FILLING TIME

Time has become almost surreal 6 months into this pandemic, a National Disaster for sure, that just keeps cycling around with more bad news. In the West, the more bad news - the fires! We have two burning, one within 10 miles from us, the other 40 miles. Both are burning hot enough for the smoke to block out the sun, almost daily. It's nearly impossible to sit for 20 minutes on the porch, fresh air, not at this time! Daily temps. are hanging around 99-100 degrees, we need cold and snow! The RNC is not helping my mental health

 with all the HATE they are spewing on TV! Oh, 2020 you have been one hard year!

But, a little break yesterday....Caitlin and I canned Roma Tomatoes. Jason first roasted them,    (4 cases in less than 10 minutes), never again will I do the blanching method to remove skins.

I thought we were going to make tomato sauce, the kind that is ready to pour and use for pasta dishes. Caitlin wanted to can whole tomatoes, because they are so much more versatile, open a jar, make sauce (by adding garlic and spices), open a jar and use the whole tomatoes poured over a roast, or make soup, spicy V-8 juice.......

You get the idea! So whole tomatoes it was and it was fast. We started at 1pm and I pulled the last jars out at 6pm. Not bad for a winter supply of deliciousness! 

The Brown and Pink quilt is on the machine and it is going to be slowing going!  Though it will be beautiful when completed and I have the time! 

Reading: 

~Caste: This is a hard read for me, but a much needed read for me! Please, if you are interested in Race and Race relations, this is the book you are looking for, get it, read it slow and digest the information. 

~The Mountains Sing- Is about a family in Viet Nam that survives the years of wars from the French through the Americans and last-the Communist Party. WOW. 

Connecting with Kat and Unraveled Wednesday

KEEPING IT SIMPLE while THE WORLD IS ON FIRE

The kiddos were here on the weekend and I came up with an art project that, 1) they loved and 2) lasted most of the morning....BINGO that's a win! I had used up some fabric on a few bolts and hated to just toss the cardboard , so I decided to put them on the table with a bunch of art supplies and said 'go for it'. 'Go for it' they did, what started as making -'people board's' went to pure unrestricted artistic expression. I love that kind of kid art! Let them run with imagination.

We have a GIANT fire burning about 50 miles up the canyon from us and the smoke is awful! It has been blocking out the sun for days, some days worse than others. So besides for COVID reasons, we are locked inside our homes due to the thick smoke. Oy Vey, what else is 2020 going to throw at us?

A few projects that I have completed are:

--sweater for Gus

---rainbow socks that I am keeping for me

---the disaster quilt for Gus

I call it the disaster quilt because of all the mistakes in the quilt. One would think- this is the first quilt I have ever made and I have close to about 150 under my sewing belt. One thing that I finally cried "uncle" on -is my straight edge ruler. It must be 15-20 years old and has few markings  left on it that I can read and the edge is all gouged and nicked. I ordered a new one! If Disaster quilt was not going to little Gus I would of thrown it out. It almost landed in the trash several times but I thought, Gus is just going to drag it through the dirt, stomp on it and use in fort building....well now, it may just be perfect for him. Betty saw it and thought it was so "beautiful" and asked if it was for her?

Me: no Honey this is for Gus.

Betty: But Mimi, Gus does not SHARE! 

Betty:  I know, You can make me one too!

Me: Of course I will!

The quilt is made from scraps and I mean true scraps. I have buckets of small scrappy quilt fabrics. I can't bear to throw out fabric, it's expensive and I can always make something from the scraps. 

I'm anxiously awaiting a Di Ford -BOM quilt and book to arrive, it will be the first Di Ford quilt for me. Lots of piecing, (so glad I ordered that new ruler), and some appliquéing, best of both worlds. 

Also on the agenda is a Hexie Quilt that will be done by hand! Hope I live long enough to complete this beautiful quilt, another quilt inspired by Di Ford.

Presently, I am machine quilting the Brown and Pink Reproduction Quilt. 

Reading:

The Good Lord Bird by James Mc Bride

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

Needled to Death by Maggie Sefton

Joining Kat - Unraveled Wednesday

PEACHES

Last Wednesday was spent canning 2 cases of peaches with Caitlin. We ended up with 29 quarts and about 7 whole HUGE peaches (left over)! Not bad for about 3 hours of work. 

The kitchen 'flow' was hard, I had the canning flow down in my old house to a smooth sailing ship. This new kitchen is much bigger and lots of room to move, but have to figure out the 'flow'! Also, without stone counters we had to bring in ply wood so the jars wouldn't burn the counters and table. Yup, Caitlin and I have both done that at one time or another. 

What is on the agenda this week coming up, I am not sure but I bet their will be something and it will be fun!

ONCE A WEEK

SOAP

Smoked Ribs, Potato Salad, Corn on the Cob, Salad

Getting to 'trace' with soap

Fried Chicken, Potato Salad, Corn on the Cob

This new blogger, I am not having fun with! I can't move my pictures around and blogger won't load them in the order I try to put them, sooo, I get this mish mash sequence of pictures! Ugh....

A couple of weeks ago, Caitlin and I decided to 'make' one day a week. Our first week was...

Canning Pickles. We put together Refrigerated Pickles and Dill Pickles. We forgot to put horseradish in the Dills, ( just something to rachet up the flavor, oh well next time.)

The pickles came out amazingly! It's hard  to let the jars sit and the spices to do their magic, but patience is a virtue, so I am told.

The second week, we made SOAP. I love homemade soap, I love making it and the only thing I love more, is to make SOAP with Caitlin. Of course, while making two basic batches of soap, we are planning our next batch....Goat Milk, and what essential oils to use. It is endless our plans and Caitlin has already found a local source for that goat milk!

