Holiday Happenings

Good morning, my friends. I'll be tying on my apron in a little while to make ahead some dishes for tomorrow's dinner. I'm imagining you or someone in your household is doing the same thing. So let's just talk about what went on yesterday for a bit, and I'll share some recipes with you while I'm at it.

Of course, I started with my slow stitching. This is Tiny Treasure #21. This one has stem fill, straight stitch, satin stitch, and French knots.

After that, I took a walk on the treadmill. I'm watching Ken Burns' documentary about The American Revolution as I'm walking right now. I'm enjoying it very much. I'm still on the first episode, and already I've learned so much I didn't know. As an example, one historian claimed the revolution might never have happened had women not banded together to weave cloth, thread, and yarn. The colonists were boycotting textiles from Great Britain, and so they had to start doing more for themselves. If you're interested, you can read more about these women right here.

After lunch, I got busy with the day's cooking assignment. Before I tell you about the cranberries, I wanted to show you this bowl I have from my grandmother. I can recall my mom saying that my grandmother loved pretty dishes. That might be true. What I remember about her were her beautiful quilts. But when I got this bowl out yesterday, it reminded me of my travels in Ireland many years ago. (If you've been reading for a long time, you might remember that trip.) This is my grandmother's bowl. It's cut glass.

Here's a better look at the side.

And the bottom.

When I was in Ireland, I watched this man cut something similar at the Celtic Crystal Factory.

When he was finished, he proudly held it up for our group to admire.

Okay, and after all that, I ended up using a different bowl. The one above was too small. This is Cranberry Cherry Marmalade. I make cranberries in many different ways. This one happens to be my favorite. You can find this recipe and the many other ways I've made cranberries at this post right here.

Today I'll be making our family favorite Sweet Potato Crunch. You can find that recipe at the link above too. Also, I'll assemble the classic green bean casserole today...you know the one. I'll hold off with the French fried onions until I'm ready to put it in the oven tomorrow. Just before I sat down here, I helped Mike get the turkey in some brine. He'll be smoking the turkey tomorrow's.

So, there's still much to do to be ready for dinner, but let's talk about what was accomplished sewing-wise. I'm ready to make the third of six rows for the Stair Steps quilt. This is what I have for that quilt so far.

Recall that these blocks have a diagonal line of color running through them. The third row will include the first purple block. I started by cutting all the common color pieces and the neutral squares and rectangles.

For the first block, I needed 32 more scrappy patches.

It's time-consuming doing all that cutting, and so I didn't get anything sewn together yesterday. When I quit for the day, I had all the patches laid out for sewing together. That's where I'll start this afternoon.

From here, I'll just be cutting scrappy pieces for the remainder of the blocks. 

I hope all of your Thanksgiving preparations are going well, even if it doesn't include cooking. I'm just looking forward to having the family all together. We'll have eight at our table, including two of Matthew's friends and Mae's mother. And as long as I'm going to cook a big dinner like this, the more the merrier, I say. So that's it from me today. The kitchen awaits my return.

A Small Finished Top

Good morning, my friends. It was a busy day yesterday, and I was a pooped pup by day's end. My mornings tend to be slow, as yesterday's was. Once I got going, I didn't sit down for the rest of the day. When it was time to make dinner, I was seriously considering asking Mike if he wanted to go out. We didn't, though. I had some chicken I needed to use, and so I powered on through. 

So, let's start with the slow part of the day and work our way up. I finished off Tiny Treasure #20. This one took two days to stitch.

There are four more of these. Probably I should trace the next block I'll be working on when they're finished. 

Here, you can insert a Bowflex workout, starting laundry, vacuuming and dusting, lunch, and a nap. (Okay, so I did sit down for the nap.) Finally, I could make my way to the sewing room. The kitties negotiated a shift schedule for the work ahead.

Smitty agreed to help with the quilt top. 

I was working with small quantities of fabric. Everything has been used in other quilts...many quilts for some...and so I was doing a lot of thinking, measuring, and consulting with my cat. We agreed the best approach was to first trim the embroidered blocks to 4-1/2 inches square.

