KP duty

I love once-a-month cooking.....after its done. (Duh!)

No, make that, after the dishes are done!!

I made a bunch of stuff this weekend. Manicotti stuffed with beef and a little marinara sauce, and topped with a cheese sauce (3 casseroles- sounded odd, but worth trying). Salisbury steaks and gravy (2 casseroles). Sloppy Joes (2 containers). Beef was browned with seasonings and put away for tacos and other meals. And then I ran out of steam....

So today when I finished typing, I made lasagne using some of the beef made in advance.....















Domestic goddess status remains intact for another day :)

And then I made some butternut squash/pumpkin soup to celebrate autumn, cooler temperatures, and all things ORANGE! It has curry and many other spices in it - Yummy with a bit of sour cream on top to stir in....

Tomorrow, I attack the chicken side of the menu - Mexican chicken roll-ups (pounded chicken breasts, rolled around cheese and cilantro and salsa, rolled in bread crumbs and baked), homemade chicken nuggets, Tarragon Chicken with a honey mustard sauce....

On the quilting front, here is a progress report on the Quilt That Whipped My Arse from here to Pigeon Forge.....(big time!)...... I eventually assembled a quilt top that looks like this:












It has a bit of burnt orange and teal and a green-tinged tan in it, and the sash between the blocks is teal, and I have tan and burnt orangey-brown border material yet to attach. The fun part about machine quilting this one, is that I can follow the "pieces of the pie" in each kaleidoscope square, stitching in the ditch, and when its done, it makes a really cool design on the back of the quilt - kind of unexpected, but nice.

After that, I have borders and machine quilting to go on a certain butterfly quilt (that one is for Laurie Lu Lovebucket).....and then there are two more projects (UFOs) on my horizon.....and already two are in the planning stages beyond that. :)

And then there's my knitting...... my book of projects to make is now filling a one inch binder......So many ideas, so little time!

Happy Halloween!

In other good news!

Laurie had a birthday on October 7th....After the NA meeting, she gave me this:















(the small print on the chip says "Clean and Serene for 18 months")

I got to see her take this chip, and all the hugs and congratulations! She has such a dynamite support group right now - and she's doing such a good job! Its a daily hard strugle for her and I'm not naive about it. Its a struggle she will face the rest of her life. I only can hope that maybe time and each consecutive birthday can make it just a little bit easier!! It was heartwarming to hear some of the other women say how much they love her and what she means to them....

I love her too!! ;)

As for crafts lately, Karen's poncho progresses.....I'm making the Very Harlot Poncho by Stephanie (the Yarn Harlot http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/images/harlot_poncho.pdf ) and I'm really enjoying it. It is done on circular needles and it has been a great project to get back into knitting with. I'm already eyeing other projects..... One more ball of yarn and I can take it off the needles and add fringe.....just in time for cooler weather! Pictures will follow later, because right now it is a ball of knitted fabric, indistinguishable as a poncho (it is created from the neck, which is small, and GROWS with each row, down to the fingertips....so there are LOTS of stitches on the needles now....and it is a big lump of (quite nice, thank you!) knitted fabric! :)

I've been doing a bit of quilting (and I've named the quilt "the quilt that kicked my 'arse' from here to Pigeon Forge").....Here's one square before it was put together:
















Perserverance, creative cursing seaming, ripping out and redoing has resulted in a better result than I had on my last kaleidoscope quilt.....

Also, I am making progress on Laurie's butterfly quilt.....the squares are in rows now, just need to join the rows and then borders, batting and backing and its ready to machine quilt....She might get it in time for her newly painted bedroom, to put on her new bed! We were originally going to do that for her birthday, but she chose clothing for work for a birthday gift instead....so I have a bit more time!

I have started a project for Karen for Chistmas too.....and one for Patrick......

Didja know there's only 69 days til Christmas?????

New Yarn Swift!

While in Cody, I showed Dad a few pictures of an item called a yarn swift. I've been ordering yarn from a few interesting sites on the internet, and most of the time, they arrive in a hank, which needs to be wound into a ball......

A swift can be a fairly simple item, which holds the yarn for you while you wind it, eliminating the need for a cooperative husband or child to stand there holding the huge loops of yarn for you while you wind.....

Simple, except it was way beyond my capabilities to make one, with smooth spinning mechanism, adjustable pegs, etc.....and the price of the ones I found on line was a bit prohibitive.

When I showed Dad the pictures, I could almost see the wheels turning inside his mind. He loves to work out a puzzle like this, and for the next day, he would frequently scribble numbers and small pictures on paper as he turned the whole thing over in his mind. Several trips were made to his friendly Ace store (where everyone knows him and greets him by name - generally with a hug if its a female employee!) and he got a few small items which would ensure the spinning would be smooth and even.....

He had some beautiful black walnut pieces in his wood shop and every now and then, he would disappear into the wood shop and "make sawdust" as he called it......

He emerged one day with not one, but TWO, beautiful yarn swifts! (I had mentioned I had a wonderful friend, Deborah, who also knits and is going through a rough time with a mastectomy and chemo, etc, and he thought she might enjoy one also!! Shhh! I hope she's not reading this because it will take me a bit of time to get the clear coat on, and send it to her.....I'm notorious for taking WAY too long to finish things.....example: Karene's love blanky! http://joy-denise.blogspot.com/2006/08/it-isnt-ufo-it-is-fo.html )

Never the less, how cool is this!!!
















All I have to do is put the clear coat of some sort on the walnut to protect it and show the beautiful finish of the wood and its good to go!! We wound yarn til we ran out of yarn to wind! Teehee! I love it!

Surprise!

