Red Cake and Jumping Stitches!

Having just had an unexpected day off (Friday) followed by the Bank Holiday Monday it's been a nice long weekend. It meant a good catch up was possible ready for the next 3 busy weekends.  I won't bore you though with tales of cleaning, laundry, washing up and grocery shopping.

Baking and stitching, however, are different (to me anyway)! 

 I've made these beetroot muffins before (probably this time last year, at the peak of the veg garden season).  The recipe calls for grated beetroot but I was disappointed the first time that the colour inside didn't reflect the pinky-red tops, so this time I cooked the beetroot before grating hoping more pigment would be released.  It was a good deal messier to do but didn't make one jot of difference to the inside colour!   

I was convinced the photo in the recipe showed a rich red interior but when I checked, it didn't even show the inside of the cakes, so I must have dreamed it! I'm thinking next time I'll try replacing some of the liquid ingredient with the beetroot water - I don't give up that easily.

Enough with the courgettes already!! I put the biscuit there for scale but it makes them look smaller - ?!
They are huge.  We've also frozen some, given some away and there are more on the way.

Remember this HST quilt?  I can - just about!  I posted this picture 2 months ago after adding the borders and have just got around to having a go at machine quilting.

I consulted a couple of manuals, put on the 'walking-foot-I-didn't-know-I-had-so-bought-another-one', practiced on a spare quilt 'sandwich' then decided I was ready to take the plunge.

 All was going swimmingly (or so I thought) until I checked the stitching and noticed it was jumping a few at the intersections.  I unpicked a bit and re-did a few sections but the re-doing or overstitching was spoiling it! Continuing on, I elected to use the quick-slow-quick-slow method (a name invented by myself but a method probably used by countless other stitchers through the ages who couldn't be bothered to name it, or were too embarrassed to admit they had to use it!) which involves going quickly on the flat sections, then slowing to a crawl at the intersections - with some success I might add. 

 I'm going to go over it when I've finished and tidy up these bits by hand which will look better than oversewing but will be a right pain in the derriere!!  I'm guessing it's a tension problem but I was too impatient to stop and get expert advice and my 'method' seems to be working for now. 
For goodness sake - when I've got time to stitch that's what I'm gonna do!!

So, (taking a deep breath) here's this post's stitching progress:

HST Quilt - main body almost quilted (7 rows and some tidying up to go)

Knitted cardigan - right front half-knitted (in addition to back and pocket linings from before)

Bye for now

Teresa x