Cinema Geese

We took advantage of the opportunity for tickets at a great price to go to an awesome movie this morning.  The movie was Samson and it was produced by the same people that made God is Not Dead. They did a totally incredible depiction of the Bible account of Samson.  The movie is only showing for a short time, so it is hard to get the word out there in time... but it definitely was worth watching. We got there early cause we didn't know what traffic would be like.  While passing the extra time in the almost empty parking lot... it was before 10 when the stores open, I watched a few geese wandering around, and was upset when a truck parked and blocked my view.  That is when Ron noted that I should look up over the entrance to the theater... I then spotted the Cinema Geese...

I think I have found my favorite theater of all the theaters I have ever been in.  Every seat was a recliner.  There was no such thing as a bad seat.  Not only was the movie spectacular, it will be difficult to find seating anywhere that is more comfortable away from home. OK, there was one other bonus item... Tuesdays are $5 movie days at this incredible theater. Doesn't get any better than that.  If you ever happen to be looking for me on a Tuesday, you might want to check to see if we have gone to the movies.  We don't go to the movies often, but there were a few previews of some good ones upcoming... Just Sayin'.

Sugar and her two sisters are adapting pretty well to being inside kitties.  We have a couple "thrones" for viewing purposes.  They are good at taking turns, but this is one of Sugar's favorite perches. Also, our back deck has lots of bird visitors, especially cardinals, but the greatest commotion is caused by the neighborhood kitties that like to taunt our poor captive felines.  When we hear the chorus begin, we know there is a kitty on the deck. Once I even saw a raccoon helping himself to the birdseed.  He left at my coaxing, but he really wasn't all that phased by my finding him there with his hand in the cookie jar.  I have to keep a heavy rock on the seed bin to detract the birdseed bandit.

I had fun making some curtains for my brothers truck.  Quilted and complete with Velcro on the back.  Went down to look through my stash of panels and found one I thought he might enjoy.

Banjos and Pictures

Ron has a variety of musical instruments, and some he has had for a very long time.  One of the older banjos he had needed to have the head replaced.  He ordered a couple new parts in hopes that he could get the banjo back up to operating condition.  He found out in the process that the head was a special size and it appeared to be not quite as straight forward as it might have been.  With persistence and determination he was able to resize the base to accommodate one of the new heads that he bought. 
 
 I didn't get a picture when he had it totally apart, but I had no idea how many layers and pieces there are to this banjo.  He has it all back together and ready to return to his grandson.  It isn't an expensive banjo, but it sure is impressive to someone who knows very little about what a fancy one is supposed to look like.

The guest room is coming along.  It even has a recliner. Someone posted on FB the other day that they were putting together a family picture wall.  I am not sure it will be a fancy picture wall...  it's in the guest room upstairs.  I will give it my best to make it pleasing to look at. I have lots of family pictures, too numerous to display on a wall, but I thought I could gather a few together and create our little gallery.  Right now many pictures are just tacked up as place holders.  Some will have to be printed in a larger format. I also have to find some new frames to help with the presentation.  This is my start.

Last but not least, my brother was driving through the area and got real close again.  It is not easy to find a place to pull a big rig over on our country roads, but we found a mini truck stop not too far out where we could have a quick chat/visit.  It was much easier than driving up into Columbus like we did last week. That is the second time I got to see him in less than one week.  Woohoo for Ohio!

Wandering in Logan

Early last week we decided to take a ride down into the Hocking Hills.  It has been a while (years) since we ventured down in that direction.  It actually is an area that we have both had minimal exposure, but it has lots of treasures hidden in its many hills.  It was about lunchtime, so finding this restaurant in Logan fit right into the ambiance of the area.  The buffet was one of the best ones we have had the pleasure to enjoy.  Although we didn't do any real shopping, their gift shop, that we passed through on the way out, had some interesting items.  Another time, when it is warmer, we might visit this restaurant again and some of the little shops across the parking lot... antiques and glassware among those I can remember.

I finished quilting a really large t-shirt quilt for a friend this week.  The picture only shows a small portion of the events and sports that this treasure represents. Hard to believe that one child was able to achieve all the memories made while acquiring these shirts.

