As promised, here is my update on my Blackwork. I decided not to wait until I do part 2 on my updates. :)
My schedule is to get two more blocks done by Wednesday when two more blocks should be released. If I get back on track, I'll work more on the border.
The holiday season is upon us and , like most people, I'm going a little crazy with the "to do" list. On top of that, my allergies kicked in and it is soooo hard to do anything when your head is all stuffed up. This week, however, my head finally cleared and I was able to get back to figuring out what I needed to do.
THE LIST (and listed not in any particular order):
- Mark December calendar
- Catch up on RPOL (gaming related site for those who don't know it)
- Work on Penguin Wall Hanging
- Work on December block exchange
- Work on what to send to Norma (winner of drawing that was done on Facebook).
- Do blog posts about:
- food
- what working on
- blackwork (three blocks behind)
- Shredding
- Other
That's quite a list right? To make it worse, some of those items are more detailed then what it looks like on paper. I did manage to mark off a couple of those marked off the list.
Obviously I'm working on the blog posts today. LOL. I haven't posted much about the food portion of my blog lately, Do I have a legit reason for that? Not really. Just normal life stuff. I did make some new recipes and shared the food with Dan. Have I mentioned how funny it is to be on the phone with him as he is eating the food I gave him? This last time his comments only consisted of moans, and licking of lips, and scraping of the bowl. Over the years of knowing him, I finally have figured out one thing. I need to be blunt and finally just ask "do I make this again or not". In this case, the answer to that was YES. It did take a couple of minutes to get the yes because I just got the sounds of him eating it.
What did I make? I made Crockpot Bourbon Chicken. I made it using chicken broth instead of bourbon but it is delicious. Here is the recipe.
Crockpot Bourbon Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 pounds bonesless skinless chicken thighs
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/3 cup bourbon, whiskey, apple juice, or chicken bro
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 3/4 cup soy sauce
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 3 tablespoons cold water
Directions
1. Season chicken with salt and pepper on both sides and place in bottom of crockpot.
2. In medium bowl add brown sugar, soy sauce, and garlic.
3. Stir well to combine and pour over chicken in crockpot.
4. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours or on high for 3 hours.
5. In a small bowl, add cornstarch and water and whisk until well combined.
6. Whisk cornstarch slurry in the sauce 30 minutes before chicken is done. This will thicken the sauce.
7. Serve over rice and garnish with green onions.
As stated before, I didn't use the liquor but instead used chicken broth that I made up from bouillon. I also didn't have chicken thighs but just used chicken breasts. What surprised me was how much sauce/liquid was in it. Sooooo, I took that VERY and YUMMY sauce and mixed it into the rice I had made. It turned out great. The chicken had nice flavor but the real success is, in my opinion, the true star. It is sweet (brown sugar after all) but the soy sauce cuts it back to a nice level. I will make this again but next time I will probably shred the chicken after it is cooked and mix it directly into the sauce as well as mix rice into it. It will make it sort of like a sweet chicken fried rice.
Also on the cooking front, is my Thanksgiving menu. I have finalized it now. Our Thanksgiving meal will be:
Ham steaks
stove top dressing
mashed potatoes and gravy
green beans with onions and bacon
and for dessert - crustless pumpkin pie
I have until the end of the November to figure out our Christmas menu. I only get to the grocery store once or twice a month so I have learned to think way ahead for things like holiday menus. That also gives me time to change things up. So far our Christmas menu is:
Pork roast
scalloped corn casserole
potatoes of some sort and probably another vegetable
and something for dessert
That is it for Part 1. I will post Part 2 once a couple of pictures show up in my email. I hope you all have a great day. Today is also Veteran's Day so I wish all Vets out there a safe day (some do not handle today well due to memories, etc.) and can enjoy it. A big shout out to all my military friends - past, present, and any future ones - a big HUG and Thank you for your service. We might not tell you that enough but for me, you are the best!
Whew! I'm tired. Today was a day to dig through my fabric stash and look for fabrics for a couple of projects. One is the December block swap. I have it fused down but not stitched yet.
