Apple Dumplings and Coloring Easter Eggs

I just added a new page to my blog and I'll be adding to this as I try out more recipes.  There are so many great cooks out there in blogland. I can cook but it is not one of my favorite things to do, there are so many other things I'd rather be doing besides cooking!
I had to learn to cook when I was young when my Mom died and it was just a chore. I don't know if it was because I did not enjoy learning so quickly or because I was expected to do it but I've never enjoyed it. 

Anyway, I have seen other recipes I have wanted to try but sometimes I forget where I saw them.  I decided to add this page so I could keep track of the ones I try so I won't have to remember where I saw them! 

Here's what I made this morning and it was wonderul.. It's called Apple Dumplings and I saw it on Heidi's blog. Handmade by Heidi....

Here's my Apple Dumplings...I made these in my Mom's Cast Iron Skillet...

 

After I put the dumplings in the oven, I got the coloring kit out.  I haven't done this in a while!  It was fun to color the eggs for the grandkids but it would have been more fun if they were doing it with me.  They are having Easter today with the other grandparents and all their cousins. Tomorrow, they'll be over here and we'll have Easter.   Carmen is enjoying seeing the eggs change colors and when I put the faces on them, she really didn't know what to think! 

Here she is sitting on the couch wanting me to get out of her way so she can watch Max and Ruby on TV...

 

I'll try to post later but in case I don't, I hope everyone has a blessed Easter.

 

 

Some peaks at what I'm working on!

Well, I didn't do any sewing today..I went shopping and cleaning and getting baskets ready for Easter Sunday...tomorrow, maybe I'll get some sewing done!

Here's my Civil War quilt I'm working on. I have two rows sewn together and two rows not on the wall..I didn't have room for them yet. These look like small blocks but they are 10 1/2" blocks before sewn together. I have squares and triangles already ready to put on the outer border..  I'll be sewing some more on this tomorrow and next week.

 

Here's the other quilt I'll be binding on this weekend.  It was a leader/ender quilt that finally got put together and quilted....I have the binding ready to sew on. I want to bind this Sunday afternoon for slow stitch Sunday. It will be later in the day as all my kids and grandkids will be over for Easter..

 

 

 

I'll show more tomorrow..I need to decide what my next 4 get it done challenges will be so I'll be posting those tomorrow too.  Have you been getting your projects done? This challenge is helping me stay focused on just a few things and not be overwhelmed.  I'm getting them done and really enjoying myself too. I hope you get some stitching time in tomorrow and enjoy your weekend,  til next time, happy stitching!

 

A few minutes to sew and random things....

I went home last night and sewed two rows of my Civil War swap blocks together and I'm loving this quilt...I have eight rows to sew.  It is now up on my design wall and I've been playing with the blocks getting them where I want them. I will take a picture and share tomorrow. I think it's like I want it now. I will go in tonight and look at it again.  I sewed the first two rows as I knew they were what I wanted. I sewed them while I was waiting on my iron to heat up.  I got a new iron at Christmas and I like it alot but it takes forever to heat up and turns off way too quickly...It does give me time to do other things while I'm waiting for it to warm up....

 I also made some binding for another quilt that just got quilted. I'll be having another finish soon and this one is so pretty. I'm so pleased with this one. I made this last year as a leader/ender quilt and finally sewed the blocks together. I'll give you a sneak peak tomorrow. My friend quilted it for me and I'll be binding it tomorrow...it's so pretty...come back and see it..It is totally scrappy and I liked it before it was quilted but the quilting really made the quilt and I love it now...

Yesterday, I posted that I was going to use Bloglovin, I deleted the post. I'm going to take my time and look around a little more. Rumors are that google reader is going away but you know how the rumors are...

I won't get to sew tonight as our office is going out to dinner. We usually do a holiday dinner at Chrismas time but we couldn't this year. We  talked the doctors into going out this week.  We are going to one of my favorite Chinese places...yummy.  Tomorrow, the office is closed  for Good Friday and my hubby has to work so I might be able to sleep late and have some sewing time too.  I hope you have some time to sew too and until next time, happy stitching!

