Rayen

Korean TV dramas generally depict poor girls falling for rich men; the kdrama Encounter flips that with an ordinary, free-spirited guy falling for a wealthy older woman when they meet by chance in an exotic place. Together the lead actors make one of the most heart-breaking romantic couples I've ever seen in a series, which is probably why Encounter was so successful. The unusual story starts off when rich hotel CEO Cha Soo-hyeong (Song Hye-kyo) travels to Cuba to sign a contract to build a hotel there, and crosses the path of vacationing fruit seller Kim Jin-hyuk (Park Bo-gum). She's in an accident that damages his beloved vintage camera, and later he prevents her from taking a bad fall when she passes out. The two then spend a wonderful romantic evening together eating, drinking and even dancing. They plan to meet again the next day, but circumstances prevent that, and the two have to go their separate ways. Back in Korea Jin-hyuk learns he's landed a job at Don...

Our new puppies have moved in with us at last. This is Beau, our sable Shetland Sheepdog. He was the largest pup in his litter, and the most playful. Shadow is a tri-color Shetland Sheepdog, although he's mostly black and white like his sire (which also makes him hard to photograph.) He was the runt of the litter, and the sweetest. He stays behind his big brother, like a little shadow. The pups are eating and playing well, and Beau is already barking. Shadow is still a bit skittish, but he's warming up to me. After eight months with no dogs in our home, we're pretty happy.

I'm going to take a break from quilting for a day or two to think about what to do as my last project for the summer. I have this double wedding ring lap quilt top, and I've already prewashed the backing fabric; the colors are soothing and I love the pattern. Even after making the big art quilt I still want to do more improv and slow stitch, and I have these two bundles of inspiration. I might do a couple of small art pieces with these before I begin the lap quilt.

I finished binding the vintage patchwork runner last night, so the piece is finished. I went with a light gray binding, which seemed to go best with the top and bottom strip colors. Working on this project reminded me to remember the past, and honor it whenever I can. It's very much the original maker's vision, but I was able to add a little of mine own without distracting from that. It's a practical piece, too. I have this long dividing wall between my kitchen and front room, and everyone puts drinks and other things on top of it. The runner is like a really big, long coaster. Very happy I completed what this maker started.

To read part three of Nagusame , the story I'm publishing online for my visitors, click here .

Meet Beau, one of the two Shetland Sheepdog puppies we've just adopted. Beau is a sable Sheltie, very active and playful, and gorgeous. This is his brother, Shadow, who is a mostly-black tri-color Sheltie. He's the runt of the litter, and very quiet and sweet, and since I instantly fell in love with him we decided to adopt him as well. The backstory: last year both of our elderly dogs passed away. I always stay with our pups and hold them in the end so they know they are loved as they leave us. Since we lost them only a month apart it was especially hard on me to go through it twice in such a short time. That's why we waited until this year to start looking for a new dog to adopt. The pandemic has made it extremely difficult to find puppies to adopt. All of the humane society shelters in our area never have any, or adopt them out the same day they take them in. We prefer Shetland Sheepdogs, as that's the breed we're most familiar with, but we also a...

I finished all the hand quilting on the patchwork runner, so my last task before binding it was to embroider the words Lake House on the center panel. I chose this text because it's the title of my favorite movie (I like both the English and Korean versions, too), and it suited the original maker's composition. I took my printout of the text and used a knife to cut the letters to serve as a tracing template. I do this on card stock when I plan to reuse the template, but since this was a one-time-only deal I just used the bond paper printout. For the embroidery I picked a size 5 perle cotton variegated thread with green, blue and brown colors that went best with the patchwork, and then got out my disappearing ink marker to trace the lettering. Since bond paper is flimsy I pinned the template to the quilt and went very slowly with the marker. Once I had my words traced I started to back-stitch the letters. It came out better than I expected, so I'm happy...

