Tea and T's!

Can anyone guess what I'm up to now? Here's a hint:

DH has about 10 boxes of T-shirts, mostly from Hash runs while we lived in Indonesia. T-shirts were given out to participants to commemorate a special event, like a member's 100th run or some special holiday in a participant's home country (usually Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, France or the US). The shirts are loaded with advertising for the companies they worked for or brewers of beer (the organization's beverage of choice). He wants a T-shirt quilt made out of them. When we have 20 fronts and backs cut away from the sleeves and neck binding, we will have to figure out which one is the largest and cut the others that size. I have iron-on stabilizer to use to keep the blocks from stretching. I've never done this before. This will be my first attempt.

Getting ready to CO for doll sweaters for the Oregon grandsons' dolls, Parker and Jackson. (I'm certain they will be getting new names. Stay tuned.) Here's the pattern I'm planning on using: Bright Lights by Sharisse Dunn. Remember this yarn?

It turned out to be too thick for Pippa's Chilly Days of Fall, so I switched to another yarn. I don't know if I have enough of the grey yarn, and I would have to hold it double. I will probably have to go stash-diving.

A few more picks on the trailer rugs and another section of the quilt got done, but sending out books cut into my play time.

I made a big batch of "Six-Weeks Muffins," a La Leche League recipe I've used for years. It came from their book "Mother's In The Kitchen." I have adapted it somewhat.

Here's my version of the recipe:

Six-Weeks Bran Muffins

Servings: 6 dozen
Prep time: 23:26

Ingredients

• 6 C wheat bran, divided
• 2 C Boiling water

• 1 C Olive oil or melted butter
• 1 1/2 C honey (I spray the measuring cup with cooking spray before measuring.)
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 quart cultured buttermilk

• 5 C whole wheat pastry flour
• 5 teaspoons baking soda (I used 3 at 7200' elevation and 4 at 3600')
• 2 teaspoons sea salt or lite salt


Directions

Add the boiling water to 2 C of the bran in a large bowl while you assemble the other ingredients.

Mix the wet ingredients.

Sift the flour, salt and baking soda together into a bowl. Add the remaining 4 C bran and mix well. 

Add the buttermilk mixture and the flour/bran mixture to the soaked bran.

Store in refrigerator for up to six weeks. (I make a note on my calendar, so I know what day they need to be used up.)

To bake, spray enough muffin/cupcake papers for the number of muffins you want to bake and place in muffin pan. Put about 1/4 to 1/3 C batter into each paper cup. Bake at 400° for 20 minutes.

Raisins, dates, other small pieces of dried fruit or fresh apple may be added to the batter in the paper cups. Don't overfill.

Notes
I just rediscovered this great recipe of mine that was inspired by the recipe by the same need in "Mother's in the Kitchen," a cookbook put out by the La Leche League. My copy was published in 1971. I don't use shortening or regular sugar, so I've made some changes, but it still works.
What I like about this recipe is you can mix it up once, leave it in the fridge and bake only what you need. However, if you bake the muffins all at once (!) it makes six dozen.

Here's some tea to go with it.

The Oregon grandsons got their Covid vaccine on Saturday. No side effects so far. The other two young grandkids have already had Covid, so they're waiting until Daphne is finished with her ballet performance this coming weekend.

50ºF and breezy is a bit chilly for a walk, even with the sun shining, but we managed to get nearly a mile in during a walk to the Rec Center and back on Saturday. As usual, Rocky rode in the stroller for a while and then wanted to get out and walk.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Getting ready to CO for doll sweaters.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs.

What's on my sewing machine: Its cover, but I'll soon be piecing the T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: Still the whole-cloth quilt. A little more progress this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Help comes from a surprising source in The Rescue, this week's story in The Doll's Storybook.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Wildwood by Colin Melloy on the Audible app. 

What's in my wine glass: Apothic Dark 2018, one of my favorites.

