OPAM

I'm a failure... not really I just was too busy this month. This month I did not finish a personal item. I have lots of excuses; I hurt my back, I had a customer quilt that I worked on when I could, I had company from out of town, and I hurt my back.

I am working on this project. It is in the long arm and I'm having fun quilting it. It's a challenge. I tried quilting with contrasting thread; I'm ripping that part out. I like the thread to match. I'm trying all new patterns on it. It will be done soon. The machine tracks need a good cleaning and I bought rubbing alcohol to do it with....but SOMEONE ELSE must have used it since I can't find it.

We're doing meals on wheels this morning, then chiropracter, pedicure, then shopping, then meal preparation, then FINALLY some time to sew. Probably 30 minutes!

Saturday Angela's brother came over and I think she twisted his arm but he helped, was the biggest worker, in moving my 'hunt cupboard' (a solid oak antique) that is FULL of china and glass stuff into the front room and the big desk with computer moved into the dining room. Plus the boys computer moved into the dining room. With little boys in the house we needed to be closer to the action so to speak; the boys play in the adjacent family room. They worked hard for 3.5 hours to get done. I even did a little...supervision that is. Now we won't be doing everything in the front room and we'll keep it neater.

Time to get busy.

Trip Around the World

I've been helping a friend make quilts. You've seen her first one; the t-shirt quilt pictured here. This is her third (the second is not quit finished) but baby's don't wait till you get the previous quilt finished. She finished and I stole 15 minutes to run to her house and get a picture of it. Isn't it great? I love the bugs. It is so bright and wonderful for a baby. Carolyn already bought fabric to make another Trip Around the World for the next baby to come into her world.

sausage and cheese grits casserole

Does it mean I've grown up? We went to DeeDee's annual back to school brunch and the best things there were the savory things. Maybe my sweet tooth left! We can hope; can't we?

I promised to post the grits casserole when I got home.

Sausage and Cheese Grits Casserole

serves 6 (if you are starving!)

4 cups boiling water

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup stone-ground grits

1 lb breakfast sausage, crumbled and well cooked

1 cup smoked cheddar cheese

3 Tablespoon butter

1/4 teaspoon tabasco

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

1-2 green onions

preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a medium baking dish. Add the salt to the water and whisk in the grits a bit at a time. Reduce heat to a bare simmer and cook the grits until thick and soft, 30-40 minutes. (You can use the 5-min. variety here, like I did, but not the instant) Stir the grits occassionally as they cook, to prevent scorching.

Remove the grits and stir in the cheese, sausage, butter and hot sauce (I added 1 oz. of cream chees I had in the fridge.) Check the seasoning and add more salt or hot sauce. Mix thoroghly with the eggs. spoon into prepared pan (Can be covered and refrigerated overnight at this point...In the morning let it sit for 30 minutes out of the fridge before baking.)

Baked until puffed and lightly set; 35-40 minutes.

Sprinkle top with the green onion.

Recipe found in 'best american recipes 2003-2004' they found it in;

'A Real American Breakfast' by Cheryl and Bill Jamison

week behind

I was surprised when I looked at my blog this morning and realized it had been a week since I'd posted. Instead of a LOOOng post no one will read I'll just list some highlights;

• my back still hurts if I do too much (and that means much of anything...clean a little, rest a lot...sew a little, rest a lot...even sleeping too much hurts my back; but luckily driving does not.)
• drove to northwest Houston to get some thread at Texas Quilt Machines... they don't have a ton of fabric but it is cheaper than other shops; cause it is last years' designs.
• delivered a load of stuff to goodwill
• worked on a customer quilt
• ripped the stitching out of a customer quilt
• reloaded and started quilting the same customer quilt
• decided to design a second frog for customer quilt...spent 8 hours doing it
• watched Angela and Jeffrey install a new printer
• Visited Fry's twice
• attended quilt guild
• bought 2 new cookbooks at half price books...1 on British cooking
• had a fight with a jar of ragu and I lost...(a gash in my calf when a jar fell out of the fridge)
• oh, yes chaperoned a lock-in from 4-7 a.m.
• found the key to waking up a teenager after not enough sleep...food. Saturday after his lock-in Jeffrey got up after just 4.5 hours sleep when I told him he could have Ramen for lunch if he got up right NOW! This morning at 5:15 I promised McDonald's if they got up right NOW.
• Oh, right, I remember what I did last week.. I drove. To the high school, home, to the high school, home almost 6 times each day! It was crazy. Then have dinner ready right at 5:15 so he could be taken back at 6.

stash report

I quilted a quilt this week but it doesn't count against my stash since it was my daughter's. At her wedding shower her friends and family tied a quilt for her. She has loved having it but the black ties on the white side reminded her of caterpillars crawling on her bed; she wanted them gone. I put the queen size double batt (they live in Idaho!) comforter in the long arm and cut out the ties and then did a giant meander all over the quilt. After stabilizing it with that I added leaves and ribbons to the meandering. Liz said I couldn't use feathers since I had that pretty well learned.

