Trying out new skills

Hello, everyone. 

As it says in the title, I'm working on improving my skills on the embroidery. Today, as a tangent from going through the lessons of my Hatch program, I decided to embroider the included beetle design on terrycloth. 

Before actually getting going on it, I added some "laydown" stitching to keep the loops from getting in the way.

I also learned that my hoop refuses to latch onto the fabric. The towel was just too thick for this, so I floated it on top of the hooped stabilizer. Put pins in to help it stay, too. Made the double bounding box after the topper (the shiny stuff) was placed.

The fabric stayed flat with the many layers of encouragement and now I have a psychedelic bug to use somehow. 

Garden update: TS Alberto brought us rain

Hello, everyone. We have gotten much-needed rain in our area. 

The sweet potatoes are really taking off with the heat of summer and the clean, natural water of the last couple of days.

One of our newest plants, this is Dichondra "silver falls" which was struggling with every other day hose watering and has really perked up with the rain. This dichondra is native to Texas and I'm hoping it will spread throughout the bed, along with the "Curry plant" and its cousin the "white licorice " which is a scented, silver-foliaged low plant. They are all together with a big Italian Oregano, a Mystic Spires hybrid Salvia (one of its parents is the native Salvia farinacea) and a Greek Oregano, a French Thyme, and a lemon grass clump. The Salvia is still blooming and has made long branches to expand its area in the herb bed.

Camino memories

Hello, everyone.  Today a little remembrance of our visit to Me Gusta Comer in the village of Rionegro del Puente.

This is the beautiful card the chef gave each pilgrim at the end of our meal. He wrote the date out in Roman numerals. (Of course this means that it really is still important for our children to learn this system of notation!) 

This was the table setting when we sat down. 

DH, who misses the Camino Trails already, decided to make a little touch of Rionegro del Puente for our dinner.

I can see Me Gusta Comer in my mind's eye just looking at this.

Progress on the newest quilt

Hello, everyone. It's been hot and dry since the rains mentioned in my last post--so it's been time to do some inside things.

There has been progress made on the purple-sashed Building Blocks quilt. 

This is just before the last border was added.

It's waiting to be basted together. This requires floor space! But it's another  baby/lap size quilt so it won't take *too* much floor space!

In the second picture there's just a snippet of the piecing scheme that extended the backing to be large enough for the job.

While this one has been waiting to be basted, a third Building Blocks quilt has been begun. This one will have hot-pink sashing as the blocks are from the Celebrations prints, pinks and lavender and blues and greens in a party theme. Some of these squares are leftovers from the heart table runner a while back. I also had a charm pack of them, so there are a lot of blocks that can be used. More information to come on that, the first interior sashing strips are still going into the Blocks.

The blessings of rain

Hello, everyone.  We're in full-on early summer now, but recently we had a few inches of rain. We've been really dry, so this was very welcome. 

Today the flowers are showing their appreciation. 

Group photo of rain lilies.

Another species saying hello.

One of the new ones, bought from Plant Delights by mail order.

A canna showing its glory.

Getting ready to sew a new quilt top together

Hello,  everyone. I really missed my crafting activities while we were walking on the pilgrimage in Spain. It's just another sacrifice that has to be made--my crafts are not as portable as crocheting or knitting. (Interested readers may find some of that neep on the Camino Forum.)

Okay, the phone turned it sideways,  but y'all can still see the position labels pinned onto the squares. This labeling system I learned years ago, when I had to take a math class that involved matrices. (Tables of info, for a more practical name) The spots were all designated by an alpha + number code for clarity. It works very well for quilt piecing, too.

This is my second quilt from the Building Blocks pattern. I used up parts of 2 Charm packs (5×5 squares) and some 2.5 inch strips that were lying around, plus the solid purple for the sashing inside the squares. It's going to be a baby/lap size quilt, which is much easier to quilt than the larger ones.

Mercado de San Miguel in Madrid (edited for spelling)

 Hello, everyone. Sorry it's been so many days, things have been busy. Most of the 2024 Camino pictures have been added to my computer now.

And scrolling through them, I encountered a number of photos from the Mercado de San Miguel. This isn't really a "market" in the Old World sense. It's a tourist trap--but this one is worth it. No admission charge. Food, food, food, and also a couple of drinks shops, plus a certain amount of seating.

The octopus is the round slices in the middle. Yum! 

Anchovies on the left, the codfish loaf (pastel de bacalao) I think is in the center, caviar on the right. Yum!

This shop had several varieties of olive skewers. They were great. Below the prepared skewers a number of trays of olives (straight-up) are visible. I love Spanish olives. 

Yes, the Mercado de San Miguel is always crowded. Yes, there are a lot of tourists there. But the food is great, the wines are good, and it's a fun way to spend an hour or so getting a midday snack.

Regarding pastel de seafood, the Spanish have a number of variations on this and they're all tasty. My first discovery of it was the pastel de langostino (crayfish pate) while walking the Salvador in 2021. 

 Since then I have had seafood pastel as part of other meals and it's always a delight.