Rayen

I'll be working on Memorial Day, but I'm also setting some time aside to do some slow stitching with this bundle of vintage and recycled fabrics. Every summer I make an art quilt that I put together spontaneously, without any clear plan or pattern. I improvise as I go along, and simply let the materials provide the inspiration. I started the first panel last night by layering and stitching some of the fabrics with pretty threads. The colors are very restful after all the glitz of working on my last crazy quilt project. Slow stitching gives me a chance to practice my needlework without the pressure of expectations. It's about embracing the imperfections and enjoying the journey rather than trying to make something specific and race toward a finish line (which I need.)

Here's a quick and easy dessert to make if you just want a few servings (double or triple if you want more): Apple Puff Pastry Cups 1 Granny Smith apple 1/8 cup brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon butter or margarine 3 frozen Puff Pastry cups Decorative sugar (optional) Preheat your oven to 425F. Peel and thinly slice the apple. Melt the butter in a small skillet, adding the sliced apple, brown sugar and cinnamon. Cook the mixture until the apples are soft, remove from heat and set aside. Arrange the puff pastry cups on a greased cookie sheet, and bake at 425F for 14 minutes. Remove from oven, take off the little disc of pastry on top with a fork, fill the cup with your apple mixture, replace the pastry disc, and bake for 4 more minutes. Makes three servings.

"A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows." Francis of Assisi

The k-drama series Itaewon Class will grab your heart for a lot of reasons; the difficult journey of protagonist Park Sae-Ro-Yi (Park Seo-Joon) is especially wrenching. As a teenager who dreams of becoming a cop, Sae-Ro-Yi steps in to stop a rich kid from bullying a classmate. By doing so he inadvertantly triggers a series of events that end up destroying his life, killing his father and sending him to prison. None of this is fair or deserved (quite the opposite), but it forges the boy into a man who will not be stopped until he settles the score. Before the turnkey event Sae-Ro-Yi meets and falls for Oh Soo-A (Kwon Na-Ra), an orphan who is close to his dad. Sae-Ro-Yi's father is fond of Soo-A, and is helping to pay the tuition for her education. When Sae-Ro-Yi mixes it up with bully Jang Geun-Won (Ahn Bo-Hyun), he doesn't realize that the rich kid is the son of Jang Dae-Hee (Yoo Jae-Myung), CEO of the Jang Ga Group, and also his father's boss. Dae-Hee demands tha

My love for birds and a two-buck price tag prompted me to pick up a remaindered copy of An Enchantment of Ravens , author Margaret Rogerson's debut YA novel. I wasn't expecting much; I'm not a fan of fairy stories or YA, and it is the writer's first book. I see first books like first loves, always earnest but generally awkward. Well, silly me. The story is deceptively simple: in a Tolkienesque world where immortal Fae and humans exist together, a mortal portrait artist makes the mistake of painting a Fae prince with human emotion on his face. The results get her dragged off by him to the Fae world to stand trial (evidently making a fairy appear mortal is an unforgiveable sin.) Along the way the Fae prince falls in love with the artist, and both become targets of a hidden enemy. Every writer who reads this novel will notice a few things: brilliant writing tops the list. The author has a naturally beautiful storytelling voice, and uses words like DaVinci used

My fingers are pretty sore from all the needlework I did on the crazy quilt project, so I'm going to take a short break from quilting. I have this lovely pile of recycled and vintage linen waiting for me when I decide I'm ready to start a lap quilt. I also picked up a couple of hand-dyed fabric bundles so I can do some smaller slow stitch projects: I have a thing for moire satin, and I thought the peachy color of the vintage yardage I bought (on the bottom) would go nicely with this green and apricot bundle. I don't know what I'm going to do with this bundle. It came with about a yard of burlap, but I'm saving that for something else. Maybe I'll turn it into some mini art quilts for my journal.

I finished the last of the embroidery and embellishments on my crazy quilt tote, which came out better than expected. After that I sewed the sides together and lined the inside with a pretty Asian cotton print from Kona. Here's the final result: I like the effect of the vintage brooches on both sides of the tote. I thought it might be too much to have two, but instead it makes it look special from both sides, so there isn't a back or front to this one. I've never before added faux fur to a quilted piece, so that was a bit of a learning experience. Still, the fuzzies from edge fraying were pretty minimal, thanks to some careful basting. I also like how it feels and looks with the fresh water pearls. It took awhile to get this done, but it feels nice to complete this as my first art quilting project started in 2021.

