Fleet of Foot

Good morning, my friends. And if there are any dads out there reading...then, Happy Father's Day to you!

And, wow. I am feeling so much better this morning. It was good to have my energy level back yesterday. I went a whole 24 hours without once using my inhaler. Things are definitely looking up.

The morning started with a few things on my to-do list. For the route I was taking and the order of tasks, it made sense to just have a little walk around first. The flowers are wowing me just now. This is the variegated hydrangea.

Honestly, I can’t get over the beauty of this clematis. The flowers are about four inches across. And look at that deep purple with the strip of red down the center. Incredible. They might have taken over first place for my favorite flower.

Oh…but it’s hard to beat my current first place finisher. The checkers dahlia is nearly open. Whoa. Eye-popping.

And the Stargazer lily. It is covered in buds. This is just the beginning.

And then there’s this funny little thing. If I’m remembering right, it’s a yellow calla lily. It comes up most years. Sometimes it flourishes and blooms. Sometimes it comes up and never does anything more than what you see below. Sometimes it just doesn’t show itself above ground at all. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I’m told it was a mild winter here. Maybe we’ll get a flower from it this year.

The red leaf lettuce is getting big enough that we can start picking leaves off of it. I wouldn’t want to take much, but I think we can start to graze a little for sandwiches and the like.

From there, I went to work filling the bird feeders. As I was hanging one of the hummingbird feeders, I noticed the purple hydrangea is blooming as well. This is one of two flowers, and there will be many more.

So, it was nearing lunch time by then, and I had convinced myself to bake the Moravian Sugar Bread. It gave Mike something to snack on as a Father’s Day treat this morning. He’ll get his usual Eggs Benedict too. I’ll say more about the bread in a minute. For now, just know I put it in the oven, and then headed to the sewing room to fix the necks on the two middle Yoder sisters. 

Sadie was my emotional support cat for this activity.

So I mentioned this in yesterday’s post. I needed to very gently and carefully use my pointy-nosed tweezers to pry up the fused applique just enough to slip a small…maybe about 1/2-inch…square of fabric underneath. Then I could fuse it down again. And this turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. There. All fixed.

And, it wasn’t as obvious on the sister with just one braid, but I decided to give her a neck too. With the rest of her sisters all having necks, I was afraid she’d get the FOMO, and we can’t have that. Besides, we couldn’t have any of these little ladies walking around as if they’d been guillotined somehow.

Okay, and it was about that time that my bread was reach for the next step. When it came from the oven, it looked like this.

It’s a multi-step process to make this bread, taking a little longer than expected, but a lot of the time involved is just waiting for this thing or that thing to happen. Before it goes into the oven, you use your fingers to press deep holes into the dough. Then, it’s covered by a brown sugary/cinnamon topping, and then melted butter before putting it into the oven. When it comes out, it’s cooled for 20 minutes in the pan, and then flipped upside-down and cut into 9 pieces (or whatever size you want).

I snagged a piece that was warm, and it was really very nice. The dough is made with mashed potatoes. I thought Mike’s description of it was spot on: It tastes like coffee cake, but coffee cake has a dense dry crumb. This has the flavor of coffee cake, but the texture of a dinner roll.

I’d like to try this again with a couple of changes. First, one of the readers’ comments suggested covering the top with the sugar topping before making the finger indentations. It seemed like a good idea when I read it. Nevertheless, I think I might have gotten more of the sugary-cinnamon goodness into the interior of the cake if I’d done it as suggested in the recipe; that is, make the indentations first, and then sprinkle the sugar, making sure to get it deep in the indentations. 

Second, looking at the pictures that accompany the recipe, I’ve realized it probably was not supposed to have been flipped upside down. The sugar should be on top. It seems to me, it would need to be cut in the pan first, or else the pan would need to be lined with parchment before baking to enable the cake to be easily lifted out of the pan…top up. And all of that means I must try it again, and soon. When Mike really likes something, he says “it needs more practice.” This one definitely does. 

I should say that I also followed one of the readers’ suggestions to use instant potato flakes. Since I happened to have an open box, that seemed worth a try. I made it in the microwave, as suggested on the box, omitting both the butter and salt. I did include the milk. Here’s a link to the recipe if you want to try it yourself: Moravian Sugar Cake.

Okay…finally I could get to my sewing. I finished quilting the sashings on the Seasons quilt.

And that was the last place I wanted to use the tan thread on top. From there, I switched off to the yellow spool…this one:

It seemed a good plan to check my tension. Looks good on top…that’s the top line with the yellow arrow…

And the bottom looks good enough too…the bottom line with the yellow arrow. 

