Taking off .... yet again!

I have been attempting to finish a flying geese quilt. I must admit, it requires a lot of mental energy to colour balance over 2,000 flying geese blocks. 

The pattern is from this book. It's a great book ... so many quilts I want to make from the book.

I had to increase the number of geese in order to make it a queen size quilt. I used up one (1) layer cake, 30's Playtime by Cloe's Closet (Moda Fabrics)

And used up a few fat quarters from Darlene Zimmerman's favourite.

So off I went cutting and piece more geese ... 440 geese to be precise!

And off I went .... piecing again .....

Voila! More geese!

I decided to organize them by colour and pattern. I also had to make sure that the fabrics were all balanced throughout the quilt. Therefore, each fabrics had half of the block turned over ensuring I only use half for the first part of the quilt. Pictured is only one (1) table of blocks ... there are so many!

As you can imagine, it was challenging to balance over 2,000 fabrics, ensuring that the fabrics and colours were distributed evenly throughout the quilt. I could only work on it a bit at a time before it got too much and my brain felt like it would explode. LOL

As I kept working on it grew ....

And grew ....

This is pretty much the half way point. I am doing a 30 X 70 layout. The picture does not do justice to the colours and fabrics. I just love it! For now, it is on my design wall ... waiting for me to work on it again.

Thanks for stopping by! Cheers!

Beets me .....

You've probably noticed, I've been on a self-sufficiency kick ... I don't know ... it's so unpredictable out there at the moment. So many recalls .... I'm guessing having some kind of food stash is somewhat comforting to me. 

Sadly, I do not have space for a garden. There are also no public places around my neighborhood for a garden. However, I do have a bit of a container gardening thing going on. Mainly herbs. oregano, mint, rosemary, english thyme and two (2) tomato plants with basil. 

So far the tomato bounty has been wonderful. There's nothing like a fresh tomato right of the plant. In the fall, I will dehydrate the herbs but for now, I'm enjoying fresh herbs in my cooking.

Although I consider myself as someone living in the country ... others in this area might disagree, I do not have access to a local farmer's market. What is being farmed in my area is mainly corn feed. And, what is available is certainly not in abundance. Luckily, we have Pray's Market a bit south of me, that carries fresh product, mainly from Canada. I decided to stock up on beets. I love roasted beets!

Off I went to prepare them for roasting.

I do not peel them prior to roasting. I wash them, cut the ends and place them in a baking pan. I drizzle olive oil, balsamic vinegar add kosher salt ... bake at 425F until they are tender. The bigger the batch, the longer the cooking time.

Once roasted, I would normally peel them and prep them for the freezer, However, the skin was so thin that it made peeling almost impossible without losing much of the beet. They taste just fine with the peel on ... besides ... more fibre, nutrients and antioxidants!

The freezer stash ....

My neighbour does have access to land and has a garden. Thankfully, they share their bounty with me. I received some fresh green beans that I blanched and prep for freezing.

They last a long time in the freezer and taste almost like fresh.

Thanks for stopping by my little corner in cyberspace. For those in the northern hemisphere, I do hope you are enjoy the summer. Cheers!