what I have been working on

Even though I haven't finished binding the crib quilt I was working on, I started cutting for the next one.
It was because Lonnie woke up early one morning and had coffee made when I got up, so I poured a cup and started cutting out some shapes at the kitchen counter.

Well, I should have just stayed in bed because I cut 144 side triangles  from colored fabrics that were supposed to be cut from white for the pattern I wanted.

I didn't realize until I started sewing a block together.

It's not a real big deal though because I was cutting from some of my small pieces...trying to get a nice variety of brights. I will figure out some way to use them eventually.

The good part of the whole thing is that it will be much quicker cutting them from white...because there is no right or wrong side of the fabric...so they can be flipped to go on either side of the large triangle.

  When I was mistakenly cutting from colored fabrics I was being careful to get an equal number of right facing and left facing ones. 

All for naught!

This time, I only cut a few then stopped to put together a block to be sure everything would go together correctly. 

This is the way it's supposed to look...

I learned I will need to be careful ironing these too. They can get stretched out easy because of those bias sides of the triangles!

what I've been reading

 I picked this book up from the "discard" shelf at the library...

"Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother" by Dorothy Laird.

I have always been curious about "The Queen Mother" since years ago,seeing her pictured with other Royal Family members...always dressed in lovely pastel colored ensembles with a matching hat. She always looked so good natured and calm and pleasant.

A few years ago, when the movie called "The King's Speech" came out,  it clicked in my brain that the Queen Mother was married to King George VI, the man who became king when his brother, Prince Edward, abdicated the throne in order to marry a woman who wouldn't have been accepted as Queen.

But back to this biography, which was written in 1966.  It starts out with some background information on the Bowes-Lyon family and the childhood of Lady Elizabeth, then on to her engagement and marriage to Prince Albert.
The story continues through the trying times when Edward abdicated and Albert became King (George VI)..and Lady Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth. On through the war years and then the death of the King  from lung disease.
Queen Elizabeth's daughter, the current Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne.

It can be very confusing when reading stuff about the royal family...sometimes they are referred to by their name and sometimes by their title..which can change or they can have multiple titles.
So while reading this book, I skimmed over a lot of parts that didn't seem very interesting And concentrated on the personal stories and experiences of the Queen Mother.

She turned out to be quite a character. Very personable and interested in everything and everyone. Always ladylike and mannerly . She took her duty to her country very seriously and had a full schedule of travel and appearances throughout her life.
Lots of anecdotes in the book about her tireless endurance when meeting and greeting large groups of people and foreign dignitaries, always making time to have a short but personal chat with as many people as she could.

Her entire life story is not told in this book - she was in her 60's when it was written and she lived to be 101 years old!

I liked parts of this book-other parts were boring.  It was refreshing to read about someone's good traits and qualities rather than the latest scandal that's been exposed.
I can't say I would recommend this book and it's out of print anyway...but if you are interested in the Queen Mum or the Royal Family in general, you might enjoy skipping around through it.

Pumpkin Dessert

I tried out a new-to-me recipe for a pumpkin dessert. I found it on Allrecipes.com, where I was looking for something pumpkiny...but not pumpkin pie...since I always make that at Thanksgiving.

This is a good recipe, and an easy one.

Pumpkin Dessert

1 package yellow cake mix
1/3 cup butter melted
1 egg

1  29 oz. can pumpkin
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup milk
3 eggs
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Set aside 1 cup of cake mix.  Pour remaining cake mix into mixing bowl and stir in melted butter and 1 egg. Mix well and spread in a greased 9" x 13" pan.

Next, blend together pumpkin, brown sugar, milk, eggs and spices.  Mix well and pour over cake mix layer.

Mix reserved cake mix with sugar in a bowl and cut in 1/4 cup butter. Sprinkle this mixture evenly over pumpkin layer.

Add chopped walnuts over all.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes until top is golden. 

Allow to cool and serve with a dollop of cool whip!

Some of the reviewers on the recipe site thought this dessert was too sweet. We didn't think so at all. The walnuts help balance out sweetness.

The leftovers held up well in the fridge for several days.

a little bit of fall color

A few trees around our yard are beginning to show some fall color.

the best so far is this Sassafras Tree at the edge of the woods. It catches the evening sun - so pretty!

A closer look. It seems like these colors could be used to put together a beautiful quilt.

There is a huge old Walnut tree right on the property line in back of us. A couple of years ago I noticed it was being smothered by a combination of grape vines and wild rose vines - so I dragged some of the vines down and cut others off at the ground.

It seem like it helped the tree out because there are a lot more walnuts this year. I kicked a few up into a pile but I'll just leave them here for the animals.

