Two Small Quilts

Good morning, my friends. It was another rainy day yesterday. There was a meme on Facebook from a Portland weatherman that said, "Hello darkness my old friend." It made me laugh. Yep...that's the Pacific Northwest for you. We're told we have at least another ten days of gray skies and rain off and on. Hopefully, summer will return, and we'll have good weather for our trip, but we should all pack our rain gear just in case.

As for yesterday's sewing, Sadie was my sewing helper. Together, we got a lot done.

The first thing I did was to sew a border on the Santa Quartet.

And then I gave it its final border. It ends up at 16 x 28 inches.

I’ll use this fabric on the back. It’s been in my stash of Christmas fabrics for a long time.

And I’ll use that same green from the inner border for the binding. I’m going to put this aside for now, but I’ll endeavor to get it finished so that I can use it this Christmas.

Okay, and then I turned my attention to the “Bunny Bait.” This was a free pattern from the Sewing Loft. I needed to sandwich it.  

And then I did some straight line quilting in the stripes of the carrots.

Here’s how that looks from the back. It felt like a bold choice to use that green thread. Usually, I’m trying to hide my quilting.

I’d done a Google search for a “line drawing of a carrot.” I found one kind of like this, and so I quilted carrots in the border.

All the way around, alternating the connecting swirl with each one. It just needed some swirls in the green carrot tops, and it was finished.

Here’s how it looks from the back.

There was barely enough time to get the binding sewn on, but sew it on I did.

Today I’ll probably be able to finish the hand stitching. It ends up at 18-1/2 inches square.

So that brings me to my list of WIPs. It’s a grocery shopping day today (drat), but there should still be some time for sewing. First on the list is to make the second row for the Butterfly Garden quilt. This is my adaptation of the Arcade Pattern  from Fabric Cafe. I’m making it one row at a time, and so I’m curious to see how it will look when I add another row. 

If I have any more time for sewing, I want to make another row for the Jawbeakers quilt. These blocks are fun to make, but the cutting takes quite a while.

The last time I talked about this quilt, I confused some folks by calling it “Jawbreakers.” The pattern is Gumballs but since I already made a quilt I’m calling “Gumballs,” 

I gave the green one a different name. Get it? Jawbreakers? Gumballs? How’re you gonna know which is which until you attempt to chew it? 

Okay…so the dreaded grocery shopping trip. It’s a short list today. We’re eating a lot of stuff from the garden right now, and so we don’t need a lot. I need to get out and check the garden too, but it’s been so wet. I’m hoping to get out there today. Things are probably not growing much in this cold wet weather.

So, off I go. Another busy day ahead. What are you doing to keep busy today?

Rainy Day

Good morning, my friends. It rained most of the day yesterday. Watering the flowers is officially off my to-do list until next week sometime. We're expecting more rain today, and possibly tomorrow. It's fine by me. You might remember several years ago when we took a fall trip and ended up cutting our travels short to return home because of a wildfire threatening our neighborhood. Happily, things are getting a good wetting down as we anticipate this year's fall trip. This rain will go a long way toward greening up our field.

My day started with chopping, chopping, chopping and mixing, mixing, mixing until I had a pot full of apple-pear chutney fixings.

It took two hours to cook it down to chutney consistency, and then about another half hour to fill, lid, and process the jars. When it was finished, I had seven pints of Apple-pear chutney. You can find the recipe for this in yesterday's post.

As I've mentioned, this is good with pork...pork chops, ham, ham sandwich...but it's really good spread on a toasted slice of baguette with a sprinkle of blue cheese. I'm kind of mad at myself because the mixture included two cinnamon sticks that were to be removed before I ladled it into jars. After the jars had been lowered into the canner, I realized I'd forgotten to remove the cinnamon sticks. Doh! Oh well. It won't hurt anything. Someone will just find a surprise. Perhaps I should post some sort of reward for whoever finds the first one.

While that was cooking and processing, I went to work hand-sewing the binding for the Tulip Time quilt. This was originally a free pattern from Inspired by Fabric. I turned it into a little kit when we traveled south last winter. Now, it's a finished table topper, 26 x 28 inches.