One of the most fun things that happened while I was in Cody was the Yellowstone Quilt Fest. It is a truly quality show - some amazing talent is displayed each year and I deliberately time some of my visits home if possible in September, both for the cooler temperatures (its when we are unbearably warm in SoCal!) and the great quilt show to look forward to, on top of the chance to see Mom and Dad.....

This year, I entered the show on Friday night and began walking around, totally unsuspecting, just drinking in the beautiful work of so many quilters. Suddenly, Mom grabbed me and turned me in the direction of a wall of small quilts......I don't even recall what she said to me, I just know my eyes honed in on a familiar little hand quilted piece I had done myself......oh my.....my piece was in the show!

I was a while getting my jaw off the floor. While I was stupified, Mom pinned a green "participant" ribbon on my shirt and took a picture.




















That wasn't all.....we rounded a corner and I met a sweatshirt/jacket conversion with quilted collar, and pockets, that I had made years ago....also entered by Mom in the Quilt Fest.....as a "Wearable". I was getting dizzy.

(Again, Blogger refuses to cooperate and load my pictures......I'm sure this is pilot error, but its annoying).

And one row further - I collided with the flying geese vest I had made for her a few years earlier......Also entered as a "Wearable".

I don't think Mom'nDad's smiles could have gotten any bigger. How they pulled it off and didn't tell me for the whole week before the show, I don't know. I didn't win any ribbons or anything, but I got something WAY better.

Mom later sent me the "report card/critique" from the judges, and they had some nice comments, compliments, and a few suggestions for improvement....that was really cool. But best of all, I got the note she sent with the pieces when they were entered into the quilt fest.....and her last comment about "if the pieces met with the requirements for entry, she wanted to enter them in the quilt show, because she was very proud of my handiwork"...... That's a blue first prize ribbon to me!!

Also while in Wyoming

One of the fun things I enjoyed was getting Dad addicted to Knifty Knitters.....Now, my Dad is one of those rare persons who can sew, knit, crochet, clean the sewing machine and adjust it, bale hay and run the tractors (after repairing them if necessary), deliver calves, make beautiful wooden items, and outline and prepare to deliver a really interesting sermon/lesson at church.....all in one day! (With time to spare enjoying his massive model train lay out, painstakingly building landscaping and traincars and villages....) And this is above and beyond his career of being a professor of computer sciences.....with a Master's degree.....and working for the Big ones, IBM and Honeywell, as well as teaching at a college for many many years......

Anyway, he had some wrist surgery a few years back, involving fusion of the joint at the base of his thumb, and this surgery was performed on the opposite wrist this year. Both fusions have taken well, and he's happy that he can still hunt, fish, and do all the other activities above....pretty much as well as before he began having problems in the first place.

I recently got hooked on the Knifty Knitters because they looked like a big brother to the little knit cord producing toy I had as a child.....my childhood version had four pegs on it and made a cord you could use to tie your hair, etc.....Using the same principle, these Knifty Knitters produce hats, scarves, afghans, etc, in record time....using a hook to pull the stitches over the pegs. I read a lot about them, on blogs and websites and a recurring theme was "they are easier on my arthritic hands than regular knitting". Lightbulb! I was enjoying them, but it occurred to me that Dad might enjoy them also......


Enjoy? Yes. Become addicted? That too! He has made 17 hats since I gave him his looms! He is planning to try to sell them at the Craft Fair in Cody in November......along with the BEAUTIFUL leather tooling items he has crafted. (I forgot to mention the leather work above!) Here's his leather working station and all his tools......

(imagine a picture here - blogger is not cooperating)

He and I were giggling that if we made any profit selling hats - we could buy more hobby supplies....yarn, quilting material, leather supplies, wood!


Mom is glad that he has another fun craft to pursue.....but worries about the closets bursting from yarn stash at some point in the future!

Mom took advantage of us concentrating on the looming, to cook in peace, and whipped up some absolutely delicious meals......she joked that I was staying at the 4-J Ranch SPA......and its true. Fantastic meals just appeared! And there were no dishes for me to do!


My mom has many gifts, but hospitality and cheerleading are two that come to mind for me most often.....She organizes and volunteers for so many things at her church.....she provides arrangements weekly for the front of the church to make it pretty; she is instrumental in making sure that the monthly women's prayer meeting takes place with lessons, coordinating decorations and visual aids that help get the lesson points across. She helps collect items for the women's crisis center in Cody; twice while I was there she saw something on sale, or something with a coupon (example: pillows at K-Mart) that would benefit the women's home, and gleefully purchased the items at a fraction of original cost and put them in a big box she will drop off at the women's home later.....She keeps in touch with the church members, checks up on who's sick, who's had medical issues, who needs encouraging...... And she is a help-meet for Dad in every sense of the word.....she keeps keeps him well fed without him realizing that its "healthy" food, she makes their home warm and welcoming.....She bakes bread from scratch, and helps Dad on the train layout too.....Sigh....

Can you tell that I miss them?

(I had pictures of Dad and Knifty Knitter, and Mom in the kitchen cooking, but Blogger is making my brain hurt today. Will not accept any pictures for this post. Sigh.)

A month after my vacation.....

Doesn't seem like a month.....actually seems like longer! I so enjoyed being there with Mom and Dad, soaking up beautiful scenery and time with them....
















It was a nice break....I kept in touch with my business by operating out of my Wyoming office, pictured below:
















We drove into town twice a day to pick up the WiFi signal and let me route work files to my transcriptionists, pick up my own work from my web site, and then we did touristy and fun things after the "work pick up"......

Like lunch at a really cute little cafe....















Or shopping at newly discovered quilting stores.....
















I better break this up into two entries (at least) so that Blogger will accept my posts.....