Food Glorious Food

Yesterday was spent running around pretty much the whole live-long day. It wasn't all bad. I first dropped off two boxes of clothing cleaned out from my closet. That lightened my load considerably. From there, it was time for my monthly pedicure, and that was nice.

After that it was a drive to the other side of town to pick up Big Bertha. While I was there, I learned that the problem with Big Bertha was just a build up of dirt and grime under the feed dogs, and that was preventing them from staying down. In essence, she was given an annual maintenance this time around, and this is annoying when you consider that I had her in for annual maintenance just last April...less than a year ago. In that time, I've done no quilting to speak of (none on Big Bertha...all on the Babylock machine), and so how did the machine get so dirty that it started malfunctioning? Well, the answer to that is easy: the old shop didn't do the maintenance I paid them to do, or else they did a pretty sh*tty job of it. So...I haven't actually hooked her back up again, but I did test the button that lowers the feed dogs, and that appears to be working. Needless to say, I'm really done with the old shop, which is too bad because I like doing business in my little town of Newberg. It's farther away to go to this different shop, but worth it if they'll give me better service.

And after that, I was just a block away from the grocery store, and so I picked up the staple items on my list, then home. Then, collapse in the chair and take a nap. I was tired after all that. Checking the mail, I found the remaining items I need for the February Stitch-along arrived.

The "blunts" on the left are used to blend pencil color after it's applied to the fabric. The brushes on the right are used to apply the Jacquard colorless fixative. It's all explained in Meg Hawkey's video about applying colored pencil to fabric. I'll get after that today since the stitch-along starts tomorrow.

From here on, I'm going to tell you about our evening out, and so if you're not into the food posts, there's nothing more to see here. And if you are, well come on in! This is The Painted Lady restaurant in Newberg, Oregon. You need to understand that Newberg is a small town of just over 20,000 people, and so it's impressive knowing there's a first class restaurant just down the hill from us. The chef there won a James Beard award.

We've been there many times for celebratory dinners. Last night's dinner was one of their "Experimental" dinners. Every Wednesday evening from December through March, they do an experimental tasting menu, and we'd signed up for the "Black Box Wine Pairing" menu...which is ironic because we brought our own bottle of wine.

Here's the menu:

I'll show the courses in order. First, this little Croquette of Swiss and Home-made Ham.

If you want to know how to make mashed potatoes even more decadent and delicious, simply add gruyere cheese and then deep fry it. Yum.

This next course was the mozzarella panna cotta. Those little radishes were sliced so thin they were transparent. On top is a thinly sliced red carrot, which made it look a little like bacon. Then all kinds of carrot yumminess surrounding it.

Next up was the scallop. That's a sort of pureed celery relish in front. I'm not a great fan of celery, but this was really good.

Then, the duck breast. Sometimes I'm squeamish about meat, but this was delicious. It was our favorite of all the things served up last night.

Then, the cheese course...I wasn't too fond of the hard cheese on the right. It was dry and sort of sucked all the saliva from my mouth. The rest was delicious though. There was a little pistachio biscuit there in the upper left, and that was downright scrumptious.

Finally, the "mignardises," which is a snotty French word for little sweets served after dessert. I guess technically we skipped the dessert course, but these were a good stand-in. From left to right there is a dark chocolate filled with a hazelnut liqueur. Then a little shortbread tart. I forget what it was stuffed with. Then a little tiny macaroon sandwich stuffed with white chocolate. Finally a little apricot gumdrop. Very tasty.

I'm a fan of sweet wines, and so at the end of a meal like this, I splurge on a glass of sherry or port or whatever sweet wine they serve up. This one happens to be a port from Portugal. It was very nice.

So it's a lot of courses, but not a lot of food. We were satisfied, but not stuffed when we left. All in all, a very nice evening out. We haven't been out for a nice dinner in quite some time.

Today I have a day at home. I have a couple of housekeeping chores to do, but then I'll get back to work on Cricket's pawtrait. I'm hoping I can have the collage portion finished today. Now that Big Bertha is back, I'll be able to do the thread painting that follows.

You ate WHAT?! #76

I had a good laugh with this one. ..

