Remember the nine-patch blocks that I sewed last weekend, and the quilted placemat that was just waiting for me to hand-sew the binding in place?
So I finally got around to doing that.
Hooray! It’s done!
And it’s reversible!
I also spent some time today going through the fabric stash and slicing, pressing, and sewing together binding strips for the other two placemats that I am making for my cousin. I plan to work on them a little at a time this week, so they should be done in a few days.
Last night I made key lime pie. Although the pie was supposed to chill overnight in the refrigerator, Sean and I didn’t wait that long before cutting into it.
Out of curiosity, we decided to calculate the number of calories in each slice. It turned out to be approximately 400 calories per serving.
This slice of pie adds up to around 400 calories, can you believe it?
I decided to eat just half a serving…
Only 200 calories!
…and then ended up eating the other half of the slice, anyway.
It’s a good thing we’re training for a half marathon and had to run seven miles this afternoon. Because there’s still half a pie left, and it is yummy.
Tonight’s handmade project is key lime pie. Sean is from Florida and when I saw that our local grocery store had fresh key limes for sale, I knew I had to purchase a bag and make a key lime pie for my husband.
So this is what I did earlier today:
The recipe for the pie itself is pretty simple. Mix 3 egg yolks, 1 can of sweetened condensed milk, and half a cup of key lime juice. Pour into a graham cracker crust and bake for half an hour in a 325 degree oven.
I just took the pie out of the oven five minutes ago, and here is what it looks like:
It will look a lot prettier once I whip the cream and dollop it all over the top of that pie. In the meantime, I’m supposed to let it cool. Ideally, the pie should be left to chill in the refrigerator overnight before serving, but yeah, I don’t know if that’s going to happen.
In between sewing and working on my quilted placemat, I’ve also been knitting a few rounds at a time on the Cabin Fever sock. Last night I knit the gusset and the heel. I love the feel of this yarn and the colors are so pretty (Cabin Fever is the name of the colorway), but it’s the middle of July and so humid lately that I know I won’t be wearing these wool socks any time soon.
I got all the way to sewing the binding (or border, as Sean calls it) around the quilted placemat. Now all I need to do is sew it down by hand using the ladder stitch.
Yeah, that’s probably not going to happen any time soon.
Lately I’ve been on a sewing kick. I’ve set aside the knitting for now and am working on making a few quilted placemats out of the nine-patch squares that I sewed over the weekend.
It rained last night and all morning. Given California’s current drought, this was a big deal. I stayed inside most of the day and sewed nine-patch quilt blocks. It was very satisfying to go through the stacks of 4.5″ squares that I’d cut several months ago, play with combinations of colors and patterns, and piece together these colorful arrangements. I’m thinking about making more placemats, maybe a couple of table runners, or even a small quilt. In the meantime, aren’t they pretty?
Sean is the breakfast maker in our household. He always cooks my eggs exactly the way I like them, over medium. This morning’s eggs were so pretty that I had to take a picture of them. As I was framing the shot, it occurred to me that a lot of objects in the photo tell you a lot of things about us. There are the quilted placemats that I made, along with a luchador cocktail napkin that I sewed. In the background to the left are an aqua chair that I upcycled (I should post a blog entry with Before and After photos of that project), along with a white side table that I also painted. And Sean’s t-shirt tells you who he’s supporting in Major League Soccer.
Our meal is also reflective of our backgrounds: you take a Filipino girl from Hawaii and a Southern boy from Florida, have them living in coastal California for a dozen years, and you’ve got a breakfast of rice, eggs, vegan sausage, and unsweetened iced tea. Total Hawaiian-Californian-Southern fusion. And it was good.
For the last four weeks, we’ve had to make the 350-mile-round-trip-in-24-hours to Ventura and back to Morro Bay because of my Monday morning allergy testing appointments. This weekend will be the first time in a month that we don’t have to do any long-distance driving. I am so glad. I plan to sit around the house all weekend and knit and read and clean the bathrooms and do laundry– anything but get in the car.
Every Thursday afternoon, I facilitate a treatment group for inmates who are serving life sentences. There are currently eight members in the group, and we always sit in a circle. Today, the inmate seated directly across from me was talking when I noticed some movement along the top of his shoulder. The movement came from a small lump that had been prominently sitting under his shirt, above his shoulder, for some time since he’d entered the room and group had started. He kept talking, but I’d stopped paying attention because I was focused on what was starting to poke out of his shirt collar, along his neck. It was a little pointy face, covered in white and brown fur.
“Uh, Mr. P–,” I said, openly staring and pointing a finger at his shoulder. “What is that?”
“Oh, that,” he said. He reached into his shirt collar and gently pushed back down what was clearly a small animal. “That’s just my mouse.”
365 Days Handmade 