America - 250 Chart/Project

 Plum Street Samplers created this chart for a summer (2025) retreat project at The Attic in Mesa, AZ. Almost always, the retreat pieces are exclusive to attendees of the retreat for a year. Then, often they will be released for other stitchers to purchase.

With this project, mainly because of the sesquicentennial, every stitcher seemed to want that chart NOW. My understanding is that The Attic and Plum Street/Paulette Stewart decided it was a good idea to release it to the public since so many people wanted it in time to get it stitched by July 4, 2026. They graciously (VERY graciously!) agreed that The Attic would be able to sell it sometime after the first of this year. As soon as I heard that, I called and got on the list and my copy arrived a few weeks ago.

The called for linen is Smoky Quartz by Fiber on a Whim. I don't think I have that linen but I have a couple that are probably close.

The top piece isn't nearly as green as it looks. The cover photo for this piece looks like it's much lighter but when I look at Smoky Quartz online and found this and it looks more like my top piece of linen (plus that one is already on a frame and ready to start stitching!)

This one is 301 wide x 162 high and stitched area will be 15" x 8-1/2". It isn't huge but there's a lot of stitching on it.

It was going to take a lot of dedication to get this stitched and framed by July 4 BUT then look what Plum Street has coming out at market and should be going out to stitchers in mid March. A Worthy Patriot!

The first email I saw about A Worthy Patriot was a kit with linen, floss and the chart, or just the chart. I debated about getting the kit but, knowing how much linen I have, I decided finding something in my stash was a good choice. The called for linen is Coffee Stain by Cedar River Linen. Look what I found while searching for linen for America - 250.

It's sometimes takes a while to get linen from Cedar River so I was very happy to find that piece. Now I'm wondering if I should stitch both pieces on the same linen and make them more like a matching pair or, stitch them on different linens just for variety. Thoughts?

A Worthy Patriot is 191 wide x 280 high. On 40 count linen, the stitched area will be 9-1/2" x 14" so almost the exact same dimensions but one is longer and narrower and one is shorter and wider but just one inch in all directions. They will be a great matching pair.

My confidence is not very high that I will get both of these stitched, especially in time to have them framed, by July 4.

Dry Beans & Nutrition

 For the disclaimer . . I am not a nutritionist. I know nothing about medicine. I think humans should be able to live on Dr. Pepper! Don't believe anything I say!  :)  

Vince had blood work done recently and his iron level was low. I was shocked that it was recommended that he takes a children's gummy vitamin. He isn't going to do that! I checked the ingredient list and the first ingredient is glucose syrup. The second is sugar.  Farther down the list is palm oil. Yes, they do have a good bit of iron in them but I started looking to see which foods are high in iron. I wish that we had been taught more about nutrition in school. We've learned a lot in the past few years but I think back to how nice it would have been had we known 40 or more years ago what we know now and we still have a whole lot to learn.

We also struggle to get enough protein and have both been drinking a protein shake every day. I don't like any of the artificial sweeteners, nor do I like Stevia which is in so many of them. We found one at Natural Grocer that has no sweetener at all but it's about $40 and with both of us using it, we go through at least one, sometimes 1-1/2 containers of it each week. 

Tonight I was looking up foods rich in iron. Because of the oxalates in spinach, we try not to eat too much of that but another recommended foods is cannellini beans - most any beans really. We LOVE cannellini beans and buy 50 pounds of them from Azure, usually once a year.

As I was looking at the nutritional value in cannellini beans, mainly to check the iron they provide, I noticed the protein. I already knew beans were high in protein but it hit me . . why can't I make a protein shake using cannellini beans. When I can them, I don't add anything - no salt, no fat . . I could just dump a pint jar of beans in the blender, add bananas or blueberries or strawberries, milk or chocolate milk . . and have a smoothie with about the same protein I'm getting from some of the powdered mix, plus more iron and LESS money. And, I won't have to store those containers of protein powder!

Why didn't I think of this before now?

There are many recipes online for protein shakes using cannellini beans. We're going to try this one tomorrow.

I'll report back on what we think!

Valentine's Day Eve

NOTE: There are some Amazon links below. These are affiliate links which means if you order through them, I will get a very small commission. Please don't feel like you NEED to do that or that I expect it. Thanks!

This is really funny. I can remember my mom complaining because mom said that my grandma always talked about how busy she was and she didn't seem to do anything. Mom was a teacher, had the two of us kids and we were probably in middle or high school at the time so we probably did keep mom hopping. Now, I get ready to write this post and I'm probably about the age my grandma was at that time - and I'm thinking about how busy I was today. I felt like we didn't stop but then when I go to write what we did . . we weren't THAT busy.  :)

But, here's my "diary" entry for today.

