Stash report

My daughter in law will be proud. I dug out a bin of fabric and decided the whole thing could go to Goodwill. I'm not about to measure each piece so I decided to weigh it and convert that to yards. It came to 43 yards! (You know this is only so I can get some wool back into my closet) I'm going to divide my stash report into 3 parts.

• What I purchase.
• What I give away.
• What I use.

I'll go back and figure it out for the whole year.

Used this week...1/4 yard; a total guess for the little wool books. You know that I spent 4 days making chocolate flourishes; that didn't leave a lot of time for sewing.

purchased this week....0 yards.. I tried real hard to buy fabric for Liz and Ryan's quilt I spent hours in the quilt shop and didn't find anything I thought would work. :(

donated this week......43 yards

year to date:

used: 14.25 yards

purchased: 65 yards

donated: 66 yards (if it is donated in the form of a quilt it will be put in the used amount.)

Squiggles-final post

Isn't it lovely? Is it 4 day lovely? That's how long it took. Did y'all hear a crash and a yell at 1 today? That's when I bumped a container and it fell out of the freezer and broke.... like a gazillion of these fancy chocolate squiggles! So glad I had put them in 3 separate containers. I got busy and with my husbands help, doing all the moving and melting so I could sit and pipe chocolate for another 2-3 hours. I quit at 4 and got ready to leave. We had enough. I'm not sure how many I made; initially 362, then broke a bunch and then made about 108 more. There are about 6 left.

Isn't it lovely?

OPAM (One project a month)

My OPAM turned into 3 this month. If I was smart I'd hang onto this finish and claim it for next month. I gave this quilt to my parents for Christmas 1989. When I saw it on the back of their couch this year I was surprised at how little quilting I had done on it. So I brought it home to 'finish.' With advice from other quilters I decided to ignore the diagonal lines and just quilt over them. I love the way it turned out. I hope Mom and Dad do too.

Since you can't see the quilting on the front here's the back.

Chocolate

You are probably sick of chocolate; I know I am. 223 done, now I'm committed to making 350 fancy RS's then we are being served dinner by 24 men, I think I need to do some for them but I may get faster less pretty ones for them. I'll be editing the original post with more hints when I'm finished.

During my 'rest, melting chocolate, cooling chocolate' off time I got a cool birthday card made. No picture; it needs to be in Amarillo by Monday. So I finally made my run to the post office.

I'm listening to Pandora.com. I have a custom radio station with no ads and they only play what I like! I have a couple that I switch back and forth to. One is 'Catch a Falling Star' I get a lot of big band music there. I also listen to 'Dean Martin'. Then for some more folky sound I listen to 'Jim Croce'.
I have several more but the chocolate is cool enough to pipe now.

chocolate squiggles...

124 is all I managed to do yesterday. It's a good thing I started this 3 days before I needed them. I'm storing them in the freezer and have had only 2 break as I transfer them back and forth. I'd really like to get finished today and get the kitchen cleaned up.

One Project a Month or OPAM

Here is another finish for January! I started these books over a year ago and have blogged about them here. This is the second complete set; for our oldest grandchild. the plan is to get all of the current grandkids their sets before next Christmas. Two down 3 to go.

300 squiggles

This is my goal today: 1/2 of my 300 chocolate squiggles. I suggested to the group that squiggles would look great on the dessert for the Relief Society dinner I'm working on for 280? (It's somewhere around there and I figure some would break.) Then I said I'd make ALL of them.

First I tried just basic squiggles, that was so easy why not try this;

Oh, my after 6 tries I got one that looked good. 7 more tries and I got one that looked not as good... I decided I'd have to do squiggles. This morning I decided to use the pastry bag and apply some of the knowledge I had gained and I have this! Wouldn't this be great at a wedding? Of course you'd have to know a Ralph and Susie for this to work. ;)

29 done.

basic hints if you want to try this;

