Maskmaker, Maskmaker, Make Me a Mask

Okay, so you have to be super old to get that title. It's my adaption of a song from Fiddler on the Roof. Please tell me you remember that. And if you're prone to ear worms, as I am, then you'll have one now. You're welcome.

So anyway...masks took up most of my day here at the Three Cats Ranch yesterday. First though, I made another 4 pints of zucchini relish. That's probably all the zucchini relish I'll do this year. I have some other ideas for the zucchini harvest to come.

After that, I got to work re-making a few of our masks. Two of the six I made for Mike and me were the right shape, but I wanted to try adding a wire. Many people have offered up suggestions about how to do this, and I think it kind of comes down to personal preference and supplies on hand. I happened to have some jewelry wire on hand. I had it in two sizes, and I settled on this 22 gauge wire.

It was leftover from a short-lived foray into jewelry making from way back in 2010 when I tried making these little Christmas tree earrings. I actually like the earrings and I wear them at Christmas, but I never did anything else with this.

Someone suggested putting a gold bead where the green meets the red in those. I think that's an excellent idea, but I never went any further with it.

As for the masks, this next one was already made in the shape we like. I've been top-stitching all around the whole mask when I attach the elastic. This one happened to have a wide enough "channel" around the mask that I could poke the wire between the stitching in the seam and thread it through the channel formed by the top-stitching.

It was a little tricky getting it past the center seam, but I got 'er done, through sheer brute strength and dogged determination.

The second mask was stitched too closely, and I couldn't work the wire through. Instead, I used a piece of double-fold bias seam binding to create a little channel and I threaded the wire there. This seam binding has been in my stash literally for decades, and blue was the only color I had. So, yeah, that's what I used.

The color doesn't matter since it's inside the mask. From the outside, it looks like this.

That ended up being my preferred method. 

I wanted to make two more masks for myself using the Creative Grids template. I tried first to make the top-stitched channel, figuring I could always use the seam binding if it didn't work. I'll tell you how I did this, but I don't recommend it. It ended up taking as long to make this mask as it did to do the rest all put together. Either way, I start out top-stitching very close to the edge. 

About an inch in from the side, I veer leftward to about an eighth inch from the edge to form the channel, and then back again when I'm about an inch from the opposite side.

And this would have worked fine, except I had a heck of a time getting the wire pushed through the center seam. I ended up doing the second one using the seam binding, and that would be my preferred method from here on. So here are my three masks. I know...no cats. What the heck is going on here?

So that took up most of the afternoon, but I still finished quilting all the sashings on the Tuxedo Tales quilt. I laid it out for a picture, but the quilting doesn't show up very well in this image.

Here's how it looks from the back. The white speckling seems to be a reflection off the Bottom Line thread. It doesn't look like that in person. And, again, the quilting doesn't show very well.

So now I just need to quilt around the outside edge. I was just getting started and setting it up when I quit for the day. I believe I'll be able to work my way around the whole thing without cutting thread, heading back in the other direction to make the curved line across the top and finish it off. (I hope that makes sense.) Then I'll stitch one straight line in the outer border and it'll be ready for binding. I should be able to get that finished today. As I'm looking at this, I realize I missed a spot where the flying goose is. I'll have to fix that on my way back across.

Sadie chose Mike as her snuggle companion this morning. She was all stretched out and snuggled in when I came upstairs to write this post. She seems completely back to normal after her dental work.

On today's agenda, I'll be making something new with my beets: Red Root Relish. It's made by dicing up the beets and adding them to some shredded red cabbage. Then some spices, and you've got yourself some relish. I haven't made it before, so I hope it's good. Originally, I had in mind to pickle the beets I've harvested, but I already have six jars. It seemed like a good time to try something new. I'll pickle the next batch. That and quilting...oh yes, and maybe some housework...and you have the plan for the day. What do you have planned for your day?

A Woman's Prerogative

Today I've changed my mind about pretty much everything. To be fair, Mike started it. We were supposed to go up to Tacoma on Tuesday to finally pick up the camper we purchased before he got sick. Then, he called the guy this morning and found out that the guy's guy wasn't there on Tuesday. Apparently the guy's guy has to be there to instruct us on the proper loading/unloading/usage of the camper before we can drive it off the lot. So, it was really the guy's fault. I'm not sure which guy, but one of them. And it doesn't really matter because whoever started this totally threw my whole week into a mess. And just let me tell you that this quilting/cooking/housekeeper/cat woman job is pretty darned set in stone, and so it isn't easy for me to shift gears.

