A Finished Project and NYC Coming Up!!

I just finished a miniature quilt this evening and am adding these same pictures and info to my needlework "quilts" page. 

 I used a panel print and then quilted it by adding embroidery embellishments.  I outlined some of the vines, the door mullions and a bit in the pumpkin, used French knots on some of the red berries, a long and short straight stitch on the broom handle, with a satin stitch banding the bristles which are long stitches that I cut after the broom was finished.  I did all the embroidery through to a backing, then added the burnt orange border, and added a new, backing that I brought around to the top to make the second border.  I'm happy with the way it turned out, but my favorite bit is the broom. :)

Now, tomorrow I have to get things cleaned up a little around here, have an appointment with the eye doctor, need to get gas, and then pack.  And Thursday morning it will be off to D.C., stay the night with Chris, and then we take the train to NYC for the weekend.  Hopefully, I'll get some good pictures at the miniature show and any wandering around we might do in the city.  It's been a long while since this was actually a "travel" journal!

And, thankfully, I have finally had a settlement from the insurance company (a month after my "flood"), and have chosen a contractor to do the work.  It has really worn me out and kept me fairly stressed trying to ever get estimates and a final figure from the insurance company, so I'm not even going to think about it while I'm gone.  Told the contractor I'd call him when I get back home and we'll get things rolling.

And now, bed!

Am I Delinquent?

I guess so...my son informs me it has been a while and even one of his friends mentioned to him that it was a long time.  Doesn't seem all that long to me, but I'll see what I can think to record.  It was nice to hear that someone I don't even know is enjoying and following the blog and it would be even nicer to get comments, shared stories, reader's own recipe ideas, etc., from people other than my poor long-suffering family.  So if you read my posts and something reminds you of a funny or interesting story, feel free to share it.  If you experiment with one of my recipes and are pleased with the result, I'd love to hear about that.  And if you have a favorite recipe or two you'd like to share, that would be great too.

Right now, I'm at my older daughter's home (Heather) in Maryland.  She broke her arm last Saturday falling off a horse and her husband and my granddaughter Sophia were already booked on a flight to Ireland for a christening of his brand new nephew, so I said I would come over and stay with her while they're gone.  I had already been thinking about coming over cause I hardly ever get to have my daughter all to myself and I'm selfish enough to think that would be real nice.  So, here I am and even though it's not quite as planned, it is nice being with her and my grandson Johnny.  Heather broke her humerus bone and the normal treatment for that, apparently, is to put a stiff something under the lower arm and a stiff something under the upper arm, and then wrap the whole thing in an Ace bandage and put it in a sling.  It sort of horrifies me cause, of course, any time it gets nudged or jiggled or anything it gives her a lot of pain.  She will see the doctor again on Tuesday and we're hopeful he'll move her on to "step 2" which is an upper arm brace type thing that, at least in the pictures, looks like it would be much better than what she has right now.  So that's pretty much where I am now.  She and her family are also moving into a new house in three weeks, so I told her I would try and get her breakables packed for her and have been working on that.

I'll be here probably until Thursday and then will go to my daughter January's new "place of residence".  They found a little rental house that sounds so nice for them - nothing at all fancy but not an apartment!!! Over a very unpleasant lady!!!  :)

On the homefront (Huntington), we have yet another new business that just opened - The Bottle and Wedge which is a delightful beer, wine and cheese store, along with having all sorts of special bottled sauces, jams and jellies, dips, marinades, all kinds of goodies.  I don't know much about beer but these are not the standard "grocery store beers".  And the cheeses he has so far are very enticing.  The shop is located in Pullman Square (same place as "my" bakery) and Pullman Square is really beginning to come back to life.  The bakery has open mike every Saturday and that really draws in a lot of people.  And, of course, so does what the bakery sells! :)  I took a picture of the outside and inside of the new shop, but only the outside photo is worth posting.  The second photo is just two really pretty demi-baguettes I bought at the bakery shortly before I came over here and they just looked so nice I took a picture of them.  Tasted good too!

 

Also, before I came over here, I was in kind of a cooking mood and tried that vodka pasta sauce recipe again.  It was better this time and as I worked on it, I wrote down what I was doing, but, of course, I left my little notes at home so can't update the recipe yet.  But I will and it really is quite tasty.  In fact one of my neighbors was in Starbucks one evening and sat down for a visit (a young med student) and told me how much he enjoyed the smells coming from my apartment sometimes and mentioned the night before which just happened to be when I had made the vodka sauce.  Here's a picture of dinner that night:..

and making half a recipe instead of a quarter, I had enough to eat it twice and then freeze the remainder for probably another one or two servings.  Maybe I should take my neighbor a helping.  

