Giddy with Joy and Relief

I have been too busy for two months to keep this up, but life is easier today than it's been for a long time.  Although we have much to do, we know our nation is now in good hands.  Soon I'll bring this up to date.

Baking & Tea

Today I baked up some of the zillion zucchini into bread, along with the classic French boule, and made Joe Carson's Ginger Cookies and Dixie Curkeet's Refrigerator Cookies. I took the cookies to Obama headquarters for the hardworking volunteers. The place was buzzing like a hive.

Tonight I met Carla and got The Quilt From Hell which she had quilted for me. It looks really nice! I may have to change its name. Even Skip likes it, and wants to use it on our bed. It is huge! I'll get a photo ASAP and post it -- of course, it's not bound yet, and won't be until I get time. It is a long, long way 'round that thing.

I finished reading Three Cups of Tea last night. It's a gripping read and a galvanizing story. I know what I want from my family this Christmas -- a year's salary for a teacher in one of Mortenson's schools -- $356. A dollar a day. To educate girls; he also builds women's vocational centers, brings in fresh drinking water, and other humanitarian deeds, with the unintended consequence eliminating the motivations behind terrorism. Why be the world's worst nightmare when you can be the world's best friend?

Roses and Tomatoes

We had a wonderful visit with our friends Mary and Dave in Denver.  Here's Mary with her birthday quilt.  She likes it!

Yesterday I picked up 40 pounds of tomatoes from our community farm.  Took them home, peeled, chopped and packed them for freezing.  A lot of work, but a lot easier than canning!  They taste like the ones from my grandmother's garden when I was little.  I've had them breakfast, lunch and supper ever since they 'came on.'

This afternoon I got a call from Ginny, a dynamo who sews, weaves, knits and takes care of half the people on the planet.  She told me about an estate sale in the condo complex where she lives and said I had to get right over there.  I'm not into garage sales, rummage sales, etc., but this was the stash of a fabriholic the likes of which one can only imagine!  Main floor:  one room of just buttons, one room of yarns, the rest of the rooms were beautifully organized, top-quality quilting cottons.  One big double closet's shelves were stacked with novelty fabrics.  The shelves over the washer and dryer, as well as the tops of both machines, were stacked with landscape fabrics.  The pantry was full of bright prints and black and white prints.  Large shelving units in the dining area held sorted Orientals, batiks and florals (large and small).  And tables in the living room held boxes of fat quarters.  Prices: $4 - 5 a yard for larger pieces, $.50 a fat quarter.  I bought about $400 worth of quilting fabric for $60.  But the real score was in the 'bargain basement' --  two very large pieces (at least 60"x60") of beautiful quality fake fur for $5 each.  What do I need with that?  I've been making new Christmas pageant costumes for the kids of our parish; the magi have been wearing tatty bathrobes for years, and last year I made satin and brocade tunics for them. When I have time I will add matching capes with fur linings!

La Boheme

Ta da!  Finished the binding at 10:30 last night, washed it first thing this morning.  What do you think?  

I'm taking it to Denver tomorrow as a birthday gift for my friend Mary -- best friends since 7th grade.  It doesn't get much better than that.

Summer Days

Saturday Margaret and I went to Fran's for a lunch potluck.  Obama's announcement  that Joe Biden would be his V-P running mate had arrived in my Inbox at 3:11 AM, and Margaret and Fran wanted to see their joint appearance in Springfield that afternoon. Biden seems like a good choice: seasoned, knowledgeable, lots of experience working across the aisle in the Senate before politics overtook statesmanship.  Maybe the two of them can turn this battleship around before we sink.

Today I'm making stuffed cabbage rolls for supper.  I used to make these when my boys were young, and it was a favorite supper.  I haven't made them for a long time because it's hard to find cabbages large enough to provide the big leaves required.  The magnificent cabbage from Primrose Farm is just what I needed.  Yum.

I have been poring over eleven years worth of loose photos looking for ones of the trip to Door County Mother Mo and I took in October of her first year here.  I had nearly given up, having got to the 1997 level of the midden without finding them, when several more envelopes of prints came to light.  Lo and behold, there they were!  Just in time for her retirement celebration scrapbook.  But what a lot of wonderful pictures I had forgotten about . . . now I'm on a mission to get them into photo albums.

Day after tomorrow we go to Denver to visit our friends Mary and Dave over Labor Day.  This has become an annual visit, one we look forward to every year.  This year is especially neat because we'll be in Denver the last night of the Democratic Convention, the night Obama gives his acceptance speech there.

Summer bounty

Half of this week's CSA share:

We're splitting a share with Matt & Claire, so they have the other half.  I'm loving it -- fresh veggies without any chemicals, and tasting like they did from my grandmother's garden.

And here's this morning's bread rising, fragrant of yeast and rosemary:

Here are the finished blocks for the Pieces of Time class I'm taking.  It's a two-year class, meeting every other month.  We're making a quilt from a Lori Smith pattern. Although this is not my usual kind of thing, I'm taking the class because I want to learn to applique, and to improve my piecing accuracy.

I'm improving, though I discovered that a quarter inch seam is one click different on my two almost-identical machines.   I've put reminders on each machine with masking tape.

I've used a different method of preparing the appliques for each block, and so far the one that seems to be working best is to iron the freezer paper template on the wrong side of the fabric, baste the seam allowance, give it a good pressing with spray sizing, then remove the freezer paper before stitching  the applique to the background.  If I leave the freezer paper in until after stitching the applique to the background, when I pull it out, it stretches my stitches, distorting the piece.  

I tried heat-proof plastic templates, but they shift around while I'm trying to press the seam allowances.  Needle-turn works well with fairly straight edges, but the first method has given the best all 'round results so far.  I do wish I knew how to avoid little thread pokies in the tight inside curves and corners.

Meanwhile . . .

This is what Noah was up to for a week in Canada, followed by three weeks at a nature camp in northern Wisconsin.  It sure was good to see him Friday!