Another Day of Slow

Good morning, my friends. It was cloudy and cool yesterday, but there was no rain. We took a short drive north for more avocados, but otherwise, we did nothing. I spent a good part of my day slow-stitching. Happily, I have finished the 21st of 21 embroidered sections for the Raggedy & Friends project.

There's just one more block to sew together, and then I'll be ready to finish off this quilt top. It will have to wait until we get home, though, because I don't have the rest of it with me.

For my next trick, I'm going to start stitching this "Hawksbill Honu" sashiko. I bought this pattern on a previous visit to SoCal. My friend Debi and I visited the Quilt Passions quilt shop in Mission Viejo, California. They also have a shop on the Big Island of Hawaii, and they specialized in Hawaiian fabrics and patterns, although they had something for everybody there.

Also, I purchased a yard of this fabric to finish off the little quilt when the stitching is finished.

This, being a kit, comes with everything I need to finish the stitchery. The design is printed on a large swatch of fabric...about 18 x 18 inches. The fabric is nice...silky and soft.

It includes floss and two large-eyed needles. These are very large needles...like tapestry needles. I might end up using my own if these seem too bulky to my hand.

I thought I had an empty floss bobbin somewhere, but I couldn't find it. I ended up robbing one of the wooden spoons included in our box of fudge. Then, I spent the next five years of my life trying untangle it and wind it onto this spoon. Sheesh. 

This kit was created by Sylvia Pippin Designs. You can see more of her designs at that link I've given you. Interestingly, she's located in LaConner, Washington, which is about a day's drive from where I live.

And now I have it hooped up and ready to start stitching. 

But first, it's time for our Sunday morning pancakes. 

As for the rest of the day, the sunshine has returned. We're expecting a high in the low 70's today. Probably, I'll do some sewing, but I want to get outside and enjoy some sunshine too. Maybe I'll sew and maybe I won't. It would be good to finish off the final Raggedy block. You might say my enthusiasm for it is sew-sew. Or maybe it's so, sew! Hard to say at this juncture. I guess we'll all find out tomorrow. 

Happy Sunday, Everybody! 

A Day Off

Good morning, my friends. It was good to take a day off yesterday. We hung out at the RV all day. Our friends and our sightseeing excursions have kept us busy while we've been in Escondido. It's all been a lot of fun, and the weather has been lovely. Nevertheless, a stay-at-home day was a nice little break. 

The kitties were all about it. They know just what to do on a day off:

I had a yen for a dessert yesterday, and so I baked this cherry pie for two. The cherry pie filling was homemade with cherries from our neighbor's tree. They have tart cherries. Our two trees are both sweet cherries. I've made filling from both. This one happens to be made with tart cherries.

When we're traveling, I always use the refrigerated Pillsbury pie crusts. They're easy and convenient, but they don't always look terrifically appetizing after they're baked. I tried brushing this one with a little milk before baking it, and it browned the best of any I've done. So, for now, I guess milk is the secret.

While that was baking, I got busy setting up my sewing machine and other supplies for a day of sewing. Smitty kept watch for invading forces.

And then, I proceeded to sew together Block 9 of the Raggedy & Friends project. That was pretty quick.

Then, I sewed Block 10 together:

When I laid out Block 10, I realized I was missing the aqua piece at the bottom. When I did the cutting for these kits, I checked and double-checked and triple-checked everything I did, and so I was surprised to have a piece missing. Then, I checked the pattern and found yet another mistake. This was a free pattern, and so I shouldn't whine about it. On the other hand, I like to whine about stuff like this, and so I'll whine anyway. There has been a mistake in almost every block. It's annoying. And, yes, it's a free pattern, but my fabric and my time isn't free. Happily, I have along a full yard of some fabric for another project, and I used this turtle fabric to fill in the missing spot.

Mostly I've used solids in this project, but there are a few prints here and there, so this will be fine.

When I was finished harrumphing, I sewed together Block 11:

And that was enough sewing for a single day. Here are the other blocks I have for this quilt:

There's just one to go, but I need to finish the last embroidered section before I can sew it together. When that's finished, I'll return to the Gumballs project.

