Stuck in Neutral

Good morning, my friends. There as a change of plans yesterday. Shortly after my morning blog posted, Matthew called to say he'd barely slept the night before. And I'm sympathetic to that. We decided to do our walk on Monday. No worries. I could switch gears. Only...I seemed to be stuck in neutral because I made almost no forward progress during the day. 

There was a little progress to show on the Love Sampler. After stitching these two sections, I moved my hoop to the right. I'll pick it up there this morning, and then continue toward the bottom.

Our weather has been pretty gloomy this week, but there’s been no rain since last weekend. It seemed adviseable to give the flower pots some water. I noticed the volunteer snapdragons are coming back with a vengence.

It’s amazing how things can grow when the squirrels aren’t eating them down to little green nubs.

We’re seeing more and more cherry tomatoes too. No clue why they were so slow getting started. The plant is huge.

The Gracie Memorial Catnip Garden is doing a good job re-establishing itself. Smitty likes a little nibble now and then.

Okay, now here’s something interesting. This is the poppy barrel I’m trying to get re-established. See how the foliage on the left and right sides of the image are different?

I believe the foliage on the right will become a purple poppy. Back in 2020, I was able to get some to bloom, but none since. These seeds were some Mae saved from her own poppies. She and I have puzzled over this because they seem only to bloom as purple poppies once.

After that, they’ll change to the same color as their red neighbors on the left side of the image above. It occurs to me that the purple ones might be annuals? Maybe they don’t seed themselves? But that doesn’t really make sense because Mae and I are growing them from seeds. These botanical things are above my pay grade.

The Checkers dahlia is such an overachiever this year. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it produce so many flowers…and it’s early for dahlias too.

To it’s right, the Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia has more work to do if it’s going to keep up.

This is the one I’m watching now. Bumble Rumble. We should be seeing some flowers from it by next week. There’s still one more dahlia…the Firefighter dahlia. It has some work to do to catch up with the others.

HEAR YE! HEAR YE! THE FIRST ZUCCHINIS HAVE MADE AN APPEARANCE! That is all. Please resume your regular activites.

Also, I noticed a flower forming on one of the sunflowers. There might be others, but it was hard to be sure.

In the bee garden, I noticed a new flower. My phone tells me this is Moricandia arvensis or “purple mistress” to you.

Here, I was able to get a better picture of the Checker Mallow. I posted a blurry photo last week. 

The garden is looking good. The corn is visible in photos now, and the green beans are doing great after the crow battles at their beginning. There are way more beans than I usually plant, but that’s okay. After having all the plants bitten off in our last garden, and after fighting tooth and beak and nail for these, I’ll take all the beans I can get. I believe I’ve earned them.

Also…what’s that thing about corn needing to be “knee high by the Fourth of July”? Well…we’re underachievers there. In our area, we can’t plant until the latter part of May, and most things had better be ready for harvest by mid-September. It’s a short growing season. This is an early ripening sweet corn. Hopefully, we’ll start seeing some more growth soon. And some sunshine would help.

Okay, by late afternoon I planted my butt in my sewing chair determined to do some quilting. I’d switched out my thread and was checking tension when I ran out of bobbin thread. Of course, I did.

So I fiddled with that for a while, cleaned and oiled the machine, checked the bobbin tension on my Towa gauge, reloaded the bobbin, checked the top tensionvagain, and then took the first stitches on this new daisy motif. After approximately 4 stitches, the top thread broke. Oy. By that time I’d pretty well scraped the bottom of the motivation barrel. Nevertheless, I quilted from the left side to the right. The motif is doable, and I think it’ll work for this part of the quilt.

Here’s a peek at the back.

The motif is to stitch two daisy petals, then a little loop for the flower center, then stitch more petals around that loop. Then off to the next one. The sashings of this quilt vary in size because the pieced blocks vary in size, and so I’m filling in some of the spaces with more flowers or more loops to cover the space.

When I’d stitched from left to right one time, I called it quits and left it needle down for the next horizontal sashing. 

My goal today will be to finish all the interior sashings. I’ll save the border for tomorrow.

There was no more progress made on the Stair Steps. I’ll keep plugging away at it until I’ve finished the final two blocks…maybe today…maybe not. My sanity is important to me. 

Also, today is the day we’ve chosen to harvest our cherry crop. I’m honestly not sure how much is out there. We have two trees: a Black Tartarian and a Bing. The Black Tartarian is always more productive, but there are some cherries on the Bing too. My plan is to can some of them in simple syrup. I use those to make my mother’s cherry cobbler…possibly my favorite dessert for my whole live-long life. Also, I’ll make some sweet cherry pie filling. Up until a couple of years ago, I always thought pie filling had to be made from tart cherries. Then I found a recipe for sweet cherry pie filling. I actually think I like it better. 