From there, I gave each a brown border.

I went back and forth about which of the two fabrics below to use for the top and which to save for the back. I remember now that these fabrics were a gift from my friend, Tracy, who passed away last year. I wish she'd lived long enough to see me put these fabrics to work. Looking at them more closely, I realized they appear to be the same fabric in different colorways.

I liked how the brown block borders looked with the black fabric, and so I used that on the top. First, I sashed the blocks together.

With the scale of the fabric, I wanted a wider border to show it off. When the borders were added, the top was finished. It ends up at 27-1/2 inches square.

Sadie joined me then. She agreed to help with the quilt back.

You might recall I was trying to figure out a way to use these sewing machine panel blocks. With nine embroidered blocks and five sewing machine blocks, the math didn't work out to use them all on the top. I thought about sewing them together for a back, but I realized they would end up at the edges of the quilt. When I go to square it up, I didn't want to be cutting them off at the edges.

So I used just two of them and pieced together this back. I'll put the other three away for another time.

There was enough of the brown left to cut binding strips. And now this one will go into the "Small Quilts to be Quilted" pile. It won't have to wait very long, but I don't expect I'll finish it before we head south for the winter. 

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking I could sandwich it ahead of time and quilt it on the road. We'll see. I have other ideas for take-along projects too. More about that later.

Okay, so today will look a lot like yesterday. If I can make my way to the sewing room this afternoon, I'll be starting on my list of WIP's. First on the list will be to make another row of blocks for the Stair Steps quilt. It will probably take me a couple of days at least to make the next row of blocks. These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

The rest of the week is going to be very busy. I'm starting my Thanksgiving cooking today with making some whole-berry cranberry sauce. We have the jellied kind too because (a) we like it, and (b) the people who can't eat seeds can have it.

We picked up a can at the grocery store last week, and so that part of the dinner is finished! Although...and you can probably relate...I still need to get the jellied ones out of the can. It's tricky.

Tomorrow, I'll be making our sweet potatoes and a classic green bean casserole. Everything else will happen Thanksgiving day. Mike is smoking the turkey on our Traeger. We'll put it in the brine tomorrow, and then I'll make stuffing and stuff it on Thursday morning. I love Thanksgiving. Getting everything on the table hot, and at the same time, is always a challenge. 

So with that, I'm off. How are your Thanksgiving plans coming along?

Fourth November Finish

Good morning, my friends. It was a busy day yesterday. As I've mentioned previously, I almost always have some sort of housekeeping chore on the day's to-do list. Usually, I can move things around and do some of those chores on a different day. That’s not going to work between now and Thursday. We'll have eight for dinner, and so I must finish everything if I am to be ready. And all of that to say there wasn't a lot of time for sewing.

Of course, I started with my slow stitching. Tiny Treasure #20 turns out to be a little more time-consuming than some of the others. I could only get the pear and its stem finished before I needed to stop. This morning, I'll fill in the leaves with a green buttonhole stitch. They're an odd shape for buttonhole stitch, and so I might end up doing something different from what the pattern tells me to do.

From there, I got in a walk on the treadmill and cleaned the downstairs. After lunch and a short nap, I went to work finishing the hand-stitching on the quilt binding. Turning the fourth corner...

I had just about 30 inches to stitch to finish it off. When that was done, I had a finished quilt. This project was started November 26, 2022, and so it was almost exactly three years in the making. And that makes my fourth finished quilt in November. The other three were small. This one finishes at 62 x 74 inches.

Here's a peek at the back. If you've been paying attention, you might recall I was on the hunt for a backing fabric when we made our Eclipse Trip in Spring of 2024. I found the perfect fabric at a quilt shop in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Sadly, they didn't have enough. But then, I found it again at a quilt shop in Georgetown, Texas, and I snapped it up.

Okay, and so I have a little less on the day's calendar, but I'll be tackling the laundry. For sure I'll have time to get serious about sewing the "S" is for Sew project into a finished quilt top. I had some ideas about this, but now I'm thinking I might take it in a different direction. Actually, I won't know what's going to happen until I see what my hands do with it. Sometimes they take off on their own, and I can't control them.