There will probably be more time for sewing over the next week, and so it'll be good to make some progress on these projects I brought from home.

Smitty has been caressing me with his tail as I've been writing. Smitty is an excellent blogging and sewing assistant. Everyone should be so lucky to have such a multi-talented cat.

We don't have any plans for the day...yet. We've talked about heading out for more avocados, but nothing is set in stone yet. For now, I'm going to eat some breakfast and continue on with the final embroidered section for the Raggedy project. The sky is cloudy, and I don't know if there's rain in the forecast. If it stays dry, I'll probably get out for another walk today.

I'm reading about the cold weather gripping much of the country. If you're in the cold parts, please stay warm, safe, and dry today.

Temecula, California

Good morning, my friends. The day got off to an exciting start yesterday. Finally, finally, finally, we got some action at our seed feeder when several house finches showed up to our table.

They would like to have driven the kitties absolutely INSANE!

So, we left them with birds entertaining them, and headed out for our planned excursion to Temecula.

As you can see from the sign above, Temecula was established in 1859. During the mid-1800s, the Butterfield Overland Mail company contracted with the federal government to deliver mail and goods. Temecula was one of the stops along the Butterfield Stage route which followed the Southern Emigrant Trail. The Butterfield Overland Trail is now a National Historic Trail. You can see the route at that link I've given you. The first stage, eastbound from San Francisco, stopped for a change of horses at Temecula probably during the night of September 18, 1858. 

We found parking in a free public lot with no problems. On a wall facing us was a huge mural that looked very realistic. We both looked twice at it. It appeared three dimensional. To the left was shown this steam locomotive.

In the middle, this train stop.

And then, looking the rest of the length to the right, a depiction of what the area might have looked like at the time.

The main drag through town is Old US 395. Old Highway 395 refers to the original path of U.S. Route 395, a historic north-south corridor known as the "Three Flags Highway," linking Mexico to Canada. Since we left the area in 1975, segments have been replaced by I-15 and California SR 163. Those areas are now marked as "Historic Route 395," showcasing parts of the old alignment through scenic, less populated areas. Temecula likes to call this the "historic" downtown area, but we can tell you that these are modern structures, built to look old. Looking south, it looks like this:

It's a busy road, and hard to get very good pictures. This is the view looking to the north.

We had three reasons for stopping: First and foremost...fudge. And there's the fudge place right across the street! We'll come back for that. Keep walking, my friends. The time is nigh.

Second, we just wanted to get some exercise by walking up and down the main drag and snooping some of the shops. Third, I was on the hunt for a shot glass. (I already have a refrigerator magnet from Temecula.)

We passed by a restaurant where we'd eaten on previous visits. It was lunch time by then, and so we stopped in for some lunch. Outside, this "medallion" was inlaid into the sidewalk. It was a little larger than a manhole cover.

Mike selected the Double Prime Smash Burger.

It came with the name of the restaurant, 1909, branded into the brioche bun.

I chose the Sun-dried Tomato Portobello Burger. I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm often choosing the vegetarian option on the menu.

It was one of those sandwiches that disassembles itself as soon as you pick it up. It tasted good, but it was messy.

After lunch, we went on the hunt for a shot glass and some fudge. Approaching the fudge place...what?!? Chocolate Covered Bacon? Really? Well, if that doesn't get you through the door, maybe the fudge will.

Like so many fudge shops, if we chose five pieces, we got the sixth one for free. I can't actually remember what we selected.

The piece in the upper left is orange cream. In the lower right is raspberry chocolate. There was also a Vanilla Butterfinger piece and a Toffee Heath piece. I believe the one in the upper right is Maple Pecan, and I can't remember the last one. When we got back to the RV, we had our afternoon cups of espresso and selected one piece, cutting it into fourths for sharing. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Also, I found a shot glass. This one simply has the outline of the state of California on it. I wanted one that said Temecula, but those were all square-shaped. And I'm snooty about my shot glasses. I only choose the ones shaped like this one. (I use egg cartons for a non-breakable storage option. The round ones are the only ones that fit.

