Sunday Stash #89 - The Easter Edition

Happy Easter! You eating ham yet? Me neither, but it's in the cards. Did you have a nice April Fool's Day? Did you get pranked? Did you prank someone? I always enjoy the holiday. I made these signs for the front and back doors at work. I fooled a few people. It made them cranky, but I think they were cranky anyway.

I made this ad for Tony Roma's Facebook page. No one inquired about purchase.

Paper pieced bunny Peeps. I LOVE having an automatic thread cutter for paper piecing. It makes production go much quicker.

I made this little quilt top based on a favorite T-shirt by Patchwork Threads. The squares are 3".

A new pimento cheese recipe. It's yum and involves roasting red peppers and pickle juice. Delicious.

No neon orange here. They must add food coloring to store pimento cheese.

Here's the recipe from The Roosevelt restaurant in Richmond, VA.

Pimento Cheese
2 cups Cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 cup Mayonnaise
1/4 cup Red Peppers, fresh, roasted, minced
2 Tablespoons Pickle juice
1 Tablespoon Hot sauce
1 Teaspoon Mustard, grainy

Stir all ingredients together and refrigerate until needed.

Not sure if I showed these fabrics before. The MQG Riley Blake Designs Challenge. The challenge is to make something quilted that you've never done before.

April's Canton Village Quilt Works Kona solids were shades of grey. Very pretty. I was plumb out of grey solids.

Here's the stack of Kona solids so far. I wonder what color comes next?

I worked on these Easter-ey colored blocks over the weekend. I'm using reproduction fabrics that I've had in my stash for years. This is a variation on the Single Wedding Ring block and it's fun to put together.

I'm off to sew until I have to cook. Quiet Easter this year. Everyone is cruising, vacationing, working. I like quiet especially when it involves sewing and ham. Have a great week!

Happy New Year!

Have you seen this quilt contest by the Quilt Alliance? Might be a fun little challenge once I get through the Quiltville mystery. I really loved how the Grand Illusion reveal turned out. You can see it here. I'm up to 16 main blocks (17 actually, because I forgot I had one done already.) So my quilt will be 4 blocks x 4 blocks with added sashing. I'm a bit nervous about fitting the sashing and cornerstones, but I think I can do it. The pieced border makes me want drink wine. ;) I'm not quite ready for that, but I'm going to work up to it.

We took a quickie cruise to the Bahamas in the new year. I really like cruising. It's relaxing. No phones or internet, fun people watching, endless food, entertainment, sunshine, etc. I had never been to the Bahamas. Nassau was crazy town, but it was fun to visit. And the water is so pretty and blue.

Look! Pirates! Just kidding. This boat guided us into port. I have trouble backing up a car in my driveway. I can't imagine backing a huge cruise ship into a slip. Our captain did it though. First try! Ha ha!

I did see a couple of pirates in town.

Hollywood cruises all the time. Here's the loot she brought me back from her last cruise to Mexico. Hot sauces and the Talavera pottery I collect. She and her boyfriend's family went with us to the Bahamas. We had a lot of fun.

I was surprised to find such nice tomatoes this winter. I'm going to go search for more today. They were delicious.

Artichoke spinach dip is my favorite. I made a huge vat of it basing it loosely on this recipe. College Boy gifted me P-Dub's two latest books for Christmas. I didn't have feta or pepper jack cheese, but I added in some pecorino romano, cheddar and a couple of slices of smoked Gouda. I was trying to make it healthy. Ha! It was really good. I like the heat of the cayenne pepper.

Today's cooking is bone broth or brodo. Bone broths are all the rage right now. I love making stocks and soups, so this isn't new to me, but I don't normally just sip the broth for health. Apparently it's filled with vitamins and minerals that are good for you. This one has seaweed, allspice, bay leaves, parsley, onion, celery, carrot, garlic, salt and pepper.

I roasted inexpensive beef neck bones and chicken wing tips. We eat a lot of chicken wings, and I save the tips. I also found some leftover carrots from a veggie tray in the freezer. You could easily use a rotisserie chicken carcass or even all vegetables to make a vegetarian broth.

I tossed a plum tomato in the pot at the last minute. Here's a step-by-step for making bone broth and the health benefits.Mine is simmering away on the stove this chilly day. I'll strain it this evening, so I'll get a good 10 hour cook time, but you really don't have to let it simmer that long. The recipe above says 48 hours for beef bones, 24 hours for chicken bones, but I'm never that patient.

Happy new year to you and yours! Let's get this year started!

Across the Finish Line

You know what they say about us crazy quilters. Find some fun fabric, chop it into pieces and then sew it back together. It's not as futile as everyone in my family thinks. I really liked this collection. Very retro and the colors were right up my alley.

I really didn't think I would finish the Michael Miller challenge before the deadline, but I made it! I even quilted it myself. There were hurdles. I didn't photograph them. Did I mention I hate the quilting part of quilting? I do.