Here's a peek at the back. This will make a nice little table topper for next spring.

It was getting late in the day by then. I wasn't really feeling like doing any more sewing, but I took the time to square up the Santa Quartet and decided on some fabrics to finish it off. I'll give it two borders, and I'll use that same green from the inner border for the binding. 

That shouldn't take long, and I expect to finish the top by day's end.

For my next quilting project, I'll quilt this little "Bunny Bait" quilt. It's another of the projects I kitted up to take south last winter. This was another free pattern from the Sewing Loft. It was intended to be part of a larger quilt, but I just made this one block. It shouldn't take long to quilt it. Already, I have some ideas about what to do with it.

Okay, so let's talk about this mystery trip I keep hinting about. We're still more than a week away from our departure date, but here's where we'll be going. As I believe I've mentioned before, we've lived in Oregon since 1978, but we haven't spent a lot of time sight-seeing in Washington. We’ve visited Washington’s national parks, and we spent a few days in Spokane. Usually when we're traveling in Washington, we're on our way to somewhere else. We decided to stay close to home this time and see more of the sights located within the boundaries of our neighbor to the north.

We're going to do quite a bit of hiking for this trip, and we’ll spend some more time exploring Olympic National Park. We'll also spend some time tide-pooling at one of the beaches on the Olympic peninsula. LaConner, Washington, is on the itinerary at the recommendation of a friend. There's a quilt shop and a quilt museum there. We'll visit some state parks we haven't seen before, and we'll see the Grand Coulee Dam. Mike has seen it before, but I have not. 

There are a couple of other sight-seeing spots on the map, but we'll talk more about those when we reach those destinations. This, of course, is all dependent on the availability of fuel. It seems no one is talking about shortages at the moment, but anything could happen. Also, we'll have to make adjustments for wildfires and poor air quality. The worst fires I've heard about in Washington are well east of where we'll be traveling...for now. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate. At this time of year, anything could happen.

All right. So, it's a new day. It'll be another rainy day, and that's just fine with me. It means any to-do's on my list will be confined to the indoors. Sewing will get a lot of my attention today.

Tales of Tails

Good morning, my friends. Okay, September 1st is over, and on we go with what remains of summer. It was a good day for sewing here. There was enough progress made on the Plaid Cat that I decided to move my hoop. The green stripes on the cat need to be stitched first because the purple stripes are stitched over the top where they intersect. I'd taken the green stripes about as far as I could go without moving to a different position.

It made sense to me to move to where I could stitch the tail.

Smitty helped with that decision.

Smitty will tell you that a cat's tail is its most impurrtant appendage.

Sadie thinks that is purrposterous

If you ask her, she'll tell you that a cat's tail is supurrfluous.

We discussed this while they helped me make September's purple inverted star.

Here are all the stars I have for this quilt so far.

Also, I sewed the binding on Tulip Time. There was no hand-stitching on this, however.

That will happen today. Today I'm going to make some apple-pear chutney. It’s good with pork, and I really love it spread on toasted baguette with a sprinkle of blue cheese. Originally, I found the recipe for this chutney in Marissa McClellan's Food in Jars book. Since I can't find it anywhere else online, I'll give it to you here.

Apple-Pear Chutney

Yield: 6 pints (or 12 half-pints)

Recipe from Marissa McClellan's Food in Jars

Ingredients:

3 Pounds Apples, cored, peeled, and chopped

2 Pounds Pears (preferred Bartlett or D'anjou), cored and chopped

3 Cups Dark Raisins

2 Cups Chopped Yellow Onion (about 2 Medium)

1 Lemon, seeded and finely minced with peel

2 1/2 Cups Apple Cider Vinegar

4 Cups Light Brown Sugar

2 Tablespoons Mustard Seed

3 Whole Cloves

2 Cinnamon Sticks

2 Teaspoons Red Pepper Flakes

5 Garlic Cloves, chopped

1 3-inch Piece of Fresh Ginger, peeled and grated

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a large pot, stir to combine, and bring to a vigorous boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring often, until the mixture has reduced and developed a thick,spreadable consistency, about 2 hours.

