Bring on Spring!

It's finally finished! I don't remember when I started piecing this one, and I don't want to know. It's finished, and after a brief tour at the shop, it's going home to be showcased in the guestroom (the only bedroom that visitors at our house get to see).

This quilt is rather large (75" x 93", I think), so it took me several nights to get the binding done. Most quilting books will tell you to use a whip-stitch or blind-stitch to hand sew a binding on a quilt, but I tried out a new stitch on this quilt that I think works much better for really hiding your stitches. It's called the ladder stitch, and I discovered it through Sharon Schamber's video on youtube. I've tried gluing down my binding like she does, but I didn't have my glue bottle rigged up properly, so I wasn't very successful. I think if I took the time to actually do it like she says, it think it would have worked. However, since I don't do that many show quilts, I'm okay with just using binding clips or pins to hold my binding in place while I stitch it down. I'm just not that picky.

I've got more binding to do this evening while I watch Idol. I've been doing lots of machine quilting lately (for customers, not myself) so not much to show on that front. I broke down and made the dreaded trip to Walmart on Monday night. Along with all the shampoo and t.p. and other mundane stuff, some Easter candy found its way into my basket. It was a happy accident that my afternoon snack matched a piece of fabric that was laying around.

I know you can order M&M's in any color you want all year long, but I can never resist buying them on holidays. Easter is definitely my favorite candy-buying holiday.

"If I knew you were comin' I'd a baked a cake..."

Yep, I baked. Just a regular ol' cake mix - nothing fancy. The Halloween sprinkles and cupcake papers are to blame. Who can resist sprinkles?

After the sprinkles and cupcake papers made their way into my shopping cart, I got the bright idea to make orange frosting, so I picked up some food coloring. The back of the box said to make orange, use 6 drops of yellow and 2 drops of red. To make a long story short, I would say about 600 yellow drops, 200 red drops, and 30 minutes of stirring later, I finally had orange frosting. I had no idea it was going to be such an ordeal.

I also frosted half of the cupcakes with chocolate, but there was a bit of an incident on the way to the car this morning, and the chocolate-frosted cupcakes are in no shape to have their picture taken.

And because I have nothing better to do (ha!), I started another ripple crochet project. I was going to teach myself how to knit, but I wasn't in the mood on Saturday night to learn anything new. I was, however, in the mood to crochet something, so this is what I started. I had put in some rows in other colors, but after much discussion my husband I decided I should just stick with blue & brown.

I was very excited today when the UPS man brought me this:
It's the new Sew Girls line from Loralie. I can't wait to make a bag or sewing kit or something out of this stuff - I think it's just hilarious. My favorite are the tomato pin-cushion and button bras. They're available in the shop's website, along with the You Golf Girl! panel.

Last but not least, I finished sewing down the binding on a quilt last night during Monday night football! I'm pretty sure I've shown you this quilt before, but that's when it was just a quilt top. I'm usually not a very flowery person, but I love the borders on this one. And the gingham in the star points.

While I was baking up a storm and cursing at the frosting last night, my husband was busy making chicken & wild rice soup. I didn't get a picture because it disappeared so fast. We were hungry, and it was good. I got the recipe from a recipe notebook I got as a wedding gift. Knowing that I'm not much of a cook (although I'm trying), my friend's mom (she's an amazing cook) put together a 3-ring binder of quick & easy recipes for me - everything from appetizers to desserts. So without further ado, here's the soup!

Chicken & Wild Rice soup:
1/2 c. shredded carrots
1/2 c. chopped celery
1/2 c. chopped green bell pepper
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 c. half and half
1 c. water
1 10oz. can condensed chicken broth
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups cooked wild rice (I got the kind you just microwave in the bag...it took 90 seconds)
2 tbsp butter or margarine
2-3 cups diced cooked chicken (I'm guessing here... we added this to the recipe).

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, and saute the carrots, celery, green bell pepper, & onion for about 5 minutes. Stir in the flour, salt, & pepper. Add the half & half, water, chicken broth, chicken, & rice. Bring to boil. Turn down the heat, and simmer for about 15 minutes. Delicioso!

