I Was Attacked!!!

 

Today I took my fancy-dancy Viking Platinum 775 sewing machine into the shop/quilt store to get serviced.  As I was trying to leave the store I was ASSAULTED!  

By FABRIC!  

These two pieces of fabric decided that they needed to make a fast get-away and JUMPED into my arms!



Seriously!  It's not that I really "need" anymore fabric, but what could I say???  They were BEGGING me to take them home with me.

Actually, I really do need more pastel yellow.  It's hard to find a pastel yellow right now that isn't a 1930's repro.  Yellows are on the bright side right now, so when I saw this yellow on the 50% off shelf, I knew I had to get it.  I don't care about the border along the edges....I really just want the yellow part...but I figure maybe I can find a use for the border strips somewhere.  :O

As for the light blue plaid...plaids are hard to find in a good quality quilting weight.  There was only 5/8's of a yard, so I got it, too, from the 50% off shelf.  I figure I'll add it to my men's shirts that I've collected to "debone" and use the fabric make a quilt out of, ala Bonnie Hunter!  :)  

This past week, I've made 4 more 12" pastel blocks...

Although I've quilted 2 Dresden plate quilts, they both have been made by someone else and I was just doing the quilting.  This is the first Dresden plate block I've made (lower right-hand block).  It was fun and pretty easy!  I decided to take artistic license and, instead of using a plain color fabric for the center circle, I used the pretty green and pink floral.  It looks better in person than it does in the picture.


In the process of making these blocks, I finished 3 more Maverick Star blocks as my leaders/enders.

Since my Viking is now at the sewing machine spa getting a mani/pedi, I decided to pull out "Beyonce" to have available to do any sewing I might want to do.  

It's been a while since I've had her out for a workout, and you really need to run these old machines every so often to keep them in good working order.  Otherwise, they dry out and freeze up.

Why do I call her "Beyounce"???  


Because she is a light brown Singer!  :):):)

Okay...time to go out and do more cleaning up and burning on the new property!  Have a great weekend!

Loretta

Overview of a Great Weekend...

Quote for the Day:

"Fun is good."

Dr. Seuss 

Wow!  What a mixture of events this weekend held!  

I started out Friday and Saturday by working on some quilt blocks.  First, I made about 30 scrappy log cabin blocks to add to my collection...trying to use up some of the 1.5" strips from the box that exploded.  Here's just a sample of what I made...

I now have a total of 93--6.5" scrappy log cabin blocks.  I don't know what size quilt I'll make with them, but I tend to do queen-sized bed quilts.  So a quilt that size will take approx. 200-225 of this size block.  

Now I can get the lid on the 1.5" strip box!  LOL

Much neater now!  :)

I also made 5 blocks to add to the Craftsy BOM quilt that I'm making in pastels.  These blocks are 12.5" unfinished.  I think I figured out one time that I will need 39 blocks to finish this quilt, so I now have 18 of them done.  :(  I need to working on more of them to get this finished up.

In the process of all of this piecing, I finished 5 of my Maverick Star blocks that I am doing as a "leader/ender" project.  The points and centers of all of these Maverick Star blocks are made from leftover pieces of fabric that I have cut off of other blocks I've made...what many people would just throw in the trash.  But, oh...not me!  LOL

On Saturday, our area had a "Tire Amnesty Day" where you could bring in old tires to be discarded for free.  There was a 10 tire limit unless you got special permission.  I had called, told them the circumstances, and that we had found 28 tires dumped on the property...and got permission to bring them all in.  So Andy loaded them up and took them in.  The pile of tires is now G-O-N-E!!!

Since we are currently in "Fire Season" here in West Virginia, you can't have any fires until after 5 PM.  So Saturday evening at 5 PM SHARP, we went out and started burning brush and construction debris again!  

Our neighbor who lives on the other side of our new property has come out and helped us both Saturdays now that we've been burning.  She is very nice, probably in her late 60's, and boy, can she work!  With 3 of us feeding the fire, it doesn't take long to get the piles cleaned up!  So far, we've burned or gotten rid of between 1/3-1/2 of the crap that was discarded on the property!!  I really need to get out and take new pictures to show how great it is looking now!

Andy doesn't even seem to mind that it is increasing his work by increasing the area he has to mow!  :)

Sunday was Mother's Day here in the US.  Happy Belated Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there reading this!  