Vince had told me earlier in the week that he wanted to take me out for Valentine's Day but he didn't want to go to Joplin on a Saturday. He said we could go anywhere I wanted to go. So, I said I wanted to go to Louisiana and eat crawfish. Nope, that was a bit too far.  :)  There aren't that many places in town that I like that he likes so I suggested Magic Noodle. I guess you would call it a Thai type place but I'm not even sure. There's a Mexican restaurant in town, very authentic, very nice people, that I went to with Jeremy and Angie before Vince moved here (2020) and I love it. Sometimes when Vince is gone, I'll go there and eat. Vince and I did go there once and I thought he said he didn't like it. But today he tells me that's not true. We were passing there on our way home and he said "We never go there". I said "I love that place but thought you didn't like it." Nope, he loves it too. OK . . Haven't been in 5 years but maybe we'll go there sometime.

I'm kinda getting out of order here . . Vince wanted to go to Michael's and get something and he had a 40% off coupon. It was on the app so I had it too but I only bought stuff that was already on sale. They had quite a bit of Christmas stuff for 70 or 75% off! I got some ribbon, a velvety feeling reindeer and a shaggy red 8 or 10" Christmas tree. I got a little fake green Christmas tree - about 8".  Mostly it was things I could put with my Christmas cross stitched small pillows.

Then Vince wanted new coffee cups so he went to T. J. Maxx, didn't find them there; went to Target and found a couple there. I didn't get anything at either place. In fact, I stayed in the car at Target.

Then we went to eat. Magic Noodle used to be my favorite place but the last few times, it wasn't so great and I doubt we go back. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't great.

From there, we went to Walmart. Vince needed something. I stayed in the car again. My knee is fairly ok but definitely not perfect. I try to stay off it as much as I can so I don't ever mind staying in the car while he goes in and shops. From Walmart, we went home. Said we weren't leaving again probably til Tuesday. Yay!

A while back, on the old blog no doubt, I had mentioned that I was folding linen and wrapping it around comic book board and securing the linen with alligator clips. I use the 2.2" clear ones with teeth. Then I stand the linen up, kinda on its side standing up so when I open the bins, I'm looking down at the folded edge and I can see exactly which linen is what color. These are the bins I've been using. They're Hefty 40 quart Hi-Rise. When we bought the first ones, we got them from Lowe's but Walmart has them marked down now so, for six, it was about $30 less from Walmart.

Before using these, I had my linen stacked in Rubbermaid totes and it took a lot of digging to get to the linen in the bottom of the tote. I love the Hi-Rise totes. It's so easy to find the color of linen I need. I still have several totes that have linen so I'm going to get it all in these Hi-Rise bins.

So . . back to what we did today . . the totes are heavy when loaded. I can pick them up but I had stacked them three high so if I needed the bottom one, I had to move two, then lift the bottom one up onto a table to get to a bottom tote.

A couple of days ago, I asked Vince about ordering another wire shelf unit. In my current sewing room, the lighting is not good. The corner in the back is way dark. Vince has said he'll have lights added but we aren't staying here. I don't know when we'll actually do it but I don't want to spend the money having more lights added. The room/lighting is fine for what most people would want. I could get a floor lamp of some kind and be fine. There was nothing in that corner and I had planned to move the sewing room recliner into that corner, put a magnifying light there and I could sit in there and cross stitch if Vince wanted to watch something on TV that I didn't want to watch. Then I realized almost every wall in that room has shelving units against them and the bottom shelves would be so much fun for the dogs to grab things to destroy. I would never to have the dogs in there and they would not be quiet if I stayed in there and they were not with me. That got me to thinking . . what could I do with that corner to maximize storage.

I had measured and knew I could fit a 60" long, 48" deep shelf unit in the corner. Vince had two he had ordered and had not used so he said I could have one of those. 

When we got back from eating lunch out, we started putting the shelf together. We had the bottom shelf on and Nicole called. She had been to town today and went by Crumbl Cookie to get cookies for Addie for Valentine's Day. They had a Dubai Chocolate Strawberry Brownie today but when Nicole got here, they were sold out. When Nicole told Addie that they had been out of the Dubai Chocolate Brownie, Addie looked online and they had them listed again so Nicole wanted me to run to Crumble, get the brownies and she will come here tomorrow to get them. We stopped putting the shelves together, went back to Joplin, got them, came home and finished putting the shelf together. 

