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

Too Many Scraps!!!

 

When I finish a quilt, I always TRY to clean up any leftover fabric and batting from that quilt.  I go through and cut down the fabric scraps into strips of various sizes and store them according to size in my strip drawers.

I also save any larger, useable pieces of batting and then when I get enough, I sew them together.  Eventually, I have a piece big enough to use in a quilt.

I use my walking foot and a meandering, curvy zigzag stitch to join the batting pieces together using a 1.3 stitch length and a 6.0 stitch width...

This piece is about 50" X 50" at this point and I can either use it for a lap quilt or baby quilt, or continue to add to it till it is big enough for a larger quilt.

So Saturday, while Kathy's quilt was in the washer and dryer, I went to work cutting up the fabric into strips, and salvaging what pieces of batting I could.

However, when I went to put the 1.5" strips into their box, I dropped the box and it exploded onto the floor...fabric strips going every which way.  :(

The box was so full that I decided that I needed to use up some so that I could even get the lid back on the plastic shoe box that they are stored in.

I decided to pull out the "go to" project that I work on when I need to use up 1.5" strips...my Log Cabin blocks.

I ended up making about 25 blocks in all, but it hasn't seemed to even make a dent in the strip pile.  :(   I'll probably make some more and then just refold the rest of the strips and try to get them stuffed down in the box enough so I can get the lid back on it.


As a follow-up to my last post, I wanted to show you Kathy's quilt in its natural habitat...her bedroom.

  
She has a queen-sized bed but the quilt is only a twin-size.  So she has it laying over the top of bed as a coverlet.  Doesn't it look great with the other purple bedding?   I'm so happy that she loves it!  I wish her many, many years of sleeping under it and enjoying the love that her great aunt put into it.

Loretta

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Quote for the Day:

"New Year's Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

~Mark Twain

I know, I know...technically New Year's day was yesterday.  But it's quite obvious by now that I'm a "day late and a dollar short" most of the time...and in the USA, today is the official "holiday"...so I guess I'm not really late at all!  See...I can reason ANYTHING out to make it go my way!  :) 

I've been taking advantage of this 3-day weekend to catch up on some sewing and finish up a quilt.  On Saturday night, TBS was going to run a marathon of my favorite TV sitcom...The Big Bang Theory...so I decided to hunker down in my sewing room and get some stuff done.

My massage therapist's mother is a quilter...or rather...a "piecer"...since she likes to piece tops but not quilt them.  My massage therapist had two of her mother's quilt tops machine quilted be 2 different people.  The first one came back to her already bound, but the second one didn't.  At my last appointment she asked me if I would bind it for her, and I agreed to do it in exchange for a free massage session.  Financially, it's a win-win situation...she doesn't have to pay out the $$$ to have it bound and I don't have to pay out the $$$ for a massage session...all the while I get to play with a quilt in my quilting room while watching TV!   :) 

 

I started out Saturday evening by binding this queen-size quilt for her...

Then I moved on to binding and labeling the Sunflower quilt...

On Sunday when I was cleaning up my sewing room and putting everything away from the last quilt I'd made, I noticed that my 1.5" strip container was overflowing...

 

...so I decided to make some more scrappy Log Cabin blocks.  The blocks are 6.5" unfinished and will finish at 6" square.  

  

I make these when I get a bunch of 1.5" strips saved up, and when I have enough blocks, I'll join them together into a quilt top.  

Here's a picture of the ones that I had made previously...

...and the new ones I've made this weekend will be added to them.  It may take a while for me to get enough to make a complete quilt top, but the entire top will be made out of leftover scraps when it is done!  

Loretta