Sunday Sevens 01-03-16

Tags

2015 FAL, cats, cooking, quilting, recipe, sewing, Sunday Sevens

A pretty quiet week here, and mostly inside as it has been cold and nasty outside (currently 17F and snowing).

I had some sad-looking pears hanging around, so I combined them with some apples and made Rum-Raisin Apple Butter for the freezer.

I won a book!

I entered a giveaway at Sew Mama Sew and won this book.  So many cool ideas in here!

I made pattern weights!

This was a fun project for an evening when I wasn’t feeling very well and just wanted to sew without too much hard thinking.  My intention starting out was to make 6 or so, but before I knew it I had 14 and had used up most of this leftover flannel.

A tightly-woven quilting cotton would probably have been a better choice for these, but the fabric’s been hanging around in the stash for a while and I wanted to use it.

Pooh was after me for cuddles while I was trying to get photos, so he got put to work as a model.

You can tell he’s not at all sure about this modeling business.

For those following along at home, this is my 4th completed project for the 2015 Finish-Along.

Saturday was a big mail day here–look what came!

And my Xmas present!

WOOT!

So much sewing is going to happen around here!

Have a great week, everybody!

(And many thanks to Natalie at Threads and Bobbins for piloting the Sunday Sevens mother ship.  Check out her blog to see how you can join in!)

STH

 

 

Sunday Sevens 12-27-15

Tags

cats, cooking, Cool Cottons, Oregon, Oregon Zoo, Portland, recipe, Sunday Sevens, travel, Wood Memorial Park

Thanks go to Natalie at Threads and Bobbins for coming up with Sunday Sevens, a sort-of-weekly series in which we share some pictures of what we’ve been up to.

Here’s what’s been happening here over the last couple of weeks.

It has been COLD and occasionally snowy here–a real winter, as opposed to what we had last year–and the whole family has been enjoying sitting by the fire in the mornings.

(Not shown:  the wrestling match that followed this sweet moment by about 30 seconds.)

Last weekend, we were in Portland so that my partner could do the Solstice Ride on Saturday night–13 1/2 hours of cold, rain, and wind on brightly lit and decorated bikes.  I expected him to sleep through most of Sunday after all that hard work, but he got up and went to lunch with me, and then we took a walk through another one of Portland’s amazing parks, Wood Memorial.

It looks a bit soggy here, because by that point, there had been 19 straight days of rain in the area.

That evening, we went to the ZooLights event at the Oregon Zoo.  Spectacular, but so crowded, cold, and wet!

On Monday morning, we headed to Cool Cottons to use my gift certificate from my mother.  SO MANY BEAUTIFUL THINGS–we especially loved all the sciencey fabrics!–but I had my heart set on dark, intensely colored fabric for a dress.  The one on the left is for a shirt for my honey.

Another gift–my partner’s sister knitted us socks and cowls.  These are mine; his are a beautiful blue heathery wool.

I tried my hand at making a traditional Christmas cake this year (a.k.a., fruitcake).  Verdict:  partner loved it and said it gave him flashbacks to childhood Christmases spent at his grandparents’ house in Scotland.  Personally, it was too much concentrated sugar for me; as dried fruit desserts go, I much preferred the Ecclefechan Tart I made for Thanksgiving.

The other new recipe I tried for Xmas dinner was Yorkshire Pudding, a special request from my honey.  They were easy to make and tasty, but I did manage to set off several smoke alarms in the house in the process of making them, and then had to clean the oven the next day.

Hmmm . . . not sure that one will get made again. 

We’ve had such a fun couple of weeks here, I’m a bit sorry to say goodbye to the Xmas season.  Time to finish up the last few projects of 2015, though, and look ahead to the new year.

STH

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Sunday Sevens, 12-06-15

Tags

2015 FAL, cats, cooking, CozyAfternoonQuilt, quilting, recipe, sewing, Sunday Sevens

I’m back!

I took a little not-really-planned hiatus from the blog for a couple of weeks, but now I’m back.  Plenty has been happening, but I haven’t really had the energy to write about it.  I’ll try to hit the highlights for ya–lots of pics ahead!

1.  First, and most important, my mother’s carpet has been replaced!

Just to recap:  my mother’s quite elderly cat died recently, so it was time to replace the carpet in most of my mother’s house and, hopefully, get rid of the smell the cat had left behind.  This involved packing up 20 years of my mother’s junk (I’ll just say that she does not throw things away, and let you imagine what that means over 20 years), completely emptying the worst room so the subfloor could be replaced, emptying the rest of the rooms, replacing the carpet over two days, then putting everything back.