• I mixed a Hershey's milk chocolate bar with their Special Dark.
• Heat the chocolate in the microwave at 30% power for 30 seconds at a time. Stir between each melting.
• Melt in a measuring cup so it is easier to pour into your bag.
• Do not heat until all is melted, stir it and let the heat of the chocolate melt the last little bit.
• Stir with a table knife; it's easier to wipe clean on the side of the cup.
• Do not use a sandwich bag Ziploc bag, it isn't strong enough. The chocolate broke through in an odd place and then you have chocolate all over.
• Use a disposable pastry bag and small tip.
• Wear an apron and short sleeves.
• Make more than one copy of your design. If you don't it is easier to slide the parchment paper on top of the design so have lots of room to work.
• Sit. This will take awhile.
• Don't work with the chocolate too hot, you won't have any control. (While it is cooling write a blog post. don't go upstairs and work on a quilt; it will get too cold.)
• Remember Toy Story? When Buzz Lightyear says he 'falls with style' ? The chocolate basically falls into place, so you don't have as much control as you do with frosting.
• Don't try to wipe up mistakes, leave them until they cool, then pick them up and put them in the measuring cup to remelt.
• When you get tired, empty the bag into the measuring cup, take the tip out and squeeze as much chocolate as you can out. When you refill the bag with warm chocolate let it sit a bit and knead it a bit to melt what is sitting in the bag.
• Don't leave the cup unsupervised around teen age boys, or toddlers, or grown men. (When I told them what I was working on they left it alone, but that was after a bowl had been cleaned out of the cooled chocolate.)

Tuesday Inspiration

This is the quilt my great-great-grandma made for my mother when she was small. She slept under it for years knowing that her great-grandma loved her enough to spend the time to make this beautiful quilt. When I was young I slept under it too.

So when I got old my first quilt was this:
I was also influenced by a pink quilt I saw in Ladies Circle quilt magazine. I'd seen it standing at the magazine rack but couldn't afford to buy it. I mentioned the beautiful quilt to a friend at church and she bought it for me.

I loved it. but was smart enough not to try to do the applique. As it was I took 10 years to finish this quilt ; from 1984-1994.

I copied the quilt pattern from Lizzie's, but I did not quilt it. I finally paid some ladies at a church in Baytown to quilt it; which is why it got done. This was pieced before I knew of rotary cutters AND the blue corners were appliqued to the alternate block instead of pieced, which is common now. Later I organized an exchange and made this quilt in 1995, trying to get closer to the original. I have enough squares/exchange pieces to do a double with muslin background AND to do one with yellow background. You will see those years from now.

I had to add a photo of the back. This is a fabric I inherited from my grandmother and I used most of it to back Jeffrey's baby quilt.

Here are the quilts I'm using my brain power on right now. I'm feeling a bit frazzled so maybe writing things down will help.

1. I-spy I've gotten 4 1/2 sets done. The fifth needs the black cut and sewn, then sorted and I'm done. 3 hours work
2. Label for Mom's quilt. Ready to applique on and then mail. 1 hour.
3. Class for Saturday. Block done. Need more of 'accent #2' then shrink, press, cut. 3 hours.
4. Brian's funeral quilt. Sort house shapes so that different orientations will be sewn. Cut more dark squares. 2 hour.
5. Quilt Verna's quilt. Chose design, now load and go. Time yourself to see how long it takes.
6. Finish Melissa's baby's quilt. Choose border, back, sew quilt and bind. timeline; April.
7. Somehow fit 4 customer quilts in.
8. Prepare for 3/15 class. Design triangle quilt.
9. Merry Christmas books for Tyson to start and then use as sit down project.
10. Liz's wedding quilt......
11. Figure out how to use a gazillion pounds of wool. Design and make at least 4 quilts.
12. My OPAM for the month.. a miniature heart quilt and
13. patchwork heart quilt.

Maybe I should take some of these things off my list? 13 is too many...and notice the customer's quilt go bundled together that should really be 4 different entries.

Design wall

If you were here last week you would have seen this quilt smaller. This week I used it for my starters and enders (here is a book starring Leaders and Enders that I have not seen) AND I counted the house shapes (187) so I could figure out how many 4 patches to do... a lot (225). I've got my numbers and I've been cutting and have all the lights done; I've a ways to go on the darks and the reds.

Wouldn't this be easier in EQ? (Mom Electric Quilt is a computer program to design quilts.)

