Sister's Choice Quilts

Another New Table Runner

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day.  Mine was lovely.  It was also Sara's birthday, so we had a double celebration.  She and Eva came over for brunch and we sat outside and opened presents and had mimosas and a nice breakfast.

I managed to catch the miserable cold my husband had while we were on our vacation, so I was down for the count last week.  I still have a lingering cough and am blowing my nose all the time.  Such fun.  I have not been doing any sewing, so I apologize for the lack of quilty content, but it will probably continue like this for the foreseeable future.  Eva has three more weeks of school, and then I will be spending more time with here during the summer.  I hope to get some kind of schedule in place where I sew for an hour or so a day while she is occupied with something else.

The table runner in the photo above is super cute, in spite of the terrible lighting.  I will get it trimmed up and bound this week, and think it will be a pretty addition to my dining table.  Inside or out!

 

Red Runner and Robbery Storytime

Ah.  I am home from my trips, my laundry is done, the Easter decor has been put away, and my husband has gone back to work.  That man has been sick for ten days with a horrible cough, fever and an ear ache.  He lost his hearing in the affected ear and every time I spoke to him he looked at me with complete incomprehension.  That got old pretty fast I tell you. 

It wasn't that I was completely unsympathetic, but he refused to go to the doctor in spite of indications that it might be a really good idea.  What is it about men and going to the doctor?

Here is a close up of the quilting, which I think is so pretty.  My roses are going nuts, so I sacrificed one for the bud vase.  It matches perfectly!

I am so glad to be home.  Did I say that already?  I am a creature of routine and it just was too much to be gone to Palm Desert, home for a few days, then off to Lake Tahoe.  I have no plans to go anywhere for the foreseeable future.

I have a story to share.  Our son Ahren lives in Dublin, Ireland, as many of you who follow me know.  Well, last week, his house was burglarized.  While.he.was.home.

He had worked late and didn't get home until nearly 9:00.  He'd had a long stressful day, and had over an hour commute on public transportation to get home.  His habit is to come in, disarm his alarm, and re-lock his front door.  He thinks that is what he did that particular night as usual.  He threw together a light dinner and went upstairs to sleep shortly after 10:00.  He took his laptop upstairs with him to look at something before he fell asleep.  He sleeps with his bedroom door closed and locked (kind of weird, I never knew that about him).  So, obviously sound asleep after a long day at work, with his door shut, he wasn't really hearing anything that transpired downstairs.

At some point during the night, someone either used a pick on his front door to gain entry, or (if Ahren forgot to lock up, which would have been very unusual) just opened the door and came into his house.  They didn't seem very professional, just stepped in, probably looked around for a purse or car keys, grabbed his bag from the foyer and ran back out.  What they took was Ahren's messenger bag that contained just about everything that meant something to him.  His eyeglasses, his iPhone, his Filofax (with all kinds of personal information), his wallet, his cash (only 20 Euro thank goodness), his house keys (!), his ATM card, his writing journal (with all his stories he had been writing for the past year), a sterling silver fountain pen his ex had given him that he treasured, and an expensive leather pen case his sister had given him for Christmas.  There may have been more things in the bag, but those are the major losses.  The main things they didn't get were his laptop and his passport which were elsewhere.

He got up in the morning, came down stairs, saw his hall table drawer ajar, a book on the floor and his bag gone.  And his door unlocked.  It took all day to go to the bank and report his missing cards, go to the Gardai (Irish police) to report the break in, acquire a new iPhone, try to get new glasses, a new National ID, a new public transportation pass, new wallet, new FIlofax etc etc.   He also had to go buy a new lock for the door and install it.   The Gardai were real interested that the crime had been committed while the resident was on the premises, but so far nothing has been retrieved and nothing really done about it.  

He is going to put a deadbolt and chains on his door, and will be setting his alarm while he is in the house, which previously he had not done.  He feels pretty shaken about the whole experience but is being philosophical about how lucky he is.  "At least they didn't take my favorite Staub Dutch oven, or my Baccarat wine glasses".  As if the typical thief would know the value of those items.

Have any of you been robbed?  What is your story?  The most memorable one that has stuck with me over the years is the woman whose house was broken into and her husband's guns stolen.  She didn't give a hoot about the darn guns going missing, but the fact that they stole the last quilt her dearly departed mother had made to wrap the guns in was a very hard blow to take.