We had some friends over for dinner.  Since I didn't take pictures of the dishes we served (bad blogger that I am...actually, we were all so hungry that we couldn't stop ourselves from digging right in!  LOL), so I'm going to give you the links to where I got the recipes.  They were DELISH and I highly recommend that you try them!!

The main dish was "The World's Best Chicken"...and I can vouch for that title!  I've made it three times now, it is that good!  :)   To go with the chicken, I thought I'd try a recipe that I saw on Facebook.  Now...we all know that that can be risky.  Somethings just don't turn out the way that they look/sound online, but this one turned out SUPER GREAT!  You MUST go try it!  It is called "Roasted Red Potatoes".  I can't find the link so I'll just give you the recipe.  :)

It calls for 10-12 baby red potatoes.  I had about 6-7 large russets, so I used those instead, peeled and slice thin.   Spray a baking dish and spread the potatoes out in the dish.  Sprinkle with one package of powdered ranch dressing mix.  Sprinkle with 6 slices of bacon, crumbled.  (I used one package of real bacon bits.)   Dot with about 5-6 pats of butter.  Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 400 for about 45 minutes.  Serve with a dollop of sour cream!   OMG!!!  Heavenly!

Okay...so that's the recap of what's been going on around this ol' homestead, lately.  I hope all is well in your part of the world, too.  :)

Loretta

A Table Makeover...

Quote for the Day:

"Use it up, Wear it Out, Make it do...or Do without."

~brought to the USA by immigrants from Great Britain in the early 1900s,

 source:  Wikipedia.Org

If you've been reading my blog for the last several posts, you know by now that I'm going to my first quilting workshop/retreat next weekend.  I've been spending the last few days getting the things together that I need to take with me for a weekend of sewing.  

I told you about my Goodwill iron find.  Now I needed a small table to put my pressing/cutting mat on near my chair.  I've seen many people use a TV tray table for this, but alas, we don't have any.  Last night, when Andy and I made a quick stop at Walmart I ran walked over to the furniture department to see what they had in the way of a small table and I found this, though I swear it only cost $15.00 in the store.  I went ahead and picked it up even though Andy said he had a folding wooden table out in the storage shed, but he didn't know what condition it was in.  Before I took the Walmart table out of the package today, I had Andy bring in the table he was talking about.  It is about the same size as the plastic one...possibly a few inches bigger, but much sturdier.

However, it looked like this...

The finish was in REALLY rough shape with lots of scratches, etc.  And besides, it was this ugly golden finish.  (I like dark wood finish, not this!)  Imagine what the finish looked like after being stored in an outdoor shed for 4-5 years.  Andy can't remember exactly when/where he got the table, but he thinks it was about that long ago...at a yard sale, of course!  LOL

I washed it with Murphy's Oil Soap and got a layer of grime off of it, but it really didn't do much to increase it's beauty any.  :(

What's a girl to do???   *sigh*

A couple hours later it looks like this...

Nice, huh???   I used Behr Premium paint with primer in it, so I wouldn't have to do a separate coat of primer!  :)  It was a light green/sage color I already had on hand leftover from when I painted my quilting room 2 years ago!  :)

For now I have only applied one coat since it isn't a piece of furniture that will be used regularly....just when I need an extra table for something like this retreat...or any other time an extra table would be handy!  :)  It's bigger than the standard TV tray table...probably about 1.5 times bigger...which will be really nice for a cutting/pressing station! 
I'm very happy with the way it turned out and the whole project was quick and easy!  I guess you know by now that the flimsy black plastic table is getting returned to Walmart!  :)




I've been making more blocks for the "Sherbet Quilt" over the last couple of days.  I'm up to 13 blocks now, out of the 36 I need for the quilt!   

I've started a new "leader/ender" project to work on while making other blocks.  I'm using up 2.5" scraps and corners cut off from other projects and am making "Maverick Stars", a pattern by Bonnie Hunter.   They finish at 6" and use up a LOT of scrap corners!   Here is my first "test" block completed...

The star points are not supposed to be symmetrical...that's what makes them "mavericks"!  :)

Tomorrow I'm getting another epidural injection for my back and leg pain.  I'm looking forward to the relief because the pain has been quite unbearable lately!  The last injection lasted me quite a while...5 1/2 months!   I'm hoping I get similar relief from this one!  Wish me luck tomorrow and please say a prayer for me as I get this procedure tomorrow!  

Loretta