#76 is a Firehouse Subs sandwich

Jim had brought home part of a sub in a paperboard container. Someone (likely Lucy or Sadie) neatly tore open the container, only to ignore the sandwich. LOL

A Nod to Murphy

It was late in the day when I made my way into the sewing room yesterday. The first thing I did was to fix the portion of the face that was bothering me on Cricket's Pawtrait. If you missed that in yesterday's post, I wasn't happy with the zigzaggy portion on the left side of the face.

It was easy enough to peel up the darker portion and trim it away from the lighter portion, and that looks better now.

Smitty enjoys watching me make the pawtraits. I always tell him he's the most handsome cat in all the land, and he agrees.

We like to tell jokes to one another when we're in the sewing room. Here's one I told him yesterday:

A mother mouse and a baby mouse are walking along when suddenly a cat attacks them. The mother mouse shouts “BARK!” and the cat runs away. “See?” the mother mouse says to her baby. “Now do you see why it’s important to learn a foreign language?”

Oh my gosh...that's the funniest thing I've ever heard!!!

Really?

No, it wasn't funny at all. What cat would run away from two mice? You really need some better material, Mom.

When we're not joking around, Smitty likes living on the edge.

But that's exhausting too, and so sometimes he just likes a good scrap nap.

When I had the face fixed, I had to decide whether I wanted to keep working on it, or take a break to make some blocks. Sometimes it's good to walk away from the pawtraits for a day and give their flavors time to meld. It seemed like a good idea to go ahead and set up Pfelicity. As my nod to Murphy and his Law, I figured if I went to the trouble to set up Pfelicity, crawl under the table to plug her in, etc., then I'd hear from the repair shop that Big Bertha was ready. In fact, an hour later, I got the call. She's ready to be picked up.

So, I ended up making a couple of blocks. This is the third of the Moda Countdown to Christmas blocks for the sew-along with Mama Spark. This one is called Prairie Christmas Star. You can find the tutorial right here.

Also, being Tuesday, the fifth Tiny Tuesday block was out. This one is from Cynthia Brunz at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework. Pretty simple and cute.

This one is in a straight setting.

And that was all the sewing I did yesterday aside from slow-stitching. The tree is completely stitched now.

It's a race to the finish if I'm going to get this completed by February 1st when the stitch-along starts. And the stitch-along really has nothing to do with it since that will take only a few minutes each morning. I can easily work on two projects at once. But here's where I'll pick up with the barn this morning.

It's going to be a busy day today. I'm getting my monthly pedicure, and then driving to the other side of town to pick up Big Bertha. If there's any time left in the day, I'll get a little more done on Cricket's Pawtrait.

Remember what I said about draping Hocuspocusville over my chair so the wrinkles could relax out of it? As I mentioned, it makes an excellent kitty fort.

Mike and I are eating dinner out tonight. We're going to one of my favorite restaurants where the presentation is as good as the food. It's a little like watching a culinary magic show. Of course, I'll report back tomorrow on our piggishness.

(image source)

Yes, obviously I meant guinea pigs. What did you think I meant?

Under the weather

Before dawn on Sunday morning, I was hit with what I think is a mild case of the flu (I get flu shots every year.) Nausea, fever, muscle aches, runny nose, and more yucky stuff I won't get into. I spent two days in bed. After the fever broke I could finally stand to have the cats on me.

As always, Nurse Lucy was on the job, even sitting by when I tried to eat a little chicken broth.

I'm feeling much better now, thanks to help from the kitties.

Not Much to Show

Even though I spent several hours working on Cricket's pawtrait yesterday, I have only one picture to show for it. She's taking shape pretty well.

There's something wrong with the lower left side of the face...that zig-zaggy light portion. If you look at the posterized version of the image below, you can see that the whiskers are kind of messing me up there. I think it will be easy enough to peel up the zig-zaggy part of that larger piece and simply cut it off. The whiskers will be added later with thread.

The original image is below, and there's a fairly smooth transition from dark to light on that part of her face.

There's still more color to add on the left side of the face, and then I'll start working more on the mouth and chin before adding the rest of her body on the lower right. I'm not sure if I'll get much done today since I need to head into town for some errands.

The only other sewing related thing accomplished yesterday was to get the Alley Cat Quilt Guild hung in the Mewseum. You can see there are still empty spots on the Mewseum walls, and so I guess I need to make some more cat quilts.

