More food than Quilting

I wasn't feeling good today because my shoulders are hurting.  So what do you do?  I managed to cross stitch for about 20 minutes before it was bothering them too much so then I decided I needed to cook stuff.

Now my shoulders and back are REALLY sore.  That's ok.  The movement was probably good for them.  I took some Tylenol so we shall see if that hurts.  I really didn't have much of an option about cooking.  The refrigerator was bare.  So I picked up groceries (spent $50 over my budget) so I decided I had better get to cooking.

Here are the results so far (yes I plan to do more tomorrow).  First up was the Sauerkraut Sausage and Bean Soup.

From one of the Fix it and Forget it Cookbooks.

I will be making this again.  I like the combination of sweet and tangy all in one bite.

After dishing up the rest of the soup and putting it into the refrigerator, I had to lay down again.  I was wincing every time I moved my shoulders.   It's that area between the shoulder blades and the top of the shoulder.

Next up was making some Ranch dressing.  No pictures of that.  It was nothing but milk and mayo mixed with one of the envelope mixes.

Soon I was working on crock pot recipe number 2.  This one was called 1-2-3-4 Casserole.

From one of the Fix it and Forget it Cookbooks

It filled up the crockpot and reminded me a little bit of the ingredients that we would put in those foil packets to cook when camping.

As I dished it out, it reminded me even more so of those packets.  :)   That's ok.  I liked those packets and I like this.  It needs a little bit more salt and pepper but that is to taste.

Once again it was rest time.  And, while I rested I thought about what I would do for my last crockpot recipe today.  I decided on the Western Omelet Casserole.  It takes around 8-9 hours on low so it will be cooking while I am sleeping.  I like that!

From one of the Fix it and Forget It Cookbooks

I'll take a picture of what it looks like tomorrow morning.  Aren't crockpots great?!  I love the idea of putting things in them and forgetting them for a bit.  :)

Now I am ready for bed and have a good start on my meals for the week.

I have some more cooking to do tomorrow.  I think I will do a crockpot onion soup recipe and make some hummus.

I'll talk to you tomorrow.  I hope everybody has a great night/day.

creepy crawlies

It's getting to be that time of year again.  My friend Janine LOVES Halloween and all things Halloween.  She loves Halloween as much as I love Christmas.  Since Halloween is coming before Christmas, I stopped working on my NOEL after I finished the "E" so that I could work on a mini wall hanging to give her.  I changed up this mini wall hanging to reflect Janine's artificial leg.  She never did get the ones which looked like a real leg and just uses the metal one.  I thought she needed it to be represented in the wall hanging.  I just need to sew on the skirt and then see how I want to hand quilt it.  Hand quilting since my sewing machine is still not working.

The back of it will probably be the same material that I used for the skirt and shoes.  I wanted the skirt to look more like the shoes but I put my fusible on the wrong side of the fabric.  So the skirt is the "right" side of the fabric and the shoes are the "wrong" side of the fabric.  I actually like the wrong side better.  The back will probably be the "right side out" and I might use the wrong side for the binding.  We'll see.  It will be a challenge to quilt it also.  I haven't done hand quilting before so I am counting on her poor eyesight to ignore my mistakes.  Actually Janine won't care but I will do my best anyway.

I finished up the "e" on my NOEL which is exciting since I only have one more letter to do now.

Once finished, the NOEL will be my second Christmas related cross stitch that I finished this year. That is exciting because that is TWO (2) UFOs done.

Today is September 11 and I don't have to tell too many people the significance of September 11 to the USA.  I chose to dwell on positive things though so instead I shall say Happy Birthday to my friend Theresa and thanks you to all the first responders and everybody that helped get us through that experience.

I did find this nice picture of a flag that I will share.

Just a snippet of a flag but I know what it represents and what it stands for.  Enough of being serious.  it is late in the night and I go to bed without bad thoughts.  How do I do that?  I watch old TV shows that make me laugh or look at cute pictures.  Tonight is a cute picture.  Take a look at this cute little guy.  Doesn't he look like a wind up toy?

