Oh my soul ... blossoms!

I've been pretty good at not adding to the fabric stash.  I have only purchased backing fabric (and maybe a couple of fat quarters because I was in the store buying backing fabric and they sort of got picked up by accident).  But Mad About Patchwork, an online store from Ottawa, sent me an email about a little sale.  They send me several emails about sales but this week they had this little fat quarter bundle of Amy Butler's Soul Blossoms and I just couldn't resist hitting the purchase button.  I did actually delete a few other things from the cart so showed a tiny bit (well, actually about $80 worth) of restraint so don't feel too bad.

I am starting to think that A being for April and Austerity might be a coincidence I should take as a sign.  April does only have 30 days after all, it can't be as bad as January.

A little bit country

In a departure from my orange, lime green and pink phase, I pulled out this table runner pattern the other day.  The fabrics come from my favourite quilt store, located in North Bay, called Homestead Stitches.  It is a very lovely store where you won't find Amy Butler or Kaffe Fasset but you will find fabrics like these.  The fabrics are all cozy, country-type fabrics that I normally don't gravitate towards in other quilt shops but I do here.

I love sunflowers and love the mellow browns that just set them off.  The fabric, including the panel and the pattern is from a book called Pumpkins and Spice by Terri Degenkolb.  I did have a little bit of trouble on the corners and do find that my lack of attention to detail results in slightly uneven joins in the little squares but I'm not really bothered by it.  I was glad that it was a table runner and not a big quilt though.  The little squares would have driven me bonkers in a larger project.

Back to the store.  The owner, Annie, is lovely and churns out quilts at blinding speed.  She is in her twenties and always dreamed of owning a quilt shop and now she does.   She was featured in one of those quilt magazines that profiles shops a few years ago.  The only Canadian store in that particular edition.

Last Christmas I used some of the fabrics I bought there to make this Bento Box pattern for my dad.  If I made it again, I would make sure that the light fabrics were more related to each other.  I find the lighter beige and the darker beige don't really work together as well as the dark colours do.

Again, back to the store!  The store has a tin ceiling and dark wood shelves filled with all sorts of gorgeous fabrics and samples of Annie's work.  The flannels here are the nicest I've seen and I absolutely have to go there whenever I visit North Bay.  One thing about the fabrics there is that it is generally easier to put together a quilt for a man.  Obviously, my penchant for orange, lime and pink would not appeal to many of the male population.

It is pretty tangy

This turned out, obviously, very orange.  I quite enjoy orange so like it.  The non-orange strips are the leftovers from a previously posted quilt.  A pretty ingenious pattern from Atkinson Designs.  You get 2 quilts for (almost) the work of one.

I really have to start quilting some of these tops I keep churning out.  That was supposed to start last week.  Maybe this week.

Random Things

Taking a page from the Yarn Harlot, a few things that really bear no relationship to each other:

1.  I have some very good friends.  I have had a bit of a difficult week at work but the positive side effect is  that I know (not really news but it is nice to affirm these things) that I have very good, kind, lovely, beautiful friends.  Three of them read this blog.
2.  It feels like spring is here.  Since I have tempted fate by removing my snow tires and we are bound to get one more snow, I'm trying not to get too excited by the weather this week just yet.
3.  I'm looking forward to a huge jam making summer.  I was a bit lazy last summer and the end result is that I'm almost out of home made jam.  A definite crisis in my world.
4.  We had a huge white pine cut down the other day.  It was, according to the tree people, 100% dead.  I got 2 answers on what killed it.  The estimator said it was some sort of bug.  The leader of the cutting process said it was likely a fungus.  Either way, it's sad to see such a large tree go.  Again, on the positive side, it was partially shading my veggie patch.  Two expected outcomes - my veggie patch can now be larger and plants that are supposed to have full sun will now have full sun.  My garden did very well in partial sun before so I'm hoping that this will make it do even better.
5.  This is for Kristen - preventing blossom end rot on tomatoes
6.  On the seed starting front, another link to prevent damping off

From the world of Commerce

At two ends of the spectrum are some things I ran into today.  The first was an article in the Toronto Star about Organics Delivered disappearing from view.  This is a company that my friend recommended that delivered organic produce to your door.  I bought 2 trial boxes from them a few months ago.  I was unimpressed by the first but the second was much better.  I hadn't gotten around to signing up for another series of boxes yet and it appears that was lucky.  Unfortunately the company, according to the article, has gone out of business.

