A Little Stitchin'

Gentle Friends, I finished up the "December" Block over the weekend.... here's a snap...

... this Block seemed to stitch up quickly - I made very few changes... one major change was to use GAST "Forest Glade" for the tree, I did change up the colour of the birds and added the extra hearts.  This block references my 3rd Great Grand parents marriage - they were from New York state...

... and here's how it stands .....  coming along nicely!!

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping by, do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Friday Stitchin'

Gentle friends,  I thought I'd catch you up a bit on where I am on AotH...

.. so far I'm sticking closely to the recommended floss.....  this is Block 12, once this is finished then all I'll have left is to personalize some of the blocks and to stitch up the last double sized block.....
the end is nigh.

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Have a super weekend, do stop back next week!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Thrifting

Gentle Friends, here are some things I found over the weekend....

 ... a transferware plate, a cream soup, and liner from Minton c. 1940 and a little hand colored transferware plate showing the Washington Memorial at Valley Forge....

... here's a better snap of the Napoleon Battle plate....

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There you go sports fans, thanks again for stopping by!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little "Whiz".....

Gentle friends, Saturday evening we decided to go out to dinner - and - headed off to the Mission to a place we've talked about going to for years..... "The Whiz Burger"  Drive In..... 

 located at 700 So Van Ness and18th St.....  

... still with the original sign...

... we parked around back and went up to order...

... taped up the window ...

 

... the menu is also posted up behind the grill but much harder to see.... and photograph...

... there are places to eat at tables, but since it can get really iffy as it gets dark in this area, we decided to make it a togo order and headed home with our delicious bags of burgers....

 ... we both got the #2 Combo Meal, with cokes.....

...we also got a coffee shake and put it in the freezer when at home to harden it backup.... overall it was a really delicious meal and since there is no parking issue we'll be back!!  If you ever get to this end of town I would totally suggest eating here, easy, no too expensive and pretty quick!!

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin' - with an update bit of info....

Gentle friends, well, here's a snaperoo of the latest finished "block" of AotH...

 ... it is probably my least favorite Block so far for color, I think it works well overall visually ... but... as with many of the suggested flosses that are found in BBD charts... the tones of the colors are so similar that they look like there is no change... so much so that I backstitched around the windows just to delineate them from the house walls... A little family info...this block I stitched for my paternal grandparents - now both gone - my Granny was named after her grandmother... so her name reaches back to 1860 and my Great-great -grandmother in Tennessee.  

Don't get me wrong I really love BBD for design and have lots of their charts. The only real change I made was with the trees they were supposed to be stitched with CC Camouflage and I used GAST Forest Glade - they look much more pine trees than would have had I used Camouflage....

.... and here's the piece with what I finished so far...

please do excuse any stray who hound hair in the photos.

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks again for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Thrifting

Gentle Friends, out and about over the weekend I found a few fun things....

... a super cut glass and sterling overlay tray, an early transferware soup plate and a really nice pice of Limoges....

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You know what a sucker I am for cut glass and when there is some sterling involved I really can't resist.  When I first saw this tray in a pile of other plates and trays I knew immediately what it was, I picked it up and saw the price was only $2.00 - I knew it was coming home with me....  here's what it looked like in the store and when I got it home.....

.... the thick applied silver decoration was totally black....

... with a lot of elbow grease and a little silver polish.....

... I ended up with a lovely "new" piece!!

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Eatin' Out

Gentle Friends, we headed off to dinner last Friday evening to our favorite Chinese place, Alice's. 

starting off with two appetizers.... some spring rolls....

... and some of what they are really known for - avocado egg rolls!!    With the prices of avocados on the rise, I'm not too sure how long they will be able to offer these treats....

 ... everything is served "family style" so we order four things.... "Walnut Prawns"...

I 

... some of their delicious "Fried Rice"...

... some "Spicey Chicken"... it really should be called peppered chicken as the spice is black pepper, and it's super delicious!!....

.... and rounding out the table was some Mongolian Beef!!  There was four of us and we gobbled this stuff up like it was nobody'ss business!!  

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After dinner, we walked down the few blocks to .....

..Mitchell's Ice cream......

... Rico had a Sundae, with both hot chocolate and hot caramel sauce, the ice cream he chose was NY Cherry and French Vanilla.....

John had two scoops in a plain waffle cone, the two ice creams he picked were 

NY Cherry and Strawberry

Mike had two scoops in a cup, they were Cookies and Cream and NY Cherry.... 

there was a theme with the NY Cherry.......

... and I chose two scoops in a cup  - they were Pralines with caramel and Mexican Chocolate!!  We ate the Ice cream walking back to the car....  it was a really fun evening!!!

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There you go sports fans, thanks for stopping by dos top again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Bakin'

Gentle friends,  over the weekend the City was enrobed with heavy fog and the temps hovered in the high 50's all day Sunday which put me in a really fun Fall mood..... so I wanted to bake something Fall-ish!!  I dug around and found a magazine I bought last year that is full of Pumpkin recipes.... I found a winner...

... a Pumpkin cake/loaf with and chocolate, espresso/spice laced icing.... home run folks!!!  Now I am really excited for Fall and all that this time of the year brings.... my favorite time of year!!!

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping y do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin'

Gentle Friends,  still working away on AotH and here's a snaperoo..

... I'm actually a bit further along than this picture shows, but this is the snap I had and here's what's going on with me and this damn "vine." 