I hope that put a smile on your face and that today was a good day.  I'll see you on the next update.  I might have my next Halloween project (cross stitch I think) picked out by then.

Updates and somewhat progress

Today was an aggravating day at work but I still managed to get something accomplished for crafting.  At noon I met with the guy who commissioned me to do the t-shirt quilt and we agreed on a layout.

There are a couple of the blocks that I will be piecing together.  One is the top row second from the left.  It's hard to see because of the colors but the other is bottom row.  I also have to refuse some of the blocks because of transporting issues.  13 1/2" blocks just don't fit easily into things to carry.

The weekend was also pretty good.  I went to see one of my nephews first house.  This is the family with 5 kids (3 teenage girls) and the extra room will be good for them.

Their moving is hectic because Jessica was in a car accident in the middle of it and is just getting back to work and carefully walking around.  Still she can sit on the couch and look out the living room window which is nice.

View from living room

The other thing that I liked is that my nephew, Jason, finally has space to put up some of his artwork.  he is just learning (teaching himself actually) how to pain and he found four pictures that he liked enough to put up on the wall.  The bottom four nature scenes are ones he did.  I love that he is doing this.

The living room is also about the only room that doesn't have a lot of boxes still in it.

Before that I had decided to eat lunch at my favorite place on campus, the Lagoon.  This time I just ate in the car (so forgive the pix).  I parked near the entrance by the Lagoon and it was a delightful day.

I rolled down the windows  and let the slight breeze come through the car window as I ate my brunch.  It was a nice way to start the day.

After seeing Jessica and the family, I went home and finished up stitching some wrist pads that Paul (my ex) had asked me to do for him.  I charged him (1) 2- liter for each wrist pad since he had all the materials for it.  :)  He ordered 4.  He had paid me the 2-liters earlier so I had to finish the wrist pads.  Here is what they looked like.

Then I went home and tried a different recipe for breakfast roll up.  It used crescent rolls, eggs, sausage links and cheese.

Overall it was a good weekend even if last night my sewing machine bobbin locked again and now is not working.  I'll have to try and take it apart again so I can finish sewing the t-shirt quilt.  I got mad at my sewing machine so that I switched back to working on my NOEL.  The last pix of NOEL that I posted just showed where I had the E done but none of the filigree.  Here is your updated picture.

I think that I have flooded your email with pictures in this post but I do have one last pix to post.  Then that will be all until further progress on crafts.  :)

Busy...busy...busy

I know that I've said this before but life is so busy and then times flies.  Why?  Why can't it be slow on weekends and fast during the week?  LOL.  Wouldn't that be nice?  Then I would probably be complaining about how long the work days were.

Let me see what I have been doing.  One of the things that I was doing was driving out to see my sister in law who was nice enough to give me tomatoes from her garden.

I decided to do the YouTube video no cook tomato sauce recipe which is a cold sauce.  After doing that and putting it on top of warm noodles you really wouldn't notice.

So after doing that and making some black beans and rice (with corn) I started to dig out those T-Shirts for the quilts and wall hangings and started to work on them.

 That, of course, made a mess on my floor.

I didn't give up though and soon I had it under control.

That is about 1/2 of the t-shirts.  This weekend I hope to get the rest of them cut out.

I did manage to trim up my redwork trio and soon will look for the rest of it.  LOL.  It was a it and I need to find the rest of it.

I have made some progress on my NOEL too.

I will start working on the red filigree around the L this week.  It is progressing and I might actually get it finished in time for THIS holiday season.  That would be something.  I might actually put up season cross stitch.  :)

Time to get some dinner so I hope everybody has a great day/evening.