There's a start! I will be able to get 6 of the linen tubs on each of the third, fourth and fifth shelves. I won't need that many tubs for linen. I probably will need three or four more tubs for the linen but I can store other things in those Hi-Rise tubs. They stack so nicely and six per shelf is a perfect fit. That will give me the second shelf and the top shelf for things. Now I have sewing machines stacked on the top shelf and still have four more to get up there but I was running out of steam. 

Lots of work left before I get that sewing room organized but I'm making progress!

Finish #3 for 2026

 I had been working on a WIP but when Debbie and I stitch together, we're working on patriotic pieces. It's hard for me to see 40 count linen without a magnifier so I've been working on small pieces on 36 count linen. After stitching on this piece with her this week, I only had a bit more to get done so I finished it last night.

And why go to bed even though it was 2 a.m. when I could learn play with Chat GPT, I stayed up a bit later and came up with this:

I didn't want the white mat but I just said "straighten photo and add a frame" and that's what I got.

I tried again and said "straighten photo and add a blue frame and this is what I got.

Next, I asked it to straighten and enhance photo, no mat, add a 2" brown border with 1" between the edge of the stitching and the border. I think the space between the stitching and the border is more on top and bottom than on the sides but for the first time I've used this, I think I did good.

It was fun. Something else to play with instead of doing other things I should be doing!

Sourdough Sunday

 It's Superbowl Sunday for some but it was Sourdough Sunday here. Maybe every Sunday will be Sourdough Sunday! Anyone want to do that with me? We could try a new recipe on Sunday or Saturday or whatever day you want.

I have a friend who is just getting into sourdough and she was having some issues with her starter and wondered if her kitchen was too cool. Maybe . . I think my starter must have acclimated itself to our freezing cold house in the winter. Having an electric heat pump in an area that gets as cold as it gets here and having one unit for a house with a basement . . not good!

About 1 a.m. this morning I went upstairs and fed the starter. It was in a quart jar and with the feeding, it was almost to the halfway point in the jars. I thought about putting it in a half gallon jar and figured that was overkill so I didn't do it. Almost always I put the jar in a bowl with a bit of water in it so if it overflows, it won't be such a mess to clean up but I didn't do that either.

While I was upstairs, I fed a second jar of sourdough and got another jar of buttermilk started and just forgot to put on the bowl under the quart jar.

You can see that it didn't seem bothered by the cold. The starter on the right, in the 1-1/2 pint jar, is for the Same-Day Sourdough Wonder Bread Copycat Recipe that has been my favorite sourdough sandwich bread for quite a while. I do substitute fresh milled flour (hard white) and add a bit more water but otherwise, it's the same exact recipe.

Even with the overflow, I had enough starter in the quart jar to make two batches of crackers.

There's the sandwich dough rising. In the two pint jars are crackers that have lemon balm added. The 1-1/2 pint jar on the right has rosemary added. I'm working on using up the herbs I dried last year since it won't be long til I'll have more herbs to save.

In the background, the jar on the left is the starter that was left after the two batches of crackers. It's fed and I'll have to feed it again tomorrow to get enough to make English muffins Tuesday.  The glass container in the middle was about 3/4 full of discard so I put most of it in the blue canister and left just a bit in the glass container. That starter has been in the fridge without having been fed for probably 6 months so I'm going to feed it and get it happy and active again and start using it for the crackers, which we're eating instead of chips and store bought crackers so we use a lot of them. I'll probably transfer the starter from the blue canister to a half gallon glass jar - just because of how I feel about plastic.

The pint jar is sitting there to show how much the bread rose. You may can see a couple of green specks on the bread. Just as I was shaping it into a loaf, Vince asked if I could add rosemary to that so I did but I mostly just patted the dough out, sprinkled rosemary on top, then rolled it and shaped it so it probably isn't going to be real pretty inside . . we'll see when I slice it tomorrow.

I did make cookies yesterday. These were the ones that were supposed to be tea cakes but tasted more like store bought slice and bake cookies. Definitely not my idea of tea cakes but I suppose I could have screwed up the recipe.

I had seen these bottles of finishing sugar and thought they might be fun and different. I have used lavender before and Vince never liked it so I put strawberry on most of them. Vince tried the lavender and loved it. Men!  :) I'll try another tea cake recipe soon and use the sugar on them too.

I don't remember if I mentioned on here that I made marshmallows last week.

