New recipe blog

Check out my new recipe blog--I thought it might be easier to just set up a new blog for that. I've also added a new link on my sidebar for it. If anyone has any recipes to share, let me know. I will personally try ALL recipes before I post them and hopefully remember to take a picture as well. :)

www.simplygoodfood4quilters.blogspot.com

I've added a Hot Chocolate Mix recipe, Apple Pineapple Salad, Cabbage Soup, Sloppy Joes...hmm, something smells good. :)

Progress here and there

I've been working on lots of projects, I can never decide what's most important, especially with some deadlines 2 months away yet. It's so easy to get distracted and to start thinking about other projects. But Christmas is approaching and my Friday night quilt group has it's annual Block exchange and I thought I would be smart and start working on them now! We have our Annual Christmas dinner and afterwards we go to someone's house and play some silly FQ games and exchange our blocks. We have 8 in our group and every year 2 different people choose what the Exchange Block will be for that year. This year is an Sister's Album block? We all get the same pattern and then we each pass out cards of what type/color fabrics we'd like. We are such a varied group with definite likes/dislikes and we have found that way to be the best way to ensure everyone likes their blocks.

Mary passed out the star point batik fabric and asked us to add more to it to match. Lisa passed out little snippets of the red/gold that she liked and asked us to choose fabrics that looked good with her samples.

Cheryl passed out various pieces of the Holly Jolly line from last year and asked us to coordinate to those colors. She did give us enough of one color to use.

Candy passed out all the 'colored' fabrics and we just were to add our own backgrounds.

Before we swap blocks, we are to put a 'quote' in the middle area and sign it. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to use the same quote for all or choose one for each person.

As I was working on these blocks, it reminded me that I have been getting further and further behind on assembling my blocks of past. So, I dug up the oldest one that wasn't finished from 2004 (we've been doing this since 1997). This is the block that I made for everyone--in their colors of course. This is my block.

We chose a pattern to work from, then made all sorts of revisions, etc. It hardly looks like the same quilt. I'm almost done with the top..I'll share when it's done. 1 almost down, 4 more tops to finish. It's challenging at times to come up with a unique setting for our blocks. We've shown our quilts twice now in a Special exhibit at a local Art's Castle and I'm afraid it will come up again and I'll be woefully behind. So, now is a good time to catch up. :)

Stash busting report-Oct 26

It's been a few weeks (or more) that I've posted my results, but I'm doing well. I'm doing things out of my scrap bins, so haven't been counting that. Then I started a project with fabric I pulled together, but I'll be making this as a BOM, so I don't know quite how to post it. Because although I pulled about 24 FQ's out of stash for this project, I may not use it all and certainly won't be using it all at once. I figured I'm using about 1/2 yard per time, so that's what I'm going to go with for now. :)

Stash IN for week: 0 yards
Stash OUT for week: 1.5 yards
Stash IN YTD: 39.25
Stash OUT YTD: 337.50

TOTAL NET BUSTED YTD: 298.25 yards!

Happy 1st Birthday my Miss Awesome A

Miss A--how could it be a year ago already that you were born? Time has flown by and you have just endeared yourself to the whole family. Your impish smile, always cheerful mood and the best little baby in the world. Thinking you might be the last grandchild makes me want to keep you just as you are...to savor that young innocence....continue rocking you while feeding you (although you'd like to do it yourself.) Here you are with me and M welcoming you into our world....noticing how much you are growing already.......showing off your new teeth while your cousin Grace shows off her missing teeth.....

enjoying that cake and ice cream a little TOO much! not sure about all the sticky stuff on your hands though. Mom wonders why you seem to know what you are doing....Dad???? do you know anything about this?Happy Birthday my sweetness....how I do love you

Love, Nana

Red Hot Applesauce

This is what's in my crockpot today. The house smells SO good! A definite must for the lovers of Red Hot Cinnamon!