Crafting Messes

I didn't report on Friday because I forgot to bring the right color of floss to work on the butterfly block and then I forgot to bring the butterfly block home to work on.  Perhaps this week I can manage to get the butterfly block and the brown floss together.  I was still motivated to do SOMETHING so I pulled out the t-shirts and started to look at them.

I soon discovered that the 12" blocks that I had planned on wouldn't work.  The shirt logos and sayings are too large for a 12" block.  The price that I had quoted the client (it's funny to think that *I* have a client) was for 12" blocks.  Now I have to be 13 1/2" finished blocks.  Will it make that much of a difference in pricing?  Should I do another quote?  Will that 1 1/2" make THAT much of a difference?

Besides that question, I thought I had finished cutting the t-shirts but then discovered a small stack.  That means I will have to cut more.  At least I found out before I started to iron on the interfacing.  I hate to get interrupted from that.  I like to get one thing finished and then start the next phase.  :)

So here is the majority of the t-shirts trimmed down.

Don't they look nice and neat on the table?  Well that is the only nice and neat part of it.  Here's the other side of the story.

Before going to bed last night I picked up the "cut offs" and put them away.  I don't get rid of them until I'm done with the whole quilt since I might have to go back to match up something or add to it.  That's when I found the rest of the t-shirts so it's back to the drawing board.  I will finish that today and then decide if I'll do the interfacing today or another day.

That's about all I did yesterday crafting wise.  I did mix up some home made Bisquick mix and put in the freezer.  It was easy to do and turned out pretty close to the Bisquick.  I hadn't made it before but I made some biscuits with it and they turned out ok.    Here's the recipe:

Homemade Bisquick Mix
by Rachel Paxton (just made it and the biscuit cooked up like when I used Bisquick)

5 cups flour
1/4 cup baking powder
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter

Mix dry ingredients together and then use a pastry blender or a fork to mix in the butter until the mixture is crumbly. Use immediately or place in a freezer safe container and freeze for up to 6 months.

It needs to be kept in the freezer because of the butter I have been told.

I hope everybody has a great day and I'll keep you updated on my progress.

Have you seen......

Have you seen  Missouri Star Quilt Company Fall 2016 catalog?  It is their first issue and I just got it today.  I have to admit that I like it.  I love looking through it but then I love looking through catalogs.  This is nicer to me because sometimes I don't want to always stare at a computer screen.  I will stop looking at the screen after 4 pages.  This however, I looked through and already earmarked some pages.

One of the pages that I earrmarked was for what they called Backing and Trims.  It is a page of 108 wide fabric.  That is my favorite to buy because one yard can be used on larger projects or cut up for multiple smaller backs.

I don't know about all the lines that they show, but I do have some Stonehenge Gradations backing and the colors that are represented are pretty close to what you get.  You just need to remember that gradations is like looking at a gem.  It can change somewhat but the overall color is pretty spot on.  I am intrigued by the Chelsea Backing which is like paisleys.  That black and white is REALLY drawing me in.  Good thing it's a small payday or else it would already be on order.  LOL.

I can hear some of you saying "That's nice Bonni but what about the rest of the catalog?"  I think it is nicely laid out.  Certainly catches the eye with the bright colors.  There is more than just fabric in it.  It has notions as well as kits and little extras.  Have you heard of "Couch to Quilt"?  It's a box (ok....others might call it a kit) that has about "$250 worth of goods and services, including machine quilting and binding for just $99.95" (page 72 of the catalog).  What does that mean?  On the next page they tell you what it means.  It means that the supplies included are:

charm pack and border fabric
cutting mat
ruler
rotary cutter
instruction booklet
pair of scissors
thread
pins
seam ripper
free quilting.

Yes, you read that right.  Free Quilting.  According to the catalog "after you get your quilt top sewn together, all you have to do is mail it back to us [Missouri Star Quilt Company] and our fabulous Machine Quilting Department will take care of the rest!  They'll finish up your beautiful creation on a professional longarm quilting machine, and even bind your quilt for free!"

