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.

Watching Grass Grow

Good morning, my friends. Ahhhhh…what a nice afternoon I had yesterday. In a minute, I’ll tell you what I did[n’t] do. First, let me tell you about the morning. The Plaid Cat got his first stitches. It’s hard to see what I’ve done here, but I stitched all around the edge of the cat, and some of the facial features. 

When I do my usual morning slow-stitching routine, I work with two lengths of floss (usually about 18 inches each). DMC floss comes in six strands, and those are separated into three sets of two strands. (Sometimes I stitch with two sets of three strands.) And when you add that all up…or divide…or whatever (math, who can understand it?)… it ends up being six lengths of floss. It usually takes me about 30-40 minutes. When you look at it in the image above, it doesn’t look like much.

Okay, and I wanted to do some more baking. Mike was given a choice of Zucchini Coffee Cake, Zucchini Coffee Cake Muffins, or Zucchini Bread. He wanted the same muffins I baked last time…The Shipyard Galley's Zucchini Muffins. They are good. They’re made with whole wheat flour, nuts, shredded zucchini and raisins. Mike says they have a good “mouth feel.” 

The last time I baked them, I thought they were a little dry. I’ve noticed that almost every zucchini recipe that starts with shredded zucchini wants you to squeeze the excess water out of them. This recipe didn’t say that, but I did it anyway. This time around, I left all the excess moisture. I’m hoping it will yield a more moist texture.

Okay, so I’ve started two new embroidery projects in quick succession. I’ve been picking through my floss stash, but I needed several different colors. There were four colors for the Plaid Cat alone. Thankfully, it arrived quickly. Combined with the floss from my stash, I needed to wind floss onto six floss bobbins. Ordinarily, I’d do this as I need it for stitching. With so many for the Plaid Cat, I’d be constantly interrupting myself to wind another floss bobbin. Instead, I decided to use a part of my chill afternoon to wind all those bobbins. Watching grass grow would have been more interesting, but it’s nice to have that all done. Now I can stitch, and stitch, and stitch. These are the colors I’m using for the Plaid Cat.

And, hey…after all that, I rewarded myself by spending the rest of the afternoon stitching, and stitching, and stitching. Now I have something to show you.

This is going to be fun. I love all that color.

Okay, so today will be more of a regular day. If I’m going to make apple-pear chutney, I need to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store. That shouldn’t take too long, but I loath anything that forces me to drive somewhere. There’s not much more on the day’s agenda, and so I should have some time for sewing this afternoon. I’d like to get going on the quilting for the Tulip Time table topper mentioned in yesterday’s post. 

This week feels a little like the calm before the storm. We’ll need to get serious about preparing for our trip next week. Part of that involves an appointment for a haircut and one for a pedicure. So the week can get quite hectic. No reason to be getting ahead of myself though. The rest of the coming week will be smooth sailing. Deep breath. Relax.

How Do You Like Them Apples?

Good morning, my friends. It was a busy kitchen day yesterday, but there was still some time for sewing. No actual sewing...just finishing and prepping, but it's all good.

My first stop was to finish the embroidery for Block 1 of the Quilter's Retweet. There was only a little ways to go with this.

And then I had bigger fish to fry in the form of apples. My recipe called for 7 lbs. of apples before coring, and that there is what 7 lbs. of apples looks like.

Mike helped me with this. I cored most of the apples myself. My wrist has been bothering me from all the hand-stitching I've been doing, and so Mike did some of them. He helped me run them through the food mill too. There was enough for two batches of applesauce. My yield was ten pints. 

There are still enough apples and pears to make a batch of apple-pear chutney. I'll need to make a quick trip to the grocery store before I can do that. For now, the apples and pears are separated out and weighed. That will use all of the apples. There are a few pears left, but I have some recipes that will help me use them.