Over the weekend I quilted the final tricky patch on my crazy quilt tote project; a hand-dyed swatch of heavy amethyst silk satin. Instead of fluttering like the habotai fabric this silk satin slithers around as if it's trying to avoid the needle. Once again I taped down the fabric to keep it from moving while I worked and went with a grid quilting stitch in light gold holographic Sulky. I wanted the dye pattern to show through the stitching, and I think that worked well. I placed a second vintage brooch I bought in the center of the patch, and embellished the gold lace edging at the top with violet crystal montees in two sizes. If all goes well I might have the stitching on this project finished tonight.

I found a reliable seller of authentic overseas DVDs -- knockoffs are a real problem when you're shopping for these -- so I'm investing in some kdrama series I haven't been able to find anywhere else that feature three of my favorite Korean actors. On the left, What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? , a romantic comedy-drama that features a hilarious office romance between a narcissistic boss (Park Seo-joon) and his patient secretary (Park Min-young). On the right, Healer , an action thriller with Ji Chang-wook playing the title role of a secretive night courier/fighter and Park Min-young as an endangered journalist. This should keep me busy for the next couple months. One of the pleasures of watching series in a foreign language with English subtitles is that my bad hearing doesn't factor in, and I'm actually picking up a lot about Korean culture to help with writing the NA series. :)

I finished embellishing the habotai silk patch on my crazy quilted project last night. I didn't tear it, either, which was a big relief. About 3/4 of the way done now. I have oe more tricky patch to tackle, and then I can finish up and turn this into a bag.

My mother loved candy, especially chocolate in any form, and one of her favorites were Ice Cubes by Moritz. These German candies are very strange; the chocolate has a hazelnut flavoring, and starts melting the moment you touch the candy. They also taste cool without any mint flavoring at all. When I was a girl I'd beg some change from my grandmother and buy a little bag of them for Mom for Mother's Day or her birthday. I've kept an eye out for Ice Cubes for years, but I've never seen these for sale anywhere since I was a child. Because they're made with sugar and Mom was an insulin-dependent diabetic I couldn't give a bunch of them to her, but I would have bought her a few just to give her that sweet memory. Yesterday we had our first sit-down dinner inside a restaurant in over a year, and when I came out I saw a little pack of Ice Cubes by the register. I bought them and tried one tonight. I don't use sugar so it was a bit too sweet for me, but t

I'm working on the one patch on my crazy quilt tote that worried me. The foundation is hand dyed habotai silk, which is so thin and fragile it's like a ghost fabric. It moves if you breathe on it, and it can tear with one wrong move of the needle. Despite all that I love this fabric; nothing else has such a lustrous sheen to it. I kept the quilting simple, and taped down the fabric as I did the starburst stitching in lavender holographic Sulky. Now I'm adding a lace fan applique and some beading on top of it. So far so good.

The farm where we like to buy produce from local growers is open to the public again, so we made a trip over there yesterday to pick up a bag of fresh corn and some greens. My first thought when I spied this tomato plant was "Do I look like that in the morning?" (Minus the tomatoes, probably.) Watermelon season has begun. With a vengeance. It always awes me a little to see the farm's harvest in person. It takes me two or three days to use up just one of our homegrown cucumbers. Picking them also acquainted me with how sticky and unpleasant cucumber plants can be. What would you do with a truck filled with them? Ha.

I've finished one side of the crazy quilt tote, which is turning out better than I expected. Now I have to tackle the other side: Violet and gold were good choices for this project. It's starting to feel very royal. :)

I'm going to start a new journal, one that has prompts and questions to guide the entries. I keep a journal every day, but all I've been writing in it is my daily diet notes and stuff for work. I think I'm avoiding writing anything personal lately because of all the sadness over losing my mom and the stress of saying farewell to my favorite person as she moves across the country for her new job. I know it's better to get those feelings out on the page, but other than what I've written on the blog I'm not quite ready. When I was a teenager I kept poetry and prose journals, which were fun. Now I'm thinking about writing a story entirely in longhand, too. Computers are so much more efficient and convenient, but there's something about hand writing a story that no technology can match. Image by Pexels from Pixabay

I like using vintage brooches for my crazy quilt projects. My grandmother always wore one when she got dressed up, so they remind me of her. This is the rose brooch I bought for the golden silk patch, and here's how it turned out after I finished the cross hatch stitching: I also have another one that's a gold and pearl floral spray to add to the other side of the bag, although I'm still debating where to place it: I'm about halfway done with this project now, but I have a lot going on with work, so it will probably take at least another week or two to finish.