Then I have newest Christmas wall hanging. It is called Be Merry and Bright
Yep. You read that right. It is 11 p.m. and I'm in the kitchen cooking up some things. Well not exactly cooking right now since I'm typing this post. LOL.
So what am I cooking? I wanted to make a new recipe tomorrow which called for enchilada sauce and I was out. So I decided to whip up some before going to bed. If you need the recipe again, let me know and I'll send it to you.
Then I read the recipe and it also calls for taco seasoning. I think I have enough of that, but I bookmarked my recipe so I can make more tomorrow. I will let you know the results.
Now that I have my plans for tomorrow figured out, perhaps my brain will decide that I can go to bed. I have to call Dan at 8 a.m. tomorrow so that HE can get started on stuff HE needs to do. I will probably work on stitching down the tree for my Be Merry and Bright wall hanging. I'll show that to you in my next post. I am doing it a little bit different but we'll see how it turns out.
So for now, I'll say good night and leave you to get your sleep as well.
Talk to you later.
As I was running across some crafting websites, one of them said something that struck a cord with me.
The line was: "Choosing embroidery is choosing a certain way of life." This was said at the end of a video on Chinese embroidery. Here is the link in case you wish to watch it.
https://youtu.be/fSv0bXxoty0?si=iXioFcP0r4LWBpNg
"This week I went to Zhenhu, a small town 26km away from Suzhou. This is the origin place for Suzhou embroidery. For over 2000 years, from replacing the function of tattoo for our ancestor to decorating the Chinese home and clothes, this handcraft has been passed down by countless generations." It is great to think that there was a part of the area for those that were doing craft work. I can't believe how many hours those women put into doing stitchery and then went home to still do their housework and family obligations. They were certainly doing it as a labor of love (and that they sell them to get money doesn't hurt either).I had to go into the craft room the other day to try and find something that I needed. I posted about that the other day. The good news was that I found the needles that I was looking for. The bad news was that I had to semi clean up the room because I made a worse mess, if that was possible, than it was before! So what did I decide to do? Display some of the old/early crafting things I uncovered again, and time to put away the DMC floss that I had pulled out for various projects. What did I discover?
This little project was to test out using old t-shirts. I am now using it as a candle mat or to put it in the middle of my table. I forgot that I had done it.
Having made those discoveries, I decided it was time to pick up on my dragon,. Before I could do that though, I had to match up the DMC colors. Before I could do THAT, I need to refile the DMC that I had pulled out up to this time.
It's that time of year to start to change from summer wall hangings into fall and winter wall hangings. In my previous post, you saw the wall hanging that was being changed with adding pumpkins on it. I decided to just leave it pinned up (Thanks for the suggestion Connie) since I was going to take them off anyway when I took down the wall hanging. With the pumpkins on it, I can leave it up through Thanksgiving if I want. While writing this I saw I needed anchor down a couple of pumpkins and then had the pseudo brainy idea to use masking tape to anchor down the lose pieces. It worked surprisingly well and I might go back and take out more pins and use the masking tape. Masking tape easily comes off of the fabric since I'm not adding heat to it or putting a lot of weight on it. I'll let you know if I do that. I might try with a couple of blocks first to see how well it stays up.
Then I covered up my ironing board with the leftover pumpkin fabric so it is all set for Thanksgiving. That too is just pinned on so it can be removed after the holiday and thrown into the washer to get cleaned up and put away for another time.
What is nice is that my wall hanging I usually put up there for Christmas is also blue so the table runner should fit in nicely. You guard it well George (the dragon)!
Now to update you on the case of the case of the missing needles. I FOUND THEM! They were stuck to the pumpkins on the wall hanging. Sigh. Thanks Connie, again, for asking if I had looked there. I had looked at the back of the pumpkin patch wall hanging but evidentially I only looked on the back on ONE side. This time I looked at both sides and there it was. The lost was found.
