A Celebratory Day

Good morning, my friends. It was kind of a lazy day yesterday. For one thing, we were both awake very early...during the 4:00 a.m. hour. I don't know about you, but if I wake up any time after 4:00 a.m., my brain is off and running, and I can't get back to sleep. While I was doing my slow-stitching yesterday morning, I could swear I fell asleep mid-stitch, and just kept on stitching. So, when Mike went back to bed for a morning nap, I just slid down on the couch where I was sitting and went back to sleep too. And don't think for even two seconds that a morning nap negates the need for an afternoon nap too. That's right...it was a two-nap day. We're old.

When I woke up from my morning nap, I went straight to work on the Espresso Iced Oatmeal Crunch Cookies. They aren't hard to make...no mixers required...but they do take some time. The dough is rolled into logs, and then refrigerated for at least an hour before they're sliced into cookie rounds and baked. After that, they need to cool completely before the icing can be added. When I was finished, they looked like this. 

Oh yes, and I must point out that Mike stole one of the cookies before I took this picture. He thought he was being sneaky. So...here's the thing: This is a test recipe from America's Test Kitchens, and so I'm not supposed to share the recipe. But I can't prevent the person at this email from sharing it. From here, I disavow any knowledge of what happens if you send a message to that person.

While I waited for the cookies to do one thing or another, I filled the bird feeders and took a look at the flowers. The potted snap dragons are making a comeback. These were planted several years ago, but they come back year after year.

The Garden Treasures peony is nearly open. I expect it will open all the way today. We're expecting rain today and tomorrow, so I hope it doesn't ruin the flowers. The sun is shining right at the moment, but rain is supposed to start within the hour.

Also, the Fairy Princess peony at the other end of the flower bed is close to opening. This one is covered in buds, and they will all open together. It's gorgeous when it's in full bloom. And...again...I'm hoping the rain doesn't do it in.

Back inside and still waiting on the cookies, I spent some time stitching the quilt binding. I've turned the first corner, and I'm about halfway across one of the long sides. 

Also, I'm modifying my quilt-all-the-quilts-if-it-kills-me rule. Since I want to keep things moving along in the sewing room too, I'm going to work on just one quilt...quilting and binding...at a time. I was trying to sew the binding on the Merry, Merry Snowmen, and also make progress quilting the Homestead quilt. It left me no time to accomplish anything in the sewing room. Now, I'm going to work on one quilting project at a time...quilt it and bind it...before I start on the next quilt in line for quilting. And there's no reason you need to know any of that, but it's important to keep the rule book up-to-date. Wouldn't you agree?

So...no quilting was accomplished, but I did finish the fifth block for the fifth row of the Stair Steps quilt. This one has a blue diagonal.

Today, I'll sew all five blocks together and then add row five to the rest of the quilt.

It's one of those days when I'll make dinner early in the day today. It kind of turns things around when I'm making dinner in the morning, but it means a longer sewing day.

From here on, I'm going to tell you about our dinner last night. If you're not into those food photos, please feel free to jump off here. No hard feelings. We had our celebratory dinner at the Portland City Grill, which is on the 30th floor of the building you see in the image below. That's the US Bank Tower, affectionately known in these parts as "Big Pink."

We always like to sit by the window here, and so we were offered a table in the lounge, or we could wait for a table to open up in the dining room. We figure we make good lounge lizards, and so the lounge it was. This was the view from our table. Portland is a beautiful city. Do not believe what The Orange One says about our fair city. It is not a war zone. The storefronts are not boarded up.

Looking through the window a little to the east of us, we could see Mt. Hood.

And there we are...just a couple of old codgers who never gave up on one another. Not yet, anyway.

When we go to this restaurant, I always order a Cosmopolitan. It seems appropriate somehow. Mike always orders what we refer to as "brown liquid."

We also brought a bottle of wine from home. They charge us $20 to open the bottle. If we bought this bottle in the restaurant, we would probably pay north of $100 for it. I can assure you that we did not pay that much.