Although my son, Brian, had 'red' hair it was really closer to orange/rust. In 1981 I made 3 Raggedy Ann/Andy dollsfor my children. I remember working on the red hair in the waiting room at the Dr. while I was pregnant with Brian. He was born in April 1982. The hair took a very long time for me to sew in and I did his last. As a young toddler I took him to the store to match his hair to the yarn for his Raggedy Andy doll. You can see the siblings' in this basket and see that his hair was closer to orange. Would it have made sense to match the other's hair to their yarn too? I wish I had.
As dolls went these were not played with much although Jeffrey started carrying Brian's around when he was small. It was lost once; we had moved and someone found him in the church nursery in Virginia and sent him to us in Texas. Now I have a 'collection' of Ann/Andy dolls. There are 3 garage sale ones around too.

Any how the reason for this story is that I've decided to include orange in the chain of red going through this quilt.

Stash report AND OPAM finish

I started this a year ago....now I've been working on it for 3 days; it's a duvet cover! I finished last night about 11:30. I bought a King size sheet set to get a queen duvet out of it. Four yards of 'lotus blossom' (a different color) for the 5 inch border, on both sides, all the way around. Unfortunately with only 4 yards I had to have a fold at the edge of the duvet and could not get a whole flower without sacrificing another flower; which would leave me with one edge with no border. Most of the miters were done by hand. Then I got to figure out how to topstitch the backside without going through all the layers. The hem tape of stitch witchery I bought 15 years ago came in handy to hold the edge in place until I could sew it down. As I finished I thought of an easier way to construct the whole thing...but it would not have looked as nice, and I wouldn't have had enough of the Lotus Blossom. (The photo is of the back.)
It looks wonderful and it used a lot of fabric!

Duvet finished! -14 yards of fabric
shopping at quilt shop sale +5 yards
gifted to daughter in law -3 yards of '30's reproductions
gifted to quilt guild - 1o yards
gifted to thrift store -10 yards

+65 yards year to date
-37 yards year to date

Roast Beef

Beef? Yes, beef! I think it has been months..... years since I cooked a roast. When Melissa was here in October I think we cooked a brisket.... I went grocery shopping Thursday morning at 6 a.m. and bought a roast and onion soup mix. Then that morning I put it in the crockpot with 1 can of diced tomatoes, a can of cream of mushroom soup and the soup mix. I'd read the recipe in Paula Deen's magazine, an Easter one, but I couldn't remember how hot or how long to cook it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't high since dinner was ready at 1 p.m. It sure tasted good. I bought frozen rolls, (not a fan of that) made mashed potatoes and opened a can of green beans. Pretty easy meal.
The boys wondered what it was since they have never had a regular roast in their life! Sad, but true, when you are born to OLD parents you may get stuck with their cholesterol lowering diet.

Journal

For about a year I've wondered how to make a medical journal. As I get older everytime I go to a new dr. and they want all that history, surgeries, procedures, etc....and I have a hard time coming up with the information I think, I should write this stuff down.... But I don't think in a chronological manner and how would I get all the information in order? Ha! Today I figured it out. Write everything down on separate pieces of paper then put them in order and bind them at the copy shop in town. I could even get a bit artsy in there if I tried real hard. Here's a journal that is way too artsy for me but it got me thinking.
Let's see... that's number 92 on my list of things to do.

I'm nuts

I recently signed up to take a class, one I've been wanting to take, from someone that will do a good job. I 'have' to start a new quilt for this class. Monday night the other guild I belong to had a class that no one was signing up for, that I probably don't need but may get something worthwhile out of it but I 'have' to design and start a quilt that involves lots of triangles. Then I have the on going 'I Spy' blocks that I've been working on and Brian's quilt that I'm using as starters and enders. Then my daughter got married 3 years ago and I really need to get her quilt made AND they have found one they both like so I ordered the pattern...

Judy Niemeyer makes fabulous patterns, or so I've heard, now I'll get to know if 'they' are right.

Will I go completely nuts making this king size? Since Liz doesn't like purple I think blue, green and red? I'll choose a batik I love and choose the colors from that....

Thrift store

I've been buying shirts at thrift stores for ages but never did the math. I recently cut up a green 'gingham' type checked shirt(third one down). I paid $1.99 for it. It weighed in at (after taking the buttons off) 8 ounces which is about 1.7 yards. I cut it up and weighed the parts...3 ounces went in the trash (I cut off pockets, collars, cuffs, seams and any spots) then the 5 ounces left look usable to me...that is just over a yard since I figure a yard is about 4.5 ounces. Of course every fabric weighs in a little different but 1.99 for a yard of fabric is not bad but I usually do better.