Some finishes for the week,D4P, D9P, Getting it Done Challenge and some tatting too!

I've been meaning to update my blog and just haven't sat down long enough to do it.  I've been trying to finish some things up before the end of the month and time just got away from me...

  All of my challenges have been done for this month!  Woo hoo! I'm so glad to be able to  say that.  I have come in every day and just couldn't wait to get to my sewing machine.  Here's some of my finishes for this month  I finished binding this one last Sunday night while watching my grandkids.  This is the second D4P and it is for my youngest granddaughter's birthday in April.

 

I made this  pink scrap brick quilt last year (some people call this Streak of Lightning) and finally finished hand quilting this one last week.  Nothing special, I just stitched in the ditch on the bricks and just a lattice or chain on the small border. I just wanted to hand stitch this one. I haven't hand quilted in a while and I thought this one would get me back in the groove.  I really enjoyed quilting this one and finished binding this one Thursday night late after my small group meeting.

 

This is easy to make.  3 1/2" squares and 3 1/2" X 6 1/2" rectangles.  You repeat the same 4 strips three times and it will make your streak.  Easy, peasy, and quick too..Have fun with this one.

 

 

 

 

I finished this one today.  I quilted it Saturday night and late Sunday night and then sewed the binding on. I hand sewed the binding today and now it's done. I took off work today to go to the dentist and I stopped and visited with some of my friends at the church. Today was their quilting day and they were hand quilting on three quilts. The church we meet at has a room for the quilters and there is a sewing machine and three hand quilting frames always set up for them.  There are about 12-15 ladies that come on Tuesdays to work on their quilts.  I go there on Friday nights and sew with some of them.  I sat today and hand quilted with them for awhile. It was fun and relaxing and I got to see some friends I haven't seen in a long time.  Alot of these women come on Fridays but not all of them.  I used to be in the guild with them and I don't go to that guild anymore. I miss the ladies but just can't go to everything I want to. I wish they met on a different night so I could go.  Why is it that all the groups want to meet on the same night? 

 

 The D4P and this one was on my challenge list for the month. I made my son and DIL a queen sized quilt out of these fabrics and these were leftovers from that project. I had enough to make this small lap quilt. 

 

 

I quilted on this one Saturday while Carmen was asleep and finished binding it Sunday night too.   I made this small quilt last year when I was doing the Thimbleberries sew days on the last Wednesday of the month.  This is a small wallhanging and it was alot of fun to do...

 

 

 

This one is  a D9P I finally put the border on.  I was doing a QAL for this one and I'm still going to do more D9P quilts.  These are fast and easy to do and I want to do some bigger ones to use up my scraps. I started out with this one to see if I liked doing them. Now that I know I like them, I'll do more. I'm going to quilt this one using a pantograph and hope it looks ok.  I just got my back arms for my longarm machine and I need to try them out..

 

 

And, I finished this tatted cross last Tuesday.  This is called the Tennessee Cross and I got the pattern from one of my tatting friends.  This was fun and easy to do and I want to do another one. 

 

 

Well, so far that's what I have to show for the end of the month.  Now, I've got some knitting to do for a friend.  So, it's TV time for me.  I hope you are having a good week and get lots of sewing time in too...

 

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Slow Stitch Sunday, my second D4P Quilt and The Quilt Show

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  I hope you are having a fun day. I'm not wearing green or eating green food or even drinking green beer but I know some of you are!!!  I'm not even sewing on anything green but I am finishing up another project and I know some of you will be green with envy over it! 
Ha, ha, you have to excuse me as I'm just a wee bit happy to be finishing up this sweet little quilt as I've had a bit of trouble over quilting it...I'm very happy to say I finally got my tension trouble worked out. This has been a true learning experience for me and I hope I've learned enough not to have this much trouble anymore! I was able to finally finish quilting the D4P quilt for the second granddaughter late last night and I sewed the binding on today. Now, I'm enjoying sewing down the binding for the home stretch on this one.  I'm so happy to get this one finished way ahead of schedule.