I love sea scallops, but I hate how much they cost at restaurants. That's why I learned to make them how I like. They are not cheap, but every couple of months they go on sale at our market, and that's when I treat myself to half a pound. To cook them I started with a frying pan and a very thin drizzle of olive oil on medium high heat; when the pan is good and hot I add the rinsed scallops, two chopped scallions, a tiny sprinkle of creole seasoning and a few drops of lemon juice. With scallops less is always better. Once I sear the scallops on both sides (this takes about a minute to a minute and a half) I deglaze the pan with a splash of water. You can also use some wine to do the deglazing if you want to go fancy; just stay away from sweet wines -- a flinty Chardonnay is better. Serve immediately with whatever side dish you like. Pasta works, but rice is my favorite.

Reinvention ~ Sewing with Rescued Materials by Maya Donenfeld appealed to me because using vintage and recycled materials has been my creative goal for the last several years. After watching a documentary about the enormous problem fast fashion causes with textile manufacturing and waste I thought about how I could change my ways as a quilter. Since then I've tried to mainly buy vintage or recycled fabric, and use up 99% of my scraps rather than discard them. I was happy with this book from the moment it arrived, as it's spiral-bound so it lays flat, and offers 28 different sewing projects using a variety of recycled materials. The projects are also interesting and different from what I've seen in other books on this topic. The projects are elegantly simple, and most seem fairly easy to make. If you're new to sewing or printing on fabric, there are chapters on both with good instructions in the beginning of the book. Of special interest to me is a sectio...

What: Mysterious Love (他在逆光中告白) Who: Tsao Yu Ning, Yilia Yu, Wu Hao Ze and Leslie Ma. Where: Viki.com Why: I saw a beautiful fanmade video (since then it's been made private) about the romance in this series on Youtube, so when it became available on my streaming site I started watching. Really interesting romance drama with some comedy, very intense at points.

Although each episode of Kiss Goblin are only about 12 minutes in length, this supernatural kdrama romance packs a suprising amount of story into every scene. It's also charming and funny, and I thought just about perfect for a sweet romance. A 160-year-old forest goblin, Ban Sook (Bae In Hyuk) wants to become human. To do that, the Goblin Queen (Lee Jung Min) tells him he must kiss ten humans and absorb and learn an emotion from each of them, something no goblin has ever been able to do. It's also dangerous, as there are exorcists in our world who hunt goblins to protect humanity from them. Because he doesn't want to be alone forever Ban Sook takes on the impossible task anyway, and comes into the human world to get started. While kissing his first two targets he's seen by jaded college student Oh Yeon Ah (Jae Hye Won), who goes after him for being a two-timer and discovers he's not human. After stopping an exorcist from killing the goblin she then deci...

For me the best part of any creative sewing project is the hands-on meditative stage. I think that's why I love the quilting so much. It might seem tedious, but the quiet of hand work helps ground me and lift me at the same time. I am never more myself than when I quilt.

I chose the estate sale runner as my next quilting project, and sewed on one strip at the top to give a little more balance to it. I decided against adding any more fabric; the original work is lovely just as it is. I'm also mindful that someone else sewed this piece, and I like to honor the maker's intentions. I batted the piece with low-loft batting, and backed it with a piece of scrap muslin. I have to work on it sideways because the piece is so long. First I'm going to outline stitch around the patchwork with metallic thread, and then decide if I want to do any embroidery.

Avoiding sugar in my diet always limits my beverage choices, and I usually opt for ice water during the summer. I recently discovered Spindrift, a brand of sparkling water flavored with real fruit juice. It has 4 calories, and only 1 gm of carbs, so it's perfect for me. The lemon and the lime flavors taste good, too, very slightly sweet but not overpowering. I'd recommend it for people who are dieting, diabetic or otherwise trying to avoid sugar.

This is one of the spots where my favorite person now works. She spends at least one day every week driving to different places to collect samples to take back to her lab for testing. This is a shot of the lab where she works. She's an environmental scientist, so everything she does looks super exotic to me.

