Busy Kitchen Day

Good morning, my friends. Our weather seems to have taken a turn for the better. We were expecting rain all this week. Yesterday turned into a pretty nice day, and it's even nicer today. It makes me happy since we're getting together with the fam. It's always nicer when we're not confined to the house. The temperatures this weekend are supposed to reach into the 70's. That's what I'm talkin' about! If our dreams come true, we'll be able to eat outside on Sunday for the first time this year.

As for yesterday... before I could do anything else. I took the first stitches on the Tiny Treasures. This is Tiny Treasure #37:

Pretty simple...all back stitch.

Moving into the kitchen, I made some dishes ahead for our dinner tonight. First off, I started the long and scary process of making the custard for creme brulee. I did a lot of talking to myself through this process. They're made in 1-inch deep fluted custard dishes. That wouldn't be so scary, except that they're baked in a water bath. And so with a 1-inch deep dish, I had to be super duper careful not to splash water into the still-liquid custard. They were all placed in a roasting pan, so that I could move them around. Throughout, I was saying, "Careful, careful, careful...don't bump into anything...careful, careful, careful..." I'm telling you, it was downright petrifying. In the end...Perfection!

We'll brulee them this evening. I figure with three grown men in the household, everyone will want to get into the act. Don't worry. I'll keep the fire extinguisher handy.

While those were baking, I made the deviled Easter eggs. Kind of fun. Mine were in the dye a full 20 minutes to get the depth of color I wanted.

It was late in the day before I could get to my quilting. Long ago and far away, I spent an obscene amount of money on some templates. It became clear to me pretty quickly that I can't use these while I'm sewing. I seem utterly incapable of keeping the template butted up against the foot on my machine. Oh well. Still, they make it easy to mark my quilts using a hera marker, and I'll be using these in this quilt.

My plan is to do some dot-to-dot quilting, Angela Walters style, but I want to preserve the traditional style of the Amish by using curved, rather than straight lines. Thankfully the boss was there to offer his imput. 

Don't mess up.

So I've been perusing Pinterest for inspiration. For this Friendship Star, I did a bunch of curved lines to create this pattern. 

This next block is known as a Virginia Reel. It's really just eight Flying Geese arranged in an interesting way. You'll see later that a switch-a-roo of the colors yields a Dutchman's Puzzle block. (I love that about quilting...the geometry and the color.) And this is my go-to motif when I'm quilting Flying Geese.

The only other pieced block in this first row is a Nine Patch, and these Terry Twists are my go-to motif for a nine-patch.

Also, in yesterday's post I mentioned quilting the sashings and the border. As it turns out, this quilt has neither, but each panel block has a border around it. Thinking about how to quilt these, I decided to think of them as applique. For now, I'm just outlining the design in the panel for functionality. I didn't want to do anything too fancy here. I'll decide what to do in the borders later.

The only other panel block was this one. It was hard to decide what to do here. I started and ended with the tree.

Here's how it's looking from the back. It's pretty hard to see the quilting, and so I've messed with the color and contrast in an attempt to make it visible. If you can make it larger, it's easier to see.

And that was the end of my quilting day. I left it needle down at this panel in the next row.

And then it seemed like a good time to fill the bird feeders. While I was out, I noticed another one of the new daffodils has bloomed. This one is known as "Pink Charm."

And can we all pause here for a moment to consider the deplorable conditions of Sadie's life. Malnourished...abused...forlorn...cold. It can't get much worse than this.

Okay, so the hardest parts of tonight's dinner are finished. Mike will be roasting the turkey in our Traeger grill. I'm going to make mashed potatoes and gravy. That will wait until later. Earlier, I'll mix up some Thanksgiving Slaw. We're having roasted asparagus as a side dish. Sounds yummy, no? The only other thing I'll need to do is to set the table. I pulled out some of my Easter table decor. With my Easter Egg table runner, I think the table is going to be cute. I'll take a picture and post it tomorrow.

So there isn't too much to do today since I did most of it yesterday. I should have plenty of time for sewing. I'll get back to my quilting. When the next row is complete, I want to catch up on the blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I need to make March's red block. April's block will be pink. Here are the blocks I have for this project so far.

