Another Stew

The latest recipe I tried from "Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons" book by Nava Atlas has turned out really nice. It is the Kale, Yellow Squash, and Sweet Potato Stew.

I made some modifications:

This week I decided would be white bean week so I had my soak going from the night before. I used the bean water for the broth of this soup rather than bouillon or vegetable broth.

I also substituted about 2 cups white beans for the rice for more of a nutritional bump. It never actually says when to add the rice so I just added the beans near the end.

I used powdered ginger rather than fresh (laziness).

This soup has a REALLY nice flavor. Obviously I have made it bean-y with my modifications. The spices are mustard, ginger, and balsamic vinegar and I liked the flavor quite a bit.

Tonight's cooking was supervised by Nim and the cats. All of which were obnoxious. I got a much later start on cooking making it at a time in which I would normally be in bed so I messed up more than just my routine.

Outstanding Projects and Sunrise

After homework and work work I finally got down to two high priorities:

1. Identify my quilts in progress (notice I am not adding knitting projects as well)
2. Find information on when the sunrise is going to start to come earlier before I absolutely lose it. :)

Projects located so far:

Baby quilt
(Pictured above). It was started about 3 years ago? I no longer have contact with the family who has long since had their son. This will become a donation quilt. :) This quilt as been well hidden (so well that it took me awhile to find all the parts of it) after Nim ate three of the straight pins from it last year, resulting in a frantic vet phone call right when I was supposed to sit down and complete a final online.

Charity quilt
I found another donation quilt from a quilt group I am no longer a part of. I can still finish it and give it to them however.

Quilt needing quilting
And of course there is the "At Home in the Woods" massive quilting project. I know exactly where it is because it is huge. I didn't even open the cabinet to look at it.

These were the immediate outstanding projects I could find. The Mystery Quilt is waiting for Pacific Fabric's usual holiday weekend sales. They probably have one coming for Martin Luther or President's Day.

Now the important sunrise matters:
Sunrise and Sunset in Seattle
Am I reading this correctly?! As of this morning are the sunrises starting to come earlier?! This just lifted my spirits.

Sunday Contentment

Not the best photo, but he is so content with his Christmas fluffy from my mom. It is his special reward at the end of some really solid training.

Waiting

This morning we are waiting for a sister to wake up and for the sun to come out. Wasn't Saturday supposed to be the "nice" weather day? While waiting for this morning to clear up, I am doing some homework and also knitting.

This project came off Ravelry and hopefully will fit me. I am using a different weight yarn and smaller needles so we will see. I also probably don't have enough yarn which means the sleeves are going to be a contrast color (the yarn I am using has long been discontinued).

The pattern is "Simple Summer Tweed Top Down V-Neck." It is exactly what I need right now while in school because it is easy to walk away from and come back to.

Bring us sun!

Mystery Quilt 2012 Top Completed

I completed the top!

It was the final stretch of toilet repair which pretty much left me in my office from 8am - 5pm. I did a big job work marathon yesterday, so today was a chunk of homework and finally back to sewing. And I was highly productive in both.

I totally like how this turned out. In a way this quilt really isn't my normal style and yet it is all fabric I really like! Definitely something I really enjoyed about the Mystery Quilt process is that I feel like it pushed me a bit out of my normal comfort zone.

It will probably be a bit before I get it finally sandwiched and quilted but it is great to have the top done. I am thinking about using the peach fabric for the final binding but I am still thinking about it.

Nim is driving me absolutely nuts. This may be a bad sign that he is so restless already this early in the quarter. He hasn't really dealt with one of my heavy sewing stints though either. He has been trapped in the office all day. But by the time the repair work was done it was dark and starting to rain.

Block Layout

I may never go to bed at this rate. Now I am excited to sew all of these together. I really am enjoying how this is coming together and looking.
I had a moment of panic from a miscalculation on the light borders. But I was able to find a fabric of similar value and to be honest it doesn't seem to matter much when the blocks are next to each other. I rarely get so lucky when I have to try and make a substitution.

Block Borders

I am having power problems again tonight with this latest storm so I wanted to post one block with borders. I am almost done putting the borders on all the blocks.

Hopefully I will have an assembled top before the evening is over, but that depends on the weather and how long I last.