And then, with this being the Summer Solstice and all, where else would I start but with this summer block. This is the Summer’s Sun quilt block from Quilter’s Cache. I started around the center square and quilted radiating sunbeams from there.

It was nearing time to stop by then. I decided to thread the machine with the variegated blue…this one:

Checked the tension and left it needle down. That’s where I’ll start today.

It’s anybody’s guess how much time I’ll actually have for sewing today. With this being Father’s Day, there’s Eggs Benedict to make for breakfast. Also, Matthew is coming up today to spend some time with his dad. They’re both engineers and my understanding is that they are going to discuss AI things. (Don’t ask me.) He’s going to stay and have dinner with us this evening. I’m marinating some steaks for that. It’ll be a simple dinner. Mike will BBQ the steaks, and I’ll make some baked potatoes. Also, I’m baking a Lemon Meringue Tart. That was always on the menu for Father’s Day, but it’ll be nice to have Matthew join us. 

So, it seems as if I have another busy kitchen day is ahead of me, but I’m happy when I’m in the kitchen. I’ll do as much sewing as I can, and it will be a good day. I hope y’all enjoy your day as well. 

Exhausting Day

Good morning, my friends. Before I say anything else, I should say that I'm feeling significantly better today. Most of yesterday morning was spent at urgent care. I like that they have a section on their website that allows you to insert yourself into the line before you leave home. There was no one in the waiting room when I arrived, and so it didn't matter, but it's still a nice feature. They gave me a second nebulizer treatment while I was there, and they sent me home with a portable nebulizer machine so that I can give myself treatments at home. As of this morning, I'm breathing easier than I have in a full week.

After that, we had errands to run in town. I had medicines to pick up at the pharmacy, we needed bird seed and groceries, and so it was past 3:00 p.m. before I could get back to my regular life. The nebulizer treatments make me feel jittery, and so I wasn't feeling the best. It seemed a walk around the garden was a good place to start the "life" part of my day. 

The lavender is just beautiful right now.

Cherries are turning red. (I have plans for you, my darlings.)

The daylilies are putting on a show right now.

And I was happy to see the stargazer lilies are starting to bloom.

Also...the dahlia has peeled back one of its petals. I can see now that this is the "Checkers" dahlia.

When it opens, it will look like this:

Thankfully, Smitty kept me company as I wandered around, and so I was completely safe from any rampaging critters that might be on the loose.

Taking a walk around fortified me a bit, and so I decided to do some more work on the Yoder sisters. The third sister has her right arm extended and one braid.

When she was finished, she joined the other two.

The fourth sister has her left arm extended and two braids. Their aprons are slightly different from the first two as well.

When I had them all finished, I lined them up for their picture.

And then, I fused them to the background.

In a comment, my friend, SueS, noticed what I'd noticed too. The "yellow" sister's head appears to be floating above her dress. She has no neck.

So, let's just take a look at these placement diagrams for a second. Before I go on, note the "bonnet" on Girl #1 there at the left. I was given the option of putting a bonnet on some or all of them, but I liked the hat better. The two middle girls (above) are made like Girl #1. They are identical except for color, and the number of braids. Oh yes, and I guess their aprons are different too. In any case, neither of them has a neck.

But when you go to Girls #2 and #3, there is a neck piece, and it's shown in the placement diagram.

Girl #1? Nothing.

Okay, so I'm thinking this was omitted from the pattern in error, but no worries. Despite having it fused to the background, I believe I can still peel those bits up with some sharp tweezers, and slide a little neck piece under the yellow girl. It doesn't matter so much with the blue girl, but I might do it there too. I've done this successfully with applique in the past. Sometimes it will fray the fabrics a bit, but the top-stitching will fix that.

All right, so adding the neck and top-stitching is next for this. Quilting was neglected yesterday, and so I'll start there first today. 

I'd like to finish up the sashings, and I have a goal of quilting all the pieced blocks today. Whatever I decide, my quilting limit is one hour. I'll do as much as I can. When I've finished with that, I'll continue on with the Yoder sisters. 

With yesterday being such a hellish day, I'm giving myself a mostly sewing day today. It's cloudy out as I'm writing, but our forecast has us heading for some hot weather over the next couple of days. It seems like a good day to water the flower pots, and, as usual, the bird feeders need filling. Aside from that, it's going to be an all sewing day. I'm looking forward to it. 

