Out of the Weeds

It looks like I've let the weeds grow here on the blog over the last six weeks.  Hopefully not as bad as they've grown in real life in my dad's garden this summer.  They are ruling the world over there, let me tell you.  More about that in a bit, but for now I'm here with virtual hoe in hand to make amends for this neglected space on the Interweb. 

Working on machine applique.

Behind the hedges, so to speak, I've been doing a few things.  Finished a quilt, made a bag, fixed some "not-shoes" that my niece is going to wear for her wedding, and started a string quilt. 

Hobo bag commissioned by my niece.

Quilt finish - made from bonus Christmas fabric HSTs.

String-X quilt pieces, string pieced on phone book pages.

I've also been enjoying the summer in other ways—biking, walking, reading, etc.  

One of the many bike rides we've enjoyed.

I would add gardening, but that's been a bit of a failure, it seems.  Turns out gardens are a lot of work. Not just requiring outright sweaty labor, but consistency.  I'm not able to get over there daily and tend it, and I swear it knows.  It knows.  Nature knows the shopkeeper isn't minding the till(er). 

Dad has been the master gardener in the family through the years, until the present one.  But he's still laid up with his broken ankle from January and some healing complications from that.  So with the help of a couple other family members, we got his garden planted (in some pretty boggy soil), but the crops haven't done very well.  The radishes and parsnips washed out.  About a third of the onions came up, about a dozen beets are still thinking about it, and a handful of green bean plants are struggling to push out some pods.  The peppers, nada.  The tomatoes?  They may be okay eventually, barring an early frost.

Wildflowers (grown by Nature, not me)

The weeds, however, are THRIVING.

If you can't beat 'em - eat 'em?

After whacking at the thousandth specimen of one weed, in particular, I got curious about it.  So I asked Google what the heck it was and ultimately identified it as purslane.  That's not what Dad called it, but we won't go there.

Purslane

A little more investigating revealed it was edible.  Not only edible but very nutritious and supposedly good tasting.  Apparently, various cultures actually enjoy eating the stuff and even pay money for it!

And here it was in spades.  I won't go so far as to say manna from heaven, but Nature's gift, at any rate, or consolation prize.  A veritable and vegetative "participation trophy" for us amateurs.

You think you can grow peppers?  Not this year, lady.  But have some purslane.

So I ate it.  And it was good!

It tastes like baby spinach, only better.  Brighter tasting, a little lemony.  I chopped some up and sprinkled it in a salad.  I added it to soft tacos for a tasty crunch. 

I didn't eat a ton of it—you never know when my touchy stomach will decide that everything must go—but I gave it a fair shot and enjoyed it, and it didn't cause me any grief.  So there's that.

What kind of adventures have you had this summer—gardening, gastronomic, or otherwise?

In the Works

New year, new quilt-along!  There are many new quilt-alongs getting started this time of year, and right before the calendar flipped to 2017, I joined Pat Sloan's 182-Day Solstice Challenge.  The idea is to make one block per week between the winter and summer solstice, 25 blocks in all.

Pat posts the instructions for each block on Wednesday each week (there have been three blocks so far).  Each 12.5-inch block is different, like a sampler, and the choice of fabric is up to you.  Great for beginners and experienced quilters alike, I think.

Week one was a Churn Dash block.  I pulled a funky Alexander Henry mushroom print from the stash for that one.

Week two was a Day Into Night block.

Week three was Tide Pools.

I guess I'm going for a controlled scrappy look with these blocks, with the intent that all will come from the current stash.  Not worrying about how it's all going to go together in the end, just having fun week by week in a relaxed and casual way.  If you'd like to join in, follow the above link for the details.

I also finished a quilt top from bonus half-square triangles left over from the Precious Gems quilt.  The holiday-themed Aspen Frost fabric was too cute to let those pieces go to waste.  They only made a 30-something-inch square, but with a wide border of a gray and white dot fabric (think snow or snowballs?), it came up to a respectable 58x63-inch size.  

I'll probably straight-line quilt it with close vertical lines, eventually.