I generally pay .99 for each of my thrift store finds that I'm going to cut up. For example I found this 100% cotton dress with an interesting print (fourth down), paid 99 cents for it and got18 ounces of fabric...13 of it did not go in the trash can. So that works out to 2.8 yards that only cost .35 @ yard. The trick is that if I don't use it I've still thrown that money away.

Winding Way

Have you noticed a trend? Tuesday is Inspiration Quilt day. Unfortunately I can't see this continuing for a long time.
This is a quilt pieced by my grandmother; Belle Elizabeth Tinker Caughey. She made it while working for a hotel in Silverton, Colorado before her marriage in1923. The blues all came from the aprons the women wore in the hotel, all but one of them faded substantially. Grandma found that she did not love quilt making; during my youth she made us each a doll quilt and then knitted and crocheted. Nevertheless her Winding Ways quilt inspired my mother to make this:
I have collected a book and templates to make it myself but it's not on the list for this decade. Here are some close-ups of some of Mom's blocks. Each quilt she makes has some butterflies in it and she often 'fussy cuts' special motifs.

This block is of a scrap from the swimsuits my mother made her 5 s in the 1950's. I remember wearing it in the backyard playing in the sprinkler.

Design wall

I'm still working on my I-spy exchange; ( I showed it last week),1 hour a day. I pulled this out to use as my ender, starters. So each time I come to the end of chaining the endless snowballs I pick up one of the 4-patches to put together to finish this someday. I wonder how big it will be.

It's my 'funeral quilt' since I prepared the 'white' pieces during the last few weeks of my son's life and then during his funeral his friends and family wrote on them. Each piece was pressed to freezer paper with lines drawn on them that indicated which way to write, and lines to help the writers. Otherwise I would have had most of them in one orientation, this way I got a mix.

It's been 10 years; 11 next month, and I can handle working on it now. It has a chain of red through it because Brian had/has red hair. I've cut pieces for it occasionally through the years as I cut apart a plaid shirt or find something that I think he'd like.

Stash Report

I've looked back and realize I have not blogged a stash report since the end of October. I'm sure you have missed them.

I went to a garage sale Friday night and Saturday morning; the same garage sale. Instead of adding up all the bits and pieces I purchased I decided to weigh them and go back to this post to translate it into yardage. I bought 14 lbs 7 3/4 ounces of cotton fabric. Using my calculations I added 55 yards to my stash...I'm going to have to figure out how much I spent on fabric...so I can figure out how much I paid per yard. So I paid $1.20 per yard. It looks like mostly quilt shop fabric (a lot of Roberta Horton plaids) a good deal wouldn't you say? Now I just have to USE the 55 yards.

In; 55 yards (garage sale)

4 yards of black for the I-Spy quilt

1 yard I-spy fabric for the same quilt

out; 0 yards

year to date + 60 yards

Do you think I can double my output this year? 200 yards instead of 100?

new chicken recipe

I've been asked to be on the committee to plan and help prepare dinner for 275 women on January 30. Last week we chose the recipe and I've made 4 batches of it, trying to tweek it to make it better. Tonights double batch was to test cooking time so I could give an accurate time frame for baking it in the oven instead of the crock pot. Very simple recipe but I'll put my enhancements in parenthesis. We may or may not be doing all of them due to costs.

Cream chicken

6 chicken (the white pieces*)

12 oz. cream cheese

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 small can green chilies (not the hot kind)

(1 bunch of green onions, sliced thinly)

(1 red bell pepper, diced)

(celery, diced)

1 package of Italian dressing mix

(I found a recipe and adapted it to make our own mixture of spices...recipe follows)

(1 cup sour cream)

(can of s)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray roasting pan with nonstick something. Lay chicken on bottom of roasting pan. In large bowl soften cream cheese in microwave, stir well, then add soups and chilies and seasoning. Stir until well blended. Heat entire mixture in microwave until hot; pour over chicken, cover and bake 1 hour. Meat thermometer should read 160-165;( It is done at 165 but will continue to cook for awhile.

