Haunting the Kitchen

Good morning, my friends. There wasn't much time for sewing yesterday since I spent a good part of the day in the kitchen. Before anything else could begin, however, I needed to finish off the second block for the Quilters' Retweet.

Here are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Okay, and I had a lot to do in the kitchen yesterday, as I'd planned. My first task was to bake some cornbread for last night's dinner. I've made cornbread many different ways, but this recipe from my dear friend, Debi, is the best one I've found in my 72 years of living. Debi's recipe makes enough to feed a family, and hers is baked in a 10-inch skillet. I've scaled the recipe down to one-third the original, and I bake it in an 8-inch skillet. It makes a good amount for two.

While that was baking, I had time to shower and get dressed. I'm glad I did because I would have still been in my pajamas late into the afternoon if I hadn't. The cornbread was ready to be taken from the oven when I returned to the kitchen. 

From there, I got to work on a new recipe I'd received via email from America's Test Kitchens. This was another skillet recipe for Cast Iron Hot Fudge Pudding Cake. I attempted to scale this one down as well. The original was baked in a 10-inch skillet. I scaled it to one-third the original and baked it in an 8-inch skillet. When it was ready to be taken from the oven, it was supposed to be bubbling, puffed, and pulling away from the sides of the skillet. Except for the "puffed" part, it looked ready. And I could tell right away that this didn't work at all. Some recipes just don't work out when scaled down, but it's still worth a try. Frankly, I'm not sure a full-up version of this would work.

It ended up the consistency of a brownie, and it tasted okay. We had it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It wanted to stick to the pan, and so it wasn't any better looking when it was scooped into a bowl. Oh well.

We enjoyed it, but I won't make it again. I already have a recipe for a chocolate pudding cake for two in the form of this Chocolate Self-Saucing Cake for Two. It's another I adapted from the NYTimes to make it a "for two" recipe. If you click on that link, scroll down for the recipe. Also, I already have a tested recipe for a Gooey Skillet Brownie for Two. From here on, I'll stick with the ones I already know will work out.

So I had one more thing to do in the kitchen. I was trying out a new recipe for Slow Cooker Chili. Since the early days of our marriage, I've made chili in the slow cooker using this recipe for Tex-Mex Chili from a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. A while back, I created an unwritten rule for myself: If I already have a good recipe for something...don't keep trying new ones to see if I can improve on it.

Still, when this recipe came out from the NYTimes for a different Slow Cooker Chili, I was tempted to try it. It had some interesting ingredients, including beer and maple syrup. It also had lots of different spices. The last time I made chili the way I'd made it for decades, I found it needing a little more flavor. This one seemed worthy of a test. Here's how it looked when I served it up last night.

We both liked it a LOT. This will become my new slow cooker chili recipe. You can find the recipe right here.

Okay, and as I mentioned, the chili recipe used lots of different spices. Here's where obstruction of justice enters the scene. Justice would mean I was done for the day. However, justice was obstructed when I discovered a mouse had gotten into my spice drawer and chewed through a couple of sandwich bags of leftover meat rubs. Oy. What a mess. It wasn't the first time either. Maybe I'll learn not to store things in sandwich bags here. 

To explain...this is my spice drawer. It's located under my island cooktop, and so it's a very handy spot.

Thing is, our house has a daylight basement. That's where my sewing room is located. Mice find their way into the space between the main level floor (where the kitchen is) and the basement ceiling. It's at ground level, and so I'm sure there are little cracks in the foundation where they can get in. We used to set a trap in that area, but then Smitty discovered and created his He Man Woman Hater's Clubhouse. (Sadie has claimed ownership at this point.) He discovered he can jump from the water heater into this space. Here's a picture of him from several years ago. He still looks kind of kittenish here. As you look at this photo, realize you're standing on the floor looking up.

The kitties spend several hours up there each morning. Usually they're just napping, but sometimes they catch a mouse. We no longer need to set a trap because the kitties keep it patrolled. Since were gone on a trip last month, the mice have had free rein to do their dirty work. From this area, they can climb up the gas "plumbing" and get into that cupboard under my cooktop. Oy. 