While I was waiting for the applesauce to process, I tried using one of the pickling cucumbers in one of my favorite sandwiches. Usually, I use an English cucumber for this, but I wouldn't have known the difference. This sandwich is made using some "whipped" (read that, "spreadable") cream cheese. The cream cheese is spread on one side of the bread. Then I sprinkle it with fresh dill. (Dried dill works fine for this too.) Then the cucumbers are peeled and sliced, and I like a slice of Swiss cheese on mine. It's a good sandwich. Sometime I'd like to try it with one of the cream cheeses that's flavored with green onion.

Sadie started her day gazing out into the field from the wood box out front. She was considering what she might kill.

When she was ready to come back inside, she helped me make up my next embroidery project, the "Plaid Cats in the Garden." She likes the idea of stitching another cat.

Now, it's traced...

And colored...

And hooped up for stitching. I decided to start with the face so that we can chat while I stitch.

This pattern is a part of a larger quilt. There were two sizes of tracings...one could be smaller for a quilt block. I used the larger one to make a wall hanging. My background piece is cut to 19 x 14 inches. It'll be smaller when it's finished, but I'll add borders, making it a nice wall-hanging size. My stairwell Mewseum needs some new cats, and this one will be just right for that.

Also, I've been mulling over what my next actual sewing/quilting project should be. I've decided to work with the small quilts for quilting, starting with this Tulip Time quilt. It's a small quilt top I finished back in March. Working with my smaller quilts will give me some sewing time before we leave on our trip without having to (gasp) leave something unfinished.

Already, I know how I want to quilt this, and so it's just a matter of sandwiching it and then getting to it.

Just after dinner last night, we watched our neighborhood bobcat stalk and capture his prey (probably a gopher), and then sit in the grass enjoying his dinner. 

Then, he walked away, licking his chops. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Ya gotta love those greasy, grimy gopher guts.

All righty, then. Pancakes are next, and then I'll get going on the Plaid Cat. Today should feel more routine than the last several days. Except for baking some zucchini muffins this morning, I'm looking forward to doing nothing out of the ordinary. At some point, I'll need to get the rest of the ingredients for the chutney, but that can wait. Today I'm going to put my feet up and chill for the afternoon. How about you?

Taking Care of Business

Good morning, my friends. It was such a busy day yesterday, but I got most everything done that I wanted to. It started with this pretty sunrise.

We had grocery shopping to do, and so we mostly went through our morning routine. There was one errand to run in town, and then we were home by about lunch time. My next step was to make the Original Plum Torte. (If you click on that link, you can read the associated amusing story about the recipe.) We intentionally put off the start day of our upcoming trip to wait for the plums to ripen. They fooled us and ripened about three weeks ahead of schedule. We each had our torte with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for last night’s dessert. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

So, I guess there’s nothing holding us back from going now…except the green beans that are coming on fast and furious. Also, I’m keeping an eye on the corn. I expect we’ll have corn by next week.

When all of that was done, I could get back to my quilt binding. Within about half an hour, I’d turned all four corners…

And the Girls’ Getaway was finished. It ends up at 58 x 63 inches.

Here’s a peek at the back.

This could not have been accomplished without the assistance of my emotional support cat, who sat on the couch by my side.

The only other sewing related thing I did yesterday was to check my floss supply for the colors I’ll need to stitch the Plaid Cats. There were a few greens I needed. Somehow my floss supply of greens is lacking, although I have tons of just about every other color imaginable. I’ll still need to trace and color this, and so I’m hoping to have it ready for stitching by the end of today.

In the meantime, I still have a little stitching left to do on my current project. Most of today will be spent making applesauce. I probably have enough apples for two batches, and I expect that will take 4-5 hours. If there are apples left over, I’ll make some apple-pear chutney. That will need to wait for another day, however, because I don’t have all of what I need for that. A short grocery shopping trip will be required first.

Okay, so my jars and lids are awaiting me, as are the apples. It’s a lot of work, but so gratifying when I can gaze at those pretty jars of apple goodness on my pantry shelves. Off I go.