Unless, of course, my plan is to work out. Then, it gets a little squishier. But then, you knew I wouldn't work out today, didn't you? You probably guffawed when you read of my plans in yesterday's post. I could hear you laughing all the way from here.

Well, I'm going back to blaming the guy because that is exactly what caused this change of plans. Actually, I prefer going to the pool on Tuesdays and Thursdays because it's less busy. I was only planning to go on Monday because we were going to Tacoma on Tuesday. But now that we're not going to Tacoma on Tuesday, I can go swimming on Tuesday. And besides, Veteran's Day and everything. I realize I'm using an awful lot of words here to explain something simple. That's what one does when one makes excuses. Using lots of words confuses people, and they forget that you're making excuses for your shortcomings.

But that's okay because I made up for not working out by baking these Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls. Makes sense, right? Don't work out, bake something fattening. I knew you'd see it my way. I used the recipe I found on Taste and Tell. I was a little worried about them because the dough was very soft and sticky, which made it hard to work with. Still, I just now took them out of the oven, and they're looking pretty good.

And they're smelling absolutely heavenly. And I figure, they have a can of pumpkin, so it's really sort of like eating a vegetable, right? I'm so glad we agree on so many things.

They still need to cool and then, I'll frost them. Sort of makes me want to go to bed right away so I can get up and have one for breakfast in the morning. On the other hand, one for dessert tonight will work just fine. As I said, I'm doing penance for not working out today.

And that's about all I did today. I had to make a quick trip to the grocery store. I went grocery shopping right before Mike got sick, and then didn't use some of the perishable ingredients. Those sort of went bad, and so I needed to replenish some things so that I can continue on with my planned menu of two weeks ago. I was going to start on the next door of the Doors of Ireland quilt, but then, I wasn't happy with the fabric I had chosen for the wall.

So I changed my mind about that and went in search of a better fabric, which I found at Quilter's Warehouse. This is what I selected:

It's a pretty good likeness, don't you think? It's much better than the one I had pulled from my stash. Now I have to wait for it to arrive. That means I'll start on the next Folk Art Cat, another project that's been languishing in my sewing room for a long time.

I haven't worked on this for so long that I can't remember where I left off. I think I'm doing the block in the upper left-hand corner, but it might be the middle one of the top row.

So here's the other thing I changed my mind about today. Have you heard that the Blog Hop Party with Giveaways is coming up on the 21st of November? I mentioned last week that I was planning to hold a giveaway generously sponsored by Classic Metal Company. Now that I know about the party, I'm going to hold off until then.

So how did you exercise your prerogative today? And, hey, if I'm exercising my prerogative to change my mind, then maybe I can count that as a workout after all! I knew you'd see it my way. That's why we're friends.

Sew and Sew Sunday

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Last night's dinner was a complete success, and we had a very enjoyable time with our friends.  It had been quite some time since we'd seen them, and so we enjoyed catching up.

The food all worked out, and I especially liked the Margarita Grilled Shrimp marinade I used.

(image credit)

If you're looking for something quick and showy for a summer meal, it's a great choice.  The recipe landed in my email inbox just last week before I'd decided on the menu.  It looked like a good and easy main course, and so I decided to give it a try.  When I went to the grocery store, I found cleaned large shrimp already skewered in the seafood freezer, so it really couldn't have been any easier unless someone else made it. In a way, someone else did. Some packing house somewhere made the skewers, and Mike grilled them.  All that was left for me to do was mix up the marinade and get it ready to go.  

I did make one change to the recipe: I substituted a quarter teaspoon of Tabasco for the 1/4 teaspoon of ground red pepper.  I'm not a fan of cilantro most of the time, but in this case, I let the shrimp marinate for three hours.  I think that gave the cilantro time to mellow out a little because I didn't notice its flavor overpowering the dish.

So this morning I was dead tired because I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep.  On my best nights I'm only good for about six hours of sleep, but this fell far short of that.  Nevertheless, I was awake and got up around 5:00 a.m., no less tired than I was when I woke up an hour earlier.  I sat and worked on my embroidery for quite some time.

It's getting close to being finished now.  Lots of stitching in this one, and I am so glad I didn't have to trace all of those little spokes on the motorcycle wheels.  When it's all finished, I'll dunk it and give the Sticky Fabri-Solvy its final test on whether it's a great product, or a dud.  So far, I'm thinking it's a great product, but the final analysis will be in how easily it rinses away from my stitching.

