The Brain and the Vacuum Cleaner

This is a very cute picture of Terry, but not a very good picture of his brain.  You can't really see all the convolutions.  Or that is has two halves.
This is my cute little vacuum, plugged in because I occasionally have to jump up and use it.  

There you go, Dave.  

Christmas photos

Well, the only cookies we managed to make were the cookie press. That is, if you don't count the cinnamon trees that didn't mention the flour in the recipe and got et before Christmas, and the pistachio and cranberry ice box cookies that no one really likes.

We made some colored sugar to decorate them this year, and the sugar was like little jewels.




For dinner on Christmas eve, I made a buncha hors d'oeuvres. We ate some of this. There were crackers with lunch meat and cheese, more cheese cubes and a variety of different crackers, salsa and homemade guacamole with chips and hummus and baba ganoush with pita triangles. And grape juice. And grapes, too, for that matter.   And some pistachios.

This is a new table cloth.  It used to be a sarong, but I ripped the seam open.

This is the tray with the corned beef.  I'm not very good at decorating crackers for snacks like this, it took a while before I got creative with the tiny cookie cutters.

Here is the German apple pancake before it deflated.  Usually I make this in a saute pan in the oven, but none of my pans fit in my little oven, so I used this cake pan.  I was afraid it was going to overflow, but it didn't.

Here are some of the present pictures.
Glory with her Uke and baby penguin.
This purse was made by some micro enterprise somewhere in SE Asia.
Here are the stainless chopsticks Terry got.

Blogger is being poopy, so I'll try to post more pix later.

Your Request is Granted

Jolly Jolly Hallway

White woodwork on the ceiling to follow.

The bench gets it own pillow and painting. All this just to 'hide' the cable box and all those wires. Grrrr.

This painting is temporary. Even tho it works kinda, I think there will be something else there in the weeks to come, maybe a series of paintings until the right one is done.
Please post the Brain and your vacuum cleaner, a request from Dave, vacuum cleaner collector.

First the mess I have to clean up...

Kitchen, studio and the poor dumping ground, the guest room. Oy! Then...it's

The Patchworkshop Setup

The top on the right is actually hand and machine quilted, but not made into a pillow yet.

I mean...REALLY! What was I thinking?

It's that damn Malka influence. She uses prints but not as many or as busy. Hmmm.

A Better Idea


I had planned to make the seat covers from this watermelon-y red linen, but remembered this Marimekko I had stashed away in the archives. It will be much more fun and will look good against the orange or the turquoise, or on the porch. It seems that I made that quilt just as an exercise in getting the colors into the room and our brains.

The dining room taken with a flash. And then the other side without the flash. Bright enough???

The rest of my room. I put the other pieces on the farther side of the room so I could have a space for the 'office' part and a nice open area for the chair that I watch tv on. All are clickable.

Recipe

I have to write this down before I forget. It was soooo good. And, you might want to make it yourself.

Pasta with Chicken, Zucchini and Lemon Thyme Cream

Pound 2 chicken breasts with meat tenderizer until they are 1/4 inch thickness. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pan fry in a little olive oil until nicely browned on both sides. Add 1/4 cup white wine and let it cook down to a brown syrup. Remove chicken from pan and keep warm. Add another 1/4 cup white wine to pan, stir to incorporate chicken drippings and remove from heat.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in boiling water.

Cut 1 medium zucchini into matchsticks. Add to pan the chicken was cooked in and put on low heat.

Drain pasta and pour 1/3 cup heavy cream into pot. Add 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme leaves and 1 teaspoon lemon zest. Grind some black pepper into cream. Return pasta to pot and toss in cream.

Cut chicken into paper thin slices. Spread pasta on platter, place chicken on top, and layer with zucchini. Sprinkle with more lemon zest, some whole thyme leaves, and shaved parmesan cheese.

I was so hungry I couldn't make this fast enough, and then I gobbled it up. The lemon and thyme flavors are very subtle and the zucchini was the best I've ever had with the chicken drippings and wine flavoring. Wow, it was so good.


I'm going to start labeling our posts so we can find stuff later. How about calling this one food?

Before the paint version

I took this shot before I loaded up the IKEA thing. Note the beige area carpet. That came with the house. We had it in the garage. I may not be using it in the future when Pops goes.

One of several tablecloths I have for a round table. This wood table came from Pier One, and is the dullest wood color, no shine at all.

The look of Christmas, with the ceiling lights off.

You can't see all the wires coming out of the wall for the cable box. The quilt artfully hides them.

Tree Decorating and Cleaning...

These are all pictures that I would not be allowed to post on my normal blog, as Glory is in her nightgown.  So, here is our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  Funny, the ficus doesn't have very strong branches, so hanging ornaments on them was  a little scary.  But the really heavy ornaments went onto the little pink Christmas tree I bought last year.  

Well, I tried to upload the little video I made of Terry washing the tree in the bathroom, but blogger failed me.  Oh well.  Never mind.

The Chair Makeover

I hated the zebra striped velvet on the seat, but not because of the color, but because it was not easy to shift around in the chair. The fabric put a brake on movement. I needed slippery-er fabric for the seat covers. So I got some Royal purple satin ($5 a yard) and stapled the new seats today. I had planned on doing something to cushion the backs and never could come up with a plan. Then I looked through some Mary Englebreit Magazines and one idea seemed to work for me. I of course changed even that idea, and put heavy batting in the the back panel.

This is the upside down view of how this is kept in place. A small placket with real small buttons and button holes. The other buttons are both front and back on the back padding. All mother of pearl.

I have one more day alone until Dave returns. He needs to be here. He cramped in IKEA today with his sister. 30 minutes of being down on the floor. Oy.

Finished the first stage of quilting. I did bind it and will eventually hand quilt the looser areas, which are sagging a bit here. On the left the orange area shows the lack of quilting. I think hand work will be done while watching tv in the future. But I wanted to get onto the next project tomorrow, covering the dining room chairs and making the chair backs too. This week has gone by so fast!

I am showing you the backing fabric which is hand dyed, in multicolors including turq and blues and purples and greens. Old old old fabric but just the right thing for this piece. It turned out that I added a bit more of a border on the right side this morning before I quilted it. Finished size 54x58"

53x59" before quilting. No title yet.

I got this outta the garage and will repaint some sections in the new colorways planned for the living room. Like adding lime greens and more orange. Much more orange.

Getting Organized

This room has been up for grabs for weeks, since you left in fact. But I couldn't stand it anymore and started putting it back in place. This is the new assortment of teapot-y things arranged by color.

OK so there is still paint stuff under the staircase, but the dining room table is set for our anniversary dinner, the first of many December special dinners.

Yes that is Mom's gold flatware that I dragged out for this setting. Gold (plastic) chargers make it a fancier setting.

The stairs look so much better now that the bolt holes have been covered and painted. What one doesn't immediately realize is that Dave caulked every crack or gap and it looks NON-rustic now. That wall furnace is going! And then the shelf unit will return to under the staircase.

Preview of what I did after cleaning up the living room and kitchen. Just fooling around. At the end of the day I realized I am still making stuff for my bedroom, which I DON'T NEED. This will change today. I will make stripsets from the blues, purples and darker greens to go with all this warm stuff.

Yes, prints and sewn strips make up this composition. What a looooonnnngggg time it takes to put this all together. But if it is going to end up being washable pillow covers and throw quilt, it has to be washable.