And we're very good at math, Mike being an engineer and all. We wanted the lobster bisque. We could each order a 6 oz. cup for $12 apiece, or we could share a 12 oz. bowl for $14. We went for the latter because, being old, we are also cheapskates.

For dinner, we each chose the "Seafood Trio." (Yes, we each had our own plate for this.) On the left is a Dungeness crab cake, in the middle some shrimp, and on the right, some salmon with a butter beurre blanc. It came with Yukon Gold mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

We each ordered dessert, but this slice of red velvet cake was served gratis. (I just love having a fuss made over me, don't you?)

Mike ordered the New York style cheesecake.

I had the butterscotch bread pudding. So perfectly icky and yummy.

So that's it. Another one bites the dust. All we can say is that we hope we can keep our health and celebrate again next year.

Okay. That's all I have for you today. Time to get back to my slow-stitching, and my morning efforts at dinner-making. I'll work at making some more progress around the quilt binding, and I'll get the fifth row sewn onto the Stair Steps quilt. 

Next up in the sewing room will be to make another row for the "Jawbreakers" quilt. You might recall that I finished the Gumballs quilt top a while back...

and then went straight to work making the same quilt in a different colorway. I'll get started on the second row of these green-blue-aqua blocks today.

Just now, Smitty walked across my keyboard to let me know he requests my presence at the closed door. He would like it opened now, please. I guess I'd better go. Mustn't disappoint the boss.

Sitting and Stitching

Good morning, my friends. It's probably our last day of good weather here. We're told it will rain tomorrow. I have plenty of slow-stitching to keep me busy for the next several days. Yesterday, I stitched far enough on the Santa Quartet to decide to move my hoop to encompass the last of it.

Probably I have a couple of days left on the Santas, but I decided to trace the next 12 Tiny Treasures. I'm drawing lines to designate 2-1/2 squares for this, and then I center the design within the square.

It's hard to see in that image, and so here's a picture from the book. These are the Tiny Treasures I'll be stitching this time around. When they're finished, I will have completed 60 of the 72 included in the book. 

After that, I was ready to sew the binding on the Homestead quilt. But, uh-oh. There seems to be an impawdiment to purrogress.

I was able to ply him with catnip, but when I tried to spread it out for squaring it up...oh no! The quilt inspector is here!

There was another delay while the quilt inspector did her work, but eventually, I was able to get the binding sewn on. 

Now it's clipped and draped over a chair downstairs, awaiting my needle and thread action.

Okay, and with that finished, I was able to complete another block for the Stair Steps project. There is one more block to make for this go-round, and then one more row when it comes around again. This has been a great scrap buster, but I'll be glad when the blocks are all finished.

My last gasp in the sewing room was to trim and sort the leaders and enders I made while I was sewing together the pieces for the quilt block. I took a break from these for a few days. The sewing I was doing wasn't particularly conducive to sewing leaders and enders.

Okay, and so I took a little walk around outside after that. I noticed the Garden Treasures peony is close to opening. I expect we'll see this one by this afternoon.

I was out collecting lavender springs for our first Bees Knees of the season. Can summer be far behind? These are a little darker in color than usual. They're mixed with a simple syrup made from lavender blossom tea and honey. I used 100% clover honey for these, and it's a little darker in color than the honey I get at the grocery store.

And, oh my goodness. These children are celebrating 51 years of marriage today. Good grief. Where did the time go? We'll celebrate with dinner out tonight.

Okay, so my knee is feeling good enough this morning that I think I can safely resume some sort of exercise. I'm thinking the Bow-flex will get my attention today. No excuses. There's nothing else on the calendar, but I have in mind to bake some cookies. Back in December, I tested a cookie recipe for America's Test Kitchens. Their Espresso Iced Oatmeal Crunch Cookies are destined to appear in a new book tentatively titled "Cookie Swap." Just now I checked to see if they'd published the book yet. It appears not, and so I still can't share the recipe. Bummer. In any case, the cookies were good enough that I've wanted to make them again. Today seems like a good day for that. Aside from that, I'm going to spend the day sewing...mostly slow-stitching, but I'm going to endeavor to get the last Stair Step block finished too.

