Weekend sewing and cooking

I sewed yesterday afternoon and worked on my Row by Row quilt.  I had made the rows but had not put them together. I started putting them together and found out I was missing a row.  I had not done the May flower row...I also didn't like the January row so I took it off and am re-doing that row.  I thought I could live with it and decided I didn't want to live with it....it would bother me too much so I un-sewed it.  I'll be re-doing that row and put it back on tonight or this week. I'll show you the finished rows later. I still haven't taken pictures of this but will this week.   I didn't get finished with the flower row as I had to stop and go to the grocery store. I wanted to try out a new recipe and do something different for supper. 

We like the Chipotle restaurant and I decided to try to do a take-off on their burrito bowl....I made spanish rice, Fajita chicken and red beans. I bought hot sauce from Chili's.  I cut up tomotoes, lettuce, onions and bell peppers.  My family liked it alot and so did I. My DH loved it and said he liked my version better than Chipotle...Hm, easy to fix and he liked it too.  Not bad, I think I'll do this again.

I made a recipe from a blog I read...Becoming Betty.  She had a recipe for White Chocolate Popcorn.  I popped popcorn and made her recipe.  Here's a link. I made this and was letting it "set up". (You know what I mean by that, right?  It's like Rice Crispie squares, you have to let them harden... I started reading blogs trying to catch up on the people I follow. I turned around to ask my husband if he wanted some and he was already munching down on it. He said it was his third helping...He loved this stuff.  This was also very easy to make...I can't wait to share this with my grandkids....
It was fun to cook tonight. Normally, it's a chore for me but I enjoyed making both of these.  Now, I'm doing an easy dinner tonight and sewing some more.  Hopefully, you will see pictures. I hope you get to sew today, til next time....

Creative Grid Ruler video

I saw this video on You tube the other day and went out and bought this ruler.  I want to make a One Block Wonder quilt and thought this would help. I have a 60 degree ruler but just had to have this one after I saw the video.  I've been working on other things yesterday and today and haven't tried it out yet but I'll let you know. Has anyone else used this ruler?

Saturday sewing

I got the little block from Friday night finished.  It's the block on the left with the pink star in the middle and blue around the outside.  I finished it differently than the pattern called for because the pattern measurements were wrong and I didn't want to take the time to figure out the correct measurement, I just put the rectangle around it and called it finished.  The other two little blocks went together just fine.  These are all 6 1/2" blocks.  They are  alot of fun to do but they take more time to do for me than bigger blocks.  I worked on these during the day yesterday while watching the grandbaby and doing a little housework too.  The pinwheel and 4 patch on the bottom were leftovers from the blocks and I didn't want to waste them. I'll put them in with all my other orphan blocks and one of these days I'll put together an orphan quilt.  That might be coming up pretty soon as I think I have enough blocks now to do it..I'll have to put those on my design wall soon and play some. Here are the little blocks I made:

Doesn't look like much work for a whole day, huh?  Oh well, it was fun and I'm this much closer to a finished quilt too.  These go in one of my UFO's (the 30's Sampler- Number 1 on my UFO list) and I only have about 12 more blocks to do, so I'm slowly whittling them down. 

Friday night sewing with friends

I go to this group on Friday nights every other week.  It is for a few hours and sometimes I get some things done and lately I just can't get anything done here.  I visit more than I get done. I think I'm just going to start taking hand sewing with me instead of lugging my machine and my projects with me.  This just made me decide to do this the next Friday I go.
Every thing I tried to work on just didn't work.  The little block I was working on didn't fit together correctly.  There was a mistake in the pattern and it was about 1/4" wrong on the outside edge...I put it aside to finish up later. 

I pulled out another project and didn't have the  right fabric I needed for the next round. I decided it just wasn't meant for me to finish anything so I just put everything up and sat there and visited.  I was getting flustered and that was not how I wanted to feel.

My ASG Meeting and Kumihimo

Last night was tatting night but I had an ASG(American Sewing Guild)  meeting too, so I had to decide which one to go to...I decided I'd go to ASG and skip tatting. I hate to do this but I don't like driving like a mad woman and going to both places.  Anyway, our meeting was fun and we did Kumihimo again.  We worked on making bracelets with beads.  It was alot of fun watching all the other ladies do it. I didn't do it as I didn't bring any beads with me.  We had some young visitors to our meeting last night too. Two ladies brought their granddaughters to the meeting and they could do this alot better than us.  They had a great time showing up their Grandmas!  Lots of fun but nobody finished their bracelet so I have no pictures yet. I will take pics next month and show you what they look like.   Crafts are definitely addictive and it was so cool where we were.  Joann's had the A/C on and it was very comfortable compared to outside at 108 degrees. I'll be glad when we get some cooler weather!  til next time, happy sewing!

Catching up, feeling better and a finished top

I haven't posted in a few weeks.  I haven't felt good and haven't done any sewing.  I have had a terrible tooth ache.  My dentist fixed this tooth back in January but it didn't work. I finally had to give up and go to the endodontist and they drilled through the crown to do a root canal.  After two weeks of tooth  and jaw pain, I finally got some relief on Thursday and started feeling lots better.  My mouth is still tender but no pain..Woo hoo, you can only imagine the relief!  Anyway, I'm not on any more drugs and I finally felt like doing something besides going to bed... 