So that's it from me today. That mountain of laundry isn't going to wash itself. Why is that? With AI and robots and every other modern convenience we enjoy these days...why hasn't someone figured out how to get the laundry to wash itself? Something to ponder, for sure.

Hand Stitching

Good morning, my friends. It seems as if a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the last time we talked. When I left you on Friday, I was preparing to take Eliza in for a spa treatment. That turned into practically an all-day affair. We dropped off the machine, but I'd left the bobbin casing at home. The technician said it was better to adjust the tension if they had the bobbin casing. I said I'd go home, get it, and bring it back, but whoa. That was quite a journey. It's an hour's drive both directions, and so I ended up spending four hours on the road on Friday. Yeesh. No sewing for me. 

And now, my friends, please take a moment to feel the loneliness in the room as I write this. I've brought the Painted Ladies upstairs since they'll be next under Eliza's needle when she's home again. But, oh...what a sad sight to see for now. The Painted Ladies were looking forward to their chance to cuddle up with Eliza. For now, all they get is this flat table. Sigh. Probably their turn for quilting won't come until we return from our trip south in March.

On a more optimistic note, I've stitched two more Tiny Treasures since we last chatted. This is Tiny Treasure #18. This one has stem stitch, lazy daisy, and French knots.

This is Tiny Treasure #19. It's mostly stem fill, but there's one French knot.

My first stop yesterday was to bake these Brown Butter Pumpkin Cookies. These turned out nice. They're a little like a shortbread with just a hint of pumpkin flavor. They have a nice texture. Also, they used up the last of the can of pumpkin I opened a while back. When I took them from the oven, they were to cool completely on their baking sheets.

I've linked to the recipe back there. Just know that mine took 18 minutes to bake. Possibly, I need to check the temperature of my oven for accuracy because the cookies I've baked recently have taken far longer than suggested in the recipes I've used.

That was the last task standing between me and my sewing, and so my next stop was in the sewing room to square up the Whimsical Garden. Usually, I get a kitty helper, but not yesterday. They were busy doing other things.

When it was ready to go, I sewed on the binding.

When I took it upstairs to start on the hand-sewing, Sadie joined me. She was a little late to the party, but she's all about getting under the quilts I'm working on. Her other business would have to take a back seat to this opportunity for snuggling.

With her help, I was able to turn the first two corners. I'm probably just shy of half way around. Depending on how energetic I am, I might finish this today.

As a last gasp for the day, I tried this new recipe for Jezebel Chicken Thighs. The least expensive way I've found to buy chicken is to buy the big "family" packs of 8-10 pieces of chicken. It might be thighs or drumsticks or wings, or whatever. But I end up with lots of pieces of chicken. I've been breaking the packages down and freezing some for future use. In this case, I used four of the ten chicken thighs in the package. It was pretty easy to make...easy enough for RV cooking...and it was very tasty.

The recipe called for apricot preserves. I used some of my homemade peach jam instead. Also, my chicken thighs were rather large. I figure the chicken(s) must have been hitting the gym before they died. Anyway...they ended up taking about twice as long to cook as the recipe suggested. Because of that, the peach jam probably darkened more than it might have otherwise. 

On the side, we had Honey Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potatoes. This turned out to be a good paring. While the sweet potatoes roasted, I could make the chicken, and so it was an easy meal to put together.

So in the middle of writing this post, I made and ate our Sunday morning pancakes. Did you notice me being any more coherent after I took sustenance? On today's agenda...the usual stuff...and I'm hoping to finish off the binding on the Whimsical Garden. It'll be good to have another in the finished column before the end of the year. I'm also still thinking about how to sew together "S" is for Sew. 

Just now, I'm heading for the next Tiny Treasure. We've had a couple of days of chilly but nice weather. I'm afraid the rain will be back today and for the remainder of the week. It hardly matters. Cooking for Thanksgiving will commence in a couple of days, and so I'll have plenty to do inside. What are you doing to stay busy?

Service Call

Good morning, my friends. There was a pretty sunrise this morning. And, you know...red sky at morning...and all that. On the other hand, we're always expecting rain this time of year, and so the warning doesn't really surprise us.