There are a couple of moments in sewing, I've realized, when you know you are close to finishing something and you are propelled forward by the momentum.  One of those is when, as here, I've moved the hoop for the last time, and the entire remainder of the design can be contained within the entire hoop.  In this case, there is just a smidge of the "S" in "Motorcycles" that is outside the stitching area, but it's pretty darned close. 

The other time like this that I've identified is when I have enough binding clips to clip the remainder of a quilt binding that needs to be hand sewn.  I only have enough clips to go so far, and then I have to clip more as I move around the binding.  (I hope you know what I'm talking about.)  These are the clips.

At some point, I clip the last of the binding, and there are still clips left in the box.  That's when I know I'm almost finished and I am propelled forward by the momentum.  These are monumental observations, as I'm sure you will agree.  And if you don't know what I'm talking about, then you'll probably be saying to yourself, "That woman really needs to get more sleep."

So once I'd had enough embroidery, I went outside to see what Mike and the cats were up to.  Mike was busy doing some badly-needed pruning.  He fertilized the tomatoes today too. They haven't grown in as lush and thick as last year's crop did, and I'm not sure why.  

It could be that they simply need more fertilizer.  It could also be a case of too much water. We've turned down the length of time they are watered, since they are set up on a timer. Also, they could have some sort of fungus.  We're trying different things, but it has become clear that I am not going to have enough tomatoes ripening at the same time to do the level of canning I want to do.  Do you see the plant at the end of the walk...it's the one in the upper right-hand corner of the image above.  See how yellow it is?  And it has only produced one green tomato so far.  We are especially suspicious that too much water is its problem since it is at the literal beginning of the water stream.

Still, there are quite a few ripe tomatoes, as you can see.  I'm just probably going to have to supplement them with some from the farmer if I want to make salsa and pasta sauce.  Which I do.  That means I need to get busy getting some on order because I'm going to need quite a few.  Despite my worries about the health of the tomatoes, I am getting some nice ones. Gracie is impressed by the one in the image below.

["Patooooie!  Silly, lady.  Cats do not like tomatoes.  Sheesh.  You'd think you'd never been owned by a cat before.  Haven't you learned anything?"]

The dahlias have started blooming.  These bulbs were a gift from our former neighbor, and the flowers are huge!

Also, the hydrangeas are very pretty this year.

So once I'd wandered around outside for a while, I went into the sewing room to do some sewing.  Next weekend, my friend Carla is coming to the Three Cats Ranch B&B for the weekend.  Carla is the friend that Lisa and I had lunch with during Lisa's visit.  Carla lives literally in downtown Portland, and I invited her out to the country for a weekend of peace and quiet with the promise of her own room and bathroom.  She jumped at the opportunity.

Carla is the one in the middle.  The three of us went to high school together in Vista, California, and we were all in the band. Lisa and Carla played flute, and I played alto clarinet. Those were fun times, but when they were over, we scattered like seeds in the wind. Lisa married first and moved away to Arizona (I think) with her chef-to-be husband.  Carla was the best student among us, and she ended up going to some pretty fancy schmancy colleges.  Me, I married three years after high school and, in time, moved away to Oregon. Lisa and I found one another quite a few years ago, and Carla and I got reaquainted after she moved to Oregon a few years back.  For whatever reason, we're only just now getting serious about rekindling our friendship from decades ago.

So all of that to say that last summer, Carla asked if I would teach her to quilt.  She was half-joking at the time, but never joke like that with a quilter.  Am I right about that?  "Of course!"   I jumped at the opportunity to mold a new quilter in my own image...which is something of a frightening thought, but there it is laid out for you.  Don't tell the quilt police, okay?

My first quilt was a nine-patch and rail set on point, which was a good learning quilt.  I learned a lot about quilting from that one single quilt.  Here it is:

My first quilt took several weeks to construct, and I learned it over three classes.  I was looking for a project that would teach Carla the same things I learned from this quilt, but could also be done in a matter of days or hours.  I settled on this little doll quilt that I made several years ago.  It was the first doll quilt I ever swapped. I called it "Lime-Ade".

I used a free pattern I found on the internet, not that you need a pattern for this.  Beware though, the internet pattern has quite a few errors in it.  Anyway, this pattern has the same elements my first quilt had, and we should be able to make them up to the point of hand sewing the binding during her weekend stay with me. Doesn't that sound like fun?  I think so. I'm really looking forward to her visit.