So that was a long story to say that after spending hours in the kitchen yesterday, I really didn't need to spend even more time emptying my spice drawer, cleaning things up, and then putting everything away. There's really no way to stop the mice from doing this sort of thing when the kitties aren't around. The real lesson is to store things in containers their little mousy teeth can chew through. Bastards!

And all of that to say it was late in the day before I managed to get any sewing done. All the pieces are cut now for November's gold inverted star. I'll get this sewn together today, and then I'll get back to my quilting.

This time of year always has me thinking about what project I'll do for next year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Well, thank you, Pinterest, for bringing this project to my attention. This came through my email yesterday, and I had to go straight to the designer's blog to purchase the pdf download. This is Cats in Hats from Sew Fresh Quilts. Is this cute, or what?

So that'll be my next Rainbow Scrap Project. Now I'm excited for January to roll in so I can get started on it.

There are just a couple of housekeeping chores on the day's agenda, but I can have them finished in less than 15 minutes. The rest of the day...sewing. Sewing, sewing, sewing. But first, I'm going to take the first stitches on the new Snow Day project.

This being Halloween, watch out for spooks. I'm pretty sure I say this every Halloween, adapting it year to year to add another year to the tally. In 24 years in this house, we've never had a single trick-or-treater. Even when children lived nearby, they never came down our dark driveway nor anyone else's either, I imagine. The houses are too far apart on our hill for anyone to spend that much time walking. There are plenty of densely populated neighborhoods in the valley to haunt.

Spooks or no spooks, it's going to be a good day. I hope you have a good day planned for yourself too. 

Oh Deer

 Good morning, my friends. Things are pretty much back to what passes for normal around here. Our weather hasn’t been as bad as anticipated. We get a little rain each day, but then we can also get blue sky and puffy white clouds. It’s cooler than earlier in the month, and it seems some kind of coat or sweater is a good idea when we’re out and about. 

So I got my pedicure and had some lunch when I got home yesterday. Then I went to work quilting the vertical sashings on the Cats in Pajamas.

Today I’ll aim to get the eight horizontal spacers quilted. I’d call them “sashings” except they don’t extend all the way across. With the blocks offset as they are, they’re really just spacers. In any case, I started my upsy-downsy heart motif in the first one, and then left it needle down for today’s quilty pleasure.

From there, I headed to the downstairs sewing room. As I glanced out the window, I saw three deer! Happily, I already had my camera in my hand. Here’s the doe and her fawn.

And there’s John. You might have heard of him…John Deer? That must be the rest of his family. These are Columbian black-tailed deer.

Okay, well, I’m only sharing two pictures, but I probaby took about 100 of them. 

So, it was a little later than I’d hoped getting October’s star sewn together. It still needed a border.

And that’s done. I’d hoped to get the gold one started today, but I ran out of time. I spent a little time picking through that bin, and I think I have enough gold scraps to pull it off.

Okay so today is going to be kind of a kitchen day. I’m going to start some chili in the slow cooker, and I’ll make some skillet corn bread to go along with that. Then, I had in mind to try a new recipe for Cast Iron Hot Fudge Pudding Cake. The recipe makes a big 10-inch skillet, but I’m going to scale it down to make it a dessert for 2. Of course, I’ll share the link if it’s any good. And since I’m already using my small skillet for corn bread, I’m going to have to rob the skillet from the camper. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

So…plenty on the day’s agenda. Time to get to it. Have a good Friday, Everybody!

On the Mend

Good morning, my friends. Well, I'm back after my "pilot episode" of this year's flu. Interestingly (to me, at least), I looked back at several years of posts to see how I'd reacted to these vaccines in the past. In 2025, we got both flu and COVID on the same day…no reaction…not even a sore arm. Then, I looked up my post about our vaccines from 2024, and I had a similar reaction to this year’s vaccine...fever, chills, and feeling generally ill. In 2023, just general malaise. I know the vaccines are reformulated year to year, but I’m surprised at how differently my body reacts to the changes.

