No Point Stars for QOV

 I follow The Fabric Patch quilt shop on You Tube. They are a fun, generous mother / daughter duo. They often spearhead community projects. Each year they host a breast cancer fundraiser in October and I've started donating to this cause.

Last week, Cindi's son, who is a Navy Veteran, celebrated a birthday and he requested 12 1/2" blocks for the Quilts of Valor group he and his wife are a part of locally.

My Dad was in the Air Force and our son is a Marine veteran and we've always supported our military. I've made a few QOV and would like to do more. This is a good place to start.

Here's a link to the video. 

If you would like to participate, you can mail blocks to the address in the screen shot below.

After shuffling through numerous ideas, I decided to make the No Point Star block. I found a tutorial from Jessica Dayon that walks you through the block construction

I chose it because they will be receiving blocks from all over and it will be an easy block to incorporate into a quilt without losing the points.

I pulled out my  QOV bin and started sorting through fabrics. I tend to lean more towards the Americana colors than the brighter whites, but I think I can cobble together some of both.

Yes, I think this will work even though I didn't orient my stripes the right way.

DH had left at 5:30 Sunday morning to help pull cattle off of wheat and I headed straight to my sewing room. I was able to cut pieces for 24 more blocks by the time he came home at 1

I'm not a fast stitcher. I keep the speed on my sewing machine at less than half of it's capability. The outside world is fast  and loud and  I enjoy the slower pace when I sew. Even so,  It'll probably take me less time to sew these blocks together than it did to select, press, and cut the kits, but I hope to get them together and in the mail next time I'm in town. 

Judy's Chicken & Rice

This recipe came from Judy at Patchwork Times quite a few years ago. I've tried to link to the original post, but her blog is no longer available. I didn't want to post the recipe without her permission and wasn't sure how to contact her, but I had an old email address and thankfully, it worked! I really enjoyed getting back in touch with her.

She was very gracious and gave me permission to share her recipe. 

I'm so glad I wrote this down when I did, because I would hate to lose it. I just made it the other day and thought of her. This is another family favorite.

Judy's Chicken & Rice - One Pot!

10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

Oil for browning

2 Tbsp butter

1 diced onion

1 diced jalapeno

Mushrooms (I probably use about 7 or 8 diced up)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 C rice

3 C chicken broth ( homemade or low sodium)

1 can peas, drained

*Season chicken (I use salt, pepper, granulated garlic, and paprika). Brown thighs in oil and butter in large saute pan. Remove from pan. Add a tad more butter if need be and add onion, jalapeno, mushrooms. Sautee for 5 or 6 minutes. Stir in garlic the last few minutes. Add rice and combine with sauteed vegetables, stirring together until rice browns a bit as it absorbs all that flavor. Stir in chicken broth, peas, and add chicken thighs back on top. Cover and simmer until broth has been absorbed, rice is tender, and chicken is cooked through.

I wish she still had her blog. She is an avid gardener and I could certainly use her wisdom as I begin my gardening journey here.

Edited to add that she shared the link to her new blog here Diary of Judy L

Thank you, Judy!

Progress Inside and Out

 Good progress is being made on the orchard

DH and I got the fence up on Wednesday

My shoulders and hands were toast on Thursday

but our son was out again so they got it stretched and hung the gate DH made.

I helped some more - mostly as a fence-holder-upper and puller. Then I trotted back to the house (just 1/2 a mile) and put together a Taco Pizza for dinner. (an old picture from when I first shared the recipe)

Special K Cookies for dessert

And then I treated myself to some time in my sewing room. I am making progress on the pink quilt for little E. She did a good job picking pinks from my stash.

I sewed and pressed and trimmed 100 flying geese (started them on Tuesday and worked on them some Wednesday, finishing them on Thursday). Then I cut everything for the 4-patches and started piecing those on Thursday.

E and  Skeet and I drove down to supervise the boys on Friday.

And to inspect their work. E exclaimed it to be excellent!

