Up to some quilting, cooking and stuff …

Prepare for an extremely random post of different stuff. The annual fundraising luncheon I co-organize is happening in 1/2 a week. Six hundred something people for lunch. So not only am I tired, I’m feeling sort of scatterbrained as well. Coherency is not my strong suit at this point. Collating large quantities of data is.

So I’m really, really excited because I finally bought a walking foot attachment for my machine, and a 1/4″ walking foot. Can you tell I’m thinking of making another Large Size Quilt? I must be crazy.

I’m not sure if I should admit this, but I’ve never gotten any extra feet for my machine. I’ve been shy of learning new techniques for my machine, so for a long time I just stuck to the standard metal machine foot. Eventually I graduated to the zipper foot and others. I’m behind on learning machine gadgetry because I am self-taught. I figured out four feet by myself, and honestly some of it, well, it never occurred to me that some of the attachments existed (a ruffler foot? honestly!).

To educate myself about feet and what they do, I bought this book one day when I found it at Half Price Books. <– the Sewing Machine Attachment Handbook. It’s pretty good. There are a crazy number of things that you can do with machine attachments, as it turns out. Ruffling, pleating, smocking, hemming, cutting, darning, whatever. The book has quite a bit of history about machines and their attachments, which I found really interesting, partially because one day I’d like to own an antique machine. Anyway, if you’re interested in crafting gadgets or maybe you’re self-taught like me, it’s an interesting read.

In other news it’s farm market season again, so I brought home a bunch of leafy greens (I love lettuce with the roots still on), beets, eggs, fennel, zucchini and more! I’m (as usual) not thrilled with the hot weather, but I am excited that it’s produce season again. This year I’m going to join a CSA if I find one I like. I’m also starting to cook more again. Yesterday evening I cooked a really nice sweet asparagus and lentil soup – has carrots, onion, peas, roasted garlic and red bell pepper with prickly pear jelly and hot curry. For lentil soup, it’s on the pretty side, and it’s spicy and sweet. I made about a gallon of it, so it’s good that I like it.

Wesley has completed Obedience Training part 2. He took his test with two very excited Staffordshire terriers, a funny Corgi/bulldog mix, a crazy dorky Husky and a chilled out Labrador. Everyone passed the test, which was staying in place while the owner was out of sight, and then coming to the owner on command past a plate of food, sitting in front of us, and then heeling back to home. I must give most of the credit to my mother-in-law, who spent a lot of time training him while we were on vacation. Next I think we’re going to do agility classes since he has the basic commands down. This apparently involves lots of running around and using equipment (for me as well), which I think he will find awfully fun and interesting. He still has tons of energy that not even walking 3-4 miles a day can burn off.

Anyway, I’m 90% done with my new Memory quilt, I’m excited to say, and when I have some spare energy I’ll explain my rather abstract concept for it and how it ended up looking.

Woo! Back to … well, I’m going to sleep actually. Ta!

A few updatey type things

It’s been rather rainy and chilly here lately, which I’m enjoying very much, although it seems like everyone else just wants warm, sunny weather. Despite the frostiness, spring is soon to arrive. As evidenced the pictures gracing this post, which I took while walking to work one day after a night when it froze and even snowed. Leaves were damaged, but the flowers were undeterred.

I think it’s worth noting that I actually sat down and messed with the stuff (sidebar, pages, settings, etc.) on this blog the other night. I think some things hadn’t been futzed with since June 2007 when I started this blog, and others have stayed static since the redesign in October 2007.  I’d love to do another redesign, and restart the Index of Indie, but that will have to wait for available time, so I thought some tidying was in order. My blog’s making me feel a bit claustrophobic, it needs trimming. But I did like that I put the projects I’m working on in there.

Wesley graduated from the first round of obedience training last Monday. He is now an occasionally obedient dog. I’ve gotten mixed reactions about dog training – you all can rest assured, obedience training does not turn your dog into an automaton and there aren’t any choke collars involved. Our trainer Tara and co-trainer Amanda have been great, they love dogs, and they actually specialize in difficult, aggressive dogs, which Wesley is not. I love people who love animals, and don’t give up on them. Anyway, Wesley is still very much puppy-like and doggy. Just the other day he ate my wallet and license, the plastic on Jeff’s new tea mug, part of my shoe, the cheese crackers from a friend’s purse and an entire box of Kleenex. We are doing intermediate obedience training because Wesley enjoyed the classes so very, very much, him being an intelligent dog who likes people, activity and treats. I enjoy that he’s not chasing the poor cat as much, and that he’s ceased trying to dislocate my shoulder on walks.