Take the meat out of the sauce and lay on cookie sheet and let cool enough to handle. While cooling, stir in 1 cup of sour cream. Shred chicken with fork or fingers, then put back in sauce.

Seasoning mix is: 1 teaspoon onion powder, 1 Tablespoon parsley, 1/2 teaspoon oregano, 1/4 teaspoon marjoram, 1/2 teaspoon celery salt, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 4 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese. I think the meat may be tastier if the onion powder and garlic powder were sprinkled directly onto the meat...but I haven't tested that.

serve on rice.

I've made it with less cream cheese and it is fine. This will serve about 15 people if the chicken pieces are big. I served it the first time without shredding the chicken and it actually went over better with the boys than the shredded chicken did.

We have had this too many times last week so I froze what I made tonight after dividing it and putting sour cream in half and plain yogurt in the other half and made everyone choose their favorite...guess which one was preferred?

The sour cream one.

Guess what I have added 'breast' to this recipe 7 times and blogger always eliminates it. Why? We are cooking the white meat part of the chicken just in case the above word is again eliminated.

service?

In my efforts to help a grieving family I walked away from a garage sale with yards and yards of fabric. I joined 2 quilt guilds last year and one of the very active ladies in the guild passed away last month. Her family organized and had a sale of her fabric and projects. I managed to NOT bring home any of her unfinished projects, as tempted as I was but since I love reproductions I got many of those. They had measured each piece and marked it with the yardage then sold it for $3 a yard. It is all quilt shop fabric, which sells between $7-9 a yard. Fat quarters were .75. Tell me I should not go back tomorrow morning...

First time I've been to a garage sale and offered appetizers and wine.

Raincoats

How many of you have every made a trash bag into a raincoat?

Last night my husband came home from a 'roundtable scout meeting' with a new plan for the quickie rain coat. Here are my sketches;

This old design has serious drawbacks: rain drips down your back, your backpack doesn't fit on your back under it, your sleeves get wet.

This new design is much better:

the head hole creates a hood to cover your head! No rain goes down your neck. Don't cut the holes for the arms until the boy scout is in his rain coat then cut the sleeve holes down low enough to cover their short sleeves. The letter A is one bottom corner of the trash bag and it will cover the laden back pack (or the hunchback of Notre Dame).

Go and put some trash bags and a pair of scissors in your trunk for one of those unexpected rain storms. Be Prepared.

So neat and easy; why didn't I think of it?

Christmas without Cookies

• Years past I have made cookies for Christmas; up to 20 different ones. This year I made 1 batch of cookies and only cooked one pan of them, I left the rest in Idaho for my son-in-law to cook. (I actually made another batch to take to a party; so it didn't count.)
• Years past I have put up to 30 strands of lights on my Christmas tree; this year no lights and no tree!
• Years past I have tried to make a new ornament for the year; not this year.
• Years past I have hung lights on the house; this year we plugged in the star that has been hanging in front of the kitchen window since last Christmas.
• Years past I have overfilled to extreme the kids large stockings. This year I forgot their stockings and bought some socks at WalMart and filled them....and lets just say I could have put more in them.
• Years past I have decked the halls quite literally with Christmas; this year just 3 surfaces had any Christmas decorations.
• Years past I have made many batches of candy. This year 1 batch of fudge, 1 English toffee that went in the trash (it tasted terrible!), 1 pecan brittle and 1 batch of orange candy (half of which got lost and so never made it to Denver.) and 2 batches of this terrible candy.:)
• Years past I've baked a couple kinds of fruit cake(at least my favorite lemon one) this year none; I didn't even have a single slice!
• Years past I have played Christmas Carols endlessly; this year just a few times. I played Pandora radio 'classic Christmas' but it would go off and not play all day. :(

I'm here to tell you I still enjoyed Christmas, I still felt the spirit of giving and spent time remembering the Savior. Even though I hope next Christmas is closer to my norm; that I manage to clone myself and do customer quilts AND my baking and decorating but I doubt that will happen.. I'll probably only do that much again when I have car loads of grandkids coming to visit.