Also, since I'll be making a quilt along with her, I'm taking the opportunity to make a doll quilt for another friend who lives in Colorado.  Karen and I used to share office space when I was a working person.  After she moved to Colorado, she had a baby girl who is now about four years old, I think.  I asked her what her daughter liked and what her favorite colors were. She told me she likes blue and pink and Hello Kitty.  So I'll be making the same quilt Carla is making, and I'll be using these fabrics.

I purchased a yard of that Hello Kitty fabric, but the rest are all from my stash.  I'll use Hello Kitty for the borders and the back, and I'll use the other colors in the nine-patches.  I think it will be cute.

So once I had pulled the fabrics for that little quilt, I went to work on one of my August goals.  I made the two apple blocks for the Debbie Mumm "Mumm's the Word" sampler.  And I don't know when I've made so many mistakes on such simple blocks.  What I didn't cut wrong, I sewed together wrong.  And what I didn't sew together wrong, I just plain messed up.  Sheesh.  My sleep-deprived brain was really showing on these.  They worked out okay eventually, but it required a lot of swearing.  I don't know about you, but salty language is just what the doctor ordered sometimes.  These blocks have been on my to-do list since June, and so it's good to be able to cross them off. 

Here's what the whole quilt will look like when I'm finished.

The next time I work on it, I'll make the two fish blocks that you see kind of right in the middle of the quilt.

Once I had those done, I was tempted to get to work on the little ladies for my Rainbow Scrap quilt.  I need to make two months' worth of those blocks, teal from last month and red for August.  I have my fabrics picked out now.

These blocks have a paper-pieced section, and they use a lot of little pieces.  Given my experience with the two apple blocks, I decided a nap was in order before I did any more sewing.  And that's what I did.

And now it's dinner time, and that's all I was able to muster in the sewing room today.  It's enough.  The nap felt good too.  There's always tomorrow.  I'm going to have to pick up some things for dinner tomorrow, but otherwise, it's going to be pretty much a sewing day all day.

It was a good weekend at the Three Cats Ranch.  I hope you had a good weekend too.

Doll Quilt from Merry Olde England

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Late yesterday I received the sweetest doll quilt from Margaret in England.  International swaps are so much fun.  Margaret's quilt is hand quilted, no less!

She also sent this postcard of the hot air balloon fiesta in Bristol.  This is why I love swapping internationally so much.  People always send something representative of their country, which makes it extra special. 

Also, she sent these lovely earrings, which she made herself, including the beautiful clay baubles.  I am very fond of these sorts of earthy things, and these will get worn again and again.

Muv was generous enough to volunteer to be my partner when my assigned partner went MIA.  Thank you, Muv. 

Something Not Sewing

This is my first try at these Green Wire Christmas Tree earrings.  I found the tutorial at About.com.  They're not too bad for a first try, I guess.  I've never done any kind of jewelry making or wire work before.  I'd like to get them a little more even next time.  I'm curious what you think.  Would you want to receive these as a hand-made gift?  Or are they too silly?  And just so you can give me your honest opinion, I'm going to set up a poll at the top of my left side bar so you can vote--anonymously.  Honestly, you won't hurt my feelings if you don't like them.

They weren't too difficult to make.  I had a little trouble where, in step 3, the tute says to

 "grasp the curled wire with nylon-nose pliers, and use your fingers to form the wire into a coil." 

I grasped the wire as tightly as I could, and all I could do was spin it around within the pliers.  I couldn't get it to coil until I set the pliers down and just did the whole thing with my fingers.  I used the nylon-nose pliers to flatten the coil out occasionally, but otherwise, I thought it was much easier to do it with my fingers.  I had a little trouble grabbing hold of the inner most part of the coil when I was ready to pull on them to make them into trees.  However, once I got a grip on it, they were fairly easy to pull evenly. 

As I look at this image, I can see that one is a little longer than the other.  Also, the red ear hook on the left isn't nice and flat like the one on the right.  That's because I neglected to print the part of the tutorial that showed me how to make an ear hook.  I had to keep bending and straightening the wire, obviously, with limited success.

So that's my new thing today.  It was kind of fun to do something other than sew for a change.  I think I'll keep practicing on these and see if I can get them to look more like the ones in the tute.

Don't forget to vote in the poll.  What do you think?  Great?  Meh?  Please be honest.