Red Hot Applesauce

10-12 medium apples (I used about 24 small apples from the farm, so they were a bit wormy and I lost quite a lot)

1 c. apple juice

1 1/2 cups red hot cinnamon candies (imperials)

Cook on high for 4 hours. Then take the cover off to let some of the juices evaporate. Mash with a potato masher to make it a bit chunky. Can be served warm or cold. But then I guess it's good cold, it's never gotten past the lukewarm stage in this house or at a potluck!

the best way to find something......

is to buy a NEW one!! Yep, sure is! I was in SC and I got back last Wednesday. As I was leaving the house, I noticed my camera on the dresser and patted myself on the back for seeing it and remembering to take it home. My lower back was really killing me, so went straight home from the airport rather than go shopping for hubby's and Awesome A's birthday gifts (whose birthday's were Thursday and Friday). Thursday I had to prepare for a meeting (I'm co-President) and also I had the program, which I did a quiz game on 'How Internet savvy are you?' They're not! And had to prepare handouts for the classes I was teaching on the weekend. So..no sewing on those two days. Friday I met my quilting buddies for breakfast (our group was going to Amish country for the day), but I had to go on to my DGD's Grandparents Day at her school, take her to lunch, go shopping for gifts, come home and prepare dinner for the family for hubby's BD. I could not find my camera Friday morning for the day's events, so called my parents to go to my home in SC to look for my camera. Nope, not down there. Saturday came, taught two classes and then went to Awesome A's 1st Birthday party. Scoured my house and bags AGAIN for the 20th time looking for the camera. Looked all over the studio. No camera. So on Monday, I decided...that's it! I'm getting that Nikon D40!! I got online to check prices and ordered it with the zoom lens. I told hubby and he was really sad. When pressing him, it turns out that he was going to get that for me for Christmas! I told him--now you know how it feels! LOL He buys stuff for himself all the time and we all get so mad at him for not leaving anything for us to get him. I'm hoping it gets here in the next day or two.

I spent a good part of Monday sewing, and the chill is the air! (Look how muted the colors are this year--because we had such a dry year. Some years these trees are on FIRE!) Not wanting to turn the heat on yet (we play a little game to see how long we can wait to fire up the furnaces--Nov. 1 is our goal--btw, we didn't make our goal..it hit 32 last night!) so I grabbed my favorite grungy sweatshirt and it felt heavy. You guessed it! The camera was in the pocket! Now why on earth did I have my camera there? Who knows where my mind goes sometimes?? Maybe it stayed on vacation? When I got home on Wednesday, I had to take my 'loopy' pills to relax my back enough to feel better--I'm sure that's when I did it. Because I have NO recollection of even getting the camera out of my purse! Oh well, now I'll have TWO cameras.

I also got my little Christmas goodies DONE for my Open House--which isn't for two months! I can't believe I'm being that organized. I usually wait until last minute and then scurry around, getting all stressed out. I'm trying so hard to be better organized for my own sanity, and well, for my hubby's as well. :) I made little pincushion necklaces out of little Delft shoes. I love mine for when I'm doing small handwork to hold a few pins or the needle. I'm amazed I could still find them, I bought them clear back in January when I was in Holland. I made plenty so if I have any extra, I'll have a giveaway.

This is a close up picture of my Fat Quarter's Stars made out of Thimbleberries. Someone asked me in the comments about the colors as she couldn't enlarge the photo enough to see the colors. It was a no-reply comment, so I couldn't tell her. So, I'm showing a close up. It's 52" square and wished it were a bit larger so I could send onto Quilts of Valor because as is, it's just not quite long enough. I've been thinking how to make it longer without making it wider. (2) 10" borders on top and bottom would seem a bit odd, in my opinion. Otherwise, not sure what I'm going to do with it. Any ideas?

things that make you say hmmmm....

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and over fifty for Miss America ?

This came through an email and you know, how true is that? LOL Omigosh though, can you imagine having to listen to 50 campaign's?? or get the calls day and night?

A good quilty get away

Since I got here to SC, I've been a busy girl! I promised a friend of my mother's that I would hand sew bindings on a few Amish quilted quilts for her that were done in 1991! Got out one of the 'Karen' kits (when we bought our vacation home, I vowed to myself that I would not accumulate the stash, etc. that I have at home. And to save myself toting projects back and forth, I made myself 'kits' of projects to work on while I was here. Remember the Stained Glass quilt I posted about this summer? That was one of them). Anyway, continuing on..I finished a quilt top from Thimbleberries fabrics--and that tells you it's an old project! I haven't bought TB fabric in eons! I thought it would be a nice charity quilt. Then I found a "Montana Cartwheel" pattern and found that I had most of the spiked arcs already done! Woo hoo! So, spent time finding fabrics to finish the blocks and sewing those lovely curves. My friend and I were talking about where we got the fabric and we came to the conclusion that we must have shared stash with one another.We do that a lot--really extends your fabric selections! Some fabric in our quilts are the same, but then others I recognize from a purse, another quilt, really OLD fabric, etc. I don't have enough here to finish the blocks, but I'm close enough to take them home now and finish them up. Another 8+ year old UFO!

