What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

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I've been capturing spring in my neighborhood through photos. 
The daffodils have mostly stopped blooming.
But I did make one watercolor painting of them. 

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A friend gave me some Brava Worsted and I wasn't sure I would like it. It is a 100% acrylic yarn. I was pleasantly surprised. It is a great yarn to work with if you need something that is machine washable and wool just won't do.  
I've decided to make as many 6" hexagons as I can and stitch them together into a blanket. 
The pile of hexagons isn't very big, yet. These are great because I can make one in the evening after dinner and I feel like I have accomplished something. Do you have ...

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I did much better on my walk yesterday morning, almost getting 16mph, but today I struggled, and only lasted about four miles. I don’t think I’m completely recovered from the vaccine yet, as I find myself quite tired, still getting a headache every day, and my joints hurt more than normal.

I’ve sure been enjoying watching this spring’s goslings grow!

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I did manage to finish the binding on the churn dash quilt, and it’s now been washed and blocked. I normally love to take outdoor pictures of my quilts once they’re finished, but it ...

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Thank heavens I got the pizza’s baked last night, I sure won’t have the energy tonight. And a 72 hour ferment? Absolute perfection. I don’t think I can go back to an overnight ferment. Everything from taste to texture is much better with the longer fermentation, and shaping/stretching is much easier as well.

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I think these crust shots speak for themselves. This is the last dough formula I posted, and I love it. The dough is mixed and worked with stretch and folds over the course of the day, then refrigerated until ready to use. It ...

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I was so tickled with myself yesterday, I quilted an entire pass on the longarm! Go on, I know the rest of you long-armer’s are rolling your eyes, but one pass of custom quilting takes me two to three hours. Most of my quilts are on point, and a pass usually requires rolling the quilt once or twice in one pass as well. I’m very slow… and I only tied all of my starts and stops and haven’t even buried them yet. Whatever! A pass is done!

I overdid it on the walking speed yesterday and decided ...

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I had the oddest dream last night. Someone (friend, acquaintance, stranger?) I can’t quite remember was showing me an amazing quilt she’d made. As I was pouring over the details, I discovered on one of the blocks that she had couched around the design with an exquisite cord. When I exclaimed how much I adored couching, she corrected me calling it ruching.

It was absolutely not ruching. I love ruching also. Comparing ruching to couching is like comparing a monkey to an onion. In my dream, I explained the difference to her. She got very angry and told ...

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Tada! I actually plugged in my longarm, changed the needle, cleaned the tracks and all the wheels, and you have no idea how much I detest cleaning the wheels… and oiled the machine. That’s the closest I’ve come to considering working on the quilt that’s loaded for well over six months. Maybe after lunch I’ll turn it on? Probably not… but maybe!

I am more focused on shedding my last Covid 9lbs. I’m sick of wearing them and sick of whining about them. And the Apple Watch is the bomb!

With the Fitbit, it just ...

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Yesterday was cloud covered and very windy, and absolute beautiful day to walk at the lake after lunch, despite being over eighty degrees. It felt fabulous!

I met a couple of the girls and we got our six miles in, but while walking we almost stepped on a large copperhead, noticing it just in time to step well back and chase it off the trail with a branch and some rocks. Scary, as it was quite angry and jumping.

Further up the trail we came upon a snapping turtle.

Now mean humans don’t scare me nearly as much as ...

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I’ll probably forget to post tomorrow, so here’s wishing you all a lovely mom’s day!

My mom and I aren’t doing much, it’s supposed to rain and it is after all, mom’s day for me too :). I’m making us pizza, and we may see if we can remember how to play Canasta, a card game we played frequently when I was younger but neither of us remember anything about it.

In an effort to make our pizza more healthy, I added 150g’s of spelt flour to my 350g’s of bread flour ...

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I caught the little mouse inside my violin case the other day. I’m not sure how she managed to get inside, and we had to have a serious discussion about that, because now I’m wondering if that string that broke on me last month was due to a little mouse scampering about where she shouldn’t have been, and not caused by me over tightening it?

And then, this.