At the other end of the spectrum, I had to take my car in for a big service today.  It cost over $400 and I was asked whether they wanted to top up my windshield washer fluid ... for $2.50.  Now, it has been a while since that high school job at Canadian Tire, and I know the price has to have gone up, but I am guessing I could likely come close to buying an entire bottle of the stuff for $2.50.  I guess if the reservoir was empty you might break even but, come on, I'm spending $400+ getting my car repaired, top up the fluid.  At least they washed my floor mats.

Just two random things from the world of Commerce.

It was a great lunch two days in a row

Yesterday I made pea soup and bacon biscuits from the latest Food and Drink magazine from the LCBO.  Both were very good.  The pea soup was made with fresh (or in this case frozen) peas and tasted like spring.  I liked the fact that it also contributed to my freezer cleanup initiative that doesn't seem to be working all that well.  I used two half bags of peas but then replaced them with a container of leftover soup - therein lies the answer to why my freezer cleanup initiative is not working very well!

The biscuits were also very tasty.  My father, who I was cooking this lunch for, thought I over cooked them as they were a bit crunchy.  It is all in the opinion of the taster, I think.  I enjoy burnt toast fairly regularly so it is rare that I find a bread-related item too crunchy.

I took a bowl and a biscuit for lunch today and it was possibly even more satisfying than when fresh.

Tonight I was dining solo so enjoyed salmon poached in red wine in shallots with a sauce of bacon (my "use the food, don't throw it out" initiative continues), mushroom and red wine sauce.  Excellent.  Another biscuit, a good book and the food network playing in the background made for a great meal.

After slurping up my soup, I took a trip over to The Workroom on Queen Street in Toronto.  I was cruising their website and noticed that they had the Erin McMorris fabric that I used for the quilt I pulled together a few weeks ago.  Not that the backing had to match, but it seemed destined that I should find it so easily.  I am easily persuaded about destiny when it comes to fabric and yarn.  It was a bit of a whirlwind trip since it takes about 20 minutes by streetcar to get there, 10 minutes to look around and buy and 20 minutes to get back to work. But worth it.  A very nice sunny day and I really liked the store/classroom.  I will go back when I can sit on the couch and admire some of the many books on the shelves.  I may even take a class if I can get myself organized.

Braised Beef Ribs and Lemon Squares

This was my dinner last night.  I thought I had better get in a few more braises before the weather warms up so I chose beef ribs.  I'm not sure if I have had beef ribs before but I wasn't crazy about these.  The taste was good but I found them too fatty.

The simple boiled new potatoes and everything-in-the-kitchen salad with a honey mustard dressing were both great.  I splurged on some pomegranate seeds (which are actually called something other than seeds but I can't remember what it is) at Costco yesterday and threw them in the salad.  Yummy.  I have always liked pomegranate seeds but find it such a pain to release them from their homes that I never eat them.  Since these were already released from their homes and pithless, I bought them.  They are worth the little extra.  Which is good because buying them at Costco means I'll be eating them as fast as I can to use up the copious quantities!  I believe they freeze well, I'll check that out.

For a very yummy finish, Lemon Squares!  These are a new recipe from the most recent Bon Appetit magazine and are made with lemongrass in addition to lemon juice.  With a nice coconut shortbread crust, they are heavenly.  I took some to my neighbour with cancer and was glad that she not only likes lemon squares but since lemon is one of the few flavours she can taste at the moment, she was very happy to receive them.