And continuing on with my Quilt a top on Thursdays, I brought my Bargello quilt and batting and backing and borrowed my friend's HQ16 (the one in the sit down table) and got it quilted. Whoa! It's been a while quilting on a quilt sitting down. LOL It took a while to get my groove back! Oh well--someone will love it, I'm sure. Notice the sexy legs--not included with quilt! And did you notice that you can't see the quilting? LOL--it's one of those 'hang it high and keep it moving" quilts. I also finished a little quiltlet that was my turn to quilt in our RRBloggers group. I ended up doing it on a domestic machine-the HQ was just too big and fast to control on such a small piece. Sorry Julie--it's your quiltlet, so no sneak peeks. :)

Stash busting for the week: I already counted the fabric for the backing of the quilt I just finished, so no fair counting it again. AND....the quilt store in Pawley's Island is closing, so we made our farewell trip and found a couple of FQ's and a few half yards that will fit my need for aqua and reds fetish that has been going on in my little brain. So--I had to ADD 2 yards to my totals IN this year, but that's okay. I don't feel bad because there were some awesome batiks I REALLY wanted to buy, carried them around the store for a while before I put them back. I'm sure those bolts were hoping I'd come back for them.

Our friends from our softball world arrived last night from Holland, so I doubt if I get any more quilty stuff done this week. But--it was a great week and now I can get some sun!

More finishes and stash busted!

Woo hoo--good week (really the last two) for finishes and busting more stash!

Stash IN for week (2) -0-

Stash OUT for week (2) 30 3/4 yards!!

I don't have YTD totals as I'm leaving in 7 minutes for the airport--headed to SC for 10 days. So must hurry. Writing my blog was last on my list before going. :) Editor's note: this post was written on Monday and the pictures would not load..so it was saved. I am now just getting them done on Sat. What can I say? It's been a busy week! More on that later....

I made 4 purses--one for my daughter, Mom loved it,so made one for her. An Amy Butler bag, Birdy Sling-oops forgot to take pictures of all those and the last one was an OSU purse. I had taught an OSU quilt class a few weeks back and I went through the trash and gathered all the toss outs and made some 'crumb' blocks, mixed them with some embroidered blocks and used some sample fabric (a nice velvety microfiber) that my hubby brought home--and Voila!

This is the other baby quilt that I made on the 'two for one' post. Bound and labeled. I am still on my quest to quilt a top on Thursday. This was a top from my Quilt 24 Challenge a couple of years ago. It's been aging nicely and it was time to get it done. It's bound and labeled. I used a Baptist Fan pattern on it.

Have a great week! Karen

Two for One UFO's done!

I'm on a quest this fall to get at least ONE flimsy (a quilt top) finished per week. Doing good so far...okay, I just started a few weeks ago with this new goal, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere! LOL I had two baby quilts that were the same length, different widths and was trying to think how I could load them both on my HQ16 (aka ZOE). I'm not a professional LA quilter, so don't always know how to do things. But I've heard about people loading two smaller quilts or tablerunners at one time. Here's how I did it:

Sew about a 5" strip of muslin between the two quilt tops ( I did it on the side that were the same length) and pressed towards the muslin. Then I pieced a back that was big enough to cover both of them. I loaded it on the machine and then proceeded to quilt as usual...except when I came to the muslin part. I quilted along the side of the quilt, being careful not to get into the seam allowances and then only stitched one line across the muslin to the other quilt and then quilted along that quilt's edge. I did this the whole way down the two quilts. When I took it off the machine, I cut down the middle of the muslin and carefully unstitched the muslin (I basted it on, so it was easy to get off) and Voila! Two quilts done in 45 minutes!! I'm not sure if that's how others do it, but it worked for me!

I'm also making purses like crazy too. All kinds of charm purses and variations. Teaching people who hardly sew to make them. They are quick and easy and look so cute. Then I made this one the other night...a real Girly Girl purse. :) It's a Tammy Tadd pattern.