After the chutney has cooked for approximately 1 1/2 hours, prepare a boiling water bath and 6 pint jars. Place the lids in a small saucepan, cover them with water, and bring to a simmer over very low heat.

When the chutney is finished cooking, remove the cinnamon sticks and discard. Ladle the chutney into the prepared jars, leaving 1/2-inch of headspace. Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. (Add 5 minutes for each 1,000 feet of elevation.)

* * * * *

The recipe prefers Bartlett or D'anjou pears. I'm using the Asian pears I scored from Erik and Mae. It takes quite some time to cook down to chutney consistency, and that will give me some time to hand-sew the binding on the Tulip Time quilt today. It’s a small quilt, and so possibly I can finish it in a single day.

If there's more time for sewing, I'll get to work sewing the Santa Quartet into a finished quilt top.

After digging through my Christmas fabrics yesterday, I'll admit I'm a little torn about whether to use just reds and whites or whether to include some with more green. I'm leaning toward the latter, but I'll have to wait and see what my hands decide when I get back to it.

So, there's plenty to keep me busy today. I'll admit I'm hoping to finish off the Tulip Time quilt. We'll see how that goes. Chutney is going to take up most of my time today. I’m still hoping to get enough green beans to can some plain old cut green beans, but they aren’t coming in large enough quantities. For now, I’ll be using them for side dishes. The corn will be ready soon too. If I were to get antsy about having fresh corn, I could probably harvest some today. It’ll be better if I wait a few more days, and I’m pulling together my fresh corn recipes in preparation.

In years gone by, we’ve blanched and frozen whole ears. This year, I’ve purchased a special tool (OXO brand) to help me take the kernels off the cob. We’ll have an overabundance, no doubt, and so I’m going to try freezing the kernels (no cob) this year. Usually, we prefer fresh produce, but corn is one of the few vegetables I sometimes buy frozen at the grocery store. It makes sense to freeze our own. For now, I’m focusing on the fresh corn recipes, and we’ll probably have some of that later in the week.

It was a gloomy day yesterday…looking awfully fall-like. If the forecast is to be believed, it’ll be like that through Friday. Next week should be warmer, which is a good thing because I’ll be running back and forth from the house to the RV in preparation for our upcoming trip. And since I know y’all are wondering what kind of clothes you’ll need for this trip, I promise I’ll tell you more about it soon.

For now…off I go. Have a good day, Everybody!

All Tulips, All the Time

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to September. It’s been feeling pretty fall-like here. Gazing out the window this morning, the sky is overcast…or maybe it’s smoke. Skies were smoky yesterday evening from a fire across the valley from us. We’re in no danger where we are, but the smoke was a little eerie when you consider there isn’t a breath of wind.

It was a pretty easy-going day yesterday. There was a quick trip to the grocery store, but I was home by lunchtime. After that, I had the afternoon to sew. The first step was to sandwich Tulip Time for quilting. It’s a small quilt at 26 x 28 inches, and so that was pretty easy.

I might have quilted this on my domestic machine, but the mid-arm was already threaded with the threads I wanted to use, and so the mid-arm was my choice. I quilted some veins into the leaves and just a couple of wavy lines for the stems.

For the flower a little swirl on the sides and a pointy oval with an echo (technical quilting terms) for the center.

And that’s how that looks. All the flowers were done the same way.

For the pinwheels, I did my go-to swirl. Sometimes I make the swirl point in the same direction all around. For this, I had them facing opposite directions to make a little heart shape. In the green borders, I used the motif Lori Kennedy calls “paperclip.” I like this motif, and use it often.

In the outer border, I quilted a ferny leafy feather.

And then, the quilting was finished. It took about two hours.

Here’s a peek at the back.

Now it’s downstairs in the sewing room. I’ve squared it up.

Today I’ll sew on the binding. You can see the binding fabric on the right side of the image below.