And more sticks were added to the mountain of trees DH cleared

Then, back at the house, I was hoping to get all the blocks together, but looking at the pattern, it emphasizes that this design is not block based. Instead, it is constructed in rows. Oye. E is excited to help so I saved some of the 4-patches for her and let her pair them up and run them through the machine as she sat on my lap.

Then she wanted some paper to write her own 'structions' for her next quilt so there's hope. 😉

Heard in the sewing room:

Gram: Oh, I've lost track of time! We'd better get crackin!

E: Oh, I wanna help crackin!

😂

Healthy Granola

 We're not big cereal eaters here, but once in a while we like a change from steel cut oats or the 6 different ways I'll fix eggs. When we DO get a hankering for cereal, I like Special K with craisins or Honey Bunches of Oats with a sliced banana and DH likes granola. I ran across this recipe a while back and and finally got around to making it last week.

                                                                     Healthy Granola

We both really liked it and will probably even just grab a handful every now and then for a quick snack. It didn't clump up as much as we would like, but I'll keep trying because it was delicious.

I've collected a good variety of recipes through the years that have become family favorites, but I still love finding and trying new ones and adding them to my permanent recipe book. This one earned a spot right away. I was laughing when I took this shot. Who takes a glamour shot of granola? 

Maybe I need to get out more, but the granola looked so pretty when the sun came through the windows.

Under the Needle: January

I know most folks don't love the month of January, but I'm in the minority. It may have something to do with where we live. We have sunshine over 300 days out of the year. Brilliant, clear blue skies are the norm here in our corner of the world, year-round. It was 12 degrees when I took this shot.

So even though we get below zero temps, snow, and have bitter cold winters some years, I don't have the excuse that the gloomy weather drives me into the sewing room. If I waited for inclement weather to sew, I'd never be in there. If anything, I would want to escape the heat of the summer, but since we moved to the mountains, even that hasn't been an issue.

I kicked off January by finishing up this Book Nook Quilt that now lives in Oklahoma.

I focused on my Balsam Gnome Quilt this month and made all the blocks. And then, since I figured I'd need 2 of these, I went ahead and cut and pieced all the blocks for the 2nd one and stitched them both into tops.

Our granddaughter helped pull fabrics for a pink quilt she requested a few months ago and I started cutting pieces. Next time she's here, I'll let her lay them out, but I thought it'd be easier if I went ahead and made all the flying geese first. I'm just getting started.

I'm using this Carrie Nelson pattern, but plan on making it a tad larger.

And then I went off the rails and started a completely new project. (Shaking head). After a conversation with my DIL that led to her asking if I had any flannel quilts up for adoption, I had to start one. I pulled a FQB from my stash and started cutting.

 I was able to make 80 blocks from the 20 fat quarters.

I also bound this Into the Woods Quilt so that's my 2nd finish for the year

 Just yesterday, I just started stitching the binding on this quilt in the evenings 

So the first month of the year allowed me to soak up the sun, spend some time working in the snow with DH, AND make some progress on projects. January was a good month. Wishing ya'll sunshine-y skies!

The Orchard Project

 When we were looking for property a few years ago, one of the things on the list we looked for was something that included an orchard. We didn't want anything big - just something small. This place didn't have one, but there were a few fields down by the old homestead that was a perfect spot. It was kind of terraced and it looked like something had been planned there at some point.

DH bought a load of pipe last fall and cut it for an orchard fence and our son came over last week for a few days and they got it pounded it into the ground

We've visited with friends about fruit trees and learned of a nursery about 90 minutes away, tucked into the mountains, close to a little mining ghost town community called White Oaks and we made an appointment to visit there last Saturday.

We were there for 6 1/2 hours. LOL. Jaimee, the owner was absolutely lovely and SO interesting. She and her scientist husband live on the property completely off-grid.

Off grid facilities

She bought the raw property 25 years ago and has built a thriving business. She has crawled all over these mountains searching out historic orchards and gathering stories, photos, and root stock and growing fruit trees with history.

