Catching Up on Crafting

 I haven't been very motivated to blog lately, but I have been doing things, so here's a peek at what's been up.

Of course, winter has been ongoing (perhaps that's why I'm mostly unmotivated 😏) and the new snow is very pretty though not my favorite thing. Mr. Cardinal has still be showing his lovely self out my desk window and I've even had a few sightings of the elusive Mrs. Cardinal.

My daughter made it safely back from her mission in Ukraine, mostly teaching English and knitting to kids in a refugee shelter, but also delivering supplies to villages near the Russian border. She was welcomed well in her exhaustion by her niece.

In the evenings as we watch Hercule Poirot, I've been hand-quilting this beauty...

...and sometimes continuing with my ongoing (and often frustrating) endeavor to learn to knit. I wanted an excuse to buy some Crazy Yarn from Stonehedge Fiber Mill near us as well as practicing different knitting patterns, so I'm making six-inch blocks guided by this book and plan to put them all together into a lapghan by doing some lacy crochet in between.

I got out my APQ UFO Challenge #6 pattern (Autumn Jubilee 2020, I think), ascertained where I was in it, and started cutting fabrics for the leaf rows (I'm substituting another leaf row for the pine row because pines don't turn lovely colors in autumn).

I thought I was going to join in on the Stay at Home Round Robin, so I made my center block using some orphan pinwheels, but then I didn't want to do the figuring involved in making the next rounds the correct length, so I'll probably just put a fun, maybe tea-related border around this and hand-quilt it.

Because so many people were gone from home last week, I had extra raw milk from our milk-share, so made some simple cheese (called paneer in India). It's made by stirring lemon juice or vinegar into hot milk and then pressing out the whey overnight. Do you like my makeshift press? 😉

It turns out rather bland, but is great with roasted garlic and herb sprinkled on it and I hope next time to try marinating chunks of it in herb-flavored olive oil to see what that's like.

On my day out thrift-shopping, I found an interesting wooden trivet and decided to upcycle it like this:

2 Peter 1:3-8   

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,  by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,  and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope you've enjoyed this little tour of the craftings of late and that you've had time to create things, too.