Red and White quilts

This Evening Star and Puss in the Corner was an exchange, designed by Kathy Hock, I did in March 1993. I put this together and quilted it on my domestic machine quickly; before Christmas 1995. I usually hang it from Thanksgiving until after Valentines Day, then get it out again for June and July. Can you tell it went through a disastrous washing? The red faded onto the white in several places; it was so bad that we decided to bleach it and see what would happen. The white became white but some of the reds looked horrible, orangy or very pink. I got out my acrylic red paint and freezer paper. I ironed the freezer paper to mask the areas we did not want red and then painted the red back in. It was rescued; what a close call.

My mother used it as the inspiration for Michelle's quilt. She used 99 different reds and a bit of paint to get what she wanted. She used the scraps from this quilt in many more.

I LOVE red and white quilts, don't you?

Wish list quilts

I have Debra Wagner's book; 'All Quilt Blocks are not Square' Ironically the 2 quilts I really want to be working on are square. I think Tyler and Tyson, my grandsons, really NEED the tessellated Capital T for their bed quilts.... Then the 'Candy Swirls' just screams at me; 'make me, make me, I'll give you a real headache.' At least I would be an expert at curved piecing when I finished if I didn't throw it through a wall. I saw the same pattern in a magazine with instructions to applique the pieces down, that's cheating! Not really but the challenge of the curved pieces is what interests me.

The book also has 'Stars and Bars' (the cover quilt) AND an 'Orange Peel' that is a triangle instead of a square.

All of the above are on my wish list; instead I'm sewing the I-spy blocks and working on a customers project.

the right thing

I did something right last week;

• I changed my rotary blade! It's so nice to have the fabric cut in one pass instead of 3!
• I changed the throat plate on my sewing machine from a wide opening, suitable for zigzag, to a small opening only suitable for a straight stitch. My piecing immediately improved and my fabric didn't get dragged down in the hole. I'm not sure I'll think this was the right thing when I forget it's there and brake a needle when I move it to a zigzag stitch.
• While the throat plate was off my machine got a good cleaning. :) It makes my machine happy.
• I changed the needle in the sewing machine even though it had not broken. Better stitch immediately.
• I got up and hunted down some tape to tape my guide down instead of checking it every few minutes to see if the one piece of double sticky tape that has been there for years was still holding, and then shifting the guide back into position and checking if the last three triangles had been sewn correctly...

It's a good thing.

I'm still on track. My goal is to so 2 subsets of my I-spy exchange every weekday and 1 on each weekend day. I'd really like to make an I-spy quilt for each grandchild...but that is not happening. I am ONLY making one per family; that's 5! Almost 500 blocks if each quilt gets 99. That's 1,980 triangles!

Yesterday I read a blog where Emily is giving away some of her stash. She posted about some I-spy fabric yesterday and I WON! She is mailing me 6 inch squares of fabrics for my big 5 quilt project.

no water

We've lived here for about 31 years. Never broke a pipe till Saturday. We were without water for about 30 hours. My husband caught it before there was any damage inside the house. An insulated pipe broke just inside the brick; the brick had to be dug out to fix the break but not the sheet rock inside the laundry room nor did the cabinet have to be moved. I finished the 3 loads of dishes last night; we had exactly 4 paper plates and I didn't even think of going to the store until Sunday morning; I didn't think it was an 'ox in the mire' so we just kept using dishes. Good thing I have more than 1 set.

Cold showers

This morning we ran out of hot water. I have a long story about hot water....We moved here 12 years ago and the first time I took a shower after my teenage son I quit. I mean I started taking baths so I would know what the temperature of the water was. So last summer when our hot water heater went out I asked my husband to get a larger one. But I didn't go to the store with him and he came home with the same size. I was mad. I was hurt. Why didn't he believe me that we needed a bigger hot water heater.

Enter my Dad; He claims, and I agree that the size of the water heater wouldn't matter. The teenager would just use more of it and you would still run out of water; and your water bill would go up. Although I now consider 40 gallons tank large enough it did my heart good this morning when my husband took his shower after mine and during our teenager's and ran out of hot water. It was a COLD morning to run out of hot water!

(The picture was taken Friday after running the sprinkler all night to keep the pipes and the plants from freezing. We have one of those icicle in the freezer courtesy of Andrew.)