The Brier

As I've talked about before, I curl.  I also enjoy watching curling on TV, especially the Tournament of Hearts for women's curling and The Brier for the men.  Since it is in London, Ontario this year, about a 1 1/2 hour drive from us, and because my niece was involved in the events, we drove over yesterday and took in 2 draws.  I've never gone to a live curling event before and it was fun.  It was a bit strange to see players in person who I'd seen on TV a million times.  And it also takes a bit of time to figure out how to watch when there are 4 games going on at the same time.  You basically have to concentrate on one game and look over at the others intentionally from time to time.  It is also better to sit up high.  Our tickets were close to the action and you could see the player reactions more closely but it was difficult to see any of the play very well.  The 2:30 draw during the week is not very crowded so we were able to move around and discovered a much better spot for watching and we were more able to enjoy the play from there.

Since I am able to knit straightforward projects in the car - socks and intricate patterns cause motion sickness to kick in - I always bring knitting.  I started working on another plackett pullover.  The one posted the other day looked too small for my nephew and based on measurements I asked for, will fit him for about another week.  As his birthday is in 2 weeks, the math just won't work.  I'm not sure I'll get this version done but have skipped up 2 sizes so if I don't it should be good for Christmas.  And wouldn't it be cool to have at least one project done before the Christmas knitting panic?  Of course, that is contingent on my actually finishing before the Christmas knitting panic but it is much too early in the year to be so pessimistic.  It will be done by summer, at least!

I feel like I'm making a dent

Despite the fact that this little project only took 1 skein and a few inches of leftover yarn from another project, I feel like I'm getting control over the stash.  This is, of course, ridiculous because I still have balls and balls of yarn left behind.  It just feels good to get a couple of things done.  The sock of the month is taking forever and I'll be lucky if I get one done by the 2 month deadline which is the end of March.  So getting this small project out of the way feels like progress.

This is a great little knit.  The finished project is very cute and Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran is a very nice, soft, comfortable yarn.  I wanted to make my second pair of fingerless gloves before the spring.  I have lost one of the first pair somewhere, hopefully in the house to be located on a hot July day.  I wanted to make sure I had a replacement pair for the Go Train platform this spring.  I combined making these with a marathon viewing of the BBC/Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice, my favourite movie of all time and worth a viewing every year or two while getting a nice project finished.

So cute

I finished another project this morning.  The Placket-Neck Pullover from Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Knitted Gifts.  Hoverson is the owner of Purl in New York.  As an avid traveller, I have a long list of places I really want to go and must admit that Purl is on it.  The advertisements have me totally smitten.  The photos are lovely combinations of yarn and sewing related stuff and I pause and spend time just admiring the ads every time I come across one in a magazine.  They make me want to book the next flight to New York.  Maybe I should!

Once again I pulled the buttons from my stash of a million buttons.  This number is not in any way an exaggeration of the number of buttons that my ancestors, going back to the crusades it feels like, have collected.  I had a little more trouble finding some this time since I needed them to be fairly small.  But, in the end, the stash did not disappoint.  I did end up going with 2 instead of the suggest 3 because, after sewing on the first 2, I noticed the third had rust on the metal post.  I examined the other 2, found they were clean of rust and decided that the third button is not really necessary.  

I'm now trying to decide whether I bake bread, work on more in progress projects or go grocery shopping.  Its such a dull and rainy day that all I want to do is putter.  A perfect Saturday, really.

Today it felt like spring

I know it is a tease but today it felt like spring.  I went for a walk up to Queen Street at lunch with David's Teas as the ultimate goal.  It was a perfectly lovely day.  According to one of those signs that flash the temperature and the time that I passed on the way up University, it was 0.  That, combined with the sun, made for a very nice break in the middle of the day.  I love going for walks in the middle of the day.  The only problem is that I enjoy them so much I start imagining the freedom of not having to go back to the office.  Unfortunately, while I don't live to work, I still need to work to live.  Particularly if I'm going to buy loose leaf teas.

Added to the lovely walk at lunch, I managed to escape the chains attached to my desk, left on time and got home while it was still light out.  If that doesn't say spring, nothing does.  Of course, the forecast for the weekend is more snow but I know it won't be long until I'm pushing the envelope on how early I can plant my cool weather crops in the garden.