Sampler in Black & White, Asparagus Recipe

I can't make up my mind what I love more - the Black & White part, or the Sampler part.

This quilt was interesting to work on because in spite of the "modern" appearance, the maker requested the quilting be done in a more "traditional" style.

I tried to accommodate her request for 1/4" outline quilting as much as possible.

 Many places required MORE quilting (in my opinion) so I used straight lines to continue the mood.

Some curves were needed too, to soften the hard, angular edges.

Yum.  I love curved piecing.

If I live to be one hundred I probably won't figure out how to effectively photograph black quilts, so hopefully you can see the quilting of borders, etc., on the grey backing.

I try to blog weekly, but that doesn't always pan out.  The last few weeks have, um, challenged my serenity.  DH and I took his truck to his brother's shop for some major repair work, which ended up taking three weeks due to some unforseen circumstances.  During that three weeks hubby and I were a one car family.  Working at home is great for such occurrences but my ZEN mentality requires a weekly reboot at my yoga class.  Which didn't happen.
Thankfully, the Universe provided me with a love of gardening, so I spent many hours out in the mud, and occasionally the rain, weeding and  planting... side dressing with the occasional curse word.
If you want the lowdown, I have planted:

• 2 jalapeno peppers
• 10 sweet peppers
• 8 lettuce
• 8 celery
• 6 cabbage
• 20 tomatoes (4 different varieties)
• a dozen garlic plants transplanted, and six clumps given away
• a lonely potato volunteer transplanted beside the other potato volunteer
• beet seeds
• bean seeds
• pea seeds
• zucchini seeds! 👍
• butternut squash seeds
• basil seeds
• Thai basil seeds
• flower seeds, several varieties

Planting asparagus a few years ago is paying off in such a wonderful way!  (mind you, I'll be sick of it by the end of June)  Try this... sooo good! 

If you are too lazy to click on the link, here is the recipe.

Asparagus/Tuna Pasta

from Outoftheoffice.com

INGREDIENTS:

100g dried pasta- we prefer bowties for this recipe

• 2 bunches asparagus, trimmed, cut into 2cm lengths
• 425g can tuna in olive oil, drained, flaked
• 1 cup thin cream or PHILADELPHIA cooking cream (low fat works too) 
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest
• squeeze lemon juice as desired
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 brown or red onion- finely diced
• 2-3 cloves minced garlic
• fresh parmesan cheese for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS:

Cook pasta in a pot of salted water, until al-dente- and set aside.

In a separate pan- add oil, minced garlic, onion and chopped asparagus. Lightly fry for approx 5 minutes.

Add cream, lemon zest and tuna.

Toss pasta through the sauce

Add a small squeeze of lemon juice and a generous shaving of fresh parmesan cheese. Salt & pepper to taste.

Card Trick in Taupes & Gardening Update

Taupe quilts are very Japanese, and very restful.

Muted greens, blues & reds work beautifully to add some gentle colour.

It was quilted with lots of s.i.d. & feathers.

Mmm, nice definition on the back.

GARDEN UPDATE

• I've picked seven more spears of asparagus.
• DH rototilled the garden last fall and that was the best thing, ever!  It's all ready for me now, except for the wee challenge of a zillion thistle plants.  Those horrid things spread by runners that are easily a foot or more deep.  Every time a root gets chopped apart (by, say, a rototiller) each little piece of root sends up a new plant.  I'm currently on thistle-digging duty now.  That's not a hard job but it is a tedious chore because they will all come back.  sigh.
• Last year I tried to eliminate my problem of THE GARLIC THAT ATE MANHATTAN.  Well, hell.  I did not succeed.  Yesterday I dug up and transplanted 22 plants.  I dug up and heeled in seven huge clumps that are available to whoever wants them.  I tossed another zillion over my shoulder.  There are still many, many more little ones that will be haunting me again next year.
• After the garlic was moved I found my strawberry plants.  Yay!  And we have flowers.  More yay!  Strawberries won't be too far behind.  I need to frame this strawberry bed with something, though.  The babies are starting to show up everywhere and need to be corralled. Removing overabundant garlic, only to replace it with overabundant strawberries, is not helpful.
• I ripped out some raspberry runners that were trying to move into the cutting garden.  I put in a delineator row of bricks so I can stay diligent about where they are allowed to live.
• On my way home from retreat in March I bought myself a pot of tulips.  I planted that out in the garden - hopefully they'll be so grateful I didn't leave them dried up in the pot that they'll bloom for a few more years outside.
• I figured "what the hell" and planted a Sweet 100 tomato seedling under a cloche.  I have several more seedlings in case I've murdered this one.

Spring has Sprung

I was pretty bummed out last week when I realized this was the end of my raspberries from the freezer.  It will probably be another two months before I'll be picking new ones.  Several days later I was poking around to see if I had any frozen cake frosting (which is kind of funny, when you think about it) and discovered another tupperware full of raspberries.  Yay - lunch for another few weeks!

Last year's kale managed to overwinter.  I chopped up some of this to extend the Mixed Chinese Vegetables from leftover Chinese food on DH's birthday.  I would not make him eat kale on his birthday, but two days later all bets were off. 😊

Yesterday I harvested seven spears of asparagus!  Woo hoo!!

I have two lettuce plants growing under cloches.

Two more cloches have cabbage seedlings.

The peas have sprouted.  Now I need to get a little cage around these so the stupid rabbit doesn't eat them all.

Last night I transplanted 30 tomato seedlings into larger pots.  Well, not pots exactly.  Large Tim Hortons coffee cups.  DH likes to go for coffee with a couple of the neighbour-menfolk.  I'm sure they think I'm insane when they find out they have to SAVE their cups for me.  I poke a few drainage holes in the bottom, drop the seedling down in the bottom of the cup, then fill it up with potting mix.  The seedling will put out roots all along the length of it's stem.  When it comes time to plant in the garden  these will have huge deep roots on them.

Garden work will have to wait for a while.  The rain is starting today (it's already raining, actually) - the forecast is for 1" tonight and another 1" tomorrow night.  
Since we've already had a TON of rain the ground is totally saturated, and everything that comes down during this storm will be runoff.  Sploosh, sploosh, sploosh.  I must remember to ask DH to poke around in the garage to see if he has a raft out there for us... just in case.