What's my tip of the week: If you use dried lentils or split peas in soups and stews, the first direction usually says to rinse them first. It's a good idea to pick through them to see if there are any small stones before you rinse, but the rinsing can be simplified after that. Rinsing them in a colander leaves you with a sticky clump of lentils or peas that are hard to get out of the colander after the liquid has drained. It's much easier to rinse them in the pot they will be cooked in, unless you're using that pot to also sauté onions, etc. Just put them into the pot, pour water in until they're covered, swish around in the pot and then drain off the dust over a small strainer or your colander. The clump of washed lentils/peas will then be clean and will just dissolve into the cooked dish.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. Book Baby already has stock. The link is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, please buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Changes

We're getting our house painted. Here's what we started out with:

We picked our colors from this pretty house:

On Wednesday they pressure-washed the house. They came back on Friday to start. First took down the decorative shutters. They did the masking, then they filled in areas that needed filling, scraped peeled paint and started with primer (that pinkish-grey color). Next they put on the first coat of white. On Saturday they worked for a few hours and then went home. Here's what it looked like mid-morning on Saturday.

They are back today to continue.

I changed two more T-shirts from plain to interesting using the iron-on photo-transfer process. Here's Mandy's.

Then Jolena's.

I learned from my mistakes last time. My iron needs to be set on linen, and I need to iron the heck out of it, turning it over to press again on the back. Images are free from UIHere. (Some of their images have royalties, so you have to pick and choose. I added the text to both. (There is no US Doll Ski Team, so I can't get into trouble, there, either.)

I'm using a free baby dress pattern trying to see if it would be suitable for a doll dress. I'm using fingering weight yarn and my smallest needles (2mm for the bodice and 2.25mm for the skirt). It's still coming out a bit big, but it might be all right, once the ribbon is threaded through the holes at the waist.

The story from Friday was based very loosely on The Three Little Pigs. Three dolls have an adventure they weren't expecting in An Encounter with a Wolf.

On Thursday, we hiked in Shevlin Park again. This time it was just the two of us. The park is very beautiful, with very tall trees (Ponderosa, I think).

There's a stream running along close to the trail, so we don't have to take water for the dogs.

The Walk for a Dog app changed its app considerably. I'm still learning how it works, but it looks very different. Now we have levels we can work for. I had been setting my own goals. We're already on Level 4.

We were in second place in the group of people and dogs walking for Best Friends Animal Society until our walk on Sunday. Now we're tied for first place with someone who may still have walked on Sunday but hadn't yet.

One new feature I really like is the interactive map that shows you where you are in real time, instead of just the walk you completed. The app is free. It's supported by advertising.

That evening, we went with DBIL to the Bend Brew Fest. Attendees buy tokens and a mug for tasting. Your beer chances with each stop at one of the booths.

Each sample is 2 ounces of a beer of your choice from among the 100 breweries represented.

DH and I shared the sampling. There were food trucks lines up and serving, so we ate there, too. The weather was perfect.

Sunday evening we went out with DBIL and his friend Hank. We went to the Monkless Brewery. They have beers with a higher alcohol content than most, and the names are interesting, such as "Meet Your Maker."


What's on my needles: The Best Sunday Baby Dress to fit a doll (with luck). I think it may be a bit big for the Happy Kidz, but it has ribbon around the waist, which should help, and it may fit the much plumper American Girls well, which will help people who are knitting for these dolls.

What's on my sewing machine: Waiting.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. No progress this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: An Encounter with a Wolf.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The Sleeping Beauty by Mercedes Lackey. It was very good. Now reading The Adventuress: The House for a Season, series, Book 5, by M. C. Beaton. An interesting tale with a lot of humor, as always.

What's in my wine glass: Monkless Belgian Ale, only it was in a beer glass. A nice change.

What's my tip of the week: I've learned that dogs like anyone's kibble but the one they're used to, so a different kibble, especially puppy kibble, makes a good treat. Just feed one as a treat. Sometimes you can pick up samples. Dogs like changes, too.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

Quilts!

