Saturday Musings

 Hello everybody.  I hope your Saturday is going  well.  I have been busy working on various projects and can now show some pictures.  Before that, let me say that I was taken to a new, to me, retaurant by Dan and OMG!  I had the best food in a long time.  

You cam check out their website here:

https://www.ronscatfish.com/ 

   I was so full that I didn't eat any dinner.  LOL.  I don't think Dan did either.  We both went back for seconds.  Talk about a super great tartar sauce and their breading on the fish and shrimp was so nice.  Don't worry.  I didn't forget my veggies.  I had a small salad (complete with beets) and some okra.  It still counts as a veggie even if it has that delicious breading on it, right?  I almost didn't have any okra because, before now, I hadn't had any that didn't feel or taste oily or slimey.  Whatever they are doing, they are doing it right.

   Today, though, I made a new dish called Queso Chicken.  The original recpe called for it to be put in the crockpot to cook for 6 hours but I didn't want to wait that long.  So I boiled up the chicken breasts, drained them, and then added the rest of the ingredients plus a few others.

   

     It full of cheese including a jar of Monteray Jack Queso and some mix shredded cheese.  In addition to that, it has a small jar of salsa, some garlic powder, some onion powder, and some diced tomatoes on top for color.  The only bad thing is when you try to take it out of the pan.  Still next time I will shread the chicken and use it more as a dip with chips.  It has a little heat in it but notiung my whimpy taste buds couldn't handle.  

   The next thing to report on is crafting stuff.  First up is my block that I received from my swap partner.

   Isn't that cute?  I will add it to all my other blocks in the swap and then eventually will figure out what to make with them.  LOL.  I also managed to get my NEXT block done.  I'm not sure yet what that block will be but I have plenty of time to decide.  

   I was looking through Pinterest, getting in more trouble by collecting more things to work on, when I saw this.

   Isn't that cute?  I think it would be easy to make and you could put whatever animal (even humn ones) you wanted to.  I think putting in a tree in the silhoutte would be good also since there is a small bird way on top.  Don't you just love getting new, to you, ideas?

   I also managed to finish up another baby dragon.  Her name is Goldie.

   Next up will be Green Gene.  Gene is out of order but I already told some people he was nexty so I will just bump him up a bit.

   

   I also managaed to catch up on my Blackwork SAL.  I am still loving the stitch a long but I don't always follow how many strands I'm suppose to use.  That is ok.  I just makes it more mine.  

  

   I am working on another piece which will probably be redwork.  I'll let you know more on that when I start to stitch it.  In the  meantime...

   I hope everybody has a great day!

Total eclipse

 Shalom stopped by and showed me a couple of the pix that he took of the eclipse.  I thought I'd share with you.

The first two pictures were taken without any filters, etc.  The last one he said was taken through the lens or something like that.  LOL.  I was looking at the picturs and wasn't listening to him.  Shhh.  Don't tell him that.

Isn't this cute?

 I was at Dollar Tree the other day and sawy this cute little cutting mat.  I had to get it.  For $1.25 I jusrt HAD to get it.  

It is only six inchea but it sits nicely next to my keyboard which means I can use it for those quick little bouts of inspiration.  I can see it coming in handy when it comes to working on hexies.

Did I show you the latest Blackwork progress  Here it is.  I have it all caught up.  This week I will get the block that goes on the left and will fill in that square corner.

Not only did I get caught up with the blackwork, I managed to finish another block for the redwork.

Soon I will soon start on another block.  That block is the "love" block.  It won't be long before I willl be at a stage that I can show it to you.

I need to stop here and work on some more prep work and get something to eat.  The sky is still nice out but I'm not going to watch the eclipse.  I can see it safer and better from home and on the internet.  :)

Everybody have a great day and I'll post more updates soon.

Progress

 After coming out of my food c oma from Easter, I got back into stitching.  I will say that my Easter meal this year was the best in a log time.  I messed up on how to put the stuffing into the roast but it all turned out in the end.  It was a little over two pounds before cooking and there was only a half inch of one end that was leftover.  Dan took leftovers home, except for half a cup of mashed potatoes and 3/4 of the pumpking pie.  He took home the stuffing (which is normal) but there was only a spoonful of carrots and a spoonful of greens left and he snagged them too.  The carrots were cooked witht he roast.  The green beans had cut up bacon and onions in them and were cooked in the bacn grease.  Then I put parmesean cheese on top of that.  

