Snow, cooking, knitting and embroidery!

 It's a normal Michigan winter...some days in the 40's (last Saturday and Sunday I walked the dogs!!!) and other days below 20 degrees.  But being inside allows me to get lots done...well, lots of cooking!!!  Yes, I am still on a cooking kick.  I find at least, if not more!, one recipe a day from Half Baked Harvest web site or Tieghan's cookbook, Super Simple Meals.  Of course, I'm making bread at least twice a week!  Bob and I love our bread!  HA

These are the collages I made.  They're 5" x 7" and I put them in my bi-fold book.  You may notice some similar collage work from when I was in Hilary's online class.  At least I remembered some of what I learned in her class!

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

I know these blocks all look alike but honestly they are each embroidered with different color threads or at least different threads in the veins!   some days I post the progress on a block vs finishing an entire block, which measure around 8 inches.

We post whatever progress or a completed project each day of our 101 Days of Art.  It's actually fun and makes me do some type of art work...whether it's knitting (see progress below on lace T), embroidery or making collages/papers.

I'm actually starting on my fourth block of the leaf embroidery.  Hope to finish the 4th block this week and then I'll go back to playing with collage papers again.  

My plan is to work on the quilt for a week then take a week off and play with paints, dyes and making collages.  Just small collage work to put in my bi-fold journal.  I'm up to Day 13 and keeping up to date, so far!

One day we're walking in the sun!

Next day we're shoveling snow!

Yes, I am getting some knitting in...I need about 11 inches of straight knitting...I'm a little over half way...then finish the ribbing, knit sleeves, ribbing...whew!  It might happen before spring..at least Michigan's spring!

Cooking like Betty Crocker!

 It was bad enough when Covid first started and we couldn't eat out...yes, I sure missed it....now I'm not wanting to go out to eat just because I am having fun cooking!  WHAT!  Fun cooking??  Well, the cooking part is fun but the cleanup isn't so much but guess it goes with the cooking, right!  

I am hooked on recipes by Tieghan Geard and her book/website.  I have her Super Simple Meal cookbook and love the recipes.

On Wednesday I was on a baking/cooking kick, again!  I made these Salted Tahini Honey Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They were really good BUT the tahini/honey mixture was suppose to create a little carmel type area in each cookie.  My Tahini mix never did get thick...I'm thinking it was the type of Tahini I used.  BUT the cookies still tasted really good!

Yes, I cook my bacon in the oven, then I freeze them.  So much easier to clean up (lay newspapers on top of the grease left in the sheet pan and toss in trash).  No more grease all over the stove top!  This way we always have bacon in the freezer that I can pull out for breakfast!

This  is a Crispy Cheese Poblano Avocado Burrito!  It was  fantastic and is on her website.  

You fill your tortilla with lots of good stuff!, then lay jalapeno's on the flat grill, place shredded cheese on top of the pepper in a circle and lay your wrapped burrito on top of the cheese.  When the cheese starts to crisp up, wrap the cheese around the burrito and then flip over!  Delicious!

This quesadilla has bacon bits (which I took out of the freezer!  ha), spinach, Poblano sliced/sauteed peppers, cheese between two tortilla shells and cooked on flat top.  YUM...you also make a pineapple salsa to put on top!  This is in the cookbook, Super Simple.

I also made another recipe from Tieghan's web site called:  Slow Cooker Mustard Herb Chicken and Creamy Orzo for dinner on Wednesday!  Whew!  That's a mouthful but it was really good too.

Of course I had to make more bread!

I've started another block on my disperse dyed quilt top.

I've finished one block so far!

Day 3/101:  In addition to showing the start of the hand embroidered quilt block, I  created two crops from this feathered picture.  I hope to get to make another collage from them!

So off to check out some more recipes!  Betty Crocker...look out!

Day 1&2/101 Days Of Art Project

I won't most likely be posting on my blog every project day completed for the 101 day art project...but I will include some of what I'm doing mixed in with my life!  HA

I did both of these croppings on Day 1.  This is an exercise in finding a picture that you crop out areas and then create a collage from painted/stenciled/dyed papers.  