2.  The day we moved all the furniture back in happened to be Small Business Saturday, so I got myself a little reward for all my hard work:  fabric remnants on sale at SCRAP Tri-Cities.

You have never seen anyone get so excited about fabric scraps in your life.

I am such a dork.

3.  Thanksgiving happened in the middle of all this contractors-and-cat-pee madness.  My honey and I went to the local buffet, as usual, and ate too much, then took a walk along the river.  Cold, but sunny, day.

A good effort, considering how little raw material there was to work with.

4.  Winter arrived suddenly, with cold, cold temps and a little snow, so I’m getting back into cold-weather cooking.  This meal was so good, I made it twice in one week:  roasted potatoes on left, chicken sausage and roasted veg on the right.

5.  I finished the Cozy Afternoon runner, and in time to enter it in the contest!  The process of finishing it felt like such a hard, slow slog, but getting it done gave me such a boost.

ETA:  this is finish #3 for the 2015 Finish-Along.

The Quilt As You Go method that I used on this was such a big help; I will definitely use that again.  There are different ways to do it, but the method I chose (one of four from the book “Divide and Conquer”) basically involves leaving an unquilted border around your sections, then sewing together just the edges of the top.  Press open, then butt the batting edges and hand sew.  Finish by folding under the raw edge of the backing and blind-stitching it down; then you can finish up your quilting.

I’m really enjoying having this on my table.

6.  I put the Christmas tree up over Thanksgiving weekend and the cats are having such fun with it.  Every morning I put all the ornaments back on the bottom third of the tree and every night they pull them off and bat them around.

7.  I had a moment of geekery on Friday and had to whip this up.

I had a bit of garam masala and a bit of pumpkin pie spice, so I used a combination and I really liked it, but my honey found it reminded him a little too much of curry.  If you make it, try a different glaze recipe, as the proportions are off and the glaze doesn’t work as written; also, this thing is HUGE, so consider making a half recipe if you don’t have an army to feed.

Oh, I have more pictures, but that’s enough for one week!  I’m working away at my honey’s wool cycling jacket, so I’ll have an update on that soon, and I also plan to get started on my Willara tunic this week.

Have a great week, everybody, and happy Hannukah to those who celebrate it!

STH

ETA:  I have linked the table runner up to Scraptastic Tuesday over at She Can Quilt.  Thank you to Nicky for reminding me to link to it here!

 

Sunday Sevens, 11-01-15: Appliance Attrition Edition

Tags

cooking, CozyAfternoonQuilt, quilting, recipe, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing, Sunday Sevens

Sunday Sevens is a weekly series in which we share some pictures from our week and yak a bit about what we’ve been up to between blog posts.  See Natalie from Threads and Bobbins for more info.

Just a few photos for you today–it has been a MOST un-photogenic week around these parts.  A lot of time was spent running down boxes for my mother to pack her stuff in for the carpet installation.  Then she discovered that her water heater was leaking, so a day was spent going through the contents of the closet and tearing out moldy carpet.  The whole week has felt like a bit of a struggle, to be honest.

But enough about that, let’s get to the important stuff:  FALL PASTA.  I’m in full fall cooking mode now and wanting all the hearty pastas and soups I’ve been avoiding all summer.  This was a delicious dinner and helped clean out the vegetable bin; I also threw in some Italian sausage, and we both gobbled it down.

I appear to have acquired another project (just what I needed).  I grabbed this wool suiting at SCRAP ($15 for 3 1/2 yards with my volunteer discount!) with the idea of making some sort of cycling jacket for my honey with it.

My initial thought was to surprise him with it for Xmas, but I remembered how particular he is about his cycling clothing–and couldn’t come up with a way of getting his measurements without him noticing–and decided to do it with his input.

He ended up being quite excited by the project and I’ve ordered Kwik Sew 4017 to use as a basis for the jacket.  It’s going to need several changes, though . . . this could turn out to be quite an ambitious project.  Adding zippers to welt pockets–um, there’s gotta be a YouTube tutorial somewhere, right?

On Saturday, my partner and I had planned to take another hike with the MeetUp group, this time up Badger Mountain and IN COSTUME.  Alas, though, the weather turned out to be just ghastly–rain showers and wind of 30 miles per hour–so we decided to skip it.  That left time for sewing, though.

I’ve been stuck on the next step of my Cozy Afternoon table runner, as I was a little intimidated by doing setting triangles for the first time.  I set a goal to have the top done by the end of the week, though, so I finally pushed myself to work on it on Saturday.  It’s been slow going with all kinds of problems–triangles too small, fabric shortages, etc., etc.–but I got the sashing on and the whole thing pieced together.