Three couples participate in video interviews about their love life while their real relationships play out at the same time, which makes the k-drama Lovestruck in the City fun and very funny. The most modern romantic series I've seen thus far ( Because This is My First Life now takes second place), it also features a wonderful cast and highly addictive storylines. All six characters have compelling stories, but the one that will grab your heart is that of Architect Park Jae-won (Ji Chang-wook), who takes a month off from work to go surfing. While on this vacation he meets and falls for the bewitching Yoon Seon-a (Kim Ji-won), a feisty and seemingly fearless woman who completely steals his heart. They get so close they even pretend to get married. When Jae-won has to go back to the city for a work emergency Seon-a promises to meet him again -- and then disappears. Jae-won then starts to fall apart as he tries to find the woman he loves -- who doesn't actually exist.

I submitted book one of my NA series for professional review and consideration, and in return I was praised for the work and provided with excellent feedback. Now I have some changes to contemplate, and decisions to make about the future. I have a couple of different directions to take, which makes the deciding part a challenge. At times like these I wish I had a crystal ball so I could see the outcome of every choice. Wouldn't life be easier if we could do that? Image by Matthias Böckel from Pixabay

Last night I was waiting for my family to come home from a long road trip. The weather between us was stormy, and I knew they would be late, so I got out my latest quilting project. Stitching helps me find calm when I'm stressed. I didn't know what I was going to do with this patch, which is often the case when I embellish. I simply picked some beads and a vintage button I liked, and some ombre embroidery thread I thought would look good against the dark velvet. From there I went to work. Very often my worries circle around me, which inspired the feather stitching around the button. The shell beads and golden leaf trim around the patch slowly became a pretty frame. As I stitched I focused on the hand work and the colors, and gradually relaxed. Just as I was finishing up the patch my crew arrived safely at home, which was the best part of the night.

Bad Guys is a korean mystery/thriller series that works off this premise: what would happen if you took a disgraced, almost deranged police detective and put him in charge of a team made up of an assassin, a gangster and a psycopath in order to solve a serial murder case? That's the story in the beginning, but this series goes from there to a lot of other dark places. After the murder of his daughter, Detective Oh Gu-tak (Kim Sang-joon) follows a downward professional and personal spiral into ruin, at least until his old boss comes and asks him to head up a team in order to hunt and stop a prolific killer. Gu-tak demands three members for his team, all seriously dangerous prisoners who are offered reduced sentences in return for their help. When they agree, the convicted bad guys -- gangster Pak Un-cheol (Ma Dong-seok), hitman Jung Tae-soo (Jo dong-hyuk) and brilliant psycopath Lee Jung-moon (Park Hae-jin) -- are all given ankle bracelet trackers and two are briefed on

It's so much fun to go out in the morning to see what's ready to pick in the garden.

Some pics from when my family and I worked together to plant the grapefruit tree I bought to honor my mom for Mother's Day. This was my idea, but I couldn't have done it without them. I thought I would cry for my mother, but instead I was reminded of how lucky I am to have people who love me and want to make my wishes come true. I'll think of that everytime I look at this tree.

I posted last week about my next sewing project, which will be a crazy-quilted gift bag using the silk and velvet fabrics I showed you. To begin this I took apart a plain canvas tote bag by the side seams so that it can serve as my foundation. I then added a layer of batting on the top (I use scraps from other projects for this) and arrange and baste down the fabrics atop the batting. I sometimes use my sewing machine for putting the fabrics in place, but since I'm working with some very delicate silk pieces I did the basting by hand. I have yet to make a full size crazy quilt, which I've always wanted to do. I don't have the confidence yet to try, but little projects like this bag give me a chance to practice.

Dear Mom, This is the first year I won't be able to wish you a Happy Mother's Day, so instead I'm planting a tree for you today. It's a white grapefruit, just like the one we had in the back yard when I was a little girl. You always asked me to pick the fruit from the very top branches because I was the best tree climber in the family, and I knew how to avoid the thorns. That is true of our relationship, too. I know I disappointed you because I never became the person you wanted me to be. I'm sorry for that, but I'm glad that I learned from it. It taught me not only to cherish the people I love, but also to treat them with respect. I wish you and I could have had that, but I have no regrets. You couldn't pick your daughter anymore than I could pick my mother. I also think we both tried to be good to each other despite our differences. I don't know where you are now, but I'm hoping you're with Dad, and at peace. That is all I wish fo

My guy and I went today to find the tree to plant on Sunday as a remembrance of my mom. I usually plant a trees on the birthday of someone I've lost, but Mom's isn't until November. I also wanted to do something for her on Mother's Day. When I was little we had a grapefruit tree in our back yard, so I decided to get one for Mom. While we were picking it out my guy decided to get an orange tree, too, so the grapefruit would have some company. My dad loved oranges so that's going to be his tree. The orange tree had two little fruits on it, which we didn't realize until we got it home. A good omen, I think.