Color play: baby edition

Hello, everyone.  Today's post is looking at colors for a baby quilt. 

The little paper square in the middle is the concept. I'm thinking of the pinks as background and the teals as main color, with a central block of the turtle print.

I tried putting it into black and white: 

Some of the prints are interested in being the star of the show. That daffodils and Easter eggs print isn't sure if it's a pink or a teals!

A closer look at the idea. It's from the Moda Chains quilt, making only one quadrant and adding a couple top and bottom borders to get the blanket into a more oblong shape.

Trying out new things:pillow edition

Hello, everyone.  It's been chilly and the days just get consumed by this and that. 

I have a set of embroidery designs that calls itself Damask. They're all monochrome florals. 

This incorporates 2 of them. I did it in 3 colors but the 2 whites are pretty much the same color. Base fabric was not from stash. (!) I got some brown upholstery fake suede for this. It's a 12 inch pillow, very usable size. 

It did take over 70 minutes to stitch out. And the fabric required a size 14 needle.

It was fun hunting down something to put on a 12 inch pillow. Designs stash for the win!

Tortilla de verduras con gambas

Hello,  everyone.  We miss so many things about the Camino. And some of them are not really practical to recreate at home.

Tortilla, fortunately, can be made at home. 

Yum.

Back on track with walking

Hello, everyone.  We're having pleasant weather this week, and we're getting back on track with walking. 

Yesterday we returned to one of our favorite training walks, the Mission Hike and Bike. This trail has a paved track with gentle inclines along the way. We walked 3 miles there yesterday and it was purely relaxing.

We also saw a little bit of wildlife. There was a first-time sight:

He or she had crawled out of the burrow, probably because the cloudy sky looked like evening to a "little " fuzzy spider.

There were also some roadrunners.

Today we walked at Bentsen State Park. We had a good pace and the 4 miles were so peaceful. 

Color play: reverse side edition

Hello, everyone.  Today's color play is a test layout of the reverse of a queen-sized bedspread. The yardage alone isn't big enough to get the job done, and an assortment of blocks are posing with it here.

This isn't going to be the final, but it's looking good as a start, in my opinion. Here is the black-and-white version:

It seems like the values are reasonably spread out. 

Study of the small blocks reveals that they're not 4.5 inches, mostly, they're 4 inches. This calls for either switching them out or adding sashing strips.

As these are all orphan blocks, this counts as a stash festival. 

The cold snap arrived

Hello, everyone.  The arctic air is here in a big way and so we have put some freeze protection on some tender plants.

The Caribbean tree cactus, a tropical opuntia, is a cutting from the one that came with the house. (That one froze in 2021.) 

We put incandescent Christmas lights around the pads and wrapped the plant in an old sheet. There was extra length on the string of lights which got draped on a nearby basil.

The dragon fruit, a tropical pitaya that makes hot-pink fruits, is also tender.

More Christmas lights and two sheets.

We did what we could for the avocado. 

Three strings of lights, as far as we could reach. 

Lights and sheets have been helpful many times during short frosts. The lights must be incandescent or they won't make any heat for the plant.

Trying a new recipe

Hello,  everyone. It's cold outside, so it's a good day to do sewing and baking.

Well, it's determined to put it in sideways. I think y'all can see reasonably well. The recipe is from Cherry Republic's web site, Sharon's Cherry Scones. I didn't like the way her recipe says to shape them, and it looks a lot like a buttermilk biscuit recipe, so I patted and gently rolled the dough to 1/2" thick and used my 2" biscuit cutter. With this system, I got 28 round Cherry flavored biscuits. 

I sampled one with some cream cheese and it was good. Also very tender!

This one looks like a winner, and it helps to use up some of the dried sour cherries that are in the pantry.