Merry Monday

Love my Monday's off work. Finished up the remembrance quilt yesterday. Take a peek....

Then I made a couple of blocks for our guild president's quilt.

Then today, I've done some house cleaning, got in a run.....

....and also have six loaves of honey wheat bread in the oven.....

I eat this every single morning for breakfast. Sometimes with honey and butter, sometimes with cinnamon, sometimes with jam. Yum. Thankful I have a convection oven so I can make a double batch at once. It is a mess but so worth it.

Spring?

High of 87 degrees, doesn't that mean summer? Well, strawberries say "spring" to me.

One flat of berries from Tidwell's in Spring City = 2 pies, 6 quart bags in the freezer, and 18 cups of freezer jam. Oh yeah, and a few to eat.

The Fisherman and I drove to the Dayton/Spring City area today. They have a big Strawberry Festival every year. Today was when they set everything up. We enjoyed walking around town and going into a few of the downtown stores.

But when we got home.....it is hot! The cats say it is the lazy days of summer....

 

Making caramel sauce

I tried a method yesterday for making caramel sauce from eagle brand sweetened condensed milk. You just simmer the can for about three hours. I think my simmer might be a lttle lower temp than what was needed. It didn't turn to caramel sauce.

So today, I emptied the can into a canning jar sitting in a pan of water and have slightly boiled it for a couple of hours now. It is turning brown so I know it is turning to caramel sauce. The hubby was wanting some as dip for apple slices.

 

Retirement Star Quilt

This will definitely be one of my most prized possessions. The memories contained in the sweet words written are priceless to me.

Bear Creek Quilting was kind enough to supply me with the colored star fabric, backing, and binding for this project. My group had given me five inch signed squares of muslin when I retired.

I used the 2014 Kona Cotton fat quarter bundle for the stars (FQ-806-32), beautiful bright colors. I made easy wonky stars out of the solids to randomly put in amongst the signed and blank neutral squares. The finished size is about 68 x 78. Big enough for a large throw, a twin or double bed quilt, and not too big for a wall hanging. I even put this size on our queen bed under a larger quilt.

 

 

 

For the backing I used a fun print, Benartex Felicity in Diamond Aqua and used Benartex Felicity in Stripe Teal for the binding. I added a section of a t-shirt as a label of sorts. It was one we had printed up for a safety day a few years ago for everyone in the department to wear.

This quilt would be perfect for other occasions too. Not only retirements, but the pattern could be used as a wedding quilt, a welcome home for a soldier, for a long awaited new baby (birth or adoption), or as a going away present from friends when someone moves. Please look at the fine folks at Bear Creek Quilting where you will find a tutorial for this quilt in a few days, and you can get some great fabric for your special project.
Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts, Patch Work Times, My Quilt Infatuation and Crazy Mom Quilts.

 

Picnic on the Lake

We are enjoying this summer like weather......tonight after a long day of fishing, the fisherman got hungrey and suggested a lake picnic. Now, he wasn't being romantic or anything like that, he just wasn't ready to come off the lake and got hungrey. :) I packed up our supper of soup, bread, and almond pound cake and took it down to the dock. We had a nice little picnic in a cove.

Home again, home again

it is so good to be home! Like last visit I caught a terrible cold while I was in Edinburgh. However, this time it was much worse. I am always one of those folks who say to wait out a cold, 7-10 days. Today is day seven and I was miserable. I won't gross you out with the green details. It was time to go to a physician. Amazing what one dose of a Z pack can do!
I tend to stay a bit dehydrated and flying always makes that worse. On top of the cold yuck, last night's sleep evaded me with horrible foot cramps. I've read it is due to a magnesium dificiency. I got up and took a magnesium pill. Ate some salty crackers and drank water. Still horrible. I was desperate.

This works. At 2:30 this morning I ended up putting about a half to 3/4 cup of Epsom salts in a bucket of warm water and soaked my feet in it for about five minutes. No more cramps the rest of the night.
My daughter in law is a great cook. I came home with a few more of her recipes. I made British scones today. I decided to add some dried blueberries to mine, but I think the original recipe served with clotted cream and jam is the best.

It should say bake at 430 degrees.

...so good to be home.

Iced in, day 3 - cloth baby book

Well, I can't say that I am totally iced in, I'm just too chicken to go off this hill. The hubby went out yesterday and even went to work today. Me....I'd rather find things to do here.

First this morning I needed to run to work off some of my cabin fever crazies....Three miles on my indoor "track."

Then I got busy on Emma's cloth book I am making.

 

 

I definitely learned some things making this but I really love it and hope she does too. I used a bronze sharpie to write on the front. Love.

 

Ice storm of 2015

What did you do today? Here is a little of what I did....

...made some yummy potato and ham soup...

...then some chocolate chip cookies....

...watched the ice and sleet fall...

...did the quilting and binding on this quilt....The backing is grey "grunge" fabric....

I used a little free pantograph that I had printed off and taped the sheets together. I'd never used it before but I think I like it. It is straight lines which are very difficult to do, but I think they turned out ok.

Then I decided to machine bind it, which I rarely do...for good reason.....I'm not good at it. The above picture shows how "not good" at it I am.....

...this one is a bit better....I'll only do it if I think the thread will almost disappear into the backing.....Do you machine bind? Hand bind? Or both?

...pretty productive day....and for now anyway, we still have power!

 

Sunday

The hubby was generous enough to give me his cold. So I am not feeling that great today. Didn't go to church.

...but I still have a lot of stuff on my to-do list for the week, so I decided to get one thing done today. Make a run of homemade laundry soap. I've read that people either love it or hate it. I have gotten to where I love it. I put lemon and orange essential oils in one gallon to use for whites and lights. I put lavender essential oil in the second gallon to use for colours. You just can't beat laundry detergent that only costs 40 cents a gallon.

The recipe I use is from the book Dining on a Dime Cookbook by Tawra Kellam and Jill Cooper. If interested I'm sure the recipe is on the Internet.

 

DIY cough drops, protein smoothie, and running

Busy day. The hubby woke up coughing, which was a good excuse for me to make a recipe I was wanting to try -- homemade cough drops...

These were really easy and I had everything on hand...sugar, water, lemon, honey, ground cloves, and ground ginger.

You dust them with powdered sugar to keep them from sticking together. He liked them. I think the taste must be similar to the old fashioned horehound flavour.

For lunch I made this awesome smoothie. I didn't have milk but I used a good substitute. I'm one of those make do or do without kind of gals. I used a frozen banana, some other mixed frozen fruit (strawberries, blueberries, peaches), a scoop and a half of vanilla protein powder, some water, and a big dollop of sweetened condensed milk. It was one of the best I've made. And at 18 grams of protein, it's a winner.

Later I did my three miles I had on the running schedule. It was beautiful outside. Warm enough for a running skirt!

...I had other errands and things to do today so I didn't get to work on the remembrance quilt, but I finished all the blocks yesterday. They just need to be sewn together.

I hope it sews and quilts ok. Some of the shirt fabric is fraying and stretching some.

And one more picture.............

Today's picture of my grand baby girl, Emma, enjoying her bananas. She will be one year old in three weeks...sniff, sniff....wish I could be there to help her celebrate.