And that was our day in Temecula. We headed back to the RV and took naps. 

After that we relaxed for the rest of the day. I finished off the 20th of 21 embroidered sections for the Raggedy & Friends project. I'll start on the final one today. 

It rained a little last night. There's no rain in today's forecast, however. We talked a little about whether we want to continue with our to-do list of hikes and attractions, or whether we wanted a day off. We opted to stay at the RV today. I'm going to do some sewing. Mike has some things to work on, and he'll probably ride his bike. 

As for sewing, in a previous post, I said I was going to work on the remaining blocks for the Gumballs project. Instead, I'm going to start sewing together the blocks for the Raggedy project. I'm far enough along with the embroidered sections that I can probably have the last one finished before I'm ready to sew the last block together.

So a day of rest is sounding good about now. We have another week here in Escondido before we move along to Boulder City, Nevada. There are still two hikes and a visit to a botanical garden on our list. I suggest y'all rest up too. We'll have time for at least one of those next week, and so you'll want to be ready to go when the day comes.

Friends and Wine

Good morning, my friends. The weather took a little turn yesterday. It was cloudy much of the day, but there was no rain. Definitely the temperature dropped a couple of degrees. Nevertheless, we had a very nice afternoon with our friends, Debi and Jim. Debi is looking a little perkier than she was the last time we saw her. We're very hopeful her recovery will continue on the path toward wellness. 

The evening before, we received a text from them suggesting two wineries: Cougar and Robert Renzoni. Mike suggested starting at Cougar since we've been to Renzoni before. When we arrived at Cougar, we realized that we had been there before. No matter. It was a good way to start a nice day. I took a few pictures, but mainly, we just enjoyed our wine and our food and relaxed and gabbed all afternoon long. I took this next photo in the tasting room at Robert Renzoni. It seems a good place to start, because you know I took pictures of every blooming thing.

The first winery we visited was Cougar.

This first one is phlox.

There were plenty of white roses. Here's one:

My phone tells me this is Uniform Treasureflower.

The phone tells me this is Salvia microphylla. Apparently, it's common name is "Hot Lips."

These are red geraniums.

Here's another white rose.

This is a Wood Iris.

It's a beautiful tasting room. I liked this chandelier made from wine bottles.

These were messages on slats from a barrel.

This was hanging on the wall. Who sees a quilt here?

We each selected a glass of wine and then found a table outside. Looking out across the valley, these were the vineyards for this winery.

If I'm remembering right, we all chose a red wine.

And we enjoyed this charcuterie board...

Along with more bread and olive oil made with olives from trees grown at the winery. The olive oil was delicious.

After we'd finished our wine, we decided to move along to Robert Renzoni.

Here I enjoyed the things they had for sale inside their tasting room. This one seems obvious.

I told Mike he needed this hat, but he thought $28 for a hat negated his need.

I liked this one too:

Like before, we each selected a glass of wine and then found a table outside. Gazing out across their vineyard, it looked like this:

Here, we had lunch. I had another Italiano sandwich. Mike had a chicken club sandwich. We only ate half and brought the other half home for dinner.

We sat and talked, and talked, and talked, and then we returned to the RV. It was nearing dinner time by then, but we still took short naps, and then enjoyed what remained of the evening.

Just as I was finishing up this post, the kitties spotted birds outside our window. There's a tree behind us producing lots of seeds right now. They get scattered all over the catio. We haven't yet seen any birds at our seed feeder, but I suspect they prefer the seeds from this tree. 

What kind of bird do you suppose this is? It looks kind of like the goldfinches we get at our feeders back home. When the goldfinches arrive at our feeder at home, we know spring has arrived.

The weather is taking a turn for the worse today. We're expecting a cloudy day with rain probably starting around dinner time. It won't interfere with our plans to visit the City of Temecula this afternoon. I just want to walk up and down the main drag and snoop in some of the shops. For sure we'll visit the shop that sells fudge. And I don't know how a day in which fudge is involved could be anything other than a good day. Do you? 

Okay...so off I go to enjoy our cloudy good day. I hope you have a good day ahead of you too.