This recipe says it makes 5 servings, but I would say it's more like 4. We're going to double the recipe next time, because we ended up using half an onion, half of the bell pepper, and (wait for it....) half of the half-and-half. Which felt like a waste. I always make extra anyway so we can have leftovers. I wouldn't want to have to cook two days in a row...

Dear Kellogg corporation,

I have a bone to pick with you. I have been eating your cereal, Special K with red berries, for breakfast for the past six weeks or so, and I haven't lost any weight. Not even a little bit. Never mind that I've been eating twice the recommended serving of 8 ounces, because come on, who can face the day with just 8 ounces of cereal and a cup of coffee in their stomach? Oh yeah, and I don't use skim milk, because, well, I don't like it. And I may have cheated a couple of times by having cookies for breakfast instead. But other than that, I made a commitment to your product based on the advertising that said I would lose weight, and you're not holding up your end of the bargain.

I would return the unused portion of the product for a full refund, but I like the way it tastes, and it's got to be healther than the cereal I used to eat. However, I'm still upset about not losing any weight.

Sincerely,

Tiffany

Pink & brown

Remember yesterday how I was dreaming of all the possibilities of embroidery beyond redwork? And how a baby quilt for a friend of mine was on my to-do list? (The friend has since had her baby, and I still haven't finished a quilt.) Well, the light bulb went on yesterday after I posted.

Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I started a yellow brick road quilt at 4:00 yesterday. The good thing about this quilt is that I had the top done by 7:00. The pattern calls for borders, but I really like the way it looks without them, especially since it's just intended to be a baby quilt. Wondering where the embroidery comes in? In the larger, pink marbled squares, I'm going to embroider the baby's "stats" (for lack of a better word) in brown thread. Ya know, the name, weight, date of birth, etc. I got the idea from a customer's quilt that I quilted, and she said she got the idea from a book but couldn't remember which one. So I can't give proper credit to whoever deserves it, but I think it's a wonderful idea. I haven't started embroidering yet, and I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Here's a little more pink & brown love from a wedding we attended on Saturday night. I just love the cowboy theme!

I'm off to figure out the best way to mark and embroider on that quilt... wish me luck!

Redwork & cookies

I was bad this weekend. First, I didn't sew any binding down on any of the three quilts that are waiting on me for this final step. Instead, I started on my redwork project. I'm doing nine blocks that all have a mother goose, nursery rhyme theme. This first one is little Miss Muffet. I stitched her first because she looked like she was the least amount of work.

And this one is Old Mother Hubbard. Again, I'm stitching in order of difficulty, so she looked like the least amount of work after Miss Muffet.

I'm using three strands of red (DMC 321) embroidery thread on a bleached muslin background. The white background makes it very hard to get a good picture that isn't too shadowy, especially since today is another cloudy one.

On the bright side, this is the first embroidery I've ever done, and I really like it. On the weekends I like to have handwork (usually binding a quilt or crochet) to do while I sit on the couch and relax. Plus, I love the way redwork looks. My head is spinning now with ideas about how to update the redwork a little...turquoise thread on a brown background, white thread on black, pink or light blue on white for a baby quilt... I'm quickly thinking of more ideas for projects than I'll ever be able to complete.

Sunday I slept in and enjoyed every lazy minute of it. I even stayed in bed for 10 minutes or so after I woke up, just enjoying the feeling of slowly waking up instead of hopping out of bed and scurrying around to get ready for work. Grocery shopping couldn't be put off any longer, so I did that too. For supper, I made "To Die For Crockpot Roast" from the recipe on pg. 21 in the latest issue of the Country Register. Cindy tried it first and highly recommended it. And I second her recommendation. It meets the rule of 5's for recipes: no more than five ingredients or five steps.

And because I was already being bad by doing my redwork instead of quilt binding, I figured I might as well go ahead and crush any hopes of weight loss by making oatmeal cookies.

I love Paula Dean, but I tried her oatmeal cookie recipe a few months ago and just wasn't satisfied. I'm sure it was my failure and not hers. Afterwards, I was told by my mother and a co-worker that the recipe on the lid of the Quaker Oats is the best one, so I used that one this time. As you can see, I had much better results =)