Some folks have suggested getting the vaccines on different days. The problem I have with that is that I don't know which vaccine makes me sick...it could be both. If I get them on separate days, will I just get two days of sickness instead of the usual one day? Whatever...this year's bout is over, and I'm glad of it.

So, I wasn't 100% for the day, but I still managed to get everything done that I wanted to. I spent a little extra time on my slow-stitching in the morning.

Now I’ve moved my hoop to encompass the last of it. It’ll probably still be at least a couple of days, but these stitch up pretty fast.

There was one housekeeping chore to do. I worked it into my quilting schedule. There were four of these “spacers” to quilt. So I did two of them, and then a little housework, and then two more, and then a little more housework. This is my trick to convince myself that I’m really actually having fun while I’m cleaning. This is a little meander with a loop and a heart-shaped leaf. Pretty simple.

Next (maybe today), I’ll quilt the three vertical sashings. For this, I’m going to do what I call a “half-hearted” motif. It’s really just kind of a widely spaced feather. Here, I started with the left side of the heart, then moving up, the right side, and then back to the left. It’s pretty simple. I just got it started, and then left it needle down at that point. 

This is all the help I got from kitties today.

In fairness, they were ‘zhausted from their duty as medicinal cats the day before. And does anyone think I’d be feeling better today without their dedicated care?

Well, Sadie felt guilty enough that she joined me in the sewing room while I worked on October’s Inverted Star.

She helped me cut and sew the pieces I’d need for this Brown Star. When October’s color was announced, it was nothing more descriptive than “neutrals in dark or light.” Brown was my choice on the spur of the moment yesterday afternoon. Just now as I’ve been writing, I remembered the special significance of the Brown Star. You can read its significance at this very old blog post.

It still needs to be sewn together, and then I’ll make another one for November. There won’t be a new color for November, and so I’m thinking I’ll do mine in dark yellow/gold. I’ve already done a yellow star, but I think I can pull enough goldish-colored scraps to contrast with the original brighter yellow. 

Also on today’s agenda, I’m getting my monthly pedicure, which actually is about three weeks late at this point. My toes will thank me. As much as I like my pedicures, it’s still an interruption to my day, and it means driving somewhere. Not far, fortunately, but any time I have to drive farther than the end of my driveway, I feel terribly put-upon and inconvenienced. And all of that whining to say that I still think I’ll have plenty of time for sewing today. 

All right then. Onward. Watch out for spooks. The time grows nigh. But I can't end this post without wishing you a very happy National Cat Day.

Dark and Stormy

Good morning, my friends. Oh, my goodness. We've had some nasty weather the past couple of days. We had nearly half an inch of rain on Sunday. Yesterday brought at least another inch. We're also heavily overcast, making day nearly as dark as night. We're supposed to see just a little clearing today, if you can believe the forecast. As I’m writing this, the rain has stopped. It’s overcast, but not so dark. We’re expecting more nasty weather for the remainder of the week. The weekend looks pretty good, but then more rain next week. It's hard to deny that the Big Dark has arrived in the Pacific Northwest.

We got our vaccines yesterday. When I went to bed last night, all I had was a sore arm. Then, I woke up last night with chills that made my teeth chatter. Obviously, I was running a fever. Smitty snuggled up and helped me stay warm last night. When I got up this morning, my temperature was 101.1. Tylenol has helped, and my fever is down some…99.5 now…and so I suppose I’ll live. It’s probably the flu shot that I’m reacting to. That’s not unusual for me.

Before we left home yesterday, I had some time to take the first stitches on the second block for the Quilters' Retweet.

There was some time to kill before we needed to leave. Knowing the Quilters' Retweet block would stitch up pretty quickly, it made sense to decide what I'd be doing next. After this, I'll be at the "Short" project on my list. So I asked Mr. Random to tell me which project should be next. Mr. Random chose 15.

Looking at the list, #15 is Kathy Schmitz' "Snow Day."

Just now, I noticed the "Hawksbill Honu" is still there at #13. That quilt is finished, and so I'll remove that one from the list for next time around. For now, let's take a look at the newest selection. I believe someone gave this to me at some point, but I can't remember who. If it was you, then thank you, and please forgive my fevered memory.