Design wall

Actually this is a 'design bed' My goal is 18 blocks a day...Yesterday I actually laid my head down on the ironing board and took a 10 minute nap, a first for me. This is just so boring. Notice the 'Lance Armstrong' in a yellow jersey at the 'Tour de France'. I have 154 made..but there are duplicates; this is just to give me the energy to keep plugging along.

I realized that this exchange would be 'better' if we just exchanged the 5.5 inch squares; then we could do our own sewing...I haven't figured out an easy way to do those triangles and I would rather sew all my own....oh, well hindsight is 20/20.

Then this is on the long arm. (A gift for my parents in 1989.)

Christmas

While visiting Liz in Idaho my boys went hiking to these falls. They thought the falls would be frozen but they weren't and they got to climb on them, yeah!
Here you can see the cave they found behind the falls, and you'll notice the WET JEANS. Everyone got very wet, no big deal IT'S ONLY ABOUT 30 DEGREES OUT THERE! I found out later that the pools of water were warmer than I thought; not exactly a hot springs (many are in the area) but 'warm spring'. No one got hypothermia and they thought it great fun. I was back in a warm house cuddling Liz's newborn.
Before getting to Idaho we stopped at my sister's where Jeffrey and Zachary played their instruments together. Adam got out his saxophone and played too. Their favorite activity was driving/riding on the 4-wheeler and shooting their soft pellet? guns.
Their church social was that night and everyone was encouraged to dress up. Daniel and Andrew did. the gym was decorated like a market in Bethlehem with soldiers and tax collectors. We were given plastic coins and got to purchase our meal, bread, fruit, cheese, and more modern dessert. Everyone sat on blankets to eat picnic style and then watched a Christmas play.

These are the mittens I knit for Carter. He's only 22 months old and these are just a little BIG. I washed them once and they then fit

like this:

I washed them again in hot water and they almost fit him. He is wearing them in this photo.

Finally most of the pictures taken at Christmas are loaded. Roger had put them in his flash drive which was attached to his key chain and was always at work when I thought I could write... It's time to feed the masses.

hot soup

This weather makes you want to have hot soup and toasted cheese; this recipe combines them. My favorite soup...one of my favorite soups

Hearty Beef Chowder

adapted from More Make-A-Mix Cookery

• 1 1/2 cups chopped celery
• 1/2 cups diced onion fry in the bottom of your large saucepan with
• 2 Tablespoons of butter
• 2 cloves of garlic, pressed added to the above mixture
• 1 lb lean ground beef fry in fry pan same time as the celery/onion mixture
• Add 3 Tablespoons flour to celery mixture (you are making cream of celery soup)
• 2 cups milk added to the flour/celery mix when the flour has almost browned
• add meat to large saucepan and
• 4 cups tomato juice (or V-8)
• 1 cup water
• 2 1/2 cups grated carrots
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper (or more..)
• a dash of hot sauce or chili pepper. Cook about 30 minutes and add
• thin slices of Swiss cheese to each bowl and spoon soup on top. Serve immediately.

Yummy dish of warmth and goodness.

I crave this soup; can I brave our 28 degree morning (with wind chill of 17) ? (I know you are scoffing at our paltry cold but ..I don't even have a coat or gloves, the few days it is cold I borrow my husbands and he wore his to work this morning! ) to go out and buy some hamburger and Swiss cheese?

You can substitute 2 cans of cream of celery soup for the milk and flour; you may need to thin it a bit with milk. I haven't made it with the soup since 1981.

long underwear

I bought myself a gift; not really, but since we were going to be in Idaho I took my mother's advice and bought myself some silk long underwear. Wow, pulling on a pair of the pants means your legs are more comfortable. No bulk, no tugging, no grabbing your clothes and twisting as you put on your outer layer. I'm a fan; even in our climate. I can see wearing them in the summer when I'm going to church or any place that is too well air-conditioned. I bought mine at Winter-Silks; I've been told that fancy/big sporting goods stores have them. Go ahead, your life will be more comfortable.

