A Good Day Ends Badly

Good morning, my friends. It's the last day of May. We're onto June tomorrow. Are you ready? On June 4, 1944, my mom and dad were married. They were married 52 years when she passed away in 1997. Also, my grandfather's birthday was June 14th...Flag Day. (Also the same day as...you know...he who shall not be named.) My grandfather always told me they put the flags out on Flag Day for him. He was a WWI veteran, and so it made complete sense to me.

As you're reading along this morning, you can feel purrfectly safe knowing Smitty is on the lookout for invading forces.

So, let's talk about yesterday. It was a a good day right up until I went out to take a look at the vegetable garden. I think we'll start there so that we can end on a high note. I was happy to see some of the corn sprouting. We'll leave these rows covered with gutter guards until they're strong enough to resist any crow activity.

Also, I was happy to see a bean sprouting.

But then I was chagrined to find every other visible bean sprout pulled from the ground and tossed aside, unceremoniously. This has to be the work of crows. I've never had them go after the beans like this before.

They also pulled up two of the zucchini. The stake is there to mark the plants so we don't go stepping on them.

Probably I have enough zucchini, but I pulled up the stakes and covered them with baskets to protect them for the time being. It's so exasperating when the critters destroy things like this. It's a lot of work to put in a garden, and to have it so easily destroyed is very discouraging.

You might notice all the little green sprouts surrounding things. Today I'll be getting outside to hoe down those invaders.

In other garden news, the Fairy Princess peony is putting on a good show.

So far, the blueberries have escaped the notice of the deer. I suppose they're waiting until the berries are ripe enough for harvest, and then they'll go after them the night before I plan to pick them...not that I'm a garden pessimist or anything. I'm just being realistic.

The replanted poppy container is making a good comeback. I had five little pots of many seeds (poppy seeds are tiny). Four of them are thriving, and they'll fill in this pot with no problem.

The Garden Treasures peony has put out another flower.

The Edda clematis is also putting on its best show of the season.

Here's a close-up of its pretty flowers.

Finally, the mint is filling in its whiskey barrel. It shares this barrel with several other things, some tulips and some iris. Mint is extremely invasive. When it started growing in this whiskey barrel, we decided that was a good way to keep it contained. Still, I'm pulling it up from other areas all the time. 

And it was put to good use yesterday morning when I made this Watermelon Salad with Rum and Mint. This is a summer favorite around here.

Also for last night's dinner, I made this Seafood Pasta Salad with Lemon-Saffron Herb Dressing. This is another once-per-year (at least) recipe. It originally appeared in Bon Appetit, and it became an instant family favorite. The original recipe calls for campanelle pasta. It's sometimes hard to find, and so I've substituted trottole. Any thick shape of pasta will do. Also, don't let that inclusion of saffron scare you off. You could leave it out and not miss it at all. Also, I use canned crab. Fresh crab is too expensive to use this way.

Okay, and so making last night's dinner ahead took up most of my morning. After lunch, I made some more progress on the quilting. I spent about 40 minutes on this before calling it a day. Here's a little peek at the quilting.

Here's a look at the back.

When I laid it out for its picture, I was surprised to see that it's more than halfway finished. I'll do something different in the border, but everything below the red line in the interior is done. 

I expect to spend another two days on the interior, and then a day on the border. So, I'm closing in on another finish with this quilt.

Okay, and finally, finally, finally I was able to get to my "Across the Wide Missouri" project. The pattern is published in this book:

As I mentioned when I started this project, I enjoy making quilts that teach us something. There is a story associated with each of the blocks. This second block honors an enslaved pioneer woman by the name of Bridget "Biddie" Mason. You can read more about her at the link I've given you. Wikipedia tells us this about her: 

Born into slavery in 1818, she successfully petitioned a California court for her freedom in 1856 and went on to become one of the first African American women to own land in Los Angeles. Mason was a central figure in the early Black community there and was a founding member of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, the city's oldest African American church.

Born in the American South, Mason was enslaved by Robert Smith, a convert to Mormonism who forced her and her three daughters west during the exodus of the Mormon pioneers. After living in the Utah Territory, the household moved to San Bernardino, California, in 1851. Although California was admitted to the Union as a free state, Smith attempted to hold Mason and her family in captivity and later planned to traffic them to the slave state of Texas. With the aid of the local Black community and legal authorities, Mason petitioned for her liberty. In a landmark 1856 ruling, Judge Benjamin Ignatius Hayes granted freedom to Mason and her extended family, declaring that they could not be held in bondage in a free state.