The fabric is so busy that the quilting hardly shows on the front white side and is invisible on the back black side. If I'd had more time it would be nice to rebind it; but she loved that she could now use the white side of her quilt.

I bought fabric for a customer's quilt. The first time I have ever bought everything I need for a quilt in one trip. I'm setting some old dresden plate blocks for a freind.

In: 15 yards!

Out: 0 yards

ytd In: 35.37 yards

Out: 91 yards

Quilt shop hop

I made my own quilt shop hop today. Once Liz and Ryan and Carter packed up and left the Hotel I was free to sleep until check out ...or go check out some quilt shops. Guess what I did? I had done my homework before leaving home and had a list of 3 quilt shops in the area; then Roger found me another one. So I visited 4 different shops!

First was 'The Cat's Meow Quilt Shop' while it was the smallest it had a couple of unique Texas wall hangings up that I enjoyed seeing. There was a group of ladies in the classroom working on a paper pieced block of the month that will be stunning when it is finished. I bought 10 of the very large bobbins that my long-arm uses.

Next I went to 'Plain Jane's Quilt Shop' I loved the antique pieces that she used to hold her fabric and I'd love to have one of those old grocery store carts that she had. She carries lots of reproduction fabrics and most of her samples were very folksy and/or primitive.

Then I visited 'Los Colchas' in downtown San Antonio. In a cute old home with lots of fabrics and samples. They were clearly into wool; several samples done with recycled wool were fabulous; the last table runner kit almost came home with me. I wandered around the store a couple times looking at everything; aprons, bags, pin cushions. I was looking for 30's reproductions and although they had many bolts they didn't have the solids to go with them.

The last one in San Antonio was '7th Heaven.' They were having a big sale; 20 % off everything so almost ALL the 30's fabrics were gone. :( I bought a piece of printed handkerchief fabric of Texas'. Loved it. Who gets a quilt made out of it?

Instead of going straight home I took a detour to Giddings, TX and visited Gerlines Quilt Shop. Loved it. A rancher's wife took over a farm building and put a quilt shop in. 3,000 bolts of wonderfulness. In the back of nowhere.... I found the fabric I needed for a customer's quilt.

That's 5 quilt shops in 1 day and never did I hear, 'Not another fabric store!' whine cause I left everyone home!

Cheesecake

One thing Liz wanted to do while in Texas was to make cheesecake. We used a recipe she found on a blog. Bakerella. So good, but when you take a huge portion as teenagers often do it is too rich and almost makes you give up cheesecake.... My portion had a homemade raspberry sauce added instead of the chocolate and I loved it. Success.

Guess who is visiting? We went to Galveston this morning FOR 35 MINUTES! Really, we were on a schedule. But it was fun enough that we are going again on Thursday.

This is the cutest picture in Liz's camera. Carter at 17 months.

Stash report plus my house quilt.

Does a quilt add ripples when it has been used for years? I finished this quilt in 1991; for Elizabeth. She came home to visit with her baby Saturday and wants to take it home with her. I remember when it was finished it was perfect! (just kidding, I'm not sure it was perfect with today's experience but in '91's eyes it was perfect....It was quilted, bound and labeled.) I often sewed on quilts while Liz was young....one day I was working on a white on white with a bit of beige and she asked if it was a quilt for her. Yikes a white quilt for a 4 year old...I don't THINK so. I told her no but that she could choose which quilt she wanted from my stash of exchange blocks.

She choose the house blocks because one of them had been embellished before the exchange (the very reason I didn't care for them much was the reason she LOVED them) So I embellished the rest; some by her instructions; the toy train buttons in the window are looking into a playroom. The strawberries are in front of 'our house' since we had a bed of strawberries lining the walk. I raided my mother's lace stash for many on the bits of lace. I loved working on it and adding the embellishments; there's even a key charm by a doorknob.

I also learned that buttons added to a quilt cause additional damage with use. This quilt has been repaired more than any other; often when a button comes off it makes a hole in the quilt. When a button has done that and it has been repaired it made sense to me to add a clear button to the back to support the front button.

I had been making quilts for years by 1991 but when she chose these blocks I went to a book I had and followed the instructions to make a quilt with 25 12" blocks. It was SO easy when you don't try to invent the whole pattern yourself.

She chose the quilting in the border, birds, and 2 of the birds are kissing 'cause she told me to make it happen. We worked together ...well she watched me and talked to me the whole time I worked on this quilt.

I HAD read before this child was born; but it is hard to talk and read at the same time and Liz was not happy unless you were talking to her. I can talk and sew so I did. She was happy to stand by the sewing machine...facing me and talk. I don't remember her ever getting into stuff because she was always with me.

