Jesus' project

Jesus has been making catnip mousies
for the local SPCA. What a good kitty.

Shadow vs. the giant squirrel

Shadow's newest kitty toy. He likes to watch football & nature programs

a bear story

I made this teddy bear last week. The pattern calls for fiberfill in the extremities & bean bag filling for the body. When I bought the bean bag filling, I was told to use it outside, as the poppy seed sized styrofoam balls are full of static & will go everywhere. I stuffed it on the front porch & it looked like it had snowed on the floor. I figured that the wind would blow it away in a day or 2. Because it was a nice day, I told Charlie that I'd be working in the flower beds for a while. Petey, my beautiful long haired peach colored cat, didn't want me to be outside while he was inside so he cried at the door. Charlie let him out & he immediately rolled in the styro. He looked like a melty mint-little styro balls all the way to his skin. No, I didn't take his picture. I took him straight to the bath tup where he got a shower. What a mess!

When is a leftover not a leftover?

When it's a precooked convenience food. Let me explain. When you have extra food from a previous meal & you pull it out of the fridge & eat it cold, or reheat as is, thats a leftover. Many foods are great as leftovers. Roasted chicken, stews, chili & macaroni & cheese are all at least as good as the first time.

If you take that leftover food & make it into a new recipe, then it's precooked convenience food. An example-last night I made a stir fry with scallops-I used 1 slice of pork bacon & 2 slices of turkey bacon chopped, 1 sweet onion, 3/4lb scallops, 2 cloves of garlic & a little white wine. I served it over brown Texmati rice. It was great, but much more than 2 people could eat. Tonight, I blended 1T olive oil with 1T flour, stirred in 1 pint of fat free 1/2 & 1/2 & brought to a boil to thicken. I then dumped in the leftover rice & scallops & we had a great soup. I could have made the soup from scratch, but it was very fast & easy because I had that precooked convenience food.

Another metamorphasis that we have done several times starts with a hot cheesy crab fondue. The second night, we thin it a little with milk or ff 1/2 & 1/2 & serve it over spaghetti as a white crab sauce. The third night, I thin it a little more & it's crab bisque.

Liam & Rebecca's quilts

I also finished 2 overdue baby quilts in time for Christmas.
Liam's quilt.




Detail of Liam's quilt.



Back of liam's quilt.

Rebecca's Quilt.

Back of Rebecca's quilt

Griffin's quilt

This is the quilt that I sent to Griffin for Christmas.
























Front





















Detail





























Back

Boxed kitty

I've been having trouble with my desktop, & I wasn't able to upload pictures, so I finally connected the laptop to the broadband.
I love to tease Petey. He is a boxhound. I gave him this box, thinking that it was too small. He didn't think so.

Fall challenge

My local quilt guild sponsered a fall challenge with the background leaf print. It made me think squirrel, so I made a squirrel. It's about 21" X 26".
An update-This quilt was given to my niece, Katrina. I'm glad that it found a good home.

Purple challenge done

I finished this quilt while at a quilt guild retreat this weekend. I named it "A good vintage" & it's 24" X 30" This was made for an online challenge. A color was drawn at random for each person & we were to make a quilt featuring that color. I got purple-my favorite color. I'm especially pleased with the gold rickrack that peeks from the binding. I will probably do that again on another quilt. I enjoyed this so much,that I may decide to do a series of bouquet quilts each a different color-red, orange,white, yellow, blue. Below is a detail, showing the wine glass & the rickrack in the binding.

Some of our furniture is too small

Al says that we need a bigger love seat because he gets a kink in his neck.
This chair, however, is big enough for two with room to spare.