Elk Meadow Off-Leash Dog Park

After closing on our new home was pushed back for the second time, I found myself with two days off. After all the trouble and stress associated with buying/selling homes (and by the way, why does it need to be sooo stressful?) I decided to take the boys for a nice off leash adventure.
They had been so good with everything going on and we were all due for some TLC.

Elk Meadows, close to Evergreen, is part of the Jefferson County Park system and what a gem it is. There is a fenced area for smaller or more timid dogs or those who are little escape artists and then there is a large unfenced area with several trails where dogs can be off leash.

Along the way there are several water bowls, but bring your own water. Moby lead the way. He knew exactly where he wanted to go ate each intersection and Satchmo and I just followed our little cub scout.

The terrain is rolling with beautiful views. We got to see a few golden Aspen trees which is always a sight for sore eyes. We explored the different trails for about an hour an I had two very happy canines.

Rainy Colorado

What an unusual treasure it is to listen to the sound of just rain, no hail, no thunderstorm. It seems that in Colorado thunderstorms generally accompany rain. Just rain is rare. Tonight is such a rare occasion. I find it to be lovely.

The windows are wide open to allow the breeze into the house and the sound of steady raindrops falling is lulling me into a state of content.

Good night!

New Quilt

While organizing my fabric scraps the other day I came across a bag full of pink and grey triangles. I sewed them together into HSTs and trimmed them to the largest size possible which is 3 ¾" square.

I don't have much time, so I'll be sewing 4 of the HSTs into one block. Well, actually, 3 HSTs + 1 solid 3 ¾" square.
Naming the quilt was fun and it's between these options: Dreiviertel Takt or Missing Link.
Since I love waltzes, I'll most likely go with the first. It also seems more positive.

Hopefully, I can post photos soon.

I did manage to sew all the blocks together already. Now, I just need to lay them out into some sort of pattern. I am not yet sure of the quilts size, so it will be a go-with-the-flow kind of quilt.

Baby Quilts

... and yet again, it has been way too long since my last post. Life is just flying by. Work is tremendously stressful and it seems to suck out way too much energy.
Enough whining!
I did manage to sew 2 baby quilts.

This is one of my "cheater" quilts. The center is a panel, making this a very quick and easy quilt. I was in a bit of a bind, so quick was key. I still love it's vibrant colors and think the animals are just super cute. This is for a baby girl to be, but I already heard that her big brother will like it, too.

Ellison Lane's Ribbon Star Quilt Block tutorial (http://ellisonlane.com/2014/04/ribbon-star-block-tutorial.html)was the inspiration for this baby quilt. I had just seen the blog post when my neighbor told me that her son and daughter-in-law are expecting their first baby. I immediately offered to make a quilt. I loved the quilt block and thought it'd be fun to super size it into a baby quilt. So, I did the math, my neighbor selected the fabrics and off to work I went.
The baby shower was yesterday and it seems that mom-to-be liked the quilt.

So, there you have it.

Pst, I am working on yet another small quilt. Lots of orange. To go on the wall of my sewing room.

What Colorado means to me

I did participate in a local quilt challenge in which we were given 4 pieces of solid fabric: yellow, red, blue and green. We had to incorporate these colors into the quilt which had to be at least 40" x 40".

Ever the procrastinator, I did not start working on the quilt until May 2nd. Even then I did not yet have a clear plan. I started with flying geese blocks to mimic mountains (14 for our 14ers) and trees which I offset and bordered them with Osnaburg fabric. Then I added more Osnaburg fabric on each side.
I decided to slice the fabric to add blue strips for the Colorado and Arkansas rivers. To reach the minimum size requirement I added borders on top and bottom. The upper right corner has a star to embody all the beautiful sunshine we are having more than 300 days each year. In the bottom left I added the Colorado state sign.
Then I quilted the top, bottom and side panels in straight lines ¼" apart which now looks like field furrows representing the agricultural areas to the east and west of the mountains.

... and this is how it looks:

I am happy how it turned out and almost equally happy, that it's done. Time to catch up on long overdue to-dos, such as dusting, vacuuming and mopping.

But before that I made a quick little dessert from Ina Garten, Raspberry Crumble Bars. However, I decided to use Apricot marmalade instead of Ina's Raspberry. I just was in the mood for sweet and bitter. It's all baked, but not yet tested.

Enjoy your day ... Andrea

Birthdays and newly found Wisdom

My wonderful friend from down under sent me a lovely message about my recent birthday:

"... we have to celebrate our birthdays even more as living longer is a

privilege in this world of so much violence and illness."