This frees me up completely and I have no other projects with a deadline. I can sew and quilt whatever I want to... Woo hoo, what a relief.   I hope I get this one finished today but not sure if that will happen. I have to go watch my other grandkids tonight while my son and DIL go to a play.  I'll be taking this with me to work on as the grandkids have school tomorrow and will be going to bed early, so just maybe I can get this one done.  It's my goal to have it done this week as I'm teaching my quilt group how to do this block and showing them the quilt too.  Ok, here's quilt number two in the binding phase. What are you working on today?  I'm going to link up with Kathy over at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitch Sunday. If you get a chance, come on over and see what all the others are working on. 
BTW, yesterday was national quilting day and if you didn't hear about this, it's not too late to go over there now and visit.  Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims have a contest going and you can watch quilting videos this weekend too. Today is the last day, so hurry on over there, here's a link.  The Quilt Show. You will find all kinds of fun projects and tons of videos by Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson.

Some orange rainbow blocks and a few hats!

Here's what I've been working on today while the grandbaby is asleep.  I was able to finish these rainbow blocks and I did my orange boxed in block too.  These are fun and quick too.  I'm loving these. Go check out what others are doing too on the Rainbow challenge...

 

 

 

Here's my orange Boxed in Block for this month. 

 

My design wall with the other blocks I've made.  It's a work in progress.

And, last but not least, here's some hats that will be given to the Community service person this week for cancer patients.  Uh, I'm not sure if these will be too hot now that it's getting warm weather but maybe they'll come in handy for night time wear...  I like the blue one in the middle cause it is reversible. It can be white with blue cuff, or blue with white cuff.  These are all made out of fleece.

 

 

Ok, gotta go for now.  I've got to get busy and work on my tension problem with my machine. I have some ideas that I hope will solve the problem. I'll update later...Now, go sew or enjoy the beautiful day outside!

 

Tension trouble and a few pics from the Dallas Show

I put the quilt on the frame late Tuesday night and started quilting it. I'm having tension trouble and then I broke a needle. I decided it was time to stop so I changed the needle and turned off my machine.  I was going to work on it last night but instead went over to a friend's house for advice. She loaned me her TOWA gauge and  a gauge for the top thread too. She also gave me some bobbin thread to try and some other thread to work with too.  I was going to go home and work with my machine last night but when I got home, my husband was there and I had to cook for him. So, tonight, I plan on checking my tension with the gauges and see if I can figure out the problem.  Tension is a big issue with these machines and I'll be glad when I have enough time to play with my machine to figure it out. 

 I did forget to show you the pictures I took at the Dallas Quilt show, sorry about that. I didn't take too many as I forgot my camera. I took a few with my phone so here are the ones I took. 


                                   A friend of mine made this one and another friend quilted it for her. 

I like owls, what can I say?!

This was a study in Taupe fabrics. Beauiful quilting on this one too.

This modern quilt was great. A color wheel made from Libery of London fabrics and if you click on it you can see some of the great quilting on it.

This is a Memorial Quilt. It belonged to a friend of mine that lost her fight with cancer last year.  She was an Engineer and she made this quilt in honor of her Father about 10 years ago. She won a ribbon on this one and was very proud of this quilt.  RIP, my friend, I miss you.

I like hexagons and I thought this one was great working with all the hexagon shapes.

I love Twister quits and I thought this one was cute.

I liked the cat on this one.  Too cute.

I took this one for the quilting but sorry to say you couldn't see too much of it...

This one was just like looking at a picture, the details were amazing.

I hope you have had a good week and have had a chance to sew. Til next time, happy quilting!

Free Ebook from McCall's Quilt Magazine

I received a free ebook from McCall's magazine and it is great. It is a collection of three quick and easy modern quilt patterns and I plan on making all of them.  If you need some quick and fresh projects, check these out, I know you won't be disappointed.  You'll  find these patterns have easy squares, triangles and a quick strip- quilt- as- you- go project too.  Here's a link to the ebook. If you enter your email address,  you will be able to get this free ebook too.  I hope you enjoy these. 

http://www.mccallsquilting.com/free-modern-quilt-patterns

A Small Finish

All right, another off my list of the Get It Done Challenge! I'm so glad Kathy started the Slow Stitching Sunday, it has really helped me to sit down and do some hand work...This is number two on my challenge list for this month.  Now, I'm going to put the third one on the quilting machine and see if I can get it quilted this week and ready for binding next Sunday! 