Happy Easter

It has become something of a tradition for Eva to make a special Easter cake with me.  This was our effort a couple of years ago.  Eva is in charge of choosing the design, and as she has gotten older, she has taken on more of the decorating responsibilities as well.

This is what she came up with for this year.  I tried in vain to talk her into making a flat bunny cake, but she insisted on this 3-D version.  It came out fairly well, but those ears were a challenge to attach, I tell you.

As you see, she has not lost her fondness for incorporating Peeps into her designs.  Despite the cake's somewhat disheveled appearance, it actually tasted pretty good.  Eva is already talking about what we will do next year.  

  Today our schools are on holiday, so Eva will be spending the day with me.  I am hoping to get some laundry done and maybe even get up into my sewing room.  What is it about vacations and laundry?  I don't seem to generate that many dirty clothes on a regular weekly basis.  Our weather has turned lovely, so "there will be good drying in the day" as my Irish relations say.

Hope your week is getting off to a great start!

Welcome to the Infirmary

I believe I may be getting over my cold.  Which is a good thing. I have had Eva since the beginning of the month because her daddy is traveling, and she has suddenly come down with the stomach flu.  The less said about that the better, but the up shot is, she has been sick (v.e.r.y. sick) for the past two days and now Sara has come down with it as well.  

Doesn't my sweet girl look pitiful?  That is what one looks like when all you have had to eat all day is weak camomile tea, plain toast, water, juice and white rice. 

All I can say is that we have a big vacation planned for Spring Break starting Saturday, involving plane travel and other exciting things, and we all better snap out of it.  Wish us luck...

Cooking and Cleaning

I have been cooking up a storm in my new Instant Pot.  I may have made the best soup of my life-Loaded Potato Soup.  The recipe can be found here.  The recipe was for the 3 Quart Mini Instant Pot, and made at least five servings.  I have had it three times since I made it and there is enough for two more bowls.  I made it just as the recipe dictated, but I did use my immersion blender to puree things before I tossed the crispy bacon in.  Bowl licking delicious.

At some point, I am going to get this new appliance off my kitchen counter and want to put it away.  Which got me thinking....  My pantry was a horrible mess.  Who even knew what was in those far corners and on the top shelves.  So, I pulled every single thing out and Kon-Maried my pantry.  Not much sparked joy, and I did a massive purge of outdated and unwanted items.  It took hours.  No before photo as it was too terrifying.  That is my after photo above.

I have ordered some clear plastic bins from the Container Store, which will allow me to put like items together.  The bins have a pull handle on one end, so you can use it like a drawer-pull it forward and you can see how many cans of diced tomatoes you have instead of rummaging around moving things aside on the shelf to see what's in the back.  I had a few of these bins already, but went online and ordered eight more for my canned goods.  On sale right now too.

Here is one of those organizer bins with Eva's favorite snacks in it.  It is hard to see, but there is a handle on the front that you can grab and pull forward like a drawer.   My pantry shelves are super deep, so this is so handy.  

Here are my bottom shelves with some of my appliances easily accessible.  My new Instant Pot and my panini maker on the shelf and my bread maker and pasta maker on the floor.  

Gosh I love being organized.  

Instant Pot Newbie

So guess what came to my house yesterday?  I may be the last person on the planet to get one of these, but I am now the owner of an Instant Pot!  The Instant Pot is the modern version of a pressure cooker, with the addition of the features of being able to saute and even slow cook.  I've spent hours watching YouTube videos to get up to speed, and I have to say, the things seem pretty fool proof.  I remember growing up with my mother telling horror stories of spaghetti sauce on the ceiling from the things blowing up, but these new electric models have so many safety features in place, that would be impossible to do nowadays.

I started small, with the Mini size, which produces meals that feed 2-3 people.  I am on my own during the week, as my husband currently works a couple of hours away and just comes home on the weekends.  Unfortunately, without him to cook for, I have not been bothering to cook a proper meal for myself and have resorted to frozen foods or potato chips and a cookie for dinner.  Not good.  My idea is that since my Mini Instant Pot produces servings for two, I can have a decent healthy dinner and a nice lunch or maybe leftovers for dinner the following day.  If I love the Mini as much as I hope to, in the future, I may get the larger 6 quart size, as so many people say they can't live without it.

My first experiment was to make brown rice, which turned out great.  No mess, no boiling over, no constant  stirring and waiting 45 minutes for it to cook.  I made it ahead and will warm it up when I serve dinner over it.  Dinner is Chicken Tikka Masala, and I have my ingredients all out on the counter ready to go.