Here's a picture of her included in the book:

Smitty was there to help me get started. He seems pretty excited about this block, doesn't he?

Well...not so much as it turns out. He really just wanted me to dole out some catnip, and then he told Sadie it was time for her shift.

Okay, so each block is dedicated to a pioneer woman, but they still have an associated story. This block notes that settlers beginning a new life on the frontier often brought along farm animals such as chickens, cows, sheep, geese, and turkeys. Not only were they needed for the new home, they were also a source of food for the journey.

I was able to fuse all the applique yesterday. The tree took a long time. Each leaf is cut individually. I'd reached the end of my sewing day when I had it this far.

Okay, and that brings us to the first gasp of the day. This is Tiny Treasure #53: Lazy daisy, blanket leaf, stitch, straight stitch, stem stitch, and French knots.

On today's agenda, I'll start by stitching Tiny Treasure #54. Quilting will continue, and I'll do the top-stitching for Biddie Mason's block. As I mentioned, I'm going to hoe the garden today, and we've decided it's a good day to mop the floor. So, there's plenty to keep me busy. 

If there's time left over at the end of the day, I'll get started on the next two blocks for Northern Wilderness. These are the blocks I have for that quilt so far.

There are six blocks to go on this, and I forget what I'll be doing next.

Okay...good grief. It's after 11:00 a.m. as I sit here, and I'm still in my pajamas. We've already had our pancakes this morning, but there's still much standing between me and my sewing. But nothing is standing between me and my slow-stitching. We do have our priorities. Mopping the floor will have to wait.

Swirls and Curls

Good morning, my friends. Sheesh...what an exhausting day we had yesterday. We had a lot of errands to run in the morning in addition to doing our grocery shopping. We got our beloved Egg McMuffins first...mainly to take the sting out of the whole morning's mission. From there, we headed to the recycling depot, then the pharmacy, then the feed store, then the grocery store, then the gas station, then another grocery store (because, weirdly, our regular store doesn't sell canned crab), and finally...the liquor store. I swear the liquor store was always a part of the plan. 

Before we left, I had time to stitch up Tiny Treasure #52. This one has stem stitch, straight stitch, and French knots.

And then I went to work churning the strawberry ice cream. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Maybe I’ve mentioned this before, but I love my Cuisinart ice cream maker. The one pictured below is a newer model from mine. There’s no ice or salt involved. The tub has some kind of “coolant” inside. I keep mine stored in the freezer all the time when I’m not using it, so it’s always ready to go. I would never have the motivation to make ice cream the old-fashioned way. With this machine, its easy.

We enjoyed that for dessert last night. So, so creamy, and the bits of frozen strawberry give it the nicest little crunchy texture. You can find the recipe right here. 

Okay, so we ran our errands, and we were home just about lunch time. We put the groceries away, had some lunch, and then took naps. And then we both just chilled the rest of the afternoon. 

Late in the day, I decided I wanted to at least get the machine set up for quilting “The Story of My Day.” As a reminder, this is what the whole quilt looks like. I love those little pops of color.

My first task was to decide on a thread for the top. I already had a design in mind. Digging through my box of variegated threads, I came up with these three:

I really loved the one on the top left, but I worried it was too dark. The quilting might have been too forward, distracting from the embroidery and the “story” told by the quilt. So, I settled on the one at the bottom. It’s light in color, and the hues are right for the colors in the quilt. It’s a Valdani 50-weight thread. And look at that: “Made in Romania.” Who knew? These threads are kind of interesting. They come packaged in a little spool-sized zip-lock bag.

For the bobbin, I chose this neutral.

It’s a So Fine thread from Superior Threads. Also a 50-weight thread. I find I have fewer tension problems if I use the same weight top and bottom.

As always, my Quilting Fairy Godmother, Ila, has generously provided me with exactly what I need for this quilt. Thank you, Ila.

Having selected my threads, I used this orphan block to do a little practice of the design in my head. It looked simple enough, but sometimes these designs end up harder than they look. Right away, I felt pretty comfortable with this one. 

So, I committed myself to the actual quilt and went to work. I probably covered about 10% of the quilt in about 40 minutes. When I paused at one point, I decided I’d had enough. The motion in this design is actually a little tiring for my arms and shoulders.

I first saw this design on Pinterest. I’m sorry I don’t have any information about its origin. It was just a picture with no other information. In any case, I liked the looks of this, and seeing it immediately had me thinking of using it for this quilt. I’m trying to stay in the off-white background, and swirling around the colored and embroidered sections. In at least one spot, I cut a corner a little bit, but I’m going to leave it. 

Sometimes I’ll print the design and then hang it in my view to remind me what it looks like.