When I pulled the floss for this block I really didn't like the idea of the vine being chamomile along with the box border on the bottom.  So, I stitched the whole vine in "better" shades of green.... I started off with one shade of green - endive -  then got about half way through and changed to another "green" - finished the vine - at that point I was going to make the decision about which green I liked best.....  I really didn't like either green so I pulled it all out and went back and stitched the entire vine in the called for chamomile... I feel very indecisive with this block and the color palette -  which is not like me at all!!...... so I think I'm stitching with the suggested colors for the time being.   I'll probably have the block finished up by the end of the week so there may be another snap later on!!

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping by and listening to my grousing!!  

Do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Baking

Gentle Friends, over the weekend I got the hankering to bake a cake.... and since pound cake always hits the top of my list I went looking for a recipe and found a "Sour Cream Pecan Pound Cake" that fit the bill..... I read through the comments and tweaked the recipe a bit and come up with this winner!!!  Here's a snap of the finished product...

... I turned it out of the pan a bit too soon and the cooling rack left some odd divets in the top, but it didn't make it taste any less delicious!!  It is a nice dense cake with a super orange/nutty flavor and the glaze is simple and also enhances the overall orange flavor.....  here's the recipe...

Sour Cream Pecan Pound Cake

2 1/2 C AP Flour

1/2 C Ground Pecans
1/2 C Chopped Pecans

1/2 Teas salt
1/4 teas Baking Soda

1C Butter - room temperature

2 1/2 C Sugar

1C Sour Cream

6 Eggs - room temperature

1 Teas Vanilla

1 Tbl Orange Zest

2C Icing Sugar

6 Tbls Orange Juice

1 Teas Vanilla

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Preheat the oven to 300 degrees - butter and flour a 10-inch tube pan and sprinkle a 1/2 chopped pecans in the bottom

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add each egg separately, beating well after each addition
Sift together the dry ingredients.
Into the butter mixture add alternately the sour cream and flour a little at a time
(I did it by the spoon full)
Then add the ground pecans, orange zest and vanilla
(I used a bourbon vanilla and next time I'll just use straight bourbon).
After everything is well-incorporated spoon the batter over the pecans into the prepared pan.
Bake for between 70 and 90 minutes.
I started to check doneness at 75 minutes and it was well done at about 80 minutes.

Let the cake sit in the pan for about 20 minutes then turn out and spoon the glaze over the warm cake.  To make glaze mix the icing sugar, juice and vanilla together and slowly spoon over warm cake.
 I had the cake sitting on a cooling rack on a low bowl so that the glaze as it dripped off the cake gathered into the bowl.  I then reglazed the cake a couple of times with glaze runoff.

It's a super cake an can be tweaked to your taste - I tweaked it from the recipe I found - and will tweak it, even more, the next time I make it!!

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Thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Thrifting

Gentle Friends,  out and about over the weekend and I picked up a few fun things...

... from L to R... I found the beautiful bright cut pitcher at the Salvation army.  The matching glass was nowhere near it, in fact, it was mixed in on the shelves of plain glassware on the far side of the store.  It seemed odd to me that they were not being sold together. I only found a single glass, but there may be more out there and I'll be looking ...  The cute duck cream and sugar really are not me at all but in the moment I fell for their charm and brought them home.  It was a lovely afternoon and after shopping, we headed over to Los Jalisco for lunch and then home to do laundry.

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Meeting

Gentle Friends, I usually make it rule to not talk about my work here on the Blog but keep things interesting and fun..... however, last Friday we had one of our infamous Quarterly Meetings over in Berkeley.  I work for a small Media Company here in the City and anytime we have a meeting we end up going out to lunch or drinks and somewhere fun....  well, last Friday we did all three... after the meeting, we headed down to Cornerstone Craft Beer Brewery.  This place is known for the 42 craft beers on tap.  I like some beers - but was not in the mood Friday for one.  They do have...

 ... a full, well-stocked bar... so you know I had to have a cocktail...  

I acquired one of  their drinks menu's and ordered a "Captain's Boutonniere" 

... it's a drink that has Captian Morgan Grapefruit Rum, St Germain Elderflower Liqueur a splash of fresh lemon juice served on the rocks.....

... a really delicious way to start off the afternoon.....  then we moved on to ordering some food...

... I ordered...

... the Shaved Tri-Tip Dip.... by the time my sandwich showed up as You can see I had polished off the Boutonniere...  I then had a "Purple Haze"...

...this cocktail has Ketel One Citron Vodka, Chambord a splash of pineapple juice served up....  

a bit on the sweet side... I should have just had another Boutonniere.  

I had a third cocktail but forgot to take a snap...it was another vodka based drink using 

Absolute Maderian vodka, peach liqueur, pomegranate liqueur and lime juice.... 

it was really tasty and pink colored and called a "Good Company." 

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They have a sperate room for games....

... and some of the folks played ping pong......

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... and we had a quick snap of all of us before the afternoon fun broke up...that's me in front, I just plopped myself down and smiled when I was told to!!  Overall it was a really nice afternoon and a great way to start off the weekend.

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There you go sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin'

Gentle Friends, well, I finished up "October" and here's a shot....

... October in my family is just chock-a-block full of "anniversaries" and "dates of import"...I settled on my Sister and BIL's wedding date...I really enjoyed this block and love all the various orange flosses used.  I changed some of the bits and pieces and added an extra leaf and piece of vine.

Here is my list of changes ... 

GAST Apple Cider to GAST Kale (Special Edition Color)

The Large pumpkin lower right I used Gast Pumpkin Pie and Pumpkin Patch

The House is CC Pumpkin Harvest

The Pumpkin Flower I restitched in GAST Bittersweet

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... and here is the entire piece as it stands at the moment...

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There you go sports fans thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar