The only two plants that do well on my porch are pansies and petunias. There must be a message from the Gods for me; they are underwhelmed with my gardening abilities. And rightly so. Had I known my old age would produce stiff knees, aching shoulders and an attraction for stinging insects I would have moved into an urban condo. Now DH and I have an agreement about martial responsibilities; I do pots ON the decks, he does the yard and everything OFF the decks. Works for me.
Flowers for the table were next on the to-do list. That’s the one thing I can do and even like doing. Flower arranging came easily to me as a child helping Mother and now I get to buy fresh flowers and build centerpiece arrangements for our holidays. Sometimes I even surprise myself.
Whole Foods offered a "Maker’s Special" floral bundle, from which I got not one but two festive bouquets for the weekend. See arrangement ONE for the birthday dinner table tomorrow night. How do you like my patchwork table runner?
Enough flowers were left to make a small table arrangement for the breakfast table.
The dining table is dressed in a fresh cloth, table runner and place mats, the silverware comes out tonight, the green-leaf china got washed last night.
Tomorrow, for our holiday celebration and the last chance to celebrate DH’s birthday in the same month (5/8 his date), before yet another postponement occurs.
Sister Jan & Rich will join us Monday afternoon for dinner and relax after they have spent the weekend doing outside yard and garage cleanup.
Because the Monday birthday dinner will be heavy and meaty - tonight’s dinner will not. My secret formula for making a cereal supper includes three grains.
First, boil 2 cups of water, then and add ½ cup of steel-cut McCann’s Irish Oats, adding 1/4 cup of whole wheat berries and simmer for twenty minutes. Then add 1/4 cup of Quaker Oat, the old-fashioned kind and about 1/3 cup of Soy Silk Vanilla (or milk). Let simmer for another 12-15 minutes, then turn the heat off and let the pot remain covered for another ten minutes or so. The mixture should be thick, creamy and steamy.
To serve offer a selection of toppings: brown sugar, maple syrup, a bowl of chopped, dried fruits, chopped nuts. Pictured is a close-up of my personal favorite fruit mix which includes chopping dried apricots, apples, prunes, peaches, tossing raisins, blueberries, cherries and cranberries, chopped dates and to this mix I add a generous amount of pecans. The delicious nuts are such a treat. As a kid I grew up in black walnut county, for me getting peanut-chocolate clusters for Christmas was the best (Yum!). In previous habitats, pecans were expensive and rare. Imagine my delight at finding pecans not just abundant but affordable when we moved to the South. I enjoy pecans with oatmeal and dried fruit almost every morning.After a big bowl of supper-cereal we had fresh strawberries and cherries (chilled and delicious) as a second course. Of course you could add a cookie or ‘Dunker,’ but none tonight. Having cereal as a supper dish took some getting used to but making weekends the lazy, recuperative time, major cooking is just not on the agenda.
This holiday impetus comes between bouts of frustration with Photoshop editing. The guild’s most reliable fund raiser is and always has been raffling a quilt - every two years to coincide with the quilt show. The 2008 Raffle Quilt is a knock-out, made privately and given to the guild. As other guild members surely know, photographing a Queen or King sized quilt is not easy. First you have to have a strong rod to hand from, lest there be a center-sag. And a place to mount it well above ground level so the bottom edge is not obscured. Finally, in order to shoot this image with little or no distortion, anyone as short as I must mount a ladder and position themselves about four-feet above the ground to get eye-level with the upper middle part of the shape. Never happens. And unless you can get a full-square image, what’s the point?
The photos I shot were of the quilt as it lay over pews at the Grace Church months ago and someone else took pictures as it was hung with the bottom draping across a floor. Getting any square perspective out of these photos is impossible so I did the only thing left to do. By creating line-art to imitate the block pattern and using that as a background, sections of the blocks were pulled out for enlargement. I will add the photo-raffle-page for the guild’s newsletter here, once I find who the quilt maker was, what the pattern is named, the quilt dimensions and finally the cost of tickets (?$?). Other than that, it’s simple!
Did I tell long-arm-machine-quilter Jan S., that I would have the applique over a one-patch bed-sized quilt ready for her by July 1? What was I thinking?
This means that after the Memorial Day dinner I have to clear the table, bring out the Bernina and clear everything else for at least three weeks UNTIL I have all of the 7" letters to "R-a-g-t-i-m-e D-r-e-a-m-s" plus some scatted stars double-satin stitched over the pieced patches. Then the last two of the side borders must be attached and a backing fabric chosen. Borders were done last year, just never got to the patchwork. Yes, I can make it if I focus. IF nothing else interferes with me or use of the dining table before July 1. When finished it will just about work on our Queen sized bed, even if we do not actually need another quilt.
And of course this means that other projects will be down-graded in priority: like the red+purple quilt for step-son Doug and Jen. An indigo idea for step-son David. The PLAID collection is waiting for my next ‘BIG’ inspiration. And the green jacket had made it up to four parts, with sleeve pattern still to be designed. And it’s only May. Maybe I should just stick to photography and forget about patchwork - what does get done is always long after the excitement of a new idea.
Tuesday is the 6th and final session for "Local Musicians in Performance," at Croasdaile Village. The reason I joined DH is this class was to enjoy a Tuesday lunch together before he heads off to band practice. A schedule conflict prevented me from the first session but all the subsequent classes have been excellent. The course has offered in depth information about popular music history but we have not had lunch together once. And not Tuesday either. Bummer.
After this week our only class commitment will be the Wednesday afternoon ballroom practice at SSC.
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