And I have to say, the recipe was a total success!

Chicken TIkka Masala from the cookbook The Instant Pot Bible.  I'm not going to post the recipe, because of course, the author would love for you to buy the book.  $13.38 on Amazon.  It was good, it was quick, it was easy and it served Sara and I a great dinner.  I had a portion and she had a portion and seconds!

Please share.  Do you have an Instant Pot?  The regular size or the mini?  Do you love it?  What are some of your favorite things to cook in it?

 

Snowed In

I woke up to a winter wonderland Sunday morning.  It had quietly snowed all night long, and our power had been out from midnight to about 6:00 AM.

This was the view out my bedroom door.  The trees were so beautiful with their branches all decorated with snow.

But our driveway was somewhere under all that whiteness.  And it is a hill.  My husband with his two knee replacements, was keen to start shoveling it, but I had grave misgivings about the wisdom of that plan.  

Luckily, my daughter and her husband, who live in the mountains and have a big truck with special snow tires, drove down and helped us out.  That is my son in law at the top of the driveway with a snow shovel, taking care of it for us.

We just are not used to this kind of weather.  It's California for goodness sake, and in February I am expecting to see the daffodils coming up and the cherry blossoms coming out on the trees.

However, some members of the family thoroughly enjoyed the novelty that the snow storm brought.

Too Pretty Not to Share

This was just too pretty not to share.  I had this little Bear Paw table topper quilted nearly a year ago, and just had not gotten around to binding it.  Valentine's Day is fast approaching and I thought it would be just the thing for a pretty tablescape.  My problem was the red/pink is kind of an odd shade.  Reddish pink with a coral vibe.  I looked and looked and could not find any candles that really went with it.  It was pretty on the table, but needed some accessorizing.

I walk several days a week with a friend, and was complaining to her about my dilemma of not being able to pull together a table decoration around my new topper due to the unusual pink/red color.  We were about half way through our walk when one of us (ahem, I believe it was me) suggested turning around and immediately heading to the nearest shopping mecca to shop (about an hour away).  And we did.  Now that's a good friend.  We rationalized that we were not getting our full allotment of steps in if we quit our walk halfway through, but after all, that tromping around the mall would certainly add enough steps to make our quota.

We went to Ulta, we went to Target, we went to Trader Joe's, we went to Hobby Lobby.  We went to Red Robin.  They did not have candles there, but my goodness, those cheeseburgers were good.  We spent lots of money on beauty products, but ultimately I came home with nothing for my table.  We drove an hour there and an hour back, because we live out in the country with no good shopping.  We talked about books, we talked about kids, we talked about clothes.  After saying good bye to my friend, seven hours after our morning walk, I ran to the grocery store five minutes from my house for some provisions.  There was a Hallmark store next to the grocery store.  I went in.  And they had candles in the perfect shade of pinky/red that I needed to match my table topper.

Do I regret spending an entire day on a fruitless quest for something that was five minutes from my house?  Not at all.  I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

What's Going On At My House

I know.  Is that pathetic or what?  Ozzie has been through a bit of "stuff" lately.  I am about to rant and rave a bit, so if that's not your thing, stop reading now.

He had a little growth on his lower left eyelid, which was successfully removed just over a week ago.  You can see how they shaved around his lower eye area, giving him a peculiar piratey look.  He got through that procedure with flying colors.  By all appearances he was completely unaffected.  He had great energy, his usual enthusiastic appetite and was just as mischievous as ever.  No eye patch, no "cone of shame", just some eye ointment.  I was prematurely congratulating myself on how we had sailed through that experience.

And then Friday rolled along.

There is someone in our neighborhood who uses his home near us as a vacation home.  He and his family use it maybe once a month for a weekend, if that.  The problem is, he brings his gigantic 160 pound Newfoundland, who resembles a bear more than a dog.  He named his dog Rover.  Seriously.  So, on the infrequent occurrences that they are staying at their house, this neighbor allows Rover to roam all over the neighborhood off leash.  The houses in our neighborhood don't have fences typically, so he goes in and out of folk's yards.  We do have a fence to keep Ozzie in and other critters out, but we are the exception.

Rover is calm and friendly and seems as dumb as a bucket of nails.  He doesn't do anything while wandering around.  He just strolls wherever he pleases, unsupervised and off leash.  And that's ok because he's a "good" dog, right?  No one is accompanying him, so anything he leaves behind is going to stay where it drops.

