Mower Still Trapped in Garage

I'm just mentioning that because this is really about Jack trying not to look at that very scary ramp laying flat on the ground.

 Jack had an appointment at 1 o'clock today with the groomer at PetSmart.  I lured Dylan into his crate with a big dental chew.  I wasn't sure the treat would even get him to go in because he has steadfastly ignored his crate since it was violated by the puppy at Christmas but I was afraid of what damage he might do being left behind.  He was quite vocal about it when he realized Jack and I were leaving without him.

Jack, of course, was beside himself with joy.  I flung open the hatch and he put his front feet on the bumper and that was as far as he got.  He could not jump up and in.  I tried to lift his back end in and could not do it because he wasn't helping at all and then he just gave up.  Sat down.

I tried to get him to get in from the driver's seat, usually their favorite way, particularly with muddy feet.  I crawled over to the passenger's side and offered treats.  Nope.  I got a small plastic table and tried to get his front feet on it hoping I could just shove him in.  No way.  Dragged a 2x8 from the garage to make a ramp.  Oh. No.  A wide piece of shelving that was also long enough to make a ramp.  No.  He wouldn't even try.  Amazingly, I remained dry eyed.

So, I called and cancelled the appointment and they were very nice about it.  Then I went to PetSmart alone and bought an official dog ramp, a small bag of kibble, some very deluxe treats and a Diet Pepsi.  One hundred fifty nine dollars.  Went home had a bit of lunch then took Dylan for his rabies and distemper/parvo shots.  Ninety one dollars, which also included a bag of dental chews.

I'm pleased with the ramp and we tested it out on the deck stairs.  Well, Dylan and I did the testing.  He went up and down several times with those super treats in front of his nose.  Jack wanted no part of it.  Not even the treat could change his mind.  When I folded up the box to put in recycling a paper fell out and they had some tips for helping the dogs to accept the ramp.  First was to just lay it down flat and not make too much of it.  Ahh.  So that's where we are at.  I laid it flat inside the the back door.  Uh no, no good.  So currently it is just leaning up against the wall.  Maybe on Wednesday we'll give it another try.

That Jack.  Mr. Anxiety.

Stash Report Week 18

Added this week            .50
 Used this week            0.00
Added year to date     37.09
Used year to date       30.67
Net year to date         +6.42 YARDS

Just two fat quarters I was happy to find!

Shrimp the Second time

The leftover shrimp from Sunday's supper became shrimp tacos for dinner tonight.

I didn't actually reheat them as this picture might suggest.  I heated up one side of a tortilla until it began to brown then flipped it over and laid cold shrimp on one side and shredded jack cheese on the other.  When it started to brown I folded it in half and started another one. (Julie's method)

Before I went to work, I made a bit of coleslaw to add to the tacos.

3 cups of chopped cabbage
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons green salsa
2 tablespoons chopped onion
salt and pepper

I wanted the slaw on the mild side so as not to overwhelm the shrimp.  You could certainly adjust the heat and just use salsa and/or pepper jack cheese.

Plan B

Plan A was to do organic free motion straight line quilting so I could round the corners.  I drew out a bunch of quilting plans and then simplified.  Seriously simplified.

After the third line of stitching had to be ripped out, I abandoned the free motion idea and went back to my tried and true walking foot, Plan B.  After giving it some thought though, I wonder if I tried free motion without the BSR (Bernina Stitch Regulator) and that way I could use my pedal.  I did practice on a 24 by 24 inch piece before I started this quilting but 24x24 is a lot easier to move than one that measures 48x48. I

I'm sure I can find a large finished top to practice on, she says, rolling on the floor laughing.

Big Jack keeping an eye on me!

February UFO... DONE!

I think I said this already but just in case, I am calling this one Missouri Free Bird because it is the Missouri Star Quilters method for making the blocks and the fabric name is Free Bird by MoMo for Moda.

It's sashed with Kona Snow and I tried to use up every scrap of the Free Bird fabric that I had except for my very favorite.  I have yardage of that one and had to cut into it because I never could find the jelly roll strips I had set aside for the binding.  I used some fat quarters to piece the back.

I did all the quilting on my DSM (domestic sewing machine) rather than have it quilted on a long arm since it is a UFO and the fabric is a couple of years old.

I used a bamboo batting and I am very happy with the way it all turned out!  It will look nice on my bed if I decide to keep it.

YAY!  Cross it off the list!

Season Opener

88 degrees yesterday, so I took the plastic patio dishes out of storage for our first dinner outside!  We were celebrating Julie's moving back from Pennsylvania and I made this shrimp with a side of Ramen noodle salad.

Spicy Shrimp (maybe from a friend of the Pioneer Woman)

Prep Time: 16 Minutes  |  Cook Time: 10 Minutes  |  Difficulty: Easy  |  Servings: 6

     3 pounds (more or less) raw¸ unpeeled Shrimp (21-26 Count or larger)

     ½ cup olive oil

     Salt and pepper, to taste

     2-3 whole lemons (juice of)

     ¼ cup to ½ cup Worcestershire sauce

     Tabasco

     1 stick butter

•  Thoroughly rinse raw shrimp w/shells still on then place in a large baking pan in a single layer. Drizzle with about ½ cup of olive oil.