This one was just demo blocks that I had laying around and I decided to put them together and make a community service quilt out of it.  These are 3D bow tie blocks and are really fun to make.  I just used scraps to make these and never planned on it being a quilt but I decided to make use of these.  I have alot of other blocks that I've made over the years and I'm going to start putting those together too for scrappy quilts.  That's going to be one of my challenges to myself this year...maybe I can clean out some of my bins for some new fabric!

Slow Sunday Stitching

Well, I just got back from the Dallas Quilt Show and it was great. I got to spend some time with a good friend and we walked around and did some shopping first then looked at all the wonderful quilts.  I forgot my camera but I did take a few pictures with my phone.   I'll try to post those later if I can figure it out!  Now, I'm going to watch a little bit of TV and bind this little quilt that I quilted on Friday and finished up yesterday. I'll be joining Kathy with Slow Sunday  and resting my aching feet!  Here's a snippet of the quilt I'll be binding.  This is a 3D Bow Tie quilt. It is also on my Get It Done Challenge list for this month....I hope you have enjoyed your weekend and gotten to sew just a little. 

Mark one off the list!

Ok, here's my first finish for March and it is on my March Get It Done Challenge list.  I am so glad this one is finished. It's been hanging around in my closet as a flimsy for several years.  I saw this quilt on the quilt store wall the first time I ever went to see my son in Michigan.  I didn't buy it then as it was a block of the month and they didn't have any more kits available. The store owner took my name and address and called me when she had the kit all made up and mailed it to me a few months later.  I'll be calling this Michigan Garden. It is a Thimbleberries pattern and RJR fabric and I fell in love with it when I saw it.  When I finished the top I didn't know any longarm quilter that could do it so I put it in the closet to age a bit.  I did some work for a friend and she is a longarm quilter. She quilted a few quilts for me and her quilting is wonderful.  I gave this to her last year to quilt and she gave it back to me just recently.  I cut out the binding and bound it yesterday for slow stitch Sunday. I love this quilt and will be sleeping under it tonight.  I gave you a glimpse of it yesterday but here it is in all it's glory.  I wish you could see the quilting on it but I took a few pictures and the quilting doesn't show up but I know it's there and I know how beautiful it is...you're just going to have to trust me.  Here's my Michigan Garden....

 

Now, I'm going to knit for awhile and watch Dallas to see what happens to J R Ewing.  Enjoy your evening and happy stitching!

D4P Number 2 and Slow Stitch Sunday

I decided to go ahead and put the borders on the second D4P quilt today instead of next week. I wanted to get it off the design wall so I could lay out another top and I don't know why but this is the part I hate about quilting. I hate to put the borders on quilts. It is definitely my least favorite thing to do....Well, it is now finished and ready for quilting!  I've got the backing ready for it and the binding already cut.  I've got to get some batting and I'll put it on the machine this week! 

Now, I'm ready to turn on the TV and watch some of the shows I've recorded on my DVR this week.  I'll be sewing the binding on this quilt while relaxing in front of the TV.  I'll show you a glimpse of the quilt just to spark your interest.  This is one of the prettiest quilts I have ever seen.  My friend quilted this for me and she did a wonderful job.  We bartered a little and I did some work for her for the quilting....I am so thrilled to be putting the binding on this one.  I'll be linking up with Kathy over at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitch Sunday. 

Happy Scrappy Saturday-Orange!

Well, this month is orange month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I pulled out a little bit of orange and made these blocks today. These are so quick and easy to make...They are just 9 patches basically and go together very quickly. 

I also made two more D4P for the third quilt. 

The second quilt is now all together. I did that this week. I'll start putting the white border around it next and finish it off with the final border next week.  This second quilt is for my youngest granddaughter and luckily to say I am ahead of schedule...Yeah for me.  Her birthday is the end of April and it will definitely be ready way ahead of that.  I really cut it close with the first one and didn't want to be stressed out again like that!  Anyway,  the middle is done and ready for the borders...now onto the third one!!!