I did finish baby blue and she is adorable.  

Nest up is Goldie.  Before that I need to finish up my Words to Live By block.  I will show a pix when it is time to move the hoop again.  I am about 3/4ths of the way done with that block.

 I have to work on my black work but will wait until I get the new block tomorrow (Wednesday).  That will put me two blocks behind but I'm not worried.  I can catch up pretty quickly.

My swap partner for March in the block swap surprised me and sent me two blocks for March.  :)  I love them both but will have to analyze the one on the right more.  I  like it and might try to figure out how she did it.

Speaking of the block swap.  I finished up my April block and it is now in the mail to my partner.

That certainly is appropriate for the kind of weather we have beeen having lately. I decided to make some tuna quiche to help take the chill out  of the air so now I have dinner all ready.  

Well back to stitching.  I hope everybody has a great day,.

Happy Easter

 I hope you all have a delightful and safe holiday.  

Happy Easter

Whew! Time for a break!

I have been busy these last few days.  I even got out my sewing machine and did some 9 patch blocks so I could continue on with Fleur.  Do you remember the blocks I was working on?  This might remind you.

I only have to make two more full size blocks of the one on top and...well...more than 2 for the bottom block.  I will start with the top block so I can finish making them.  Then I have the small triangles to do but I'm not going to think about them yet.  This is a UFO so I feel good about getting back to working on it.

That is not the only thing that I have been working on,  I managed to finish up that signature block I needed to do and mailed it out today.

I know that it looks a bit lopsided but I did trim it accurately.  The flannel that it is pinned to likes to make things look wonky.  Of course it could also be that I didn't put it up straight.  LOL.

Now that I have that in the mail, I started to work on another two blocks for the upcoming swaps.  I haven't stitched it down yet but it is fused on.  I might add a couple more raindrops but that will wait until I finish it.  I will also have to  cut it down but this allows for how tight I might stitch it.  :)  I've learned that lesson the hard way.

The next exchange block I need to do will be for May.  With the saying of April Showers bring May flowers, my May block will be a flower.  I have picked out the colors but haven't fused them down yet.  It will probably be fused sometime this week.

Obviously the green is for the leaves and stem.  Moving up from the colors that lay out, the next fabric will be the inner center circle and the orange.  Next up is the batik orange which looks  more solid.  That will be the circle that butts up to the petals.  The top orange fabric is for the petals.

I wasn't done yet though.  I managed to start on the first of nine blocks for the top of the Baby Dragons.  This one is Baby Blue and I have to admit that I think it is going to be super cute.  The outline is done in a deep blue but the hair and the poof of her tail is/will be done in one strand of dark blue and 1 strand of a lighter shade of blue.

I managed to copy another Words to Live By block to the background fabric. (in water soluble blue pen).  I will try to start stitching this week.  This is the finished block 3.

I still have my black/brown work to do but I am going to wait until the new block comes out on Wednesday.  I will try to get 2 blocks done before the next one comes out.  

Anything else?  Hmmm.  I'm not sure but that is not to be decided in this blog post.  This will give me plenty to do for awhile.   I guess I had better get started.  LOL. 

I hope you all have a wonderful day.

PS:  Time for me to take something for a a headache and maybe even lay down for a little bit while it starts to work.

Once Upon a Time - there were dragons -Update - 3.13.24

 Today is an exciting day.  My test dragon turned out cute enough that I am going to start on the real blocks.  

First up, of course, is choosing the colors.

Those are the colors I will be working on for blocks 1 (top - blue) through block 9 (bottom two colors).  Where there are two colors shown, I will either use one strand of each color.  The third block will probably have the frog and the dragon in it so I'm undecided if I want to just use one strand of each green or make one creature one color and use the second color for the second creature.  I can rationalize both of those arguments in my head.  I have time to choose though.  Here are the pictures of the coloring pages along with the colors assigned to them except for number 5 and number 6.  Number 5 is all redwork and number 6 is all blackwork.  I might post up pix later but right now I didn't see the need because you all know what the red for redwork and the black for blackwork looks like.  :)  

NOW...to the dragons because they get antsy if I leave them unsupervised.

Keep in mind that most of the background images, if not all, will not be stitched.  At least at this time I do not plan on stitching them.  Somethings will be necessary to include like the egg shell on Number 9 or the frog on Number 4.  