I find she is very much right.
As I get older (how did that happen???) I find that I do not take as much for granted. At the same time I find freedom in many things. 

Little Black Dress Quilt

I finally (almost) finished my first quilt using the Little Black Dress line from Basic Grey. I found the instructions amongst the many tutorials of the Missouri Star Quilt Company and whipped the top up very quickly. Then follows a rather long and unproductive period before I gathered up my courage to start the quilting process. I anchored all the blocks using stitch in the ditch followed by yet another unproductive period before attempting FMQ.
Through my quilt guild, FRMQG, I was able to attend a class held by Angela Walters and that gave me enough inspiration and confidence to finally finish my quilt.
Here are just a few photos:

 ... here you can see some of the FMQ designs I used. Please keep in mind that I am a complete beginner. I am not staking any claims on quality even though I am actually seeing slight improvement.

One of my quilting goals for this year is to just.do.it. when it comes to FMQ. So, I am trying to find designs that are not too intimidating. Another great source is the Free Motion Quilting Project by Leah Day. I also signed up for a FMQ class with Leah via Craftsy. She has great tips and tricks and knows her stuff.

Journal Cover

I few weeks ago I bought a Women's Success Choice Planner and ever since then I have been wanting to make a cover for it. The WSCP website offers covers for sale and even though I am very tempted to buy one of their beautiful leather covers I think it is wiser to make one from fabric.

There are lots of tutorials to be found. My initial choice was the "Quilted Planner Cover" from      www.sewfearless.com However, it would have required more supplies than I had on hand and since   I did not feel like making another trip to the store I decided on Andrea's tutorial by WatermelonWishes.
It was super quick and super easy and here is the result:

Now my planner has a beautiful home.

FMQ with Angela Walters

Saturday, March 22, I was lucky enough to attend a FMQ class held by Angela Walters. It was hosted by the FRMQG in Englewood.
The room was full of friendly chatter, encouragement and awe.
A.W. drew her quilting designs on a board and talked about them before we had a chance to practice on a small quilt sandwich. It was so interesting and lots of fun.
I found that I am feather challenged. Cannot draw one if my life depended on it. But I like pebbles and some of the geometric designs seem rather easy.
Still under the influence of so much FMQ talent I spent most of Sunday's afternoon quilting my Little Black Dress quilt. I finished all the blocks in a geometric square block design and filled the inner border with meandering circles. Now, all that's left is the outer border.

Citrus Fruit

I am very happy to be living in Colorado. One thing I am missing there is having citrus fruit trees.
From Tahquiz golf course I could see trees heavy with grapefruit. I had to control myself not to pick them.
Last night as we were walking on the golf course we came by several lemon trees. I struck up a conversation with one of the residents and now have permission to take some lemons each time I pass the trees. Limoncello, here I come. I'll take them home to CO and each time I have a sip of Limoncello I'll be reminded of Palm Springs.
This morning we took the dogs for their walk and into the subdivision with the grapefruit trees. I took 2 grapefruit home and am having the freshest fruit for breakfast now.
Life is good!
So much to be thankful for.

But of course not all is peaches and cream. There is a big question on the horizon that requires some thought and needs an answer: ought I to make good on a youthful omission and finally learn to play an instrument? As A child I had zero interest in such an endeavor, but for some time I feel that I missed out. In addition I just started listening to classical music and the sound of violins really has me smitten.
Youtube has some basic information on student level violins. This is enormously helpful as I have not the least idea about violins and violin playing. There is much to be learned. And much to be pondered.

Palm Springs, CA

We started our road trip to Palm Springs, CA on March 13th at 22:00.
The smaller half of the back seat was folded over, and the length of that narrow space polstered with yoga mats and quilts. Andreas was driving the first 400 miles (speed control set at 68mph to make the fuel last longer) while I was stretched out in the back with Satchmo and Moby on top and right next to me. So, I didn't get to sleep as much nor as well as I thought. I was also worried about Andreas driving throughout the night by himself.
It worked well enough for me to take over shortly after Albuquerque, NM, and make it all the way past Sedona, AZ. Sometime along the way, I thought It'd be nice to document the landscape a little bit.

I really got excited when I saw this sign. Even though we needed to turn south and away from the Grand Canyon.

We are approaching Flagstaff, AZ. Can you see the snow covered mountains way in the back ground?