Also started cutting up some of the scrubs for a new round of kennel quilts.  They'll be nothing fancy, mostly functional, with a bit of fun from the bright prints.  My daughter, who works at the animal surgery where these are bound for, said the ones I made about 18 months ago are holding up well to use and laundering.  Good to know!  

She said some larger ones would be appreciated, and with that in mind I began.  This one may end up to be about 45x60 or so.  Two ladies' size medium long-sleeved scrub jackets and two size large men's short-sleeved scrub tops have gone into it.  That makes a good starting dent in the scrub stash.

We've been watching some good stuff on Netflix and Amazon, here in the middle of winter in the frozen tundra.  Loved The Crown.  Very well done.  On the opposite end of the spectrum (as far as propriety and decorum), I've also belly-laughed my way through two seasons of The Moaning of Life on Netflix as well.  If you haven't heard of Karl Pilkington, you might want to watch An Idiot Abroad first to get an idea of his brand of comedy.  Finally, on Amazon, we just began the third season of Mozart in the Jungle.  Love Gael Garcia Bernal as conductor Rodrigo, and I still smile when he calls the main female character Jai Alai (pronounced "hi-lie") instead of Hailey. Might have to find the soundtrack sometime as well, as the music is superb.

What's in your TV or streaming queue?

Post-Christmas Wrap

Things were hopping in the sewing room in the run up to the holidays.  I made a quite a few zipper pouches and Christmas tree mug rugs, and stitched the binding down on a quilt on Christmas Eve.  It didn't feel stressful, though.  I enjoyed every moment of it. 

I baked another loaf of Orange Date-Nut Bread (recipe back one post)

Our family does a gift exchange on Christmas called the "Dirty Santa" game.  You are probably familiar with it.  Everyone brings one gift to the party.  They all get put in the center of the floor when it's time to exchange.  We pick a number (or draw a playing card, as it were).  The person with the lowest number starts by choosing a gift and opening it.  Then the next person can either choose a gift to open or steal one of the previously opened gifts.  If your gift is stolen, you choose and open another one. You want to be a higher number in this game, so you have your pick of a variety of previously opened gifts, or take your chances and open one of the other ones.  

It's fun to see what shows up as a re-gift from prior years.  The current record is a cupcake maker that's been re-gifted five years in a row!  Most gifts are new, though.  Most are of the general sort, maybe something edible or drinkable, oftentimes useful, and sometimes funny or totally off the wall.

I went with "useful" this year, and the gift I brought to exchange was a quilt. One I'd been working on, off and on, since October, when I started piecing it on vacation.

I used the layer cake of Aspen Frost fabric won in the Hands2Help charity quilt project giveaway earlier in the year—very pretty, holiday-themed fabrics.  I followed the tutorial for the Precious Gem quilt, found HERE.  

It turned out to be a nice lap quilt size, just right for relaxing on a cozy winter evening.

This was the first time I'd brought a quilt to the Christmas gift exchange.  Judging by the fact the quilt was stolen twice, though, it won't be the last.  It was fun and encouraging to see a couple people vying to stake their claim on it.

Ultimately, it went home with my niece, who, in her words, was happy to "add it to her collection."  I've given her two baby quilts in the past, when each of her boys was born.

She announced her engagement on Christmas, so that was pretty exciting too.  That's her fiance photo bombing in the background!

In the process of quilting this quilt, I found my missing Kwik Clip!  It had rolled underneath the table of my Juki.

* * * * *

In the past few days, I've been giving the blog a little facelift.  Made a new header (not at all sure about my design skills, but I gave it a decent effort, anyway).  Also tweaked a few things on the sidebar, did some general cleanup, and updated the gallery tab and a few other things.  Let me know what you think, if you're so inclined.  

Some after-gift-exchange music time.

I've been listening to and reading some year-end reviews in the past few days, and it got me thinking on the events of my own year.  As always, there were ups and downs, good times and not-so-good.  One of the highlights was that Norm and I got new bikes earlier in the year and had fun exploring the trails on them this past summer.  It also gives me something to look forward to in a couple months.  Yep, Christmas is barely over, it's not even the New Year, and I'm already thinking ahead to bike season!

What's near the top of your personal highlight reel for 2016?