After writing yesterday's late-in-the-day post, I spent some time stitching Tiny Treasure #17.

From there, I got busy with the last of the quilting for the Whimsical Garden. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, this was the motif I was attempting. I'd traced over it with a pencil several times, and it seemed simple enough.

Then I moved to the quilt. I had in mind to do a sort of more upsy-downsy version of this motif, and so I added two loops between each flower. And that was easy. Here's a look:

So there I was, happily quilting away, and looking forward to another finished quilt, when the machine started making a clanking/grinding sound, and then an ultra-sonic high-pitched whine. Then this message appeared on the screen.

Admittedly, it wasn't the first time this happened on this quilt. The quilt isn't to blame. First time around, I tried some things to clear it. Then I noticed the thread take-up lever was all coated with lint. I cleaned that off, and then I was able to continue on my merry way. But then, this yesterday refused to be cleared. I tried several things to clear it. I cleaned all the lint out of the bobbin area. Then I took the throat plate off and really gave it a good cleaning underneath. I used pipe cleaners to try clearing anything from the slot where the take-up lever is. I changed the needle. I rethreaded the machine and bobbin. Checking in with the Google, I followed the instructions on this page. This page is talking about the Handi-Quilter Sweet 16. My machine is a Baby Lock Tiara II, but the two machines are identical, except for the labeling.

Nothing I tried worked. When I could actually get it to a place where I could do some sewing, I used a practice piece to see how it was looking. The top looked okay, but the noise coming from the machine was concerning. Looking at the back, the bobbin thread was one big bird's nest. Okay. Clearly, it's dead, Jim. (Young people...ask your parents.) Having exhausted all the other suggestions on the page I mentioned earlier, it seemed I had no alternative but to follow this final instruction. The highlighting is in the original.

To say this was frustrating would be a colossal understatement. I had just this much left before I was finished! Look carefully, and you can see the thread tails where I started at the lower right corner of the image below.

So as I sat there considering whether it made sense to throw a tantrum when no one was at home to see it, I moved into "well, duh" mode. With such a small amount left, I could take the quilt to my domestic machine and finish it there. And that is exactly what I did. Consider that a big Harrumph. There's more than one way to feed a cat. (Did you see what I did there? I used a PETA idiom to avoid skinning any cats.)

Having vanquished the impediments to my finish, I laid the quilt out to have a look. It's pretty hard to see the quilting on this.

Here's a look at the border.

And here's a peek at the back.

Okay, and so now the quilt is folded up in the sewing room. I'll try to get the binding sewn on by machine today. While I was there, I took a look at my next project, "S" is for Sew.

These are the fabrics I pulled from my stash.

And then I went in search of the sewing machine panels. These were gifted to me. I forget who...if it was you, then thank you. 

I've been thinking of a way to incorporate the embroidered blocks with these five sewing machine blocks. The one at the lower left is the smallest, and the borders have been removed. I'm trying to figure out a way to use them to create a quilt top, but the math doesn't work out exactly. If nothing else, I might piece them together to create a back. I'm still mulling it over.

So from there, it seemed like a good time to quit. I was still feeling frustrated about my quilting machine. This morning, I turned it on again and did some sewing. It seems to be working fine, but we're going to take it in for service anyway. I think I've owned the machine for about ten years, and it's only been in for service one other time. Most certainly, it probably needs cleaning and lubricating, and I have a feeling the timing is what's causing the "needle sensor" failure. 

Since I won't need it again for at least a couple of weeks, it's probably a good time for a spa treatment. It's a heavy sucker, and it requires a big, strong man to heft it around. I happen to know a man, and I happen to know he's big enough and strong enough to get the job done. I'll buy him some lunch for his trouble. Also, I couldn't find sliced pancetta at the grocery store yesterday, and so we'll head to a local specialty market to get that. Also, we need some tequila to drown our sorrows. Sounds like a good day, huh?

If there's time for any sewing today, I'll blog tomorrow morning. If not, then I'll be back here on Sunday morning. Until then...please stay out of trouble.