This is the drawing I picked to do a collage with my printed papers.

These are some of  my stash of papers that I made in Hilary's online class in 2019 & 2020.

Day 2 :  This is my finished collage based on the cropping I did above.  Think this is called Thistle plant...well, the original picture was called that!

In Hilary's class I purchased a bi fold journal so I've started a new section for any collage pieces I do for this art project of 101 days!

This journal is around 5"x7"...or close to that!

This shows some of the folded pages in the journal.  I completed these in 2020.  The collage is made up of strips of my painted/dyed/stamped papers.  This is fun to do...sometimes I get stuck that I can't find that perfect piece of paper to tear or cut.   Hard to believe I can't always find that perfect paper with the stash I have! But, eventually, you do!  

 

101 Days of Art!

 

No, I didn't make all these this year.  This was the group of 60 cards I made in 2019 and my last year making them for friends and family.  I think I started out making about 6 or 8 fiber cards...but the list kept growing and I decided enough was enough.  Yes, I do miss designing and sending the cards as I think there were several who were surprised when they received their Valentine card!  But that ship has sailed!  HA  

It's Valentine's Day again but this post is about something else!  There's a FaceBook group started by Karen Stiehl Osborn and Janice Paine-Dawes.  This is what the group is about: 

This group is for artists and friends who want to commit to making art for 101 days in 2022. Starting date will be February 14th, Valentine's Day. Pick your art project which can be a small daily project or a large project you commit to such as 30 minutes a day for 101 days. Share photos and have fun. 

So, when they sent me an invite I had to think about it for a minute or two.  I'm not big on commitments for some projects but I think this is more of a way to inspire us to create art daily.  Not necessarily to finish a project but that would be nice!  So I signed up and we start today!!  

I've shown the disperse dye quilt top I'm hand embroidering and it will be one of the projects that I'll devote 30 minutes to daily...I've finished one of the leaf blocks.  

I decided to go back to my lessons with Hilary on drawing and cropping a photo!  I enjoyed that process so much but I forgot about it!  It's a perfect project to devote 30 minutes a day to!

These are some of the inspiration photos, my drawing and then the cropping I did back in 2020.

I used some of the cropping designs and cut the printed papers I made to add to my tri fold journal.  I'll post those later this week.

Yep, I'm obsessed with leaves and flowers....more leaves than flowers...so....

It only stands to reason that I picked out these two photos to start with!  I'm not sure which one I'll do first.

I can really see this one cropped and actually stitched in a quilt!  

So, we'll see how much I can get done in 30 minutes dividing my time between hand embroidery and drawing/cropping!  I'm anxious to see all the cool work the other ladies are going to create.  So far, there are 19 of us and we'll post pictures and our progress daily!  Stay tuned!

 

Yep, it's cold enough to stay in!

This is what we woke up to the other morning!  Yes, that is minus 4 degrees!!!

   

 

It is beautiful out and I don't mind being stuck in the house.  Gives me time to work on projects!  I did meet Donna for lunch out and some grocery shopping on Friday.  Only problem, I complained the entire day about my back hurting.  And hurt it did!  UGH.....1-10 it was a 15!

I am making progress on my lace T.  I have quite a ways to knit the body and go back and knit the sleeves but at least I am past the lace work!   So I don't need total concentration!  ALTHOUGH, last night while watching the Olympics I noticed I dropped a stitch!  YIKES!  But I was able to pick it up with instead of  'untinking'!  Actually, this is a real term knitters use (I just found this out!)...it's 'knit' in reverse..get it!

So now I'm working on the disperse dye quilt top.  I free motion quilted around each of the purple leaf patterns.

Then I'll start to hand embroider inside them for the stem and veins.

This is one area that I did some embroidery stitching on....

And another area.....

In case you don't remember, this is the quilt top before I did any FMQ or hand work.  So this should keep me busy at least during the daytime while keeping warm.  Knitting, I save for nighttime while watching TV and the Olympics.