That's it from me today, my friends. I'm hopeful the weather will cooperate for your weekend. I don't know about you, but we're looking forward to spending some time outside for a few days. Probably I have time for a walk today. How are you spending your Easter weekend? 

Prepping

Good morning, my friends. It's going to be a busy day. In addition to a few housekeeping chores on the day's agenda, I'm going to do a couple of make-ahead dishes for our family dinner tomorrow. On today's list is creme brulee (just the custard for now), and some deviled Easter eggs. I was happy to find some beautiful fresh asparagus at the grocery store yesterday. That will be for tomorrow, and our dinner is shaping up nicely.

It was fairly late in the day by the time I was able to get to any sewing tasks yesterday. It seemed a good time to get ready to quilt the Amish Sampler. 

I was thinking more about how the back was going to look, and these were my thread nominees. (Thank you, Ila.)

The backing fabric was included in a box given to me by a friend. He was friends with a quilter who passed away last year, and he's been helping distribute her stash. It's a dark purple with some lighter purple mixed in. As I'm writing this, I'm realizing this doesn't stick with the Amish solids-only tradition, but oh well. Desperate times, you know...

Because I'm not a confident quilter, I never want my quilting to show too much. These two variegated ones had an awful lot of white in them. That worried me. The three spools to the left among the candidates seemed to have too much pink.

But when I laid them out on the back, I really liked the way the lower one looked. The pink in the thread blends in nicely with the fabric, and that made it an easy decision.

I have three spools of this 40-weight King Tut, and I'll use it both top and bottom.

The quilt has five rows of four blocks. My plan is to quilt one row per day, then an additional day each for the vertical and horizontal sashings, then one more day for the outer border. I wasn't in the right head space to start yesterday, but I'm hoping to get going on it today. I left it needle down at the friendship star.

Knowing I would be finishing the Cozy Quilt stitchery soon, I'd already prepared the next batch of Tiny Treasures for stitching. It's hard to see on this fabric...

And so I'm showing you the page from the book. These are the ones I'll stitch next.

There wasn't time for much else. I was close enough to finishing the Cozy Quilt that I decided to just sit and do it. And there it is. 

It's still trying to decide what it will become. It could be a small wall-hanging...or a mug mat...or I could follow the recent idea of my friend, Wendy, and use it in a quilt somehow. 

And that was a colorful way to end the day. Looking outside, the heavens seemed to approve.

And I can't let the day go by without wishing this handsome young man a very happy 42nd birthday! Good grief. Where does the time go? 

We'll celebrate tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to that.

Okay, so there's much to do today. I'd better get to it.

Don't Be Fooled

 

Good morning, my friends. It's that day when we must be wary. There's a prankster around every corner. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we're going grocery shopping today. You can bet we'll be on high alert.

There was a long list of to-do's yesterday. Everything got done, including walking on the treadmill. Yay me! And so it was late in the day by the time I made my way to the sewing room. No worries, though. I was able to finish the fourth row of the Stair Steps quilt. 

Already, the blue block was partly sewn together. I was able to finish that off pretty quickly.

I needed one more yellow block...

And then I could sew them into a row.

And then I could sew the fourth row to the rest of the quilt.

This is going to be a very large quilt. If I wasn't trying to use scraps, I might stop right here. There are two more rows, and I'll keep going until I've finished them all.

It was dinner time by then. I had a hunk of gruyere cheese I wanted to use. Also, somehow I'd ended up with multiple open bags of frozen corn in my freezer. It sometimes happens when we've been traveling. I leave a partial bag in the freezer at home, and then I buy more on the road. And having made two long trips last year, I believe I might have done this twice. In any case, I wanted to use some of that, and this recipe covered both nicely.

It was my third try making these Corn Souffles. These turned out perfectly.

On my first attempt, I baked them in a 4-cup souffle dish. It took positively forEVER to bake in that size dish, and even then, it still wasn't done enough. On my second try, I did them in these two-cup ramekins, but they still took a long time. They didn't rise enough, and they were still slightly soupy in the middle.