They were fun to make and they were very good but . . who sits and eats marshmallows? We did but that's not something we normally do. This is the recipe I used and they are made by soaking dried marshmallow root, then straining the liquid and using that. They were sweetened with honey and the color came from butterfly pea flowers so, as far as junk food goes, they were halfway healthy.

Yes, I've been stitching too. And, at some point this week I'm going to plant broccoli seeds and get some artichoke, pepper and tomato seeds started in cups that I can keep indoors til time to set them outside. Gardening season will be here before I know it.

Vince, The Greatest Bargain Finder

 I get so frustrated with Vince and his shopping. He LOVES to shop. He loves to shop alone and I love for him to shop alone! He likes to go down the aisles and look at EVERYTHING. In Walmart, there are several aisles that have all the markdowns concentrated in one area. I have zero interest in walking down those aisles and looking at everything. I go to the store with a list. If it isn't on my list, I don't even notice. Last week, or week before maybe, we did go to Walmart and I asked Vince to meet me in the grocery area in 20 minutes. It didn't take me 20 minutes to get what I needed so I was kinda browsing and I did pick up some things not on my list.

This is probably going to sound crazy to everyone but me but when I get a new phone, I keep my old phone and even though it's no longer activated to be used as a phone for making calls, I will keep it upstairs and use it for taking pictures when I'm cooking. I can email the pictures to me via WiFi and then prepare the blog posts or Facebook entries from my computer downstairs.

A few months ago, we switched to T-Mobile and got new phones. My old phone is not holding a charge. I have to keep it on the charger, take it off, take a picture and put it back on the charger. I don't want to have to do that. I forget to put it back on the charger and then I need it and it's dead. 

While Vince was checking out the bargain aisle at Walmart, he found U. S. Cellular phones phones that were marked down to 75 cents each!! He bought two, and gave one to me to keep upstairs for my photos in the kitchen (or anywhere I want to use them upstairs). Can you believe 75 cents for a phone? And, they came with a wall plug and a cord and there's room for an memory card (or whatever you call it to insert to have more memory). I can't believe it got those but I'm happy he did. 

Every time I take my real phone upstairs, I leave it and have to go back up and get it when I realize it's up there. Now I can not even bother to take my real phone upstairs!

I wouldn't do this because the screen is too small on a phone but I could put Markup (the stitching app) on one of those phones!

Vanilla Extract Experiments

 In the 1980's, we had neighbors who were from Laredo, Texas. They gave me a container - maybe 1/2 gallon of Mexican vanilla from Mexico. I know there's some questions about whether there are "things" in the vanilla that aren't necessarily healthy but it's all I used until I started making my own extract. Those neighbors from Laredo ended up bringing me bottles and bottles of the vanilla from Mexico and I didn't run out until maybe 2010 and then I had to order the vanilla with a rooster on the bottle. When we lived in Texas, there was a Mexican restaurant that sold those big bottles so I guess I was on the road to becoming a vanilla snob and then . . I found where I could order beans and make my own extract.

It was probably late 2021 when I came across a Facebook group that orders vanilla beans. It's a pre-order and it sometimes takes weeks to get the beans. I've ordered probably 8 - 10 different batches of a variety of beans. I think the last order I placed was in mid-2024 so all of the beans I've had "brewing" are ready to use and I've tried all of them. 

By far . . by miles and miles . . the Indonesian beans that were brewed in bourbon are my favorite. Favorite as in I would give away all the other extracts if I could get pounds and pounds of the Indonesian beans. Every time I walk by that jar of extract in the kitchen, I open it and smell it. It's so good . . have I said that enough?  :)

The beans from Indonesia don't seem to become available often. I had kinda stopped reading the posts from the vanilla group because . . how much vanilla extract does a girl need and I wanted to try every bean they offered.

Y'all! I have Youtube on and a commercial just came on "Do you want to make your own vanilla extract?" and it linked to another vanilla bean seller. How weird???

OK . . back to the post . . 

Today I checked the site to see what kind of beans they have and beans from Ecuador. I did a little research to compare these to Indonesian beans and found this. My take is that the Ecuadorian vanilla would be good in my homemade vanilla pudding, ice cream, icing, shakes, etc. - dishes that aren't cooked. The Indonesian vanilla is probably better suited for cakes, pies, cookies, creme brulee - things that are cooked or baked. Of course, I'll try baking with the Ecuadorian vanilla and see what I think.

To make a long story a bit shorter . . I ordered some of the Ecuadorian beans. I'm guessing I won't have them before May or June. I'm going to continue to watch for more Indonesian beans. Those are so, so amazing.