Here’s part of it before I got it sewed together:

That’s just part of it, because this sucker is HUGE.  My table is 6 feet long, and the runner hangs over the edges.  The top is in two pieces now, and I think I’m going to try to QAYG so that quilting it is less of a wrestling match.

The good news, though, is that the farther I get on it, the more I like it.  I just love those colors against the wood of the table, and I think the finished runner is going to be beautiful.

Plans for this week:  get outside, now that the wind has finally died down.  Appliance shopping, as in addition to my mother’s water heater, our stove also met its maker and our microwave is on its way out as well.  Oh, and my iron died today, too.

On the bright side, I plan to make myself a turkey tee this week.  Because I just happen to have a happy yellow sweatshirt that I’ve been meaning to refashion and happy yellow is exactly what I need right now.

Have a great week, everybody.

STH

Sunday Sevens 10-18-15

Tags

cats, Chamna Nature Preserve, Columbia Park, cooking, Kennewick, Richland, Sunday Sevens

Sunday Sevens is a weekly post where we share some photos from our week and yak a bit about what we’ve been up to.  It’s fun and you should join us!  See Natalie over at Threads and Bobbins for more info.

My favorite dinner this week was actually a brinner:  breakfast burritos.  Spicy sausage, scrambled eggs, sauteed veg, cheese, a little fresh tomato and green onion on top, and leftover guacamole.

SO GOOD.

I took a walk in Columbia Park this week and had to get a picture of all the geese.  Please note that they are standing under a “don’t feed the birds” sign because THAT’S WHERE THE MORONS ALWAYS FEED THEM–right under the sign.

*facepalm*

(They were actually edging away from me when I took this, as they’d decided I was a little bit too close and didn’t appear to be packing snacks.)

And then there was this guy.

Yes, the squirrels have the morons pretty well figured out as well.

Butterick patterns were on sale this week, so picked up this one I’ve been eyeing for a while.  Lots of interesting possibilities for mixing and matching knits here.

I feel like I might be falling a little bit in love with sewing knits after pretty much diligently avoiding them for years.

On Saturday, I went on another MeetUp walk, this time to Chamna Natural Preserve in Richland.  Fun time–cool autumn morning with sunshine, some nice people, TWO dogs to pet, AND my honey came along, too.  🙂

That afternoon, after puttering around uselessly for hours without getting anything done, I finally gave in and took a nap with the cats.

Notice that there’s no room for me on MY side of the bed because it’s full of cats.  I had to steal a quilt off the couch and sleep on the other side.  Shelby is deeply suspicious of people sleeping on the wrong side of the bed, but Pooh’s just happy to be taking a nap with his mom.

Busy week ahead.  I’ve finished the birthday present, so now it’s on to the Cozy Afternoon runner (well, after some mending–bleh).  Birthday festivities are happening Thursday, then we’re off to Portland on Friday for another bike ride and another potluck.

Have a great week, everybody.

STH

Sunday Sevens 10-11-15

Tags

Bateman Island, cooking, Kennewick, recipe, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing, Sunday Sevens, swears, Washington

Sunday Sevens is a series of weekly posts with seven-ish pictures from our week.  See Natalie at Threads and Bobbins for more info and please feel free to join us if you’d like to.

Running a little late this week–low on inspiration today after a week of ups and downs.

My mother’s quite elderly cat died recently, so my sister and I have been helping her (my mother, not the late cat) get estimates to have most of the carpet in her house replaced (yes, the late cat was one of those).

This process is exactly as enjoyable as used-car shopping; you have literally no idea what the hell you’re doing, and you’re pretty sure you’re getting screwed, but you feel powerless to prevent it.  :S

I spent some time this week finishing up the prep for my class at SCRAP Tri-Cities scheduled for Thursday–made kits for the students, wrote up a handout in case we weren’t able to finish during the class time, prepped demonstration materials, etc.

Thursday afternoon came, I loaded up the car with all my gear, and I headed down there.

And nobody showed up to take the class.

Sigh.

I was determined not to let it bring me down, though, so I stayed until closing, pricing stamps and chatting with Rachael and another volunteer.  It wasn’t the best day I’ve ever had, but I’m proud of myself for not letting it put me into a depressed funk.

GO ME

Friday afternoon was spent working on my honey’s birthday present.  Almost finished and I’m really liking it.  Here’s a sneak preview:

On Saturday, I hauled my butt out again to another MeetUp, this time a walk on Bateman Island.  Met some nice folks, got in a good 1 1/2 hour walk, and spent time outside on an almost-summery day.

