My friend Wendy Currie (wendysquilting.ca) recently posted two videos I really enjoyed watching–and I will be trying these two ideas for using my fabric scraps. Wendy, by the way, lives in Canada in the Thunder Bay region. We email on a regular basis and have for some years now.
The first video is from “Pin Cut Sew” hosted by Nikki Schreiner. She also has an Etsy shop. Her website is pincutsewstudio.com.
Copy these links to get to the videos and wait for the “skip ad” button to appear if necessary.
Next is Kate Jackson’s “The Last Homely House.” Kate lives in Northumberland, England. Kate also presents videos on all forms of quilting, some weaving, cooking, gardening, and everyday life. Grok AI tells me the channel’s name comes from “Tolken’s description of Rivendell in THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS, which is meant to be a welcoming place of rest and storytelling.”
As a lover of beaches and the coast, of course I see Pelicans all the time. But I didn’t really know much about them. So this video from the Cornell Lab’s “All About Birds” was really fun to watch.
There are two types of Pelicans in the USA: brown and white. The brown feed in the ocean, and the white in fresh water inland. We mostly see the brown pelicans. The white pelicans we see are mainly winter visitors, according to my AI.
These birds have similar bodies, but they feed very, very differently.
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I got this post from “All About Birds” this morning. They are going to share a live You Tube video on October 26th with Dr. Kaeli Swift that will share her knowledge about crows. It will be recorded, and you will also be sent the link to the video recording after this live event if you don’t have time to watch it live. Dr. Swift will also answer any questions you want to send to her now, and she has a blog too.
I signed up. I’ll likely wait for the recorded video link, but who knows.
The hurricane Isaias went west of us here in Charleston, SC. And the offshore winds that pushed the storm west seem to have died down. We got only 1 inch of rain at my house last night. It will rain today, but it is gentle rain, which we need.
I have been obsessed with my EPP project, and I’m now working to get all the sides to make straight edges, which is happening. These past days of peaceful hand sewing while listening to audio novels has been lovely. I burned myself out on EPP projects a few years back, so I took a rest from them, and I’ve enough hand sewing at night be be content. But this project started happening during the day after my noon meal, so I must have needed a break from the upstairs projects, or…just in general.
I have not decided whether I will open the side pieces (after a good ironing) and trim the sides and add a regular binding, or if I will sew the sides to borders. I made this quilt back in January 2017 and floated it on borders.
This pic isn’t great as it is now old, and I do have this quilt here with me. I noticed it when I looked for the year on its label that I didn’t include it (it was number 129), so this lack of a date on the label is why I keep an archive. The date on the label has now been added, at which point I noted that the label had my DIL Corinne as its owner. LOL, I think both of us might have forgotten that ownership in the past almost 10 years now.
My blessings today also include a quilt on the longarm that needs some work, the November table topper that is pinned and ready for sewing a grid on my domestic, the “Tulip Swirl” top waiting for a backing and the longarm, a new “Tulip Swirl” layout leader/ender that is growing and is a surprise, the quilt “Goldie” to be continued, and…one block made with neutral fabrics from the scrap bins that is looking at me and smiling.
The weather is cooling, and I’m walking every day. I may walk later today in the gentle rain.
All my family seems to be in fine shape. Of course, there are always ups and downs, but they are all coping with what life brings to them.
I will have a very nice noon meal as soon as I cook it, and maybe I’ll even be able to eat it on my porch as the rain is straight down and gentle.
Here in coastal South Carolina, local melons have been filling our markets.
But, how to tell if one is ripe and ready to cut?
For watermelons, look to the skin to see if the melon is starting to turn more yellow. Then make a fist and thump the melons in the storage bin. Move then around as needed. A ripe melon has a deep satisfying sound, not a sharp higher sound. You will be able to tell the difference immediately when you thump a ripe melon. Sometimes I go through a number of melons before I hear that deep sound. Also, inspect the melon to make sure it is not overly ripe so that it has too-ripe places starting to soften on the outside–which is more easily seen with cantaloupes.
