Strike one off the list!

First up I thought I'd share yesterday's achievements with you. I managed to get the Sister's Choice table runner quilted and bound - it's just simple quilting, but I'm happy with it. I'm a bit of a two-trick-pony at the moment with machine quilting ... it's meandering or peacock feathers for me ... but I'm getting more adventurous slowly! Because of this finish, I'm able to cross the 'two presents' off my September Goals. Yay! You can't really see in the picture, but the runner is five blocks long, and two wide.

Also in the picture are two jars of 'stewed apples'. I had a bag of apples that the kids were just not interested in eating. I made the mistake of soon afterwards buying some bigger and more interesting ones, so the bagged apples were being left alone. I was concerned they'd go bad, so I decided I'd take my new preserver on a test run and chopped them up and stewed them before putting them in jars for the unit. It was super easy, I can't believe how much better the modern units are. Just fill it with water, set the kitchen timer for 60 minutes, turn it on, and after the 60 minutes, take the jars out! Amazing! No more playing with thermometers and fiddling around. I see more canning in my future! I checked our fruit trees yesterday too, and our Elberta Peach is covered with tiny peaches about the size of my little fingernail. I hope they hold! The Apricot tree is blooming too, it should be a great year. Hubby tells me to go out and get some strawberry runners too, I love to make strawberry jam.

Hanne reminded me about our quilt block 'vitamins'. I really didn't feel like writing about it yesterday, so I'll fill you in today. I managed to lose the 200g that I 'found' last week, and also an additional 200g. Hopefully I've lost them somewhere I'm not likely to 'find' them again! I get to make some more blocks up! I'm thinking I might make up 6 blocks, the two test blocks I made up first of all need some friends I'm sure :-)

I also wanted to let everyone know I'm a little behind on my blog reading ... I've gotten a little snowed under with the new posts since I've been having the trouble seeing peoples pictures. I've discovered it's something to do with how our desktop is reacting to bloglines. If I just visit your page from my bookmarks, I can see your pictures. If I visit your page after looking at it in bloglines, I can't see your pictures. It's wierd, but I'm not going to fuss too much about it, I should be fine again when I get the laptop back on the road. It will be in the next few days. So please forgive me if you've noticed my absence ... I'm missing you too!