If I'm feeling particularly energetic (or if I just get tired of sewing), I might try a new recipe for some Moravian Sugar Bread. It looked good in the picture. The bread dough is made with some mashed potatoes (weird, huh?). I noted some folks in the reader comments suggesting substituting instant mashed potato buds for that. I happen to have an old box left over from a camping trip. Seems like a good way to use it up.

All right...so off I go. I'm anticipating a better day than I've had in a week, and so I'll just get right to it. Breakfast first, some slow-stitching, and then all sewing, all the time.

A Good Sewing Day

Good morning, my friends. Following through on my promise to sew my guts out yesterday, I did exactly that. Early, I hoed the garden. Everything is looking good out there, happily. I uncovered the zucchini and the cucumbers. They had wire baskets over them to protect them from gnawing critters. I think they've grown large enough to stand on their own now. After that, I needed to put away the laundry from the day before. And then...all sewing, all the time.

There were two more embroidered blocks to quilt for the "Seasons" project. For summer, I did some pebbling in the sunflowers, and then a looping beeline connecting the various bees in the piece.

For the final block...just some swirls. I couldn't really see any particular theme in this one that would lend itself well to quilting, and so I just endeavored to fill in all the little nooks and crannies.

I'd only been at it for about 20 minutes at that point, and so I decided to go ahead and quilt the sashings. For this I did a double upsy-downsy ribbon motif. There are five horizontal sashings and two vertical ones. I ran out of bobbin thread as I was finishing the fourth of the horizontal sashings.

It's difficult to wind a bobbin with that monofilament thread, and I spent the rest of my quilting time on that. It killed my motivation to do anything more, and so I'll finish up the sashings today (hopefully). After that, I'll move on to the many thread changes for the pieced blocks.

From there, I headed into the sewing room, determined to get at least one of the Yoder sisters fused together. At first glance, this is a complicated and scary pattern, and short on instructions. Already, I'd taped the placement diagrams together.

But then I realized I needed to do more taping for the applique templates themselves. Probably I spent about a half hour figuring all this out.

When I was ready to sew, Sadie joined me. She likes doing "girl" stuff, and she thought this yellowish-gold dress would go purrfectly with her furs.

So after giving it some thought, it became clear that the first step was to make the dress. I'm assembling these on a teflon pressing sheet. I can fuse fabric to the pressing sheet, but it can be peeled up and repositioned if I need to.

Next, I needed to make the apron. There are two versions of the apron. I'm following along with the image included with the pattern. I'm making the second sister from the left.

Sadie can become a little overly-exuberant with her "helping," and so she was encouraged to find another job.

Then I went to work cutting six pieces for the apron. (There is a knot where the ties are that isn't visible in this image.) Keeping in mind that once I fuse fabric to fabric, I cannot reposition it, and so I gulped hard and fused the apron pieces to the dress.

Phew! No problem. And then I could finish the rest of her.

And lookie there...I can peel the whole thing off the pressing sheet in preparation for fusing it to the background.

I want to make all four sisters before I fuse them to the background, and so I set her aside to wait for the rest of her party of four to arrive.

Smitty showed up for the second sister. We don't like to talk about this often, but Smitty sometimes likes to dress up in drag. He thought the blue dress would be best with his furs.

And so I went to work making the second sister. This one is second from the right in the pattern picture. Her apron is different. There's an applique template included for a traditional Amish bonnet, but I kind of like the hats. I thought about doing a bonnet or two, but then I really liked the symmetry of the hats. I decided to stick with that.

And now these two are ready to go. 

It was past time to stop by then, and so that was the end of my sewing day. I should have plenty of time to finish the remaining two sisters today, and then I'll be able to fuse them to the background for top-stitching.

When I went back upstairs, I was surprised to find a deer eating the sunflower seeds I put out for the birds! A friend of mine who lives in Idaho said deer eat her sunflower seeds all the time. In 24 years in this house, I've never seen this before. Weird.

Okay, so I don't really know how the day is going to go. I'm hoping to have plenty of sewing time, but my asthma is simply not improving enough. I'm going to have to head to an urgent care clinic this morning, and I expect I'll get another nebulizer treatment. In my 72 years of living, I've never had an asthma flare-up like this one. I barely slept last night with all the coughing, and my rescue inhaler just doesn't seem to be doing enough to ameliorate my symptoms. I'm hopeful the wait won't be long. We also need to pick up a few groceries, and so I'm afraid the morning will be shot. With so little sleep last night, I foresee a nap this afternoon as well.

So, it's anybody's guess how the day will go. I'll be happy if I can start feeling better after nearly a full week of coughing. And with that, I'm off. The earlier I get going, the sooner I can get back to my sewing.