The photo challenge for this week is something that starts with the letter A. As usual, I wanted to make it easy, and looked in the refrigerator for an apple. Luckily, I still had one left. I also grabbed the almond milk to make the photo a little bit more interesting. There is not a lot you can do to make an almond milk container and an apple interesting, so I went for a pink background and a closeup.
Next week's challenge is "A stranger".
For the last few weeks, I have been telling you that I stitched a seam here, I stitched a seam there, but didn't have anything noteworthy to show you. I have finally reached a point where I have "finishes" to share and want to show them to you now.
First up is a finished postage stamp block. This is the third block. I am now thinking about what color / fabric to use as a constant for the next block.
I also have a finished quilt top. Tuxedo Vest.I had to take the photo from this angle to avoid it looking skewed vertically. This is a baby quilt / wall hanging quilt size.
We are just a couple of days into October, but Zeus and I walked a different route, so there are plenty of photos to share, even if some of them are weeds.
I was able to fit even more burgers into the pan after I took this photo. So nice to be able to make the whole batch at once.
My go-to recipe is to smash one or more (usually precooked) grain (oatmeal, quinoa, bulgur, bread, etc) and one or more type of beans (chick peas, black beans, kidney beans), and some spices or sauces. The spice combination determines whether it is a good batch. Can add some flax seeds or other egg substitute to make it more sticky. Shape them like burgers and cook.
This batch had ketchup, smoke flavor and hot sauce. I should have added some spices, but I made up for it by using barbecue sauce on the sandwich. I should write down the recipe when I come up with a good batch. The last batch was really good and had ketchup, garlic, ginger, Italian seasoning, fennel and a microwaved potato.
I eat them like burgers or crumble them to make spaghetti sauce.
As the days get shorter, I need more sleep, which cuts into sewing time.
I cleaned up more of the sewing room.
I also worked on the Tuxedo Vest, making the trip around the world trade to have the squares be in the right space. I found another set of strips I had already prepared so sub-cut them and sewed them into columns.
I pressed the rows for the Postage Stamp block so they are ready to join.
I was at 81% at this time last year, so I guess I can't complain. I will have to be careful to not take too many days off though.
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Last week's photo challenge was A Wild Animal. This is a difficult subject for me, mostly because I take my photos when I am walking my dog, so I can't sneak close to any living creature without it getting alerted by my dog. He doesn't run or bark, but he does breathe heavily at his age. I cropped this photo since we were so far away, but it reminds me of the Beatles cover even though the geese are on a sidewalk and not a street crossing.
Next week's choice is item of clothing. This isn't my submission, but I accidentally took this picture of my blouse. I like how artsy it looks.
I
didn't spend much time sewing this week. If you remember, I told you a
while ago that my oven stopped working. It came with the house and I enjoyed using it for decades. I tried fixing it, and it worked
for about a while and then stopped again. I did without an oven for
several (mostly summer) months, but it was frustrating to choose what to make for dinner because "doesn't need oven" had to be an extra
criteria. Sometimes you want something just because you can't have it.
I bought a new range, which turned out to be a full time job.I didn't ask for any special service and accepted whatever appointment they gave me. There were three teams of people who were sent on three different days, and finally one last person who knew how to install it, and the last team had to come back to help move everything to position. It also took four phone calls with customer service representatives and each of the teams called the manager. Each of these people told me something different, but I persevered and finally have it set up. Hopefully the range works well and I won't have to deal with it again.
The new range has different strengths of burners (simmer, boil, etc.) so I will have to relearn how to cook. The booklet doesn't explain how to use them so it will be trial and error.
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The theme for this week's photo is "Someone under the age of 12". I took the lazy way out and found an older photo of Zeus in his younger days. It is a digital photo so I couldn't take a photo of it.
I didn't spend any time sewing this week. There is usually a lot of debate when a quilt is finished about whether to work on scraps, work on a project closest to completion, work on a new project, etc. and I decided to avoid the debate completely by cleaning something. I went through my gift wrapping supplies and decluttered and organized them. While I was upstairs, I also picked up the sewing room. It is hard to tell how much time I spent cleaning the sewing room specifically, as I flitted from room to room, but I will give myself credit for one day.
Even though this reduces my success rate, I am happy that I was able to make progress upstairs. I bought comic book boards to help me organize my yardage fabrics.
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I pulled up my quilting spreadsheet to add the finish of the Quote Quilt. I also needed to add the two quilts I started right before I finished.
I have modified the chart from the one I showed you at the beginning of the year. This one has cumulative numbers instead of annual ones. The starts and finishes are getting farther and farther apart, but just slightly.
This is the one I showed at the beginning of the year. It shows better how I did in any particular year, but makes it harder to see the overall progress.
I would like to say that I will be able to get more finishes to make the charts look more positive, but I will be busy working the rest of this year, so I don't know how much time I will have.
While I am looking at the September photos, I am including more of them in this post.
There were a lot of pinks and purples in my life lately.
There are finally some bees in the garden. Unfortunately, they are making holes on the porch.
I like how the shadow from the fence makes the branch look striped.
I had a productive week, getting lots of errands done.
I spent a lot of time sewing again this
week. All of it included adding a hanging sleeve and label to the Quote Quilt and sewing down those and the binding. I finished it yesterday. I have to de-lint it, and then figure out how to show it to you. I think a video would work better than photos.
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