And I also got into a needleworking mood although the trip over here has kind of deep-sixed that for now.  But the woman who commissioned the quilt block cross stitches from me has a real life sampler she sent me a picture of and asked if I could replicate it in miniature.  Worked a long time getting a pattern for that and started stitching it, but discovered I was stitching on 28 count rather than 32 count so have put that one aside to ponder for a bit.  Even on 32 count, I think it would be a little large, but then I always remind myself her dollhouse is really big.  But starting on that got me digging once again through all my old patterns and I found several things I want to start working on and pulled out a rug I started a looonnnnggg time ago (probably at least 6 or 7 years ago and after the first burst of activity never worked on again.  It's on 40 count silk gauze and I've started working on it again.  Here's what was finished when I pulled it out:

In some ways, it's a much simpler pattern than the rug I stitched for January's roombox and the Aubusson I've been working on off and on for a while (not nearly as many colors for one thing), but it's just so striking and Oriental that I really like it.  I brought it with me but haven't worked on it here - just too much going on.  But I'll get back to it.

Oh, and one other neat thing - after Jamie Oliver filmed his first American food revolution TV show here in Huntington, what? two years ago? Jamie's Kitchen became Huntington's Kitchen, still using his program to teach cooking and nutrition and such and has been doing quite well I think.  Anyway, they've reopened their fresh market on Fridays and I heard they had local eggs so went down a couple of Fridays ago and bought half a dozen of those plus a basil plant and an oregano plant, both of which are still alive and well.  I went back a week or so later and this time a woman was there with two little goats in a cage and had some goat cheese samples which were delicious.  I asked her about buying some and she said that they don't sell the cheese direct - they sell shares in the goats!!  You buy a share or half a share and then you get a certain amount of cheese each month delivered to Huntington's Kitchen for pickup.  I'm still pondering that - I loved the cheeses I tasted but don't know that I could use up even half a share a month.  Might think about seeing if a neighbor would like to go in on it with me...

And that pretty much brings me up to date - just finished a marathon session of Craz y Eights with Johnny and Heather.  The last round went on so long that we finally had to set a time limit and agree that if the hand wasn't over by then, we'd continue tomorrow night.  And, amazingly enough, it wasn't finished, so we made sure we'd remember where to pick up again and are all eager to get back to it. :)   

After spending this coming Thursday evening with January and Maggie, I'll go on to Chris's Friday afternoon, spend the weekend there and then go back home Monday unless something should happen with Heather's arm.  Sure am anxious to see what Tuesday's appointment with the doc brings...

Short and Sweet

I seem to so seldom finish any of my needle work that I thought I'd better record a successful completion.  I think I posted earlier with a couple of progress pictures that I was working on some quilt blocks a woman had asked me to make up for her and after finishing the stitching a few days ago and working on the frames, I finally got them all put together and signed and here they are.

I'm happy with them and hope she will be.  I think the two smaller ones look a little distorted in the picture, but they're not.  I made the frames from a very hard wood (I think maybe cocobolo or some such?) and was about ready to spit nails by the time I finally got all the pieces cut!  But all's well that ends well...

Now I'm going to have my little dinner of a tuna/pasta/grape tomatoes, olives and onion salad I made last night that is quite nummy.  Used olive oil and balsamic rather than mayo or something like that and it was good and I'm starving!

Having Some Pleasant Days

Posted Wednesday, April 6
I've done a little cooking for one thing.  Got so wrapped up in Chris being here and getting my new TV and Blu-Ray player all settled in and then being very with it and streaming, streaming, that I've only just come up for air the last few days!