Here's an interesting technique that I recently revived.  My grand-daughter wanted me to teach her how to use the hook I showed her that had crochet hooks on both ends.  The crohook that she had spotted in my sewing room was a short version of this one.  Even the shorter ones were made by Ron, but I noted that Joyce... the lady who taught me how to CroKnit, had an even longer one.  Next thing I knew Ron had made some new Crohooks, and they were 36" long.  CroKnit is a cross between crocheting and knitting and the final result is a reversible, two color afghan.  It has been a very long time since I had done any croknitting, but it didn't take long to get back up to speed.  Joyce would be proud.

Family

I remember in years gone by when 200 miles seemed like a big deal.  When we were kids, planning a trip to Vermont from Connecticut took us at least 5 hours.  Of course you had to stop along the way, but that was 5 hours to go 200 miles.  Fast forward to the 21st century and 200 miles seems like nothing... especially from a Texas perspective.  Our highways and fast cars have drastically reduced the time required to get from point A to point B.  Now, with our new connectivity, families have branched out and no longer stay "close to home"... in fact half way across the country is not uncommon.  We now have family spread almost across the whole country.  It is easier today to stay tuned to what is going on with our cell phones and social media, but being able to spend time with our loved ones is priceless.  My younger brother's new venture as an OTR truck driver has provided new opportunities for some of our family to stay a little better connected.

He called the other day and told me he was 4 hours out and it would be awesome for us to get together while he was in the area.  He actually was going to have a fair amount of time available, so I made him a good old fashioned supper, and my daughter was able to join us for a fun evening of family time.  We shared lots of memories and laughed lots.

Just a few days before our visit my two brothers were able to connect for a brief meeting in Florida. 

When the opportunity presents itself you have to be ready to jump on it, because those moments are not always available to us. 

Pizza

Today seemed like a good day to make pizza.  Of course that would be because I took pizza dough out of the freezer yesterday with the intent of making pizza for supper, but time seemed to get ahead of me, supper time rolled around and I hadn't started the pizza yet.  I have made pizza many different ways over the years, but making my own crust requiring a fair amount of time for the dough to rise has become my preferred method.  My recipe makes multiple pizzas, so I freeze the extra dough.  I bake my pizza at 425 and pre-bake the crust on my pizza stone, lined with parchment paper, for 5 minutes before I put any toppings on.  My usual topping is pepperoni.
I read a tip somewhere that suggested sprinkling Parmesan cheese over the pepperoni before adding the shredded cheese on top adds a nice flavor boost to the cheese.  Yummy lunch!

 In the quilt room I have a friends T-shirt quilt on the frame, ready to be quilted.  I have been trying to determine the best color to use for thread.  She did an awesome job of putting this quilt together and I am looking forward to making the quilting the finishing touch.

Still pretty chilly outside, but a bit warmer than it has been recently.  The best part today is that the sun was brightly shining.

Modern Building Blocks

Several months ago I bought a quilt kit that I was thoroughly taken with.  I am anxious to get this going again.  I got it started back in June, but had to put it away for several months to get beyond our move.  Not that this quilt is too difficult, but rather that it has many smaller blocks that will take lots of time.  The kit is a Moda kit using Bella Solids.  There are 48 blocks, starting with 2 - 36" blocks... I am down to the last group of 30 - 6" blocks.  This picture is the cover of the box that the fabric came in.  The instructions are minimal with a little picture of each block and the size of the pieces you have to cut.  Some of the pieces in the 6" blocks are quite small.

I made it through the first two 6ers and was sighing alot, and my husband makes the comment, you should do them using your paper piecing technique. This is block two of the 6's before I started stitching it.  Those little triangles like to shift as I am stitching, and I probably take almost as many seams out as I put in.  When it comes time to square them up to assemble the final quilt, I will only have two of these smaller blocks to worry about.  I dug out my old laptop that had EQ6 on it.  For those who don't know what EQ6 is... Electric Quilt 6.  The program has many blocks in its library and all you have to do is find your block, open it, and you can print it as a Paper Piecing design.  I have not found all my blocks yet in the library, but I am hopeful that they are all hiding in there somewhere.  So the last 28 blocks I will be using paper.  Paper piecing just makes little pieces so much easier to deal with, and points are right on.

Grand Daughter came yesterday to quilt a baby quilt.  She did an awesome job.  She used Minky on the back and I showed her how to turn the back to the front for the binding.