All in all it took us 19 hours and we were all very happy to finally get out of the car. The hotel room was not yet ready and so we had to bide our time. We walked to the nearby Trader Joe's store and that was all the dog were able to manage in the heat. They drank up the water super fast. Back in the hotel we hung out in the lobby. We were all wearing a little thin by the time we finally got into the room. Thankfully, we got the room we requested, first floor, out back. It's so much easier to get in and out with easy access to a small strip of grass.

After unloading and unpacking, the dogs got their dinner and then Andreas and I went shopping.
Then finally our dinner, a shower and then I fell asleep, near comatose.

This morning, The boys woke me up at 5:30, not yet used to the different time zone. Taking our sweet time we went for a walk, had breakfast, did laundry and then I did some shopping. Of course, I had to visit Quilter's Faire, where I found a pattern and fabric.

Then off to play some golf and chill in' afterwards.

View of Bob Hope's house. Visible from just about anywhere in PSP. What a neat design.

Golf course scenery.

Life Quote

Make peace with your past

so it will not disturb your present.

What other people think of you

is none of your business.

Time heals almost everything

give it time.

No one is in charge of your happiness,

except you.

Don't compare your life to others and don't judge them

you have no idea what their journey is all about.

Stop worrying too much

it's alright not to know the answers.

They will come to you when you least expect it.

Smile!

You don't own all the problems in the world.

Latest Obsessions

My newest food related obsession is tahini.
I use it in most salad dressings and just love the taste. I could eat coleslaw each and every day.
It's somewhat addictive.

Another one is watching youtube videos about how people use their day planners to organize their lives. I always thought I did not have enough going on not having children and working full time. My life is not very interesting by and large.
Watching various videos I came across one particular planner which seemed to be a good fit for me by pushing the right buttons. Setting goals, keeping track of them, working through to-do lists, living my life as best as I can even though it feels empty much of the time. I "just" need to find my happy.
Not too confident about finding it, but maybe I ought to make more of an effort.

In any case, my Stilton is looking good. I cannot wait to taste it. It's going to be 4 long months of waiting. But hopefully worth it.

And I have been working on the last quilt block from Amy Gibson's 2013 Sugar Block Club. She writes such beautiful directions for amazing blocks. I am already signed up for her 2014 SBC and think I will put all the 24 blocks together for a king size quilt.

Brownies

For many, many years I have had a difficult relationship with making brownies. From the first bite I was in love and kept baking them. However they never turned out right. They were either too dry or nearly raw and at times they were so hard that biting into them was ill advised.
So, about 2 years ago I decided enough was enough. I went through my considerable pile of recipes and removed each and every brownie recipe and recycled the paper they were printed on. What a relief.
Just a few weeks after that I came across a post on Deb Perelman's food blog "Smitten Kitchen". What was it all about? Right ... brownies. I caved pretty quickly and followed my gut feeling. I am so glad I paid attention to my gut feeling.
The first result was just what and how a brownie is supposed to be: not too sweet, chocolaty, gooey. Simply perfect. I have since made this recipe many times and the brownies always come out perfectly.
Now, there is only 1 brownie recipe in my stack. And that's all I'll ever need.
Check out Deb's wonderful recipes on her Smitten Kitchen and be inspired.

Bon appétit!

Making Stilton Style Cheese - part 2

The cheese is now resting for 4 days during which it needs to be flipped once a day.  There is still some whey being pressed out of the curds. It will get somewhat exciting when I can unmold the cheese.
Once the cheese was in its resting phase I could concentrate on baking bread. I am using the Lahey method and just love how simple it is. No repeated kneading required. The yeast is doing all the work.
I have ordered a few more cheese making items and once they arrive I want to start making a few more different cheeses such as Parmesan and Valençay.

Making Stilton Style Cheese - part 1

It's a big day for me today, because I am making Stilton like cheese for the first time.
Going through my own and online recipes I decided to follow youtube instructions by Gavin Webber, at "Little Green Cheese". I like his video tutorials.

I bought a pot big enough to hold 2 gallons of milk, sterilized all my tools and am on my way.
The milk and cream have to be heated to the required 86F. Then I added the Pinicillum Roqueforti and sprinkled the mesophilic direct set culture on top. After mixing it in with the milk/cream liquid it needed to rest for 30 minutes.

After that I added the rennet and let the mixture sit for 90 minutes.

While the cheese was resting I was out on the road trying to find a sushi mat. It seems that my town is a sushi free mat zone. Now I either need to travel the longer distance to an Asian supermarket in the area or just add it to the mail order of other cheese supplies I may need.
I am also somewhat worried that the mold I bought not too long ago is not large enough for the amount of curds being produced by 2 gallons of milk.