Well, Ozzie hates him.  Whenever he sees Rover on the other side of our fence (which is a split rail style covered with chicken wire) he becomes hysterical.  Never mind that Ozzie weighs 24 pounds to Rover's 160, Ozzie thinks he is a threat.  Because the fence isn't solid, Ozzie can see Rover just fine and runs up and down the length of it barking his head off in a complete frenzy.  Ozzie doesn't spend much time out in the back yard, but I do let him out at least four times a day to do his business and get fresh air.  If I know the people are at their house with Rover, I don't let Ozzie out.  But this time, I had no idea the people had come for the weekend and that their dumb dog was wandering along our fence.

However, Ozzie figured it out right away.  Ozzie saw Rover and started barking and running up and down the fence.  Before I could get to him to put a stop to it, Ozzie pitched himself at the wire fence in his hysteria, and caught his ear on something and tore the tip of it off.

It was a mess.  There was blood all over his head and face, and I couldn't tell at first where he had hurt himself.  I managed to get him into the car and take him over to our veterinarian, who luckily was still open.  It was around 5:10 on Friday afternoon.  He was still bleeding profusely and we caused quite a sensation when we arrived.  The doctor determined the cut was on the end of his ear and cleaned and patched him up.  Because of the location of the wound, he required a head wrap and the plastic cone.  $118, and over an hour later, I was back home with Ozzie who was now trembling and shivering with the ordeal of having his damaged ear folded back, a tight wrapping around his head and neck and the plastic cone flapping around his face.

We had our grand dog Remy with us for the weekend, and as you see by his expression, he is deeply concerned for Ozzie.  I was totally shook up with the ordeal and didn't calm down for ages either.

We keep our dog in a fenced back yard.  When I take him out front for a walk, he is on a leash.  We pick up (and dispose of properly) any excrement he may produce.  The only trouble we have ever had during the twelve years we have had Ozzie is with neighborhood dogs who are allowed to wander around unleashed.  Frankly, I am really tired of the thoughtless mentality that just because someone owns a "good" dog who they trust not to run off or be aggressive, that keeping them off leash is ok.   They may think they know how their dog will behave, but they sure don't know how other dogs may respond.

Ok, I'm done.

Wrapping and Ribbon

I was hoping for more interesting content for you all in my effort to post every week day before Christmas, but I swear all I did over the weekend was wrap packages, take Eva to see The Grinch, and wrap more packages.  The Grinch was adorable, and I enjoyed it as much as she did.  Benedict Cumberbatch does an incredible job as the voice of the Grinch.

I have piles of presents all over the house.  It looks like a lot, but we have a huge extended family, and everybody gets a present.  The end is in sight with the whole wrapping thing, thank goodness.  One gift is going to have to go out to the garage though, as it smells to high heaven.  I bought Sara's husband a pound of bulk garlic powder (he is starting up a restaurant), and boy oh boy, can you ever smell it.  When it was delivered to the front porch and I picked it up I wondered if one of the neighbors was doing some heavy fertilizing.  Um no, that would just be one of the gifts I am giving to a family member.

I mentioned in a previous post that I got a tip for decorating the tree with ribbon, that was super successful.  Here is a close up of my ribbon.  Next year I am going to use red for a bigger impact, now that I am so confident in my ribbon festooning abilities.  The trick is to cut the lengths of ribbon into three or four foot lengths.  Don't try to work with the entire spool.  You start at the top and secure a length of ribbon to the tree.  Pull it out a bit and tuck it in right below, making a kind of puff.  Just do this all the way straight down the tree.  Puff, tuck in, puff, tuck, puff, tuck, puff etc.  You get a great effect.  The mistake most people make with ribbon on the tree is that they try to go round and round like it's a garland.  No no no.  Take shorter lengths of ribbon straight down the tree, or maybe at a slight diagonal.  The effect is lovely.  I used five 10 yard long spools of 2 1/2" wide ribbon for a nine foot tree.

So, what I want to share with you in upcoming posts, when I get my act together. is a Gingerbread Bundt Cake with Rum Cream Cheese Icing, and Eva's Christmas gifts to her parents.  We are going to fill Mason jars with the dried ingredients to make batches of homemade Ranch dressing.  Decorating the jars will be fun. And Ahren is arriving from Ireland on Wednesday!  I won't see him until Saturday as he is visiting friends and exploring San Francisco until then.  After that I will have him to myself up here in the boonies.

Hope your week got off to a great start!