Look how close the binding was. Not even enough binding to do a mitered seam. No biggie, straight seam it is! The backing striped fabric matched pretty well and I found it in my stash right away. Bring on a new project. Oh wait, I have seven million works in progress going on. No shortage of projects around these parts.

Happy Monday!

I finished all my blocks for the Michael Miller fabric challenge. Using my design table, I threw them together mostly haphazardly. Anything would go with these scrappy blocks. I loved the print that had the big flower motifs, so I left those without chopping them up. We only had fat eighths to work with , but I still had two pretty flowers to feature.

I sewed the blocks together two by two and then in rows of four. For smaller quilts like this I stitch continuously to keep everything straight.

I even press the rows while everything is still attached. It makes it easy to press the block seams opposite ways so they sandwich when you sew the rows together.

I added some solid borders to increase the size a bit. The finished top is 42" x 44". Now to find something for the back and get this baby quilted and bound.

Cool selvage! Love me some orange.

Our guild's BOM for August. This one was fun. It's a traditional wagon wheel block. I love seeing all the blocks of the month that everyone creates.

Oh my gosh, I got caught up in "Botched" while I was sewing Sunday. I usually watch "Snapped" but it appears I've seen too many episodes and I hate repeats. Have you seen this "Botched" show where they're trying to fix botched plastic surgeries? *shudder* Yeah, I watched two entire episodes and tapped the prime time show that aired Sunday night. I'm pretty sure spending all my plastic surgery money on fabric has been an excellent decision.

As usual, we're starving around here. It's downright pitiful.

Michael Miller MQG Challenge

Well, I've started the challenge. I had no idea where to go with these fabrics, so I made wonky log cabins at our last Sew Day. I may have blatantly ripped off this idea from a guild buddy. I really love this fabric collection. Fun, citrus-y colors and plenty of orange. I took a peak at the finished projects on the Modern Quilt Guild's website. Creativity galore! The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild gals did a great job as well. I have 20 days to meet the deadline, but if I miss it, no biggie.

Got a little bug and decided I wanted to own toy sewing machines. I know. Here's the first little one I acquired. Isn't it sweet? It really works too! That is if I could see to thread the needle. These silly little things are expensive. I may already be over this bug. Maybe. That's my siggy block for V. It only measures 3.5" square, so you can see how small this 1970s Little Gem sewing machine is.

I grilled some King Crab legs. I'll grill anything, won't I? They're slathered in a sauce of olive oil, butter, minced garlic, Old Bay seasoning and lime juice. Pretty darn good.

Hollywood and I went to the produce market and grocery store. She made me buy all the things she loves. I think she was hungry. When we got back we started boiled peanuts (that's a habanero pepper in them), and fried okra and green tomatoes. Then she wanted salad caprese and Chicken Parmesan. I tried this quickie recipe with spinach. Easy! I guess I should be happy Hollywood's favorite foods have graduated from blue box mac 'n cheese and cosmic brownies.

Our Marketing team meeting included imbibing hand crafted cocktails and happy hour snacks. Someone has to do it.

Yeah, that's what I thought too. But it's true, to market something, you have to try it yourself. Maybe I should work for a travel agency, or quilt shop.

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!

Sweet Weekend!

I finally finished my Riley Blake challenge quilt. And just in time too; a new Modern Quilt Guild challenge is starting this month. More free fabric. Whee!

This little quilt makes a great hot pad for my cast iron pot, which I have been using non-stop.

Speaking of the Modern Quilt Guild, they've announced that QuiltCon 2015 will be held in Austin, Texas again. Yay! I'd attend just for the food! So many great places to eat. I'm thrilled to have my same roomie Rene' and already getting excited. Last time was a blast. Squeee!

Also exciting was this huge gift box from my buddy Yumi. She sent me all kinds of goodies from Japan, including an entire case of Cheezas which I shared. I usually hide them for myself. ;) There was a cool toothbrush, lots of snacks, dumplings to steam, gorgeous fabric, horse oil hand cream, and some scary green drink powder with brown bits. Wasabi coffee with chocolate chips? Yumi will tell me what it is, but sometimes it's fun to just try these new things. Unless it's wasabi coffee with chocolate chips...

I had College Boy build the little bird that was in the goody box . These are the tiniest Lego-like pieces I've ever seen. So cute. Birdy is hanging out in my studio.

Our guild's Saturday Sew Day was a blast. I cut the fabric for the Canoe Ridge Creation's Gigantic Starburst quilt before I left and happily stitched the top together in no time. It makes a 60" square quilt, so this pattern is a keeper for quick quilt tops. I plan on quilting this one in 2020.

We had a smaller group sewing on Saturday, but the talent was in abundance. Just look at all the projects my guild buddies are working on. I'm always in awe around this guild group. We have so much fun. My sides were starting to hurt from laughing. On another note, only one gentleman walked in the room where we sew at the library and asked if we could tailor his suit. I hope our laughter didn't offend him. Ha! We always get at least one person wanting us to tailor garments and we always laugh.