It was getting late in the day by then, and so I stopped. I’ll pick it up there this afternoon. This being September, it’s time to choose a project for September’s

We’re going to be traveling this month and part of next month, and so any sewing will be slow-stitching. It seems a good choice to commit to finishing the Plaid Cat in the Garden for September’s goal. There’s a lot of stitching to be done on this piece, but I should be able to finish it before month’s end.

I’m planning to trace the next blocks for the “Snowmen & Reindeer” and for “Home is Where My Flock Is,” and that should keep me busy while we’re traveling. It’s never good when I have a stitching emergency on the road.

Today’s top priority will be to finish the binding on Tulip Time. Possibly, I can finish the hand-sewing too. It’s also time to make September’s purple block for the Inverted Stars project. If I finish September’s block before we go, I won’t fall behind. October’s block can be done after we get back.

When that’s finished, I’m going to finish this table runner for the Santa Quartet. I’ve yet to go pawing through my stash of Christmas fabrics, but I feel fairly certain I can find something appropriate there.

There are a few other things on today’s agenda, but nothing major. It seems a good time to suck up the calm before the storm of packing starts next week. I’m happy to have these smaller projects I can work on for the time being.

Okay, so that’s all I have for you today. I’m looking forward to another easy-going day today. I hope your day is easy-going as well.

Watching Grass Grow

Good morning, my friends. Ahhhhh…what a nice afternoon I had yesterday. In a minute, I’ll tell you what I did[n’t] do. First, let me tell you about the morning. The Plaid Cat got his first stitches. It’s hard to see what I’ve done here, but I stitched all around the edge of the cat, and some of the facial features. 

When I do my usual morning slow-stitching routine, I work with two lengths of floss (usually about 18 inches each). DMC floss comes in six strands, and those are separated into three sets of two strands. (Sometimes I stitch with two sets of three strands.) And when you add that all up…or divide…or whatever (math, who can understand it?)… it ends up being six lengths of floss. It usually takes me about 30-40 minutes. When you look at it in the image above, it doesn’t look like much.

Okay, and I wanted to do some more baking. Mike was given a choice of Zucchini Coffee Cake, Zucchini Coffee Cake Muffins, or Zucchini Bread. He wanted the same muffins I baked last time…The Shipyard Galley's Zucchini Muffins. They are good. They’re made with whole wheat flour, nuts, shredded zucchini and raisins. Mike says they have a good “mouth feel.” 

The last time I baked them, I thought they were a little dry. I’ve noticed that almost every zucchini recipe that starts with shredded zucchini wants you to squeeze the excess water out of them. This recipe didn’t say that, but I did it anyway. This time around, I left all the excess moisture. I’m hoping it will yield a more moist texture.

Okay, so I’ve started two new embroidery projects in quick succession. I’ve been picking through my floss stash, but I needed several different colors. There were four colors for the Plaid Cat alone. Thankfully, it arrived quickly. Combined with the floss from my stash, I needed to wind floss onto six floss bobbins. Ordinarily, I’d do this as I need it for stitching. With so many for the Plaid Cat, I’d be constantly interrupting myself to wind another floss bobbin. Instead, I decided to use a part of my chill afternoon to wind all those bobbins. Watching grass grow would have been more interesting, but it’s nice to have that all done. Now I can stitch, and stitch, and stitch. These are the colors I’m using for the Plaid Cat.

And, hey…after all that, I rewarded myself by spending the rest of the afternoon stitching, and stitching, and stitching. Now I have something to show you.

This is going to be fun. I love all that color.

Okay, so today will be more of a regular day. If I’m going to make apple-pear chutney, I need to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store. That shouldn’t take too long, but I loath anything that forces me to drive somewhere. There’s not much more on the day’s agenda, and so I should have some time for sewing this afternoon. I’d like to get going on the quilting for the Tulip Time table topper mentioned in yesterday’s post. 

This week feels a little like the calm before the storm. We’ll need to get serious about preparing for our trip next week. Part of that involves an appointment for a haircut and one for a pedicure. So the week can get quite hectic. No reason to be getting ahead of myself though. The rest of the coming week will be smooth sailing. Deep breath. Relax.