If you'd like your own copy of the their catalog, go to their website and sign up.

https://www.missouriquiltco.com/

They have some great seasonal fabric in this catalog but while you are on their site, check out their deals of the day and sale items.  You might also want to check out their Quilt Snips videos and tutorials on YouTube as well as scroll through their website.  The quilt that is pictured on the cover of their catalog was one that was featured on a tutorial.

The Primetime Olympic coverage is starting so I'll post my progress picture now.  It is Thursday and that means more stitching on the NOEL cross stitch project.

I have more of the green frame done.  The next time I work on the green it will be to fill in the green frame.  I need to work on the red filigree before I move my hoop.  It is coming along.  I am sort of liking this rotation method.  Tomorrow will be back to quilting blocks and it is a butterfly block that I will be working on.

This Saturday is my gaming night so no quilting or cross stitch that day.  Perhaps Sunday I will pull out the box of T-Shirts and figure out what size I will need to cut them.  I looked at a couple and I think 12" finished won't be large enough.  I might have to do 14".

I hope you have a great evening/day.

Hugs to all.

Tuesday and Wednesday updates

I just realized that I didn't post a picture update from yesterday.  Yesterday was a cross stitch day so I worked on my NOEL.  Cross stitch doesn't always show the progress made but I finished backstitching the letter E.  I decided that I needed a break from the reds so I picked up the green.  I still need to do the filigree around the E.

Today, according to my chart is working on the Asian Teaport BOM which dates back a couple (or more) years.  I had these done once but then misplaced the blocks so I am starting all over again.  This is todays block.

Tomorrow is another cross stitch day.  I might pick up on Noel again but I'm not sure.  Guess I will figure it out tomorrow.  LOL.

I'm not working today so I think I am going to lay down.  My ears are bothering me so I'll take a allergy pill.  That is usually one of the first places I notice it.  This morning I woke up with my eyes puffed up a bit.  That's another sign of my allergies.  So it it time to take the pills that me sleepy and I will give him to sleep.  :)

I hope everybody is having a great day. 

1st Day on Schedule

It's Monday and according to my new schedule I made it is work on the Dinosaurs.  I took out my purple dino and managed to finish him up.  I should say that finished him up except for his eye.  I'm not doing the eyes on any of them until the end and then I'll decide if I want that brown circle to be added to them.

That means next Monday when the dino's make it to their rotation, I will be starting on a new one.  It looks like a blue one is next in line.

Tomorrow is suppose to be a cross stitch so I'll have to figure out which one I want to work on.  i might be ripping out one them.  I am thinking that I will redo my Guardian cross stitch.  I have over 1000 stitches in it but I found out that I miscounted how wide it will be.  If I kept on, it would only leave an inch for blocking and framing.  I think that I will start over on larger fabric.  This one is complicated enough so I'm going to want to frame it and that means a mat or something for a border and I will need more than 1" for that.  The fabric won't go to waste.  I will use it for something else.  Now the big question is do I work on one of two Christmas cross stitches or do I continue to work on the birthday present flowers.  Hmm.  I think Noel will win out. I really want to work on the other Christmas one but I don't have all the colors so that can wait a bit.

Then on Wednesday, my day off work, I get to work on the Asian Teapot blocks.  I'm looking to finish one if not two of them on Wednesday.

That's it for my report for tonight.  We'll see how tomorrow goes.

I hope that everybody has had a great day and will have an even better today tomorrow and remember....

Sunday stitching

Today is somewhat of a quiet day.  I, gasp, cleaned up a corner of the sewing area which unveiled more UFOs or WIPs, etc.  So I thought on a plan.

I plan on working on more than one project each week.  I can hear some of you saying that I'll never finish if I do that but you know what?  I'm not finishing now so it's worth a shot.  My plan is

Monday - quilt block - Dinorawr block
Tuesday - cross stitch
Wednesday - Asian Teapot Block
Thursday - cross stitch
Friday - Butterfly Block.