So all of that to say that I’m looking at a weekend of canning. Sewing might have to take a back seat for a few days as I deal with the cherries. 

Heartbreak Cake

Good morning, my friends. It was a mixed bag of a day. Some things went as expected, and others...not so much. It was time to fill the bird feeders. In summer, that seems to be my most important job. While I was out, I marveled at the flowers on the purple hydrangea.

When I've been outside the past couple of days, I've noted with alarm a few cherry pits lying on the ground. After seeing a crow fly off with one a few days ago, I suspect crows are the culprits. It doesn't matter, though. I took a good look at the cherries and tasted one. Tomorrow we harvest. I'd say today, except that I'm meeting up with Matthew for a walk in downtown Portland today. 

After we walk, I'll be taking some quilts for donation to the Ronald McDonald House. If you're unfamiliar with the mission of the Ronald McDonald network of houses, they provide housing for families whose children are undergoing medical treatment at local hospitals. I'm not sure how far their network reaches. Here, in Portland, there are two homes (affiliated with our two children's hospitals), but I believe there are others nationwide. I was happy to learn they'll take donation quilts, and I'm glad to be able to pass some of mine along.

Okay, so let's just talk about this cake, shall we? For one thing, I was calling it a "Dandelion cake" in yesterday's post. It's actually a "Daffodil cake." It was a way to use up the remaining egg whites I'd collected over the past several months. It all whipped up beautifully. When I took it from the oven, it appeared ready. As the recipe suggested, I touched it lightly on top and it sprang back. So, okay. I inverted it onto some coffee cups to cool. Then, I got involved with the laundry. When I returned to the kitchen about 15 minutes later, this is what I saw:

Oy...sometimes the "Martha" is with you, and sometimes it isn't. It had broken into two pieces and fallen out of the pan. In retrospect, I believe it was underbaked. Oh well. 

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I carefully removed it from the pan and stuck the two pieces together on a cake plate.

When I added the glaze, it wasn't beautiful, but it appeared edible.

We each had a piece for dessert, and it was actually downright tasty. Mike said it was similar to the “Sunshine cake” his grandmother made for him when he was growing up.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably only made angelfood cake from a box. (And the boxed versions are just fine…no reason not to use them.) When they’re made from scratch, my understanding is that they’re made with egg whites, sugar, cake flour, and cream of tartar. This one also used one egg yolk for every two egg whites, which made it a little more dense than a regular angelfood cake. Mike said it was that extra density that made it more like a Sunshine cake.

So, okay, despite the problems I had with it, I’d like to try this again. And nobody died in the process, so I’m calling it a rousing success all around. Next time, I’ll allow it to bake longer and watch for a darker brown top with cracks. Mine was nicely browned, but there were no cracks. It sprang back when I touched it lightly, but I’m still thinking underbaking was my problem. I’ll try it again sometime when I’m trying to get rid of more egg whites.

Okay, so I shrugged off my disappointment over the cake and went to work on the quilting. All nine pieced blocks are quilted now.

There may not be time for sewing today, but when I can get back to it, I’ll switch out my thread to this King Tut variegated thread…

And go to work on the borders and sashings. I know the motif I want to do, but I need to figure out what direction (literally) to take it. Probably, I’ll spend at least two more days on this before it’s ready for binding.

Okay, and then it was time to get back to the Stair Steps project. Sadie visited briefly. When she saw what I was working on, she claimed she had an appointment for a pawdicure and needed to rush off. Hmph. I’ll bet if I look at her calendar, I’ll find she was free to help all along. Cats. What’re ya gonna do?

Well. Despite no help whatsoever from kitties, I manage to get two more blocks done. This one has a pink diagonal line.

This one had a yellow diagonal. (It’s kind of hard to see the yellow in this photo. You’ll have to take my word for it.)

And that pretty well took me to the end of my day. Three blocks down, two to go. The next two will have a purple and a pink diagonal, respectively. When all the blocks are made, I’ll sew them to the rest of the quilt, and I’ll have myself a finished quilt top.

My day will be enjoyable but busy…busy mainly because I hate getting into traffic. There’s no reason to think traffic will be bad, but I’m getting to a place where I hate traffic so much that it seems bad if there’s even one other car on the road. And since I’ll be traveling north on Interstate 5, it’s going to be hard to avoid other cars…on the road…the same road I’m on…getting in my way…bothering me…the nerve of some people. Nevertheless, a walk with my kiddo is going to be a great way to spend the day. We’ll probably get lunch, and then I’ll drop off my donation quilts before I head for home.

Days like today can be tiring, and so I have a feeling I won’t be doing any sewing today. No doubt I’ll have some pictures to show you for tomorrow’s post. The weekend approaches, and the 250th anniversary of our country. We have no plans for the Fourth. Do you? 

