It has been raining all night and all day. But that's good; it will help clean up the ground. The wetland on one side of the pond is finally free of ice and I flushed a pair of ducks when taking this photo last week. The Peepers are finally making their spring calls early morning. They can sound quite raucous and I read why...the females choose their mates by the volume of their sounds.
Yesterday I spotted these two on the pond so took this photo from a great distance and I wonder if they are the pair ... read more- food
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It's early spring which I think in some ways is the saddest and ugliest time of the year here. There is not a single hint yet of all the glorious green to come and I've been out there looking. But more about that at the bottom of this post.
Sewing progress first... I worked on my appliqued Quarter Dresdens and finished the March reds. It will be nice to move on to pinks, the RSC April colour.
We were plunged back into Christmasy looking winter on Saturday. It was beautiful outside in my woods.
Back in 2016, just over ten years ago, I wrote this post called 5 Healthy Things I'm Doing. I reread it recently and was happy to find I'm still doing those things most of the time. Though the oil pulling has fallen by the wayside, I've added a couple of other healthy habits. I'm so grateful I am still able to do these things. Who knows what tomorrow may bring!
My unofficial words for this year are keep moving. They've been in my mind all my adult life so it's not special for 2026 ...
read moreWe had sun in spurts yesterday but today we are back to a white world out there both sky and landscape. It has continued to snow a lot- small flakes but they add up. The saying at home was "small snow, big snow" and when the snowflakes were large...."big snow, small snow". This has been a winter of small snow building up. The dogs love it all of course. I'm so happy that having obedient Petey, who comes when called, join us has meant Ned stays close too and no longer needs to be on a leash. This ...
read moreSomeone is going to the far side of a neighboring state to see my great-grandchildren. That means baking treats for them. The chocolate chip cookies are delicious.
I also made shortbread and peanut butter cookies. I had to test them too. I need to know I'm sending them good treats. That's my story..............
I did get started cutting the 4.5" squares for the double 4 patch blocks.
We have had 18 days in a row below 32 degrees, the average temperature for this date. Thursday may get up to 32, but Friday is slated for high 30s ...
read moreI started the day yesterday baking the other Kringlas, different than the ones I baked last week. The dough was refrigerated overnight.
Next I baked the pink Spritz. It was a relief to have my oven fixed to bake these. I did the previous batch that were for my son's customers last week in the little countertop electric oven and it was tricky getting them out before they got too dark.
A little later in the day I baked the chocolate spritz. After that I made one more batch of fudge. Now I have enough of everything to mail ... read more
In my mail preview I saw a card from Vicki Welsh. This was my favorite of the three she made this year. It is so exciting to receive one of her cards.
I did a little rearranging of the cards from the previous 14 years plus the new one. They are up on my bulletin board year round and I look in that direction while I'm sewing so I'm enjoying them all of the time.
Also in the mail was a new book. The author contacted me a while ago and asked if she could use the image ... read more
Yesterday's food projects were fudge and pink Spritz cookies. I forgot to take a photo of the cookies.
I chose the backing (the light print) and the binding (red print) to finish the Christmas table runner. I also found a piece of batting the exact size I needed. Maybe I'll get it layered and quilted today.
In the box with the squares (that were used for the table runner) was a group of 1.5" strips. I don't remember cutting them so maybe they were cut to use up the ends of some of the Christmas fabrics ... read more
I read that the last full moon of the year, called the Cold Moon, is tonight and it is going to be very special by how high in the sky it will rise. Such a height won't be seen again till 2043. It's dark here now at 5 o'clock. Yesterday I took this photo of the back yard bathed in moonlight at that time. Unfortunately, the clouds kept sailing past hiding the moon. Sometimes, clouds add much beautiful moodiness to a December winter sky but my photo didn't capture that sadly.
I baked Kringlas in the morning and should have left the oven on and baked something else. When I turned the oven on later in the afternoon....nothing....no heat.
Since I already had chocolate spritz dough made, I had to go to plan B. My main oven is gas, but I have a countertop electric oven. I know things bake differently in the 2 kinds because my mother had electric and her cookies always turned out different than mine. It took many trays to bake since the oven is small but I got the job done.
After I figured ... read more
A November sky if ever I saw one...
Milder and wet, then a big freeze overnight turned the morning landscape into an ice covered fairyland. I thought it was hoar frost but I've read since it was rime frost, a dangerous frost for ships at sea. This kind of ice is thick and grows in the direction of the wind.
Standing at the design wall didn't sound appealing to me yesterday so I got 2 boxes of flannel pieces off a shelf in my studio.
I decided bullseye blocks was a nice mindless project. They will probably be made into a baby quilt.
They haven't had their final press yet so they look a little crooked. Some of them used a variety of short pieces and others were just 3 fabrics for the whole block.
I still have tomatoes ripening in the garage. A lot of them are golf ball size or smaller but they taste great, better ... read more
There are 2 blocks of each combination except one so this is half of the blocks. Getting them up on the wall helps me see what colors and values need more representation. After I make about 5 more combinations I'll continue with the design. I ran the blocks crosswise on the last one of these and thought I would do a vertical setting on this one. I'm just playing with some ideas here for a quick small quilt.
I need to make a list of all of my started quilts and see which one I want to work ...
read moreJust one photo today of my delicious cake before we cut into it. I have out of state family here and there will be a party today with all of the family.
I have 3 bouquets of flowers and a box of my favorite candy.
All of the outside decorations are up now and we were successful in getting all of the timers to work.
read moreIt was time to bake some more scones, this time, very berry box mix. My pan has 16 sections and I like that better than my ceramic dish that has 8 sections. I also mixed chocolate chip cookie dough and put it in the refrigerator. I might bake one tray of them this morning.
I started my third of three dishcloths last night. They are all at 35 stitches now and I need to increase them all to 44 stitches before I start decreases.
A few people asked how many do I have right now. There are 26 in this ... read more
It only took 8 years to get this quilt to the finish line. I made the top in 2017 and considered ditch quilting it but ended up having it longarmed this month. It is all batik fabrics and there are 3 sizes of 16 patch blocks in it: 4", 8" and 16". I paper pieced the star before 2017.
It has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it and it measures 38.5" x 51". Most of my batiks are a half yard to a yard so I was happy to find one that was a larger cut to use for ... read more
Below is Brian Stauffer's "Winds of Change", a marvelous painting for The New Yorker cover on October 13. I wondered if this could be worked into a design for a quilt or embroidered piece. I do like curlicues. And I also wondered about what he meant by featuring these two things together. The noisy leaf blower and the beautiful design of nature. What do you think he's telling us?
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