Saturday, July 28, 2012

Japanese in Shreveport

 After driving back to Shreveport from Florida, we had dinner with Andreas' parents at Yokohama, a strip mall restaurant on Youree street.  This is possibly the least upscale-looking Japanese restaurant I've ever been in.  Looking at the actual food  presentation, though, you can see they don't skip on the portion sizes or plate look.  The foo was very good tasting; I had one of the two hibachi dishes at the bottom - the steak one.  The meat was not overdone, and the sauce had a little bit of tang in the sweet.  Veggies were al dente and fresh.  


Andreas' parents had the plates that came in divided boxes.  They're combinations of sushi and other things.  Since I don't like fish, I skipped that.  They do get extra points from me, though, on their presentation.



Seeing Red

I'm not getting into a rage about this, but I am pretty bored...

My Dragonflies Are Back

 Back in January, I sent this block out for the butterflies and dragonflies round robin. I use a bunch of rectangles because I like the structure better than a more random look.  The picture below is how it came back - lots of dragonflies!  I love dragonflies.  The seam treatments are also wonderful, and I'm happy to have it.  Now I need to incorporate it into something bigger!

Friday, July 27, 2012

Teaching Kiku Done

 This was the first pattern I taught to my students last month.  I picked what I thought would be a bit wilder colors, especially the Havana (green/purple combination) Watercolours, but the teal ball toned them down quite a bit.  The two poles are different versions of kikus for my own amusement.  The ball itself was given as a gift to Liuba, the host mom of a peace corps volunteer here in Moldova.  Once the weather cools and the pace of village life slows some, I'll be teaching her how to make them too!


"Mexican" In Fort Walton Beach

I was raised on TexMex food.  This means I find other regional Mexican foods to be unhomelike.  The food may be very good, as this was, but it's not what I consider Mexican food to be.  My mother's saying is, "Never have Mexican food outside of Texas."  She's often been proven right.


In this case, though, the food was excellent, if a bit on the California side of Mexican.  I had the tacos, which weren't too spicy.  The sangria was very fruity tasting, as sangria should be, and served nearly ice cold.  Andreas had the huge burrito at the bottom.  He wasn't able to finish it.  Living overseas, one forgets how large American portions are.




Last Of The Round Robins

I have completed the last round robin I've signed up for now.  This is Cathy L's block for the midnight fantasy garden.  It was pretty full when I got it, with the mushrooms on the lower right the only large unstitched space.  I find high contrast figural fabrics like that one hard to embellish.  They've already got a story!  What I ended up doing was highlighting some of the mushrooms and then doing the same for the flowers on the bottom.  It's on its way home to her now.  I hope she likes it.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

White And Yellow

I'm getting this done slowly.  Still working on the white background, and also on the yellow vine and leaves on the lower left.