Two year olds can be sooo funny! Gus walked into the kitchen and told his Mom, "I going to the library to pick up books and I have my mask on!" Cuz, you know all the germs out there. 

Kids, they will never know how much sunshine they spread in this crazy world.

After replacing all our appliances , I have been cooking and Eric has been smoking. 

I will say this stay at home thing, it has allowed us to cook some yummy, comfort food. And right now, I need comfort food a couple times a week!  The other thing in the kitchen happening is making dishes from scratch that before would of  been bought ready made at the store, like potato salad and all salad dressings. The hits have been, potato salad, cole slaw, and several salad dressings. The one pictured about, not so much, its Creamy Cucumber, needs some work. 

Are you cooking? I would love to hear all about your kitchen experience. 

UNRAVELED WEDNESDAY

It's a burst of energy in the MAKING department. First up is the little red sweater knitted last fall for a 4 year old, who wore it camping and got it full of dust, dirt, river water and paint.(don't ask about the paint...uggg). I soaked it for about 30 hours and would you believe, it came out with no paint and clean, clean, clean. 

The variegated yarn is being knitted into a fall sweater for the 2 year old. The yarn colors remind me of 'Indian Summer', a favorite time of year for me. I am religiously using up yarn in my stash during my COVID knitting time/experience. I have had fun pulling out bins of yarn and finding the perfect skien/s for what I have in my mind to knit. Maybe by the fall I will feel the urge to buy some new yarn but for now I am very satisfied with my stash. 

The gold and maroon yarn I frogged from a project 3 years ago. Love the yarn, just not the pattern I had chosen to use the yarn in, I may be having that same issue again! I decided to use this color combo for the Through the Loops Mystery Knit and I am not sure I like my choice. The pattern is amazing, but such contrasting colors, perhaps not. I think maybe 2 color yarns that blend together may have been a better choice for me. I am going to hold off knitting any more on the Mystery shawl and see how it turns out for the other participants. I hate giving up so soon and have had fleeting feelings of failure, then I come to a screeching mind halt and scream, "This is knitting, not a failure but accepting what I like and don't like."  I have never done a Mystery knit before for fear of not liking the end product and using up all that time and material that I could have been making something else that I do like.  Well, first mystery I guess is a bust for me.

The pink and brown quilt is a pattern out of Quilt Mania, that I started a year ago. I had finished 6 squares when I pulled them out 3 weeks ago. It took me all of 4 days to finish the last 24 squares and set in half triangles,( 2 weeks spent finding the magazine with the pattern).  Next the borders will go on, then the machine quilting will commence. 

Books:

Song Yet Sung   *****

I think this is one of the best books I have ever read!

The Last Runaway ***

Interesting, I liked the characters and the descriptions of the quilts. The story , so so.

Looking forward to finding some joy in the my next week of COVID life.

Joining Unraveled Wednesday with Kat

APRIL HAPPENINGS

April is a Birthday month in my family. My granddaughter and I have our birthdays one week apart to the day. Of course, I am no longer able to celebrate my day for more than a nano second, since April is all about Betty's day. She started talking about her day early in the month, reminding all, that she is going to be four and that is really big! I was informed that since I couldn't go out, I should just wrap up some of my toys for her! Also, a blue cake was to be made by me, 'my mommy doesn't know how to make cakes, she can only make cookies'. Haha, her Mom owns and runs Me Oh My Pies and Coffee. 

Birthday presents consisted of 6 pints homemade strawberry jam, (Betty's favorite),  one Mimi made quilt, and a Blue Cake. Birthday was a success and a very happy day for Betty.

Yesterday, though cloudy, we went on a long drive up the canyon to look at the river, is it fishable or running to fast?  May, June and part of July, rivers in the West are rising with the 'run off'. All the snow melting in the high country, finding its waterway to the Missouri or Colorado River, depending on which side of the continental divide it's on. Though the run off has definitely started the river is not running too fast to fish. Hopefully we will be able to returned today for some socially distancing fishing. Fly fishing is ALWAYS a socially distance activity. Eric in the river and me on the river bank-knitting and reading.

April reads:

Read My Heart ****

A good 17th century  English aristocratic book. 

Rising Tide*****

Interesting story as well as extremely sad. Politics in the US  can and often is soo sad . 

This a story of taming the Mississippi River, a river that is crucial for the US economy. Though taming the river involves political, economic abuse of low income populations and especially people of color, think Jim Crow laws. 

The Mountain Between Us**

I found this book to be equivalent to a soap opera. I enjoy the part about how they got out of the mountains, but the love story, not so much. The ending was obvious from the first page....dumb.

Happy May day. Here's to hoping this month is better than the last few COVID months.

Take care and stay healthy.

THOUGHTS (2)

Not the best picture, but it's time for fall food again.

The above pictures are from a walk I took in our new neighborhood. 

Yes, we have a lot of open space around this newer subdivision and I plan on waking through it often. I know within ten-fifteen years it may well be gone to more building, I'm going immerse myself in this open space now while it last.

We are getting more settled in our new home, everything is unpacked, though we cannot find a thing!

Everyday it's: "do you know where such and such was put?" "Nope, look here and here, if that doesn't work, try here,"  or," I may have gotten rid of that."

Our old house has been on the market for a week and half now, lots of lookers but no offers as of yet. Patience is not one of my strong points, keeping our fingers crossed, real estate sales have slowed down a bit here in NoCo. 

Besides organizing and getting settled in the new house, I have been knitting and rug hooking. I try to get some crafting in everyday, looking through UFO's and making a list to finish projects during the winter. It is finally getting fallish and cooler weather! We may even get measurable snow this week. That first snow is always so magical for me! it's tucking in season!

How do you 'tuck' in for winter?