I finally got to a Vintage Stitchers meeting!

You have already seen quilt tops and UFOs from Barbara's friend who passed away. The one above is a duplicate of one Barbara has already made (I think with different fabrics), so she was looking for a good home for it. It's machine-pieced and hand-appliquéd. The fabrics are mostly from the same Robyn Pandolph line I had used to make this quilt for DDIL1 a couple of years ago.

Since she's a quilter, and it coordinates with the other one, I thought DDIL1 might like to have it to quilt.

Barbara also has this one from her late friend. She will be taking it to be quilted. With luck (and fewer blizzards), you'll get to see it finished.

Speaking of Barbara's finished quilts, you may remember this one as a finished top.

Carol was putting the binding on this quilt, a BOM on the theme "Nursery Rhymes" made with '30s reproduction fabrics.

Marilyn had finished this machine-embroidered Christmas quilt.

Janet had helped a friend new to quilting make this T-shirt quilt. This is the friend's second quilt. (You can only see part of it, but there is a very large pope in the upper left-hand corner, doing a thumbs up.)

Barbara had just picked up this cross-stitch of hers from the framer. It will go on the wall to represent summer.

After Vintage Stitchers, I stopped by Davidene's to drop off my Kaleidoscope quilt for quilting and select some backing for it.

This is the top I made using the Kaleidoscope line from Connecting Threads. It was inspired by the line of fabrics on the back of the catalog. It has been finished for a long time, but I haven't had the money to get it quilted.

Speaking of quilting, I made some progress on my "Sistine Chapel" quilt. The Delectable Mountain blocks alone one side are half done.

My Impari Shawlette is done. I wore it on Sunday with my yellow turtleneck and navy cardigan and slacks.

We finally had a break in the weather, so I got outdoors to get a photo of Vroni in her new sweater and hat in real snow. She had the hat on, but the girls were throwing snowballs, and she got hit in the kitty ear. (There was a lot of giggling.)

I decided to make a steeked Fair Isle sweater for one of the dolls using the leftovers from my "So-not-my-palette Cardigan." I'm hoping it will fit Dolly. We'll see. I actually have three in my head, with different structure and different colors. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, Valentine's Day is almost upon us, so I snapped this photo of the "girls" sharing their Valentine chocolates with Vroni. (They've been telling her that chocolates aren't fattening if they are given to you by someone who loves you.)

I'm not sure she's buying it.

What's on my needles: Still the Impari Shawlette. The March of the Fibres is still waiting in the wings. Still hand-quilting my “Sistine Chapel,” working on the first border.

What's on my Featherweight: Still waiting for a new assignment.

What's on my loom: Still the leftover warp from the Multi Scarf. I still don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet..

What's on my wheel: Stanzi is set up again with more Full Circle spinning fiber, but feeling lonely.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Footsteps in the Dark, a mystery by Georgette Heyer. Then I listened to The Eyes of Darkness by Dean Koontz. I had listed to it on CD from the library years ago, but I found it refreshingly pertinent to today’s world, even though it was set in the ‘90s. Now I’m listening to Pets on the Couch (nonfiction) by DVM Nicholas Dodman. He’s a behaviorist, and much of what he has learned over the years has human applications. On the Kindle app, I gave up on The Housewife Assassin’s Deadly Dossier by Josie Brown. I had a hard time finding the plot in among all the sex. I haven’t really decided what to read next.

What's in my wine glass: Glen Ellen Reserve California Merlot, 2014 vintage. Very nice.

What's my tip of the week: When picking out quilt backing for a quilt that has lots of plain white or other very light background, be sure your backing won’t “visit” the front when you’re done. A fabric that’s printed on the right side but almost white on the wrong side will work well, or another light color. Place the backing wrong-side-up on a table or counter, and put your quilt top over it in a single layer. If you can’t see the backing with no batting in it, you won’t see it after it’s quilted. If you can see it, try with a bit of batting between the layers.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.