Stash report...1/8 yard in! I'm really trying to buy fabric for a customer's quilt and have been to about 6 stores in the last 2 months looking for the right fabric...I'm going to try tea-dying this 1/8 yard and seeing if it will make it work.

for the year;

in: 20.37 yards

out: 91 yards

Vegetables are not supposed to taste this good!

I guess you could say that dinner was a success when a 12 year old makes that comment.

I made chicken vegetable rice soup. since my daughter in law can't have noodles I took my chicken noodle soup recipe and added rice. It worked out great; I started about 3.

• chop 1 onion and fry it in a bit of oil in saucepan
• add 4 cans of chicken broth and garlic powder
• have the grand kids chop the carrots.. works great when you have something like this.
• add carrots and bag of mixed vegetables; put it on low and leave for 45 minutes..the secret is to over-cook those frozen green beans.
• add 1 cup rice and a diced up chicken breast.
• 30 minutes later add the diced up left over chicken from last night and the rest of a bag of spinach; turn the heat off and pick up your son from band practice. Add some water if it is too thick. Eat.

Don't fall; advice you really needed.

This is the second day since my fall...that's right I didn't tell everyone yet. I fell.

I've always known that our floors were slick when wet but I've managed to stay upright for 12 years. Yesterday I was fixing dinner at 11 a.m.; my daughter in law was moping the breakfast room. I finished and forgot the floor was wet. Bam; I went down; no tears but it was close. No sharp pain after a few minutes so I figured and the Dr. that I called figured that I didn't break my hip but my back still aches; I have a bruise on my wrist where I caught my self and I got a headache from my spine jarring my brain...I guess, since I didn't hit my head.

The Dr. said to take it easy and apply heat. Heat helps but then you NEED ice-cream to cool you back down.

The plan was to start a customer quilt today....can't stand that long so I'll start it in a few days.

Quilt guild

Monday night I attended quilt guild in Baytown. I hesitated to go since the speaker was going to show southwest style quilts. I don't do southwest anything. Anyway I went and totally enjoyed seeing the different style quilts and learned something too. Michelle Watts does a few things different that I'm wanting to try. These are the new ideas she gave me; narrow zigzag on her applique, triple stitch on her machine that looks remarkably like a back stitch that she used to outline shapes, and she used a zigzag stitch for her machine quilting that added texture and made it look more woven. I'll try the first 2 but probably not the third.

I volunteered to teach a mini-class in October guild meeting on machine applique since I do it a little different. Last night while the house was overflowing with scouts and their parents I managed to piece and get ready to applique this.


I like it. The colors are not my usual but my daughter just bought a black and brown couch....and this might work on it... anyway I think a dozen of them in bright colors would make a great kids quilt....and like I said I'm playing and plan on bordering it with black and then quilting it heavily, make it into a pillow that uses a zipper! and give it away.

Kids, do you recognize Brian's shirt?

My favorite staircase

I've tried to describe this staircase to a couple of people but a picture is worth a thousand words so here is the main staircase in the Library of Congress. Marble swags with 'putti' sitting holding a wine glass. Another 'putti' representing farmers. When looking at the Jefferson building click on the pictures to enlarge, (the wreaths above the stirs represent wisdom and the torches represent knowledge) unfortunately the picture on their website is of the same side of the staircase that I took pictures of; there is a matching staircase on the other side of the hall with more putti. Lovely.... Although dusting it might not be so fun. (Notice the bare lightbulbs, on the website, it was the first building in D.C. built with electric lights and they left them bare to 'show off' and they are still bare.)

One surprising thing

On my travels to D.C. one thing surprised me... the number of women wearing dresses and skirts while sightseeing. Long ones and to the knee ones. Sundresses and t-shirts. Occasionally someone in heels but I think they were the ones working there. It's a different look; dresses and walking/tennis shoes. Everywhere were flip flops. Are they THAT comfortable? My feet, my poor feet, I only took my comfortable walking shoes but the muscles ON TOP of my feet hurt worse than the 2 blisters on the bottom.

no quilts!

I just got back from Washington D.C. My husband had a business meeting there for the week and we went along. I was at the mercy of 2 boys; 12 and 14. I saw 2 quilts there; neither were great; I didn't try to take pictures of them...the boys had the camera anyway. I figured they saw enough boring (in their opinion) without me dragging them to see quilts. I'm telling you that I should have worked out harder before the trip! The muscles on the top of my feet HURT! One week is not enough time see much; a drop in the bucket.

The poor boys... all day they were at my mercy; go here, do that, turn here. In the evening I stayed in the room recovering in hot water and the boys were then at their Dad's mercy. They took the metro in one evening and Dad let them run on and off the train at every stop... Let them? He was doing it too! (there was only 1 other person on that car.) They got to go to the top of the Washington monument and see most of the other monuments at night; jogging between them! Another night they went to Roosevelt's Island; a wilderness area.

Our flight was late 3 hours on Friday night; we could have seen something else in that time if we'd known. We got home VERRY Late. It was close to 3 a.m.

Here's hoping he gets another business trip to D.C.!