I mean, come on! I know exactly what she’s up to here. Trying to shame me into playing! I wonder why she didn’t restring my violin for ...

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I know I’m weird, and my idea of the perfect day rarely resembles the average person’s ideal. Five o’clock in the morning found me in the kitchen mixing up a batch of red peppers and tomatoes to oven roast. I absolutely adore these, and always have a batch in the fridge.

While the peppers were roasting, I cooked up a package of bacon, something else I like to keep in the fridge. It smelled absolutely amazing!

I fed my sourdough as well, so I could make dough later on in the day. I typically cook bacon in ...

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I bake Cosmo, our German Shepherd five pounds of chicken each week, make gravy with the drippings, and we top his dry food with it.  So this morning while baking his chicken, I decided to run vinegar through my coffee pots so I wouldn’t have to smell the vinegar, roasting chicken is definitely a better odor.  The big coffee pot I only use when we have guests, the rest of the time I have a little single cup coffee maker that I use.  Jim doesn’t drink coffee.  What a weirdo.  

The “experts” always say you have to then ...

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The Rugbrød turned out well enough. I don’t think it’s my favorite of that type recipe that I’ve tried, but it’s still delicious. This bread isn’t for everyone and my fond attachment to it is partly nostalgic, partly for health, and I do of course, quite enjoy the taste and texture of it.

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The nostalgia comes from my years in Germany, where this was a favorite breakfast of mine, typically eaten with braunschweiger and a bit of sliced red onion, or spread with butter and lemon curd. Yesterday I had it for both lunch and ...

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It dropped down to freezing for the last two nights here, so I lugged my four pots of tomatoes and several pots of herbs into the shed overnight… and left them during the day because they’re just too heavy for me to move around much. That should be the last of the freezing weather, hopefully!

I put them back out this morning with the cages back on. I am going to take a walk at the lake today as it’s going to be nice and I haven’t been able to walk at all this month. Afterward, I ...

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I tried a new recipe a couple of days ago. While I have a freaking library of bread baking books, and quite a few of them are sourdough, my hands down favorite is Emilie Raffa’s “Artisan Sourdough Made Simple“. I’ve yet to try a recipe out of it that isn’t spot on perfect. She has amazing sense for blending flavors.

I used half castelvetrano green olives (my favorites!) and half greek black olives. Four o’clock in the morning had me outside in my beds with a flashlight hunting down enough fresh thyme for the dough, the ...

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I like that crazy song. Gilbert someone or another sang it I think?

Jim left to go back to Georgia early yesterday morning. After lunch, I went over to my mom’s to help her with a few things, and when we were finished we played some Scrabble. Our first game began with both of us having a seven letter word, always fun!

When I got back home I took a few pictures of the new iris colors in bloom, as well as our spirea which are now in full bloom. Aren’t they gorgeous? They smell fabulous!

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I’m ...

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More or less. Jim let me know Saturday he was going to make it home for my birthday on Monday. He drove through the night Sunday (twelve hours from Georgia!) and made it in by 8 am. It was a very short visit as he had to leave at dawn again this morning, but I was so happy to see him!

Cosmo got a much needed bath! They both had fun, it was a beautiful eighty degrees out and I enjoyed watching them play from the comfort of my camp chair read more

The first of my son’s irises are beginning to bloom. They take my breath away every year, so gorgeous!

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I had the privilege of watching three bee swarms yesterday. It’s an act of nature that never fails to amaze me. I love standing in the midst of an active swarm… the sound and experience is incredible. We had rain blow in yesterday, but I was able to snag a picture of a small swarm before they flew off to find shelter.

About that pepper manna. I think this may possibly be the most fabulous smelling, mouth watering treat ...

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My iris beds are beginning to pop. I have so many purple irises of the old variety, found along ditches and abandoned home sites. I also have quite a few of the white ones, which are my least favorite, but they were here at the house when we bought it and I have split them many times over the years.

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Irises are my favorite flower, and they were loved by my youngest son as well. April is a bittersweet month for me, as they begin to bloom I’m equally torn between joy and grief. The specialty irises I planted ...

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