Valerean

I've been looking for some smaller recipes for chicken breast, and came across this recipe at Food Network that I knew I could scale down. I wasn't sure about using tumeric and cumin instead of Sazon Completa, which was what they use to season arroz con pollo in Miami, but I went ahead and tried it with a few tweaks to tailor it to our tastes and needs. I did not use a whole chicken, as three small boneless & skinless breasts work better for us. Because I didn't have the chicken bones and skin to flavor my rice I added an extra two tablespoons of butter and crumbled a chicken boullion cube into my low-sodium chicken broth. I also only used about a quarter cup of peas because my guy doesn't like them. Despite my tweaks the dish came out absolutely delicious. I loved it and my guy really loved it, so this one will go into the cookbook for future meals.

I finished the art quilt I made from one of the reward bundles I purchased earlier this month. The back. I didn't worry about binding the piece or making it perfect, but just stitched my way through taxes, my guy's illness, Mom's death anniversary, and quitting my last bad habit this month. This poor thing has been through a lot. :) Despite all my emotional baggage this came out wonderfully happy and vibrant, I think -- and comforting. Which it was.

I needed some binding for the white quilt I have planned, so my guy and I went to a Goodwill we haven't visited before to see if they had any in their craft section. There were lots of supplies bundled up in bags, and what I spotted in this one for $5.99 made me grab it. I've been wanting some heavy duty kitchen gloves to wear to protect my hands when I scrub pots, but I wasn't willing to pay the $6.99 my market wants for them. This bundle had four new pairs in my size in sealed bags, plus two pot holders and a Kitchen Aid oven mitt (these retail for six bucks) in brand-new condition. I don't need the leather care kit, so I'll donate that back to our Goodwill, and I'm not sure what the sling thing is, but the rest made it a great buy. This bundle was a bit pricier at $8.99, but you'll see why I bought it when I spread out everything. The vintage binding, which was apparently $1.34 at Wal-Mart at some time in the past, currently retails new

Earlier this month I rewarded myself for finishing the latest novel for work with these two bundles of art fabric and trims from my favorite textile artist. This collection will likely end up in a couple of projects. I don't often work with reds, but the bunny furoshiki scrap grabbed me immediately, and I love the palette, so I started an art quilt with this one. It's almost finished, so stay tuned to see how it turned out.

I stopped by Goodwill this week looking for pillowcases and some fabric I can use for backing for a quilt I have in mind to make from my Fabscrap white scraps, and scored a nice little haul. For $3.99 I got this set with a standard pillowcase and twin flat sheet (66" X 96"), pure white with an adorable little cat face print in light gray, all in pristine condition. That's basically 2-1/2 yards of 66" wide backing fabric. This hand-embroidered set of his and her king pillowcases needs a bit of repair work on the cross stitching, but otherwise they're in fine condition. $2.99 for both. I sleep with two support pillows that need cases, so I also got this like-new pretty hand-embroidered pillowcase for $1.99. I bought a set of curtains in a textural bronze synthetic fabric that might work as sashing for another quilt project. $6.99 for the pair. I'm really happy I was able to find everything I needed for very reasonable prices. Plus searching

I picked the first of our cosmic carrots, which are growing into monsters in the garden, to use in a chicken potpie recipe. To give you some perspective on just how big they are, this is after I topped it and trimmed off the baby rootlets. Also, a light bulb went off for me when I was thinking about water storage for hurricane season. This was because I'd just seen the prices for official water storage containers, which are beyond ridiculous, and most of what's out there is cheap and flimsy. So I was in the sewing room moving the tote of thrifted fabric when I happened to look at the label on the side. 66 quarts is 16.5 gallons, right? And I probably have twenty or thirty of these nice, sturdy plastic bins with locking lids from my spring clean last year; they're sitting in the garage. They're perfect, no cracks, and a snap to wash out. I can even double what I have if I emptied my fabric stash out of the ones in the closet. So here's how I think t

Maria very kindly ruined my resolution not to make any more summer art quilts by sending me not one but three bags of vintage jewelry and findings to use for my textile art. These little guys also played a part in this idea, so I'm naming them the art quilt twin demons. I've always wanted to do a shelf quilt, but not with books. I was thinking more of a collection of little wonders, like a cabinet of curiosities. It would look something like this, to give you the idea. The cool thing about this idea is I can work on each compartment of the quilt rather than try to manage one big surface, and then sew them all together in the end. Another example with cars. I might do a small test project first to see how I can support the weight of the elements and embellishments, but this is definitely doable. Stay tuned as I work it out. Ribbons image by Pexels from Pixabay Cars image by G.C. from Pixabay

I came across this video about happiness relating to friends that has some interesting ideas. I'm not sure if I agree with everything, but most of the points resonated with me and my experiences with friendship (especially the part about toxic friends.) At this stage of life I am grateful for the friends who have stuck by me all these years, but you guys are more like the family I chose. :)