Went grocery shopping and felt the need for something green.  There was some nice looking asparagus so I bought a bunch having no real idea what I'd do with it.  January had one time roasted or grilled some asparagus and I was quite impressed with that so the first night, I roasted some - put it on my foil-lined toaster oven baking sheet, drizzled olive oil over it and rolled the stalks back and forth til they were nicely coated, then sprinkled with some seasoned salt and put them in the toaster oven at 400 degrees.  I think they were only in there 10 minutes at most and came out all sizzling and a little crispy.  Very nice.  And along with that, for my actual entree I made my infamous tomato/egg/bread soup which is a legitimate recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks but any time I tell anyone about it and how wonderful it is, I mostly get a "yuck" response.  I hadn't made it at all this past winter and it was a cold, rainy, nasty night so I decided I'd make me a bowl.  And I don't care what anyone thinks it is delicious!  If anyone adventurous reads this post, you can find the recipe HERE.

I had defrosted some chicken tenders to make chicken tikka masala with my store-bought tikka masala sauce which I love and which Chris brought me FOUR jars of on this visit!!  But getting all carried away with the tomato soup, I shelved that and so last night I cooked up the chicken, put half of it aside for the tikka masala (which I will eat this evening) and used the other half to make spaghetti with some of my asparagus.  I Googled and there were numerous recipes,  some of them making a cream sauce which I didn't really want and others basically just using olive oil, but hardly any which I couldn't quite think would work.  So my first attempt I used a little olive oil, melted some of my truffle butter in it, added some roasted garlic cloves chopped up, stirred that around for a bit and dumped in 8 chopped up asparagus stalks and let that sizzle a little longer.  One recipe I looked at said to put the asparagus in the pasta water about 2 minutes before the pasta was done and I might try that too although I liked the idea of having it cook in something other than just water.  Then I added the chopped up chicken to the pan and when the pasta was done, mixed it all together with some Parmesan cheese and a little fresh olive oil.  Most of the recipes that Google came up with used Penne pasta and I was out of that so I used spaghetti.  Penne pasta would be better or the little fans (farfalle?) would work well too.  It was tasty but needs something to give it some oomph.  I think some chopped up shallots would have really helped, and maybe some lemon?  And I've got to try shredding or slicing thin pieces of the chicken in any recipe like this.  I find the little chunks hard to eat - if you spear them with the fork, you can't get anything else on the fork and if you try to scoop one or two of them up along with some of the pasta, they keep falling off.  So I need to remember that next time.

Here it is with a hunk of delicious River and Rail Bakery's demi-baguette alongside.  Still have a bunch of asparagus left and may just roast some again.  I really did enjoy that.

Updated Saturday, April 9.
And last night I had one more pleasant cooking experience.  I decided I would get a rotisserie chicken cause I want to make some of that curried chicken salad for sandwiches (on some delicious bread from the bakery!)  Wondered what to fix with the leg for dinner and for some reason decided on a mushroom risotto.  So again, I Googled recipes and found a nice from from Tyler Florence although quite lengthy.  Decided to look in my book "The Pleasures of Cooking for One" and there was one there also.  So I took a couple of things from the TF recipe and fiddled with the PCO recipe some and came up with a very tasty and creamy like it's supposed to be risotto.  Had my chicken leg and roasted the rest of my asparagus.  This time since I had used some truffle oil in the risotto, I rolled the stalks in truffle oil and sprinkled some truffle salt on them.  Mm-mmm.  I've posted the recipe for the risotto in my Recipe Collection HERE.

 The rice after being briefly cooked in the oil and then adding a small amount of white wine...

The fresh mushrooms after they released their liquid and it has evaporated...

And a pretty nice little dinner!

I've also been doing some miniature cross stitching for the woman who has asked me to do three quilt block designs.  I finally managed to get the Lone Star one done.  Took me quite a while to design it because I didn't want to have just an eight-pointed star, I wanted all the little "patches" to be diamond shaped like they are in the traditional quilts.  Then, for some reason, stitching it was pretty much a nightmare also until I reached the halfway point.  I seemed to rip out about as much as I stitched!  But I'm quite pleased with the end result and have moved on to a log cabin quilt block which I also had to design.  The designing part is difficult for me - I don't have whatever it takes to have it come easily.  And then once I get the chart made and start stitching, I always run into two or three things that I decide to change cause you really don't know what it's going to look like until you actually get some stitching done.  But I'm liking this block now too and am probably about 3/4 of the way done with it.  So here's what I have done so far:

 The woman selected the colors herself although I added more shades of each color.  And I think they turned out looking pretty nice together.  Hope she does too! :)

I think for the third one, I'm going to give myself a break and just do a nine-patch pattern or at most a flying geese.  Although, of course, being insane, I did spend a good part of this afternoon trying to chart a double wedding ring pattern.  And actually, I got one worked out but, again, I'd need to stitch it to see what it would actually look like.  Circles can be real tricky in cross stitch..