Back to cheese making: after verifying that the mass could be cut cleanly I gently spooned the curds from the pot into a colander lined with butter muslin (finding out that my big colander is not nearly big enough!!!). Luckily I found another colander and split up the curds for now. Now I am waiting for another 90 minutes to let the curds set.

I reunited the curds in one large piece of butter muslin tying knots into the fabric to make a ball. Now the ball is hanging for 30 minutes (or however long it takes for the curds to stop dripping) from a tall faucet over the sink.

Then the curds need to get pressed for 8 hours or overnight. Considering that I started this whole process in the morning it will be an overnight pressing for me. Time just flies when I am making cheese.

One of my other craft projects is this one here. I found the Silky Wool in a local yarn shop and bought a few skeins, not yet knowing what exactly I would be making it into. So, I searched Ravelry for wrap patterns and found the Etched Rio Wrap. So, this is how it began:

Air travel is just so conducive to knitting. Nothing much else to be done on an aircraft and after my recent business trip this is how it looks as of yesterday:

Nearly halfway done. 62" is the goal.

Cranberry Marmelade

We did get quite a bit of snow last night. Before the snow started we got some freezing rain, so shoveling was hard work.
I took my boys for an off leash walk just after 3 pm when it started snowing yet again. So beautiful.
I guess, I get to shovel again tomorrow.

My days off were very quiet and somewhat productive. The floors got a good scrubbing and vacuuming.

I watched another Marilyn Monroe documentary and found it to be very interesting and quite different from another I had seen a few weeks ago. I guess her life will remain a mystery. Too bad!

Here is my little polar bear being as happy as can be in the snow. He does snow angels any time he can. So cute.

I had bought some cranberries awhile ago and never made them into a smoothie or pie or ...
So this afternoon I used one of my marmalade sugars and turned them just into that:
Cranberry marmelade.

Recipe: 2 bags of fresh cranberries
             Einmachzucker from Germany (half the weight of the cranberries)
Add both the cranberries and the sugar to a put and heat on medium heat stirring constantly. Once the cranberries are getting soft purred them with a submersion blender.
Once the mass is boiling keep it broiling while stirring for 4 minutes then fill it into prepared glasses.
I cannot wait to eat it.

I am in my second week of the Commit to Fit Weight Loss Challenge and just had a meeting with the dietician who is overseeing the program. Very interesting!
I do want to reach my dream weight AND KEEP IT!!!

Today I love the
sight of snow
feel of snow
sound of the Gold and Silver Waltz by Lehar
taste of freshly made marmalade
smell of Chanel No 5 (what can I say, I am a fan)

27 January 2014

It's been snowing all day, but with very little accumulation at the airport. At home though I found a winter wonderland once again. It's still snowing, so I'll be shoveling tomorrow morning.

CPR is presenting a special 2 hour show on Mozart, his life and music. Ever since my last return from Germany I have been mainly listening to classical music on 88.1
I recognize so much from music class way back when and enjoy listening to it all again after all this time.

Today I love the …
sound of Mozart
taste of spaghetti a l'arrabiata
sight of snow
feel of my mother's cardigan
smell of Chanel No 5

26 January 2014

Snow is falling, well actually, it's blowing. A few inches are expected tonight and maybe a few more tomorrow.

Today I love the ...
smell breakfast
sound of airplane engines
taste of cheese
sight of blowing snow
feel of my quilt

Quilt Blocks and Fabric

Time goes by so very quickly and again it's been weeks since my last post.

Christmas was quiet and therefore lovely. A few days after I flew to Munich to celebrate my mother's 75th birthday and New Years. I returned on January 1st. Isn't the first day of the new year always a little more subdued than all the other days?

My first week back at work sure was a crazy one. But the second week was better and so it continues.
Due to a flight schedule change my days off have changed, but as it turns out it has worked well.

Moby has had another bloat attack just recently, but is doing well after one night at the emergency vet.
I feel so sorry for him when that happens. No one knows what brings it on and how to prevent it, so we are on our own.

I visited SnappyQuilts today and met Stephanie and Kari from the FRMQG there. Sabine is working there now, so I got to see her as well. While there, I picked up a few lovelies:

Even though I just do get to sewing and quilting as much as I would love to I managed to make these blocks as part of a block swap and gift for 2 ladies of the FRMQG. Here they are:

Today I love the
sight of fresh snow
sound of a happy dog barking
taste of fresh tofu
feel of soft quilting fabric