This is the entrance.  As you can see, it’s more of a peninsula than an island.

Me actually going out to do things ALONE WITH A BUNCH OF STRANGERS is another huge step forward, so I’m proud of that, too.

ALL THE YAYS

And we close with a little carby goodness, one of the loaves of Honey Wheat Bread I made on Sunday.  I subbed oats for some of the white flour in these, so there’s lots of good stuff in there.

All fueled up for another brave week.  Hopefully.  Maybe.  😉

Have a great week, everybody, and I hope you’re able to move a bit forward toward your goals.

STH

 

 

Sunday Sevens 10-04-15

Tags

cats, Chiawana Park, cooking, Pasco, recipe, SCRAP Tri-Cities, Sunday Sevens, Washington, Yakima Delta Wildlife Nature Area

Sunday Sevens is where we post seven-or-so pictures of anything interesting that happened to us that week.  See Natalie at Threads and Bobbins for more info and please feel free to join us, every week or when the spirit moves you.

The weather was beautiful this week; oh please, fall, hang on a little longer?

I took a walk in Chiawana Park early this week and had to take a picture of that big lovely sky.

And I found a secret path at the end of the park that I’d never noticed before!

I need to get back there soon and see where that goes.

It always feels like the real end of summer when you pick the last of the tomatoes and basil.

Caught this one in the act.

She likes to hang off the windowsill and grab things out of my box of current projects.

On Saturday, my honey was in Oregon for a bike ride, and I was determined to NOT sit at home and mope, so I went out for a hike with a MeetUp group.  This is a place I hadn’t been to before, the Yakima Delta Wildlife Nature Area.

Great place to get lost in.  Nobody there but the MeetUp group and some LARPers.  Now, I have been known to snicker a bit about LARPing, but these folks were very gracious and let me pester them with questions about their costumes, which were seriously great.  NO IDEA who they were supposed to be, but the workmanship was fabulous.

Then I came home and made myself some Cleaning Out the Fridge Nachos:  leftover refried beans, spicy lentils, the last of the smoked sausage and pepper jack cheese from last weekend’s potluck, and some chopped tomato, onion, mushrooms, and avocado.

Today was spent prepping for the class I’m teaching this coming Thursday at SCRAP Tri-Cities.

I realized the other day that I’ve been holding onto my beloved Laurel Burch fabrics with both hands and haven’t actually MADE anything with them for forever.  So I have them, and I love them, but I don’t actually get to enjoy them because they’re stashed in the closet all the time!

So I pulled them out to make another sample of the rice-filled hot/cold bag; this piece will be the front.

And a bonus picture of the cats this morning with their pot of grass.

Have a great week, everybody.

STH

Sunday Sevens 09-06-15

Tags

bags, cooking, embroidery, recipe, sewing, Sunday Sevens

If you’re new to Sunday Sevens, welcome and come on in — we’re celebrating one year since Our Fearless Leader, Natalie of Threads and Bobbins, got the whole thing started.  Many thanks to Natalie!

This has sort of been home improvement week here.  I don’t know, maybe it’s the change of seasons that makes you want to clean up and start over, but there has been much hanging of pictures and washing of wall quilts and sorting of things to take to Goodwill.

One of the pictures that still needs to be put up–a comforting phrase in sunshiney yellow, my favorite!

The biggest accomplishment was sorting through and organizing all the bike mess in the garage.

This is my partner’s work table and I really wish I had a “before”picture–this was a big job and took both of us most of Saturday to sort out.  You never saw so many nearly-identical brackety-things in one place as we had in here when we started.  Now much more manageable and he can actually find things!

Also:  BONUS SEWING STUFF!

I scavenged this pile of hardware from bike bag straps my honey threw away.  Some of it is a bit mysterious, but some will definitely be put to use.

After I finished my Summer Crush dress, I was itching to get back to my scrap quilt blocks, but decided to be a RESPONSIBLE ADULT and take on this pile of mending before I ran off and did the fun stuff.

Then I remembered how much I hate mending.

So the pile is still sitting there . . . and my partner keeps adding to it.  😦

Made a little bit of progress on my embroidery, but I’m not exactly burning through that project, either.

I did cook some nice things this week, though (maybe that’s why I’ve been so tired and unproductive?)

I’ve been tinkering with this recipe forever, and finally feel like I’ve got it where I want it.