I always thought the stories about washing machines eating socks or clothes was just a myth. Then an old, thin pillow case I like to use for my neck-support pillow suddenly vanished. I had put it in with our bedsheets, but when I unloaded the washer it was gone. I searched the washer, even running my fingers around the base of the agitator in case it was stuck there, but I couldn't find it. I drove myself crazy thinking I'd dropped it while loading the machine, and searched the laundry room from top to bottom. I even blamed the dogs, thinking one of them had grabbed it and hid it somewhere. My guy suggested I'm forgetting what I do with things (which is true sometimes.) Ten days later, I'm unloading the washer and I see what looked like a stained, dirty rag sticking out of the bottom of the agitator. I had just finished the load so I couldn't understand why it was so filthy. It was so stuck my guy had to pull it out, and it looked all chewed up, which d

While purchasing raffle tickets for Fabscrap's April Earth Month giveaways I ordered a couple of scrap packs and some mendable sample garments. This is the most pure white of the white scrap packs I've received so far. The cotton multi scrap pack came with some big pieces this time. A man's dress shirt, minus the collar and sleeves. I'm always fascinated by pieces of clothes. A sample blouse that is mostly intact, but with the black markings and big cut across the front it really can't be mended. Or maybe it can; I like a challenge. My mendable tops came with this tagged sample denim shirt, which has some issues with the sleeves and back neckline, but is definitely something I can save. Finally, this knit shell needs a shoulder sewn together, but is otherwise fine.

I've been doing okay this year, Mom. My grief only comes up now and then when something reminds me of you. It's settled down into sorrow instead of pain. I try to remember you with love, always. I think you would be proud of me for finding ways to be happy. You always told me that's what we have to do. Still miss you, and love you.

The eastern bluebird nesting in our most popular bird house hatched four tiny babies; my guy was able to snap this shot while Mama was out hunting for breakfast (there's one hiding behind these three.) Welcome to the world!

With hurricane season fast approaching, I need to start my annual preparations by inventorying our nonperishable food, batteries, pet food, medicines, etc. and have my guy test our generator and get an extra tank of propane for the grill. My new thinking after experiencing the flooding in 2022 is to boost our food stores so we can hunker down for longer periods of time if we have to. All the country roads leading out of our area are prone to flooding out, plus they're getting old now, so there may be times ahead when the roads become impassable. I'm thinking in addition to bottled water I might invest in a few five-gallon storage containers. We fill buckets and the bathtubs whenever there's a storm approaching, but if our outside well pump gets wiped out we won't have water for days or weeks, and there's never a guarantee we can drive out to buy some. I'll also have to freeze more bottled water now that we have the chest freezer to keep cold (I freeze

Watching the dystopian SF film The Colony was a bit like being trapped in a small, cold room while being forced to listen to other people's climate and feminists rants. Fortunately just as I was ready to give up on the whole thing it turned into a different movie, one that actually engaged me on a couple different levels. In an unspecified future the elitists of humanity live on Kepler 209, a distant planet that they fled to after Earth became uninhabitable (thanks to humanity, of course.) Only these lucky few have become sterilized by radiation in just two generations (probably from lack of an ozone layer, I'm guessing; almost nothing about Kepler 209 is shown in the film) and want to return to Earth before they literally die out to see if that will jumpstart their reproductive systems. The science there is pretty non-viable, but maybe they have some magic pills to go along with their ridiculous new dream. Via some weather stations they left behind they find one small h

Before I start on another large project I want to do some embroidery and slow stitch to exercise my fingers, so I chose these four fabrics from a bundle to make a small art quilt. I really don't work much with reds, but like the rabbit furoshiki this arrangement feels happy. I used a remnant of a pretty grape print as backing. Stay tuned to see how it turns out.

The first project for April is making a pair of throw pillows for my home office sofa out of these two Dresden Plate patchwork blocks from my gifted UFOs bin. To preserve the fragile hand stitching and old feedsack fabrics, I handwashed them before I pressed them. Most of the little stains on them didn't come out, and they don't lay completely flat, but they're clean. To make them more matched I removed the six striped diamond pieces from one of them, which I'll use for another project. For the backing fabric I'm using a big piece of synthetic white fabric with a slight crepey texture that came in one of my Fabscrap white scrap packs. With a little strategic tucking I can flatten the blocks as I applique them to the white fabic. Here's how they turned out. I made them bed-size so I can use them on the bed in the guest room once spring turns to summer.

The garden is always really pretty in spring, so I thought I'd post an update on what we gave growing. The chives are flowering (and you can eat chive flowers, btw) and the nearly-dead oregano really bounced back once we planted it in the ground. I have to take a day to cut and dry these for cooking this year. We've already eaten all the lettuce that was growing, which was delicious. We left the roots intact and some of them are regrowing new heads. The brussel sprouts are gigantic. The little bell pepper we saved from last year's garden has two peppers on it. We don't think it will survive much longer, so we did buy another pepper plant to replace it. The scallions have sprouted. I use these a lot in cooking so my fingers are crossed they'll do better this spring. I have one huge bunch of celery left to use, and the cucumbers behind it have sprouted nicely. The watermelon we managed to overwinter is not looking great, but it does have o