Dinosaurs

Mr. Creation has been laying pretty low these past few months, so I thought it would be fitting to make a new quilt and bring a smile to his face.
I made a bed size quilt a while back, including a center panel with lots of dinosaurs.  Ron really likes that quilt, but it is too large to drag out and cover up with while he is watching TV.  I had lots of scrap fabric left from this larger quilt, and I found a really good way to use a fair amount of this extra fabric to make a lap quilt with fleece on the back, for a little extra added warmth.  I made a quilt recently that I used minky on the back and Ron thought that was a great idea.  This lap size quilt really does have a nice feel, and it definitely is warm... and it has dinosaurs.

Ron's tip that he discovered the other day came into play again today... The tip about having the presser foot up when you thread your machine.  I frequently have issues with my 40 wt. polyester thread on my Baby Lock... so much so that I usually avoid using it on the Baby Lock.  Today I really wanted to use a variegated thread and decided it was worth a try with that tip in mind.  I made sure to lift the presser foot and threaded the variegated and stitched the binding down using a decorative stitch and I made it all around the quilt without one thread break.  That has never happened before... but before yesterday I almost never had the presser foot up when I threaded my machine.

Busy in the kitchen

The smell of cookies baking wafted through the house and pretty soon I had lured the cookie monster down from the den.  I mentioned not long ago that I had extra oatmeal around, so it seemed like a good day to make some cookies. Besides, it's cold outside. Ron likes extra raisins, so I usually almost double the amount of raisins called for in the recipe.  The recipe was passed along to me from Teri's collection, they are called Cape Cod Oatmeal cookies.  I think the cinnamon helps to make these cookies especially good.

I had a new cookie making experience today.  I have a really nice Bosch mixer that has been around for quite some time, which is a testament to its durability.  There are lots of attachments to go with the Bosch that Ron and Teri bought, way back in the 80's.  With the age of the base unit, I was concerned that replacing the mixer and all of its attachments would be quite expensive.  With that thought in mind, I wanted to find out what a new base unit would cost, should mine quit... and whether my attachments would work. I was able to determine that the attachments will work with the new base... WooHoo!!! Ron was helping with the search for information and found a YouTube with a lady showing all that her new Bosch could do.  In the process of watching the video I saw her using cookie paddles.  That was something I did not have.  I always used what I thought was the only option... the wire beaters.  Well, you know how Amazon works... Ron did a search, found cookie paddles for the Bosch, and ordered them.  I love how nice these cookie paddles work. It just seemed to blend much more smoothly and cleanup was so much easier. I won't presume that the paddles made the difference, but for some reason, these oatmeal cookies were awesome today. 

Is that Miss Piggy?

I finished baking my bread and had it cooling on the counter when my husband walks into the kitchen and asks me what the piggy was doing on the end.  I truly had not noticed before he asked, and sure enough, the little third loaf that was left after the two full loaves, turned out looking like Miss Piggy sitting next to the other two.  The Anadama Bread turned out awesome.  I definitely will be making that again real soon.

I have been aware since I bought my Baby Lock sewing machine that it is very sensitive to dust and lint, which means I try to stay ahead of any build-up in the bobbin area.  Computerized machines don't have lots of other areas that you can access.  There are two ways that I do this necessary task.  The first is the quick one that helps me determine whether I have to resort to the more thorough method.  With the quick method I open the easy access plate that slides out and I use a pipe cleaner to pick up the lint and dust that is present.  I do usually also take out the bobbin case and dust that area as well.  If there was not much of a build-up, I put the bobbin case back in and slide the plate in place and I am ready to sew again.  If I extract lots of lint, it is usually an indication that I need to unscrew the metal plate that gives me access to the area under the needle and behind.

This looks like a pretty messed up stitch swatch.  What I was doing was trying to figure out why my bobbin thread was showing on top.  Yesterday I had a project that I used orange in the bobbin and I had yellow for the top thread and I was doing a blanket stitch around an applique piece.  The orange ended up predominant on the topside.  I have had issues for a while and could not figure out how to adjust the bobbin tension on this machine, so I decided I would let it go.  Most of the time I am using the same color top and bottom so it is not as obvious. Well this morning I wanted to use a zig-zag stitch on another project.  I thought it best to do a test first and as you can see on the left, it was not a normal zig-zag.  The middle rows are my attempts at changing the settings that I found did not resolve the issue. My husband asked what the manual suggested... I had not looked there.  I have a tendency to think I know all I need to know about sewing machines, and the reminder came back to me... You learn something new every day!