I added sliced onion, bell pepper, and mushrooms to the marinated chicken and cooked the whole mess in a grill pan on the barbecue.  I put the chicken and vegetables on some brown rice and seasoned black beans, then topped it with some chopped tomato and green onion, a little cheddar, and the sauce.

SERIOUSLY good.

And this–a Greek bread called Ladenia–was part of tonight’s dinner.  I also made a Potato, Squash, and Goat Cheese Gratin and added some grilled sausage at the last minute to make the resident carnivore smile.

I’ll take another shot at that mending pile tomorrow.  Then I want to make a valance for my tiny and very bare bathroom window.  And maybe get back to those neglected scrap quilt blocks.

Have a wonderful week, everybody.

STH

Sunday Sevens 08-02-15

Tags

bags, Chiawana Park, Columbia River, cooking, Pasco, quilting, recipe, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing, Sunday Sevens, Washington

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series–started by Natalie at Threads and Bobbins–in which we post seven-ish photos from our week, stuff we did or made that doesn’t warrant its own post.  It’s pretty fun and you should join us!

I caught up on some things around the house this week that needed doing, like making another batch of lip balm.  Recipe is here, though I used cocoa butter this time instead of kokum butter.

Took an evening walk along the river and got a few pictures of the moon.

And the sunset turning the grass gold.

Unfortunately, I also discovered on that walk that Chiawana Park is rather serious about that whole “park closes at 9:00” business . . . I had to call my partner to come pick me up as the gate was locked with my car inside.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG, I made one of our favorite meals this week.  The recipe is here, but I use whatever vegetables I have on hand–and a lot more of them than the recipe calls for.

I got the quilting done on the baby blanket, but it’s still here, as I then realized I didn’t have a card to send with it (I am fairly hopeless when it comes to this sort of thing).  Will try to get it on the way to my niece tomorrow.

I finished another bag for SCRAP and tried out yet another method for putting zippers in bags.  I really like the fabric combination here, and I think making these patchwork bags has helped me to get better at figuring out what fabrics work together.

Got my partner to come out with me for another walk on Saturday evening.  The temp was 102F, but it was pretty comfortable walking along the river.

Lots to do this coming week, including finishing a bag for a friend.

Have a great week, everybody, and enjoy August while it’s here.

STH

Sunday Sevens 07-05-2015

Tags

cats, cooking, CozyAfternoonQuilt, quilting, recipe, RSC15, sewing, Sunday Sevens

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series in which we post sevenish pictures of the events of our week.  Natalie at Threads and Bobbins got it started.  Feel free to join us!

The ongoing heat here means I’ve been spending WAY too much time cooped up at home.  The downside of that is no outdoorsy photos, but the upside is that lots of home projects and crafts happened this week.

I have apparently caught the organizing bug BIG TIME and went ahead and measured and sorted out the rest of my fabric.

I guess it must have been bothering me more than I realized?  Or something?  Because otherwise I have no explanation for this.

I even cut some selvages off of the leftover scraps for a future selvage project.

No, I don’t know what’s come over me, either.  😛

Of course, the inevitable result was that I came up with another project idea.  I have a ton of this cotton with leaves and ladybugs/ladybirds on it and decided to make a simple woven tee with it.  I’ve been wearing my lovely cotton me-made blouses non-stop recently, so maybe I could use another . . . .

(Ack, sorry about the picture.)

Some more blocks got done on my scrap quilt this week; that’s three months worth done now.  W00T!

Working on these yellow blocks was like being bathed in sunshine.  🙂

The next color is purple, MY ONE TRUE LOVE.

I’ve also finally gotten started on embroidering the first block for my Cozy Afternoon Quilt.

I’m also happy to report that the cats have settled back into their little routines after Pooh’s Not-Very-Excellent Medical Adventure.  Pooh’s back to his grueling napping schedule (rather than constantly following me around, as he was doing for the week after his surgery) and Shelby’s decided she still loves her big brother and has stopped hissing at him.

The coveted nap spot on the windowsill in my sewing room:

We all spent a quiet Independence Day at home with our respective hobbies:  me quilting, the cats napping, and my honey building up his new frame into a bike.

We had a nice dinner of barbecued burgers, potato salad, and grilled marinated vegetables.  If you have pots of herbs growing on your windowsill, this is a great way to use them; when I make it, I increase the herbs and cut the oil to 1/4 cup.

The week to come should see less crafting and more outdoorsy-ness (yes, it is totally a word).  My mother and sister will be in Oregon, so I’ll be doing house- and pet-sitting duties for them, and then my partner and I are headed to Montana for our second camping trip!

Have an excellent week, everybody!

STH