Spinach and Ham Tart

Purple Crocus

The purple ones always come out after the yellow ones are gone. Maybe they don't like each other? ;-)

New Family Member

Meet our new probationary house cat - MamaCat.

I know, she is not really a new family member, she has been with us since Easter 2009 when she surprised us with four beautiful kittens she had carried up the steps into our mudroom. After the kittens were weaned and gone we had her spayed and I pretty much expected her to take off again, but she stayed with us. I dislike the idea of outside cats very much and always felt uncomfortable. After a while I was able to keep her indoors overnight which made me feel a lot better.
Since this Winter was so cold and wet and nasty I have kept both MamaCat and Brownie in the mudroom/basement since December and both of them seem to be okay with it. MamaCat showed signs of wanting to be inside much rather than outside and so I started to let her come into the house during the day when it was warm enough for Miss Kitty to be in the porch. She is the perfect house cat, potty trained, not destructive, lively, curious and a lot of fun. Last week she decided to aim for an overnighter. So I put her in the living room over night, with her box, some food and a blanket on the sofa and there she stayed, quiet as a mouse all night, I keep the living room door closed anyway, it keeps the house warmer at night and it kept Miss Kitty from exploring the Christmas tree while we slept.
I hope that Miss Kitty will eventually except MamaCat as a permanent guest when she sees that nothing changes for her. She still gets all the treats, cuddles and sunshine she wants. I keep MamaCat out of the porch, that is Miss Kitty's territory. So far, so good, will see how things progress.
MamaCat has not once asked to be let outside, even when she watches the birds on the feeder through the bed room window. She is sweet, easygoing and very adaptable.

Knitting and Reading

Time for another yarn along with Ginny.
I am fighting a weird cold that can not decide where it wants to settle, head or chest. The worst part of it is the headache and the cough. I am doing more reading than knitting at the moment but I always have something on the needles. So for today's yarn along I present you my second dark blue garter stitch shawl. It is simple enough to knit with a cold. The book is one of several on the subject of the American Frontier and the Revolutionary War that I borrowed recently from the library. I noticed that we had lots of books about the Civil War but none about the earlier history of the US, so I am reading up on that. I finished "The River Midnight" yesterday and I liked it a lot.

Project of the Month - March

I am going to make it easy for myself this month and declare that my Project of the Month for March is to work on various quilting WIPs. They range in state of completion from 'in planning' to 'finish hand quilting' and should provide me with enough variety to keep me going. I am also thinking about making this BOM.

Project of the Month - February

Well, I admit that I did not feel like working on any major quilting project and so my main project of the month did not get done at all. I did however knit three pairs of socks, made the mug rugs for the swap and the small wallhanging for the Give Thanks BOM. I also finished Del's sweater which was a carry-over from my POM for January. I still owe a birthday present to a friend, I just could not decide what to make and then I caught this nasty bug and did not feel like much of anything. I am beginning to feel better and will hopefully get something nice made soon.

The Last One

At least for now. ;-) Just finished my third pair of socks. I love the colors in the yarn, they were the reason I bought it a while ago on Ebay. It is a wool blend and great to work with. The socks fit perfectly. I see a lot more socks in my future but right now I need to concentrate on some other projects that are calling me.

Tis the Season ...

... to be cleaning, clearing and de-cluttering. While going through some boxes with fabrics and scraps and things I came across these little grandmother's flower garden blocks. I remember they were one of my first quilting projects so they are from around 1993 or 1994 and made from Austrian dirndl fabrics. I also found a bag of more pre-cut hexagons. Maybe one day I will actually put them together into a quilt, who knows.

Knitting and Reading

Time for another yarn along. I am still reading The River Midnight, did not have much time for reading this last week, busy with catching up on some housework and starting the clean up of the garden. On my needles this week is my third pair of socks this month, I think I am getting addicted. ;-)

Del's sweater is finished, it needs a little bit of blocking but it does fit better now. I am sorry I forgot to answer a question in the comments on last week's post, the sweater is knitted in size XL.