Rainy season reminds me to be still and breathe.

I love bean soup, but with my favorite person gone I haven't made it because there is no recipe for a one- or two-serving meal. I miss it, though, so I decided to make a big pot and freeze what I couldn't eat. I make an evolved version of my mom's vegetable bean soup; This recipe is pretty close to what I do. Mine is basically a large package of Hearst Has-Beans 15 beans soup, lemon juice, diced onion, diced celery, diced potato, a medium can of tomato sauce and a small can of shoepeg corn. I simmer the beans by themselves for an hour, drain the pot (discarding the water also gets rid of what causes gas), add in ten cups of new water and all the other ingredients, and cook on a very low heat for six hours. Also I don't use the seasoning packet that comes with the beans but throw in my own herbs, usually thyme, rosemary and some black pepper. If you have an Insta-Pot you can probably make it a lot faster. The end result is very filling, freezes well and is q...

I actually subscribed to an Asian video streaming service so I could watch the k-drama Doom at Your Service , which I will never regret because they have hundreds of Korean drama series on their site; far more than Netflix. I also took my time watching this series because it was so sad, lovely, thought-provoking and essentially wonderful. The drama starts with a bang, as a young web novel editor, Tak Dong-Kyeong (Park Bo-young), learns that she's dying from an aggressive brain tumor, which will be causing her more and more pain and impairment as it grows. If she does nothing about the tumor she has only three months to live; if she has a dangerous surgery she live for maybe a year but with significant, permanent impairments. If this wasn't enough for Dong-Kyeong to handle, on the same day she has an ugly run-in with her boss at work, her younger wastrel brother again tries to wheedle money from her, and and she finds out that her boyfriend is married from his pregnant wi...

For my next quilting project I'd like to do something simple and practical. I picked up backing fabric for this double wedding ring lap quilt top, so that's one option. I need a summery runner for the sink backsplash wall in my kitchen, and I think I can put one together with these estate sale patchwork pieces. I'm leaning toward the runner because it's a smaller project. Sometimes smaller is better. But I really want to make the lap quilt, too. Argh.

To read part two of Nagusame , the story I'm publishing online for my visitors, click here .

To finish my summer art quilt I used the vintage moire satin to make the binding, and sewed that on. It frayed a bit, and the thickness of the layers at the corners gave me a little grief, but I didn't worry about that. This slow-stitched project was about doing, not worrying. This was my third large slow-stitched art quilt, and it taught me a lot. Embracing the fray would be at the top of that list. Allowing myself to dream while embroidering was another valuable lesson. Being able to let go and just stitch helped me relax and work on my mindset to find calm during a fairly busy, chaotic time this year. I'm also happy that nearly every material I used for the project was either vintage or recycled. I'm going with Summer Dreams as the name for the quilt because that's what it gave me. Here's the finished quilt: Now to take a short break, and then onto the next project. :)

I finished quilting the last two panels on my summer art quilt. I added two peach Swarovski pearls to the twine embellishment on this one. Deciding how to quilt it was making me confused, so I went back to keeping a don't-overthink-it attitude and just did what felt right. Tonight I'll make the binding out of the vintage moire satin and start sewing that on. Stay tuned to see the finished piece.

Yesterday I harvested the scallions from our veggie garden, and while a little on the thin side they were nice and crisp. Scallions have a lighter, sweeter taste than most onions, so you can eat them raw in salads or other dishes. I used most of ours to make dak-kochi , which is one of the most popular street foods in Korea. After assembling the chicken and scallions on skewers I broiled them in the oven for about 15 minutes. Sue from My Korean Kitchen has a nice recipe for a grilled version with two kinds of sauces that I've also made in the past. If you don't want to make your own sauce you can use a bottled marinade like P.F. Chang's Teriyaki. A great light dinner for summer.