I'm Probably at Work

I started this paper pieced block at Sew Day and finished it up at home. I may have an idea of where to use it. I started a Mary Engelbreit baking themed quilt a while ago. Now to unearth that little project. Our guild has a UFO (unfinished object) dare for members. I haven't had the heart to fill out my list, but maybe I'll take a day to document my attention span of a gnat. Or maybe I'll just start a new project. : P

Look at the pretty fabric from the Modern Quilt Guild and Michael Miller. It's their "Petal Pinwheels" collection. I really like it, such great colors. Citrus is my thing. The challenge is to make something quilted. By July 25. Doable, even for a slow poke like me.

Julie gifted me a bag of gorgeous selvages at Sew Day. She loves Kaffe fabrics more than me if that's possible. There are some Brandon Mably and and Phillip Jacob lovelies in there too.

I used a few to make Julie a coaster. The rest went into my collection. I just love playing with them. It's about time for a bigger selvage project. I have four selvage string blocks made, so maybe I'll just add to those.

Whipped up a little pouch while watching a movie. The jellybeans are getting low, but I bought the "kids" Target clearance candy since the Easter Bunny stiffed them candy wise.

Hope your week is happy!

Hello Tuesday! Or is it Monday?

This fabric bin was fun and easy to make. I'm going to fill it with baby supplies and give it as a gift. I made the medium size and it's pretty large. I'm trying to remember helpful baby implements, but my memory doesn't go back that far. Maybe I'll just put some diapers in there. I remember those being expensive.

The holiday weekend was an eat fest. No surprise, right? I made a vat of my ma's potato salad. I laced it with green olives and cayenne pepper so no one else would eat it. Ha! Just kidding, I shared.

Finished sewing my hexagons together. I'm going to press and trim them and add some borders to make a larger quilt. I found some matching solids in my stash that will work perfectly.

During a baking mood, I made this grilled nectarine and caramel crostata. The original recipe used peaches, but I only had ripe nectarines. Everyone was too full to eat any, so I have no idea if it's any good. I'll let ya know.

The weekend did have a few sticky moments. The snake joined us on the pool deck one afternoon, we had to replace the garbage disposal yesterday, I blackened an entire loaf of garlic bread Saturday night, and we tried to grill during a bad lightening storm (twice). Other than that, it was a relaxing and fun weekend. We had lots of fun company and ate 24/7. I was so happy sad to see everyone take off this morning. You know what I mean. ;)

Linking up with Skip to My Lou for Made by you Monday because I can't figure out what day it is.

Happy Summer!

Sew Day was last Saturday and I didn't have any new projects to work on, so I quickly unearthed around six million works in progress and crammed them into my project bag. This Amish block-of-the-month was featured on the Cabin Fever Quilt Guild's web site. The block patterns are no longer available, but it was a fun series. I've had the blocks made for some time and finally put them together. Now to add a couple of borders to grow it.

I brought a Thai shrimp and lobster salad to share with my guild buddies. My local seafood shop has great seafood. It's hard not to buy everything. I've been craving conch fritters or ceviche and my local grocery store had some in their seafood case. I may have to run up there.

As you can see, we eat well at Sew Day. There was another table of desserts and coffee.

More unearthed projects sewn into practical potholders.

This boxy travel pouch was fun to make. I didn't use laminated cotton, but found some fun sewing themed fabric that matched my zipper.

I was getting low on peppercorns so I placed another Penzey's order. I am a bit obsessed with their spices. The creamy peppercorn spice (free gift) made a great salad dressing and they've been throwing in a free lemon pepper with my orders too.

My funny mom brought me this Talavera snake this week. She thinks it funny I'm such a snake magnet. I cringe every time I see it. Thanks, Mama. I collect Talavera pottery, displaying and using it in my home, but this one has to live outside. At least the real snakes are behaving for the most part this summer, although there was a tiny ring neck in the pool a couple of days ago.

I hope your summer is going along swimmingly. It's been a busy one for me. Lots of work and traveling and little sewing or goofing off. The best part about summer is all the afternoon storms. I love them. The humidity in Florida is awful, but there's always a swimming pool, shower, lake, or ocean to cool off in. And air conditioning...one of the best inventions ever. Happy summer!

I Love the Weekend

I thought this little wallet organizer was cute. It whipped up quickly. I didn't have the proper size notepad, but I can remedy that easy enough. Because goodness knows I need another notepad. My paper collection rivals my fabric collection.

It took great constraint, but I picked the remainder of the birthday crabs and didn't eat as I picked. It's harder than it sounds. Well, at least for me. I picked about a pound of crab meat and made a bunch of crab cakes for dinner one night.

This is College Boy's favorite salad. It's a complicated recipe. Ha! I like to use Kirby cucumbers and Vidalia onions. Toss with white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and dill weed. The longer they sit in the fridge, the better they get. The College kid can eat this entire bowl in one sitting. He might have had three large crab cakes and a huge mound of macaroni and cheese too.

Baked some chocolate donuts for the big kids. This morning, I saw Inspector Gadget eat the dud in the back with no icing with his bacon. Dunkin Donuts doesn't have anything on him. Did you hear about their new breakfast sandwich? At least his was turkey bacon. I finally figured out how to cook that stuff. A griddle gets it brown and crispy. Not bad. Not bacon, but not bad. We call it facon and people make faces when I make it.

I had two similar charm packs I've been stealing from for various projects. I decided to use the remaining squares to construct a little quilt. I'm going to find some matching border fabrics in solids.

Maybe it needs a dachshund on it. Oh, Bones.