That's my plan so far.  Any comments?  Let me know what you think.

What has been happening

      I am so happy that I made progress on  couple of things today.  Not only did I get to change up what is hanging on my walls, I am all caught up on my blackwork.  THAT includes this weeks pattern.  YAY!    That is basically al I wanted to say.  But here are some of the pictures of the wall changes.

     First up is Ellie.  I love Elli.  Since elephants are seen in Africa, I also put my African Zipper table runner on the dresser.  Now they all can chat away.

     Going with the March green theme, I also put up my bamboo quilt.  

     Not all things I put up were all green.  Here is the small quilt that is now hanging above my air conditioner.  It is getting to that time of the year where I have to put up small, or shorter, wall hanging so as not to cover up the a/c unit.

     Another small wall hanging that I put up was my turtle.  I love the colors in this one so it got to hang up on my wall.

     Not all things that I hung up was for quilting.  Here is the latest on my free 2024 PPSAL.  I can't believe that it is 10 weeks in already!

     It was such a nice day today that some of the other cats made their way into the yard.  I had forgotten how many oranges there were.  The one is almost white but still goes in orange category.  I call these three the ringtail family.

     The oranges weren't the only cats that were enjoying the weather.  Tigger also stretched out on the porch and napped.

     Sorry for the filtered look.  Tigger was to comfy to move so I couldn't open up the door for a better picture.

     I guess I had better stop here and get back to cutting out some rectangles.  As you can see from the back of these rectangles, I have them marked and just need to cut them out.

      

I hope you all have a great day!.

It is a blah day...or week

 Have you ever felt that your inspiration has declined or gone?  Or that there is a disconnect between your brain and hands?  The latter is what I have been experiencing the last couple of weeks.  So hopefully, by doing this post, it will kick me out of my doldrums and I  can get back on track.

First up is a picture that I had saved just because it was interesting and used buttons.  I wouldn't want them on my jeans but would look cute as a pillow or on the wall I thought.

Since it is March, and my block is in the mail to my exchange partner, I can share what I sent.  Somehow I love the simplicity of the shamrock so I always like to use that for my March exchanges.  I usually use a darker green but this was the winning fabric and I will say thank you to those who voted on the fabric choices.  Obviously you all have great taste and didn't steer me wrong.

So what has been keeping my mind active?  Hexies and rectangles.  It is one of my UFO projects which I've picked up again since in the Our Time to Quilt group were talking hexies.  I have a big project that might get cut back on once my initial enthusiasm wears off.  Here is a pix of what some of the hexies look like as well as one of the rectangles.

The group is also working on some redwork.  That was an opportunity that I couldn't resist.  You know I love my redwork.  This project is more whimsical and will involve different colored blocks.  Each dragon block will also be done in one color.  In other words, one block will be done in red, one in blue, one in black, etc.  At least that is the current plan.  I decided to see if I had any background fabric that would work.  I found some Stonehenge fabric that I thought would work well.  I decided to do a sample block and this is what I am working on now.  I like how the red stands out against the background.  I'm going to have to dig out different DMC colors and perhaps do some running stitches on a background scrap fabric to see how the colors will look.  I will  use two threads.  I will, of course, share progress pix.

I am still working on the redwork Words to Live By blocks but haven't enough done to share a pix.  So I will be working on that in the near future.  I also need to work on the blackwork SAL.  I am behind because this simple pattern, yeah right, is kicking my butt.  I think it is because it isn't the straight squares but rather different shapes.  I just have to concentrate on it more than I have been.

Now on to some cooking news.  I was given 15 pounds of potatoes and as I went through them, I found these three potatoes in a heart shape.  I thought it was appropriate to finding it in February and it reminds me of the shape of a heart.  LOL.

I also made some marinara sauce.

I used one of the jars to make Lasagna Soup which turned out to be a bit spicier than I expected.  Not too spicy but just spicier.  I will let you know how it is on day two.  I am thinking of making a potato and sausage recipe.  Pretty simple ingredients.  1 package of smoked sausage sliced thin, 4 large potatoes-diced, 1 large onion sliced, and 1 can of cream of mushroom soup.  Just dump everything in a  crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours.  I guess that means I had better stop now and get it ready to start.  I think that I will have it for dinner tonight.

I hope everybody has a great day.