• Generously sprinkle with black pepper and kosher salt. 

• Squeeze the juice of about 2-3 lemons over the shrimp.

• Generously drizzle Worcestershire over the shrimp, about ¼ to ½ a cup.

• Drizzle Tabasco sauce over the top to your desired spicy, heat level.

• Cut butter into pats. Place the pats of butter on top of the shrimp as evenly spaced as possible.

• Place the pan of shrimp under the broiler for just about 10 minutes until the shrimp are no longer translucent.

Serve with a roll of crusty French bread because you need something to absorb all of the glorious juices.

 

Ramen Noodle Salad (Allrecipes.com, Linda Pearson)

Servings: 12

4 (3 ounce) packages chicken flavored ramen noodles

1 cup diced celery

1 (8 ounce) can water chestnuts, drained and sliced

1/2 red onion, diced

1/2 green bell pepper, diced

4 ounces frozen green peas

1 cup mayonnaise

Break noodles and cook as directed on package. Drain and rinse noodles under cold water.

In a large bowl, combine the noodles, celery, water chestnuts, red onion, bell pepper and peas.

Prepare the dressing by whisking together the mayonnaise and 3 of the ramen noodle seasoning packages.  Pour over noodle mixture and toss until well coated. Refrigerate until chilled and serve.

Stash Report #17

Added this week           0.00
 Used this week           15.50
Added year to date      36.59
Used year to date        30.67
Net year to date         +5.92 YARDS

 And I have almost half a yard left of this fabric which I have had only two years.  In stash terms, that's a very short period of time!  I want to use that piece with my all time favorite Kona color, Cheddar, to make a table topper for the kitchen table.

Monday morning Update:  I finished the binding just after 11 last night and did nor want to turn on the computer again, so I have just adjustedthe totals.  I included batting this time too because it had been on the shelf.  Pretty soon I will use up the batting here and that will be a good thing too.

The Smock

Wore it to the event without the sleeves and pinned up the front!  It's not that the sleeves are optional, although I could make it sleeveless if I wanted it that way.  No, in this case, it was just unfinished.

I like the way it turned out and am anxious to finish it up.  I anticipate making more of these and letting this be my uniform for work.

Tulip Time!

A perfect day for our kind-of annual visit to Thanksgiving Point and the Tulip Festival.  Jan and I don't always get there but today makes two years in a row.  Scattered clouds, 70 degrees and all those blooming tulips made for a wonderful afternoon.

Monet Gardens

A very large frog!

Some bench sitting in the shade,

even waterfalls.

Notes for next year:  no purses, reservations for a golf cart or Segways.  :-)

I Heart the Internet

I have a list of blogs that I check in with every day and one of those is Stephanie Pearl-McFee, aka The Yarn Harlot.  The post I read this morning is one she wrote for another blog and the topic is Writers with Kids.

It's an excellent post and per Stephanie's instructions I read another post on that site by Jane Smiley, as her name was one I recognized.  Jane referenced Jean Kerr and I thought oh, I know who that is, she wrote Please Don't Eat the Daisies!  After I finished Jane's post, I thought I should verify my thought about Jean Kerr so I zoomed over to Amazon and yes, Jean Kerr did write Please Don't Eat the Daisies! which you may remember was also a movie with Doris Day (who recently turned 88!) and David Niven.  Then I went to Wikepedia to see when all that happened and discovered that Jean Kerr died in 2003.  There was also a link there to a website called Find A Grave.  I don't know why that surprised me, considering where I live, but I did laugh to see that you can buy a bumper sticker.

All this fun before 6:30 in the morning and because I no longer have to rush out the door to be sitting behind a desk by 8.

Fabulous!

Today's Project

And tomorrow's as well.  I'm not a speed stitcher and I do not remember the last time I made a garment.  This, hopefully, will be a smock for work.

Plus, I have never used a Kwik Sew pattern before and since all sizes come in each pattern, you need to trace off the size you need which is another time user.

Positive thoughts, positive thoughts!

Good Point!

Hahaha... a comment: "Yes, go back and buy another pair; the boys will love them!"

The only surviving "rubber" shoe.

A Happy Start to the Day!

Waving and chatting with the balloonists!  The boys only barked a little and the balloon is very loud when the gas is ignited.  They were very, very close.

Stash Report Week #16

Added this week           4.88
Used this week              0.25
Added year to date      36.59
Used year to date        15.17
Net year to date        +21.42 YARDS

If I didn't have to count the fabric that comes by mail, the numbers would be better!  And the only completed project was a drawstring gift bag.  I did complete the top for a wall hanging but the quilt itself is not complete so I will wait on that to count the yardage.  I'm just finishing with the binding on the February UFO so next week that will be counted.

A bright spot... I found some summer house and yard "shoes" at WalMart.  Mock crocs as we call them or really just rubber clogs.   Well, surely not rubber, plastic maybe or more likely some kind of petroleum by-product.  I probably should have bought two pairs because even though they are inexpensive, the arch is in the right place for me and so they will be comfortable to wear short term.