It was a beautiful afternoon earlier this week. It had rained in the morning and the sun was out later. The sky kept changing every few minutes.

Lots of mushrooms popping up everywhere...these look like small bloody internal organs when you see them from a distance! 

I saw this walking stick bug on the side of the shed. He was small - about 3" long in the body. I thought it looked somewhat like a praying mantis, but I Googled "walking stick insect" , and found that's what it is.

Berries on a Honeysuckle Bush. 

I mistakenly thought Honeysuckle bushes were native US plants and that the vines were invasive imports. I am going to have to look up more information on that, because the last thing I read about them said that some types of Honeysuckle bushes are invasive.  

Because their leaves develop early in the year and stay green longer, they shade out native wildflowers and tree sprouts. They must be a huge problem in some areas...developing into a spreading dense thicket.

Hungarian Mushroom Soup

I picked up a couple of marked down packages of mushrooms at the grocery without a plan for how to use them.
Days were going by without me being able to work them into a meal so I though I'd try making cream of mushroom soup.

I looked at the Allrecipes website and found that if you want to make cream of mushroom soup, you will need to have cream or half & half.
Generally, I would have one or the other ...but not this time.

I kept looking at recipes and came across this one that had good reviews. I had all the ingredients!

Hungarian Mushroom Soup

4 Tblsp. Butter

2 cups chopped onions

1 pound fresh mushrooms,sliced

2 tsp. dried dill weed

1Tblsp. Paprika

1 Tblsp Soy sauce

 2 cups chicken broth

1 cup milk

3 Tblsp. flour

1 tsp. salt

pepper to taste

2 tsp. lemon juice

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (I used a couple tablespoons of dried)

1/2 cup sour cream (I only had this kind with chives)

Saute chopped onions in  butter until softened. I like to get a little browning and carmelization going on in the pan for more flavor. (That's what to say if you're burning your onions!)

Add mushrooms, dill, paprika, soy sauce, and chicken broth. The original recipe said to saute the mushrooms for 5 minutes before adding the broth. I didn't do this because it seems like mushrooms will always soak up the butter then stick to the pan. 

Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes. In a small bowl, wisk flour in to the milk until 

no lumps remain. Stir into the mushroom mixture. Add salt and pepper.

Cover and simmer about 15 minutes longer. Stir in lemon juice, parsley and sour cream.
Allow the temperature to come back up but do not boil.
I had to add more milk to thin mine out...probably because I used an extra half pound of mushrooms.

So it turned out just about like cream of mushroom soup anyway.

Lonnie really liked it.  I think it would also be good with chicken or beef added...if you wanted a heartier soup.

If you want to see the original recipe you can click here Hungarian Mushroom Soup

quilting with orange thread

I did get a quite a bit done on the baby girl quilt at our all day sewing session at the extension office last week.

I had been considering using this stripe fabric for sashing and borders...(blocks are just laying on the stripe fabric here).

But, I didn't want the quilt to get too big for baby...and I like the way it looks without sashing.

 Mitering  corners on a border is something I have wanted to learn.. I thought this would be a good time to try it...because of the stripes.  

There were instructions online to follow, but I still had to rip out and redo more than once. The trouble spot was at the inside corner of the border. It just wouldn't go together right. I finally opened up the seam a little and hand stitched it in place, then ironed it into submission.

Is there any way to get the stripes to match up exactly? If you matched them at one corner, what's the chance they would match at the opposite corner?  Maybe if I get the hang of doing the miter easily, I'll start thinking about how to match stripes.

I did get it layered and pinned that day, and ready for quilting . There was a nice tall table at the extension office that made that job easy.

Since then, I have started the machine quilting. I have been itching to try quilting with colored thread and I had an orangey-coral colored thread that was a good match for this quilt.

So far, I like it. It keeps the white background from looking so plain and stark.

It's a regular old stipple again. I just think it helps to strengthen the quilt since it crosses seams so they can't get pulled apart with use.

took care of that mailbox

Here, you can see why our poor mail carrier had to tell us, "Your mailbox needs attention".

The poor  thing was leaning at a crazy angle (the mail box...not the mail carrier).

It didn't take long to fix it up. I had to dig down a little...pull out the post...clean out the hole...then put it back in straight. I jammed some rocks around it and packed the dirt down tight. I looks much better! 

Pretty good even!

Let's see how long it takes for someone to knock it down.

Also, the pool is now "closed for the season". It really looks like winter is on the way once that cover goes on. 

Lonnie has a few green peppers left on his plants...he is trying to coax them into maturing before a frost.

Our grass still looks like a hay field from where it had grown so tall when the mower was broken.  I want to cut it one more time this year to see if I can make it look a little better.