The Gong Show of Everyday Life. Now with Ratatouille!

The GOOD:
I am still alive.

It's been fun, though. Teaching and rehearsing for a high school show that finished up on Friday - an incredible time but it meant not a lot of energy to devote to other things. I'll spare you the details but basically, even my need to keep my hands busy while sitting faltered.  I embraced the potato-esque and stared zombie-like at the tv for a few minutes each night until told like an over-tired toddler to go to bed. Sleepy "oh-kay." Trundle trundle yawn trundle.... Well worth it. Every minute.

No sewing happened.  Not really.  I did manage 15 minutes on my thread-painting the other day but just as a diversionary tactic with a fussy nephew.  He sat on my lap and we used the "sew-ming ma-sheen."

So here's where I'm at now.

The BETTER:
I did find a little time to actually cook something last weekend.  I've been trying to keep up with last year's mission to make one new recipe a week.  A lesson with some new English speakers led me to this video, and then to some marvellous ratatouille.  Seriously, the toughest part was the slicing, and honestly, how tough is slicing?



From this:

To this:

Easy. Delicious.  Served on brown rice with cold roast beef on the side. We all went back for seconds.

The UGLY:
Trying to get caught up on my interwebs after yet another absence. I've been away from Flickr, in email correspondence I'm woefully behind, and my reader is jammed packed with 15-16 days worth of unread goodness. It will take me days, maybe weeks. We're looking at massive numbers here.

Oh! and on that score, since folk are panicking:  I use Reeder as my RSS reader.  Apparently, although it syncs with Google Reader, it will still go on after Google drops its reader, which caused me a huge sigh of relief since I didn't want to have to go hunting for a new one.  Again. (Curse you, Mail!!) Why I like it:  1)I can sync between my computer, my phone and my tablet, 2)it's clean and has a decent interface, 3) the learning curve on it was steep and once I got the hang of it, it was better than what I was using before. As far as I know though, it's Mac and iOS only.

The UPCOMING:
I'm also working on a post for the Meet: My Machine Blog Hop this week - thank you to Erin and Stacey for the invitation!  My day is Wednesday.  You can read more all about the hop here, catch up with the other participants, and learn all about their sewing machines.  GREAT if you're considering an upgrade or second machine. Better if you're looking for more blogs to fill your Google Reader replacement.

Here's the schedule:

SUNDAY, MARCH 17

Erin @ Sew at Home Mummy 

Angela @ Heart of Charnwood

Shannon @ Crafty Turtle

Amy @ Stitchery Dickory Dock

MONDAY, MARCH 18

Ebony @ Love Bug Studios 

Jaclyn @ Jaclyn Quilts

Amy @ Diary of a Quilter

TUESDAY, MARCH 19

Kara@ Me and Elna

Beth @ Plum and June

Nerissa @ Nissa Made 

Elizabeth @ Don’t Call Me Betsy

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20

Carly @ Citric Sugar 

Celine @ Espritpatch 

Patti @ A Yankee in Queen Liz’s Court

THURSDAY, MARCH 21

Stacey @ The Tilted Quilt 

The Jolly Jabber Staff (Chelsey, Kimberly, Debbie)

Rachel @ Sew Happily Ever After! 

FRIDAY, MARCH 22

Erika @ Sews it All 

Lisa @ Vintage Modern Quilts

Adrianne @ On the Windy Side

Hope you enjoy it!! Okay - I've got to go do some stuff so that I can come back here sooner rather than later...

Thread-painting

Yesterday was a pretty good day.

I took a thread-painting class from Monika Kinner-Whalen at My Sweet Prairie.  Monika does these amazing thread-painted artworks and was generous enough to share her talents and process with us.  I've wanted to take it for ages and finally just booked a morning off and went for it. It was so much fun!

Tentative first stitches

She started us off with "cheater" fabrics, getting us to see the colours and shapes and get used to the feeling.  It's a lot like free-motion quilting.

Adding more dimension

When we were comfortable, we switched to our projects.  Monika gave us copies of chickadee photos taken by Edith Maracle (with permission, of course!) and let us choose a background fabric.  We used a lightbox to trace the main spots, used the photographs for reference and went to town!

I'm not finished yet but here's where I left off when class ended:

I grabbed some shiny black thread for his eye. Can't wait to work on it more!

I learned so much in such a short span, met some lovely quilters, and gained a new appreciation for rayon thread. If you are in the Saskatoon area and have a chance to take one of Monika's classes, I highly recommend it.  She's lovely and a wonderful teacher - so supportive!



Oh, and the Blades won their 18th game straight.  And it was a great game.  I love them even when they're losing but it's so much more fun when they're not.  GO, Blades, GO!

Ceremonial puck drop.  Nicholls (20) is the Children's Wish Foundation Point Man this year.  For every point he gets in the regular season, Acklands-Grainger donates $50 bucks to Children's Wish.  He cost them $100 last night. ;-)  yay!