That started a couple of other discoveries. I received a phone call from Shalom who said he was running out to get coffee and donuts and he could drop me off at Walmart if I wanted him too. Since I had run out of caffeine I took him up on his offer. There was one catch. I couldn't find my keys to lock up the house. Finally I just gave up and got into the car with Shalom. I knew it wouldn't take THAT long. When I got back to the house, it took me 4 hours before I found my keys. You might ask where were they? They were on my tote bag and I looked through for 10 minutes while waiting for Shalom. Yeah, go ahead. You can shake your head and laugh. They had fallen down to the back side of the shoulder sling and I didn't see them. At least I finally found them. Progress, right?
Well that started my day of discoveries. As I was tearing apart the sewing room looking for the needles and keys, I found at least a dozen other projects I had forgotten about. LOL. I can see I need to work on getting more projects finished next year. That's ok. my method this year has proven to work and I did get some UFO's finished. That's a win!
Did I mention that I signed up for next years Blackwork Stitch a Long? I will have the 2023 one stitched on time so I will be ready for the new one when it gets here. Here is my latest progress pix. I got a lot of the border done since I was frustrated with not finding everything for a bit. Nothing like stitching until 2 a.m. to calm the mind and body. It is also a way for me to make progress on something. The border is pretty easy to do since it is repetitive and that was just what I needed.
I had to post this right away since I made something off of Facebook and loved it. Even better was the fact that it heated up well and tasted good. I'm going to share the original recipe from Facebook as well as my revisions. I revised it since I wanted to use up some things from my pantry.
How has your week been? My ups and down varied this week.
I wanted a more specific type of wall hanging to carry me over from October to November. I like the wall hangings for Halloween but didn't really want one up on my wall. So I had an idea. That can lead to trouble as well as aggravation. What was my idea?
I cut out a ton of pumpkins and pinned them onto my house wall hanging. My energy gave out after that. I hadn't realized how many pumpkins I would need! I was talking to a friend about how my energy had drained me and my urge to work on it faded. This was to be a temporary fix so I could take them off after Halloween. If it worked out, I was thinking of doing something similar for other holidays...maybe. What was the solution that my friend came up with? In her words of wisdom she said..."Then don't stitch it. It is not like you have a lot of people over and you only meant it to be temporarily anyway. Just keep it like it is." Well, Duh! I knew she was a friend for a reason. LOL.
I have gained so much this month (September) and I have to get back on track. I now have to lose around 40 pounds. Yeah, not an easy thing to do but to be honest? I'm not too worried or concerned. My menu items will be heavy on the starches until probably after the new year. I'll adjust.
Anyway, I did get a cute gadget that I am in love with. It is a n electric mason jar vacuum sealer. I can't wait to get some mason jars so I can seal up some of the stuff in the pantry. Things like oats, rice, different noodles, etc. I also plan on getting some smaller jars and put some of my spices in them. Things that I could buy in bulk and use table top size containers for the every day use and the rest in a mason jar. I will just need to make sure that I get jars which have regular size tops. I will eventually wide mouth lids. I have regular mouth lids already so I will start with them.
Another thing that I did since my last post was to follow the directions on a FB video on how to store your plastic bag . You take an empty Kleenex box and fold your plastic bags in push them into the box.
It works out pretty good. The trick is that when you fold it, you run it through the handles. So when you pull one out, it pulls the next one (the handles) up so it will be handy and ready for you. Pretty smart, right?
I'm not sure on what I'll eat this coming week. I have some single food servings of a variety of food in the freezer so might use them. It is portion control and makes more room in the freezer for other things. I have another week to go before I go to Pantry and see what I'll get. That will probably determine what my menu will be.
I'll let you know.
Now for some recipes. I hope you will enjoy them.
Have a great day everybody! What's on your menu?
You tell me and we'll both know.
It is more of a matter of what is on hand. I've found myself in a slump on cooking. Not that I'm starving or anything but I'm not craving anything in particular. My lunches are mostly salads and whatever I have on hand to toss into them. I'm still making the Ranch Dressing. And that is about all. I'm sure that my brain will get back to planning but right now I have other things on my mind so food is so not a priority.
I will share some recipes soon though. It is, after all, getting into holiday cooking and and I have to figure out my menu before Dan gets over here. LOL.
Sorry for the short post, but I wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten those who look for recipes etc. I'll get back to my schedules...I promise.
Until then, be safe and enjoy life!