Nothing in Particular...

except...

I'm going to Italy again!!!

Yep, I'm off in September (one week later than last year) and will stay three weeks this time. I booked my flight this past week and am now trying to finalize plans for where I'll go when and where I'll stay when I get to the various places, etc. I had toyed with the idea of renting a car this time for 5 days or a week but decided against that again. However, since there's one place I've been thinking I might like to get to that is apparently kind of difficult by train or bus, I may rent a car just for one day to go there and also to see if I survive the experience. But that's still on the back burner.

This time I'm going to make it to Bologna if I have to camp out in a Piazza! I want to take one of the all day, 3 or 4 stop tours of the food production places - prosciutto, balsamic, parmesan and wine. I also wouldn't mind another cooking class but they all mostly seem to be pasta - I'd like to learn to make a good ragu which is a very famous Bolognese sauce.

At any rate, that's what's been occupying me lately. I had already started a file for "next trip" so had some places bookmarked as possible places to stay and have now been e-mailing with some of them trying to make sure I'll have a fairly good idea of what to expect. My eyes feel like they are permanently crossed or something and my poor brain is getting kind of bogged down.

And in addition to all that computer work, I'm getting some more of my "personal" auctions set up which means lots of photographing, uploading of pictures, setting up the web pages, etc. This time I'm going to have half inch scale, one inch scale, some tools, dollhouse-related and needlework books, and cross stitch charts! It's way too much stuff to have all in one auction and I've decided I'll take each category and put about half the stuff up and when those are done and mailed out, I'll put up the second half of each category. So, hopefully that will go all right.

I've been doing some cooking since I got back from Massachusetts. There's something about visiting somewhere that always makes me inspired to cook when I get home. One thing I made was based on something my sister made while I was there. She sauted some garlic in olive oil and I think some butter (at any rate I used butter when I did it), then added some chopped up black olives and at the end, some pine nuts. Then she served it over shell pasta. It was right tasty so I decided to do it too, only since I had it on hand, I sliced up some zuchini and yellow squash and sauted that along with the rest. I was eating away, enjoying it quite a bit when I suddenly remembered I had meant to drizzle some of my precious olive oil from Florence over it after I plated it. So I did that midway through eating, and, oh my goodness! The difference it made! And, no, it wasn't all in my head, it really gave it a truly succulent flavor. That's pretty much when I decided for sure that I was going back to Italy. I have to get some more of that olive oil!! And, if that means going to Italy, well then, by darn, I'll just have to bite the bullet and do it. :)

I've also been having eggs with some regularity. And I'm getting to the point where I do a pretty good job of getting an omelet cooked without browning it and actually folding it over twice like I guess you're supposed to. The first time I first chopped up some new potatoes and browned them in some olive oil (not the precious stuff) and when they were nicely browned, dumped my beaten eggs in on top. I can't seem to remember if I added anything else. I think maybe I didn't - but I think then I had it with some steamed broccoli. Anyway, whatever I did, it was a nice little dinner. So, I've just been kind of putzing around in the kitchen and enjoying it.

Gosh, I don't really have any pictures that tie in with this post at all. I'll post these pictures of some of the mini-quilts I've made and maybe that will inspire me to get busy and make some more. When I was making them I could hardly stop - I loved making them! So that's something I should get back to, maybe.

A little fan quilt "quilted" with miniature buttons...

One of my favorites - a flying geese quilt. I made another one where the little triangles were just over a quarter inch across the bottom. I only made that one wall-hanging size.

And, this is my little Americana quilt. The house blocks were printed fabric - I didn't piece them. But I thought with the little, tiny flag print for the other blocks, it was kind of quaint. I quilted it by knotting.

And that's all there is for today. You all have from now until September 24 to prepare for the onslaught of "Mary Lynne's Second Trip to Italy"...oh, and when I make up my mind where I'm staying, maybe I'll remember to post some pictures of the places.

The Finished Product

Not much going on here except for a lot of lunches out with friends last week, including one at the new Huntington Prime restaurant and, once again, I was pretty happy with it.  And it was crowded at lunch too, so I hope they can keep the momentum.

