Wonderings from the Wack

Yesterday we got about 15cm ( 6 inches ) of snow. I kept my kids home even though school was open. I don't have a problem with snow, just the -22C wind-chill. The kids did go out to play briefly but it was just too cold. Kaiser got wet sleeves somehow so it was fortunate that he could change shirts when he came in.

This photo of "Above the Clouds" was taken on the 13th of January after I finished up my rotation slot. I have 75 hours of stitching done and my curious dragon is almost done. I have to finish up the remainder of his tail, and some more mountains. Then it's time to go nuts with the back stitch. That will take me a while.

I have not been posting too many stitching photos since I thought you all would have seen them before on either the 2 cross stitch bulletin boards that I frequent, or on Facebook. But not all my friends overlap on either of those places or on my blog. I only "meet" Christine and Glenda all 3 places. So from now on I am going just splash photos everywhere! Thanks to Christine and Melissa for the inspiration when I looked at your blogs yesterday.

In the past when I made a list for changing up my current cross stitch project every once in a while ( a rotation, for those not familiar with the concept ) I made myself do at least 5 hours per project before swapping.

Below is my current list. For each slot I am choosing instead to pick a certain area of the design that I would like to finish off, rather than randomly stitching 5 hours wherever I felt the urge. So far I think I like this way better. Concentrating on one area is making things look more done. Not that I jumped all over the place when I was timing myself, I have just tightened it up a bit. I am probably working for about 5 hours still each time. Each "goal" area on each project is fairly small, so that when I finish it I usually still work on nearby stitches for a while longer. But for projects like the Alaska sampler that is incredibly boring to work on, I did my little bit and moved right to Above the Clouds. The dates that follow each project slot are the date that I finished up that goal and whatever else I was stitching on the project.

GOAL-BASED ROTATION #1

Angel of the Sea (Dec.29/07)
Autumn Queen (Jan.1/08)
bookmark (Jan. 3/8)
Angel of the Sea (Jan. 7/08)
Alaska (Jan 9/08)
Above the Clouds (Jan. 13/08)
Angel of the Sea (Jan.15/08)
Babies are Heaven Sent (Jan. 17/08)
Stroke of Midnight (Jan 21/8)
Angel of the Sea

As you can see I am almost done this round. Round #2 coming up!

Stuff you need:

a cup of chopped ham, or 4 slices of chopped bacon, or 1 can of Flakes of Ham
1/2 cup chopped onion
1-2 cups of water
4 cups of diced unpeeled potato ( or the same amount of frozen hash browns )
1 cup finely diced carrot
2 cups milk
1 can creamed corn
1 can corn ( drained )
garlic
marjoram
salt
pepper

What you do:

This makes 8 or 9 cups of soup so you'll need a decent sized pot. Put your ham or bacon in the pre-heated pot. The bacon should wind up brown and reasonably crispy. The ham you just have to get hot to get some of the fat out. Once you have a bit of fat coming out, toss in the onion and let it get soft. Drain off excess fat.
Add carrot and potatoes and enough water to not quite cover everything. Season this mixture with garlic, etc. however you like it. Let it simmer away until the potatoes and carrots are soft.
Take it off the heat and add in both corns and the milk. Simmer again until it's all heated through nicely and the canned corn is just slightly soft.


I made bread bowls for our soup since I had some frozen bread dough on hand. One loaf piece makes 2 bowls. Rub frozen loafs with a bit of oil or melted butter and put on a cookie sheet. Let thaw in the fridge over night. Once thawed, separate each loaf into 2 balls. Oil them up again and let sit in the oven with just the light on for 2 1/2 hours. They should be double their size. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Thump the bottom when done and it should sound hollow.