Look at this gorgeous, deep red, sweet watermelon!
Cut whatever melon you have bought in half and then into slices. Take a small knife and cut away the rind of each piece. Then, cut the half-round pieces into bite-size pieces. For a big melon, I often just cover the top of the uncut half and store it in the refrigerator until I am ready to cut it up. It stores better that way.
I store my cut pieces in a covered glass container in the refrigerator.
The Cornell Lab’s information on birds is…so fun. This little video arrived in my inbox this morning, and I was entranced for the length of the 4-minute video.
We are now getting plenty of rain as the typical tropical weather pattern has kicked in: hot with afternoon thunderstorms filled with wind, lightening, and impressive thunder. The humidity is high these days. It’s like a warm blanket surrounding me on my early morning walk which avoids the heat that starts to crank up mid morning. Still, for a few days, we’ve had temps in the 80s for most of the day. (July is our hottenst month here.)
All the rain has driven lawn grubs and other lawn critters to the surface. The White Ibis are delighted with this outcome, and we are delighted that nature is culling the harmful critters. White Ibis eat grubs, mole crickets, and earthworms. I’m fascinated with the curved bill.
My Texas sage, planted a year ago, has burst into bloom. It’s gorgeous.
I love the silvery sage leaves too.
I’ve been struggling with what is called “hot mouth” or “burning mouth.” It’s caused in part by sleeping with one’s mouth open for some of the night so the mouth tissues dry out. I’ve done that my whole life, so why this problem now? I think I have an allergy to xylitol in chewing gum (which can clean teeth) and in some dental products. Mint flavorings are also part of the problem, or at least make my scalded mouth feel worse.
I love to chew gum when I’m sewing or at night after my dinner. There are very, very, very few mainstream gum products easily obtained that do NOT have xylitol or aspertame. (Xylitol is a wood alcohol product that does sweeten quite nicely. Note that it is wildly poisonous to dogs.) I can’t do the mint choice, and the chemicals in Juicy Fruit smelled up my whole pantry and upstairs sewing room. Ugh!
I finally found this product, but beware, some flavors do use xylitol. It’s a good find. There are lots of flavors. The flavor is mild, very lightly sweet, and the gum chews pleasantly. BUT, LOL, don’t attempt to take it out of your mouth with your fingers as the natural gums will stick to your fingers like mad. That’s what the little tissue papers included in every pack are for, as it turns out. I had to use “Goo Gone” to remove the gum. And I retrieved the little tissue papers from the trash.
This product does not use synthetic plastic in the gum base. It uses a tree sap called “chicle.” Here are the ingredients in the maple flavor: organic raw cane sugar, natural chicle base (chicle, candelilla wax, citric acid), natural flavor, organic vegetable glycerin, organice rice flour, Tapioca starch.
So, I am happily chewing gum to my heart’s content again.
Today is going to be a soup making day, with boned chicken thighs included.
But my main meal, eaten around noon, will be the reheated lamb chops I grilled yesterday, leftover fresh corn, and frozen peas defrosted from the freezer. AND, cut up seedless watermelon and a handful of very pricey organic green grapes. And a glass of raw milk after the fruit to neutralize the acid in the fruit, which also disturbs my mouth.
Did you know that you should NOT brush your teeth after eating fruit, especially high acid fruit like citrus? The fruit acid softens the enamel on your teeth, so brushing can damage the enamel. One is told to wait 30 minutes before any brushing after fruit. Who knew????
My washing machine and dryer are singing with jobs assigned to them.
And I now have to go and…chop veggies and chicken thighs.
My son’s family is visiting Iceland this week. He sent back this picture the other day, taken as they did a car trip to see some special sites that included so many, many gorgeous waterfalls.
Lupines!
I miss the Lupines in Maine. They were spectacular in the spring.
But here in The Low Country of coastal South Carolina, we have many special plants that are also spectacular.
Nature puts on a show for us that we don’t always slow down to appreciate.