But I did finish the vase of flowers petitpoint and am posting a picture of that.  I ended up, after all my travails, pleased with the final result.  As a last attempt to try and get a metallic gold on the handles and trim (which were that sort of brilliant yellow), I stitched the metallic thread over the brilliant yellow.  Back when I first tried the metallic, I was stitching it straight on to the bare gauze and it's a wiry enough thread that it just sort of crimped and didn't look good.  But with the padding of the yellow underneath, I pretty much ended up with the effect I wanted.

I

I  made the frame too and that turned out to be quite a different experience also.  I guess I had never framed a petitpoint piece before - just made rugs.  And I'm used to framing cross stitch miniatures where I make the frame to the size I want and then cut the fabric to fit the frame precisely.  With petitpoint, the design ends where it ends and so the frame has to be a precisely, basically perfect fit to cover the blank gauze up to the stitching but hopefully not beyond.  So that took several cutting sessions...

And I think I reported about the pumpkin shortage and how that was a problem since I wanted to make pumpkin stuffed ravioli?  Well, I stopped at this tiny little grocery store here in town where I go when I'm looking for a different selection than is available at the big stores and, lo and behold, they had cans of pumpkin!!  So I bought some fresh sage this evening and hope to get busy and make some ravioli with pumpkin.  I think I may find after I've made my first batch that I want to buy a ravioli maker thingie like I've seen here and there cause I think I may find it tricky getting the exact right amount of filling, folding over the dough and getting a good seal, etc.  But we'll see...

And, thinking about making this and using a butter, olive oil and sage "dressing" on it, I've been wondering if I could take like a whole stick of butter, the appropriate amount of oil and sage, cook it all up and then refrigerate it or maybe even freeze it for future use.  Cause to just make one serving won't use up much sage and I get so tired of buying and throwing out fresh herbs.  I think I'll probably at least try it and see what happens.

For tonight though, I'm off to eat a bowl of chili!

New Photos from My Snow-Bound Children and Me

 I was working, working, working at this post this morning when there came a tapping on my door.  Went to see what was up and here's what was waiting for me - a valentine from Heather, the poor snow-bound thing!  Aren't they absolutely, positively gorgeous!!???

And, now, after that very pleasant interruption, here's the rest of my post.

Not much verbiage today - just wanted to share some more photos from my kids after being hit with the second snowstorm on Wednesday, I think it was (or maybe Thursday). 

This first one shows that January finally got her car cleared off and dug out, but as she says, it was an exercise in futility because none of their roads in the complex had been cleared!As evidenced by this picture of the road (which is somewhere there in the center of the photo)!

 

and this is where a sidewalk is supposed to be...

Heather, in Elkridge, MD, ended up with 52" of snow after that second snowstorm!!!  (And, more is forecast for next week).  The photo on the left  is again of their back yard with the 6 foot privacy fence along the back... And the one on the right is looking from their front door across to the neighbor's house with its little bit of lamp post sticking up out of the snowbank.

 

Heather's husband after clearing the driveway.  Not sure exactly how tall he is but I'd say at least 5'10"...

And, then we come to Huntington, WV.  Where it continues to snow little bits here and there and now and then.  This was on Wednesday and since I seem compelled to get out in it when it's snowing I walked down to the river.  I wanted to try and have the snowfall show cause they were those big, fat flakes, but you just see a white dot here and there...  The picture on the left is at Pullman Square where the snow in the plaza was pretty much undisturbed - made me think the photo should be titled "waiting for summer".

 Last night (Friday), a friend and I finally tried out Huntington's newest restaurant, Huntington Prime.  We had quite a long wait cause the restaurant is small and so far, very busy.  They just opened a week ago Wednesday.  The restaurant itself is lovely and they have a brick oven where they make gourmet-style pizzas and bread.  There is a soup, salad and bread bar with flavored butters and oils, all of which is very tasty.  We both very much enjoyed what we ordered but I won't order that much next time!  A real pleasant evening...

And, finally, just a couple of progress pics for the two pieces I posted to a previous blog.  With all this wintry weather, it's a perfect time to get some stitching done...There's still the base to finish on the vase and I want to experiment with some blending filaments to try and make the gold handles and trim look a little more like gold rather than brilliant yellow!