While I was checking the manual my husband was checking to see what info he could come up with online.  Seems one of the tips he ran across is that you should never thread your machine with the presser foot down.  In this position the tension disks are engaged and the thread does not ride in the path where it is intended.  That is not to say that it can't get in there with the presser foot down, but it could present an issue.  I rethreaded my machine with the presser foot up... but I also read in my machine's manual that I should take the bobbin case out and run a piece of paper behind the tension spring.  Now I do this on my machines with bobbin cases I have to take out to put the bobbin in... in  fact I do it frequently, but I never thought of it being an issue with a drop-in bobbin.  Running the paper... actually I ended up using a pointed cut piece of an old credit card (this is what I use on my longarm) I found a fair amount of lint that I had no idea was there.  The last little row of stitches on the right was after my new adjustments.

I think I may have used minky on a baby blanket or two, but until recently I had not thought of using it on the back of a regular size quilt.  My daughter has been doing a few quilts on my longarm and she likes to use minky on the back of lots of her quilts.  I have done two with minky recently myself, and I have to say I was surprised how nice they turned out.  So soft and warm... toasty warm according to my Grand-daughter.  This quilt I even turned the back to the front for the binding.  The nice thing about minky is it comes about 57" wide which means that I did not have to piece the width of the quilt because this one was lap size.  Doesn't get much easier than this.  Only problem I have now is I may have to make a lap quilt with minky on the back for Ron.

Groundhog, Ben, recipes and more bread?

Today is Groundhog Day, and I do believe that Punxutawny Phil probably saw his shadow this morning, so I think that means there are 6 more weeks of winter.  It is also my youngest Grandson's birthday.

Meanwhile back to the kitchen... boy is my quilting feeling neglected.  Many years ago I ran into a recipe for an unusual bread.  I may have made it back then, but I don't remember ever getting around to it.  Today I am going to give it a try.  Dough is rising right now, so no finished product to show for my efforts yet.  This bread is called Anadama bread, and supposedly the recipe originated in the New England area.  As you can see it has molasses, butter and cornmeal, which are not typical in the bread recipes I make.  Don't get me wrong, I make an awesome cornbread, but that does not involve yeast, rising and all the stages of the normal bread procedure.

I had a request for a couple of my recipes.  First one is the apple pie... I have to confess that I do not really use a recipe for the filling part of the pie, but I can tell you how I make it. I peel and slice the 6 apples with my apple peeler.  It is a spiral cutter/peeler with a handle that turns the apple.  Reason to mention that is the slices end up quite thin.  When I take the apple off the spindle, the apple is peeled and cored, but I have to remove any remnants of the peel that are left.  Once the apple is peeled and spiral sliced, I cut it in quarters.  My usual is to use two different kinds of apples, 3 Granny Smith and 3 of another... red, sweeter apple. It would be okay to use all Granny Smith or all of another apple, but two different is what I aim for. My pie pan is 9".  I distribute the slices, alternating the Grannies with the other apple. I sprinkle on top about 1/2 cup of sugar which is two scoops for me.  I also sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of flour and maybe a teaspoon of cinnamon over the apples.  Final is 2-3 pats of butter, cut into quarters and dotted over the top of the apples.  I find it easier to slit the top crust when it is folded in half on the counter.  I preheat the oven to 400 and bake for 10 minutes then turn it down to 350 for the last half hour.  I check the pie as it gets close to the end.  One of the slits on the top is usually big enough that I can test how done the apples are.  Sometimes I need to add up to 10 minutes to my time. I want them to be done, but not mushy.  It is hard sometimes to wait, but I try to let it cool enough for the pie to hold together before I cut into it.

The pie crust is easy.  I call it Anna's Pie Crust, named for my Grandma Hattie Anna. 
2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 cup of lard, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of  Apple Cider Vinegar in the cup before measuring 1/2 cup of whole milk.

The Oatmeal bread can be found at this link Pennies and Pancakes.

Happy baking... stay warm!