Looking down there in the lower right corner of the image above, you can see it was supposed to include fabric pieces for the "Snow" banner. I don't have those pieces, and so I'll need to figure out a different way to do that part. No worries. We'll get 'er done.

After that, we headed out for our vaccines. We ended up waiting more than half an hour as the waiting room filled up with more people awaiting vaccines. Finally, we got our shots and we were done. It was lunch time, and we were both hungry. We got some lunch before heading home. And after all that, we both needed naps.

When I woke up, I was ready to get to work quilting the last row of cats for the Cats in Pajamas project. Thankfully, Smitty was on the job, guarding the landscape, on the lookout for invading forces.

He was doing double duty yesterday, also guarding the stairwell for any intruders who might try to get between me and my quilting.

Confident I was completely safe, I could get busy with the quilting. All the cats are quilted now. It's a little hard to see in this image, but hopefully, you can get the idea.

Here's how it looks from the back.

There's still more to do on this. For one thing, there are four spacers that create the offset for the quilt blocks. For those, I'll fill in with a meandering heart-shaped leaf and a loop. I took a few stitches, and then left it needle down.

My goal for today's sewing will be to fill in the four spacer blocks. I’m going to have to feel better, though. If I can get that done, I'll be ready to quilt the sashings and the border. From this point, the designs will all feature hearts of some kind.

With that finished, I had the Snow Day piece on my mind, thinking about how to get the "Snow" banner turned around the right way so I could stitch it.

Here's a picture of the sheet with the design. You can see it says to "Reverse" at the bottom. The designer, Kathy Schmitz, had a way of tracing using freezer paper. She wanted me to print the design onto the dull side of freezer paper, then iron the shiny side to the back of my fabric, then use a light box to trace it onto the right side of the fabric. And, honestly, that's harder than it needs to be. If you're using a light box anyway, you can accomplish the same thing by turning the pattern sheet face down and tracing it that way. I've done it many times. (If you don’t have a light box, you can tape it to a window…or use an empty picture frame with a flashlight underneath. There’s more than one way to skin a cat…but please don’t skin any cats.)

Instead, I decided to scan the image and create a pdf from it. Then, I could flip the pdf horizontally using my photo editing software to make the design I wanted. Then, I printed it onto Sticky Fabri-Solvy. And that worked great. Now, I can embroider the letters on the banner.

From my stash, I pulled this tan with "falling snow." I've used this in more than one quilt, but I still have about a half yard left. It seemed a perfect fabric for this piece.

Now, I've cut it to size and applied the Sticky Fabri-Solvy. And that's ready for stitching. By the way, I might have traced this in the way I mentioned above, but I find this kind of fabric with a printed design difficult to see through. Also, sometimes the ink won’t write on those white dots.

Okay, and now I'll set that aside until I've finished the project I'm working on currently. It's good to be prepared.

It's a stay-at-home day. I’m going to have to feel better if I’m to do anything other than lie around like a slug. There's probably something on the day's to-do list, but I haven't checked yet. If I’m up to it, it'll mostly be a sewing day. I'll keep working away at the Cats in Pajamas, but I'm hoping to get at least one of the blocks for the Inverted Star project finished today. It all depends on how I’m feeling.

With that, I’ll go back to my lazing around. If I’m not able to do anything more than that today, I’ll probabaly take the day off from blogging tomorrow. If history repeats itself, I should be feeling a lot better by tomorrow. If y’all are still waiting to get vaccines, don’t let my experience scare you. Mike is feeling just fine today…not even a sore arm. So there’s hope for the rest of you.

Project Planning

Good morning, my friends. Hopefully, everyone survived the weekend. It was pretty quiet here. All the tasks from last week are completed. Family has been fed and sent home. Rain has started up. So, it's pretty much business as usual from here on. We're getting our vaccines this morning, but aside from that, we'll be sticking close to home for the next several months. There's going to be plenty of time for sewing.