I have sadly suffered cooking fail twice this week already, and it’s only Wednesday. On Valentine’s Day I did my usual and cooked Jeff dinner. The baked vegetable baklava turned out well, as did the saffron rice, however I … sort of melted the falafel. I used a recipe. I shouldn’t use recipes. The last time I made falafel I just invented it as I went and it turned out beautifully. Then tonight I tried to make red beans and rice – another recipe! – and burned the ever loving hell out of a dish I’m eminently familiar with and is only rice and beans, after all. I must be tired or something. I’m off my game.

I’ve been working really hard on my stack of crafting organizational items, and am proceeding quite satisfactorily. I’ll have some show-and-tell once I have some acceptable lighting. I am enjoying the time sewing very much. I should do this more often!

Mittens, Holidays and Organization

Happy new year, y’all. How’s the year treating you so far?

{My brother, Jeremy, making honey walnut wheat bread.}

I’ve had any number of blog posts appear and disappear out of my head in the last few days. Mostly they disappear into the mashed potatoes that seem to be clogging up my head (hey Mom, you know that cold you had?). But basically, what I want to talk about boils down to three things: (1) mittens, (2) food prep and (3) family holidays. Not necessarily in that order.

{Lovely misty freezing weather in Iowa.}

Let’s start with the mittens though. I can’t seem to finish them. I’ll have you know I worked on an awesome traveling blog post about making mittens, only to find I wasn’t too pleased with what I was doing. Then I never seemed to have the time to sit down and work on them again, and finish. So here I am! Still mitten-less! This chaps my hide, if you’ll pardon the expression. I PROMISED MYSELF HANDMADE FUZZY MITTENS, and here I am still NOT with the mittens. Finishing them is my real goal for the week. Before it gets too warm to wear them.

{Jeremy’s bread, which I just finished off tonight along with my mom’s cranberry bread yesterday.}

Let’s move on to family holidays. I did what I’ve done many times in my life, and went to Iowa to my grandparents’ house. I love this ritual, and it’s something I remember doing for most of my life. It is a far drive, and I sacrifice other things to do it, but it is a dear and important tradition to me. This is usually the only time I see my maternal extended family during the year, so I make an effort to make the trip each year. I wish I could kick the a** of my paternal family to do the same periodic gathering sort of thing.

{It turns out my mom’s good at un-knotting tangled skeins of yarn. Thanks for those tangles, Wesley!}

On a side note, I got lots of great stuff. You? I gave almost 100% handmade things. It was definitely the season of felted pins. I did not make stuff, however. I will probably do something masochistic like that in the future (like some other crafty bloggers I know), but not this year. Once again, I failed to send holiday cards also. Meh. One day. Maybe I could send Memorial Day cards? Halloween?

{Denmark cemetery. You know, the old kind of town cemetery, dating to the 1800s, behind the church in the small town.}

This year I was in charge of the holiday food. Nine people from Tuesday to Saturday. Granted, I love to cook, and I don’t mind cooking a lot, but I’m used to cooking for two. This required meal planning. I love me some planning! I had charts, and I had lists, and I had recipes and I had … well, let me just show you:

See what I mean? I put notes and stuff on Flickr, too.

{I didn’t remember to get french fried onions for the green bean casserole, so I layered stuffing over the casserole instead, and it actually turned out pretty well.}

I was happy to have my grandmother (who is 83) sit while I did the work this year. She’s not good at just relaxing, but we tried. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot I can do for her being so far away, so it was good to do. Everyone else helped me out, and we all got fed on a regular basis. Usually my uncle Dan or my aunt Miriam do the cooking, but there’s no reason for me to sit around like a fence post. Uncle Dan helped with the meat a lot, which isn’t really my thing anymore.

{The day after Christmas it snowed. A lot. And Jeff drove on this to get us from Iowa to mid-Missouri. Good times! Actually, the glare from the windshield makes it look extra bad.}

The whole holiday was nice. Crazy family, crazy drive … oh hey. Did I mention there was a snowstorm on the way back to Texas? Jeff drove. I crocheted mittens. My mom got bored. It took two and a half days, but we made it in one piece. And THAT, my friends, is the mitten story. But it’s not today’s story.