Monday, February 25, 2019

I’ve read the book by Marie Kondo but I haven’t watched the Netflix series; there were a few good ideas in the book but there were a lot of ideas I thought were a bit silly. Some of my things are just “things”; they may not spark joy but they are necessities. And if you have a separate drawer for things (like underwear and socks), why would you need to fold them just-so?

Pat decided to do a bit of decluttering in his closet over the few days. Although I keep an ongoing pile of give-away items in the closet I hadn’t gone through them in awhile. Today I distributed all our boxes of goodies – shoes and coats went one place, books went another, and a lot of odds and ends went to another place. There was even one small bag of garbage that went to the curb this morning.

Before heading out to drop off our boxes I finished up the reports for the Hall meeting tonight and got a deposit ready. I dropped a couple of books off at the library and then I started on my Guild list. I had previously sent out letters asking for donations for door prizes at the quilt show and today I was following up with the folks I hadn’t heard from.

Although I didn’t collect many gifts, I got call-back dates from most folks. I have a few more calls to make tomorrow; one more round next week and another the last week before the show and then I’ll start putting baskets together. I absolutely hate asking the stores for these prizes but I don’t think I’ll enjoy putting the baskets together either.

Next I’ll get some projects ready for the bee tomorrow – binding for my Farmer’s Daughter quilt and my Challenge bag come to the top of the list – and then I think I’ll sit in the sun and hand stitch some binding.

Sunday, February 24, 2019

I quilted all day yesterday and by supper I was almost finished the quilting on my Farmer’s Daughter quilt. After supper and an episode of Bosch I headed back upstairs and got it finished. Although I know there is much more to do (sleeve, label, binding) it is a great relief to know it won’t be a problem to get it done in time for the show.

And I finished a knitting project – a shawl I’ve been working on for the last couple of months. It took a long time but it only used two balls of sock yarn; my goal for the year is to use up my bin of sock yarn for something other than socks.

I had do an opening at the Hall late this morning and I didn’t even resent doing it. The sun was shining, the renter was on time and she paid, and another Board member was going to be at the Hall in the afternoon so I didn’t have to close.

I did some catch-up work for the Hall since we have a meeting on Monday night; for some reason I didn’t think the meeting was until Wednesday. I’ll have to make a bank deposit tomorrow and I have to question one of our bills but I’m in pretty good shape for the meeting.

I’ve moved on this afternoon to trimming my quilt and I’m ready now to get started on the sleeve. I’ve also picked out a couple of new patterns for sock yarn so I can get started on a new knitting project.

Friday, February 22, 2019

I’ve been quilting on my Farmer’s Daughter all day and I’m still not done. I’m working on three or four blocks at a time and I keep thinking that when they are done I must be finished. But no, there still seem to be blocks that are only half finished. It will take me another day to finish the blocks and then I’ll move on to the borders. They will have some free-motion quilting and should go quickly but I remember how that worked out on my Farmer’s Wife quilt.

I haven’t decided whether I’ll knit or sew binding this evening while watching TV. Working on the binding yesterday afternoon at a table was so much easier than working with the quilt over my knee. But the quilt show is less than a month away and the knitting has no deadline to it at all.

Thursday, February 21, 2019

Last night was fabulous. Contrary to what we thought was going to happen there were fourteen of us in the restaurant, all as guests of the chef. No one except the chef did any cooking and what an amazing meal we had. He did all the cooking on a two burner cooking plate in the sitting area of the restaurant. He had a GoPro camera set up so we could see a close-up of the pans as they were cooking on the stove but for the most part I only watched him in action.

We started out with some prawns, fresh off the boat. Although they weren’t shelled (which we prefer) we dug in with our fingers and the four of us at our end of the table finished off a bowl of them. They weren’t included in what he planned to make – just something to get us started in case the last two people showed up.

The appetizer course was a roasted radish salad – none of us had ever heard of roasting radishes. They were roasted in oil, salt and pepper and the process took all the heat out of them; Pat thought they tasted a bit like brussels sprouts. The dressing on the salad was made of a couple of types of mustard and sour cream and a bit of this and that spicing.

Next up was a mushroom tart made with about five different kinds of mushroom cooked with a generous quantity of white wine and served on puff pasty with asparagus stems.

For the “main” course we had duck. Duck is the last thing I would ever order in a restaurant and I have to say I wasn’t looking forward to it. He told us how he prepares the duck – they sit in a dry salt brine for three days before being rinsed, dried and stored in their own fat; apparently they can be stored this way for up to six months because the meat at this point is cured. The roasted duck was served with bok choy and the sauce on the plate was made from a bottle of red wine, reduced down, with cranberries and blueberries added at the end. The results were amazing – not only amazing for duck but it is one of the best meat dishes I’ve ever had.

For dessert we had ice cream and blueberry sauce for dessert – this sauce was basically made with butter, blueberries and wine.

We’ll definitely be back for more! And the bonus is that the restaurant is just at the bottom of our hill.

I was off to stitching today. There is still a lot of snow around Gail’s place and I parked half on the road and half in her driveway just to be sure I could get out again. I was stitching the binding on my Farmer’s Wife quilt – more than half-way around now.

Tonight I’m off to my 100+ Women Who Care meeting. More snow predicted for tomorrow.