My morning started with baking some muffins for our breakfast. For years, I cooked a traditional morning breakfast...eggs, some kind of breakfast meat, some kind of toasted item. Over time, I think we both got tired of the repetitive offerings. Lately, I've been baking a small item, and we'll follow-up with a small yogurt. It makes the mornings less hectic, for sure. This morning's offering will be these Zucchini Nut Muffins, made with some zucchini from this summer's garden.

With those safely in the oven baking away, I went to work on my slow-stitching. The muffins took enough that I was able to finish off February’s block for “Pieces of the Heart.” If I’m remembering right, one or two of you suggested adding an “s” to the word “cat.” That was a good idea, and so I did. We certainly don’t want anyone getting their nose out of joint, thinking they’re the one who was left out.

Here are the first two of twelve blocks for this project.

Well, and that created a stitching emergency. Nothing else could happen until I traced out the next block for the “Quilters’ Retweet.” Now I have something to stitch this morning. Phew! That was a close call.

Okay, and then I could finish top-stitching the Tree block.

All that remained was to top-stitch the Orca block.

And now all the blocks for this project are complete. Here are all sixteen blocks.

So I’ll be moving this project to the “Quilt Tops to Finish” section of my white board. There are two quilts in line ahead of it. But that opened up a slot on my list of WIPs. I’ve decided to do this “Kitchen Love” project. This pattern has been in my stash since May of 2017.

It was purchased during a visit to Quiltique in Henderson, Nevada, where I saw it made up and hanging on a wall. That’s a good quilt shop there in Henderson. It’s just north of Boulder City, and I generally stop in at least once when we’re visiting the area. Their version is shown in the image below.

I liked it so much, I had to have one for my very own. They were selling kits, but I just purchased the pattern. Now...9-1/2 years on, I'll finally get around to starting it. That will have to wait until I reach the WIPs section of my white board next time around.

Now, I'm moving on to the "Quilter's Choice" section, and I've already decided to start on this Zebra quilt for Matthew. Since I volunteered to make this for him, I've been gnashing my teeth thinking about how to figure the right amount of fabric, and how to make it queen sized. It comes to me little by little, and I decided to spend the remainder of my quilting day counting out the squares and figuring this out.

Sadie was on hand to make sure I counted everything propurrly. She's also very good at math.

The squares for this will be cut to 4 inches (unfinished), which means I can get 90 squares from a yard of fabric. Knowing that helped me to figure out how much fabric I needed. I counted out all the various colors, adding 1/4 yard to the amount I need. Also, I had to add two rows on each side to get the right width for a queen. That took a little figuring to get the colors ordered correctly, and I needed to count those too. Now I have an order in at Missouri Star Quilt Company, and I'll get started on this as soon as the fabric arrives. 

In the meantime, I can make two more blocks for the Inverted Stars project. This is my project for this year's Rainbow Scrap Project. October and November's blocks are next.

 

So I didn’t make any more progress on the Cats in Pajamas yesterday, but that’ll be my first sewing priority today. It should be easy enough to quilt that final row. Hopefully, I won’t be bothered by a sore arm. If I have a reaction to either vaccine, it usually happens on the second day. COVID hasn’t bothered me in the past, but the flu vaccine can make me feel a little ill. I’m all for vaccines, though. The little bit of discomfort is worth the season of protection, and at our age, we’re more at risk of serious illness if we’re not vaccinated. 

As you might already know, my brother was a polio survivor. He contracted polio in 1952 when he was five years old, and he spent 60 days in an iron lung. He had the more serious bulbar form of polio. He wasn’t expected to survive, but he did. He was fortunate that his residual disabilities were minor, although they affected his life in ways that were more experiential (for him) than visible to the casual observer. I’m certain polio shortened his life, although he died from another cause. 

You might remember the quilt I made of him. It was created from a photograph my father took of him just months before he got sick. It’s done in the style of Ruth McDowell, and I call it “Snips & Snails.”

It’s my brother as a playful little boy…one I never got to see because I was born when all of this was over and done with. Often I wonder how different his life might have been had it not been touched by polio.

So, okay…I didn’t mean to get all preachy about vaccines, but you can see why I’m strongly pro-vaccine. And so that’s on today’s agenda. After that…sewing. It’s going to be a good day. I hope you have a good day too.