Having written myself some notes about this, I put my accumulated knowledge into this third try, and these turned out just right. They were done all the way through, and they'd risen nicely. The green cast comes from a portion of a poblano pepper that goes into the mix. The whole concoction is pureed in a blender, and then baked in these ramekins. (I used my toaster oven for this.) They were very tasty...a little rich, maybe, but still good. You can find the recipe right here.

Okay, so I'm ready to work on some other things today. Next up on my list of WIPs is to start another Gumballs quilt. I rarely make the same quilt twice, but I had fun with this one, and so I want to make it in another colorway. This time I'll use greens, blues, and aquas. Here's the red version quilt top, finished just recently.

Also, I'm nearly finished with my "Cozy Quilt" stitchery. I doubt I'll finish it today, but tomorrow isn't out of the question.

That means I'll need to ready my next piece. Next up will be 12 more tiny blocks for the Tiny Treasures project. Here are the tiny treasures I have so far.

Finally, I think I'm ready to start the quilting on the Amish Sampler. It's been hanging out on my machine relaxing its wrinkles away. This is my last sandwiched quilt. If I'm to do any more quilting on larger quilts, I'm going to have to make some quilt sandwiches. 

And this being the first day of April, it's time to choose a goal for April's

My goal for April is to quilt and bind the Amish Sampler. Probably I'll start on it today.

Okay, so that's all I have for you today. It's a dark and drizzly day out...pretty typical spring weather for us...sunny one day, raining the next. And it's time for me to get going. Those groceries aren't going to buy themselves. And, wouldn't you know it? They won't put themselves away either. It's just one thing right after another, isn't it?

Good-bye to March

Good morning, my friends. Beware. Pranksters will be out tomorrow. It's never to soon to make plans for defending yourself. We have a trip to the grocery store planned. Do you think we can April Fools Day our way into some free groceries? I'm thinking you do your debit card, then reverse the charges, and yell, "April Fools!" Yeah...probably not, but it has me thinking.

So yesterday I made good on my threat to get outside and clean up the culinary herb garden. There was an alarming amount of grass growing in some places. Grass can't simply be pulled up. It has to be dug out, and so it was more strenuous than I'd expected. Also, my getter-upper-and-downer isn't as efficient as it once was. When I was back inside, I iced my knees, and they're feeling fine this morning. Of course, weeding is an every day affair around here, but the biggest parts of the spring clean-up are finished for me. Mike still needs to put in some work, but he's waiting for some warmer and drier weather.

While I was out, I noticed some of the newer daffodils are blooming. This yellow one with an orange center is a classic.

This is the Riot daffodil. It was planted a few years ago.

I'm not sure about this one, but I think it's called "Banana Split."

This guy was keeping me company while I was wandering around.

Stay away from my daffodils, Buster.

Back inside, I sewed together the purple Stair Steps block.

The next one was pink, and I needed the scrappy squares to complete it. Smitty helped me cut the scrappy squares.

And then he guarded them, keeping them rounded up, while I sewed the rest of the block together.

And there's the pink one.

Now I've laid out and partially sewn together the next blue block.

There's one more yellow block, and then I can sew the five blocks into a row. If there's time, I can sew the row to the upper part of the quilt.

For dinner last night, I tried this recipe for stir-fried Chicken Lo Mein. (Mike loves these noodle dishes.)

 It was easy enough to do. It requires two pans...one for the stir fry and one for boiling the noodles. The recipe suggests using angel hair pasta, but I had some soba noodles on hand, and so I used those. Pretty darned tasty.

As we ate, I was admiring the star magnolia from my seat at the table. It motivated me to get outside for a picture. Wowzers.

Here's a close up of the flowers. They're so delicate and pretty.

So today I must make up a grocery shopping list for tomorrow. There's one housekeeping chore on the day's agenda, and I'm determined to get back to the treadmill. So far, I've had one treadmill day in a row...last week sometime. I've had the hardest time getting back to my workout routine since we've been home. I tell myself it's partly because I'm still catching up on things, and this week we'll be having the family over for dinner. By next week, I believe I will have run out of excuses.

Okay, then. It's time to get on with my day. I'm so glad to spend this time chatting with y'all. It's a good way to start the day.