage.

Sadie thinks that is purrposterous

If you ask her, she'll tell you that a cat's tail is supurrfluous.

We discussed this while they helped me make September's purple inverted star.

Here are all the stars I have for this quilt so far.

Also, I sewed the binding on Tulip Time. There was no hand-stitching on this, however.

That will happen today. Today I'm going to make some apple-pear chutney. It’s good with pork, and I really love it spread on toasted baguette with a sprinkle of blue cheese. Originally, I found the recipe for this chutney in Marissa McClellan's Food in Jars book. Since I can't find it anywhere else online, I'll give it to you here.

Apple-Pear Chutney

Yield: 6 pints (or 12 half-pints)

Recipe from Marissa McClellan's Food in Jars

Ingredients:

3 Pounds Apples, cored, peeled, and chopped

2 Pounds Pears (preferred Bartlett or D'anjou), cored and chopped

3 Cups Dark Raisins

2 Cups Chopped Yellow Onion (about 2 Medium)

1 Lemon, seeded and finely minced with peel

2 1/2 Cups Apple Cider Vinegar

4 Cups Light Brown Sugar

2 Tablespoons Mustard Seed

3 Whole Cloves

2 Cinnamon Sticks

2 Teaspoons Red Pepper Flakes

5 Garlic Cloves, chopped

1 3-inch Piece of Fresh Ginger, peeled and grated

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a large pot, stir to combine, and bring to a vigorous boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring often, until the mixture has reduced and developed a thick,spreadable consistency, about 2 hours.

After the chutney has cooked for approximately 1 1/2 hours, prepare a boiling water bath and 6 pint jars. Place the lids in a small saucepan, cover them with water, and bring to a simmer over very low heat.

When the chutney is finished cooking, remove the cinnamon sticks and discard. Ladle the chutney into the prepared jars, leaving 1/2-inch of headspace. Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. (Add 5 minutes for each 1,000 feet of elevation.)

* * * * *

The recipe prefers Bartlett or D'anjou pears. I'm using the Asian pears I scored from Erik and Mae. It takes quite some time to cook down to chutney consistency, and that will give me some time to hand-sew the binding on the Tulip Time quilt today. It’s a small quilt, and so possibly I can finish it in a single day.

If there's more time for sewing, I'll get to work sewing the Santa Quartet into a finished quilt top.

After digging through my Christmas fabrics yesterday, I'll admit I'm a little torn about whether to use just reds and whites or whether to include some with more green. I'm leaning toward the latter, but I'll have to wait and see what my hands decide when I get back to it.

So, there's plenty to keep me busy today. I'll admit I'm hoping to finish off the Tulip Time quilt. We'll see how that goes. Chutney is going to take up most of my time today. I’m still hoping to get enough green beans to can some plain old cut green beans, but they aren’t coming in large enough quantities. For now, I’ll be using them for side dishes. The corn will be ready soon too. If I were to get antsy about having fresh corn, I could probably harvest some today. It’ll be better if I wait a few more days, and I’m pulling together my fresh corn recipes in preparation.

In years gone by, we’ve blanched and frozen whole ears. This year, I’ve purchased a special tool (OXO brand) to help me take the kernels off the cob. We’ll have an overabundance, no doubt, and so I’m going to try freezing the kernels (no cob) this year. Usually, we prefer fresh produce, but corn is one of the few vegetables I sometimes buy frozen at the grocery store. It makes sense to freeze our own. For now, I’m focusing on the fresh corn recipes, and we’ll probably have some of that later in the week.

It was a gloomy day yesterday…looking awfully fall-like. If the forecast is to be believed, it’ll be like that through Friday. Next week should be warmer, which is a good thing because I’ll be running back and forth from the house to the RV in preparation for our upcoming trip. And since I know y’all are wondering what kind of clothes you’ll need for this trip, I promise I’ll tell you more about it soon.

For now…off I go. Have a good day, Everybody!

All Tulips, All the Time

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to September. It’s been feeling pretty fall-like here. Gazing out the window this morning, the sky is overcast…or maybe it’s smoke. Skies were smoky yesterday evening from a fire across the valley from us. We’re in no danger where we are, but the smoke was a little eerie when you consider there isn’t a breath of wind.

It was a pretty easy-going day yesterday. There was a quick trip to the grocery store, but I was home by lunchtime. After that, I had the afternoon to sew. The first step was to sandwich Tulip Time for quilting. It’s a small quilt at 26 x 28 inches, and so that was pretty easy.

I might have quilted this on my domestic machine, but the mid-arm was already threaded with the threads I wanted to use, and so the mid-arm was my choice. I quilted some veins into the leaves and just a couple of wavy lines for the stems.

For the flower a little swirl on the sides and a pointy oval with an echo (technical quilting terms) for the center.

And that’s how that looks. All the flowers were done the same way.

For the pinwheels, I did my go-to swirl. Sometimes I make the swirl point in the same direction all around. For this, I had them facing opposite directions to make a little heart shape. In the green borders, I used the motif Lori Kennedy calls “paperclip.” I like this motif, and use it often.

In the outer border, I quilted a ferny leafy feather.

And then, the quilting was finished. It took about two hours.

Here’s a peek at the back.

Now it’s downstairs in the sewing room. I’ve squared it up.

Today I’ll sew on the binding. You can see the binding fabric on the right side of the image below.

It was getting late in the day by then, and so I stopped. I’ll pick it up there this afternoon. This being September, it’s time to choose a project for September’s

We’re going to be traveling this month and part of next month, and so any sewing will be slow-stitching. It seems a good choice to commit to finishing the Plaid Cat in the Garden for September’s goal. There’s a lot of stitching to be done on this piece, but I should be able to finish it before month’s end.

I’m planning to trace the next blocks for the “Snowmen & Reindeer” and for “Home is Where My Flock Is,” and that should keep me busy while we’re traveling. It’s never good when I have a stitching emergency on the road.

Today’s top priority will be to finish the binding on Tulip Time. Possibly, I can finish the hand-sewing too. It’s also time to make September’s purple block for the Inverted Stars project. If I finish September’s block before we go, I won’t fall behind. October’s block can be done after we get back.

When that’s finished, I’m going to finish this table runner for the Santa Quartet. I’ve yet to go pawing through my stash of Christmas fabrics, but I feel fairly certain I can find something appropriate there.

There are a few other things on today’s agenda, but nothing major. It seems a good time to suck up the calm before the storm of packing starts next week. I’m happy to have these smaller projects I can work on for the time being.

Okay, so that’s all I have for you today. I’m looking forward to another easy-going day today. I hope your day is easy-going as well.