Saturday and Sundays are Free days.  If I want to work on something I will but if I don't, I won't.  That will still give me time for socializing on every other weekend night (which is what I normally do) but also give me time to start to work on some t-shirt wall hangings that need to be done by November.

This schedule is for finishing the blocks and doesn't count sewing them together or quilting the wall hangings.  That schedule will come later and when it comes, the t-shirt quilts will probably have to take top priority.  

To remind some of you what the Dinorawr blocks look like at this stage and what the Asian teapot blocks look like here are the pictures.  Some of the blocks are already stitched down but I'll keep at them.  I already have the background fabric picked out and I'm not sure I will do sashings.  I like how sashings normally look but am lazy and don't like to work on them.  It's that "pieced" thing again.

The great thing about working on these blocks is that I do my stitching down by hand so I can watch TV, chat on the internet or whatever while still getting this work done.  :)

That's my check in for today.  I hope everybody is having a great day!

Happy Stitching!

Saturday Accomplishments

I feel so accomplished today.  I finally found something that worked to unscrew the two screws holding the plate that covers up the bobbin.  I was still a plain to use because it is only around 1 1/2" tall!  I wonder if I can find a "real" screw driver that would work because I want something a bit more substantial.  Still I can't complain too loudly because it did work.  After cleaning out around the bobbin area (including taking the holder for it out), I reassembled and now the machine is working again.  It's still not working right but it is working so that is good enough for now.  It enabled me to finish this flimsy or "top" which is good since it stopped working after I got it half finished.

It's a Sunbrust Star from the Missouri Star Quilt Company and is done in blacks and grays with a black border.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-grDlGdebQI

Now I have to think what to use for the back and binding.  I've seen enough Half Square Triangles (HST) for a long time.  My machine didn't like going through all the HST so I hope it will work out when it comes to the quilting part.

I also managed to get another block done for the Splendid Sampler BOM.  This is actually a bonus block since we are at the middle of the BOMs.

It is to represent a moon coming over a mountain.  So I have a dark side of the moon thing going on with it but the main thing is that I finished another block!

Maybe tomorrow I'll get some cross stitching done.

Everybody have a great day.

What? Another post? Already?

Hi everybody.  Yes you read that right.  I have something else to post about.  First of all, welcome to August.  Soon summer will be over with and the students go back/come back to school.  So that means I have to get my act together craftwise because I have a t-shirt quilt and two t-shirt wall hangings to get done by November.  Which means I had better save up to get the sewing machine fixed or a new one.  The incentive isn't there right now, or at least I'm not feeling it right now, so I had to kick myself in my butt to do SOMETHING.

So here is what I did.  It's not much but it IS something.  I dug into my scrap fusible Heat n Bond box.  Yes I have a box.  See?

I also keep the scissors which are "safe" to use with paper in it.  It helps hold the paper down so it doesn't fly all around if it gets hit by air from the fan or a/c.

So I found that I am TWO (2) blocks behind on my Adinkra BOMs so I pulled out two scrap pieces that worked, made my templates, and copies it onto the Heant n Bond.

It's hard to see in the picture but the one on the right has pencil drawings from a previous block which I didn't need after all so this time I traced in ink.

I haven't found the right fabric to fuse it to yet but it is a start.

So much of a start that I even think I am working on qualifying to be called this again.

Kat?  Did you get my message about the blue markings on cross stitch fabric?  If not here it is.  I used my blue water soluble marking pens that I use in quilting.  I either spritz the fabric when I'm done, and sometimes have to do it twice, or I will run it under the faucet.  I do this BEFORE I wash my fabric with soap.  I don't want it to set in the fabric.  After it totally dries and I don't see any more blue lines, (never had to wet it more than twice) I gently wash and block the piece.

I hope everybody has a good day/night and enjoy what is left of your summer.