I had to hold the camera out to my left side to take this next image, which explains why it's a little bit wonky looking.

It's tempting to get Pfelicity set up on my sewing table. I'm hoping Big Bertha won't be gone long. Having switched out sewing machines several times over the past couple of months, I'm dragging my feet about doing it yet again. On the other hand, there is piecing to do, and I might like a short break from Cricket. I'll see how I feel when I get home this afternoon.

Until then, there's always slow-stitching, and that's where I'm heading next. I doubt I can get the Appalachian Memories block finished before the February Stitch-along starts, but I'm going to try.

Playing on the stairs is fun

I was only able to get two photos, but Ringo was a bit crazy on the stairs recently.

A Little of Everything

When I finished writing yesterday's post, I looked up from my typing to see this:

He wanted me to know that I hadn't opened the door for him yet. He needed to get outside right away and catch him some grub. There isn't much grub running around right now, but with persistence, he usually comes away with something. I love the way kitties wrap their tails around their feet to keep them warm. Unless they're Sadie...then, no tail. Maybe that's what makes her such a good snuggler.

 She joined me while I worked on my slow stitching. I've filled in the hoop now and moved it to the right. The tree should go pretty fast. I'm doing the long trunk lines and branches in stem stitch, but the little twiggy lines are done with a straight stitch.

After that, I did a little more work on Cricket.

About that time Matthew showed up. He wanted some help building a bed platform in the back of his van. I'll say more about that in just a minute. While he was there, I traced out the embroidery sampler for the February Stitch-Along.

Continuing on with my "gathering" efforts, the floss came a few days ago. Look at those pretty colors.

I'm not sure why I received two skeins of each color because I only ordered one. But, what the heck, right? It makes up for them leaving out a skein in a previous floss "kit" I ordered. We were traveling when I discovered I was missing one...and besides, it had been years (literally) since I'd ordered the kit. It didn't really seem fair to go complaining so far down the road. And since we were traveling, we were even literally "far down the road."

I was all set to do the tinting on my sampler too, but then I watched Meg Hawkey's video about how to tint with pencils and realized I still needed a few art supplies. I'll have those in a couple of days, and then I'll finish it off and have it ready for stitching.

So the guys took off to buy some lumber, and I took off on a walk. The only green thing growing (aside from moss) is the forest of sword ferns or polystichum munitum, if you insist on using their snotty botanical name. These guys carpet the sides of the road and the forest floor.

There wasn't much to see on yesterday's walk. We were above the clouds, and so I walked up to the top of our hill. Along the way, I noticed the colors in the bark of these wild cherry trees.

As I passed by my neighbor horse and mule, the human neighbor, Larry, was out doing some things in his yard. Even though I held up the horsey treats and shook the bag, they were much more interested in whatever he was doing. I walked on. Getting closer to the top, I startled these guys. There were four of them in all, and they took off running. But then I started talking to them, and they came back. I would have given them the horsey treats, but I don't know who owns them, and I need to ask permission. So anyway...all I did was take pictures of them. Sorry about the fence. I was afraid if I walked closer, I'd scare them again.

This one seemed particularly curious and came right up to the fence to eat his grass, eyeing me all the way.

It was a little foggy at the top of the hill, and so I couldn't take a picture. On the way down, I stepped out of the mist and was able to catch this shot. I had to hold the camera high over my head to get above the fence there. Kind of a weird shot, but it's what I saw.

When I got back to the house, I did a little more work on Cricket. It helps to have the ears there, and Cricket is starting to emerge.

That gave me the boost I needed to stay motivated, and so I added the ear on the other side.

That's where I left it for the day. Today I'll start adding in more details around the ears and filling in the face.

After that, I went outside to see what the guys were doing. They'd finished the platform and loaded in the mattress. Matthew is pretty excited about it because he can sit up on the mattress (rather than needing to duck his head), and there's also storage space under the platform. He's getting his van ready to do some traveling when the weather warms up.

It's a chilly morning, and so I think I'll snuggle under the blankets with Sadie and do some work on my slow-stitching project. I need to get something going in the slow cooker and do some housework. Other than that, I'll just continue on with Cricket's pawtrait. Probably I'll take a break from that and make another block for the Christmas Countdown sew-along.