Travelling with Pie

This weekend marks Thanksgiving in Canada, and I'm going up to Edmonton to spend it with my kids, my soon-to-be daughter-in-law and her family.  She and her mom are doing the turkey etc.; I'm bringing pie.

Therein lies the rub: logistics.  I was hoping to assemble two pies in my DD's kitchen, but she's in the midst of a Serious Kitchen Make-over and has no counters!

So.  I made one pie here -- Saskatoon (think 'wild blueberries' if you're not on the Canadian Prairies, Alaska, or the Western/North Central U.S.) -- and froze it.  All well and good.
BUT...the second pie has to be pumpkin (grin) because it's Thanksgiving!  Well.  I've never had experience freezing a pumpkin pie.  Indeed, it's not recommended.

So.  This morning I made the pastry.  I'll freeze it too, and thaw in time to make the pie on Sunday after church.  Bless C's mom, she has a turkey roaster, so The Bird will have its own personal roasting space and I can use the oven for the pie.

In preparation, I've assembled this Travelling Pie Kit:

Ingredients:
Trusty Old Cookbook
Packet of sugar and spices
Can of evaporated milk
Can of unseasoned pumpkin
Bottle of faux vanilla extract
Ball of (frozen) pastry

Tomorrow I'll pack up the Kit and the frozen Saskatoon pie in a box lined with paper and nestled with ice packs...and head out! (I don't own a cooler.  Tried to buy one at the hardware in town yesterday -- they don't make 'em wide enough front-to-back to accommodate a pie plate.)

I have a pit-stop on the way to my DD's home, where I'll be staying.  The stop: a 4-hour class in using InkTense (R) pencils, offered by Central Sewing (South store).  I've muddled along long enough with these -- and with my watercolour pencils -- to know I need some hands-on instruction, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Today?  The forecast is for a high of 20+ C, so it's the perfect day to do the Fall Cleaning of the Car Interior; to check the vents on my roof and 'goop' them if needed; and to maybe do a wee bit of fabric painting -- some skies for my new minis.  

As the 14-day trend is for reasonable temps and mainly sunshine, I'll leave clearing the garden for now.  I hate to put away the Outdoor Studio...especially when I can still stitch there in the sunshine, or use it for photos of finished objects, like this one, which went off in the mail Wednesday...

M's Comfort Shawl
Pattern: "Zilver" by Lisa Mutch
Yarn: Peruvian Pure Alpaca from elann.com (discontinued)

M's Comfort Shawl - close-up

Now...I'm linking this up to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday...and will join you there in a break in the action later today!

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers; I'm thankful to have you all (both Canadians and those who want to be) in my life!

Of Blocking...and Blocks

F is a Christmas friend.  By that I mean, she and her husband, P, are people that my husband and I worked with in the mid-seventies, and with whom we've been in touch ever since -- generally once a year, at Christmas. Of the two of us, F was the less conservative, the more feminist, and the more inclined to make her own cards, while I steered away from tree-hugging and bought my cards by the box from UNICEF or got them sent to me by some other charitable organization(s).  F usually included some sort of newsletter; I wrote short notes by hand.

When our kids were small, we visited them and their (still small but a bit older) kids in their home on Vancouver Island,  but they never got around to visiting us in Calgary...and now all said kids are grown, and some are married, and some have children of their own.  Still, F and I (it's usually the women in families who do these things, right? Act as Social Secretaries and Perpetual Correspondents...) continue to correspond at Christmas.  So.

This year, I sent my usual card and hand-written note to F and P -- and very shortly before Christmas got an e-mail from F with the usual newsletter attached.  But...the word cancer leapt off the page screen at me, and I printed it out, just to be sure.  Then I phoned.

After I hung up, I found a pattern and began to knit.

"Zilver" - designed by Lisa Mutch

The yarn is from Schaeffer Yarn Company and is called "Anne" -- though the colour-way is not, apparently, consistent. I bought mine at Make 1 Yarn in Calgary a few years back, with something completely different  in mind -- a shawl, I'm sure, but the intended pattern escapes me.  The hank I had was predominately blue with green, purple and a red-brown.  The pattern is "Zilver", designed by Lisa Mutch -- a free Ravelry download -- which I discovered quite by chance in a post from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (The Yarn Harlot) -- at least, I think that's where I found it, but I can't find the link in her blog archives now.  Sigh...

I finished it Saturday (Jan. 5), had it blessed by our priest on Sunday, and it's in the mail now.

While I was blocking 'Zilver', I dug out a shawl I'd knit from a set of mystery clues on Ravelry a while back. I was never happy with it, so I decided to wash and re-block it.  Yes, folks, this can be done!  And whoa!  Ir's larger and lovelier -- much more as I'm sure it was intended to be!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

What a difference a little learning makes!  I'm much happier with the 'after', which is larger and actually wearable!

As for blocks, I'm making my way gradually along Easy Street, having completed nine of sixteen Blocks "A".

I hafta tell ya, I'm simply lovin' these colours!!  

And I'm keeping a promise I made to myself when I was digging through my stash for ES fabrics.  At that time I found three (count 'em) bags of Blocks-of-the-Month I'd purchased as far back as 2003 from a quilt shop in Calgary that (alas) has since closed its doors (owner retired).  I hadn't (really) forgotten 'em; I'd just not got around to working on 'em.  So... I promised myself that starting January 2013 I'd begin to put them together...figuring on at least one block per month for three years, resulting in 3 small tops to quilt up and give away.

The first quilt top I chose is called "Cinnamon" and dates from 2006.  Here's the January block, which is 10.5 inches; 10 inches finished (in the quilt).  Likely there'll be sashing so that the 12 blocks can make up a throw- sized quilt at the very least.

The shop owner, Janet, was fond of stars it seems, because most of the Saturday Block and other BOM programs she ran consisted of stars in various configurations!  I don't mind, because it keeps me practicing my piecing and my points!

I may do one BOM this year, or I may do two.  Whatever happens, at least one top will be ready to quilt by year's end, and it'll be small enough I can manage it here at home.

That said, tomorrow it's back to work in earnest in the art quilting 'sewdio', so I'll be working on blocks betwixt and between.  I have some stories to tell about trees...so stay tuned.

P.S. Linking this late to Bonnie's Monday Mystery Link-up.  :-)