Sunday, July 10, 2011

Sunday Sundry - Vol. 36

Kicking off the Kaleido
Whee!!!  These kaleidoscope blocks are...

SO...
MUCH...
FUN!

This is one thing that I love about quilting—taking seemingly disparate fabrics and creating a mashup such as this.  I like it more than any other part of the process.  I think, in part, it's the element of surprise.  

So, I don't have a concrete plan (i.e., anything worked out on paper or PC) with this quilt, or how I'm going to lay it out, or even how many blocks I need.  I'm just going to keep making these and arranging them together, and we'll see what happens.  I'm cutting the fabric as I go, block by block, and I'm really enjoying working that way.

How Does Your Garden Grow?
My flowers...meh.  I had such high hopes for zinnias this year, but the varmints have succeeded in quashing that dream. 

They even hopped up into my herb garden, which I planted in an old wheelbarrow.  I am missing an entire row of...well, I don't know if it's oregano or basil, to be honest.  I think the oregano is gone and what's growing there is basil, parsley, and cilantro (and a weed or two?).  The damage wasn't done by chewing, but by disrupting the soil where they were planted.  Ugh.  Whatever, wabbits.

My friend Marie has such lush, thriving plants.  These are just a couple of her beds (above/below this paragraph).  Gorgeous!

I went out to water my geranium yesterday and this little guy was hiding in the pot.  

He wasn't skittish at all, just sat and blinked at me, quietly.  In fact, he stayed there all afternoon before finally deciding to move along.

Tea Time
My bloggy buddy Shay pulled out all the stops—as well as her good china—and had herself a high tea today.  Now, I'm from Wisconsin, and we know beer and cheese, kuchen and crullers, but we don't know from tea.  And high tea?  Well, anything drunk at my personal altitude of 6'2+" is pretty high, so there ya go.

But in her honor, I baked scones.  I have never before eaten a scone, much less made one, so this was some new territory to navigate.  Throw in a few dietary restrictions (i.e., no gluten, dairy, or sugar), and what you have is a potential recipe for disaster.

Well, we Pyrex fanatics know that Pyrex makes everything taste better, so at least I had that ace in the hole!

The scones?  I actually used this recipe, and they were all right.  Not great, not good, just okay.  I think using real sugar would have helped, but I used stevia.  Anyway, I tried, and it gave me an excuse to take pictures of my Liberty of London teapot and mug from Target last year.


Full disclosure: I totally cheated on the tea.  It's iced tea from the fridge.  Hey, it was hot at some point in its past, so that counts, right?

8 comments:

Ann Marie @ 16 Muddy Feet said...

I love doing Kaleidoscope blocks as well, I might get back to working on mine tomorrow, or Tuesday.

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

well your high tea sounds great to me - I don't like tea all that much and like green or white tea more than the others. I love the china teapot and cup.
Also love the quilt blocks!
Karen
http://karensquilting.com/blog/

Sarah Lillian said...

Of course Pyrex makes it taste better! I'm going give the scone recipe a try. I let you know if real sugar helps.

Pokey said...

Your scones looked good, whether they tasted good or not. Hire them out for photo shoots on the food network.

The k. quilt blocks are really fun, that's one q-along I thought twice about. Love your prints you've used, but I remember liking your stack of prints, too!

Who says tea must be drank hot? Your teapot and cup look wonderfully inviting ~
:-}pokey

Vicki @ DottyJane said...

I give you points for trying the scones. They look pretty good. The teapot and cup are superb!

Have fun with the quilt blocks!

Shay said...

If I can cheat on the baking - you can have cold tea! (How very Southern of you ) I love your tea pot and cup and I'm sorry the scones werent fabulous. I will confess to being very confused by the scone/biscuit/cookie differences between America and Australia.

You have a much more successful garden than I do even with your wascally wabbits.

Michelle said...

I love, love, love those kaleidoscope blocks. What a bunch of fun fabrics.

Your teapot reminds me of quilt fabric. So pretty.

And the gardens..., well Marie does have a green thumb, doesn't she? Or at least no wascally wabbits!

Sarah Craig said...

Your scones look great, your kaleido blocks are awesome, and that's definitely basil growing in your garden - the tall plan on the left side of the pic. You can't ever have enough basil - we even use it instead of lettuce in sandwiches!