doing some sewing

I really need to clean and oil my sewing machine but I wanted to get my "block of the month" for February finished first.

In this quilt each block represents a month...but we get our instructions at our meeting near the end of the month...so it's making me feel like I'm behind already.

At the February meeting we got the pattern for this block with Valentine hearts...

It went together pretty easy, but I did disobey the directions and used a printed background instead of a solid beige!

I had taken a photo of everyone's finished January blocks...snowflakes.

I see only five snowflake blocks there but I think a couple more of the ladies are participating too.

They must be camera shy!

Now I'll do some maintenance on my machine and catch up on a couple of other projects.

What I've been reading

...this book by Mindy Kaling..."Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?".

I first noticed Mindy Kaling as an actress on the TV show "The Office", which is one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

She didn't have a huge part in the show but she played her character perfectly and stole the show when she was in a scene.

Then I noticed in the credits that she was also a writer for the show. That really impressed me...that she was so talented that she could write and act.

So when I saw that she had written this book, a sort of comedy/memoir, I knew I would enjoy reading it.

The book is a collection of humorous essays...about her childhood and school years, and then about how she got into acting and writing for television.

I think her target audience of readers is young women and this book would be fine for any teen to read. There are no drunken Hollywood parties or one night stands.
In fact, just the opposite. Ms Kaling tells how she became successful through hard work and sacrifices.

It's a quick and enjoyable read.

Mindy Kaling is in a newer TV show called "The Mindy Project", which she developed and writes. I have never been able to watch it, even though it's in the fourth season.
Hopefully I'll catch it as reruns one of these days.

The back cover of this book says she also has a second book coming out. I will read that one too, if I see it at the library or find a cheap used copy!

surprise quilt for Rita

At our January meeting, my quilting group, Crazy Quilters, decided that we would like to make a quilt as a surprise for Rita, one of our members and friends.
Rita hasn't been to a meeting for several months...she has been busy kicking cancer's butt!
She is doing great and has been working all the while she's been going through treatments. She is tough as nails!

Her birthday is in March so it seemed like the perfect time to surprise her with a quilt, to let her know we miss her and are thinking about her.
 At the January meeting we worked out a plan and agreed to all bring some 30's fabrics and our sewing supplies to try to get a quilt put most of the way together at the February meeting.

A couple of the ladies, Jan and Isolde, figured out a layout and cutting measurements and made up a test block, so on our sewing night we were ready to get started in on the quilt.

We had a sort of assembly line going.  Jan and Cheryl were cutting fabric...

Marcella was sewing while Linda did her pressing and kept the fabric paired up and ready to sew.

(Linda also brought a delicious chocolate cake to keep our energy from flagging.)

Here is Stephanie, Joan and Dee. They were sewing, pressing, working on the label...whatever needed doing!  Joan also brought a couple of huge pizzas and baked them fresh while we worked.

Barbara was sewing away back in this corner too...but I somehow missed getting her photo.

Wanda was there earlier so I don't have a photo of her either.

Here is Isolde. She was sewing and making sure blocks were perfectly trimmed...

That's Louise below. She hadn't brought her machine but just jumped in and started sewing by hand.

Susan is standing. She couldn't get there until after work - then she used her expertise helping with the layout and the pressing.

There is Lee, who did a lot of sewing and seemed to be everywhere at once, and Isolde working with the layout too. 

Every time the ladies would get the blocks laid out so the same fabrics didn't end up next to each other - another of us would pick up a section to sew some sashing on...and we would get mixed up where it was supposed to go back to.

Finally we had things in order!

See that bottom right block in the photo below? It is turned the wrong way!  Fortunately it was discovered in time to get it turned around right!

By the end of the evening we had the quilt top nearly together.

I brought the quilt home to pin baste and quilt.

Let me show some close ups of the cute fabrics. These are 30's fabrics...sort of reproductions of feed sacks and other popular designs of the 1930's.

The pink with moccasins - how sweet!

Orange with Arabs and camels, yellow with scottie dogs, purple with ladies and lambs...

Purple with ducks and bunnies, green with Asian ladies and flower carts, yellow with cats wearing clothes...

We all liked the green with rabbits...

It was fun quilting this quilt and seeing all the details in the fabrics as I swirled along.

Cats with musical instruments below...

All finished!

Isolde had a good idea on how we could surprise Rita.   She asked Rita to stop by her house to pick up a special sized ruler (for quilting).

A few of us from the Crazy Quilters were there to sing "Happy Birthday" and give Rita the quilt.

That's Rita, seated in the middle. Look at that beautiful smile! I think she likes the quilt!!

Beside her is her husband Roger. He is a great guy too, and has been right there for Rita every step of the way.

Standing behind, is Jan, Isolde and Susan.

Isolde served us all some delicious homemade banana pudding with meringue baked on top! Still warm from the oven too! Yummm!

Time flew by as Rita and Roger told some stories about their experiences going through cancer treatment and "prosthesis" fitting and so forth...some serious, but some with such a hilarious spin on things that we were all laughing and giggling! 