I worked on several things this weekend.  I made a quick little quilt top out of some Brown Bear fabric I've had in my stash.  I haven't had this in my stash very long, maybe a year or two...anyway, I already did one Brown Bear top a few months ago but I really liked this one when I saw it in another magazine. I fussy cut the animals out and the fabric I have left is really holey...(I hate fussy cutting only because of the waste of the fabric) I'm going to cut up the rest of the animals and use them on my last Brown Bear panel  that I have. I'm going to keep the panel all together on this last one  and just add borders around it. I'll use the left over animals in the border or maybe on the back of the quilt. Here's the Brown Bear top I made this weekend:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?

I finished this little quilt top for community service. This is a little top I started at my small group at our last meeting. I couldn't finish it at the meeting as the kit was short two blue cornerstones and I had to cut those out of my stash.  I cut those and finished sewing up the little top.  I'll give this back to the  group and we have long arm quilters that will do the quilting for us...

Here's a close-up of the blocks, this fabric is all different kinds of mocassins.  The fabric was pretty cute and I didn't like the border at first but it grew on me as I was putting it on.  I think it turned out ok and I hope some little kid will like it.

I also worked on catching up on my row by row quilt.  I made three rows and I'll add these to the other rows I  have already done. Now,  my little row by row is all caught up.. I didn't take a picture of those but I will and I'll show you later.

I didn't do this over the weekend but I wanted to show you this cute pincushion that I made at my last ASG meeting.  It is made out of wool and he turned out so cute. It's a little porcupine.

 I planned on working on the Barbara Brackman blocks but didn't get to them .  I have fallen behind and need to catch up on these too. I'll try to work on them this week.  I did all of my sewing while watching the youngest grandchild and she demanded my time too...so, these were on my list but she took priority. I'll have to catch up on them another time.

A Few Finishes

I haven't been doing alot of sewing or crafting this month.  Grandbabies  and family have taken priority this month. My life is slowly getting back to normal or whatever that is....
I have done a little bit of tatting and I have also sewed one little top and finished binding on another quilt so I have gotten a few things done along the way. 

Here's the tatting I've done this month:

This cherry pattern came from Nancy Tracy over at Be-stitched.  Here's a link to her free pattern. If you sign up for her newsletter, you get a free pattern and a new easy recipe every month. Plus you get to hear about all of the stuff she has in the shop... I love getting her newsletters and seeing her new patterns....Go check her out when you have time.

I made a mistake on this pattern and didn't want to untat it.  I just decided to leave it in because you know as well as I do that all cherries aren't always round, right????  Anyway, I decided I could live with it as is... I used Lizbeth size 20 for this. Nancy's pattern was all one color but I like colors....

A friend of mine gave me this bookmark pattern and if I can find a link, I will share it....

This was in the Handy Hands newsletter from December 2010. It's actually about 6 inches across. I saw this on Lace Loving Librarian's (Diane) site first and just had to get the thread and make one for myself...See Diane, I do get a little bit of tatting done.  Better late than never, right?

Here's my scrappy doily. I've been working on this off and on for awhile now.  I'm still not through with this one either but it's getting there. This one is about 8 inches wide. I found this on the web too. This one has a couple of links to it...I saw it on Martha Ess's website first and she referred to the site she got it from...

 This butterfly is a big one.  It is about 12" long by 5" wide.It was made with size 10 thread.  I didn't make this one though...A friend of mine found this at a garage sale. She bought it and gave it to me.  It had a few bad spots in it. I washed it and fixed the threads that were coming loose and blocked it.  I'm going to put this one in a frame and I'll show you this again when it's done...

Here's the quilt top I made. I've had this fabric in my stash for awhile and saw it again in an old magazine I was looking through, May/June 2008 Fons and Porter-Love of Quilting and I decided to pull the fabric out and put this together.  This was a real quick top to put together since the middle part is a panel.  This one's called the Very Hungry Caterpillar and the fabric is still available online.  I'll be quilting this one soon. I want to see it finished quickly. I have the book to go with it too.

Here's my finished wallhanging. It turned out beautiful.  A friend of mine quilted it for me  and I just finished binding it. I wish you could see how beautiful the quilting is on this one.  Carolyn did a wonderful job and  I love this one.  The pattern was in Quilt Sampler magazine last year. This will be going on my wall after I show it this Thursday at my small quilt  group.... I'm calling this the Schoolhouse Quilt.  I know it's not a very original name but that's what I called it the whole time I was working on it and it stuck....I joined 4 of my friends and we swapped some blocks on this one.  You saw it  a long time ago but it wasn't quilted.  We swapped the small houses, the schoolhouses, the baskets and the pinwheels.  The middle part was all done by me. It's funny that even though we made blocks alike, all of our quilts look really different. 

I have some items I need to work on but don't want to. I've decided since this is July and more than halfway over, I'll be doing only things I want to work on. 

til next time....happy sewing!