 

 (The angle must be wrong when you photograph your own feet.  They look short and stubby like Chinese bound feet and like I might tip over. )

Glorious!

If I wasn't concerned about causing pain to those around me, I would burst into song!

Pink Chalk Solids Club

This is the first packet in a fabric club I joined and it's called Mango Tango.  Wow!  1/2 yards of eight very delicious colors!  As part of the sign-up I was also sent a charm pack (5-inch squares) of 52 neutrals and two sheets of labels to attach to them identifying color name and manufacturer.  That was a lot of cutting work for some Pink Chalk employee.

I know you are thinking "this woman has a fabric problem and she is joining a club!?!"  Yes, well, that's the way it goes and I will just have to sew faster.  Much faster.  :-)

Not Me

Design Wall Monday

Forgot to post this yesterday.  I was quilting (still) and then filled in at work, so lost my routine.  This is my next personal/new project as I have a large blank wall in my living room to fill.  That's actually a lovely opportunity and I already have another smallish project in mind so I can swap out wall dec on a whim, not on schedule like the kitchen curtains. :-)

Moments ago I actually completed the quilting on the Missouri Freebird quilt.  Hooray!!  Now if I can't find those dang binding strips in the next two days, I will cut something else so I can put the whole project in the DONE column.

Stash Report Week #15

Resistance was futile this week and I succumbed to impulse buying.  Plus, I am still not finished quilting the February UFO quilt and I have lost the binding strips.  While I did finish the sample quilt, no yardage on that counted because that fabric did not come from stash.  Just a tad annoying.

Added this week           5.08
Used this week              0.0
Added year to date      31.71
Used year to date        14.92
Net year to date        +16.79 YARDS

Cutting up

2 1/2 inch squares, Kona solids.  I just had to buy a piece of Tangerine that I, shockingly, did not have!

This, too, is Spring.

A bad time for the flowering trees and shrubs.  I'll go out and shake them off but even though it is 28 now it is supposed to warm up about twenty degrees this afternoon.  That will help.

But of course, the big dogs are into it big time.  They keep pestering me to let them out but the toweling off gets tiresome.  Jack loves that part and his coat gets very soft from the fresh water.  I wish I could get a picture of him with a beach towel draped over him!

I snapped this in less than a minute after they stepped out the door.  That's how hard it was coming down!

1200 Yards

There's that much thread on a new spool and now I kept watching it as I sewed so I wouldn't run out in an awkward place. 

And then I would sew another row and another and finally when I got to this point, I decided to stop and put the spool in the hand sewing box.  There's a lot of sewing that can be done with 1200 yards of thread!

Three Little Words

Not those three.

Today was pick-up day and I pulled all three cans to the curb.  Black, for real garbage and even though it was only about 1/4 full it gets stinky as soon as the temperature goes up.  Green, for yard waste which was full to the top because my neighbor cleaned up his vegetable garden. Blue, for recycling which was full as well because I took home cardboard from the store to make sure it was full.

So the three little words I was thinking of today are:

Reduce, reuse, recycle and

Too much stuff, which I still struggle with,

and the three little words I say most often these days,

No barking, please!

One more done

Sadly, this top was all finished except for the big red flower on approximately January 9 but got pushed aside for other projects.  It's a very easy quilt and the applique is raw edge, fps, and I like the way that looks after it is washed.  I've avoided raw edge applique because I think it is way overdone and because I like doing applique by hand with the needle turn method.  I am a very slow stitcher and so hand applique takes me  f o r e v e r.   There's a time and place for everything.

Design Wall Monday - still quilting

One down and one to go!  I finished the sample quilt and have gone back to finish up the March UFO.  I have discovered that for the bigger quilts, wearing the specially designed quilter's gloves works better than all the other tools.  The gloves are supposed to be a bit more snug than these are but I have been doing pretty well with these.  The fingertips are coated with some kind of latex that give me a nice amount of grip.

I did rip out some of the free motion quilting on the sample quilt but I practiced and then did it again.  I'm satisfied with it.  I'll post a picture of that tomorrow.

Mondays

I woke up this morning remembering that taxes need to be done so I have to get to the library and pick up a form.  Probably won't though because I try to just use one day a week for errands, not so much to use less gasoline, thought that is a part of it, but mostly because it consumes too much time and I can't seem to get back into project mode.  Wednesdays are best for errand day and I do stop occasionally on my way to work too.  The only thing truly "on the way to work" though is the library and one grocery store I try to not frequent.  The one with the fabulous cheese selection.

Mondays set the tone for the week.  Two of the blogs I read have show and tell days on Monday and they are overwhelmingly inspiring.  They get me moving!  My goal is to make Mondays the time to take advantage of the tutorials out on the web.  So far that hasn't been accomplished.  Uncharacteristically, I have become obsessed with finishing things before starting something new.

So this Monday, I am ignoring the purse tutorial I saw and instead have started to pick out the free motion quilting I did yesterday.  This bigger quilt was not the place to try that.  Back to the walking foot.

Stash Report Week #14

Added this week           1.5
Used this week              0.0
 Added year to date     26.63
Used year to date        14.92
Net year to date        +11.71 YARDS

No comment.  :-(