Photo fun . . . and a recipe.

Told you I finished something!  I have had this rolling around my UFO pile for the last two years. I am so happy it's finished. I've always really liked this design, and decided the Crazy January challenge 2011 was the perfect time to commit to it.  After the designer for Primitive Needle passed away so tragically that same year, I dedicated it to her--I still feel so awful about the way she was taken. But then life took over, and this, along with the rest of the Crazy January starts, fell along the wayside.   But now it's done, and really, when it comes down to it, this is a pretty good message for the way my life has been going lately--we just gotta keep going and hope for the best.

This is my problem child. This was kitted up by my LNS, and I don't have enough floss to finish it. I can pull the DMC from my stash, but the hand-dyed floss is another question. Even if I were to go back to the LNS and complain, the kit is from 2008, and matching the floss would be a problem. I'm just adapting the design as I can. And I am annoyed. This was not a cheap little kit. It's very cute though, so I am hoping I can finish it and not make it look too bad.  Wish me luck.

I don't know if I've posted this before, but I wanted to share a recipe that is part of my family's Easter celebrating . . . glorified rice. My gramma learned this recipe from her grandmother, and I've been trying to research where it came from, because so many of my gramma's recipes were, "til it taste me good", and it's hard to quantify how to make them. It's the one recipe that does not seem to be on the Internet, though, because I can find recipes that are close, but none that are exactly the same. It's not ambrosia, it's not rice pudding, it's glorified rice . . . and it's heavenly. So I wanted to share.

The ingredients: (yes, I use store brand for the most part. I do use name-brand vanilla, Penzey's to be precise. To me, it's the Ferrari of vanillas, but if you don't have it, use your favorite)

4 cups of instant rice, prepared per package instructions.

1 medium can of crushed pineapple, drained

1/2 C of sugar

1/2 t vanilla

medium container of heavy whipping cream

Combine the rice, sugar, and pineapple while the rice is still warm. It melds together a lot better that way.

I have seen recipes that use pineapple juice, not pineapple, and lemon jello, but I can't imagine how that would taste, plus it always makes me amazed that, in the early 1900s, in the hollers of Western Pennsylvania, my great-great-grandmother had access to and money for crushed pineapple. This was truly a special dish if she had that for her family.

When mixed, pour the cream over it and add the vanilla. You can use a little more or a little less depending on your preference. I have adapted it to be less sweet than my gramma's way because Left-brain won't eat it when it's too sweet, and you get enough calories from the cream. It's going to look soupy, but it goes in the fridge to "draw through" and thickens up.

This was a photo I took of the finished product. I love to eat that first bowl while it's still warm and yummy. It just doesn't photograph well. But it tastes, well, divine.



Katie "helped" me make it; she sat on the floor, banging pan lids while the water boiled for the rice. It's not fancy food, not to a modern palate, but it's good, and it's home food to me.

So that's all i have for tonight. I hope your weekend is going well. They are calling for snow on Monday here. Not sure if they're going to be right--the forecasters are started to laugh at their own ineptitude at this point. But Easter means spring is here and it has to warm up sometime.

A little more stitching time

Somehow, somewhere, I got some stitching time this weekend.

I WAS SHOCKED.

Right after Christmas, our storage hassles came to a head. Left-brain couldn't get to the desk in the office because of the stacked boxes in there, and I couldn't get to anything of mine. It was starting to really annoy both of us, so we reconfigured his mancave. A lot of my boxes are now downstairs, but I can get to them easily and they are no longer a towering death trap, where the heavy things seem to be on top and everything I need is in the bottom box. Our goal, as stated before, is to build a shed, even though I don't know how that's going to work because they just re-did our flood maps and my side yard is even more in a flood zone than it was before, and I don't want our shed in a flood zone. But, when we do that, we're moving all the man toys out there, all the exercise equipment that is downstairs out to the garage, and the area where that is now will be my stitching area/the baby's play area. Maybe then, I can get some real shelves and a suitable table set up. Barring us moving to another house/having another baby/who knows what else happening in the meantime.

But I pulled Waxing Moon's No Scaredy Cats out of my Crazy 15 starts from 2011:

Remember this? (It's the last one in the post. Not the last one to be completed, just the last one in the post)

My progress has been abysmal:

 No Scaredy Cats


But between Downton Abbey Season 2 on Monday, the "Gold Rush" finale on Friday night (that show is like watching a flipping trainwreck, but it's strangely addictive), and then a marathon of DA Season 3 on Saturday, during which Babygirl slept, I got a lot of progress. It's probably 2/3 finished, but I still have her sign to do and her head. And I love it. I did change the cat on her shoulder to a tabby/calico looking cat, just to be different, and it's cute.  I don't know if I'll do the pumpkin necklace for her though. I don't want to buy the charm, and I found out small things that dangle attract fingers that pull (and I'm not talking children's fingers). Not sure how I will finish this. Maybe as a cube, but then again, I may be able to rustle up a small black frame from somewhere. My mom is starting to be on the lookout for frames at rummage sales and the like, and, since those will be starting up again soon, I may be able to find what I need.

