How is it Wednesday already?! A report on creativity + yarn along!

It is amazing how much can be packed into a few weeks!

Since my last yarn along post in July, 

lots of creativity, makes and reading has happened!

I am steadily making more wash clothes on the knitting front!

Perfect and easy for summer and dealing with the heat! 

I am still reading The Wilderness Journal:365 Days with the Philokalia, picked up 

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing 

after a long while...am starting over as it had gotten put on a shelf and forgotten

in the business of a lot of days and seasons. 

That said, I do enjoy it and find it well written.  

I am still reading this book of letters, slowly.

***

Another creative endeavour of mine is that I started a foodie/culinary blog

All the Ribbons in mid-July ... to write about the foods newly discovered

or loved for a long time!

 I grilled beef skewers and made a peanut sauce satay for the first time

and created a very satisfying Asian noodle dish from this.

I also made a strawberry lemon cake that I am still tweaking!

I got the letters of Flannery O'Connor and Caroline Gordon recently

and have begun reading this...very enlightening...!

I created a lovely simple beef stroganoff and blogged about it on All the Ribbons,

it was so good and comforting.  

I made it the week (and actually the morning of the day that)

my Husband's Uncle Hank went to be with our Lord Jesus Christ, 

after an unexpected fall that left him unconscious and in hospital...

I am working on an essay on how creating this meal helped me

process this loss... I hope to publish it in next weeks on my 

food blog (and will let you know on this blog when I do)...

That day I also made super delicious perfectly salted cream biscuits

that I have blogged about here.

***

I really enjoyed reading and have finished Luisa Weiss' My Berlin Kitchen.

 I baked a delicious plum torte that day as well... 

I am planning on writing on this as well on my All the Ribbons blog :)

I have enjoyed immensely reading this small facsimile of an 1800 cookery book

that a dear friend sent me! 

In the creative culinary realm I also baked a lemon crinkle cookie 

that really has an old soul - from a stash of handwritten recipes

found in our dear friend +Patrick's house that we helped

organize after he joined his Lord and Saviour who he loved so much.... 

I wrote about this recipe here and recommend it as a

wonderful lemony tender crumbed cookie that keeps you wanting more!

Last on the culinary creative front, I baked Maryland fried chicken on 

Sunday and the leftovers of this have proven to be perfect,

reheated in the toaster oven!

I had a momentous journey to Philadelphia last Friday,

I think it will be one of the significant days of 2019 for me.

This Psalter (book of Psalms) was a real blessing to me 

on this morning of the train ride! 

***

On the fabric side of creative endeavours, I have made a lot of progress

on my goddaughter's quilt this past Monday!

With a friend's help I stitched together the back fabric 

as well as the batting, which was in 2 pieces. 

This quilt is finally ready for quilting!

I've been working on it since 2015

This picture (above) is the back fabric, the quilt

is all folded up, ready to be quilted later ... I am hoping to get to it

next week! 

I am really pleased with how it has turned out!

I am planning on quilting it in the lines that are already in this quilt,

it's called "stitch in the ditch" and I think will be the best way to 

quilt this one, as I am still new to quilting, this being

my second quilt and I hope my first really good one!

***

I also finished reading (well listening to!) this book,

it was really good!

This book, The Forgotten Sisters, is the third book in this series.

I was impressed with these books and highly recommend them!

***

It is such a blessing to work on various art forms!

From Knitting, Cooking, Baking, Quilting ... to enjoying the 

art form of writing and dramatic reading... 

Speaking of reading out loud, I am still reading

Tolkien's Letters out loud to Mr Husband most nights 

and it is a very enjoyable moment in our often busy days!

***

What are you creating and reading?  

You are most welcome to Yarn-Along with us! 

Saturday, looking towards next week

As promised, I wrote up the recipe and how GOOD these cookies are 

on my All the Ribbons blog earlier today!

They have this wonderful understated lemony tang,

the sweetness of the cookie is blissfully understated and the balance of 

flavours is lovely.  The cookie is soft, tender, chewy but crisp enough

that it clatters perfectly on the plate when serving the cookies.

I call it a cookie with an old soul, one that feels linked to the generations

before who have baked this cookie from Patrick's stash of recipes

handwritten on index cards.

For more, please read my blog post:

Lemon Crinkle Cookies!

I can't wait to have more of them tomorrow,

they are the understated type of cookie that wows you more mid-bite than immediately

but that you find yourself thinking about later, and wishing for another,

and then another.... 

 Breakfast was indeed decadent.

First the lemon crinkle cookies,

then a lovely biscuit with jam,

then a bit of the plum torte. 

(I still mean to blog this plum torte!)

Lunch was beef stroganoff, biscuits and sides of fruit salad and a green salad.

As you can see, I had a third lemon crinkle cookie with my fruit salad.... so good!

I walked by our laundry room and who did I see? Silly Cleo! :)

Finished my doughnut today too.

Pretty but I have had better...

We were really blessed to share vespers with friends from our other (far-away) church tonight

and go out to dinner with them.

It was a blessing to be with friends.

Also a blessing to have so much good food to eat.

***

We were not able to be in Michigan for Uncle Hank's funeral, which was today.

Three family members took pictures of the flowers we sent.

I am really sad we were not able to be there.

As my Mom would say,

It is what it is. 

***

So.  I am officially in countdown mode. 

Next Friday I go to Philly for the eye appointment that 

could take up to FIVE hours. 

I am going to need to leave the house before 8 AM.

My appointment is at 11:30 but I need to give myself a bit of

leeway for unexpected things, which from what my friend who lives in Philly

has told me, I will need. 

I will be lucky if I am home by 8 PM or so.

So I am planning my food, drink (including tea), snacks, 

knitting, book/s to ready, headphones to take, cell phone

battery to re-charge my phone, writing (paper, pens), prayer rope...

not to mention my medical papers/research, folders, notebook...and 

lots and lots of eye drops...

Mr Husband is not going with but he is only a phone call/email/text/chat away.

The trains there + uber are not hard.  

It's more that it will be 1) a long day 2) eye appointments of this nature and tests I find

difficult, I often feel overwhelmed and afraid... but who would not be if there 

is a possibility of severe vision loss?  Or even not fully severe (i.e. blindness) but totally unknown.

I keep clinging to 2 things: 1. God 2. No one that we know of in my family lines

has gone blind.  Of course I don't think we know more than 4 generations back but STILL.

It's really something to hold on to, based on what I know and what my

 friends and research show. 

***

Well.  That's about all for me.

I could use another cookie...

***

May God bless, help and save us!