Overcoming Inertia

Good morning, my friends. My day was a little mixed up yesterday. There was a pedicure scheduled around lunch time, and so the hours I could work with came both before and after. The garden got a good hoeing, and there was some time after that to work on my quilting. I quilted two more blocks on Ruth's Legacy, and then finished the third after I got home.

It’s going pretty well, and I’m happy with that filler motif I’m using. Here’s a little peek at the back.

Now, I’ve turned the quilt upside-down, and I’ll start quilting the top (and final) row of blocks today. With those finished, I’ll be ready to start on the borders and sashings tomorrow.

This being July 1st, it's time to choose a goal for July's 

It's tempting to go with Ruth's Legacy, but I'm going to challenge myself with the next quilt in line for quilting. That means my July goal will be to quilt and bind the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt.

The spa where I get my pedicures is a part of a larger hotel complex. It has beautiful grounds and gardens. As I walked in, I took a few pictures. My phone tells me these next three are all hydrangeas.

It also says this next one is a rose. The flower looks like a rose, but the foliage doesn’t. Also…no thorns.

However, it has rose hips the size of cherry tomatoes.

Okay, so back at home again, I went back to my quilting, and then I forced myself into the sewing room to work on the Stair Steps project. I might have had some kitty help, but Sadie purrfurred to spend her afternoon in her catio.

I needed to cut some more scrappy pieces for the first of five blocks. When they were cut and laid out, they looked like this. Some of you with sharp eyes might notice there’s an extra pair in the lower right corner.

With the cutting finished, I could sew it all together. That’s one down, four to go. 

When it was sewn together, it was time to stop. I’ll start on another one today. The next one will have a pink diagonal row. 

When I got home from my pedicure, I started a new recipe in my slow cooker for Bourbon Barbecue Chicken Tacos. It needed four hours to cook. It was super easy. I mixed up what amounts to a barbecue sauce in the slow cooker, and then added two boneless, skinless chicken breasts. It cooked for four hours, and then I used two forks to shred the chicken. Earlier, I’d made a salsa from corn, red onion, red bell pepper, and some other seasonings. This turned out great. We liked it a lot. The “salsa” has the zest and juice of two limes, and it was a very nice accompaniment with the chicken.

I made the recipe as written. It contains three tablespoons of bourbon. If you don’t want that alcohol, you can substitute apple juice or chicken broth. I doubt you’d taste the difference. We each started with two tacos, but then we each had one more. Now, there’s enough for another meal. It’s easy enough to do in the RV…always a bonus.

Okay, so today will be sort of a regular day. I’ll continue on with my quilting and my sewing. I’m also going to use up six more egg whites making a “Dandelion cake.” Basically, it’s an angelfood cake with an orange glaze. Mike’s mother and his grandmother made a cake called a “Sunshine cake.” It was a favorite of Mike’s. I tried a few times to replicate it earlier in our marriage. Then, after Mike’s mom passed away, I ended up with her recipe box. It contained his grandmother’s recipe for Sunshine cake. Only, the recipe was written so weirdly that I never actually tried to make it. One of the phrases that comes to mind was to cook some sugar in water “until it hairs.” Huh? I think I know what she meant, but it still discouraged me from ever attempting it. 

This recipe popped up when I Googled things to do with the egg whites I was hoarding. It occurred to me that it might be a good stand-in for the Sunshine cake. Mike will have to be the judge of that. And maybe enough time has passed that he won’t remember what the original Sunshine cake tasted like. In any case, it will be fun to give it a try, and I’ll be happy to use up the rest of the eggs whites.

All right then. Time to get going. Busy day ahead. Hopefully, I can end the day with another block for the Stair Steps quilt. Two blocks would be a bonus.

A Little Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It was a rather unproductive day yesterday. A lot of my morning was spent sitting on the couch. My treadmill and Bow-flex workouts have been completely abandoned over the past month. I tried unsuccessfully to talk myself into a Bow-flex workout yesterday morning. Even when I speak sternly to myself, it’s hard to overcome my level of stubbornness. After more than 50 years of cat ownership, it’s completely understandable that I would adopt their attitudes in my daily life. 

Instead, the bird feeders needed filling, and I wanted to check on the vegetable garden. The garden was too wet for hoeing. It was still worth checking though, because I needed to stake up two of the tallest sunflowers. They were leaning over after the recent rains.

This morning, I'm aiming for an early start to my hoeing. It's also the day for my monthly pedicure, but I believe I'll have time to hoe before I need to leave.

Back inside, I spent some time with my slow-stitching. After a time, I realized I was dragging my feet getting at my sewing. No worries. I could still procrastinate a little while longer by baking some Chocolate-chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Pecans and Dried Cherries for Two. I'm still on a quest to use up some ingredients that are approaching their "use by" date. We didn't eat these. I froze them for future cookie emergencies. You just never know when disaster will strike, and our very survival could depend on the availability of cookies. (And, honestly, aren’t we all in a state of emergency all of the time when it comes to cookies?)