These heirloom trees are proven and hardy and have thrived for a hundred years + in our challenging environment, often on abandoned homesteads, without care.

Jaimee also hosts a farmers market on Saturdays - March through November and I'm looking forward to visiting then.

DH and I spoke maybe 10 minutes of those 6 1/2 hours and at the end of the day we felt like we'd completed a graduate program. 

We were completely fascinated and overwhelmed and had a huge case of information overload by the time we climbed back into the truck. 

DH looked at me and said, "Don't talk. My ears are tired." 😂 My brain was tired. 

And Jaimee is doing all of this at 72 years of age! All while taking care of her husband who has stage 3 kidney disease at home. Here she is picking us wild celery that she grows

She has work study students on occasion, but she really does all of this on her own while growing a garden, doing all of her cooking on a wood stove, and trying to heal and take care of her husband. She also has horses and competed in endurance races and still competes in ranch sorting events.

We will go back and pick up some trees as soon as we get holes dug and fence up. Jaimee is also grafting us some trees that will be ready in September. 

We are planting 3 apple trèes, 2 peach, 2 plum, 1 apricot, 1 pear...and we may try some grapes. We'd like a few cherry trees, but she said the birds and bees usually get to all the fruit first and she's in the business of making sure folks can feed themselves. We may try anyway although they won't be heirloom trees. And when we go pick up our trees, we drive right by White Oaks Pottery...sounds like a must-stop to me. 

Jaimee lost all of her chickens so I'll take her eggs and this time I'm bringing a notebook so I don't have to file everything in my brain. I can't keep up with this special lady!

How We Spent the Snowy Weekend

 We spent a few days winterizing in anticipation of the winter storm that has been blanketing so much of the country. We were kind of on the western edge of it according to the weather maps.

DH built a couple of frames to cover our HVAC units. When it snows, the snow and ice piles up on top and can freeze up the system and we don't want to burn out the motors.

We got those put in place

Heat lamps in the well house, shop, and tack room (because there's a bathroom and sink in there)

Freeze misers on the faucets

The chickens have feed and water in their insulated coop. Spoiled chooks.

Our high was 12 on Saturday and they may have ventured out, but I didn't see them.

The horses came up looking for breakfast

They get frisky when it snows and will be playing in it after their feed buckets are empty

Our injured horse is still being confined

Normal people would follow suit of the chickens in such weather, but we never claimed to be normal. This man doesn't have an idle bone in his body...retired or not. After a warm bowl of Posole and corn bread muffins at 11, we spent 4 hours burning slash piles 

I don't even know how many there are...maybe 15 or so, I lost count but we just burned 4 on Saturday. 

We have to let them burn down and then walk around and toss outlying stumps, logs, and debris into the center so we get a complete burn.

We'll see what the weather does overnight, but if there's no wind, we'll tackle more tomorrow with our trusty supervisor in tow.

Snowy trails

When we came home, I made a big pot of stew since we'll be away from the house and will want something warm when we come in. While that was simmering, I wrote this post, watched a little UFC, and tried not to fall asleep.

Showers and our heads hit our pillows pretty early. That's about as wild as it gets around here on a Saturday night. We ought to sleep really well tonight! 

Sunday update: We ended up getting 5" overnight and it's snowing again this morning, but we didn't have a ton of ice with this storm and we never lost electricity. We're at the end of the line so restoration takes a while when we do.

And we're on slash pile duty and behind the shovel again today

DH started them first thing in the morning and then came back to pick me up at 8. We came back in at 4 to eat and tend to chores at the barn. It's a ton of work for 2 old people.

So many areas were hit harder. We're just grateful for the moisture and honestly, it's just beautiful here when it snows.

We've got a good fireplace and access to more wood than we could ever burn and a gas stove and grill so we got along just fine. You can see the house way off in the distance.

Skeet's prayers for more snow were answered.

I'm just praying I can lift my arms tomorrow. 😂