Tuesday Tidings

I thought this sunglasses case was really cute. It's fun finding fabric to match the zipper. I think you're supposed to do it the other way around, but I often buy random zippers to keep on hand. I also have some vintage zippers. Fun to see the prices on vintage sewing notions.

My first loaf of French boule from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes book. The master recipe is very easy and versatile. I used half for this loaf and half for pizza dough. Both were delicious. I don't have a pizza peel to get the dough on my baking stone, so I used parchment paper. It worked like a charm.

I was able to quilt my Peace, Baby quilt at Sew Day on Saturday. I opted for simple straight line quilting because I still stink at free motion quilting. Rene's fun Peace pattern is available here. You can make it in three different sizes.

I ran into a little trouble after quilting. Oops, the backing isn't long enough. Believe it or not, I had help sandwiching my top, but I just cut the backing a bit too small and things shifted when I quilted.

A label helped hide my oopsie. Since I rarely label my quilts (bad), maybe I should mess up more.

The Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild is hosting a collaborative effort of makers to bring peace and love to Boston from far and wide. They are collecting small flags to be used in a public exhibition. The world could use a little more peace and love. I'm all for that.

Here's my contribution. You can see more of the sweet flags on Flickr. As I type this post, there is breaking news of four different bomb threats near me. Four. Is it a full moon or something? What is wrong with people?  I'm hoping the threats turn out to be nothing, but at least there was warning and time to evacuate people just in case.

Look who's back. Or is it a new snake? I thought he died last year. We found an injured snake at the end of the season. This booger has already scared me twice. Did you hear my snake scream? This is right outside my studio window. Lovely.

Signed,
The Snake Magnet

Whee! It's Wednesday!

I found a new pouch tutorial on the DaWanda Blog. The video is in German, but I work best with a visual guide anyway. Plus, she has a gorgeous studio. I love seeing where everyone creates. It makes me want to straighten up my messy studio, but only for about five minutes. Then I see something shiny.

Inspector Gadget bought a gigantic ham and I'm trying to think of clever ways to use the leftovers. This ham and cheese strata was dinner one night. And breakfast the next morning. I believe I'm hammed out.

My last teenager in the house. Bones turned 13 last week. That's 91 in dog years! Love how he finds the sun whenever he can. He's such a funny dog. Just three years ago his back went out and we thought he was a goner. He swaggers when he walks (or runs!) but at least he's no longer paralyzed. A month under a laundry basket healed him.

I made this tiny pouch yesterday and didn't quite catch the pocket under the ribbon handle. I was getting ready to trash it, but I found a cute little patch to cover up my error. Crisis averted. Sewing is serious stuff. Ha ha!

The Flying Farfalle baby quilt is complete. Those little 3" x 4.5" blocks I made over a period of time. After 60 blocks, I got sick of them. Eagle Mountain Quilting did the quilting. I used the backing to self bind. The top jelled in my big tub o' tops for over a year. I'm slowly getting the tops quilted. It's preparing the backing that freaks me out. And quilting them myself? Absolutely terrifying.

Working Hard

So many fun distractions today. I saw this Squash Blossom block by Bloomin' Workshop this morning and couldn't get it out of my head. 51 pieces later I got her done. Now I want cheese stuffed squash blossoms. I've never had them, but they sound delicious.

Instead of decadent cheese and squash blossoms, I made soup for lunch. It's been chilly this week, plus I had homemade chicken broth I needed to use. I found the inspiration for this recipe in a magazine and gave it a try. Here's my version:

Kill the Limas* Soup

1 bag frozen succotash (nasty baby plastic green lima beans and corn)
1 bag frozen broccoli
spices (salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, garlic and onion powders)
chicken or vegetable stock to cover veggies

Bring to a boil and then let simmer 15-20 minutes (kill those lima beans). Cool slightly and use an immersion blender or food processor to puree. Leave some chunks.

*I am not fond of frozen baby green lima beans. It's a texture thing. The taste is great, but the tough skin and mealy insides have never appealed to me.

My new Liberty Love book has a great pincushion pattern. Too bad I don't have many Liberty fabrics, but I do have lots of scraps. Lots and lots of scraps.

I need to find a home for this. I'm currently flush with pincushions. I may even be a pincushion hoarder collector. It's about six inches square and filled with poly-fil. If you'd like it, leave a comment below. I'll chose a random winner if it comes to that. ;)

The last of my Madrona Road fabrics. I organized my scraps early this morning and unearthed them. So I made a pouch. I guess I better get some real job work done. It's almost quitting time!

Time to Sew

It's almost Easter, peeps. I found a funny bunny to whip up. He looks a bit deranged. Probably too much chocolate. I really miss assisting the Easter Bunny make Easter baskets. Kids grow up way too fast.

I made this Amish Cinnamon Bread yesterday after surfing Pinterest. My baby's birthday is today and she loves cinnamon coffee cake, so I thought she would like this. She's not much of a birthday cake girl. I normally don't eat sugar, but this bread is taunting me. Maybe I have a cinnamon deficiency.

We had a terrible storm yesterday afternoon. It was scary, but only lasted a bit. There are huge trees down and power outages in nearby communities. A poor little baby rat snake somehow got in the pool during the downpour. Inspector Gadget rescued him and put him out in the yard. First snake sighting of the season. Eek.

I was in a paper piecing mood the last few days. I'm attempting to make a name tag for our guild meetings. I let a six-year-old do the embroidery. Not really. And I just realized the machine is facing the wrong way.

And continuing an Easter theme, this little basket will probably be a mug rug. I'm still in a paper piecing mood, so I may tackle another pattern today if I have time. Happy Monday!

Linking up to Made by you Monday over at Skip to My Lou.