After I’d gone some distance on the quilt, I glanced up to see how closely I was following it. I noticed one little design element I was missing, and started adding it in here and there. You can see it bracketed in green below.

Later, I noticed this little “curl” I could add inside some of those loops. When I sit down to work on it today, I’ll find a way to add those in too.

So, with my quilting paused, I could not think of a good reason to do another thing the whole live-long day. Smitty was channeling the energy in the household.

That picture makes him look like a tub of lard, but he’s actually a pretty good weight for himself. He’s a big boy. 

So, having given myself some time to chill yesterday, I feel re-energized for today. It’s one of those days when I’ll make dinner in the morning. We’re going to have a seafood pasta salad for dinner, and it’s good paired up with a fruit salad. I’ll say more in tomorrow’s post. I want to get back to my quilting. I’m thinking I’ll commit to 30 minutes, and then decide whether to stop or continue. And I really want to get a start on the quilt block for “Across the Wide Missouri” today. Hoping I’ll have time for all of that.

Our weather was rainy yesterday, and it’s still a little chilly today. We’re expecting much warmer weather in the coming week. I’m hoping it will get things going in the garden. Hoeing is expected to commence soon.

A Little of Everything

Good morning, my friends. It was a busy day yesterday. Today will be busy too. We're getting in our grocery shopping for the week, and we have some other errands to run as well. We have seven stops to make…eight, if you count filling our gas tank. Oy. I’m tired just thinking about it. So let's just get right to it, shall we?

First...I'm happy to announce a finish! The Homestead quilt is finished. I had to enlist my quilt holder-upper to get a picture of it. It finishes at 63 x 80 inches, so a fairly large quilt. This was my project for the 2023 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The blocks were some we saw on the "Quilt Discovery Trail" at the Homestead National Historical Park in Beatrice, Nebraska.

So finishing the quilt binding was my last gasp of the day. Before I left home yesterday morning, I was able to stitch Tiny Treasure #51. This one has stem stitch, straight stitch, satin stitch, backstitch, and French knots. I like these little birds. There are several birds among the other Tiny Treasures.

From there, I left to get my hair cut. I was home around lunch time. I needed to fill the bird feeders, and then I took a walk around. The sage is blooming. I don’t use the sage blossoms for anything, but I did use them to make some sage blossom vinegar one year. It isn’t as good as the chive blossom vinegar, but it filled in a year when the chives didn’t come back in great numbers.

This Fairy Princess is putting out more flowers. I hoping it will be mostly in bloom by this afternoon. It’s the most watched thing in the garden right now.

Also highly watched…the Edda clematis. This is so pretty, and it has more flowers coming. You’re only seeing one side of it in this picture. There are even more flowers on the other side.

I checked inside the greenhouse and discovered two tomatoes! Yay! Lookie there!

Here’s another one over here.

And the lettuce is looking more like lettuce instead of spindly little stems with leaves. This is the “Red Sails” variety.

Okay, and I was dragging my feet getting to the strawberry ice cream, but I wanted to get it done. So, I look for these large strawberries. Mike can’t eat strawberry seeds, and so I cut the seedy sides off of them. If I’m to have anything left of the strawberry when the sides are removed (and if I am to maintain my sanity), then I need the biggest strawberries I can find. Sometimes I can’t find the big ones at all, and so I didn’t pass by this opportunity.

So, I slice off the stem end, and the tip, and then I just kind of shave the sides off.

I’ll use the innards in the ice cream. Sometimes I’ll use the sides to make strawberry-infused vodka, but I’m not doing that this time around. The components of the ice cream have been chilling overnight. When I finish here, I’ll get out the ice cream churn and finish it off. We’ll have that for tonight’s dessert. It’s so, so good. Definitely worth the hassle.

Okay, so I’m hoping I have some energy left when we get home today. If so, I’ll start on the quilting for “The Story of My Day.” I have some ideas about how I want to quilt this. I probably should practice what I have in mind first. It’ll be an all-over design. I was going to choose a neutral color of thread, but I’m tempted to use a pastel variegated thread if I have one. I’ll have to go digging through my thread stash to see what I can come up with. 

And if there’s still energy left after that, I’ll get to work on this block for “Across the Wide Missouri.”

I ran out of time to work on it yesterday. I’m afraid it might have to wait another day for its turn. When I work on a quilt project, it takes on a personality and a life of its own. Sometimes I worry they’ll get their feelings hurt and end up in therapy down the road or something. 

Okay, so that’s all I have for you today. Y’all rest up today, okay? I’ll do the running around for all of us.