July begins

My plants on the front porch have had their appearance upgraded with the help of my resurrected macrame talent.  They are not complex or fancy, but they are much prettier than the plastic hangers the plant pots came with.  Then on the other hand, those plastic hangers are not able to handle the extended exposure to the sun, nor the weight of a pot full of soil swinging around in the breeze. These new macrame plant hangers are made using paracord which should sustain the weight and sun exposure with ease.





A couple weeks ago I thought I only had two babies in the nest, but later found out that there were actually four. Last week they flew the coop... or so I thought.  All were gone in the afternoon, but later in the evening I looked up to see all four crowding in for their place in the nest.  They are gone when I check in the morning, and continue to return in the evening.  Not sure how long this will continue.





In case you are not familiar with the term Clafoutis, it is a French dessert that works really well baked in a cast iron skillet.  A Clafoutis is a close cousin to a Dutch Baby. This is supposed to be a "Clafoutis for two".  Recipe says to use an 8" pan, but I feel much safer using a 10". The heat retention capability of the cast iron helps to make this an almost foolproof breakfast delight.  This one is made with fresh blackberries.  Even though it is considered a French dessert, it is extremely easy, and can be made with any fresh fruit you happen to have on hand.  I use my Vitamix for the batter part, but a wire whisk would work just as nicely. Definitely a winner... even if you decide it doesn't necessarily need any whipped cream.

I really did not need another set of placemats. It turns out that Ron is quite pleased because they are a wee bit bigger than the average placemat, and he has often praised MaryEllen's larger placemats  It was with this in mind I decided to try my hand at bargello when I saw this pattern. The fabric is all from my stash.

  

Cast Iron is amazing

Cast Iron comes in many shapes and sizes.  This John Wayne pie pan is one of my latest additions to my growing collection.

I started accumulating more pans than I could find a place to store, which inspired my husband to build me a mini gridwall in an otherwise unusable space. I have pans stored in other places, but this new gridwall does a great job of making the more frequently used pans easy to access.
It is quite amazing to see what a cast iron pan can do for a recipe.  I have several recipes that I have made for years and found cast iron typically takes the end result up a notch or two.
Cast Iron has been in my kitchen for a long time, but somehow it seems like I just discovered an amazing new friend.  In the past couple of months there has not been many days that I have not used at least one of my cast iron pans. 

My quilting is not quite as active in recent months as I have often been, but I still get a little quilting squeezed in here and there. It is hard to get the full effect of this work of art without seeing it in person, but this quilt hangs on a wall 18 feet off the floor, and previously the lighting, (bright overhead fan/light) was not the best to accent the quilt's true beauty.  My husband decided to install a small bar track light to help illuminate it. We don't have the new light on that often, but especially in the evening visitors can now experience this quilt, should they notice.