What with the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Oregon coastline threatening to cause mayhem at any moment, it's important to be prepared. Those cookies will get us through the rough times.

Okay, so after lunch, I forced myself to get a start on the quilting. Since I’m not a terribly confident quilter, it’s sometimes hard to get myself over the hump when I’m starting something new. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I was trying to decide between two "fillers" for the pieced blocks. I ended up doing the one that seemed harder. It's pinned in my Pinterest files and identified as a "Meandering Comma Curl." You can see a video of how it's done right here.

Okay, so that seemed easy enough. I committed it to the middle row of blocks on my quilt. This is the third of the three blocks, and the muscle memory was pretty well set by then.

If there's time this afternoon, I'll start quilting the bottom row of blocks.

From there, I really started dragging my feet. The blocks for the Stair Steps quilt are a pain to make because there is so darned much cutting. And since they're all scrappy, I end up picking through my bins a lot. Even Smitty was looking askance at this project.

This is the final row. I needed ten of each of the neutral “stair step” pieces.

Remember that these blocks have a color diagonal running through them. The first block in the row is a blue block. I needed eight blue 2-1/2 inch pieces for that.

And then I needed 32 scrappy 2-1/2 inch pieces. I have some left over from the last time I worked on it, but not enough.

So, I picked through my scrap bins and pulled out pieces large enough to cut more squares. They’re pressed and ready for cutting.

While I was picking through my bins, I remembered something I wanted to do outside. Think of it as a squirrel rescuing me from the drudgery of all that cutting. 

So, I’ve been watching some wild foxgloves growing along the roadsides and along the driveway we share with our three closest neighbors. Some years ago, I purchased some foxglove seeds, hoping to get some started out by our hot tub. They are mostly shade-lovers and there’s an open space beneath one of our Japanese maple trees where I think they would thrive. So, I planted my purchased seeds, and they were growing. Then, Mike mistook them for weeds and sprayed them with herbicide. He knew instantly what he’d done, and rinsed them off with water from the hose. It was already too late, and they all died. (Sigh.)

Okay, so fast-forward several years to yesterday, and I had in mind the wild foxgloves were far enough bloomed out that I could harvest some of the stalks for their seeds. As I walked down the driveway, I noticed one of the newly-arrived spotted towhees at our feeder and tried to get a picture. My picture didn’t turn out, as I’ll explain in a minute, but I found this one online. I like watching the birds return to the feeder seasonally.

Okay, so here is where I tried to take a picture of our own bird, but he moved around to the back side of the feeder as I took my shot. I was some distance away, and so I was looking through the viewfinder to try to get good focus…

When what to my wondering eyes should appear

But a sneaky black sunflower seed stealing deer!

Well. Doncha know she was just waiting for me to move along so that she could empty our bird feeder. This seems to be a thing now. After 24 years in this house, the deer have never done this before. 

As I started to continue walking down the driveway, she moved closer to the feeder. You little stalker, you.

Well, I chased her off before I moved along. That bird seed is kind of expensive, and I’m not putting it out for the deer. [Loud Harrumph, as I walked on.]

At the end of our driveway, I noticed this. I’m told this is called “goats beard.”

These little asters are about the size of a dime. Cute.

There were lots of these little wild violets.

And these . . . Oregon blackberries. The berries are good to eat, but man, the plants are invasive, and thorny, and hard to eradicate. When they pop up anywhere in the landscape, we dig them out immediately. 

Okay, and so here was the object of my desire…nearly bloomed out wild foxgloves.

Walking up the hill just a few feet, I found some white ones too.

So I looked for the longest stalks with the fewest living flowers, cut them at the bottom of the bloomed out seed pods, and then carried them home in a paper grocery sack. I’ll let them dry for a while. As they dry, I’ll shake them some to dislodge the seeds. The grocery sack is lined with parchment to make it easier to collect the seeds when the time comes. This might not work at all, but I’m hopeful. Fingers crossed. If I don’t get viable seeds from these, I’m going to buy some. Life is short. Grow the foxgloves.

Okay, so that was the end of my day. As I mentioned, I have a pedicure this morning. I’m kind of determined to get out early and hoe the garden before I go. When I get home, I’m going to try something new in my slow cooker. I’ll tell you about it in tomorrow’s post. If there’s still time left in the day, I’ll get back to my quilting. Quilting is my first priority these days. If there’s time left in the day, I’ll try to make some progress on Stair Steps. I keep claiming that I like the Stair Steps quilt, and I do. Still, it’s one of those I wish I’d never started.

All right. The garden awaits. Enjoy your day, my friends!