Hop on over to Ginny's blog to see what everyone else is reading and knitting this week.

Weekend

It was warm enough to start some garden work. We removed the weeds and vines that grew over the azaleas by the carport. The azaleas took quite a beating with all the rain last year and look poorly. I hope they will recover and bloom again. A lot of the plants around the house are quite old and I am afraid the trees in the front yard will give us problems in the coming years.

I also removed all the weeds and the honeysuckle from the lilac bush. While doing so I discovered that a big branch of it was broken, probably during one of the storms last year or from the heavy wet snow we had. It came away when I pulled off the vines of the honeysuckle.

And we also bound up the raspberry bush I planted last year. I have decided to let the strawberries take over the bed (they have to share with the raspberry) and find a different way to grow herbs this year.

The big stump that sat in the corner of the garden when we moved in is gone. It looked like that when we bought the house.

Thanks to the rains last year it is now completely rotten and we just raked the remains flat. Maybe we just sow some grass over it.

We saw the resident red tailed hawks, the flew in very low and then sat on a branch across the way. They are so beautiful. One of them flew low over the house once and looked at me. But I guess both my cats and I are just a bit too big to qualify as prey.

And after all the garden work was done, I finished my second pair of socks. This time without a pattern. They fit much better than the first ones.

Ta-Da!!

Here they are, my very first socks ever (after 40+ years of knitting). I just followed the pattern on the back of the yarn label. The next pair is already on the needles, this time I am not using a pattern I am just following the general instructions for knitting socks in an old knitting book of mine.

Mug Rugs Swap II

These are the mug rugs I received in the swap, I especially like the penguin one. ;-)

Knitting and Reading

Since I am doing both at the moment I decided to join Ginny's yarn along today.
I am almost finished with re-knitting the yoke on Del's sweater (it got too big the first time around, I think I switched to the wrong size needle) and I am reading "The River Midnight" by Lilian Nattel. I am about halfway through the book and like it a lot. The sweater is the Cobblestone Pullover by Jared Flood. I love all his patterns and hope to make a few more of them in the future.

Happy Valentine's Day!

In Search of Spring

Give Thanks!

I just finished the wall hanging and the first verse for the Give Thanks BOM. A big THANK YOU! to  Jenny of Elefantz  for sharing this lovely pattern. I am currently working on verses 2 and 3. It is made entirely from stash, including button and beads. :-)

Mug Rugs

My mug rugs for the Quilting Gallery swap are finished. I hope my partner will like them. They are 6" x 10".

Happy Groundhog Day!

I think he must have heard that I was looking for a recipe for groundhog stew (just in case). ;-)

What did the Groundhog say?

It probably sounds unlikely to all the people currently buried under ice and snow but we are supposed to get an early Spring. Down here where I am it feels like it already today. We have 53 degrees currently, sunny with a nice breeze. My laundry is happily fluttering in the wind and I just opened a few windows to let some of that old Winter air out.
Guess who else is very happy about the sunshine?

Project of the Month - February

What to do, what to do? Oh, yes, almost forgot, I need to make three quilts for my nephews and my niece, that is my POM for February.

Other little projects to work on:

• 2 Mug Rugs for a swap
• 1 cute BOM wall hanging
• knit one pair of socks
• a birthday gift for a friend

It's a short month, so I better get started. :-)

Happy February!

Wow, the first month of the new year is already over. And I am glad to say it was not a bad one. No major appliances broke - although it seems like the washer is on the frizz - and nobody got sick. The outside cats stayed inside most of the month because it was too cold or too wet to let them out. They don't seem to mind, they have their warm beds and plenty of food and drink and cuddles too. Miss K. is doing well, driving me nuts because she wants to be in the porch all the time and I do not let her out if it is not warm enough. Yesterday I decorated my mantel for February.

POM January - How did I do?