Thanksgiving rolls

Here are the rolls I made for Thanksgiving;

Dinner Rolls

From Cook’s Country Oct/Nov 2009

Makes 12 rolls

1.25 cups warm water 110 degrees

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 envelope rapid-rise yeast

3 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup instant potato flakes

Salt

1 egg, slightly beaten

1. Warm oven. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 200 degrees. When oven reaches 200 degrees, turn it off. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Grease large bowl

2. Make dough. Whisk water, oil, sugar and yeast in liquid measuring cup until yeast dissolves. In bowl of stand mixer fitted with dough hook; mix flour, potato flakes, and 1 ½ teaspoons salt until combined. With mixer on low, add water mixture in steady stream until dough comes together, about 1 minute. Increase speed to medium and knead until dough is smooth and comes away from sides of bowl, about 6 minutes.

3. Let rise. Turn dough onto lightly floured counter and knead briefly to form smooth, cohesive ball. Transfer dough to prepared bowl and turn to coat . cover with plastic wrap and place in turned-off oven until dough has doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

4. Shape rolls. Punch down dough on lightly floured work surface. Divide dough into quarters and cut each quarter into 3 equal pieces. On clean surface form each piece into rough ball by pinching and pulling the edges under so that the top is smooth. Then cup each round with your palm and move in a circular motion on an un-floured surface to shape a smooth ball. Transfer to prepared baking sheet. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and return to turned-off oven until doubled in size, about 20 minutes. (Or refrigerate rolls for up to 24 hours.)

5. Brush and bake. Remove rolls from oven and discard plastic wrap. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Brush rolls with egg and sprinkle evenly with ½ teaspoon salt. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes, rotating sheep half-way through cooking. Cool rolls on sheet 10 minutes. Serve.

pretty basic but turned out great, ask Jeffrey; he ate about 15 of them. I tried to duplicate them without the recipe and they were not as good. My memory was definitely faulty. I added milk, extra sugar, egg white for the wash, too much salt.... decided to post it so even if I'm away from my recipe file I can find the recipe.

I really enjoy the magazine; Cook's Country they are an off-shoot of Cooking Illustrated from America's test kitchen. How would you like a job where you cook the same thing over and over changing it a bit at a time? Oh, I already do that , just without the major improvement in the cooking each time...maybe I should take notes.

new soup

I splurged yesterday and since the boys were at the dentist and it is right near my favorite restaurant and it was lunch time I bought fajitas for them for our lunch. It was expensive so I felt bad again about not being able to eat their picco de ____whatever; it is just TOO spicy for me. So I made chicken tortilla soup; first I fried their offering and then I blended the onions that came with the fajitas and fried that a bit too. Then I added it to some chicken broth, a can of chili's, part of a tomato, and their little bit of red salsa, that is too hot to eat with chips, added some chicken and served it. So good and NO waste from my lunch out!

And that is what I"m having for breakfast today.

Snowball

This is one of my January projects. Blocks for an exchange; due February 5th. The one's on the right are finished, the ones on the left are cut ready to sew.... Not enough if I'm to make 396 snowballs; that's enough for 4 baby quilts....no announcement; I'm just planning ahead.

At quilt festival I bought 21 fat quarters; almost enough for 2 baby quilts....The rest I hope to find in my stash but it will take more time. These take about 30 minutes to sew one set; 9 blocks. That's 22 hours of sewing; that doesn't count the cutting. I figure 1 hour a day will get it done in time.

Rail Fence

Years ago I made a rail fence. It was an exchange that I participated in, in Baytown, in 1994, designed by Pat Bishop. The colored piece is cut 2 1/2 " wide and the black was cut at 1." I just put it together without fussing with it and love the way it turned out. One participant shaded her quilt gathering all the blues together, then all the reds....to make a big quilt; it was beautiful too. Sure wish I'd made mine bigger though; I didn't understand how wonderful it would be so only did a small amount of squares. I took it to the hospital each time Brian was there to cover him with, so I think of it as his quilt.

The back has 2 fabrics given to me by a friend, Robbie. One corner has folk dancers but most of the back is of 1950 swing dancers.

My mother saw it and loved it but she doesn't work with black so she enlarged the blocks (the white is cut 1.5" by 4" and the color is 3.5" X 4") and made the quilt MUCH bigger and it looks like this:

She fussy cut some of the squares; I found 16 butterflies, all flying down on this section of the quilt. I think it should be turned over; I'm sure Mom had them all flying up.

So which version do you prefer?

Quilts are like my kids; I can't choose one as a favorite over the other.