Domesticity Overload

I stopped by the quilt stores and Joanns yesterday and this was my haul:

One of the quilt stores had that little stack of two dozen 2” squares of wool felt that will be perfect for a wool penny sampler. I had a Joanns coupon, so I bought more perle cotton. And I picked up a spool of Aurifil thread because I might quilt one of my tops this weekend. (I have plenty of 40wt thread for the top of the quilt, but I like to use 50wt in the bobbin and I didn’t have any to match the backing of the top I’m thinking of quilting.)

I’ve got several nice chunks of 100% linen and 50/50 linen/cotton yardage in the stash. I’ll pull one of those out and use it for the backing of the wool penny sampler.

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We were running low on red beans, so I soaked some overnight and ran a canner load of 14 pints yesterday morning:

We eat a lot of beans and canning them myself is ridiculously easy and healthier, too, because I buy organic ones at the health food store. I need to remember to update my canning journal.

I baked chocolate chip cookies yesterday. (I know, that doesn’t happen very often.) I picked up my friend Ali’s little guy from preschool (she had to be in Missoula yesterday and his dad was out of town) and he likes to bake, so I thought it would be fun. I used a recipe from this book:

My mother gave me this book when DD#1 was a toddler and we made a lot of cookies from it. The recipe I chose called for Crisco—I don’t normally use that but I had some in the fridge left over from Christmas—and sour cream. The cookies turned out nice and soft. My helper was lured away by a YouTube truck video. (They don’t have a TV, so it’s a treat for him to come over here and watch heavy equipment videos.) He had a cookie after dinner, though, and said they were good. The husband had more than one. I licked the beaters.

Cathy’s cow had her calf yesterday. It was interesting that she waited a week past her due date to deliver, so she missed the worst of the bitter cold. Do cows know these things? She was also able to deliver in Cathy’s new barn instead of outside.

Kristin Nicholas, who is a fairly well-known knitting designer/fiber artist, wrote a scary blog post yesterday. Her 1974 Bernina 830 Record sewing machine caught fire and almost burned their house down. My friend Susan has this same machine, so I’ll let her know, although I think she is pretty good about unplugging it when she’s not using it. (Kristin also does some amazing things with embroidery.)

Two 50’ steel beams were delivered yesterday. They are going to sit on top of the two storage containers to support the shop roof trusses. I’ll have pictures of that whole process later this week.