I will post a picture when I get a little more progress on it. I wanted to do it last night, but Babygirl was either teething or so tired she couldn't sleep, because she stayed up, fussing, til midnight. Makes for a very tired Mummy, that does. And she was not any better this morning. No fever, nothing obviously wrong, just disgruntled. But she was fine when she got to school, so hopefully, it will pass.

My Spooky SAL for Lisa

I didn't post my progress on this yesterday, as I thought I would be able to. Here it is.




I got started pretty late, but I made a bit of progress. This is "No Scaredy Cats" by Waxing Moon. The cat is Gunmetal, not the color called for in the chart. I didn't have the color, and figured if he was a smoky black, not a black black, no one would really mind. It will help soften when I do the other kitty in Amber, so I am hoping it looks good.

Another reminder for my Betsy PIF. Remember, you have to leave a comment in the PIF post below to be entered. Good luck.

Brave Kitties

This is my start on "No Scaredy Cats Allowed," by Waxing Moon.



Not a bad start, considering I didn't get started til late, and I didn't have the Charcoal floss I needed. I kitted this up at Halloween, and the LNS was out of Charcoal, and it just escaped my mind to make sure I had it. I didn't want to just stitch around the part that used the color, nor was it feasible to run to my LNS and pray they got another shipment of Weeks in. I found a very dark skein of Gunmetal in my floss box, so I'm using that. And that spurred a bit of creativity. I collect black cats for Halloween for my Lily and yellow tabby cats for Gus for the rest of the year (yes, Felix gets kinda messed over when it comes to being collected, but they don't make a lot of black and white spotted cat things--I can't collect what they don't make), but a lot of times I see black cats and yellow tabbies together, so . . . since I have both a yellow and a black cat, I'm making one of the kitties into a tabby, for Gus. He'll be the kitty peeking out from behind the ghost, since my Gus is a bit less brave than his sister; he's not scared, he's just shy. I think this will be a sweet personalization and I'm sure Gussie would approve.

Keeping in the Halloween vein, today's start will be Mosey N Me's Icky Spooky. I've had this design for probably 7 years, I just never stitched it, and it probably is my most favorite MNM design. So I'm just ecstatic to get started.

I did work a little bit on Santa's Bunnies last night. Iron Man was on FX, so we watched that. It was an OK movie, good for stitching, because I didn't have to really pay attention to it. Or think about the plot. Left-brain wanted to watch the Patriot the other night, and I told him I could not bear to watch it. The villian in that movie is so good, he just upsets me, so I have to watch something else.

Do you have any good "stitching" movies you like to watch?

Day 11 and a WIP

I am almost ashamed to post this photo because, as little as I got done Monday, I got less done yesterday. I was worried about the snowstorm that came through, and was trying to make sure we had what we needed, and was pretty busy. Plus, it wasn't the easiest start on this one. But I got a few stitches in. As long as I got one stitch in, it's a start. This is his belly (I'm going to assume it's a him--the horse has that bantam rooster quality about him that pony stallions tend to have). This is a Silkweaver solo I got from a stitching friend at Sue Hillis' GTG last spring. I'm excited to see how the design translates on this fabric.



Today's start will be from Mostly Ghostly by Waxing Moon. It's funny how fast this widespread, highly-controlled case of startitus has gone. It's hard to believe I've started 11 projects in a week and a half, and that I only have 4 more projects to choose from. These last ones are the ones that might not be the most well-planned out. I still have to pull floss for one, pull fabric for another. I had to find fabric for today's start in order to actually start it, and I maybe didn't make the best choice, but I'll live with it. I love the little design I chose, "No Scaredy Cats", so I'm sure it will be fine.

I also thought it's time to show my other WIP, an ornament I started Christmas week. It's one I've had kitted up since the summer as part of the Brides' Tree SAL. It's called Santa's Bunnies, and is by Vermillion Stitchery.
It's not an easy project, lots of fractionals and backstitching, but I think it's so pretty. And it's a great size for an ornament, not so big that it has to be draped over the branches of the tree, not hung. I'm hoping to get the stitching done tonight and then the backstitch by the end of the week. I have the fabric to back it already, a pretty woodland wintry print that I thought would go nicely with the bunnies. I think this is going to be my fair entry for the ornament class; it has everything going for it, at least in my opinion. I think it will come down to how well it's finished, but I'm willing to spend money to make sure it's finished in the way it deserves. It's that important to me.

I am starting to pull together my fair entries. I'd like to start taking things over for framing when I get my tax refund back. That way, I'm not running around at the last minute and I can enjoy getting ready for the competition. I think that's the way to go, but I think I need to get some things finished first, right? :)

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable day. The snow came through last night. I think we got 4 inches, but I do believe there is some ice mixed in with it. Left-brain stayed home from work, which is probably for the best. I don't worry about him on the road, it's everyone else that scares me. I'm trying to decide what to make for our dinner now. Never too early to plan for that, is it?