Enjoy your long weekend, my friends. Time for me to get on with my day. There's lots of slow-stitching ahead.

Binding Ahead

Good morning, my friends. Another one bites the dust. I'm happy to say the quilting is finished for the Homestead quilt. When I sat down at the machine yesterday, just the outer border remained. As I've said before, I try to learn something from every quilt. From this one, I learned that choosing a dark color thread on light fabrics probably isn't a good idea. As I quilted some of the blocks for this quilt, I thought the dark blue thread overwhelmed the design of the quilt block. Originally, I had in mind to do something traditional in the border...a feather. As I thought more about it, I worried it would be too much and too dense. Instead, I chose this motif called "Infinite Stacked Curls."

It was something I saw on Pinterest. You can find the video right here:

It was an easy design to do, and less dense than a feather would have been. So, I was happily quilting along. When I had this much left to do, I ran out of bobbin thread. Of course, I did.

And I was really "out" of bobbin thread, having wound the last of it already.

No worries. I used the same thread used on the quilt top. The colors were close enough anyone would be hard pressed to see the change. After a delay to unthread, wind a bobbin, and rethread the machine, I had myself a finished quilt. This was my Rainbow Scrap project for 2023. It's good to have it nearly done.

Here's a little peek at the back.

And, of course, it's not "finished" being finished until the binding is sewn on. I'll use that same blue used in the sashings. Today's goal will be to get the machine sewing done. I'll work on the hand-sewing over the next several days.

While I was finishing off the quilting, I had a Cherry Crisp in the oven. As I've mentioned, I had several jars of homemade sweet cherry pie filling I was trying to use up. This polished off the last jar. The pie filling was spread across the bottom, and then a nice crunchy topping added to the top. Then it baked for 30 minutes. We enjoyed that with a scoop of vanilla ice cream last night.

It seemed like a good time to take a walk outside. I noticed the annuals are making a comeback after being eaten by squirrels in the first hour after I planted them.

And wow...the peonies are outdoing themselves this year. These are just two of the five plants...Coral Sunset on the right, Joker on the left. 

The Lavender Whisper is bloomed out for the season, but I'm still waiting for two more. The buds are showing their colors, and so I'm hoping these warm weather days will get them over the top.

The Edda clematis is starting to open more. I'm expecting this to be covered in purple flowers within the next several days.

Oh, and finally...some flowers on the cherry tomato. This one has taken its sweet time.

In my wanderings, I noticed the squirrel dining hall. They eat the birdseed and then leave their droppings. Messy critters.

I captured Sadie settling in for a morning sunbath. When you're a black cat, you purrfur to do your sunbathing in the shade. Besides, it's important to guard against skin cancers...especially basal cell catcinoma. (And Sadie would like you to know that she would make a better HHS secretary than you know who.)

Back inside, I went to work on the purple Stair Steps block. Three of five are complete now. 

Smitty helped with that. 

The next one will be pink. I'm hoping to get another one finished today, but getting the Homestead binding sewn on will take priority.

Finally, we looked out the window this morning to see that the poppy had popped! Yay!

It was pretty with the sun shining through its petals.

Okay, and that brings me to this morning. I'll get to work on that quilt binding today, and I'll try to get another Stair Steps block made. I haven't checked today's calendar, but I don't remember having anything else going on. I'd say I'm going to get in a workout of some kind, but I'm still resting my knee. It's feeling quite a bit better this morning.

Next up for quilting will be The Story of My Day. I'll probably do this one as a timed project since the design I'm planning is more of an all-over design. I'm thinking 30-45 minutes per session. I can set a timer and quilt until it goes off. It will probably take several days at that rate, which will give me time to finish the binding on Homestead.

Our weather has been lovely the past few days. We're told the rain will return on Monday, and so it's probably a good idea to get outside while the getting is good. Oh yes...I took a little walk around the vegetable garden yesterday and found that all the little seedlings have survived the transplanting process. Hopefully, nothing will eat them.

So with that, I'll get back to my slow-stitching. Time to get on with my day, and I'll leave you to your day. Make it a good one.