Well, not too bad actually. I finished 3 of my 7 knitting WIPs and Del's sweater is almost finished. I worked on the more important ones first. I will not need the summer sweater for a while yet and the sofa cushion cover is not that urgent either. My blue shawl is coming along, a few rows here and there are being added.

Now on to the project of the month for February.

The Butterfly Project

On my wanderings through blogland this weekend I came across this post and decided I want to be a part of this project. I made my butterfly today. It is made from fabric and felt and thread, my favorite things to work with.

If you would like to be a part of this project, you can click on either image in my sidebar, one will take you to the two dresses studio blog where you can join the group project, the other one will take you directly to the project website. Spread the word.

Saturday

Coffee and Shoo-Fly Pie for breakfast.
3 loads of laundry to take advantage of the beautiful weather.
A visit to the High Point Museum with a tour of one of the 18th century homes.

A trip to the library. I plan on lots of reading in the coming weeks.

Spiced cider in the crockpot and a cake in the oven.
Reading, or a movie and popcorn tonight.
I love weekends.

Garden Dreams

Another Finish

The purple lace scarf from the Ravelry Knitalong is done. That checks another item off my POM list for January.

A Little Gift

One of my online quilter friends recently moved to Florida. She mentioned - jokingly - that maybe she should start collecting pink flaminos now. So, for a little birthday/housewarming gift I made her this small soft embroidery picture. I hope she likes it.

Life without Television ...

... is great!
We suspended our satellite TV service last Summer for 6 months because we needed the money to pay off medical bills. Now it was time to decide whether to re-connect or not. And since we do not miss it one bit we did not re-connect, much to the amazement and disbelief of the company we cancelled. I really cannot see why I should pay so much money to watch endless commercials interrupted by bad shows. They kept asking us why we cancelled, we told them repeatedly that it had nothing to do with their service, just that we did not like the quality of programming anymore. There are a few shows we still like, like all three CSIs and NCIS and we watch these online on the station's website. Very little commercials and the sound and picture quality is good enough.

Kitchen Experiment

Every now and then I try to cook an Austrian dish, not always easy because some of the ingredients can not be found here. This time I tried something called "Topfenpalatschinken", Austrian style pancakes filled with a mixture of curd, sugar, egg and raisins, covered with egg-milk and baked in the oven. Since curd (topfen, quark) is not available here I tried fat reduced cream cheese and a bit of sour cream. It works but it makes the dish heavier. We had some of it for lunch yesterday and the rest for breakfast this morning.

Shopping

I hate shopping. I see it as a necessity that needs to be done as quickly as possible. We go grocery shopping once a week, usually Friday evening or Saturday morning. We stop at two stores, sometimes three. I am the 'go in, grab what you need, and get out quickly' kind of shopper.

The key to keeping within the budget for me is to know how much everything costs. I use a price book that I compiled over a couple a weeks a while ago. The prices for most items I buy on a regular basis do not change dramatically. I make up my menu for the week, then write the shopping list and figure out how much money I will need. My household budget includes food, cat food and litter, toilettries and cleaning supplies and sometimes I sneak in a ball of yarn for my charity knitting or some other small items we need. I buy most of my groceries at Aldi which helps a lot because their prices are way below any other store's around here and we like the quality of their products. We still go to the big W store for things Aldi does not carry, mostly for cat food, flour and yeast and we use their pharmacy for Del's prescriptions. I usually buy shampoo, shower gel and soap at the dollar store, making sure the stuff is not made in China. I have nothing against the Chinese, but it seems the only things not made in China these days are the babies around here. Occasionally I order some things online because I can absolutely not find them anywhere around here, the soap I use for making laundry detergent for example and brewer's yeast for Miss K. We do not buy processed or prepared food or baked goods, I make those, including bread, myself. And we bring our own bags. All that helps to cut down on the garbage output.
The only kind of shopping I do enjoy from time to time is browsing the local thrift stores.

Dinner

Carrot soup with homemade garlic bread and orange shortbread with a little chocolate for dessert.