Hope Rita is back sewing with our group again soon!

wind damage

I was just showing off the fringey little blooms on my witch hazel tree - and now I walk out and find several broken branches on it.

At first I thought deer had vandalized the tree, but on closer inspection I think this is wind damage. It's not just the tips bitten off - but larger areas of the branches with this splintered twisted look.

That's disappointing, but I will just need to keep it pruned to a rounded compact shape to prevent this.

A fairly large branch fell from a Sassafras tree. Good thing no one was sitting in the swing!

I see woodpeckers have been at work on this pear tree. Look how evenly spaced those holes are! I was tempted to go get the tape measure to compare the distance between each of them.

That is some precision wood pecking!

All this rain and warmer weather is giving the grass a good head start on spring.  I'm so glad to see the green back again!

I'm happy the daylight savings time is in effect again too! Wish we would keep it year round.

mexican rice

I always have a hard time figuring out what to serve with burritos or tacos.  I look for side dishes that will go with mexican main dishes without using the same ingredients over and over.

This mexican rice seems to go well with burritos. It has a lighter, fresher taste and doesn't call for beans or cheese.

Mexican Rice
2 cups basmati rice
2 Tbsp. olive oil
3 1/2 cups water
2 Tbsp. chicken base
1 onion, finely chopped
1 green pepper, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 can Rotel tomatoes
1 tsp. ground cumin
cilantro (optional)
salt and pepper

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add dry rice and cook and stir about 3 minutes until rice begins to brown a bit.

Add water and chicken base and bring mixture to a boil.

Add diced onion, green pepper and garlic.

Add Rotel tomatoes - liquid too.

Add cumin, cilantro, salt and pepper.    I have family members that do not like the taste of cilantro so I add just a bit.  

Cover pan and cook on low until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed...about 15-20 minutes.

We had this for Sunday dinner, along with enchilada style beef burritos, refried beans with cheese, baked buttered sweet potato halves, fried polenta slices, and a mandarin orange, craisins and romaine salad with walnuts.

Later, for dessert, we had Texas Sheet cake.  Everyone was wishing for some vanilla ice cream to go along with the cake...poor things! So mistreated!

Ice cream really would have been good with it. The cake is pretty chocolatey!  There was a short discussion about someone running down to the store to get ice cream, but we decided to rough it and eat cake on it's own.

thinking about digging in the dirt

"Brave" is always the word that comes to mind when the first daffodils start blooming each spring. They persistently ignore what ever snowy, cold, rainy weather we are having to show off their cheery yellow blooms.

I see that I need to make a change in this particular flower bed though. 

I had planted a mixture of mini daffodils and regular sized ones, thinking I would have a longer period of blooms...since they bloom at different times.

That's working okay, but I see that the mini daffodils will probably become "lost" as the regular ones form larger clumps each year.

I either need to move all the minis to the outer perimeter...or take the regular sized ones out and put them somewhere else.

I try to keep up with thoughts and plans like this in my garden journal...

It's a loose leaf binder that I use to help me remember what plants I have, and where they are planted.

I tape the plant label to a page and write notes telling the year I bought it, when to prune it, how big it's supposed to get and so forth.

Of course, I am always a little behind, but a couple of times during the growing season, I will page through and make notes. 

Maybe something like "slow to leaf out", or "moved over by back porch", or "no blooms this year", and so forth.

  

If a plant dies out, I pull the page and add it to the "failures" list in the back...or I might think it's worthwhile to try it again.

During the summer, I make a list of changes I want make the next spring before plants get too big to move.

The daffodils will need to be moved after they have finished blooming this year though, and after the foliage dies back.

Hey, look, there's a couple of catalogs I stuck in here earlier this year!

Hmmm, I haven't ordered anything new for spring planting yet.  Maybe I should look through and see if there's anything interesting.

While I'm at it, I'll just check that website that I like to order plants from. I think there were some things I left off my order last year.

Now that's a good way to spend a rainy day!

black bean chipotle soup

If you are a Kroger customer you probably receive the "mymagazine" booklet from them.  It has food articles, recipes and coupons.

I usually look through them and get the coupons - but I would prefer that instead of printing and mailing me a glossy magazine, they just use that money to keep food prices lower in the store.

I did tear out this recipe for Black Bean Chipotle Soup in a recent issue, mostly because I noticed it called for "chipotles in adobo sauce". 

I don't normally use those but I've had a can of them in the cabinet for a couple of years. Whatever recipe I originally bought it for has long since vanished...and I wasn't sure how to use them...until now.

The recipe is here https://www.mymagazine.us/article/soups-with-latin-flair .

It turns out that you use only one of the chipotle chilis from the can - not the whole can. You puree the chili with part of the black beans in the recipe, than add that back to the soup. 

They are that spicy hot!

So now what to do with the rest of the can?

I laid them out separately on a sheet of waxed paper, rolled them up and put them in a baggie in the freezer. It should be easy enough to take out one or two peppers when I want to use them.

If I can remember they're in there.

But back to the soup. It was good and I think we could have handled another pepper in it.

It was even better tasting the next day!  (A dollop of sour cream stirred in could only make it even better).