Musings

I am such an idiot or maybe not that bad, maybe just not a consummate journaler/photographer.  I was looking out my windows today at the cold, gray river and thought "hmmm - it almost looks like it's freezing up a little" which wouldn't be too surprising considering that I think it hasn't been above freezing since before I got home from my travels.  Anyway, I decided I needed an outing, got all bundled up and walked down to the river.  It wasn't actually freezing over, but there were little patches of ice which made the water move differently than normal and so from my window, it had the look of non-moving water.  Did I have my camera with me???  No.  Did I have my new phone with its camera with me???  No.  So no pictures of the river in its fairly rare state and no pictures either of two very large flocks of geese which were wandering the riverbank.  There are always ducks there but this was the first time I've seen actual flocks of geese.  The ducks were all in the water which made me really glad I'm not a duck!

So I came back home and put on a pan of prunes to stew.  I've rediscovered stewed prunes the last year or so.  I've made the rediscovery a couple of times in the past and don't know what makes me suddenly decide to stew some prunes after so many years.  But I love them - they're like eating candy in my humble opinion and without guilt - I mean, they're calories of course, but such healthy calories.

And while they were cooking I dipped into a book I bought off one of the bargain tables at our local bookstore and that I am loving.  The title is "Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant - Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone".  It's a collection of essays on that subject by various writers and foodie types on their thoughts and experiences of dining alone and cooking (or not) for oneself.  I always hesitate to recommend books if there's any foul language or anything in them which might offend some sensibilities (remember my excitement about the tomato book and then having to recant a little as it got weirder and grosser?) .  This book has some of that periodically since it is writing by a diverse collection of individuals.  But that's not a problem for me if the book is really good and this one is really good.  Not every essay includes a recipe but some do and, of course, some of those are going on my list of things I'm going to try.  If I did half the things I put on to do lists, I'd be a super-achiever! I just went to ABEbooks.com to see if they had this title and I shouldn't have - they have a bunch for $1.00 + $2.63 shipping. But that's only a couple dollars less than I spent and I've been enjoying it without having to wait to get it. But I do love ABEbooks...

Oh, speaking of cooking ideas, I made a recipe that January told me about that uses French green lentils.  While I was with her we were talking food and she told me about this recipe and how she had searched and searched for the lentils and finally found them at a strange little store near where she lives.  So, of course, we went to the store and bought some lentils for both of us.  The recipe she gave me is from the website 101Cookbooks.com which is one of her favorites.  I made it when I got home and as it cooked, I kept tasting and thinking this doesn't have much taste so I started adding various things the recipe suggested you could add if you wanted to and when it was finally done cooking, it was almost a little too tasty.  But I ate it a couple of times and enjoyed it well enough.  Then, last night I had decided I wanted one of my toasted (not grilled) cheese sandwiches with a bowl of tomato soup.  And that made me think of my sister who buys tomato soup by the carton because she uses it with leftovers (any and all) for their lunches in the winter.  Some of the things she's said she puts in I've thought sounded a little strange, but she finally fixed a batch once when I was there and whatever all it had in it, it was real tasty.  So I thought "I'm going to put some of this lentil stuff into the tomato soup" which I did and it was real tasty too and I will probably have that again tonight.  That's one benefit of eating alone and cooking for yourself - you can have the same thing five nights in a row if that's what you feel like doing - don't have to come up with different menus all the time.  So, thanks to January and Virginia both for two ideas that went together very nicely.

What with having a new magnifying lamp, I've returned to my stitching which I had forsaken for quite a while. I've had to work at finding a good position for me, the piece of work, and the lamp, but I think I'm getting there and it is a fantastic aid. I should be working on the 48 count piece that prompted me to ask for the lamp, but so far I've been working on a rug I had last worked on in the summer of 2008!! I took pictures of each project to post to the Yahoo petitpointers group that I belong to and will post them here too.

This, obviously, is the rug.  It's a chart by Joan Adams who I discovered years ago and whose patterns, I think, are beautiful.  She created bunches of charts and I have them all because for a few years, I sold her charts at miniature shows (with her permission, of course).

and this is the start of what will be a sort of Grecian urn type vase with stylized flowers in it.  It's a design taken from a life-sized chart that a woman has commissioned me to do in miniature for her (just the vase - not the whole chart which is quite large).

Once I get over the pleasure of being back to work on the rug (which is kind of an idiotic project since I have absolutely no place I will use it!), I'll get to work on the little vase and it should go pretty quickly.

Guess that's it for now.  I need to go out in that cold and get some groceries...